Tuesday, April 08, 2025

Yemen is acting responsibly to stop genocide and the U.S. is bombing them for it

 

Yemen’s Red Sea blockade in defense of Palestinians is squarely supported by international law. But the country is being ruthlessly bombed by the U.S. to ensure Israeli impunity for its continued siege and genocide in Gaza. 

By Craig Mokhiber, April 1, 2025

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An F-18 takes off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, Feb. 3, 2024. (Photo: U.S. Central Command) An F-18 takes off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, Feb. 3, 2024. (Photo: U.S. Central Command)

The U.S. is bombing Yemen because Yemen is acting, as required by international law, to stop the genocide and unlawful siege in Palestine. 

This is not an editorial opinion. It is a statement of both law and fact. 

Neither of these facts has been featured in the reporting or commentary of Western media corporations, let alone in the statements of perpetrator governments like the U.S. 

Because to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight requires the suppression of the truth and the obscuring of the law. 

But international law is clear. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found, and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has affirmed, that all states are obliged to cut off all military and economic support both for the Israeli regime’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and for its genocidal assault on the people of occupied Gaza. 

These legal findings are rooted in the highest-level rules of international law (so-called jus cogens and erga omnes obligations), including the prohibition of genocide, of aggression, of the acquisition of territory by force, and of acts that violate the right to self-determination. 

And these obligations bind all states. Yemen has acted concretely to meet them, by imposing a blockade on ships destined to resupply the Israeli regime at the Red Sea port of Eilat, and explicitly in response to the Israeli-imposed siege and genocide in Palestine. 

In sum, Yemen is being ruthlessly bombed by the United States to ensure Israeli impunity for the continued commission of its international crimes in Palestine. 

In doing so, the U.S. itself is in breach of the legal findings of the International Court of Justice, and guilty of two international crimes: the supreme crime of aggression, and the crime of complicity in genocide.  

The Yemenis, on the other hand, have played the role of human rights defender and humanitarian intervener in this situation. 

Clearly, the good guy-bad guy narrative of the U.S. government and its obsequious media corporations is a direct inversion of the truth. 

An international call to action

The international alarm bells on genocide in Palestine began to ring in October of 2023 and became louder and louder as the genocide proceeded. 

The 193 states of the world responded in various ways. 

Some, including the U.S., UK, Germany, and other Western states, joined Israel in the active perpetration of the genocide

Others, also mostly Western states, chose complicity in the genocide by supplying the genocide machine with fuel, spare parts, diplomatic cover, and other necessities. 

A large number of states from all regions chose to simply remain silent and passive, which is also a breach of their international legal obligations to act affirmatively to prevent and stop genocide and to enforce international humanitarian law. 

A fourth group of states have opposed the Israeli regime in public statements and in diplomatic action in the Security Council and in the UNGA, or by joining cases against the perpetrators in the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) but have done nothing to cut off material support to the offending regime or to defend the Palestinian people from the onslaught by Israel’s soldiers and settlers. 

But there is another group, the smallest group of all, that has taken concrete steps to actively meet its obligations under international law. 

Foremost among these have been South Africa, which brought Israel to trial for genocide in the ICJ, and, very significantly, Yemen

Yemen (that is, the capital and most of the population which are under the de facto control of Ansar Allah, while the south is controlled by a rival group with UN recognition), announced in response to Israel’s genocide in Palestine that it would block shipping in the Red Sea that was heading to resupply the Israeli regime as long as that regime continues the siege and genocide in Gaza. 

It uses the choke point of the Bab al-Mandab (which means, appropriately, “Gate of Tears”), the narrow strait between Yemen and Djibouti at the opening of the Red Sea. 

Yemen started this targeted, partial blockade in November 2023 with the boarding of an Israeli ship and then sustained the blockade until the announcement of the most recent ceasefire in Gaza, resuming it only when Israel broke the ceasefire and reinstituted the unlawful siege on Gaza. 

Indeed, the Yemenis proved the pure humanitarian intent of the blockade by pausing it entirely during the January ceasefire in Gaza, and only announcing its resumption when Israel reimposed the siege and full-scale assault on Gaza in March. 

Of course, ships supplying the regime could avoid the blockade by sailing around Africa, but that meant a considerable increase in shipping costs. Some ships destined for Israel tried to break the blockade and were warned, boarded, commandeered, or militarily engaged by the Yemini (Houthi) armed forces, as were Western military ships attacking the Yemenis or confronting the blockade

And the blockade worked, choking off over 80% of shipping to the Israeli regime, ultimately bankrupting the Israeli port of Eilat, and reducing supply through Ashdod (via the Suez Canal), thereby significantly obstructing the resupplying of the regime. 

In turn, the U.S. initiated a massive bombing campaign to attack Yemen, the region’s poorest country,  a country it has been bombing for over two decades now, violating international law in doing so, slaughtering civilians in the process, exacerbating the famine, the medical crisis, internal displacement, putting U.S. soldiers at risk, risking a broader regional war, spending billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money in the process, and lying to its own people about what’s happening, all for the sole purpose of assisting Israel’s genocide in Palestine. 

The law is on Yemen’s side

International lawis clearly on Yemen’s side here.

First, the U.S. attacks on Yemen constitute the crime of aggression under international law. 

They do not fall within the narrow requirements of self-defense under the UN Charter, they have not been authorized under the Charter, and they are not even claimed to be in defense of jus cogens rules, but rather to are intended to “protect commerce.” 

Second, Both the ICJ and the UN General Assembly have found that all countries are legally obliged to cease any support for the Israeli occupation regime, to ban any products from the settlements, to cut off all military, diplomatic, economic, commercial, financial, investment, and trade relations with the Israeli occupation

They affirmed as well that all states must respect the provisional orders of the ICJ in the Israel genocide case, and to respect their third-state obligations under the Genocide Convention to act to prevent and punish Genocide. 

This includes the obligation of all third states to use all means at their disposal to influence the state potentially committing genocide and ensuring that their own actions don’t aid or abet such acts. 

As noted above, these rules are jus cogens (the highest-level, peremptory norms from which there is no derogation) and erga omnes (meaning they bind all states, including Yemen and the United States). 

Additionally, both Yemen and the U.S. are obliged under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to do all in their power “to ensure respect” for their provisions by other parties, including Israel. 

While Yemen has acted to meet these obligations, the U.S. has attacked it for doing so. 

Circumventing U.S. obstruction of international law

Thus, recognizing that states are obliged to act both individually and collectively to stop Israel’s genocide and that grave breaches of international law (supplying a regime perpetrating genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, gross and systematic violations of human rights) are occurring in or near areas it controls, Yemen has moved to stop these violations.

Of course, defenders of the U.S. attacks will challenge the right of Yemen to intervene by claiming that (1) Ansar Allah in Yemen is not recognized as a state authority and (2) the Security Council has not authorized Yemen to use force.  

Indeed, Yemen is a divided country, with competing forces controlling various sections. While the country has been divided for most of its post-colonial history, the current crisis in Yemen started with the Arab Spring protests in 2011. Much like in Syria, these protests were crushed and subsequently morphed into a civil war that has been raging since at least 2015. 

The devastating effects of the conflict have been severely exacerbated by brutal U.S. and Saudi attacks and blockades, creating a situation in which, before the Palestine genocide spiked in 2023, Yemen was declared the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet by international agencies.  

As a result, the south of the country is dominated by the UN-recognized Presidential Leadership Council, which is also supported by the West and the Gulf monarchies. 

However, Ansar Allah’s Supreme Political Council controls the capital and largest city, Sanaa, all of Yemen’s northern territory, 80% of the country’s population, and the strategic region of the Bab al-Mandab. 

As such, of the two, Houthi-controlled Yemen is, de facto, the most powerful entity. And it is the entity adjacent to the Bab al-Mandab and with the actual capacity to implement the humanitarian blockade. 

This “capacity to influence” suggests a heightened responsibility to act, especially in the case of genocide, as has been recognized by the ICJ. Thus, as there is both a (heightened) duty to act and a capacity to act, the fact that the country is divided cannot reasonably be said to be determinative in a case where the stakes include genocide. 

And even if the statehood of Ansar Allah-controlled Yemen were to be denied, non-state actors, including armed groups, are also recognized as having obligations under international law, not least the rules of international humanitarian law. 

As for the lack of Security Council authorization, the UNSC has been entirely disabled by the U.S., as a party to the conflict, and as a result, is entirely inoperative for the purposes of the situation in Palestine. (Just one more example of how the U.S. is destroying the international legal order on behalf of this one oppressive foreign regime). 

But because the UNSC gets its mandate from the UN Charter, a treaty that is itself part of international law, it is subject to international law, not above it. And both the prohibition of genocide and the right of self-determination are jus cogens and erga omnes rules. These are the highest international legal principles, peremptory norms, universal and non-derogable. The Security Council cannot supersede these rules of international law. 

And if action by the UNSC cannot supersede jus cogens norms, then inaction or omissions by the UNSC cannot supersede (or erase) jus cogens norms, the force of which is ongoing in all circumstances. 

Simply put, jus cogens and erga omnes rules of international law are not derived from, cannot be trumped by, nor do they depend upon the authority of the Security Council. 

Furthermore, in this case, the international community of states has expressed its intentions by adopting the UNGA resolution on implementing the ICJ’s findings in Palestine. 

And this was no ordinary resolution, but one adopted (1) with an overwhelming majority and (2) under the enhanced powers of an emergency special session convened under the so-called Uniting for Peace resolution, designed to overcome the obstruction of the veto in extraordinary circumstances such as these. 

Needless to say, Yemen also has a right to self-defense against U.S. armed attacks, as do all countries under Article 51 of the UN Charter. And the U.S. attacks on Yemen have been ongoing for decades now. 

Beyond that, for some of its actions,Yemen could argue that it is carrying out maritime law enforcement in its territorial waters, which generally does not require UNSC authorization. Indeed, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicts, boards, and seizes ships, even in international waters, for mere suspicion of much lesser offenses, including suspected drug smuggling. And what more important maritime law enforcement function could there be than stopping a genocide? 

And, indeed, even if this were challenged under the rules of the law of the sea (the international treaty on which, by the way, Yemen has ratified, but the U.S. refuses to sign or ratify), the Yemenis are acting under the authority of international law, as pronounced by the ICJ, reinforced by the UNGA implementing resolution, and codified in treaties to which Yemen is a party (including the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions). 

Lawlessness or the rule of law

Of course, if the U.S. disagrees, their lawful remedy is to seek a decision on the dispute in a contentious case at the ICJ, or, alternatively, to convince the UNGA to request an ICJ advisory opinion on the question. But it has no legal right to wage war against Yemen. 

And what is clear in the law is that all states, including Yemen and the U.S., have a duty to respect the rulings of the ICJ, and its authoritative interpretations of international law. On this, the ICJ has already issued several clear conclusions on the law that binds all third states, first in the advisory opinion on Israel’s apartheid wall, then in a series of provisional measures ordered in the genocide case against Israel, and finally in its advisory opinion finding Israeli apartheid and illegal occupation in Palestine. 

Supplying, facilitating the supply, or failing to act to stop the supply of the Israeli regime’s occupation of Palestine or of its genocide in Palestine, are serious violations of international law. 

Yemen is meeting these obligations. The U.S. is violating them. 

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

18 March 2025: The day 183 children in Gaza were massacred by Israel

Entire generations of families wiped out during deadly attacks on Tuesday, as Israel appeared to deliberately target suhoor meal during Ramadan

Palestinian children look at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential building in Gaza City on 19 March 2025 (Reuters/Dawoud Abu Alkas)

Palestinian children look at the site of an Israeli strike on a residential building in Gaza City on 19 March 2025 (Reuters/Dawoud Abu Alkas)

By Rayhan Uddin

Published date: 19 March 2025 17:22 GMT | Last update:3 hours 1 min ago

Something that separates Ramadan from other times of the year is a change of routine.

That includes waking up for suhoor, a pre-dawn meal which Muslims eat in preparation for fasting.

Families, sometimes including children, rise together during the holy month to eat suhoor and perform Fajrdawn prayers. 

On Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombs in those early hours of suhoor. 

Some had been awake eating with their families. Others were asleep in makeshift displacement camps as food was prepared.

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Entire generations of families were wiped out together by Israel’s devastating strikes.

‘People were killed while they were sleeping. Women were killed whilst they were preparing meals’

Rachel Cummings, Save the Children, Gaza

“People were killed while they were sleeping. Women were killed whilst they were preparing meals,” Save the Children’s Rachael Cummings, who is currently in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, told Middle East Eye. 

“There was no evacuation notice given,” Cummings said. “This was a complete bombardment across the whole of Gaza.” 

The timing was reportedly deliberate: Israel launched a surprise attack in the early hours because it believed “Hamas members” would be present at suhoor meals. 

Israeli officials continue to insist that Hamas commanders and infrastructure were the targets of the wave of attacks. 

But of 436 massacred on Tuesday, over 180 were children. 

“I do not spend too much time concerned with who the Israeli military says they targeted in attacks like this,” Miranda Cleland, of Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP), told MEE. 

“Instead, look at the evidence: 183 dead children, comprising almost half of yesterday’s death toll, tells me that this is a war on children,” she added.

“Eighteen thousand dead children since 7 October 2023 tells me this is a war on children, regardless of what the Israeli military says.” 

Tuesday marked one of the largest one-day child death tolls in Gaza’s history, according to DCIP, which has documented such fatalities in the enclave since 2000.

Over the past 17 months of war, DCIP has monitored child death tolls provided by the Gaza health ministry and cannot recall a day as deadly as 18 March 2025. 

‘Gaza is a graveyard for children’

Among the slain children were Omar al-Jamassi, 15, and his sister Layan, 16. They were killed alongside their mother and siblings. 

Layan had been excited to start the new school year on Tuesday morning. She was killed by an Israeli air strike hours before it was due to begin. 

The political calculations behind Israel’s decision to go back to war

Read More »

She and Omar had attended a tent school set up as part of the Gaza Great Minds project. 

“They were always smiling and share happiness everywhere they go,” said Ahmad Abu Rizik, who founded the project.

Cummings said that children and babies were more at risk of dying from air strikes. 

“The risks for children in this context are extraordinary,” she said. “Because they’re so small, they have less blood, so they die much more frequently from blast injuries.”

Nearly half of Gaza’s population are children, making it one the youngest territories in the world. 

“Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” Ammar Ammar of Unicef, the UN’s aid agency for children, told MEE. 

“Children have been killed, injured, buried under rubble, frozen and starved to death, and many other horrors no child should be subjected to.” 

‘Imprint of trauma’

For those children who have survived Israel’s 18-month war up to now, they have faced displacement and deprivation of basic needs. 

Unicef estimates that all of Gaza’s one million children are in need of mental health and psychosocial support, too.

“No child will emerge from the horrors of months of relentless bombardment without the imprint of trauma,” said Ammar. 

‘No child will emerge from the horrors of months of relentless bombardment without the imprint of trauma’

– Ammar Ammar, Unicef

For over two weeks, Israel has blocked all aid trucks from entering the enclave. Electricity has been cut for the past week. 

Ammar said that has left many families struggling to provide enough food and safe water for their children. 

“Children are dying of preventable conditions like malnutrition, dehydration, and hypothermia, due to Israel’s siege on Gaza and the mass destruction of homes and the healthcare system,” said Cleland. 

She added that Israeli attacks had left minors with lifelong disabilities, without proper follow up care, prosthetics or physical therapy. 

Regarding Tuesday’s attack, campaigners are clear that Israel has obligations to protect children. 

“Children enjoy special protection under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. They must never be a target,” said Ammar. 

Cleland added: “Yesterday’s attacks were not only a violation of the negotiated truce agreement, but a violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks. 

“Bombing densely populated civilian areas is, by definition, indiscriminate.”

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Backed by Trump, Israel Shreds Cease-Fire Deal With Deadly Attacks Across Gaza

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza continue

People mourn relatives killed by Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza on March 18, 2025.

(Photo: Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“This return to violence does not come as a surprise,” said one advocacy group. “Netanyahu has, from the beginning, signaled his intention to abandon the cease-fire process before it could become a lasting peace

Jake Johnson, Commo n Dreams, Mar 18, 2025

A barrage of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday killed more than 400 people and left a fragile cease-fire agreement in tatters just over two months after it was reached, with Israel’s prime minister pledging “increasing military strength” in an enclave already decimated by more than a year of bombing.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Netanyahu government consulted with the Trump administration ahead of the latest Gaza bombardment. Leavitt expressed the White House’s total support for Israel’s attacks.

While Israel had been carrying out more limited deadly attacks on Gaza despite the cease-fire deal—including strikes over the weekend that killed at least nine—Tuesday’s bombings were described as the “heaviest assault on the territory since the cease-fire took effect in January.”

The cease-fire was a multiphase agreement, with the first phase expiring earlier this month. Talks over the second phase of the agreement had stalled, and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had attempted to impose an alternative deal on Hamas with the backing of the Trump White House. Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip earlier this month in an attempt to force acceptance of its alternative, leaving more than 1 million children in desperate conditions.

The New York Times reported that the Rafah crossing into Egypt “has been shuttered amid the renewed Israeli strikes. The border zone, the Times noted, “had been the main way for sick and wounded Gazans to leave the enclave during the cease-fire.”

Muhannad Hadi, humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement Tuesday that the fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes “is unconscionable” and that a cease-fire “must be reinstated immediately.”

“People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering,” said Hadi. “An end to hostilities, sustained humanitarian assistance, release of the hostages, and the restoration of basic services and people’s livelihoods, are the only way forward.”

“From before his first day in office, President Trump has endorsed the Netanyahu government’s return to war.”

Gaza health officials said the Israeli strikes killed at least 400 people, including women and children. Reutersreported that “in hospitals strained by 15 months of bombardment, piles of bodies in white plastic sheets smeared with blood could be seen stacked up as casualties were brought in.”

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement posted to social media that the Israeli military launched the large-scale strikes due to Hamas’ “repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”

Hamas responded that Israel is “fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement.”

The Israeli strikes came over a month after the Trump administration approved a $7.4 billion sale of U.S. weaponry to Israel, which has repeatedly used American arms to commit war crimes in Gaza.

Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy group Win Without War, said in a statement that “we are heartbroken and enraged at the Netanyahu government’s decision to break the cease-fire in Gaza and resume widespread, devastating bombing.”

“This return to violence does not come as a surprise, however,” said Haghdoosti. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, from the beginning, signaled his intention to abandon the cease-fire process before it could become a lasting peace. From before his first day in office, President Trump has endorsed the Netanyahu government’s return to war. Indeed, we fear that Trump’s vile plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, so welcomed by the far-right members of Netanyahu’s government, will become the blueprint for the war as it goes forward.”

“Both the blockade and the return to bombing appear designed to create conditions in which Palestinians can no longer live in the Gaza Strip,” Haghdoosti added. “We, and every person of conscience around the world, condemn this campaign of ethnic cleansing unequivocally.”

An Unconstitutional Rampage


Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next.

It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk.

Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support.
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Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Jake Johnson

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Jewish Americans and Allies Occupy Trump Tower Demanding Release of Mahmoud Khalil

Demostrators from the human rights organization Jewish Voice for Peace hold a civil disobedience action

Demostrators from the human rights organization Jewish Voice for Peace hold a civil disobedience action inside Trump Tower in New York on March 13, 2025.

(Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

“We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent.”

Julia Conley

Mar 13, 2025

This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updtes…

Nearly a year and a half after the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace began leading nationwide demonstrations against Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, hundreds of organizers and supporters of the group risked arrest Thursday as they assembled in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, demanding the release of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil.

“Three hundred Jews and friends in Trump Tower, because we know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent,” said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). “Come for one—face us all.”

The latter phrase was emblazoned on banners that were displayed by campaigners, who chanted, “Never again for anyone, never again is now!” and, “Free Mahmoud, free them all!”

New York City police officers began arresting participants in the sit-in early in the afternoon.

Jane Hirschmann, a Jewish New York resident whose grandfather and uncle were abducted by the Nazis in Germany as Adolf Hitler rose to power, said Khalil’s detention “is further proof that we are on the brink of a full takeover by an authoritarian regime.”

“As Jews of conscience, we know our history and we know where this leads,” said Hirschmann. “This is what fascists do as they cement control. This moment requires all people of conscience to take bold action to resist state violence and repression. Free Mahmoud now.”

Actors Morgan Spector, Debra Winger, and Arliss Howard were in attendance at the sit-in, along with writer and artist Molly Crabapple and New York City Council member Alexa Aviles.

Khalil was abducted by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last Saturday night as he was returning home to his Columbia-owned apartment with his wife, who is eight months pregnant. He was a graduate student at the university until this past December, and took a central organizing role in student-led protests and negotiations against Columbia’s investment in companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policy in Gaza, including the bombardment it began in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.

Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and a citizen of Algeria, was detained under the State Department’s “catch and revoke” program, with the Trump administration revoking his green card and threatening to deport him. Administration officials have admitted that they are not accusing Khalil of breaking any laws by participating in Palestinian solidarity protests, but they said he is viewed as “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.”

After a hearing Wednesday, a federal judge is considering whether Khalil should be sent back to New York, where he was detained, from the Louisiana ICE facility where he is being held. The same judge blocked Khalil’s deportation this week.

An Unconstitutional Rampage


Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next.

It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk.

Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support.
about:blank

about:blank

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

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Thursday, March 13, 2025

Trump's USA: When anti-war protesters are called national security threats

 Mahmoud Khalil

Is this what VP Vance meant by free speech ‘in retreat’? Case of detained green card holder shows how ‘brittle’ our rights are here, too.

Analysis | Washington Politics

  1. washington politics
  2. israel-palestine

Lora Lumpe

Mar 11, 2025

Vice President JD Vance stunned Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February by calling the continent out for serious backsliding on core democratic principles.

He cited annulled elections when the wrong candidate appeared slated to win, digital censorship of opinions that run afoul of the majority or established perspective, and the policing of silent thought (prayer) as exhibits A, B, and C. “In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”

After acknowledging similar trends in President Biden’s America, Vance boasted that, “In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”

Unless you are a green card holder talking about Israel.

At an Oval Office memo signing/media spray the day of Vance’s Munich speech, the New Sheriff said he completely agreed with Vance’s assessment about the importance of free speech. Less than a month later, though, President Trump dispatched Department of Homeland Security immigration agents to arrest and abduct Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent and lawful resident of the United States, married to an American citizen, when he and his wife returned home from dinner.

His “crime”: participating in the non-violent demonstrations at Columbia University that inspired students across the country to stand up and demand that the U.S. government stop aiding and abetting mass killing in Gaza, including of tens of thousands of women and children.

While anti-war demonstrations have almost always been viewed as — and are — squarely protected by the First Amendment’s free speech and right of assembly guarantees, Trump is painting demonstrations against the Gaza war as “pro-terrorist, anti-semitic, anti-American activity.”

The pro-Israel Free Press quoted an unnamed White House official as acknowledging that “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law,” but that Khalil “is a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”

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This was echoed in remarks by White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who said Tuesday in an answer to a question about the administration’s basis for deporting Khalil that, “under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who … are adversarial to the foreign policy and the national security interests of the United States of America.” She added then that Khalil “sided with terrorists” by organizing protests that disrupted classes and harassed Jewish-American students and made them “feel unsafe.” She also accused protesters of handing out fliers “with the logo of Hamas.”

Jewish groups were among those protesting in New York City against Khalil’s pending deportation on Tuesday. Reports dating back to last year indicate that Khalil was not an organizer, but had served as a negotiator on behalf of students who had erected an encampment on campus.

Quite the opposite of strengthening free speech and our democracy, Trump appears to be leading us into a new McCarthyism. The president blasted out on his Truth Social account that, “this is the first of more [arrests and deportations] to come…We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country…We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

Leavitt also ominously foreshadowed a looming clash on Columbia’s campus, saying that university officials are refusing to help DHS identify a list of other individuals on campus the administration has identified — reportedly through a search of students’ social media accounts. “[A]s the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.”

Meanwhile, Khalil was whisked far away from his wife in New York, who is eight months pregnant, to the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, a private prison, according to reports. He would likely have been deported already if not for a fast-acting federal judge in New York who blocked his removal from the United States until after a hearing, expressly forbidding deportation without approval by the court. The initial hearing is slated for Wednesday. Critics worry the administration “shopped” for a judge more sympathetic to its case.

We still do not know what he has been charged with, if anything, or any of the evidence against him.

The prohibition of free speech by student visa holders and permanent citizen green card holders in the United States is a clear and fundamental assault on our democracy — an effort to squelch and chill freedom of speech. It sends the same signal to the rest of the world that Vance and Trump accused Europe of sending: weakness and fear. If peaceful protest by students against a policy poses such a threat to our “national security,” how strong can we really be?

Back at the Munich Security Conference, Vance said: “the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear, and I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still.” The Vice President was right. And now is the time for vehement and loud assertion that free speech is not in retreat in America.

Lora Lumpe

Lora Lumpe is the CEO of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Jonathan Cook: Israeli Hostages & the Ceasefire

Consortium News, 7 March 2025

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There is a pressing reason to keep our attention focused on the role of the Hannibal directive, writes Jonathan Cook. It relates to what is happening right now.

Palestinians in Gaza on Jan. 29, after the ceasefire announced earlier in the month. (Jaber Jehad Badwan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net

Those of us who keep banging on about Israel’s use of the so-called Hannibal directive on Oct. 7, 2023, — in which Israel killed its own citizens to stop them being taken captive by Hamas — have been smeared as excusing Hamas crimes that day.

That is not why we flag the issue.

In part, it is because some of the most horrifying images from  Oct. 7 of charred bodies and wrecked cars and homes in Israel — adduced as evidence of an especial barbarism that is supposedly typical of Palestinians — were almost certainly caused by Israel invoking its scorched-earth directive that day.

Those images became central to the propaganda blitz launched by Israel and its apologists to justify the mass slaughter of Gaza’s children over the subsequent 17 months.

But there is also a far more urgent and pressing reason to keep our attention focused on the role of the Hannibal directive. And it relates to what is happening right now.  

[President Donald Trump has issued military threats about the consequences of not handing over Israeli hostages that Hamas says, if carried out, break the terms of the ceasefire.]

Israel and the U.S. are still applying the Hannibal directive — against the Israeli captives held in Gaza. 

The point of the directive has always been to stop the enemy being able to use Israeli hostages as leverage to draw Israel into negotiations — primarily to pressure it to hand over any of the thousands of Palestinian hostages it holds in its prison-torture camps. Many of them have never been charged or tried.

Israel and the U.S. tell us they need to carpet bomb Gaza — in what amounts to a “plausible” genocide, according to the world’s highest court — to force Hamas to return the Israeli captives. But in fact, Israel and the U.S. are recklessly killing those very same captives through their actions.

Why? So they don’t have to negotiate over a ceasefire. So they can carry on with the genocide, without pressure to deal with the fate of the Israelis held in Gaza.

“Bring Them Home” — a giant lights sign by artist Nadav Barnea at Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Heichal Hatarbut, Tel Aviv, Jan. 3, 2024. (Yossipik, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

It was exactly the same reckless approach on Oct. 7, when Israel showed it was indifferent as to whether Israelis lived or died so long as they weren’t taken captive.

[See: What We’re Not Hearing About Oct 7]

That’s why — in one instance we know about — the Israeli military fired into a home in Kibbutz Be’eri, knowing that there were a dozen or more Israelis inside, including children.

The army was completely indifferent as to whether those Israelis would be killed as a result. All but two were. Those witnesses are the main reason we know what really happened.

That’s why Israel’s Apache helicopters recklessly fired on hundreds of cars fleeing the Nova music festival, indifferent to whether the cars contained Hamas fighters or Israeli citizens.

Even the former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, admits the directive was invoked that day.

We’ll never know how many Israelis were killed – in part because Israel will never let us know. It’s even buried many of the destroyed cars to stop a forensic investigation.

But what we do know with certainty is that the Israeli military killed many Israelis on Oct. 7.

Western media have studiously refused to report on the issue of the Hannibal directive, even though it is all over the Israeli media. (See here, here, here and here.)

That is more than just a failure by Western media outlets. It is a crime against journalism — if not complicity in the genocide itself.

Western publics need to know that the Hannibal directive was invoked for a very simple reason: It is a crucial piece of information for assessing the credibility of Israeli and U.S. claims that they are trying to get the Israeli captives back alive and to properly weigh Israel’s motives in returning to the genocide in Gaza.

Notice how, in Trump’s latest deranged tweet, he accuses Hamas of “murdering” the Israelis held in Gaza. That’s pure, Israeli-inspired disinformation.

It is clear that most, if not all, of the dead captives were killed not by their Hamas captors but by Israel’s massive, reckless 15-month bombardment of the tiny territory of Gaza. That same bombardment, the equivalent of six Hiroshimas, has leveled Gaza and killed many tens of thousands — maybe hundreds of thousands — of Palestinians.

Why is Trump so eager to misdirect us?

Because he wants to win our support for Israel’s continuation of its slaughter of the people of Gaza and justify his own decision to supply, as his predecessor did, the weapons needed to continue that genocide.

After all, Trump makes his own genocidal intent expressly clear in addressing “the people of Gaza” and telling them that they will all be “DEAD” if the Israeli captives aren’t handed over. Yet “the people of Gaza” have no control over whether the captives are released.


Notice too that Trump calls Hamas “sick and twisted” for holding on to the bodies of dead Israeli captives, even though it is Israel that is violating the ceasefire agreement that would see those bodies returned.

This has become a further rationalisation by Israel and the U.S. for killing “the people of Gaza.” But Hamas learnt the value of using dead bodies as bargaining chips directly from Israel.

For years, the Israeli government has had a policy of refusing to return to their families the corpses of those Palestinians it has killed, including while in its torture camps. This violation of international law long predates Oct. 7. The Israeli courts have repeatedly approved the policy, accepting the government’s view that the bodies should be held as “bargaining chips.” It gave its backing again in January.

So if Hamas is “sick and twisted,” it is only because Israel is even more sick and twisted. If Trump thinks the people of Gaza deserve a genocide because of their leaders’ “sick and twisted” decisions, should he not be consistent and argue that the people of Israel deserve a similar fate for their own leaders’ “sick and twisted” decisions?

A campaign of lies and disinformation have helped to shred international law over the past year and half. And one of the biggest lies is the pretence that, in slaughtering Gaza’s children, Israel has been acting in the interests of Israelis held in the enclave.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the U.K. in 2021. He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support

This article is from the author’s blog, Jonathan Cook.net.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Tags: Hamas Hannibal Directive Israeli hostages Jonathan Cook Oct. 7 President Donald Trump

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Western media's role in suppressing the coverage of Israeli genocide in Gaza

British journalist Owen Jones spoke out against Western media for suppressing coverage of Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Jones condemned the silence of Western media, describing it as complicity in the face of unimaginable atrocities and condemned journalists for failing to express solidarity with their colleagues, even in the face of what he described as 'the biggest massacre of journalists in human history'.

He made these remarks during a demonstration in central London, where over 100,000 people gathered to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza, despite last-minute restrictions imposed by the Metropolitan Police, which many viewed as an attempt to stifle the protest.
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Monday, February 24, 2025

I am Israel

 by Dr. William Nassar, Al- Kateb

 I am Israel.
I came to a land without a people for a people without a land. Those people who happened to be here, had no right to be here, and my people showed them they had to leave or die, razing 400 Palestinian villages to the ground, erasing their history.

I am Israel.
Some of my people committed massacres and later became Prime Ministers to represent me. In 1948, Menachem Begin was in charge of the unit that slaughtered the inhabitants of Deir Yassin, including 100 women, and children. In 1953, Ariel Sharon led the slaughter of the inhabitants of Qibya, and in 1982 arranged for our allies to butcher around 2,000 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.

I am Israel.
Carved in 1948 out of 78% of the land of Palestine, dispossessing its inhabitants and replacing them with Jews from Europe and other parts of the world. While the natives whose families lived on this land for thousands of years are not allowed to return, Jews from all over the world are welcome to instant citizenship.

I am Israel.
In 1967, I swallowed the remaining lands of Palestine – the West Bank and Gaza – and placed their inhabitants under an oppressive military rule, controlling and humiliating every aspect of their daily lives. Eventually, they should get the message that they are not welcome to stay, and join the millions of Palestinian refugees in the shanty camps of Lebanon and Jordan.

I am Israel.
I have the power to control American policy. My American Israel Public Affairs Committee can make or break any politician of its choosing, and as you see, they all compete to please me. All the forces of the world are powerless against me, including the UN as I have the American veto to block any condemnation of my war crimes. As Sharon so eloquently phrased it, “We control America”.

I am Israel.
I influence American mainstream media too, and you will always find the news tailored to my favor. I have invested millions of dollars into PR representation, and CNN, New York Times, and others have been doing an excellent job of promoting my propaganda. Look at other international news sources and you will see the difference.

I am Israel.
You Palestinians want to negotiate “peace!?” But you are not as smart as me; I will negotiate, but will only let you have your municipalities while I control your borders, your water, your airspace and anything else of importance. While we “negotiate,” I will swallow your hilltops and fill them with settlements, populated by the most extremist of my extremists, armed to the teeth. These settlements will be connected with roads you cannot use, and you will be imprisoned in your little Bantustans between them, surrounded by checkpoints in every direction.

I am Israel.
I have the fourth strongest army in the world, possessing nuclear weapons. How dare your children confront my oppression with stones, don’t you know my soldiers won’t hesitate to blow their heads off? In 17 months, I have killed 900 of you and injured 17,000, mostly civilians, and have the mandate to continue since the international community remains silent. Ignore, as I do, the hundreds of Israeli reserve officers who are now refusing to carry out my control over your lands and people; their voices of conscience will not protect you.

I am Israel.
You want freedom? I have bullets, tanks, missiles, Apaches and F-16s to obliterate you. I have placed your towns under siege, confiscated your lands, uprooted your trees, demolished your homes, and you still demand freedom? Don’t you get the message? You will never have peace or freedom, because I am Israel. .