Nothing Is Off the Table in Netanyahu’s Mafia State of Israel

Harretz Editorial – 2 minutes read time. The picture of Israel that emerged from an investigation published this week by the British newspaper the Guardian and the Israeli website +972 Magazine and its sister site Local Call is akin to the Cosa Nostra. A state whose intelligence agencies have been converted into the attack dogs of Don Netanyahu. According to the report, then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, acting as the unofficial emissary of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led an operation designed to disrupt an earlier investigation of Israel in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, allegedly attempting to threaten and extort then-ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Cohen reportedly appealed to her personally on several occasions between 2017 and 2020, delivering threatening messages meant to dissuade her from investigating Israel. According to the report, Cohen repeatedly exerted pressure on Bensouda to desist from her investigation. “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family,” he is alleged to have told her. On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown her photos of her husband, Philip, taken covertly when the couple was visiting London. The report claims that Israel used voice recordings of her husband conducting embarrassing conversations. The results of the investigation are jaw-dropping. The investigation claims that for years, including in recent months, Israel spied on Bensouda’s successor at the ICC, Karim Khan, who 10 days ago requested arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Israel under Netanyahu has gone off the rails. It forgot what it means to be a state. This was well described by former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo in an interview with Yossi Melman. “If such a thing happened, we are not only cutting off the branch on which we sit, but the entire tree trunk,” Pardo said. There is no front that has not been neglected and abandoned, no system that has not been corrupted under Netanyahu’s malignant leadership. Israel is now at risk of being accused of disrupting an international investigation. Anyone who believes that Cohen is a worthy candidate to replace Netanyahu is condemning Israel to a continued deterioration to the world’s margins. Israel is clamoring for political change and for the beginning of a prolonged and thorough rehabilitation process. It must first get rid of the head, Netanyahu, and then toss out his crooked moral standards. The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞

—Nasir Khan The idea of a one-state solution looks attractive on paper, but there are many serious issues we need to consider if the Israel-Palestine conflict is to end. Some prominent writers and political figures have advocated this solution. This is an idea I have also supported, but with some reservations. Israel was founded on a supremacist ideology, the ideology of Zionism. This ideology has ruled every part of the colonial entity since 1949. As long as that ideology is the foundation of this entity, any question of a one-state is not possible. However, if the ruling class of Israel and the United States turn away from this supra-racist ideology, then the idea of a one-state solution may be possible. Without this change, a one-state solution will remain an idle dream.

Israeli Minister Smotrich Threatens to Turn Occupied West Bank Into Ruins ‘Like in the Gaza Strip’

Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli finance minister One advocate responded: “Take this seriously. If extremists like Smotrich get their way they will do to the West Bank exactly what they have done to Gaza.” Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, May 30, 2024 Israel’s forces have killed at least 36,224 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in less than eight months, and far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday threatened to similarly attack the illegally occupied West Bank. Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, shared on social media a video he recorded in Bat Hefer, following similar posts a day earlier. The Times of Israelreported that the minister’s comments came after Palestinians’ gunfire from Tulkarem in the West Bank toward the Israeli settlement. “Our message to the neighbors beyond the fence in Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Shuweika, and Qalqilya: We will turn you into ruined cities like in the Gaza Strip if the terror you are exerting on the settlements continues,” Smotrich said in Hebrew, according to a translation from Al Jazeera. NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy pointed out that not only is Smotrich an advocate of illegal Israeli settlements—he has a home near Kedumim—but also “his role as finance minister means he oversees budgets, like police and army.” Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns of the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said of Smotrich’s remarks: “Take this seriously. If extremists like Smotrich get their way they will do to the West Bank exactly what they have done to Gaza. Starting with the refugee camps and Area C communities (to a certain extent it has already begun).” Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank. Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States, issued a statement about multiple recent events, including the minister’s comments. “Every day, we see Israel’s far-right government targeting civilian infrastructure vital to the lives of ordinary Palestinians, whether in Gaza or the West Bank,” Hooper said. “This ongoing destruction has one goal—to make life unbearable for the Palestinian people and to force their removal from the land of Palestine.” CAIR also “condemned the far-right Israeli government’s destruction of a vegetable market in the West Bank city of Ramallah,” explaining: “During a raid, Israeli stun grenades and tear gas canisters ignited the blaze that consumed a large portion of the market. Some 200 shops and stalls were impacted.” The group further pointed out that the devastation in Ramallah followed Israeli forces bombing a pair of encampments in and near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, attacks that killed dozens of Palestinians displaced by the war—which over 30 countries have argued to the International Court of Justice amounts to genocide. Smotrich has come under fire for other statements since Israel launched its retaliation for the October 7 attack. Just last month, in what critics called blatantly genocidal language, he advocated for “total annihilation” of Gaza. In January, Smotrich said that the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza would be a “humanitarian solution” and “a small country like ours cannot afford a reality where, four minutes away from our settlements, there is a hotbed of hatred and terror, where there are 2 million people who wake up every morning with the desire to destroy the state of Israel.” Smotrich made similar remarks before the current escalation, declaring in March 2023 that an entire Palestinian town should be “wiped out” by Israel and that “there’s no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

The ICC Takes on Israel and the US Congressional Mafia

by Medea Benjamin Posted on May 30, 2024 Senator Lindsay Graham was bursting with contempt for the International Criminal Court (ICC) when he grilled Secretary of State Blinken at a May 21 Congressional hearing. Wagging his finger, he warned that, if the ICC gets away with issuing arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, “we are next.” The audience at the hearing, stacked with CODEPINK pro-Palestine supporters, burst out in applause at the notion of the US being hauled before the world’s highest court. “You can clap all you want,” an angry Graham retorted, “but they tried to come after our soldiers in Afghanistan.” Graham was thankful that in the Afghan case “reason prevailed” when the case was dropped, adding that the US must level sanctions against the ICC “not only to protect our friends in Israel but to protect ourselves.” Graham was referring to the 2019 efforts of former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to hold both the Taliban and the US accountable for war crimes in Afghanistan. When Graham said that “reason prevailed,” he really meant that US thuggery prevailed because the Trump administration brazenly imposed sanctions against ICC officials, denying them visas to the US and freezing their assets in US banks. President Biden lifted the sanctions but did so with the tacit understanding that the court would not resume the probe of US crimes in Afghanistan. The message from both Democratic and Republican presidents was clear: Do not dare hold the US to the same standards you use for others. The International Criminal Court was founded in 1998 as the result of a lifetime’s work by an American (and Jewish) international lawyer, Benjamin Ferencz, rooted in his experience as an investigator and chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg tribunals after the Second World War. Ben passed away in 2023 at the age of 103, but the universal jurisdiction that the court is exercising in this case is the fruition of his life’s work to hold war criminals accountable under international law, no matter what country they are from or who their victims are. Enter Israel. The ICC has been building a case against Israel for nearly a decade. A recent blockbuster investigation by the Guardian and two Israeli-based news outlets revealed a shocking almost decade-long secret campaign against the court by Israeli intelligence agencies, who surveilled, hacked, pressured, smeared and threatened ICC officials in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries. Despite the pressure, on May 20, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan made his request for Israeli and Hamas arrest warrants. Among the charges against the Israeli officials are extermination, using starvation as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering, and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population. Prosecutor Karim Khan’s request has now gone to a panel of three judges who will determine in the coming weeks whether the request is granted. But pro-Israel forces in the US are trying their best to throw sand in the wheels of justice with threats of new sanctions. One ultimatum already came from Senator Tom Cotton and 11 other Republican senators in a toxic April 24 letter. “Target Israel and we will target you,” the senators signaled to the ICC. “If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.” The letter concluded with a hair-raising: “You have been warned.” The Biden administration has responded to the ICC by flip flopping like a fish on dry land. On May 20, the White House put out a statement calling the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders “outrageous”, adding “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called the request “shameful.” At a hearing on May 22, he told Senator Graham that he welcomed working with him on efforts to sanction the ICC. But on May 28, National Security Council Communications Advisor John Kirby said at a White House press briefing, “We don’t believe that sanctions against the ICC is the right approach here.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who spoke after Kirby, reiterated that message. She said that legislation against the ICC “is not something the administration is going to support” and that “sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address U.S. concerns.” This new position from the White House will make it easier for more Democrats to say no to the bills that will be introduced as soon as Congress returns from recess on June 3. Already, dueling statements are coming out from Congressional members. While Senate Majority Leader Schumer called the ICC appeal “reprehensible” and Democrat Joe Manchin joined with Republicans to call for visa bans for ICC officials and sanctions on the international body, Senator Bernie Sanders defended the court, saying, “The ICC is doing its job. It’s doing what it is supposed to do. We cannot only apply international law when it is convenient.” On the House side, progressives voiced support for the ICC. Rep. Cori Bush said, “Seeking arrest warrants for human rights abuses is an important step towards accountability. It’s shameful for U.S. officials to threaten the ICC while continuing to send weapons that enable war crimes.” Rep. Mark Pocan gave a gutsy response, saying, “If Netanyahu comes to address Congress, I would be more than glad to show the ICC the way to the House floor to issue that warrant.” While most Republicans and pro-Israel hawks in the Democratic Party will likely join hands to hammer the international court, President Biden may ultimately feel pressured to adopt the position best articulated by Senator Van Hollen. “It is fine to express opposition to a possible judicial action, but it is absolutely wrong to interfere in a judicial matter by threatening judicial officers, their family members and their employees with retribution. This thuggery is something befitting the mafia, not U.S. senators.” It is also not befitting the White House, especially one that has been such a willing partner to Israel’s war crimes. Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK, is coauthor, with David Swanson, of the forthcoming NATO: What You Need to Know.

Israel massacres dozens in strikes on Rafah refugee camp

Jordan Shilton, WSWS, May 28, 2024 The Israeli regime’s deliberate massacre of at least 45 displaced people in a tent camp in Rafah marks yet another act of barbarism in its genocide against the Palestinians. Dozens of men, women and children, who had already fled multiple times in the past seven months, were massacred and maimed in a firestorm of American-supplied missiles fired by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Palestinians react next to the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024. [AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi] Sunday’s bombardment was a direct response by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascistic government to Friday’s order from the International Court of Justice calling for an end to Israel’s military intervention in Rafah. The Zionist regime wanted to make clear that it will not be bound by any restrictions imposed by international law. It feels able to act so provocatively because it has full confidence in the unflinching support of the imperialist powers, first and foremost the United States, for its “final solution” of the Palestinian question. The strike was carried out “with precise ammunition and on the basis of precise intelligence,” the IDF asserted. Its statement blandly noted that the military was aware that “several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review.” The most commonly used “precise ammunition” fired by the IDF at Gaza are weapons fitted with US-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits, which transform standard weapons into GPS-guided munitions. US aerospace company Boeing accelerated the dispatch of at least 1,800 such kits to Israel in October 2023, as the Netanyahu regime’s genocide got underway. Since then, they have played a major role in slaughtering well over 36,000 Palestinians, the current official death toll. The Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood of western Rafah, where the camp was located, was supposedly a “safe zone” for Palestinian civilians. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, many victims were “burned alive” in their tents. An estimated 249 people were injured the strike, which eyewitnesses told CNN included at least eight missiles. One survivor, who made it to the Kuwait hospital, stated, “The air strikes burned the tents, the tents are melting, and the people’s bodies are melting.” With Gaza’s healthcare system collapsing after months of repeated attacks by the Israeli regime, many of the injured will not survive. A doctor, who spoke to Al Jazeera after returning to Britain from an aid mission in Gaza, stated that hospitals in the enclave are providing “medieval medicine” to patients. “It is what you would hear about or read about what would be happening in Europe maybe 300, 400 years ago,” commented Dr. Khaled Dawas, the head of gastrointestinal surgery at University College London. He added that injured Palestinians often avoid going to hospital because it “means pretty much a death sentence.” One day after the massacre, the director of the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, where many of the injured were treated, announced the closure of the facility due to Israeli attacks. Earlier in the day, two healthcare workers were reportedly killed in a strike on the facility’s gates. The al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah was also set to suspend all services due to a lack of fuel triggered by an IDF blockade that was initiated on the same day as the refugee camp massacre. This latest atrocity has the Biden administration’s fingerprints all over it. The IDF’s onslaught on Rafah has proceeded over the past three weeks after the White House gave it the green light. Just two weeks before Israel attacked Rafah, Biden signed a supplementary military assistance bill passed with bipartisan support that included $26 billion in funding for Israel. Biden has asserted that Israel is doing “all it can to ensure civilian protection,” while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan insisted that the IDF’s assault has “not involved major military operations into the heart of dense urban areas.” This line has been maintained even as over 800,000 people have fled the city. Likewise, administration officials continue to claim that killing civilians in Rafah is a “red line,” even as the IDF does this every day with impunity. The Biden administration’s lying claims that no “major” operations are taking place in Rafah and that it opposes killing civilians are no more credible than Netanyahu’s attempt to present the bombing of the refugee camp in comments Monday as a “tragic mistake.” The fact of the matter is that as horrific as Sunday’s massacre was, it is part of a pattern of the systematic targeting of defenceless civilians by the IDF. From the bombardment of the al-Ahli hospital killing upwards of 500 people, to the storming of the al-Shifa hospital, and the destruction of Khan Younis, millions of workers and young people know all too well the brutality of Netanyahu’s regime and what it is capable of with imperialist backing. The imperialist governments in the United States and Germany, Israel’s two most important weapons’ suppliers, reiterated their backing for the Zionist regime after Sunday’s massacre. Adopting the Israeli government’s propaganda wholesale, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, “Israel has a right to go after Hamas, and we all understand this strike killed two senior Hamas terrorists, who are responsible for attacks on Israeli civilians.” German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit labelled the strike as a “mistake,” echoing Netanyahu. Hebestreit also noted that the Israeli military had launched an investigation to determine what happened, adding, according to Der Spiegel, “First of all investigate what happened and then judge. And don’t come to an immediate judgement on the basis of pictures.” In other words, let the murderers investigate the crime scene and cover up any evidence that implicates them before we say anything about it. No “investigation” is needed to determine what the motivation for Sunday’s massacre was. Israeli government and military officials have repeatedly asserted since the genocide began that their plan is to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians, by killing them, starving them to death, or forcing them to flee the enclave, so that Israel can seize the territory. Gaza’s inhabitants are viewed by the Zionist regime as “human animals,” as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant put it in October. Fascist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who recently declared that he would like to live in Gaza, celebrated Sunday’s slaughter with a post on social media urging an intensification of the attacks: “Rafah with full force.” The imperialist powers support this barbarism because they view the Gaza genocide as a critical component of their plans to redivide the world in a rapidly escalating Third World War. The same indifference to the savage massacring of human beings in Gaza by the IDF with its never-ending supply of US-manufactured bombs is on display in Ukraine, where the US and its NATO allies have sacrificed some 500,000 Ukrainians in a war for imperialist plunder. It was not for nothing that US Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson remarked in his denunciation of the application of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant last week, “If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israeli leaders, ours could be next.” The key lesson that must be drawn following the Rafah refugee camp massacre is that appeals to the powers that be, whether to imperialist governments, the United Nations, or international courts, to “stop the genocide” will fall on deaf ears. The millions of workers, students and young people who have joined anti-genocide protests and encampments over recent months around the world must turn to the international working class, the only social force capable of leading a genuine struggle to halt the genocide against the Palestinians. The mass political mobilisation of the working class, which produces all of society’s wealth, is the only way to stop the Israeli war criminals and their imperialist accomplices in their tracks. As workers are told in every country to accept sweeping attacks on conditions and public services to pay for militarism, war and genocide, a powerful basis exists to rally workers in struggle to stop the production and delivery of all conceivable military equipment to Israel and its allied imperialist war machines in North America and Europe. It is the fight to build such a movement which requires arming the working class with a socialist programme to defeat capitalist barbarism, that is the most urgent task of all for those who want to bring the genocide in Gaza to an end.

With de facto endorsement from Biden, Israel broadens Rafah onslaught

Andre Damon, WSWS, May 24, 2024 Israel’s attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, has now displaced nearly 1 million people and massively intensified famine throughout the entire territory. This assault is taking place with the effective endorsement of the Biden administration, despite Biden’s earlier public declarations that a full-scale attack on Rafah would be a “red line” for the White House. On Tuesday, an unnamed senior Biden administration official told reporters, “It’s fair to say that the Israelis have updated their plans. They’ve incorporated many of the concerns that we have expressed,” giving the administration’s stamp of approval for the widening attack on the city. On Thursday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Israel had not carried out “major maneuvers into dense urban areas.” He added, “What we have seen so far has not been that.” This is an absurd falsehood. Israel has been bombing Rafah non-stop and is pushing armored columns deep into the city, leading to the total suspension of humanitarian operations amid widespread hunger and starvation. As a result of the offensive, only 150 trucks of food have entered Gaza since May 6. “We’re going back to levels of aid that we were getting in October when the war first started,” said Sam Rose, planning director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. On Monday Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a meeting that Israel intends to broaden its offensive into the city. “We are committed to broadening the ground operation in Rafah to the end of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages,” Gallant said. Sullivan posed for a photo shaking the hand of black-shirted Gallant on the day that the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) lead prosecutor brought charges against him. In a column published the same day, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said that US and Israeli officials had reached an agreement over the plans to attack Rafah. Ignatius wrote, “Israeli leaders have reached a consensus about a final assault on Hamas’s four remaining battalions in Rafah,” in a move that “Biden won’t oppose.” The Times of Israel wrote, “the Biden administration appeared to signal its initial approval of the operation launched by Israel early Tuesday morning to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.” It added, “Spokespeople for the administration said the goals of the operation were legitimate.” In response to the ICC’s charges against Netanyahu, the Biden administration has effectively dropped its earlier token criticisms of the Israeli government, with Biden declaring Tuesday, “It is clear that Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection. Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what’s happening is not genocide,” Biden said. The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate amid ongoing mass starvation imposed by the Israeli blockade. In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council Tuesday, Edem Wosornu, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, called the situation “hell on earth.” “To be frank, we are running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza. We have described it as a catastrophe, a nightmare, as hell on earth. It is all of these and worse,” Wosornu said. She added, “And living conditions continue to deteriorate as a result of heavy fighting, particularly in Jabalya and eastern Rafah, as well as Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea.” She noted that more than 35,000 people have been killed and another 79,000 injured, with 17,000 children unaccompanied or separated from their families. She declared, “Since October 2023, 75 percent of the population in Gaza—1.7 million people—has been forcibly displaced within Gaza, many of them up to four or five times, including as a result of repeated IDF-issued evacuation instructions.” In a statement, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said it was running out of food in central Gaza. “Humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse,” said WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa, adding that unless food is provided “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread,” she said. On Tuesday, Israeli troops launched raids into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, attacking a local hospital and killing a doctor, a teacher and a ninth grade student. “Undercover forces raided the area suddenly, and they were firing at any moving body in the street,” said ambulance driver Hazim Masarwa to Al Jazeera. “They were targeting anything moving.” In a statement, the UN Human Rights Office in Palestine said, “We are horrified by the deadly Israeli Forces operation in Jenin: 7 Palestinians killed, including two children, one on his way to school, a school teacher, and a doctor. This senseless bloodshed must stop, and those responsible must be held accountable.”

House GOP [Republican Party] Bill Would Give Benefits To Americans in the Israeli Military

The legislation would grant IDF soldiers the same protections as US military personnel while they’re on active duty by Dave DeCamp May, Antiwar. com, 21, 2024 A bill introduced in the House by Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and Max Miller (R-OH) would extend certain benefits for Americans serving in the US military to American citizens in the Israeli military. The legislation, introduced on May 17, would give Americans in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). The SCRA protects US service members from civil legal action while they’re on active duty and for up to a year after. The USERRA protects the civilian employment of active and reserve military personnel when they’re called to active duty. “Over 20,000 American citizens are currently defending Israel from Hamas terrorists, risking their lives for the betterment of our ally,” Reschenthaler said in a statement on the legislation. The Washington Post reported in February that an estimated 23,380 American citizens are serving in the Israeli military. Many are dual citizens who were already living in Israel, but as of November 2023, about 10,000 people living in the US had traveled to Israel to report for duty with the IDF after receiving draft notices. According to Responsible Statecraft, 21 American citizens serving in the IDF have been killed in Gaza, and one was killed in northern Israel near the Lebanon border. Reschenthaler said his legislation will “ensure we do everything possible to support these heroes who are standing with Israel, fighting for freedom, and combating terrorism in the Middle East.” It’s unclear what the chances are for Reschenthaler’s bill to pass Congress and become law, but there is strong support for the Israeli military among House Republicans. For example, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) is an IDF veteran who recently wore his Israeli uniform on Capitol Hill, and he did not receive any backlash from his colleagues for showing up to work in the House wearing the uniform of a foreign military. Republicans have introduced a slew of pro-Israel legislation over the past few months to show staunch support for the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, including bills to impose harsh punishments on college protesters. One bill introduced by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) would send protesters to Gaza.