Thursday, April 23, 2026

𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐑𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐢 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐁𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚

 

Rabbi Avraham Zarbiva operated a bulldozer in Gaza and has called for Israel to ‘flatten’ the Palestinian territory

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, April 22, 2026 at 4:52 pm ET | Gaza, Israel

During an independence day ceremony in Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli government honored an extremist rabbi known for bulldozing homes in Gaza and calling for Israel to “flatten” the Palestinian territory.
According to The Guardian, Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv was one of fourteen people chosen by the Israeli government for their “extraordinary contribution to society and the state” to light a torch at the ceremony.
Zarbiv serves as a rabbinical judge for an illegal Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and an Israeli state ombudsman recently ruled that he violated ethical guidelines by expressing “extremist views,” which included his call to flatten Gaza and boasting about the destruction of civilian homes and the IDF’s mass killing of Palestinians.
“Israel, let me tell you, we have crushed them. There are tens of thousands of dead. The dogs and the cats ate them because no one collected them,” Zarbiv said in a TV interview last year. “Tens of thousands of families – they have not a piece of paper, no childhood photo, no IDs, they have nothing. No home, there is nothing. They come, they have no idea where their house is. It’s something unbelievable.”
Zarbiv became well known in Israel for posting videos of himself destroying homes in Gaza, and his name has become slang for destruction. “We’re here in Beit Hanoun attacking this cursed village until we finish it,” Zarbiv said in one of his videos, which was shared by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. “All the way to victory, to settlement. We will not give up until this village is erased.”
B’Tselem strongly condemned the Israeli government’s move to honor Zarbiv. “Bestowing one of the highest civilian honors in Israel on a citizen who committed war crimes illustrates how deeply the dehumanization of Palestinians has taken root in the Israeli mainstream. It is yet another terrifying signal that genocide has officially become part of the national ethos,” the group said.

US imperialism’s war on Iran unleashes global economic and social catastrophe for the working class

 Jordan Shilton, WSWS, Apr 23 2026

Less than two months after fascist US President Donald Trump launched the criminal US/Israeli war against Iran in the dead of night on February 28, the conflict is having a devastating economic impact on tens of millions of workers around the globe.

American imperialism’s determination to consolidate its dominance over the Middle East, one of the world’s most critical energy-producing regions, has already claimed the lives of thousands of Iranians in six weeks of brutal and indiscriminate bombardment. But the economic fallout from the US-instigated war and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could prove even more deadly.

Prior to the war’s outbreak, the Strait of Hormuz accounted for some 20 percent of global oil traffic and a significant portion of natural gas shipments. The consequences produced by the disruption of these energy supplies are already reverberating across the world economy. They include rising fuel costs, higher electricity prices and escalating transportation expenses for billions of people.

The Middle East is also a major producer of fertilisers, so prices have jumped amid the planting season for farmers in the northern hemisphere. The result is both increased production costs for crops and reduced harvests, as farmers plant less to cut costs or use less fertiliser, which will fuel a food-price spiral over the coming months and into 2027.

Shipping disruptions, compounded by heightened insurance premiums and rerouted trade flows, have further increased the price of food imports. The Containerised Freight Index rose 10 percent within a month of the war’s outbreak, underscoring that even traffic not directly impacted by the Strait of Hormuz blockade is affected. 

On top of the destruction of schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure by US and Israeli missiles, the working class in Iran is bearing the economic brunt of the war. A government spokesman admitted that approximately 2 million workers have lost their jobs as a direct consequence of the conflict.

The impact of the war has been particularly acute across the Asia-Pacific region, due to its heavy reliance on oil imports from the Middle East. Over 80 percent of crude and LNG normally transiting the Strait of Hormuz is destined for countries in the Asia-Pacific, including major industrial economies like China and Japan. Fuel prices have risen sharply in India’s major cities, with petrol and diesel costs increasing by roughly 10-15 percent within weeks.

In Indonesia, nickel producers have cut output by at least 10 percent due to shortages of natural gas and sulphur, which are required to produce the high temperatures necessary for extraction and refining of the metal. Severe disruptions to the garment factories of Bangladesh have also been reported due to a lack of polyester and nylon, fossil fuel byproducts used to make clothing.

Another critical channel of impact is the disruption of remittances. Millions of workers from South Asia and Africa are employed in the Gulf region, sending vital income back to their impoverished families. The war has disrupted these flows, as economic activity slows and employment opportunities shrink.

Motorists queue up to get fuel at a pump, fearing a possible fuel shortage due to the US Iran war, in Ahmedabad, India, Monday, March 23, 2026. [AP Photo/Ajit Solanki]

The United Nations Development Programme estimated in a recent report that the war on Iran could cost 36 countries in the Asia-Pacific nearly $300 billion and plunge up to 8.8 million people into poverty. Five million of these people live in Iran, where the human development index has already lost 1–1.5 years due to the war.

The New York Times worried in a lengthy analysis published April 20 that countries throughout the Asia-Pacific may face “shortages [that] could push several countries into convulsions of unrest, followed by recession,” if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked for just a few more weeks. Even high-end production, including of semiconductors essential for producing chips built in Taiwan, faces problems. Prior to the war, Qatar produced a third of the world’s helium, a critical component of the semiconductor production process. But it stopped production on March 2 after an Iranian retaliatory attack hit its gas facilities. As the Times put it, cuts to chip production “would roll through everything from electronics to cars.”

In Africa, Nigeria has seen fuel prices rise by over 50 percent, despite the country being a massive oil producer and exporter. Since the country of some 240 million people is heavily dependent on imports of refined oil products, petrol prices have risen significantly, leading to increases in public transport costs and the price of staple foods. In Kenya, the fuel price regulator hiked petrol prices by over 16 percent and diesel prices by over 24 percent in mid April, following a 68 percent increase in the cost of oil imports.

Many African countries depend on imported fertilisers. The surge in natural gas prices has driven up costs for farmers, threatening lower crop yields and outright famine in areas where subsistence farming prevails. At the same time, currency depreciation in several countries is amplifying the impact of global price increases, making imports even more expensive, eroding real wages and pushing up already crippling debt repayment costs for financially strapped governments.

In Europe and North America, fuel prices have also risen sharply, placing yet another burden on working people’s budgets amid stagnant economic growth, mass layoffs and social attacks by the ruling elites in every country to pay for bloated military budgets and the enrichment of the financial oligarchy. In Germany, national airline Lufthansa announced the immediate closure of its CityLine subsidiary amid a strike by thousands of airline workers for job security and pay increases. The continent’s governments are investing trillions of euros in their own war machines to prosecute their predatory imperialist interests at the expense of workers’ livelihoods and social programmes.

Across the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal has announced the era of the “mega layoff,” with job cuts in finance, technology, entertainment and manufacturing.

By contrast, the war is proving to be a bonanza for the corporations and financial oligarchy. According to one investigation, the world’s major oil conglomerates will pull in additional profits of over $230 billion in 2026 alone.

The World Socialist Web Site has insisted that US imperialism’s war on Iran is one front in the early stages of a third world war, which includes the US/NATO war on Russia in Ukraine and preparations for a military conflagration with China. As the imperialist powers in North America and Europe scramble for the upper hand in the redivision of the world, they are totally indifferent to the impact on billions of workers from the global economic and social disaster produced by crisis-ridden capitalism and their crazed policies. But this very disaster creates the material conditions for the development of a working class movement to end the war and the capitalist profit system which is its root cause.

The parallels to World War I are striking, when food riots across Europe during 1916 and 1917 gave an initial expression to growing popular opposition to the imperialist slaughter. The most consequential of these were protests that erupted demanding bread in Petrograd in early 1917, marking the beginning of Russia’s February Revolution. Eight months later, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky led the working class to power on a socialist programme that would bring the world war to an end.

Today, the world economy is integrated to such a degree that initial expressions of social unrest provoked by the war have already erupted in its first weeks. Beginning on April 10, tens of thousands of industrial workers in India’s national capital region launched strikes and protests against price hikes triggered by the war. Workers demanded wage increases to cover higher rents, fuel costs, and food prices. Protests have also erupted in countries as diverse as the Philippines and Ireland.

Now, as in 1917, the decisive tasks are the fight to develop a conscious, unified movement of the international working class and build a mass revolutionary party capable of leading the struggle for workers’ political power.

The global nature of the crisis demands an international response, transcending national divisions and opposing militarism. Workers in Iran, the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa share a common interest in ending the war and the bankrupt capitalist order that gave rise to it. This requires the independent political mobilisation of the working class on a socialist programme to place the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control, ensuring that production is organised to meet human needs rather than private profit.

Under these conditions, the upcoming International May Day Online Rally 2026 assumes critical importance. It will articulate the revolutionary socialist programme and perspective workers around the world require to fight imperialist war and its barbaric consequences. Register today to participate, and encourage your work colleagues and friends to do the same.

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐈𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐈𝐭

JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER, APR 21

On 20 April 2026, I was on “The Chris Hedges Report” talking about where the Iran war is headed. Chris and I mainly concentrated on trying to make sense of what President Trump is doing to end the conflict on favorable terms for the US. Although many believe that he will escalate after the two-week ceasefire expires on Wednesday (April 22), I made the case that I thought that was unlikely for two reasons. First, he cannot win a military victory if he goes up the escalation ladder as the Iranians hold most of the cards. Second, escalation would prolong the war and further reduce the oil and gas flowing out of the Persian Gulf (and probably the Red Sea), which is likely to take the world economy off the precipice.

Given this ominous prospect, Trump has a powerful incentive to cut a deal with Iran as soon as possible. But the chief problem he faces is that Israel does not want a deal. It wants the US to continue the war and try to beat Iran into submission. Given the stranglehold the Israel lobby has on Trump, he does not have much maneuver room. All of this is to say, even if he cuts some sort of deal with Iran, Israel and its minions in the US will work overtime to undermine it. Trump is boxed in and he knows it, which I think explains much of his erratic and outrageous behavior in recent weeks.

In short, Israel and its lobby bamboozled Trump into starting a losing war against Iran and now they won’t let him end it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMg6_jGfjzM

How the International Community Obtained a Nuclear Weapons-free Agreement with Iran―And Lost it Thanks to Donald Trump

 avatarBy Lawrence S. Wittner, ZNet, April 21, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

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If the objective of the U.S. war upon Iran is to ensure that that country does not develop nuclear weapons, that goal was attained more than a decade ago through a far different approach than the one now being followed by the Trump administration.

Iran, as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970, had agreed to forgo the development of nuclear weapons. Even so, fears grew during the early 21st century that Iran’s uranium enrichment program, used for peaceful purposes, might be diverted to the development of the Bomb, thereby throwing the volatile Middle East into yet another crisis, including a frenzied nuclear arms race.

As a result, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France) and Germany began lengthy negotiations with Iran, offering it various incentives to halt uranium enrichment. A key incentive was the lifting of international sanctions, which were having a severe impact on sales of Iran’s oil and, thus, its economy. After the election in 2013 of an Iranian reformer, Hassan Rouhani, as president, the negotiators came to a preliminary accord to guide their talks toward a comprehensive nuclear agreement.

The final agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was negotiated by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, and the European Union. Signed in July 2015, it granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for significant restrictions on its nuclear program. These included Iran’s agreement to ban production of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, ensure that its key nuclear facilities pursued only civilian work, and limit the numbers and types of centrifuges that it could operate. In addition, Iran agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, unfettered access to its nuclear facilities and undeclared sites.

In the United States, the Iran nuclear agreement was strongly supported by the Obama administration, which played a key role in securing it, and by Democrats, but denounced by Republicans. Jeb Bush, then a leading presidential contender, called it “dangerous, deeply flawed, and short-sighted,” while U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham claimed that it was a “death sentence for the state of Israel.” Indeed, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, lobbied ferociously against U.S. acceptance of the Iran agreement, furiously attacking it as a “historic mistake.”

Despite the opposition, the agreement went into effect in January 2016 and, initially, had smooth sailing. The IAEA certified that Iran was keeping its commitments, nations repealed or suspended their sanctions, Iran’s oil exports surged, and the United States and European nations unfroze about $100 billion of Iran’s frozen assets.

In May 2018, however, Donald Trump, Obama’s successor as President, breaking with America’s European allies, unilaterally withdrew the U.S. government from the Iran agreement and announced the reimposition of oil and banking sanctions. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of this deal,” Trump announced. Assailing the Iran agreement as “defective to its core,” Trump condemned it for failing to deal with Iran’s ballistic missile program and its proxy warfare in the Middle East, as well as for the agreement’s 10-year sunset provision.

In response, Iranian President Rouhani, stating that the U.S. government had failed to “respect its commitment,” declared that he had “ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to be ready for action if needed, so that if necessary we can resume our enrichment on an industrial level without any limitations.” Even so, he promised, he would wait to speak about this with allies and the other signatories to the agreement.

Thereafter, things went downhill. Although France, Germany, and Britain sought to keep the agreement alive by evading the U.S. banking sanctions through a barter system, this effort eventually collapsed. Meanwhile, Trump got into a verbal brawl with Rouhani, threatening Iran with what he called “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.” Ultimately, Iran began exceeding the agreed-upon limits to its stockpile, enriching uranium to higher concentrations, and developing new centrifuges.

Although Joe Biden, as a 2020 presidential candidate, promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement and “to work with our allies to strengthen and extend it,” by the time he was in office the relationship with Iran had deteriorated too far to make this feasible. Coming under a new, more reactionary leadership, the Iranian regime grew more repressive, as well as more distant from the United States and more politically toxic. As a result, a new agreement was increasingly out of reach.

In retrospect, are there any lessons that can be learned from these events?

One is that, to the degree that the development of nuclear weapons by Iran is a currently a problem, it is a problem of Trump’s making. Or as Biden put it years ago, Trump’s pullout from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement was “a self-inflicted disaster.”

Another is that getting a country to forgo nuclear weapons development is easier to accomplish through international―and especially UN Security Council―action than through unilateral action. A threat from one nation to another can easily be viewed and dismissed as bullying. But pressure from a worldwide organization representing the community of nations has greater impact.

More generally, if nations are going to be asked (or pressured) to forgo development of nuclear weapons, it is useful to have a framework that treats nations equally. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty fosters this equality through a bargain, in which the non-nuclear nations forgo building nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear nations eliminating their own nuclear arsenals. The next time Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu threaten to annihilate Iranian civilization, someone might remind them of that.


Dr. Lawrence Wittner, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Netanyahu, Trump: On Gaza and the Iran war, the parallels with World War Two are clear

 

Joe Gill, MEE, 21 April 2026 09:07 BST | Last update:8 hours 4 mins ago

Comparisons between the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Gaza genocide, and Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union are being made by scholars

A picture of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on fire during a protest against the US-Israeli military action in Iran, near the US Embassy in Manila, Philippines, 9 April 2026 (AFP)

It has long been considered offensive and antisemitic to draw comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel, but on the specific question of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its wars of expansion, including the war on Iran, the dam has broken.

Norman Finkelstein, the eminent American Jewish scholar and son of Holocaust survivors, drew the direct comparison between Hitler’s war in the east and the war launched by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran on 28 February in a recent Middle East Eye interview.

I have long thought the comparison is merited, for a number of reasons, beginning in 2023 with the start of the war on Gaza.

Like Hitler’s Germany, Israel’s leaders made the fatal error of not knowing when to stop, and opening up several fronts – seven at one point. Each tactical victory – against Hamas, then Hezbollah, encouraged further audacious attacks. Having waged a genocidal campaign in Gaza, colonial expansion in the West Bank, and relentless attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, Prime Minister Netanyahu turned to Iran in 2025.

Why? A messianic ideology of Jewish supremacy that drives the prime minister and the settler politicians on whom he depends. The politics of ethnonationalism, territorial expansion and hyper militarism are similar, if not identical, to the ideology of the Second World War fascist axis led by Nazi Germany. And this ideology of ethnic supremacy leads to overreach.

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Trump, as a white nationalist who believes in US exceptionalism, shares the same inflated belief in unlimited US power, but is less unequivocally bent on permanent war. (Trump bears some comparison with Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, whose record of failed imperial adventures more closely resembles Trump’s.) 

Iran and the Soviet Union

Finkelstein, speaking of the Iran war, compared it to how the war of extermination waged by Hitler on the Soviet people inspired them to rally and defend the country. “This was the same mistake made by Trump. The more Trump turned it into a war of extermination like the Nazis did with Russia… the people rallied, it was the Soviet Union’s Great Patriotic war, a second time.”

Another parallel to the Second World War is that the West’s enemy is a revolutionary regime which is facing severe internal pressures. The Soviet Union in the 1930s was perceived as being weak due to violent internal upheaval; the similar position of Iran before the war encouraged Netanyahu and Trump to believe that a surprise attack would lead to a rapid victory.

The Soviet Union in the 1930s was perceived as being weak due to violent internal upheaval; similar to the position of Iran before the war

Both the Soviets and Iran lacked major global allies prepared to come to their defence. Like the Soviet Union, Iran had non-state groups in different countries that supported its international vision, but these groups pose a limited threat to the world’s most advanced military, and a nuclear-armed regional military power. 

Like Iran, the Soviet Union had sought to avoid war by making agreements with its chief enemy, Germany, in the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939. In the case of Iran, the 2015 nuclear deal was supposed to end the threat of conflict. But Trump ripped it up in 2018. 

Both Iran and the Soviet Union had been through very difficult years preceding this frontal military attack. Iran had faced comprehensive sanctions, which helped to spark three major uprisings against the regime, in 2019, 2022 and lastly in January 2026. 

The Soviet regime, while in the process of rapidly industrialising, had waged a terror campaign against kulaks, national minority groups, and swathes of the Bolshevik administration, including the officer corp of the Red Army, in which millions died – a point explicitly made by Finkelstein (although he exaggerated by saying “tens of millions” died). As a result, Hitler saw Soviet Russia as weak and vulnerable. He predicted a sweeping victory over Stalin.

As Finkelstein explained: “The first months of the war were a cake walk, disaster for the Soviets… but the Germans made one big mistake: they wanted what was called living space, lebensraum, and [that] means they had to get rid of the people living there, and so they embarked on a war of extermination… Notwithstanding the brutality of Stalin’s regime, notwithstanding collectivisation and the purge trials, which eliminated the entire military and political leadership, the people embraced the “Great Patriotic War”.

Like the Israelis and the Trump White House, the Nazis had a racial contempt for their Slavic enemies who they considered to be inferior and not able to resist the advance of the German armed forces. Trump and Netanyahu likewise consistently belittle the capacity of their enemies, believed the Iranian regime would crumble under direct assault, and see their technological and military superiority as decisive over the “Arabs” and Iran. Trump called the Iranians “animals”.

These Iranians supported the US-Israeli war. Now they realise their mistake

Read More »

The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war was supposed to be the knockout blow. It would be as if Hitler had a rocket system that could accurately target Stalin’s rooms in the Kremlin and wipe out the dictator and his politburo. Would that have caused the Soviet regime to collapse amid invasion? Unlikely.

The first year of the Nazis’ invasion saw a devastating series of retreats and defeats for the Soviets. The Wehrmacht rolled through Ukraine, where the famine and terror of the previous decade had drained support for the Soviets, allowing the Germans to march rapidly on to the Russian steppe; in the north the Nazis advanced through Belarus to the gates of Moscow and Leningrad, imposing a brutal siege on the latter. Hitler had every reason to think victory over the Communist regime in Russia was all but certain.

But to successfully overthrow a regime one needs to find new, pliable rulers who are able to replace the old ones. This has not proved possible in Iran, with Reza Pahlavi shown to be wholly inadequate to the task, lacking political skills and wide popular support in Iran.

Germany, and the US and Israel, overlooked the lack of strategic route to defeat their enemies in the long run. In the short to medium term, they win based on superior air power, intelligence, and destructive offensive forces, but in the longterm, the outlook is more problematic, as people constantly attacked in their own lands are certain to resist.

Iranians have come to realise that Trump and Netanyahu are not interested in their liberation – they wish to destroy the country’s independent existence and to fragment it along ethnic lines. 

Iran’s new leaders

Moreover, in the case of Iran, the wiping out of the older generation of leaders and commanders has changed the calculus of the regime, brought in new commanders, and if anything ended the restraint that was the policy under Khamenei. The attacks on Gulf states, the blockade of Hormuz, and the insistence that Lebanon must be part of a lasting ceasefire deal show how much Iran, post-February, is no longer afraid to directly confront the encirclement imposed by the US and its allies. 

The wiping out of the older generation of leaders has changed the calculus of the regime, ending the restraint that was the policy under Khamenei

Iran, like Russia, is a vast continental nation, and presents huge challenges for any foreign power wishing to conquer or dismember it. Hitler openly saw the Soviet Union as part of the future Third Reich, as a vast colonial territory providing resources and agricultural lands to feed the empire, while turning its people into little more than slaves. After the victories of the first year of the war in the east, things turned sour for the Nazis at Stalingrad in late 1942.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders long declared their intention to remove the Iranian regime, using agents on the ground, assassinations and sabotage, and imploring Iranians to rise up against the ayatollahs. But after the mass protests and brutal crackdown in January, these calls have not been heeded. Iranians have rallied to the nation.

If, however unlikely it seems, the latest US-Iran ceasefire somehow transitions to a more permanent agreement to end hostilities on Iran’s terms, it would be seen as a historic defeat for the US, on par with Vietnam. And a break with the total war that killed tens of millions in the 1940s.

As of now, the US is blockading Iran’s ports and seized an Iranian ship, while moving thousands of troops into the region. At home, Trump is on a war footing, putting the auto sector on notice to convert to weapons production, while asking Congress for a $1.5 trillion “defence” budget, the largest ever. This does not look like imminent peace, but with Trump, who knows?

When will it end?

And what about Gaza? The genocide is far from over. For the Palestinians, this question is existential.

History offers some clues. No modern genocide has lasted more than four years. Rwanda’s lasted 100 days – the fastest, most brutal, in history. Cambodia’s lasted over three years until Vietnam invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The Armenian genocide lasted just over one year. Stalin’s special operation against the Poles, Ukrainians and other national minorities lasted 16 months. The German siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. The Holocaust, the worst of all, lasted four years. 

So far the Palestinians have endured 926 days of extermination and siege. According to a 2025 household survey and joint mortality study, the Gaza death toll had reached 84,000 by January 2025 and is likely now well over 100,000, on top of 6,500 killed by Israel in Lebanon, and thousands more in Iran.

The biggest defeat of all is not in Lebanon, or Iran, but in Washington. US voters have had enough of wars and Israel

Crucially, in most cases, genocide precedes the collapse or military defeat of the perpetrator.

Israel has always relied on unconditional US support, which culminated in Washington arming a genocide, then backing not one, but two unprovoked assaults on Iran, and a prolonged war against Hezbollah. All of them failed, at appalling human cost. And now that US weapons pipeline is in jeopardy.

The vote last week in the US Senate on supplying arms to Israel was historic. Even though it passed, 40 out of 47 Democratic senators voted for Bernie Sander’s resolution blocking a batch of military aid. By contrast, last April, only 15 of the Democratic caucus’s 47 members supported similar measures. This signals a dramatic shift against Israel in Washington. 

Democrats who want to be re-elected in November know they must now distance themselves, not just rhetorically, but also financially and politically, from Israel and its powerful US lobby. Aipac is still spending hundreds of millions to get its candidates elected, but the taint of lobby money is increasingly electoral poison.

Netanyahu had his golden time with Trump’s first term, then Joe Biden, and Trump two. That time is coming to an end. Most likely, he will look for a way to prolong Israel’s campaign for regional supremacy and remain in office as long as possible, but he is running out of road.

He now faces his biggest defeat of all; not in Lebanon, or Iran, but in Washington. US voters have had enough of forever wars and Israel.

In Israel, as Finkelstein warns, it is not just Netanyahu, but the whole of Israeli society that “has turned into homicidal maniacs” supporting war on Iran, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Lebanon, and genocide in Gaza.

The final lesson of World War Two was that fascism was defeated after its leaders’ disastrous military overreach and defeat at the hands of the Soviet Red Army and partisan resistance. Today’s fascist war leaders have learned nothing from this history.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Joe Gill has worked as a journalist in London, Venezuela and Oman, for newspapers including Financial Times, Morning Star and Middle East Eye. His focus is on geopolitics, economic history, social movements, and the arts.

Monday, April 20, 2026

Trump Threatens To ‘Blow Up’ the ‘Whole Country’ of Iran if Deal Not Reached

 The president said there will be 'NO MORE MR. NICE GUY'

President Trump has threatened to “blow up” the “whole country” of Iran if Tehran doesn’t agree to a deal that he is demanding it sign, as the very fragile ceasefire appears to be on the verge of collapsing.

Trump made the comments in an interview with Fox News reporter Trey Yingst. “I just spoke with President Trump for about 20 minutes, and he told me: ‘If Iran does not sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up.’ He went on to say that bridges and power plants will be targeted if Iran does not sign this agreement,” Yingst said.

The threat from Trump came after Iran said it re-closed the Strait of Hormuz after briefly declaring it was open to all commercial vessels. The Iranian government said that the waterway was again closed due to the fact that the US was maintaining its blockade on Iranian ports, a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

President Trump at the White House on April 13, 2026 (White House photo)

After Iran said the strait was again closed, Iranian military vessels reportedly fired on two ships, something President Trump referenced in a post on Truth Social on Sunday, where he also threatened Iran with major attacks on its power plants and bridges.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years. IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END!” the president wrote.

In the same post, Trump said that his “representatives” were going to Pakistan for negotiations with Iran, referring to US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. In another interview on Sunday, Trump said Vice President JD Vance would not attend the negotiations due to “security concerns.”

Iranian media reported on Sunday that there’s been no decision in Tehran to send negotiators to Islamabad and that there wouldn’t be “as long as there is a blockade.” Iranian officials have also denied claims from President Trump that Tehran agreed to allow the US to take Iran’s uranium that’s enriched at the 60% level.

“Iran’s enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere. Transferring uranium to the United States has not been an option for us,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.

The ceasefire between the US and Iran will expire on Wednesday, April 22, unless a deal is reached or the two sides agree to an extension.