President Trump: " Israel's lobby had total control over Congress"

President Trump: " Israel's lobby had total control over Congress"

    Tuesday, September 02, 2025   No comments

In the intricate theater of American politics, where influence is currency and loyalty is a commodity, few topics are as potent or as perilous to discuss openly as the role of foreign lobbying. That taboo was shattered once again this week when President Donald Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Caller, made a blunt assertion that has sent ripples through the foreign policy establishment.

"Israel was the strongest lobby I’ve ever seen," Trump stated. "They had total control over Congress."

This stark declaration, from a man who proudly moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and brokered the Abraham Accords, is more than just a soundbite. It is a rare, public admission from the commander-in-chief that reignites a long-simmering debate about the power of pro-Israel advocacy groups, their strategic influence on U.S. policy, and the line between support for an ally and "total control."

Trump’s remark did not come in a vacuum. It was part of a broader reflection on his presidency and his relationships—and friction—with various power centers. While he praised his administration's pro-Israel achievements, his comment about the lobby appears to stem from his perception of political pressure, particularly from groups that he felt were insufficiently loyal or critical of his specific policies.

This aligns with a recurring theme in Trump's political narrative: his self-styled image as a Washington outsider battling entrenched interests. By claiming that AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and similar organizations wield "total control," he frames his own actions not as capitulation to this influence, but as independent decisions made in the face of it.

Decoding "Total Control"

What does "total control" mean in practice? Political scientists and insiders argue it is less about sinister puppetry and more about a highly effective, sophisticated advocacy ecosystem that has been built over decades. This system encompasses:

• AIPAC: The most well-known and powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, renowned for its bipartisan approach, extensive fundraising network, and deep relationships on Capitol Hill.

• PAC Fundraising: Associated political action committees donate millions to the campaigns of both Democratic and Republican candidates who align with their policy goals.

• Grassroots Mobilization: A network of local chapters that can activate constituents to contact their representatives on key votes, such as military aid packages or Iran sanctions.

• Discourse Shaping: Efforts to influence think tanks, media commentary, and academic circles to align with a pro-Israel perspective.

The result is a political environment where unwavering support for Israel is often the default, bipartisan position. Voting against aid to Israel or criticizing its government’s actions is frequently seen as a significant political risk, a testament to the lobby's perceived power to reward friends and punish foes.

   

The Powder Keg of the Levant--How Sectarian Power Structures Guarantee Perpetual Instability

The Powder Keg of the Levant--How Sectarian Power Structures Guarantee Perpetual Instability

    Tuesday, September 02, 2025   No comments

In the ancient lands of the Levant, where history is measured in millennia, a modern curse condemns nations to a purgatory of weakness. This is not a curse of geography or resources, but one of design—a political architecture built not on the bedrock of principled compromise and shared national vision, but on the shifting sands of sectarian appeasement. The fates of Lebanon and Syria stand as stark, bloody testaments to a brutal truth: a government forged in the fire of sectarian civil war is destined to be weak, illegitimate, and a prelude to the next conflict.

One would think that healing and reconciliation should follow three decades of peace. Yet Lebanon, whose 15-year civil war ended 35 years ago, is a nation frozen in time, a ghost haunting its own corpse. It is not a healed nation but a palimpsest of its former conflicts, its power structures meticulously drawn along the very sectarian lines that once tore it apart.

This is a country still ruled, in effect, by unelected leaders. The current president was appointed after years of vacuum, his ascent only possible by twisting the constitution to bypass a rule prohibiting active military officers from political office. The prime minister, a respected former international judge, was less elected than selected, installed through backroom compromise and heavy-handed pressure from foreign capitals like Washington, Paris, and Riyadh. Even the speakership, held by an elected MP, is shackled to a sectarian quota, its legitimacy perpetually questioned.

This patched-together entity now dares to act as a legitimate government, attempting to change the very practices its own flawed existence perpetuates. But a house divided against itself cannot stand, and a government built on sectarian compromise cannot govern. It will either fracture under the weight of its own contradictions or push ahead with its agenda, inevitably alienating one faction or another and risking a return to the civil war days it was designed to prevent. In Lebanon, the peace is the war, continued by other means.

This tragic model is not unique. Libya, shattered since 2011, is a mosaic of rival fiefdoms. A weak, internationally recognized government controls the capital, while the rest of the country answers to another regime in Benghazi or to autonomous tribal forces. There is no central authority, only a precarious and violent stalemate.

But it is Syria that presents the most chilling and recent case study. After a decade of brutal war exacerbated by a proxy conflict involving regional and global powers, the Baathist regime finally collapsed nearly a year ago. The rebels, aided by Turkey and Qatar and spearheaded by factions with extremist ideologies, seized their moment amidst the regional instability sparked by the war in Gaza.

Their victory, however, was merely the prelude to the next chapter of failure. The new Damascus regime, finding its authority challenged, has already resorted to the same tactics of its predecessor: massacres in Alawite and Druze regions, sowing fear among all ethnic and religious minorities. This has not consolidated power; it has shattered it further. The powerful Kurds, along with other groups, are now arming themselves for survival, refusing to hand their weapons to a central government they see as just another sectarian predator.

The outcome is inevitable. Syria is rapidly descending into the Lebanese and Libyan model—a central government that lacks both the legitimacy to command respect and the power to enforce its will. It rules not by consent but by fear, and fear is a fuel that quickly burns out, leaving only the ash of resentment.

When you add Iran to the mix, a country that was destabilized by US invasion and governed through a power-sharing arrangement still, the entire Levant thus becomes a powder keg, its nations condemned to cycles of violence by a refusal to transcend sectarian and tribal identities. The power of the gun, mistaken for political power, creates only a brutal illusion of control. True legitimacy is not seized through the barrel of a rifle or assigned by religious quota; it is earned through the principled compromise of a social contract that serves all citizens equally.

Without this fundamental transformation—without building states for all citizens rather than fiefdoms for sects—the next ten years will not bring peace. They will bring more transformative, and likely armed, events. The civilians of this ancient region will be lucky to witness change that is not delivered by a bullet. For now, their destiny remains held hostage by the very structures claiming to save them, guaranteeing that instability is not a phase, but a permanent condition.

The Unraveling: How a Scholars' Resolution on Gaza Shatters the West's Most Potent Weapon

The Unraveling: How a Scholars' Resolution on Gaza Shatters the West's Most Potent Weapon

    Monday, September 01, 2025   No comments

For decades, the cornerstone of Western foreign policy influence has not been its fleets or its fighter jets, but its moral authority. The powerful, unspoken currency of human rights has been wielded to sanction adversaries, justify interventions, and command the high ground in the court of global public opinion. This instrument has been more effective than any military division. Now, that very weapon is being turned against its creators, and a recent, seismic declaration by the world’s foremost experts on mass atrocity has just loaded the chamber.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the preeminent body of academics who dedicate their lives to studying the darkest chapters of human history, has issued a resolution that is not merely a condemnation; it is a historical and legal thunderclap. After extensive investigation, they have declared unequivocally that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.”

This is not a partisan statement from a activist group. This is a verdict from the scholars of genocide. They base their conclusion on the same United Nations Convention crafted in the wake of the Holocaust—a convention Western governments claim to uphold as sacrosanct.

The resolution is chilling in its clarity and its sourcing. It acknowledges the exhaustive work of the world’s most respected human rights organizations—Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Forensic Architecture, Physicians for Human Rights—alongside Israeli, Palestinian, and Jewish experts who have all reached the same horrifying conclusion. This collective, evidence-based judgment creates an irrefutable consensus that can no longer be dismissed as rhetoric or bias.

For Western governments in Washington, London, Berlin, and elsewhere, this resolution must sound an ear-splitting alarm. Their strategy has been a three-pronged denial: dismiss the evidence, attack the messengers as antisemitic, and hide behind a fog of procedural delays in international courts. The IAGS resolution eviscerates that strategy.

It represents the crystallization of a factual record before the legal process even concludes. It preemptively validates the anticipated rulings from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). When these courts eventually rule—likely finding Israel in breach of the Genocide Convention and its leaders culpable for war crimes—it will not be seen as a novel judgment. It will be seen as the inevitable legal confirmation of what the world’s leading experts had already established. And then, the spotlight will swing irrevocably from the perpetrator to the enablers.

This is where the true danger lies for Western capitals—a danger far more profound and lasting than any conventional military threat from Russia or China. Why? Because those are external threats that can be met with traditional power. This is an internal collapse of the very architecture of their global influence.

For years, China and Russia have been accused of horrific human rights abuses. The West’s response has been to weaponize human rights norms to sanction them, isolate them, and paint them as pariahs against a “rules-based international order.” That order, we were told, was upheld by the West.

Now, that weapon is in the hands of the Global South and the West’s geopolitical rivals. The charge will not be mere hypocrisy—a charge that is easy to brush off. The charge will be complicity in genocide.

How does the West sanction China for its treatment of the Uyghurs when it is found to have armed, funded, and diplomatically shielded a nation committing genocide? How does it condemn Russia for its actions in Ukraine while standing accused of enabling a comparable atrocity? The answer is: it cannot. Its moral authority evaporates overnight. The “rules-based order” is exposed not as a principle, but as a selectively applied tool of power.

Human rights norms are universal. The West’s abandonment of them does not make the norms less valid; it makes the West weaker. It relinquishes the moral high ground, the most valuable real estate in international relations. It creates a vacuum that other powers, with vastly different values, will be all too eager to fill.

The IAGS resolution is the tipping point. It is the definitive, expert-led document that will be cited for generations as the moment the evidence became undeniable. Western governments are now on the wrong side of history, not of a conflict, but of a genocide. They have bet that their power could insulate them from the very laws they created. They are about to lose that bet. And in doing so, they will discover that the most powerful army in the world is no match for the weight of a universal truth, finally and irrevocably acknowledged.

Media Review: The Unseen Legs, The Unheard Cries--Gaza's Children and the Machinery of Denial

Media Review: The Unseen Legs, The Unheard Cries--Gaza's Children and the Machinery of Denial

    Saturday, August 30, 2025   No comments

In the stark calculus of war, the most devastating number is the smallest: the number of meals a child has missed. In Gaza, that number has long since run out. A famine, human-made and entirely preventable, is now stalking the streets and rubble-strewn landscapes. Its primary victims are children. And as they wither away, the state responsible is not just continuing its assault but perfecting a second, insidious attack: a campaign of outright denial so brazen it seeks to gaslight the world.

This reality became impossible to ignore from an unlikely podium. When a figure as staunchly pro-Israel as Donald Trump recently stated that “starvation is happening in Gaza,” it should have been a watershed. Instead, it revealed the intransigence of the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration did not pivot. It did not concede. It doubled down on a fantasy, amplifying debunked claims that emaciated children suffering from acute malnutrition were actually battling pre-existing “medical conditions”—as if a population of infants suddenly developed a collective syndrome that just happens to mimic starvation under a total siege.

This is not a simple disagreement over facts. It is a deliberate strategy. Israeli leaders, grasping for straws to justify the unjustifiable, have outsourced their propaganda to a network of online influencers. Their task is not to report truth, but to manufacture enough doubt to cloud the overwhelming evidence. They scurry through social media, not to witness the horror, but to find snippets they can misrepresent, creating a parallel universe where a famine verified by the entire international community—the UN, the WHO, UNICEF, and every major human rights organization—simply does not exist.

The most chilling example of this moral bankruptcy emerged recently. A heart-shattering image circulated of children on a Gaza beach, their lower bodies horrifically absent. The message was clear: these are the victims of a war machine that, by its own admission, sees “human animals” and does not distinguish between combatant and child.

The Israeli response was not remorse. It was not investigation. It was a sneering, cynical denial. Official channels and their digital foot soldiers claimed the image was fake. They insisted, with a breathtaking lack of humanity, that these children were simply playing, their legs buried happily in the sand—not blown off by a Israeli bomb, drone, or shell.

Let that sink in. Faced with the undeniable visual evidence of a child maimed, the response is to claim they are actually whole, just playing in the surf. It is a metaphor for the entire Israeli approach: if we cannot see their legs, then they were never lost. If we cannot hear their cries, they were never made. If we can cast doubt on their empty stomachs, then they are not hungry.

This level of denial is not just callous—it is dehumanizing. To dismiss starved children as “sick children” and to erase maimed children by claiming their amputations are an illusion demonstrates a chilling absence of humanity. It reveals the desperation of Israeli leaders and their supporters to maintain the fiction that Gaza’s suffering is somehow exaggerated, staged, or self-inflicted.

But the children of Gaza are not invisible. Their skeletal frames are documented by doctors. Their silent cries are recorded by aid workers struggling without supplies. Their deaths from starvation and dehydration are meticulously logged by health officials, even as the infrastructure to do so collapses around them.

This denial is not a passive act. It is a active weapon. By creating a fog of misinformation, Israel seeks to numb the world’s conscience and slow the pressure for a ceasefire and the urgent flood of aid needed. It is a policy of starvation by design, followed by a cover-up by dissemination.

To deny a child food is a profound act of cruelty. To then deny that the starving child exists is a profound act of evil. It shows a total detachment from humanity, a moral vacuum where political survival and ideological rigidity matter more than infant lives.

What is most horrifying is that children—those least responsible for any political conflict—are the first to pay the price. Malnutrition strips them of their strength, their childhood, and too often their lives. Bombings rob them of their limbs, their parents, and their futures. And yet, while human rights organizations sound the alarm, Israel insists on seeing only conspiracies and fabrications.

This denial is not harmless rhetoric. It enables the continuation of policies that inflict unimaginable suffering. It grants cover to those who choose silence or complicity. It numbs the conscience of those who would rather not look too closely at the emaciated faces of Gaza’s children.

The world must not look away. We must not be confused by the digital smokescreen. The facts are clear, and they are spoken in the fragile breaths of starving children and the silent grief of parents burying them. The famine is real. It is killing people. And it is being executed and then denied by a state that has chosen, repeatedly, to sacrifice its humanity on the altar of its own denial. The legs of Gaza's children are not buried in the sand. They are buried under the rubble of their homes, and the even heavier rubble of Israel’s lies.

Happiness and Health Across Time-From Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun to Contemporary Scientific Findings

Happiness and Health Across Time-From Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun to Contemporary Scientific Findings

    Saturday, August 30, 2025   No comments

Happiness and Health Across Time-From Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun to Contemporary Scientific Findings -: Islamic societies review: Muslims Today, Islam Today; Happiness and Health Across Time--From Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun to Contemporary Scientific Findings...

The U.S. Problem in Lebanon and Syria

The U.S. Problem in Lebanon and Syria

    Monday, August 25, 2025   No comments

The United States’ position in Lebanon suffers from a fundamental contradiction. On the one hand, Washington insists that all weapons in Lebanon must be under the control of a strong central government. On the other hand, in neighboring Syria, the U.S. promotes a weak federal system that allows minorities—such as the Druze in the south and the Kurds in the north—to maintain their own weapons and autonomous security structures.

Logically, if the principle is that all arms should be monopolized by the state, then that principle must apply everywhere. By carving out exceptions in Syria under the pretext of “protecting minorities” and “preserving diversity,” the U.S. sets a precedent that can just as easily apply to Lebanon—a country already deeply divided along ethnic, religious, and sectarian fault lines. Lebanon fought a devastating 15-year civil war and still struggles to forge a national identity that transcends its sectarian divisions.

The deeper problem is that neither Syria nor Lebanon currently has a government that can claim full legitimacy. In Syria, today’s de facto rulers are not the product of popular mandate; they are rulers by force of war, caretakers until a fair election and an inclusive system produce a legitimate government. Lebanon, likewise, is governed not by leaders with genuine popular legitimacy but by a fragile power-sharing arrangement codified in the Ta’if Agreement. This deal distributed power along sectarian lines—giving the presidency to Christians, the prime minister’s office to Sunnis, and the speakership of parliament to Shia. It is, in effect, a three-headed system where no faction can claim full authority. Lebanon has even gone years without a president at all, underscoring the fragility of the arrangement.

A government that lacks legitimacy cannot be strong unless it imposes its will by force—and that is precisely why no group in Lebanon will truly give up its weapons. The same logic applies in Syria: until a representative system is built, demands for disarmament will be met with suspicion and resistance.

The bottom line is this: a country where power is historically acquired through war and violence cannot be remade into a cohesive state simply by granting a central government exclusive control over weapons. The evidence from recent history is overwhelming:

• Libya remains fragmented into three regions, each governed separately.

• Yemen, despite years of Saudi bombardment designed to enforce central authority, is divided into multiple competing power centers.

• Iraq, even after more than $3 trillion in U.S. investment and years of institution-building, still has a weak central government overshadowed by regional and sectarian power brokers. When ISIS surged in 2014, it was not the Iraqi state that rallied, but a new paramilitary force created by a fatwa from Shia religious authorities.

Countries torn apart by war rarely reunify quickly under strong central governments. More often, they remain weak or fragmented for decades. Even Germany—with its long history of national unity—took decades to reunify after division.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. attempt to engineer a powerful central government in Lebanon, while simultaneously promoting decentralization in Syria, is incoherent. No Lebanese Shia faction will willingly surrender its weapons to a government it views as illegitimate and incapable of protecting them—especially when extremist groups across the border in Syria have massacred minorities for not being Sunni.

If Washington continues to push for a centralized Lebanese government without real sovereignty or inclusive legitimacy, it risks destabilizing one of the most volatile regions in the world. The result may not be stability at all, but rather the ignition of another civil war in Lebanon—unless, of course, that is the unspoken objective of U.S. policy.

Why is the West so passionate about stopping the war in Ukraine yet oblivious to the starvation and mass killing in Gaza?

Why is the West so passionate about stopping the war in Ukraine yet oblivious to the starvation and mass killing in Gaza?

    Saturday, August 23, 2025   No comments

Within weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western leaders spoke with one voice in condemning Moscow’s actions. Within months, many even described the events as “genocide.” In record time, the International Criminal Court indicted Russia’s president for the “unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children,” and Western governments applauded the move. They invoked the principles of self-defense and the prohibition of war crimes to justify sending billions in weapons to Ukraine to resist “Russian aggression.”

Contrast that with Gaza. After nearly two years of one-sided war, 80% of homes have been reduced to rubble. More than 18,000 children have been killed (not transferred), alongside over 47,000 civilians. A man-made famine is now unfolding. And yet, Western leaders still refuse to call what is happening in Gaza “genocide”—despite UN experts and Israeli human rights organizations themselves acknowledging it as such. Instead of supporting the ICC, the United States has gone so far as to sanction the judges and staff of the Court for indicting Israeli leaders accused of war crimes.

The double standards could not be clearer. Recently, when Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin in Alaska, he hand-delivered a letter from his wife urging the Russian leader to address the plight of Ukrainian children. This prompted Turkey’s First Lady to write to the American First Lady, asking her to do the same for the children of Gaza. Will she? Unlikely.

Because morality, in the Western framework, has never been universal—it is a function of power. Suffering only matters when it happens to those whom the powerful can identify with. It is not about children dying or disappearing—it is about which children are dying and disappearing. And in this equation, the children of Gaza do not count.

Such a value system—perverse, selective, and driven by selfishness—is precisely what will accelerate the decline of Western civilization: its complete failure to live up to the very values it once claimed, and weaponized, to dominate others.

  

Media Review: Nationalism, Distrust, and the Specter of Regime Change

Media Review: Nationalism, Distrust, and the Specter of Regime Change

    Wednesday, August 13, 2025   No comments

 

1. Netanyahu’s Overt Call: “Iran for Iranians”

On August 12, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a striking video address aimed directly at the Iranian people. He urged them to “take to the streets”, “demand justice”, and resist “ruling fanatics” in Tehran. Leveraging Iran’s current water crisis—one described as the worst drought in a century—he promised that “Israel’s top water experts will flood into every Iranian city,” offering cutting-edge recycling and desalination technologies once “your country is free.” Netanyahu framed this not merely as political pressure but as a humanitarian overture, rhetorically intertwining water scarcity with political liberation.
His language tugged at historical symbols—the “descendants of Cyrus the Great”—and invoked Zionist forebears: “as our founding father, Theodor Herzl, said... ‘if you will it, a free Iran is not a dream.’” Critics across the region condemned the message as a blatant interference in Iran’s sovereignty and a call for regime change.

2. Expansionist Imagery and the “Greater Israel” Vision

Simultaneously, in an i24 News interview, Netanyahu responded affirmatively when asked if he felt a connection to the concept of “Greater Israel”—a historical extremist vision stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, enveloping Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. He stated flatly: "Very much." (Note: the Arabic-language Al Jazeera coverage confirmed condemnation by Jordan’s foreign ministry of these remarks, calling them “dangerous provocative escalation” and a violation of sovereignty and international law).  Jordan officially denounced these statements as “absurd illusions” that undermine Arab states and Palestinian rights, and called for international accountability.

3. Mutually Reinforcing Nationalist Narratives

These developments crystallize a deeper pattern of mutual antagonism: just as many in the Arab and Muslim worlds chant “Death to Israel” (often interpreted as opposition to the Zionist regime, not genocide), Israeli leaders—including Netanyahu—express parallel desires for overthrowing nationalist or Islamist regimes, from Iraq and Syria to Iran and potentially Turkey. Israel’s historical role in the fall of Arab nationalist regimes—the Ba’athists in Iraq and Syria, Nasserism in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya—sets precedent for its current posture toward Iran, adding layers of distrust and ideological competition.

4. Media Narratives vs. Unspoken Realities

Mainstream coverage often frames Israel’s messaging as defensive—justified by existential threats or humanitarian concern. Yet the explicit linkage between Israel’s offer of technology and regime change reveals a more assertive posture: Israel positioning itself not only as a regional power but as a potential kingmaker.

This dynamic echoes past episodes: British and U.S. support for regime change in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, often under the banner of liberation, but frequently yielding destabilization. Indeed, analysts warn that regime elimination without a constructive transition plan can exacerbate chaos and strengthen hardliners—concerns now surging around Iran.

5. Broader Implications: Ethno-Religious Nationalism and Regional Instability

The mutual calls for regime change are not isolated acts of political posturing — they are rooted in competing nationalist visions that draw their legitimacy from deeply embedded historical, ethnic, and religious narratives. This clash produces a dangerous self-reinforcing cycle that shapes nearly every major crisis in the Middle East.

Israel’s vision:

Israeli statecraft, particularly under Netanyahu, increasingly draws on biblical and historicist narratives to justify a posture of permanent expansion and dominance. This is not merely about securing existing borders; it’s about positioning Israel as the central civilizational power in the region. The appeal to “Greater Israel” ties modern foreign policy directly to ancient territorial claims, allowing nationalist leaders to frame strategic moves as fulfilling a sacred mission rather than a negotiable political agenda. In this worldview, offering water technology to Iranians is not only a humanitarian gesture but also a demonstration of how Israel imagines itself — as a benevolent hegemon to “liberated” peoples, once they accept the dismantling of regimes seen as hostile.

Resistance’s response:

Arab nationalist and Islamist movements see this Israeli narrative as an existential threat — not only to Palestinian sovereignty but to the very idea of Arab or Islamic self-determination. From their perspective, the vision of “Greater Israel” confirms suspicions that Israel’s security discourse masks territorial ambitions stretching across multiple states. This perception reinforces a siege mentality, where even minor concessions to Israel are framed as steps toward regional capitulation. Consequently, slogans like “Death to Israel” — while often clarified by their authors as a rejection of the Zionist regime rather than the Jewish people — are received by Israelis as genocidal, deepening the emotional and political chasm.

Mutual demonization:

Each side interprets the other’s rhetoric in its most maximalist and threatening form. Israeli leaders often portray their regional adversaries as irredeemable aggressors whose regimes must be toppled for peace to be possible. Conversely, Arab and Islamist nationalists cast Israeli policy as inherently expansionist, immune to compromise, and bent on cultural erasure. This mutual framing leaves no space for recognizing reformist or moderate currents on either side. Internal dissent within Iran, for example, is subsumed under the binary of “pro-regime” or “agent of foreign powers,” while dissent within Israel against expansionism is marginalized as naïve or disloyal.

Media as a force multiplier:

Regional and global media ecosystems amplify these narratives by privileging official statements and the most provocative soundbites. Nuanced or dissenting voices rarely receive the same coverage. This selective amplification means that both publics primarily hear confirmation of their worst fears. Israeli audiences see chants and missile parades without context; Arab audiences see maps of an expanded Israel without the debates inside Israel over their feasibility or morality. In effect, media serves as a mirror that reflects back the most polarizing version of reality, hardening nationalist sentiment and making diplomatic de-escalation politically costly for any leader.

The result is a feedback loop: nationalist rhetoric begets reciprocal hostility, which then justifies the next round of escalation. Over time, this pattern entrenches zero-sum thinking, where any gain for one side is assumed to be an irreversible loss for the other.

6. What Comes Next?

With Israel openly signaling support for regime change, and invoking ideological justifications, the region edges closer to escalatory brinkmanship. If Iran responds—either through intensified repression or reprisals—the potential for conflict could spiral. Global actors—especially the U.S., Europe, Russia, and regional powers—must urgently clarify whether they support such overt regime-change diplomacy or seek de-escalation through dialogue and multilateral engagement.

The events of August 12, 2025—Netanyahu’s video appeal and the embrace of “Greater Israel”—are not isolated flashes of rhetoric but crystallize long-standing ideological and geopolitical fault lines. The language of liberation and water aid interwoven with conquest and regime overthrow exemplifies the complex, dangerous entanglement of ethno-religious nationalism, realpolitik, and regional power plays. As each side frames itself as the rightful architect of the region’s future, the real victims may be stability, human rights, and any hope for equitable governance.

Israel’s prime minister’s call for Iranians to overthrow their government mirrors Iran’s rejection of the “Zionist regime,” underscoring two points: first, the deep incompatibility between race-based or religion-based nationalism and genuinely pluralistic societies; second, the role of supremacist ideologies as a driving force behind such nationalist regimes. Zionism—with both its religious dimension (membership in the Jewish faith) and its ethnic dimension (Jewish identity as race or ethnicity)—and Arab or Persian ethnic nationalism, alongside Islamism as a religious form, are locked in a clash that cannot be resolved by one prevailing over the others, but perhaps only by the eventual failure of them all.

  

Media Review: "As Israel Starves and Kills Thousands in Gaza, It Destroys Itself", Haaretz

Media Review: "As Israel Starves and Kills Thousands in Gaza, It Destroys Itself", Haaretz

    Monday, August 04, 2025   No comments

In a powerful and scathing op-ed published by Haaretz, Israeli writer Iris Leal delivers a searing critique of her country’s actions in the Gaza Strip, warning that the atrocities being committed there are not only devastating to Palestinians but are also dragging Israel into a profound moral, political, and diplomatic abyss. Leal’s article, titled "As Israel Kills and Starves Thousands in Gaza, It Destroys Itself in the Process", lays bare the human cost of the war and the devastating implications for Israel’s future.

A Nation’s Self-Destruction

Leal argues that Israel is systematically isolating itself from the global community. The bridges that once connected it to the democratic world are being “torn down one by one.” She emphasizes that anyone associated with the decision-making apparatus of the war—be it political leaders, military commanders, or intelligence heads—is now becoming increasingly aware that international travel may pose legal and personal risks due to accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

At the center of her warning is the staggering humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. According to credible international reports cited by Leal, including data from UNICEF and The Washington Post, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, among them at least 18,500 children. Many of these children were killed in their sleep, while playing, or even before they learned to walk. The death toll reflects not incidental wartime casualties but a consistent pattern of destruction that Leal unequivocally describes as a "war of extermination."

Starvation as a Weapon

One of the most damning parts of Leal’s argument is Israel’s alleged use of starvation as a weapon of war. She writes that the Netanyahu government knowingly allowed infants to face starvation by failing to ensure the delivery of infant formula and basic humanitarian aid. Hospitals—already bombed or rendered dysfunctional—are unable to operate, and medical personnel themselves are suffering from hunger and exhaustion.

Even worse, Leal suggests that these outcomes were not unintended side effects, but foreseen and tolerated, under the assumption that the international community would remain silent or impotent in the face of such horrors. The Israeli leadership, in her view, has wagered that the deliberate starvation and killing of children would not result in meaningful diplomatic consequences—a gamble that, she implies, is both immoral and catastrophically shortsighted.

A Crisis of Legitimacy

Leal’s article ends by posing a deeply uncomfortable question to the Israeli public and the global community: Are the people leading Israel today—its ministers, generals, intelligence chiefs—morally and legally fit to make decisions on behalf of the nation? Given the scale of the violence and its apparent intentionality, she contends that these individuals are likely complicit in war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and potentially genocide.

The underlying message is clear: Israel is not just committing atrocities—it is losing its moral compass and destroying the very foundations of its legitimacy in the eyes of the world and its own citizens.

A Global Atrocity in Real Time

Leal’s voice is a rare and courageous one within a landscape that often suppresses internal dissent. Her article should serve as a wake-up call, not only to Israelis but to anyone who believes in the principles of human rights and international law. The reality in Gaza today—of mass death, child starvation, and humanitarian collapse—is not abstract. It is a documented and unfolding catastrophe that demands accountability.

What makes this atrocity even more chilling is the premeditation behind it. When a state with one of the most advanced militaries in the world deliberately withholds aid, targets civilian infrastructure, and tolerates the mass death of children, it cannot be brushed off as a tragic byproduct of war. This is systematic, intentional policy—and it represents the moral failure of a nation’s leadership. 

Meanwhile, the international community’s response remains fragmented, weak, and in some cases complicit. Leal rightly questions whether Israel’s leaders will face consequences, but the more urgent question is: Will the world act before even more lives are lost?

Silence, in this context, is not neutrality—it is complicity. As Leal poignantly concludes, Israel may believe it is winning a war, but in reality, it is tearing itself apart, sacrificing not just the lives of its enemies, but its own soul and standing in the world.

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Sources: Haaretz, UNICEF, The Washington Post.
Link to original article: Haaretz Opinion - Aug 4, 2025

Media Review: The Starvation of Gaza and the Decline of Western Moral Authority

Media Review: The Starvation of Gaza and the Decline of Western Moral Authority

    Monday, August 04, 2025   No comments

The deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza is not just a humanitarian catastrophe—it is, as Professor Robin Andersen argues, a direct assault on our shared humanity and a defining moral failure of our time. As images of emaciated children and starving families flood global media, this slow and intentional genocide has begun to crack even the long-standing pro-Israel consensus in Western political and media circles. Yet, the shift comes late—far too late for many—and exposes the deep complicity of Western powers that continue to enable this crime through silence, arms sales, and diplomatic cover.

For over 21 months, major Western media outlets and governments defended or downplayed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. According to Andersen, who teaches at Fordham University and writes extensively on media ethics and political violence, even mainstream outlets like CNN and MSNBC are only now beginning to report more critically—prompted not by sudden ethical clarity, but by the undeniable horror of starvation. Hunger, she points out, is a weapon that lingers: unlike bombs, which kill in an instant, starvation is prolonged, visible, and unbearable to witness—especially when its victims are children.

In Gaza, Andersen reports through the voice of Palestinian journalist Hiba Al-Makadmeh, “hunger has become Israel’s most brutal weapon, more devastating than bombs.” This is not incidental. It is policy—explicitly declared by Israeli officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said: “We will not allow a single gram of aid into Gaza until the people kneel.” Statements like these, far from being fringe rhetoric, reflect the open intent behind the siege, which Andersen identifies as forced starvation: a war crime and a form of genocide.

Andersen emphasizes how deeply starvation strikes the human psyche. Drawing from cultural reflections by actor and writer Stanley Tucci, she reminds

 readers that food is central to human connection—something we all instinctively relate to. Watching someone eat makes them more human to us; seeing someone denied that basic right strips both them and us of our shared humanity. The imagery of skeletal children and desperate families, still alive but wasting away, is a wound to the conscience of the world.

Yet while ordinary people are beginning to rise in protest—raising Palestinian flags on statues, blocking Israeli cruise ships, and marching in cities from New York to London—Western governments remain largely inert. Their recent expressions of “deep concern” ring hollow. Andersen rightly questions why leaders like U.S. President Biden or UK Labour leader Keir Starmer are only now finding the courage to speak, after months of providing political and material support to Israel. This belated outrage, she suggests, is not moral reckoning but reputation management—what journalist Max Blumenthal calls “reputation laundering.”

Moreover, Andersen draws attention to the growing condemnation by human rights organizations. While some, like Amnesty International, spoke out early, even formerly cautious groups such as B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel have now labeled the starvation and mass killing in Gaza as genocide. These are not symbolic declarations; they represent a shift in the global consensus and an indictment of those who still refuse to act.

Throughout her analysis, Andersen returns to one core truth: this is not just a crime against Palestinians. It is an attack on the very idea of humanity. And those who watch it unfold without intervening—those who could stop the famine and choose not to—are morally accountable. “We don’t need pity,” says Hiba Al-Makadmeh, as quoted by Andersen. “We need pressure on those who are preventing food from reaching us.”

This starvation campaign, Andersen concludes, is not only an act of genocide—it is a mirror held up to the West. And what we see reflected is not strength or leadership, but cowardice and complicity. Unless Western nations take real action—cutting off arms, demanding ceasefire, and ensuring humanitarian access—they will be remembered not as defenders of rights, but as enablers of atrocity. History will not forget who watched and did nothing.