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.
While the US and international press are focused on the terms of negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran, Israel is massively expanding its rampage across the Middle East—moving to permanently occupy Gaza and escalating its bombardment of Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday that he had ordered the Israeli army to seize control of 70 percent of the Gaza Strip—well beyond the 53 percent Israel was allowed to hold under the cease-fire that took effect in October.
“We now control 60% of the territory in the strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to … 70%,” Netanyahu told a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement. The directive would confine the strip’s 2.1 million Palestinians to less than a third of the territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday reiterated his calls for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. “We committed that Hamas will not rule Gaza civilly or militarily, and so it shall be, and also the voluntary emigration plan from Gaza will be implemented,” Katz wrote on X. An aerial photograph taken by a drone shows the destruction caused by the Israeli war in Gaza. [AP Photo/Mohammad Abu Samra]
In Lebanon, an Israeli air strike on the Southern Beirut suburb of Choueifat killed a woman, her infant daughter and a Syrian child on Thursday—the first Israeli attack near Beirut in three weeks. The Lebanese Health Ministry put Thursday’s countrywide death toll at 14 killed, including a strike on a vehicle near Sidon that killed six people, among them a mother and her two children.
The Israeli army Wednesday ordered the entire city of Tyre to evacuate, declaring all areas south of the Zahrani River—about 15 percent of Lebanese territory—to be a combat zone.
Israel is systematically breaking the ceasefires it agreed to. A Gaza “ceasefire” took effect October 10, 2025. The Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli attacks have killed more than 900 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect.
In Lebanon, a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect November 27, 2024, required Israel to withdraw from the south within 60 days; Israel never withdrew and continued bombing throughout. A further ceasefire that took effect April 16 is being broken by Israeli air strikes on a near-daily basis.
What Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon, with full support of the Trump administration, demonstrates the actual content of any US agreement made with Iran. It will not mean peace but only serve as the prelude for further attacks by the imperialist powers and Israel, aimed at expanding their domination of the Middle East.
Axios reported Thursday that US and Iranian negotiators had agreed on the draft of a 60-day memorandum of understanding to extend the April 8 ceasefire, gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift the US naval blockade and open second-phase talks on a moratorium on Iranian uranium enrichment.
Iran would commit in writing not to develop a nuclear weapon. Axios also reported that the agreement includes a $300 billion “reconstruction fund” for Iran, to be financed by Gulf Arab states, with China expected to contribute.
The deal awaits final approval from US President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in Colorado Springs on Thursday: “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points … We’re not there yet, but we’re very close, and we’re going to keep on working at it.”
The US military bombed a drone ground-control station at Bandar Abbas overnight Wednesday—the second US attack on Southern Iran in three days. US forces had earlier shot down five Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards retaliated by firing a ballistic missile at a US air base in Kuwait, which Kuwaiti air defenses intercepted.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said any further US aggression would draw a “more decisive response.” Iran’s foreign ministry denounced what it called “continuous ceasefire violations” by the United States.
The war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28 has killed thousands of Iranians and inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to Iran’s infrastructure, according to Reuters. Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst put the direct US cost at $29 billion; the administration is preparing a supplemental request of as much as $100 billion to backfill expended munitions.
Despite the massive violence unleashed against Iran, the United States has failed in its central war aims. It has not overthrown the Iranian government, broken the resistance of the Iranian population or gained control of the Strait of Hormuz.
The war has triggered a deepening political crisis in Washington. Democrats and Republicans alike have attacked Trump from the right for what they cast as his insufficient defense of the interests of US imperialism.
On the ground in Gaza, Israeli forces have steadily advanced past the so-called “yellow line” marking the supposed ceasefire boundary. Israeli-aligned militias have evicted Palestinian families on threat of death.
A 26-year-old displaced Palestinian, Wael Nayef Abu al-Ajeen, told the Guardian that armed men entered his neighborhood at 1 p.m. and gave residents until 10 that night to abandon their homes. Muhammad Shehada of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the newspaper the Netanyahu directive “would be a death sentence for a lot of people who physically have no place to go.”
In Lebanon, Israeli artillery on Wednesday struck the 12th-century Beaufort Castle, a UNESCO-protected Crusader-era fortress, drawing condemnation from Lebanon’s culture minister.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, reacting to the killing of an Israeli soldier in Northern Israel, wrote on X: “For every drone that hits one of our soldiers, 100 buildings must be taken down.” Share this:
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, May 28, 2026 at 3:46 pm ET | Iran
Israel is pressing the US to restart heavy
airstrikes on Iran that would involve the targeted killing of Iranian
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Tehran’s lead
negotiators, and attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure, Capital & Empire reported on Thursday.
The report, which cited US sources
familiar with a classified report circulating within the US intelligence
community, said Israel is aggressively pushing for the US to abandon
talks with Iran and insisting that destroying oil infrastructure in the
country could bring about regime change while also downplaying the
impact the renewed full-scale war will have on the global economy.
Iranian
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf hosts Pakistani Interior
Minister Mohsin Naqvi in Tehran on May 17, 2026 (Office of the Iranian
Parliament Speaker)
The New York Timespreviously reported
that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pitched President
Trump on launching the war back in early February by making a series of
predictions that proved to be wrong, including the idea that Iran was
ripe for regime change, that its ballistic missile program could be
destroyed within weeks, and that it would be too weak to close the
Strait of Hormuz.
Israeli officials have been clear that they want to restart the US-Israeli bombing campaign and have threatened to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaced his father, Ali Khamenei, after he was killed by an Israeli strike on February 28, the first day of the war.
The Capital & Empire report
said that Israel has made the case to kill Ghalibaf directly to the US
Department of War, and has focused on him since Khamenei’s whereabouts
are unknown. The US intelligence report also determined that Israel
wouldn’t target Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Israel has a history of targeting
officials involved in negotiations. In September 2025, Israel attempted
to kill Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya in Qatar as he was involved in
negotiations on a Gaza ceasefire deal. The attack killed al-Hayya’s son,
and an Israeli airstrike in Gaza recently killed another son of al-Hayya as he was involved in talks with the US-led so-called “Board of Peace.”
The Kentucky congressman’s stand against
US aid to Israel and the Iran war triggered a pro-Israel donor backlash
that reveals how firmly the lobby still shapes Republican politics
US Congressman Thomas Massie speaks with
supporters after his concession speech in Hebron, Kentucky, United
States, 19 May 2026 (Jon Cherry/Getty Images/AFP)
In American politics, certain transgressions are tolerated. Challenging Israel is not among them. US Congressman Thomas Massie crossed that line – and on Tuesday, paid the price.
His defeat in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District was widely portrayed as another demonstration of President Donald Trump‘s continued dominance over the Republican Party. That explanation is politically convenient but analytically incomplete.
What happened to Massie was not merely a
clash of personalities or a dispute over loyalty to Trump. It was the
enforcement of a political boundary deeply embedded within the structure
of American power. Massie had violated one of the deepest taboos in
American politics: alienating the Israel lobby.
Unlike many politicians accused of
dissent, Massie’s divergence was not rhetorical or symbolic. It was
documented through votes, public statements and a sustained critique of
unconditional American support for Israel.
As the only member
of Congress to vote against House Resolution 888 in November 2023,
Massie committed a cardinal sin – rejecting the congressional resolution
that affirms Israel’s “right to exist” and opposes calls for the
dismantling of the Israeli state.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The resolution passed 412-1, with even
progressive “Squad” members including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan
Omar and Ayanna Pressley voting in favour.
Massie was also among a small number of members of Congress who opposed emergency military aid packages and several pro-Israel resolutions after 7 October 2023.
He also consistently argued that all foreign aid – particularly aid to Israel – violated both constitutional principles and fiscal conservatism. At a moment when Israel was carrying out what numerous human rights organisations, UN experts, genocide scholars and even former Israeli officials described as genocidal acts in Gaza, Massie openly opposed using American taxpayer money to finance the war.
In Washington, such positions are treated
as dangerous deviations from the consensus on Israel – defiance that
must be politically punished.
Massie did not simply challenge a policy,
but confronted an entrenched power structure that has shaped American
foreign policy in the Middle East for decades
Support for Israel has been one of the most entrenched bipartisan
pillars of American foreign policy. Since October 2023, the United
States has poured tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel
while shielding it at the United Nations.
The Costs of War Project at Brown University puts the direct figure at well over $22bn.
In Gaza, the health ministry and international observers documented more than 75,000 Palestinians killed
and over 180,000 injured – countless left maimed – as entire
neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, schools, water facilities,
electric grids and refugee camps have been systematically destroyed.
Massie did not simply challenge a policy,
but confronted an entrenched power structure that has shaped American
foreign policy in the Middle East for decades.
A familiar pattern
Washington has witnessed similar episodes before. Former Republican Congressman Paul Findley
of Illinois lost his seat in 1982 after criticising Israeli policy and
the growing influence of Aipac. Likewise, Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois suffered a similar fate in 1984 after tensions with pro-Israel lobbying networks.
In the past two decades, many Democratic members of Congress encountered the same fate. Cynthia McKinney in Georgia, Earl Hilliard in Alabama, Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri all faced massive financial interventions after criticising Israeli policy or supporting Palestinian rights.
These cases are too numerous and too
targeted to remain anecdotal. The system enforcing them is structural.
Aipac’s super PAC, which labelled Massie “the most anti-Israel
Republican in the House”, contributed $9m to the race alone. When the
result came in, Aipac declared: “Pro-Israel Americans are proud to help defeat anti-Israel candidates.”
US: Anti-Aipac congressman Massie unseated in most expensive House primary ever
During the Cold War, questioning
anti-communist orthodoxy carried political consequences. Today,
questioning unconditional support for Israel carries the same weight of
orthodoxy in Washington.
The Kentucky race became the most expensive
House primary in modern American history, with spending exceeding $34m.
Yet the significance lies as much in how the money was mobilised and
coordinated as in the sheer amount spent.
Press reports indicate that millions in outside expenditures came from networks
aligned with pro-Israel advocacy organisations and donor ecosystems
that have increasingly intervened in congressional races nationwide.
The campaign against Massie followed a
now-familiar model: massive independent expenditures, relentless
advertising blitzes, coordinated media narratives and efforts to portray
dissenting candidates as extremists or unreliable actors outside the
accepted boundaries of Washington politics.
Massie was not merely outspent but politically marked and strategically targeted.
These campaigns are not simply about
defeating one candidate. They are designed to create fear and send a
message to every member of Congress that opposition to Israeli policy,
especially during wartime, carries severe political costs regardless of
seniority, popularity or ideological credentials.
A shifting public
American public opinion has shifted
dramatically against Israel. Multiple polls conducted over the past two
years show a stark erosion of support, particularly among younger
Americans. A February Gallup poll showed that sympathy for Palestinians had surpassed sympathy for Israelis for the first time.
Pre-election polling found that older
Republican voters in the district broke decisively for Ed Gallrein,
while younger and middle-aged voters leaned towards Massie – a generational divide visible far beyond Kentucky.
Even among Republicans, support for unconditional military involvement abroad has weakened considerably, especially after the escalation towards the war on Iran. A growing number
of Americans, above all young people, view Israel not as a strategic
asset but as a source of regional instability capable of dragging the
United States into wider wars that serve no American national interest.
Massie reflected this sentiment openly.
During debates surrounding the possibility of direct military
confrontation with Iran, he warned
that Washington was being pushed towards another catastrophic Middle
Eastern war driven primarily by Israeli regional interests rather than
core American ones.
In one widely circulated statement, Massie argued
that Congress should not authorise military escalation without direct
constitutional approval and questioned why American taxpayers and
soldiers should bear the burden of wars initiated by foreign policy
priorities disconnected from domestic needs.
After decades of war, debt and the decline
of basic services, those arguments now resonate with far more Americans
than Washington elites care to admit.
Israel’s growing public relations crisis has intensified these tensions. Images from Gaza – where entire families have been erased, children buried beneath rubble and famine conditions imposed on a trapped civilian population – have transformed global public opinion.
South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice further amplified international scrutiny, while major human rights organisations accused
Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. For
millions around the world, Gaza destroyed the myth that western human
rights discourse applies equally to all people.
Facing this crisis of legitimacy, Israel and its supporters have invested heavily in narrative control
across media platforms, digital spaces, universities and political
institutions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself an
indicted war criminal, has repeatedly boasted
about Israel’s influence within western media networks and social media
platforms. The struggle is increasingly one over information and
perception.
In his concession speech, Massie remarked: “It took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
Massie was not simply conceding defeat to
his opponent. He was identifying the terrain on which the battle had
been fought. This was not merely a Kentucky primary race. It was an
election shaped by national donor networks, foreign policy alignments
and political enforcement mechanisms extending far beyond the district
itself.
The wider message
Some commentators tied to the Israeli lobby attribute Massie’s defeat solely to Donald Trump. But this narrative
is both factually flawed and analytically superficial. Trump certainly
played an important role – he endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein and
repeatedly attacked Massie as disloyal, transforming the primary into a
referendum on allegiance to the Maga movement.
Yet Trump alone does not generate more
than $30m in congressional primaries, nor does he independently mobilise
a vast donor infrastructure against a single congressman among dozens
who have disagreed with him over the years.
A more accurate reading is that Trump’s machinery converged with well-established Zionist donor networks and enforcement structures – what some critics now describe as the “Epstein Class”: a nexus of billionaire financiers,
political operatives, media influence networks and intelligence-linked
figures whose loyalties often appear more connected to preserving
Israeli regional supremacy than defending coherent American national
interests.
Trump did not create the target on Massie’s back – he just helped pull the trigger.
What happened to Massie exposes a
structural reality long understood but rarely discussed openly: there
are policy red lines within the American system, and Israel sits among
the brightest. Crossing those lines carries consequences – coordinated
funding flows, nationalised opposition campaigns, coordinated messaging
portraying dissent as extremism, and political isolation.
Trump’s machinery converged with
well-established Zionist donor networks and enforcement structures –
what some critics now describe as the ‘Epstein Class’
But the implications extend far beyond Kentucky.
To Maga Republicans, it signals that
“America First” has limits. One may challenge trade agreements,
immigration policy, global institutions or even party leadership. But
challenging Washington’s alignment with Israel remains extraordinarily
dangerous.
To libertarian conservatives, the answer
is equally stark: fiscal conservatism and scepticism towards foreign
intervention remain acceptable only until they intersect with Israel.
And to the broader Republican Party, the
lesson could not be clearer: party discipline increasingly requires
adherence to Trumpism and to a foreign policy consensus in which Israeli
priorities remain deeply embedded within the permanent foundations of
American power.
Massie was defeated for one main reason:
he challenged one of the most protected structures within American
political life. Once that occurred, the Zionist machinery activated with
remarkable speed: enormous funds mobilised, opposition networks unified
overnight, media narratives deployed and political deterrence
established.
These are not passing phenomena. They
discipline political behaviour. And as public anger over Gaza deepens
and younger Americans continue breaking with old political orthodoxies,
it is no longer clear that these instruments of political discipline can
hold indefinitely in a society already entering a deeper crisis of
legitimacy.
Yet despite Massie’s defeat, the results
of recent primary races suggest that Aipac’s long-standing dominance
over American politics may be waning. On the same evening, Chris Rabb
– a democratic socialist, vocal Palestine advocate and open Aipac
critic – won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional
District against two Aipac-backed opponents.
Earlier this year, Aipac’s campaign against moderate Democrat Tom Malinowski in New Jersey backfired spectacularly, inadvertently propelling Analilia Mejia – the race’s most vocal Palestine advocate – to victory.
The ground is shifting and the lobby knows it.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement on Tuesday
that the US will no longer have a “safe haven” in the Middle East for
its military bases, remarks that come after the Iranian military struck
US bases across the region during the US-Israeli bombing campaign
against Iran.
In the statement, released to mark the
Hajj season, when Muslim pilgrims travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia,
Khamenei addressed other Muslim nations in comments that appeared to be
directed at the Gulf Arab states that host US bases and were struck by
Iranian missiles and drones.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (PressTV)
“I, with sincerity and purity of
intention, invite all Islamic countries and governments to friendship
and cooperation in goodness, so that by working together we may take
steps toward the advancement of the Islamic Ummah and the resolution of
the Islamic world’s problems,” Khamenei said, according to an English
translation of the statement posted on his website.
“What is certain in this regard is that
the hands of time will not turn back, and the nations and lands of the
region will no longer serve as shields for US bases. The United States
not only will no longer have a safe haven for its mischief and for
establishing military bases in the region but day by day, it is growing
more distant from its former status,” he added.
The Iranian leader also referenced Israel,
saying that the “shaken Zionist regime and the cancerous tumor of
Israel are likewise approaching the final stages of their wretched
existence.”
Khamenei has yet to make a public
appearance since replacing his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed by
an Israeli strike alongside other members of his family on February 28,
the first day of the joint US-Israeli bombing campaign. Western media
reports have said that Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded in the strike but that he is still playing a critical role in shaping Iran’s war strategy.
President Trump said in a long post on Truth Social on Monday
that it should be “mandatory” for Arab and Muslim states to join the
Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel as part of any Iran
deal, and threatened that if the condition isn’t met, full-scale war
will resume “bigger and stronger than ever before.”
Insisting on more Muslim countries joining
the Abraham Accords as a condition for an Iran deal would likely ensure
that an agreement won’t be reached, as the Gulf Arab states that
haven’t normalized relations with Israel, which include Qatar, Oman, and
Saudi Arabia, have long maintained they won’t do so unless the issue of
Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is resolved.
After Trump’s post, a Saudi official told CNN that Riyadh won’t normalize with Israel until an “irreversible pathway” toward a Palestinian state is established.
President
Donald Trump poses for a group photo with leaders of the Gulf
Cooperation Council, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, at the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh
in Saudi Arabia. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
The president said in his post that a
potential agreement with Iran will “only be a Great Deal for all or, no
Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and
stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!”
Trump said that during talks on Saturday
with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey,
Egypt, and Jordan, he told them that “after all the work done by the
United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it
should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum,
simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords.”
According to a report from Axios,
when Trump made the proposal during the call, he was met with silence.
“There was silence on the line and Trump joked and asked if they are
still there,” an unnamed US official told Axios reporter Barak Ravid. CNNreported
that Trump made the comment “in passing” and that it was not met with a
response or acknowledgment from the leaders on the call.
Trump said in his post that the countries
that he discussed joining the Abraham Accords include “Saudi Arabia, The
United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey,
Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!).” He said that it may be
“possible that one or two have a reason for not doing so, and that will
be accepted, but most should be ready, willing, and able to make this
Settlement with Iran a far more Historic Event than it would, otherwise,
be.”
Trump added that Saudi Arabia and Qatar
should sign a deal to normalize with Israel “immediately” and that other
countries should follow suit, and even suggested that Iran could join
the Abraham Accords. “By copy of this TRUTH, I am asking my
Representatives to begin, and successfully complete, the process of
signing these Countries into the already Historic Abraham Accords. Thank
you for your attention to this matter!” he concluded.
Dozens
of countries that ratified the Genocide Convention still supplied arms
to Israel even after the ICJ issued a provisional ruling that Israel was
likely committing genocide in Gaza
(Photo credit: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)
An Al-Jazeerainvestigation
published on 23 May revealed that military-grade products from at least
51 countries and self-governing territories kept entering Israel even
after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional
ruling over the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
In
January 2024, the UN's top court ordered Israel to take all measures to
prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. By then, Israel's brutal bombing of
Gaza had killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and
children.
However, countries across the globe continued to provide weapons and military assistance to the Israeli military, the Al-Jazeera report found.
Using Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) import data, customs records, and freedom of information requests, the Al-Jazeera
investigation found the military-related goods were shipped to Israel
from countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America,
including from many that have signed the genocide convention.
In
some cases, the military supplies originated from countries that had
publicly imposed arms embargoes on Israel or had at least partially
suspended arms supplies to the country.
According to the ITA data, Israeli arms imports increased after the ICJ ruling, in particular munitions imports.
The
five biggest military suppliers to Israel—namely the US, India,
Romania, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic—all boosted their shipments of
military equipment to Tel Aviv following the ruling.
ITA
data showed that 2,603 consignments of military-related goods valued at
$885 million were sent to Israel between October 2023 and October 2025.
Of those, $805 million worth came after the January 2024 ruling.
The consignments included ammunition, explosive munitions, weapons parts, and armored vehicle components.
According
to Stephen Humphreys, professor of international law at the London
School of Economics, there was "ample evidence that countries arming
Israel may be complicit in international crimes, including war crimes
and crimes against humanity."
"The
most recent 'ceasefire' did not change this," stated Gerhard Kemp, a
professor of criminal law at the University of the West of England.
Since
the ceasefire reached in October 2025, Israel has continued killing
Palestinian civilians in Gaza and creating conditions of life that could
destroy the group in whole or in part, Kemp said.
This
indicates that states still have an obligation to stop supporting
Israel's war on Palestinians in Gaza, which has now killed at least
72,000 people. Tens of thousands more remain buried under the rubble of
buildings Israel has bombed.
"Some
states have a very narrow understanding of the duty to prevent genocide
and are waiting for a judicial determination that there is a genocide
in Gaza," Kemp said. “But the ICJ will likely take several years to make
such a determination. The better view is to look at domestic legal
obligations ... and international legal obligations and legal tools
triggered by available evidence.”
Though
the ICJ has not issued its final ruling, the UN Independent
International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian
Territory published a report in September 2025 concluding that Israel "committed a genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza."
The
UN report asserts that "states are obliged to take steps to ensure the
prevention of conduct that may amount to an act of genocide ...
including the transfer of weapons that are used or likely to be used by
Israel to commit genocidal acts."
Itamar Ben-Gvir has been attacked
across Israeli politics for a cruel video showing him mocking flotilla
activists as they were being abused by officers. His offense was not his
fascist celebration, but rather showing the true face of Israel.
This week, Israel’s Minister of National
Security Itamar Ben-Gvir became an unlikely target of derision across
the Israeli political spectrum, including the right-wing. His offense?
Revealing the true face of Israel to the world.
The story begins with the latest Gaza
freedom flotilla, which again was sending boats and activists to try to
break Israel’s illegal and inhumane siege on Gaza. Similar to past
flotillas, Israel hijacked the boats at sea, and detained the activists.
430 activists were kidnapped in Israel’s recent act of piracy, coming from over 40 countries.
This time, all of the activists were to be
taken to Israel. Ben-Gvir was waiting for them and made a video mocking
the activists for social media. “This is how we welcome the terror
supporters”, he wrote in Hebrew, where his English title was “Welcome to
Israel”.
At the beginning of the video, an activist
who is standing up, chanting “free free Palestine” is seen being pushed
violently to the floor by security who shout “quiet, quiet,” Ben-Gvir
continues to march in, waving an Israeli flag, and a mass of kidnapped
activists is seen being forced into stress positions with their heads
down to the floor. “Good work”, Ben-Gvir says to the guards, and shouts
to everyone: “Welcome to Israel! We are the masters of the house!”
It is important to note that this is a
common scenario in these arrests, and there is nothing really new about
it. It is a light variation of what is being done to Palestinians every
day, and various snuff videos showing such systemic torture have been aired on mainstream Israeli television channels. These videos have also commonly included Ben-Gvir’s mantra “We are the masters of the house”, which was his election slogan.
The Israeli Prison Service even went as far as issuing a statement to Ha’aretz,
saying that the detention was “carried out in accordance with procedure
and professional considerations.” Times of Israel notes that this was
done “as media outlets suggested the prison officials present in the
clip were acting against political and military policies”. These are, in
fact, their procedures, these are their policies.1
Yet, despite this, and perhaps in a sign of how Israel’s international standing has fallen, Ben-Gvir’s video set off an international firestorm, and has become a PR problem of its own. Both Poland and France have issued entry bans against Ben-Gvir with French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying,
“we cannot tolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated, or
brutalized in this way, especially by a public official” and calling for
other EU countries to issue sanctions against him. Italy’s Giorgia
Meloni said it was “unacceptable” that “these demonstrators, including
many Italian citizens, are subject to this treatment.” British Foreign
Minister Yvette Cooper was “truly appalled” by the video, which
“violates the most basic standards of respect and dignity in the way
people should be treated.”
Of course, no such outrage is to be found
when it’s Palestinians, but that’s always another story. Now it’s a
problem that internationals, including Europeans, are being jeered at by
Ben-Gvir as they were paraded through detention like animals.
Given the response, Israel’s hasbara
central turned to damage control mode, and Ben-Gvir was thrown under the
bus as a bad apple.
Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed
that Ben-Gvir’s video was “not in line with Israel’s values.” It wasn’t
the what, it was the how: “Israel has every right to prevent
provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters from entering our
territorial waters and reaching Gaza. However, the way that Minister
Ben-Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s
values and norms,” he added.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who thus
heads the hasbara office, shared Netanyahu’s message, but had a message
of his own, even more condemnatory of Ben-Gvir, claiming Ben-Gvir wasn’t
the face of Israel: “You knowingly caused harm to our State in this
disgraceful display – and not for the first time. You have undone
tremendous, professional, and successful efforts made by so many people –
from IDF soldiers to Foreign Ministry staff and many others. No, you
are not the face of Israel”, he wrote in his sharing of Ben Gvir’s tweet.
And then the Foreign Ministry posted a tweet with one video and three photos:
A video of a guard giving water to a
hostage; A photo of another offering water to a hostage; a hostage being
questioned at a table; a woman smiling (presumably a hostage).
“These are our values,” says the caption.
All we’re missing is candy being handed around, and maybe a choral performance to top it off.
The reality of the situation was that the
activists had been held in these stress positions for many hours, and
the human rights organization Adalah reported
that activists were sent to the hospital, suspected of having broken
ribs due to breathing difficulty, having been subject to electric shock,
and shot with rubber bullets. Activists also reported
sexual assault, including rape. On one particular Israeli ship, at
least 12 sexual assaults were documented, “including anal rape and
forcible penetration by a handgun.” This is, of course, standard
procedure when it comes to Palestinians, including the systematic use of rape, which was effectively legitimized when the Sde Teiman gang rape case was recently closed.
So this moral panic over Ben-Gvir’s crude
behavior is really an attempt to draw attention away from this abuse,
and it appears to be working. He is being made out to be an obnoxious
fascist outlier, when in fact Ben-Gvir represents the true face of
Israel.
This is all about Israel, as a whole. It’s
Israel’s siege, it’s Israel’s genocide, and the world needs to awaken
to this understanding. It’s not just about a few rotten apples, a
particularly vile minister, or a few bad cops.
Jonathan Ofir Jonathan Ofir is an Israeli musician, conductor and writer based in Denmark.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (Photo: Wikipedia)
