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.
President Trump claimed on Tuesday that he will end the nearly $4 billion in military aid Israel receives from the US each year at the end of 2026, a statement that aligns with a plan backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to further integrate the US and Israeli militaries.
“Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” Trump said on Fox & Friends. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel. Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.”
Trump’s comments are seen as a last-minute election maneuver, and he mentioned that US military aid to Israel is being used as a talking point by Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee in the Michigan Senate race. “Because they (Israel) don’t need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad, it’s a bad talking point,” he said.
Trump and Netanyahu at the White House on April 7, 2025 (White House photo)
Trump stressed that Israel could still buy weapons from the US and that he will “help Israel” if it needs. As things stand, even if the US cut off the $3.8 billion it provides Israel annually, the Israeli military would still be extremely reliant on US military support since it uses so much US-made military equipment, and the US provides significant intelligence support and political backing.
The US has also spent billions on defending Israel from missile attacks during the wars with Iran, and has reportedly deployed an additional Patriot missile defense system to Israel to prepare for the next potential escalation.
The purpose of the Netanyahu-backed plan to further merge the US and Israeli militaries is to remove public-facing military aid to reduce criticism of the US-Israel relationship and to make whatever aid and support Israel receives from the US under the new arrangement much less transparent. Netanyahu has previously described it as a shift in “the framework for US-Israel defense cooperation from aid to partnership,” though so far he hasn’t confirmed that he and Trump agreed to end the aid by 2027.
A provision to begin moving the plan forward has been included in the House version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, known as Section 219, which, according to a report from the Quincy Institute, seeks to “accelerate the US–Israel defense technology partnership, including technology sharing, coproduction of weapons systems, and bilateral research and development across multiple domains of warfare, including biotechnology, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and more.”
Section 2019 would also “direct the secretary of defense to designate an executive agent, or EA, to expand integration of the US and Israeli defense industrial sectors.”
Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute said on X in response to Trump’s statement that if the integration moves forward, Israel could “end up getting WAY more than $4B from US taxpayers” and that the funds would “just be buried in the DoD budget.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, center, speaks as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, left, Vice Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California, right, listen during a news conference, Thursday, May 21, 2026, on Capitol Hill, in Washington. [AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib]
Following the massive repudiation of US President Donald Trump in the 2026 midterm elections, the Democratic Party has launched a campaign to rescue the Trump administration.
As is universally acknowledged in the media, the 2026 midterm election was the greatest electoral repudiation of a sitting president in over half a century, and one of the largest in American history. The shift against Trump ran through every region of the country and every section of the population, and it was sharpest among rural voters, young men and workers whom Trump had claimed as his base.
The vote was a rejection not only of Trump but of the entire agenda of his administration. It expressed mass opposition to the growth of social inequality, war, the assault on immigrants and attacks on democratic rights.
Yet the Democrats came out immediately offering bipartisanship.
Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become speaker of the House in January, declared that Democrats are “ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground” and that “the American people don’t want us to get even.” He added that not a single member of his caucus had raised impeachment with him.
Barack Obama declared that Americans “want a politics that brings people together rather than divides them.” The same line was repeated in various forms by newly elected Democrats: a call to “restore a sense of decency and bipartisanship in Washington,” (Kansas Senator-elect Adam Hamilton); the assurance that “come January, we will be forced to work together,” (Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand); a disavowal of any interest “in moving Minnesota to the left or the right,” (Minnesota Governor-elect Amy Klobuchar).
James Talarico, elected to the Senate from Texas, said he had not been elected “for retribution.” On immigration, the policy of mass roundups, detention camps and deportations, he said one should “give the president credit where credit is due.”
This response demonstrates the fraudulent character of the elections and the imperviousness of the ruling elite to the will of the population. The Democrats are not acting as an opposition party that has defeated the government. They do not need Republican support. They will hold substantial majorities in both the House and the Senate. Why, then, are they talking about bipartisanship at all?
They treat the losing party as if it had won, and a hated president as a suitor whose favor they seek. It is as if Abraham Lincoln, reelected in November 1864 on a program of prosecuting the war to victory and abolishing slavery, had responded by offering “common ground” to the Confederacy.
What do the Democrats really want? They are looking for a quid pro quo, above all on the war against Russia. The Democrats are a party of the military-intelligence apparatus, with a substantial component drawn directly from the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and their sharpest attacks on Trump over the past year have been over what they see as his insufficient aggression toward Moscow. With control of both houses of Congress, the Democrats will use their position to press for a more aggressive war.
Beyond this, the ruling class needs the two parties to work together on a whole series of issues, beginning with the economic crisis. The election took place amid extreme financial turbulence, with Wall Street dependent on an enormous speculative bubble in artificial intelligence stocks. On Thursday, the Nasdaq fell 5.5 percent and entered a correction, and the Dow fell 1,833 points, as investors, in the words of Reuters, “reassessed implications for the AI data center buildout from the Democrats’ sweeping wins.”
With the national debt above $40 trillion, fueled by war and the endless bailout of the rich, the ruling class is demanding an assault on social programs. Such cuts require the cover of bipartisan agreement, and the Democrats are preparing to provide it.
Then there is the war against Iran, which remains live. Amid far-reaching plans by Trump to carry out an attack, the Democrats have not called for an end to the war. They want to ensure that the election does not derail the drive of American imperialism to dominate the globe, and the Middle East in particular.
Above all, the Democrats are hostile to anything that would encourage a movement from below and further destabilize a state apparatus whose authority is already badly eroded. The Democrats’ task is to contain opposition to the Trump administration before it becomes a movement against the oligarchy that controls both parties.
In all of this, the Democrats are drawing inspiration from none other than Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and Democratic mayor of New York, who has played the leading role in forging a political alliance with Trump, having met with him three times in the past year.
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday for his “advice for Democrats on working with the president,” Mamdani replied, “I think you can,” calling on Democrats to adopt a policy of “looking for a place of shared purpose” with Trump. Mamdani continued: “I think there’s always an opportunity. And you always have to make the ask … I will still call the president if there’s something else that can help New Yorkers.”
The statement was explicitly offered, and received, as a model for the Democratic Party. Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri, said of Mamdani’s approach, “And that’s what we’ve got to do as Democrats now.”
All of this explodes the claim promoted by the DSA that the elections, including the victories of its own candidates, would push the Democratic Party to the left. Far from pulling the Democrats to the left, the DSA is playing a leading role in the accommodation with Trump.
The “shared purpose” Mamdani invokes is the defense of the capitalist system and the interests of the financial oligarchy. He is reprising the language of Obama, who, the day after Trump’s first election in 2016, called the contest “an intramural scrimmage” and declared, “We’re actually all on one team.” That team is the financial oligarchy, and its opponent is the working class.
Tuesday’s vote recorded the opposition of millions of working people to war, oligarchy and dictatorship. This opposition will not stop with the election. It will come increasingly into conflict with the Democrats and their “progressive” and DSA auxiliaries, whose role is to channel it back behind the party of Wall Street.
The WMA maintains Israel’s membership despite allegations of Israeli doctors’ involvement in torture and complicity in the Gaza genocide
Medics from the IMA Out! campaign protest outside the World Medical Association General Assembly in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 10 October 2026 (IMA Out!)
Published date: 4 November 2026 08:12 GMT | Last update:2 days 47 mins ago
The World Medical Association (WMA) is facing strong criticism for refusing to suspend the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), despite documented allegations of complicity by Israeli doctors in the torture of Palestinian detainees and abuses committed in Gaza.
A petition signed by 6,500 medical personnel from the IMA Out! campaign, a coalition of health advocacy groups, was presented to the WMA General Assembly in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, last month, calling on the international body to expel the IMA.
Hundreds of doctors also took part in protests as the General Assembly was convening, with some carrying a shroud bearing the names of 18,000 Palestinian children who have been killed during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Doctors argue that the IMA has failed to uphold core standards relating to medical ethics, and that they are complicit in serious violations of human rights against Palestinians, including failing to penalise Israeli doctors who may have overseen the torture of Palestinian detainees and the deaths of Palestinian healthcare workers in Israeli prisons.
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a group seeking justice for war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians, also filed a complaint last month to the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging it to investigate whether Israeli doctors, as well as the IMA and officials from Israel’s ministries of health and defence, have been involved in the torturing of Palestinians.
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It is the first time that a WMA member has been referred to the ICC.
Dr Jonathan Fluxman, a retired British GP of Jewish heritage and organising member of the IMA Out! campaign, attended the protests in Rotterdam.
“Both the WMA and IMA are refusing to investigate multiple reports by numerous human rights agencies that were sent directly to them relating to the torture and murder of healthcare workers,” he told Middle East Eye.
“This goes back 30 years – the WMA has been burying reports about Israeli torture.
“They are behaving in the same way as the US and British governments, by allowing Israel to get away with a genocide. In my view, the WMA is complicit in the IMA’s involvement in this.”
‘Carte blanche’ to Israel
Dr Fluxman believes that the WMA should immediately initiate an investigation into the potential involvement of IMA members in the torture, abuse and deaths of Palestinian detainees.
“This is about defending medical principles and the application of them,” he said.
“It raises very serious questions about the WMA’s role as the international guardian of medical ethics, and we understand that a number of national medical associations remain very concerned about the situation.”
‘It raises very serious questions about the WMA’s role as the international guardian of medical ethics’
– Dr Jonathan Fluxman, retired British GP
The WMA was established in 1947 to uphold medical ethics following the Second World War, after doctors from Nazi Germany were found to have participated in war crimes.
One hundred and eighteen countries are currently represented within the international body.
Each member country must adhere to WMA codes of practice, including its 1975 Declaration of Tokyo, which states that doctors must not participate in torture and have a duty to call it out.
The last time an association was suspended was in 1976, when South Africa was blocked from attending two general assemblies due to doctors being complicit in torture during the apartheid.
The first attempt to hold the IMA accountable for the alleged participation of Israeli doctors in the abuse of Palestinian detainees came in 2009, when 725 physicians from 43 countries presented findings by human rights groups to the WMA, which that year was holding its general assembly in Tel Aviv.
At the time, the president of the IMA, Yoram Blachar, was also president of the WMA – he rejected allegations that Israeli medics were complicit in torture, describing them as defamatory.
In 2016, 71 UK-based doctors again urged the WMA to suspend the IMA, but it refused.
The Israeli association represents over 90 percent of doctors in Israel. Its current president, Zion Hagay, chairs the WMA’s socio-medical affairs committee, while its chief executive officer advocate, Leah Wapner, serves in several advisory roles, including on the WMA’s finance and planning, socio-medical affairs, and medical ethics committees.
Dr Fluxman believes that the international body is protecting the IMA.
“What has 30 years of inclusion and dialogue led to? Things have got worse, and the IMA has been given carte blanche to do whatever it wants,” he said.
Around 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed by Israel since October 2023.
South African push to expel IMA
The call for the IMA to be suspended from the WMA was led by the South African Medical Association (Sama) last year.
Sama’s motion failed to secure the majority that was needed to get the WMA to consider expelling the Israeli group. Instead, the WMA passed a resolution calling on the Israeli government to protect healthcare and health workers in Gaza, and asked all its members to issue public statements condemning attacks on hospitals and medical personnel.
The IMA has remained silent on this, however.
Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa, the chairman of Sama, told MEE his group had decided to take its own approach against the IMA.
“We were the first medical association to formally cut ties with the IMA,” he said.
How the Israeli Medical Association politicised medicine to defend genocide in Gaza
This was followed by the British Medical Association and the Turkish Medical Association.
“We also withdrew from the WMA’s Taipei Working Group on ethics because it is chaired by an Israeli medic. It is hugely problematic that the IMA is part of the WMA’s leadership structures, given the allegations surrounding them,” Mzukwa said.
“As a world body, the WMA’s name is being tarnished by the presence of the IMA, and they should have suspended them until these controversies are resolved.
“It is a huge indictment on the WMA. The international body must be clear about the principles it stands for.”
Dr Mzukwa explained that he had been planning to arrive earlier at this year’s General Assembly in order to rally other members of the WMA to join the call for the IMA to be boycotted.
However, he and most of his South African colleagues could not attend because of visa issues.
“I had applied on time, but for some reason the visa ended up being sent to Pretoria rather than Durban, where it usually goes, and there was no way I could have collected it in time for the General Assembly,” he said.
“I have my suspicions about why this might have happened. I was planning to give a speech at the General Assembly and was prepared to put my head above the parapet to call for the IMA to be expelled.
“It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that there could have been some intel on me to try to prevent me from attending.”
MEE contacted the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but received no response by the time of publication.
Mzukwa has been vocal in his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. His stance aligns with that of the South African government, which brought a case to the International Court of Justice in 2023 accusing Israel of committing genocide.
Dr Mzukwa also told MEE that Sama, the IMA and the WMA had held a meeting at the end of July about the case of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian paediatrician and former head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, who has been detained by Israel since December 2024 and subjected to brutal beatings.
“We raised concerns about the lack of access to Dr Abu Safiya, the denial of medical treatment for him and uncertainty around his condition,” Dr Mzukwa explained.
“The IMA told us they had requested the Israeli authorities to carry out medical examinations and allow external physicians into the prison where Dr Abu Safiya is being held, but we weren’t shown any evidence to support this – this was a red flag for us.”
‘A buttress of the Israeli state’
Derek Summerfield, an honorary senior lecturer at King’s College London who has researched and campaigned on the psychiatric impact of the detention and torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, has been calling on the WMA to expel the Israeli association for almost two decades.
“We’re dealing with two ethically corrupt bodies – the WMA and the IMA – and are appealing to one to do something with the other one – but the WMA has long since sold out,” he told MEE.
‘We’re dealing with two ethically corrupt bodies – the WMA and the IMA – and are appealing to one to do something with the other one – but the WMA has long since sold out’
– Dr Derek Summerfield, King’s College London
“There is a long-established body of evidence on Israeli doctors’ complicity in torture suites, and these days they are even more present there, and participate directly.
“The IMA is an example of the disgusting way in which doctors can behave – they are shielding doctors’ involved in Israel’s genocide on Gaza, and it’s outrageous that they’re a full member of the WMA.
“The IMA really is the buttress of the Israeli state.”
Dr Fluxman has also raised concerns about how the IMA’s ethical policy allows for exemptions from the WMA’s principles.
“It is their policy to allow Israeli doctors to compromise fundamental ethical principles and defer to military and security officials over the provision of healthcare and protection of health personnel,” he said.
“It also means they are in breach of the WMA’s position on medical neutrality.”
The IMA has consistently remained silent amid ongoing attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza, as well as the targeting of healthcare workers.
In fact, it has frequently sought to challenge criticism of Israel’s actions by international medical associations.
Palestinian bodies released by Israel came from infamous Sde Teiman detention centre
At this year’s WMA General Assembly, the IMA installed banners outside the convention, calling on medical associations not to boycott them and asking them to remember the 7 October 2023 attacks.
In November 2023, IMA’s president, Professor Hagay, refused to call for a ceasefire and justified Israeli military strikes on hospitals in Gaza, arguing that Hamas fighters needed to be “rooted out of terror bases”.
That month, 81 Israeli doctors signed a letter supporting the bombing of hospitals, something which the IMA refused to condemn, contravening WMA principles on the protection of healthcare settings and health workers.
Furthermore, Dr Liav Goldstein, a senior member of the IMA’s ethics bureau and chief medical officer of the Israeli Prison Service, has approved the starvation diet imposed on thousands of Palestinian prisoners after 7 October by the national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The IMA’s attempts to safeguard the reputation of the Israeli state were also laid bare when in May 2024, Hagay wrote to the Israeli Prison Service about the death in prison of Dr Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon who was head of the orthopaedic department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
After a highly critical British Medical Journal article about the circumstances surrounding Dr Al-Bursh’s death, Professor Hagay wrote: “We would appreciate any information that could help us refute this claim, which, needless to say, causes significant harm to Israel’s standing and image worldwide.”
Torture camp
Whistleblowers from Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base in the Negev desert that was converted into a detention camp at the start of the Gaza genocide, have documented the systemic abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees there, including the denial of medical treatment by Israeli medics.
Accounts describe prisoners being held naked, shackled and forced to wear nappies instead of being allowed to use a toilet.
Some have also had to undergo amputations, often without anaesthesia.
‘The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table’
– Dyab Abou Jahjah, Hund Rajab Association
The centre has been used to detain thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, the majority of whom are civilians, including healthcare and humanitarian workers, who are being held under the so-called “unlawful combatants” law, which has been used to strip detainees of basic legal protections and enable their detention without charge or trial.
Several individuals have died while being held there.
IMA ethics board director Yossi Walfisch dismissed accusations of ill-treatment and said prisoners at the camp were receiving “appropriate medical care”.
Dr Al-Bursh was held at Sde Teiman before being taken to Ofer Prison, where he died. While in prison he was brutally beaten, tortured and repeatedly raped, according to testimonies of released Palestinian prisoners who had met him.
The Hind Rajab Foundation said evidence shows that medical participation in torture and abuse at the camp was structural.
Dyab Abou Jahjah, director general at HRF, said: “Israeli physicians abandoned their neutrality when they agreed to treat patients in chains and erase what was done to them.
“The WMA must answer why an association that provided institutional cover for torture is still welcome at its table.”
If IMA members are found to be complicit in this, it would violate the WMA’s code of practice, values and guidelines, as well as international humanitarian law, Abou Jahjah said.
The WMA told MEE: “Inclusion sits at the core of the WMA’s identity. Patients remain our focus, alongside the protection of health personnel, including physicians, wherever they serve.
“Our members, including the Israeli Medical Association, regularly call out injustices and violations of medical neutrality even when their own governments are involved.”
MEE also contacted IMA but received no response by the time of publication.
A collapse in oil prices on Wednesday suggests chances of escalation are dwindling, but some analysts say a bitter Trump might lash out at Tehran
During a rally in Tehran's Enqelab Square, Iranians stand beneath an anti-US billboard depicting US President Donald Trump, on 4 November 2026 (Atta Kenare/AFP)
Published date: 4 November 2026 22:08 GMT
| Last update:11 hours 36 mins ago
The Democrats secured a sweeping midterm election victory on Tuesday, but one critical question remains unresolved: is US President Donald Trump now more or less likely to resume the war on Iran with the election cycle over?
Before the midterms, the US appeared to be on the verge of launching a new, wide-scale attack against Iran.
The families of US diplomats were evacuated from the region, and additional US military assets flooded into the Middle East. Arab leaders issued cryptic warnings about a devastating new conflict.
But the attack many diplomats and analysts expected around election day never materialised. In fact, Republicans are now blaming the Iran war, and even Israel, for their blistering defeat at the hands of the Democrats.
Trump said on Wednesday that "it's largely true" the Iran war and high fuel prices tied to the conflict led to his party’s historic defeat.
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"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night," Vice President JD Vance said more bluntly on Wednesday, also blaming the Trump administration’s ties to Israel for his party’s thrashing.
Notably, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, posted his support for Vance’s analysis on X. People familiar with the White House have described him as an ardent anti-interventionist who has opposed the US war on Iran.
'We are going to end this war'
A nine percent collapse in oil prices on Wednesday reflects a shift in expectations. Merissa Khurma, founder and CEO of Amena Strategies, told Middle East Eye that an election outcome could see Trump’s inner circle and Congress constrain the president from resuming the war.
“This all depends on how elected members in the House and Senate work together to ensure a change of course with Iran and what Trump is told by his advisors,” Khurma, who is also a non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University, told MEE.
US midterm elections 2026: Abdul El-Sayed becomes first Muslim elected to Senate
Several reasons could dismiss this reasoning when it comes to Trump.
The president has boasted about his “veto power” over Congress.
While Trump told Politico on Tuesday during election coverage that he didn't want to just "sit around there for two years vetoing everything", the 80-year-old billionaire who is prohibited from running for a third term may also feel unconstrained by lawmakers.
Under the Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war, but the last US president who sought out congressional approval for the use of military force was George W Bush in 2001 and 2002.
Still, experts say the scale of the Democrats' victory could constrain Trump. With 54 seats in the US Senate and 237 in the House, the party has a comfortable cushion that will give it subpoena and investigative power.
“It is hard to predict what Trump will do, but it matters how Democrats work with Republicans willing to cooperate on stopping further escalation,” Khurma said.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put the Iran war at the heart of the Democratic Party’s agenda on Wednesday.
“We are going to end the war,” Schumer said.
"We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people,” he added.
Despite this rhetoric and downward move in oil prices, the deployment of military assets in the Middle East suggests escalation is likely.
'Trump is freed up'
The US has two aircraft carrier groups and an amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea. A third aircraft carrier group is arriving in the region.
Houthis launched cross border raids on Saudi military posts, sources say
Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership appeared to savour Trump’s political collapse.
“The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz - and a POLITICAL DEFEAT in Washington,” Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a post on X.
Even as Trump acknowledged the Iran war played a part in his party’s stunning defeat, he expressed no doubts about launching a war on Iran at the start of the year.
"I can tell you that as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different,” he said.
Some experts say that a bitter US president with no electoral constraints may decide to resume attacking Iran.
“If anything, Trump is now freed up for another round of strikes,” Alan Eyre, a former senior State Department expert on Iran, now at the Middle East Institute, told MEE.
“The new Congress won’t be seated until January, and even then it is questionable how much real ability they will have to constrain the president, so I don’t think it changes much,” he said.
The overwhelming defeat of the Republican Party in the midterm elections registers a growing rebellion against the framework of right-wing politics that has dominated the United States and its two-party system for decades.
The vote was the sharpest repudiation of a sitting president’s party in the more than half century since the 1974 elections that followed the impeachment and resignation of Richard Nixon. On Tuesday the Democrats won the national House vote by about 13 points and gained at least seven Senate seats, six of them in states Trump carried three times.
The shift ran through every region and every section of the population. It was sharpest among those whom Trump claimed as his base: rural counties, young men and workers without college degrees. Trump made the election a referendum on himself and lost resoundingly.
Within the confines of a political system that permits no alternative to the two parties of big business, the vote reflects opposition to the war on Iran, inflation, extreme levels of social inequality and attacks on democratic rights. It is the continuation, in the context of an election, of the No Kings demonstrations involving millions of people last year and the mass protests against ICE murders in Minneapolis and other cities that erupted at the beginning of 2026.
The vote is part of the international movement of the mass demonstrations of youth and workers that have spread over the past two months across France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Spain and Germany. Moreover, the debacle suffered by Trump follows by only two weeks the defeat of the fascist Bolsonaro in Brazil.
There is a genuine elation among workers and young people over the humiliation of Trump. But not only does he remain in office—and committed to the pursuit of his fascistic agenda—there is an unbridgeable chasm between the sentiments animating masses of people and the Democratic Party.
For all the election night hoopla, the transfer of a congressional majority for the Democrats will not fundamentally change the policies of the ruling class. The wars will expand, social inequality will increase and the assault on democratic rights will continue. While the working class is moving to the left, the financial-corporate oligarchy will continue its program of imperialist militarism and class war.
Throughout Trump’s two terms, the Democrats, far from opposing Trump, functioned as his enablers. Their stance has never changed: bipartisanship, “common ground,” a readiness to “work with” the president. They repeated it as Trump sent troops into American cities, built detention camps for immigrants and launched a war on Iran.
The Democrats will rely on the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to provide this program with a left cover. On Tuesday the number of DSA members in the House rose from two to eight, as six newly elected members from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado and California joined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib.
The DSA contingent will function as a fig leaf for the Democrats. Its members ran as Democrats and will sit in a caucus led by Hakeem Jeffries, for whom Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib have voted as the party’s candidate for Speaker in every Congress since 2023.
The record of the DSA’s best-known officeholder shows where this leads. As millions of people demonstrated against Trump, Zohran Mamdani, the DSA mayor of New York, met with Trump at the White House twice and welcomed him to Gracie Mansion in a demonstrative display of political collaboration.
This conduct was not a matter merely of cowardice. The Democratic Party is a party of Wall Street and the ruling class, and what it fears above all is opposition to Trump from below. The one issue on which it waged a relentless campaign against Trump was the war against Russia in Ukraine.
Within hours of the polls closing, the Democrats were back on script. “The American people have chosen the economy over extremism. The American people have chosen hope over hatred,” declared Jeffries, who will become Speaker of the House in January. “[W]e are ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground with the other side of the aisle.”
Millions did not vote for “hope over hatred.” They voted against war, social misery and dictatorship. After two years spent searching for common ground with a would-be dictator, however, Jeffries announced that the search would continue.
Barack Obama sang from the same hymnal, calling for “a politics that brings people together rather than divides them.” It was Obama who, the day after Trump’s first election in 2016, assured the country that the contest had been merely “an intramural scrimmage” between two sides of the same team.
The offer of “bipartisan common ground” to a party that has spent two years working to establish a presidential dictatorship is a pledge to Wall Street, and Wall Street took note. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1,570 points, or 3 percent, its best day since April 2025 and its second best since Trump was re-elected.
That was the verdict of the financial oligarchy on the election. The bankers are neither naive nor sentimental. They know that the Democrats are not going to implement a policy of social reform, let alone socialism. If they believed the election posed any threat to their interests, they would not be celebrating.
After Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democrats imposed deficit reduction and abolished welfare. After Barack Obama’s election in 2008, they rescued the banks, halved the wages of newly hired autoworkers and offered cuts to Social Security in pursuit of a “grand bargain” with the Republicans. Joe Biden, who followed Trump’s first term, waged war against Russia, armed the genocide in Gaza and prepared the way for Trump’s return. Socialism AI Logo Socialism AI by the WSWS SocialismAI.com Questions about this article? Ask Socialism AI What is the political history of the Democratic Socialists of America, and how did it come to function as a left cover for the Democratic Party rather than build an independent workers’ party? After the 1974 midterm landslide following Nixon’s resignation, how did the Democratic Party channel that popular rebellion back into supporting capitalist rule, and what lessons does that hold for today? How are the mass protests in France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Spain and Germany connected to the US election result and Bolsonaro’s defeat in Brazil as part of one international movement? Ask more questions at SocialismAI.com
The other line that predominates in the media is that the election marks a return to normalcy. “The system has held,” the New York Times editorial board proclaimed, under the headline “Trump Has Met His Match.”
Do not be deceived: Trump is a symptom, not the cause. He is the political representative of a financial oligarchy that retains its grip on power.
Two forces will dominate policy and the response of the state in the coming period. The first is the economic crisis, which is showing many signs of entering a new stage. With the national debt above $40 trillion and the war driving up prices and borrowing costs, the ruling class will demand that the working class pay. The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, laid out the agenda on Wednesday, proclaiming that “one issue cries out for finding common ground: the looming fiscal cliff,” that is, major cuts to social programs.
The second is American imperialism, which will not be turned into a gentle lamb by a change in the composition of Congress. There is much talk of the election marking an end to the war against Iran, but no faction of the ruling class is prepared to tolerate a major setback in the Middle East. The war on Iran, moreover, is one front of a global war, including the war against Russia in Ukraine, the main priority of the Democrats.
Popular sentiment is far to the left of the Democratic Party. Millions of people want an end to war, the defense of democratic rights and a radical improvement in their conditions of life. Every faction of the ruling class and, one must add, the trade union apparatus is terrified of the radicalization expressed in the vote and of what it anticipates.
For decades, the profound class divisions of American society have been suppressed, by the two parties of big business, by the union bureaucracy and by an official political culture that denied the very existence of class. They are now beginning to erupt, and they will develop with explosive force.
The opposition that found expression at the polls will not remain on electoral grounds. The United States is entering a period of escalating class struggle, in which the issues that drove the vote will be fought out in the factories, the workplaces and the schools.
The basic issue is the gap between the scale of the crisis and the development of the leadership the working class requires. The objective conditions for a mass movement against war, inequality and dictatorship are maturing rapidly. The political consciousness needed to carry that movement forward is only beginning to take shape.
To advance their interests, the working class must develop as an independent political force, united with workers across national borders and armed with a socialist and revolutionary program. The central political task of our epoch, upon which the victory of socialism and the future of humanity depends, is the resolution of the crisis of revolutionary leadership in the working class.
Hassan Salameh was beaten and shot inside his cell, possibly with rubber-coated bullets, after Ben-Gvir stormed the prison, his fiancee and a prisoner rights group say
A Palestinian boy holds a framed image of Hassan Salameh during a protest against the Israeli death penalty law for Palestinians in Gaza City 31 March (Reuters/Dawoud Abu Alkas)
Israeli prison guards shot and wounded prominent Palestinian detainee Hassan Salameh nine times last month, his fiancee and a prisoners’ rights group have said.
The assault on Salameh, 55, came after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stormed his cell and filmed himself threatening to kill him.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), which monitors the conditions of Palestinian detainees, said it received information about the assault following a visit to Salameh by a lawyer on Monday.
Information provided to the group and Salameh’s fiancee, Ghufran Zamel, indicated that he had been severely beaten and shot nine times.
The type of ammunition used and the precise circumstances of the shooting remain unclear.
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Israeli prison guards have recently stepped up the use of rubber-coated bullets against prisoners, firing at them from close range inside their cells.
The practice has caused severe injuries and potentially irreversible harm, according to rights groups.
PPS said Israeli restrictions on prison visits had prevented the lawyer from obtaining further details.
“This has raised serious concerns about the prisoner’s fate and underscores the urgent need to disclose the circumstances of the incident and guarantee his physical safety,” the group said.
Zamel told local media that Salameh was beaten before Ben Gvir’s visit and after he left. An Israeli force stormed the cell, subjecting him to a severe beating, including blows to the face, before firing nine bullets at him.
Three days after the assault, Salameh was taken to have his injuries photographed. He was then returned to his cell without medical treatment and given only painkillers, despite the injuries he had sustained, Zamel said.
According to Zamel, Monday’s visit by the lawyer confirmed that Salameh was still suffering from the effects of the assault and remained in poor health. He appeared visibly exhausted.
PPS said the attack came amid what it described as a campaign targeting prominent Palestinian prisoners, which goes “beyond repression and punishment” and places their lives at risk.
“Prisoner leaders are facing various forms of physical and psychological torture, systematic crackdowns and public threats to kill them made by Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir,” the group said.
“The continuation of these policies, alongside restrictions on visits and the absence of independent oversight, paves the way for further violations and deprives prisoners of even the most basic protection.”
Escalating abuse
Born in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza in 1971, Salameh became involved in Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation after the outbreak of the First Intifada in 1987.
He later became a leading figure in the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades. In 1996, Israel convicted him of orchestrating several bombings that killed and wounded scores of Israelis.
Salameh said the attacks were carried out in response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash earlier that year.
Israeli guards ‘crushed’ Palestinian prisoner’s testicle with rubber bullet
He was sentenced to 48 life terms and has spent a total of 14 years in solitary confinement since his imprisonment 30 years ago.
In September, Ben Gvir posted a video showing himself in Salameh’s cell, surrounded by security guards, as he told him that he wanted to “execute” him.
The minister also vowed to ensure prisoners such as Salameh were “put to death” if he became defence minister.
Palestinian prisoners, particularly prominent figures such as Salameh, have long faced abuse by Israeli prison authorities.
However, reports of abuse have escalated since the Gaza war and genocide began in October 2023. Several rights groups have accused Israeli prison authorities of widespread torture, physical assaults, sexual violence, starvation, medical neglect and humiliation of prisoners since then.
Last month, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said they had collected 21 testimonies documenting what they described as a “dangerous practice” of prison guards firing rubber-coated bullets at prisoners from close range.
In one incident, an Israeli prison guard seriously wounded a Palestinian prisoner by firing rubber-coated bullets at his testicle. His right testicle was “completely crushed” and had to be surgically removed.
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Senator Bernie Sanders and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed address students at the University of Michigan and members of the local community during a town hall rally in support of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, on October 26, 2026. [Katie McTiernan – Anadolu Agency]
Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Tuesday that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States, had spent $39 million to oppose Egyptian-American Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.
Sanders made the remarks in a post on the US social media platform X, as voters headed to the polls in the congressional midterm elections. El-Sayed is running against Republican candidate Mike Rogers.
“AIPAC spent $30 million against Abdul El-Sayed in the primary, then poured another $9 million into supporting Mike Rogers,” Sanders said.
“Here’s the good news: In response to AIPAC, ordinary Americans donated $12 million to Abdul,” he added.
“They have the money; we have the people. Let’s win,” Sanders concluded.
Sanders’ remarks come amid a closely fierce race for Michigan’s Senate seat. El-Sayed won the Democratic Party nomination in August, defeating Representative Haley Stevens, who had received substantial financial backing from pro-Israel groups.
According to The Washington Post, AIPAC’s independent political action committee spent more than $30 million during the Democratic primary to support Stevens and oppose El-Sayed, before providing about $9 million to a political group backing Rogers in the general election.
El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American doctor, has taken positions critical of Israeli policies, particularly Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. He has called for an end to US military aid to Israel and enjoys the support of Sanders and several progressive political figures.
![Senator Bernie Sanders and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed address students at the University of Michigan and members of the local community during a town hall rally in support of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, on October 26, 2026. [Katie McTiernan - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/AA-20261027-42875320-42875313-BERNIE_SANDERS_AND_ABDUL_ELSAYED_HOLD_RALLY_IN_ANN_ARBOR.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
