I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Sunday, killing at least eight Palestinians, including a four-year-old boy, as the IDF continues its constant violations of the US-backed ceasefire deal.
The boy, identified as Zain Owais, was killed alongside his father, Mohammed, by an Israeli strike that hit a group of Palestinians west of Gaza City. At least one other person was killed in the strike.
Mourners react as a man carries the body of Palestinian boy Zain Owais, who was killed along with his father Mohammed in an Israeli strike, according to medics, during their funeral in Gaza City, November 1, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Another Israeli attack hit the al-Mawasi tent camp west of the southern city of Khan Younis and killed five police officers, according to Gaza’s Interior Ministry. Gaza’s police force has been a frequent target of Israeli strikes as Israel seeks to disrupt Hamas’s control over the small area of Gaza where the civilian population lives.
According to Al Jazeera, the Interior Ministry said the police officers killed on Sunday were “performing their routine duties,” and it condemned the “horrific massacre.” The ministry said that since the so-called ceasefire deal was signed, the IDF has killed 75 police officers and called on the international community “to take urgent action and exert pressure” on Israel to end the attacks.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that since the ceasefire deal was signed in October 2025, the IDF has killed at least 1,583 Palestinians, including 348 children and 150 women. Another 5,696 have been injured, including 1,731 children and 966 women.
In that same period, seven IDF soldiers have been killed in Gaza, including one who was killed by other Israeli soldiers in a friendly-fire incident in February of this year, and two who were killed in September in the accidental explosion of an Israeli military drone. According to the Israeli military, the other four died as a result of “combat” in southern Gaza in October 2025, when Hamas militants were trapped on the Israeli-occupied side of the Strip.
President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at the Five Flags Event Center, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Dubuque, Iowa. [AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall]
The Trump administration had told Gulf Arab governments to prepare for a new round of strikes on Iran as soon as November 4, the day after Tuesday’s midterm elections, MS NOW, the cable network formerly known as MSNBC, reported Friday, citing three senior Gulf Arab officials. The network wrote that US President Donald Trump was planning to resume the bombing of Iran once the elections were over.
Tuesday’s election is expected to reflect overwhelming popular opposition to the war in Iran and to its economic consequences, including the surge in prices. In a Pew Research Center poll released October 8, 65 percent of Americans said they disapproved of how Trump had handled the war.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the United States had told several Gulf Arab governments to expect a military campaign against Iran after the election. The Journal wrote that Trump was leaning toward a large post-election attack whose targets could include Iran’s nuclear sites and its infrastructure.
MS NOW reported that the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, with its escorts and about 9,000 Marines and sailors, would arrive in late November as the third carrier in the region, and that more Patriot antimissile batteries had gone to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Trump told KCMO, a Kansas City radio station, on Friday that the war “is going to be over very soon” and that “We’re knocking the hell out of them,” MS NOW reported. On Saturday night Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, where a Halloween party was under way: “We’ve knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was hosting the Group of 20 foreign ministers in Atlanta, said Saturday at a press conference there: “If we needed to do something militarily, we would have the ability to do it and we have everything we need to be successful.” MS NOW quoted a former official of the administration who was familiar with its deliberations as saying of Trump: “He’s been convinced that with this final attack we can get a deal with the Iranians, or we can finally destroy their nuclear program.”Available from Mehring BooksThe struggle against imperialism and for workers’ power in IranA pamphlet by Keith Jones
On Saturday, according to Iranian media as summarized by the Institute for the Study of War, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ordered a response “without geographical limitations” and directed that the list of targets be extended to all US and Israeli assets. Iranian officials have named US bases, Gulf energy installations, pipelines and airports. In the spring fighting, Iran struck energy and industrial sites in the United Arab Emirates and airports in Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat on the Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees, has sat in a classified briefing on the plan. Speaking Wednesday at the Middle East Institute in Washington, he said the briefing included “a fairly detailed conversation about what the war plan would be if we restarted military operations,” and that the plan “will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war.” He pointed to “open reporting as to what we may be planning and the civilian infrastructure that we may be targeting.”
The next day Murphy wrote on X: “Some of us have been briefed on the war plan. And while I cannot disclose any details, I can say this: the plan is insane. It will not achieve objectives and will set off a new cycle of escalation.” Murphy suffered a stroke Saturday and was hospitalized.
Murphy’s statement is particularly significant because he has seen the plan. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has said that the operation will produce the opposite of what is claimed for it: a longer and wider war, whatever the administration intends. His objections concern its effectiveness and its legality, not the aims of the war.
Yet no Democrat, Murphy included, demanded that the briefing be made public or that Congress reconvene before the attack.
Murphy remained the only lawmaker to have spoken publicly about the briefings. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer wrote on X Wednesday that Trump “led us into this war with no plan, no authority, and no exit strategy” and that Democrats had “given Republicans 14 chances to hold Trump accountable and end this reckless war.” Schumer’s posts that week did not mention the plan to resume it.
On Friday night, as the MS NOW report circulated, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, headlined a get-out-the-vote rally in Dumfries, Virginia, for Representative Eugene Vindman, a Virginia Democrat who served in the Army. While making cursory statements criticizing the war in Iran, neither speaker mentioned the strikes planned for after the election or warned about their implications, let alone called for opposition.
The Democrats on CNN, CBS and NBC on Sunday did not mention the plan either. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, on CNN’s State of the Union, did not mention the planned strikes, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, on CBS’s Face the Nation, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, on NBC’s Meet the Press, did not mention the war at all.
On January 22, 2026, five weeks before the attack on Iran began, the Democratic Party supplied 149 House votes for the $839 billion military budget, which passed 341-88. Six weeks earlier, on December 10, 2025, the House had passed the National Defense Authorization Act 312-112, with 115 Democrats in favor, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and on December 17 the Senate passed it 77-20, with Schumer, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and 25 other Senate Democrats in favor.
On March 4 the Senate voted 53-47 against taking up a War Powers resolution to stop the war, and on March 5 the House voted 219-212 against a similar measure.
Gasoline prices had risen by more than 40 percent since the war began, and the national average was above $4 a gallon, according to AAA figures on an NBC News price tracker updated Saturday. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported October 16 that gasoline prices had risen 34.2 percent in the year to September, fuel oil 74.2 percent and airline fares 22.4 percent, and that consumer prices as a whole had risen 3.7 percent.
The Pentagon told Congress that the cost of the war had reached $47.1 billion by October 16, the New York Times reported Wednesday, and that more than 60 percent of it had gone to bombs, missiles and other ammunition. The Pentagon’s casualty report published October 15 listed 21 US troops dead and 865 injured in the Iran war and related operations in the region.
A view from Tehran, Iran, as people go about their daily activities while anti-Israel banners are displayed in major squares across the capital, amid ongoing discussions over Israel’s general elections and the Israeli government’s policies toward Iran, on October 27, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
The US has transferred 10 military cargo aircraft to Israeli air bases in the southern Negev region amid preparations for a possible military strike against Iran, the Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported Thursday, Anadolu Agency reported.
The broadcaster said the aircraft landed at Ovda and Nevatim air bases, while additional US military planes were reportedly dispatched to bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
According to KAN, the planes departed from Fort Bliss in the US state of Texas, which houses one of the US military’s largest air defense centers, including facilities associated with interceptor missiles and air defense batteries.
There was no immediate US confirmation of the reported deployments, and it remained unclear what cargo the aircraft were carrying or whether Washington had decided to launch an attack against Iran.
An Israeli official told the broadcaster that Israel and the US were closely coordinating their military preparations.
“Israel and the United States are coordinating closely, and although no decision has yet been made on the matter, the Americans and Israel are preparing for any decision President Donald Trump makes,” the official said.
The official did not specify the nature or timing of any potential decision.
Earlier this week, KAN reported that Washington had warned Gulf countries about the possibility of a short, limited military campaign against Iran.
According to the broadcaster, the US military has also transferred a Patriot missile defense system from Texas to reinforce its air defenses in the Gulf region.
The report said US troops stationed at bases across the region had been instructed to leave as a precaution against a possible military escalation.
It added that US forces were replenishing their weapons stockpiles, with an additional aircraft carrier and Marine Corps unit expected to arrive in November.
The reinforcements would reportedly join approximately 20 US warships already operating in the Middle East.
Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Thursday that US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Gen. Brad Cooper had briefed Trump on options for potential strikes against Iran.
The newspaper suggested that the briefing could indicate that Washington was moving closer to launching major military operations.
Democratic US Sen. Chris Murphy said he and several other senators had received a briefing on possible plans to attack Iran, describing them as “insane.”
Murphy warned that such an operation would lead to a devastating escalation and could undermine the US commitment to the rule of law.
The US and Israel launched attacks against Iran on Feb. 28, prompting Tehran to retaliate against Israel and US targets across the region before a ceasefire agreement was reached in April.
The US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June concerning freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, but its implementation has stalled over disagreements related to the waterway’s security.
The latest reported military deployments come amid renewed concerns over a possible escalation between the US and Iran.
The US midterm elections conclude Tuesday under conditions in which the objective factors that will determine American policy, whoever emerges with control of Congress, are entirely excluded from the campaign. Three interrelated processes will shape what follows the vote
A worker sorts ballots at the L.A. County Ballot Processing Center during the California primary election, June 2, 2026, in City of Industry, California. [AP Photo/William Liang]
First is the economic crisis. This week brought the most serious indications yet that the speculative bubble on which American capitalism rests is beginning to collapse. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, lost a record $482 billion in market value on a single day after reporting a free-cash-flow deficit of some $9 billion—driven by spending on AI. On Friday, the Nasdaq fell 2.86 percent. Intel plunged 28.6 percent, and the chip index fell 7.2 percent, for a monthly loss of more than 15 percent.
The speculative bubble is a reflection of a protracted crisis of American capitalism, which is entering a new stage. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond stands near 4.9 percent, the national debt has passed $40 trillion, the global position of the dollar is under increasing threat, and the Federal Reserve is discussing further rate hikes.
The collapse of this house of cards will have incalculable consequences. Whatever their tactical differences, both parties will respond, as they did in 2008, with a massive bailout of the financial oligarchy, paid for by the working class.
Second is the escalating global war. The administration has postponed its plans to expand the war against Iran until the votes are counted. According to Axios, US and Israeli officials are preparing a week-long bombing campaign against Iran’s leadership, nuclear facilities, energy installations and infrastructure, to begin after November 3. Washington has told governments in the region to prepare for Iranian retaliation.
At the same time, the war against Russia in Ukraine is moving toward a direct clash between nuclear powers. In September, Russia warned that it was ready to use “all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons,” if NATO moved to isolate Kaliningrad. On October 18, Ukraine attacked Russia with more than 1,000 drones. The European powers are escalating the conflict, and the principal aim of the Democratic Party is to ensure that American imperialism plays the leading role in a war against Russia.
Third is the growth of social anger and the class struggle. In Europe it has already erupted. In France, hundreds of thousands of workers and students have marched for six weeks against cuts to schools and the soaring cost of living, and the movement has spread across the continent.
The American ruling class is acutely aware that the same conditions exist here. When the movement in France erupted, the Wall Street Journal warned its readers, “Don’t think it can’t happen in the US given the current state of American politics.” Fortune ran the headline “France is rioting over surging inflation, skyrocketing national debt and crumbling schools. America is its sleeping twin.”
It is the complete suppression of the actual reality that will shape American policy that gives the entire spectacle its degraded character. Neither party can tell the population the truth, because both defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy that rules the United States.
Trump, representing the most ruthless factions of that oligarchy, has spent the nearly two years of his second term erecting the framework of a dictatorship. He has sent the National Guard into American cities, built a network of immigration prison camps, carried out mass raids and worked systematically to criminalize political opposition.
Anticipating major losses in the midterm elections, Trump is working to overturn the results. The Justice Department has sued to block certification of the Senate election in Alaska if the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan, loses. On Thursday, it filed a revised complaint, along with some 40 subpoenas and document-preservation demands, over claims that operatives aligned with the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, recruited a second candidate also named Dan Sullivan.
In California, after federal courts rejected the administration’s demand to set aside 20,000 ballots, the Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas to local election officials. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby reportedly told senators in September that deploying the National Guard to the polls had been discussed, and Trump has refused to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act.
The drive to overturn the vote is bound up with fascist and racist agitation without precedent in American politics. Trump has denounced Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, as a “jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member,” and told a rally that Michigan must “stand up and fight just like Todd did to stop a jihadist from walking into the Capitol,” invoking the passengers of 9/11 United Flight 93. Federal agents have raided the home of Representative Ilhan Omar and the White House is seeking to strip her of citizenship and deport her.
The Democrats’ opposition to Trump centers on the war against Russia. When Trump licensed imports of Russian diesel on October 9, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, together with Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren, denounced the decision as “a total betrayal of Ukraine,” declaring, “Putin only responds to strength.”
The Democrats are running 67 “CIA Democrats”—congressional candidates drawn from the military and intelligence agencies—more than in any of the previous four elections. In the weeks before the vote, the New York Times has fed a stream of reports on Russian “sabotage” and “shadow war” to the affluent upper-middle class layers that form the party’s base.
This anti-Russia hysteria is being whipped up so that the Democrats can present their expected gains as a mandate for war. On the rest of Trump’s agenda, including the attack on democratic rights, they will seek an accommodation with the White House and the Republicans.
In a lecture at George Mason University outside Washington on Wednesday, David North, chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board, summed up the two parties. Trump, he said, “is the representative of the American capitalist oligarchy. He epitomizes its ruthlessness, its gangsterism and its stupidity.” The Democratic Party “is the indispensable second half of the capitalist two party system. To the extent that it has a distinct role to play in American politics, it is to divert and deflect mass social discontent.”
In carrying out this role, the Democratic Party relies on the Democratic Socialists of America—its public relations arm—to direct the growing anti-capitalist sentiment among young people back into the party of Wall Street and the intelligence agencies. On Friday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held a campaign rally with Representative Eugene Vindman—a former Army officer, National Security Council official and anti-Russian war hawk—on the edge of the Quantico Marine base in Virginia.
The answer to dictatorship and war, social inequality and fascism lies in the development of the class struggle. War and dictatorship cannot be stopped by pressuring the Democrats or through bourgeois elections, but only through a complete break with the Democratic Party and the independent and revolutionary mobilization of the working class. The Democrats, the trade union apparatus that functions as their arm, and the pseudo-left all sow complacency and downplay the danger of dictatorship.
The Socialist Equality Party is building the political alternative to this entire rotten establishment. It fights to mobilize the strength of the working class against war and dictatorship through the formation of rank-and-file committees in every factory and workplace, independent of the union apparatus and linked across industries and national borders through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
American workers face the same attacks as the workers and youth now in the streets of Europe, and their struggles must be unified on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program: the expropriation of the oligarchy’s wealth, the reorganization of economic life to meet social needs and an end to imperialist war.
Israel’s expanding military occupation of Gaza is accelerating the forced displacement of Palestinians, with the United Nationshuman rights office warning Friday that an already catastrophic humanitarian situation is further deteriorating as Israeli forces seize more territory and squeeze Gaza’s population into an ever-shrinking area.
“Concerns of ethnic cleansing in Gaza endure as Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into an ever-smaller fraction of the territory, causing recurrent displacement while destroying the remaining civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites,” the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a new report.
The publication details the displacement crisis as a worsening “nightmare,” documenting how Israel’s expanding control, military operations, and restrictions on Palestinian movement are undermining any prospect of a return home for hundreds of thousands of people uprooted during the genocidal assault on the territory, now in its fourth year.
“Palestinians in Gaza are surrounded by Israeli forces from all sides that continue to push them inwards with the stated aim of increasing the Israeli military deployment area to 70% of Gaza’s territory,” the report continues.
“The relentless contraction of space available to civilians comes with new displacement drivers in areas adjacent to Israeli forces’ deployment lines, commonly known as the ‘yellow line,’” OHCHR added.
This is urgent
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According to OHCHR:
Over the past two weeks, the UN Human Rights Office… has documented the westward expansion of Israeli military deployment areas triggering new displacement of Palestinians in Al-Shujaiyeh, Gaza City, and in eastern Al-Bureij, eastern Deir-al-Balah, and eastern Al-Maghazi, Middle Gaza. In Al-Shujaiyeh, Israeli forces’ westward push came with at least two Israeli attacks reported on displacement encampments, and detonations of the few buildings left standing in the area, with the reported use of explosive robots.
According to reports… an Israeli drone dropped munitions on tents sheltering displaced families at Al-Shujaiyeh junction near the so-called yellow line on October 25, setting tents on fire… The Palestinian Ministry of Public Works and Housing in Gaza said the fire displaced 200 families comprising 800 people, most of them women, children, and elderly persons.
All told, nearly 2 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced during Israel’s genocidal retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023—most of them multiple times.
“The nightmare of displacement in Gaza is both acute and chronic,” Ajith Sunghay, who heads OHCHR’s Palestine division. “Those displaced before the announcement of a ceasefire have little to no prospect of return to the areas they fled, most of which are inaccessible because they fall beyond the so-called yellow line. And they continue to be displaced again and again.”
That’s apparently Israel’s plan. Israeli authorities have stated that they intend to expand their military deployment to encompass 70% of Gaza’s territory. To keep Gazans from returning home, Israeli forces have apparently been treating the area beyond the yellow line as a “kill zone,” shooting any man, woman, or child who crosses the invisible boundary.
A United Nations-mandated commission of inquiry on Monday issued a report accusing Israel of crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territories—including extermination, rape, and torture—while also affirming that Israel’s genocide continues in Gaza, despite the nominal yearlong ceasefire.
“There must be an end to this suffering,” Sunghay stressed Friday. “This is the fourth year of displacement for most Palestinians in Gaza, the fourth winter in tents too flimsy to withstand the rain, and they are still under fire through it all. Let this be the last.”
Chris Murphy says the plan could target civilian infrastructure and ‘lead to devastating escalation’
US Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s supplemental funding request for the defence department, in Washington, DC, on 21 July 2026 (Eric Lee/Reuters)
Published date: 29 October 2026 19:59 GMT | Last update:5 mins 22 secs ago
Senator Chris Murphy says he has been briefed on the US’s plan to restart the war on Iran, calling it “insane” and saying it would lead to a “devastating escalation”.
“You’ve heard a preview that it would be a short-duration plan. I’ll just say this: their plan is insane,” Murphy said, speaking at an event organised by the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.
“It will lead to devastating escalation and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law.”
Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees, made the comments after American media reported on Wednesday that the US warned several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military offensive against Iran after the US midterm elections on 3 November.
The warning sent by diplomatic and military channels is the latest indication that the US and Israel are preparing to launch another round of attacks against Iran, in an effort to weaken Tehran and force it to negotiations, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
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“There’s been open reporting as to what we may be planning and the civilian infrastructure we may be targeting,” Murphy said.
“They’ve been asked by the president to develop a plan – whether they believe it will work or not, I do not know. But the plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interests.
“We are seeing the president ready another devastating military campaign after the election, just as illegal as the first iteration was at the time, where Americans are fed up with this war.”
‘The plan that they have developed will lead, in my view, to a prolongment and an escalation of this war that will be devastating for our security interests’
– Senator Chris Murphy
Murphy spoke at the Middle East Institute about his trip to Qatar and Saudi Arabia earlier this month, assessing the war’s impact on the region.
He is the first Democratic senator to visit the region since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February. Murphy met with leaders including Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The WSJ reported that US forces have been restocking their munitions in the region, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for attacks, according to officials.
It also reported that the US military is moving a Patriot missile defence system from Texas to Israel to support defences, according to flight-tracking data and two officials. The Patriot system includes radar equipment, missile launchers and interceptor missiles.
Next month, an aircraft carrier strike group and a Marine expeditionary unit will also join around 20 other warships operating in the Middle East, the report said.
Last week, the US press also reported that US troops and diplomats have been evacuating posts in the Middle East.
NBC News reported that the State Department ordered a further reduction in staff at diplomatic posts in the region.
‘A cover-up’
Murphy said during his trip that he was part of a number of classified briefings and spoke to military leadership about the damage and “the reality” there.
US warns Gulf of intense strikes on Iran after midterms: Report
“Our base in Bahrain is obliterated; it is not usable, and our base in Qatar is usable but at a much lower level capacity, and it is pretty clear that we still don’t have the ability to protect any of our diplomats or our troops… right now,” he said.
Murphy added that he saw first-hand the US’s “cover-up” in hiding the cost of war.
“The trip was incredibly valuable, not just to get a sense of how rattled the entire region is, but to really see first-hand a cover-up that is underway, a dizzying and coordinated attempt to try to hide from the American people and from Congress the costs and the consequences of this war,” he said.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in my now 20 years in the United States Congress.”
The Pentagon told Congress last week that the US-Israeli war on Iran, now in its eighth month, had cost the US $47.1bn through 16 October, a rise from the previous $37.5bn cited by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Bombs, missiles and other types of ammunition made up over 60 percent of the total costs.
US President Donald Trump hasn’t made a final decision yet, but is inclined towards launching a major attack that could target Iranian infrastructure and nuclear sites, according to several reports.
“We may do another little Epic Fury,” Trump said at a rally in Florida last week, using the US military’s term for its war on Iran.
United States officials who had resigned from former President Joe Biden’s administration due to his policy on Gaza have called on potential Democratic candidates for the 2028 presidential race to denounce that policy.
In a joint statement titled “Gaza Resignees” published on Wednesday, 12 former officials who had quit between late 2023 and 2024 said they had resigned from their service to the US government over its “illegal and unconditional support for Israel’s actions in Gaza”.
“The most basic level of accountability, the most minimal level of consequences, is to ensure that those who have wreaked so much harm from within the highest levels of our Government cannot return to it,” the statement read.
“We call on candidates for the 2028 Presidential Nomination to commit to not hire any administration official directly responsible for enabling Israel’s military actions in Gaza,” it added.
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Several rights groups, experts, scholars and United Nations inquiries have assessed that Israel’s devastating war on Gaza amounts to genocide.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 74,564 Palestinians and injured at least 175,770, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The Biden administration, which governed from 2021-2024, has faced pushback and condemnation from progressive lawmakers and activist groups since the war began.
US Representative Rashida Tlaib and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have opposed the US’s ongoing support for Israel, which has continued since President Donald Trump was re-elected last year.
In advance of the 2028 election, the former officials said several “architects” of Biden’s Gaza policy were now “whitewashing their own roles in enabling genocide”.
“When faced with the opportunity to stand up in defense of our laws, they not only stayed silent, but worked resolutely in pursuit of illegal and wrongful ends in violation of both US and international law,” they said, adding that many of those same officials were now pursuing a path back into policymaking.
The statement called on Democratic candidates for the 2028 presidential race to pledge to three oaths, including to uphold the Constitution and pursue the national interest of the US, and to acknowledge the US’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza through arms, funding and diplomatic backing.
The third oath urged the nominees to pledge to commit to building an administration that reflects US interests and creates “no space” for those who were an “architect, leader, defender, or key enabler, of the US policies of unconditional support to Israel that constitute complicity in a genocide”.
![A view from Tehran, Iran, as people go about their daily activities while anti-Israel banners are displayed in major squares across the capital, amid ongoing discussions over Israel's general elections and the Israeli government's policies toward Iran, on October 27, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/AA-20261027-42878661-42878656-DAILY_LIFE_CONTINUES_IN_TEHRAN_AMID_ANTIISRAEL_BANNERS_AND_ELECTION_DEBATE.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
Josh Paul resigned over Gaza. What comes next?
Why Michigan could decide the future of Trump’s presidency
