Today in deeply not at all fun Trump facts; did you know the Swine Emperor has currently deployed more troops to LA than the US military officially maintains in Syria and Iraq, combined? No, seriously:

truthout.org/articles/trump-ha…

Trump Has Deployed More Troops in LA Than Syria and Iraq, Per US Counts

"President Donald Trump’s latest deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles means that there are now more troops carrying out Trump’s anti-protest crackdown in southern California than in both Iraq and Syria, regions where the U.S. has executed some of its most intense and inhumane military campaigns in recent decades, according to official counts.

Trump has dispatched roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to respond to L.A.’s protests of his immigration raids, for a total of roughly 4,700 troops. Meanwhile, according to publicly reported Pentagon figures, the U.S. has roughly 2,000 troops deployed in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq, for a total of 4,500."

As the article goes on to note, a Pentagon still operating under War on Terror logic while occupying Iraq and purportedly fighting terrorism in Syria, may well be undercounting the troop levels in those two countries; they've certainly done so in the past.

Regardless, if we consider the *official* deployment of military personnel to be a de facto statement of the regime's policing priorities, that still means the Trumpenreich is arguing that unarmed domestic protesters inside very small pockets of the Los Angeles area are a greater threat than militarized terrorist militias in two countries US intervention has helped transform into semi-perpetual warzones. Please keep in mind that the LA protests are happening on livestream, and there are hundreds of eye witness accounts in the public discourse from Angelinos saying there is no widespread disorder for the troops to quell. There is not a man, woman, nor child in America who can't verify for themselves that Trump is lying about a “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” going on in Los Angeles, if they want to.

All of which of course leads us directly back to our ongoing discussion about what the Trumpenreich is trying to use its militarized invasion of LA to sanctify in practice, if not in US Law. Trump wants the power to permanently occupy US cities, while engaging the military in both domestic policing and assisting the Gestapo in the regime's ethnonationalist mass deportation project; including apparently providing detention facilities for caged migrants. Furthermore, as Zhang ominously notes, there are clear signs the regime is exploring how to scale up what they're doing in LA, to a much more national project.

"According to a report by ABC News, the Pentagon is considering a plan crafted by the Department of Homeland Security to deploy more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops to aid with Trump’s immigration raids.

This would cost $3.6 billion over the course of a year, and would represent roughly half of the number of troops deployed across the entirety of the Middle East. It would also be an escalation of the Trump administration’s use of the U.S.’s colossal military capacity to attack and subdue the American public."

Folks, I'm just going to be real with you; you don't martial up 20,000+ troops from all across the country in advance because ICE is going to raid a bunch of cities one by one to hunt down brown people Stephen Miller's shriveled conscience cannot abide existing in his county. We're definitely going to talk more about the ABC report the author mentions at a later point in time, but what you're looking at here is the opening steps the regime would need to take if they intended to militarily occupy the parts of the United States that didn't vote for Trump without meeting organized, violent resistance.

Like a lot of the fascist bullshit the Klepto Kaiser is doing right now, it's hard to tell if he's going to go "all the way." At some point however, the idea that Donald Trump is just accidentally stumbling in to all the steps he would need to enshrine a militarized fascist dictatorship under a perpetual state of quasi-martial law, strains credulity. If Trump gets away with transforming protests into an insurrection and soldiers into policemen in LA, you should bet on the idea that the nazis will soon be coming for a town near you in that very same way.

#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #Imperialism #WarOnTerror #USPol #LosAngeles #Protests #MENA #Syria #Iraq #PoliceState

Trump Has Deployed More Troops in LA Than Syria and Iraq, Per US Counts

The figures are a show of the administration’s willingness to use extreme military force on its own population.

^{Sharon Zhang (Truthout)}

I'm just going to admit that no matter how low my opinion of the IOF and the genocidal Netanyahu government is, I did not have Israeli troops firing "warning shots" at an international delegation of foreign diplomats from 24 countries, including the UK, Canada, and France who have all recently criticized Israel's ongoing and accelerating US-backed genocide in Gaza, on my bingo card.

commondreams.org/news/israel-s…

Outrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank

"Palestinian officials were briefing a group of more than 20 diplomats about the crisis in the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians including hundreds of children since October 2023 while pushing ahead with massive land theft and colonization—when they came under fire.

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the delegation "deviated" from the route approved by Israeli occupation authorities "and entered an area where they were not authorized to be," prompting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to fire "warning shots to distance them away."

"The IDF regrets the inconvenience caused," the ministry added.

Israeli media reported IDF troops fired shots in the air. However, video footage of the incident appears to show soldiers aiming their guns and firing straight ahead in the direction of the diplomats as they scrambled for cover. Israeli officials have often been caught lying about the actions of IDF troops in Palestine.

The delegation included diplomats from the European Union and countries including Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Kingdom."

It's time to grab your asses folks because the ride is about to get bumpy. The pro-Israel, pro-genocide propaganda machine is already working overtime to minimize this incident, but let me assure you that shooting at diplomats is an act of war and that shit is on video. Furthermore, even if you accept the Israeli Foreign Ministry's lies about "warning shots," they're still openly threatening the representatives of sovereign, even allied nations, for getting too close to evidence of their crimes and talking to refugees displaced by violent Israeli oppression. This is obviously an act of retaliation designed to intimidate foreign governments that are increasing pressure on Israel to end its genocidal campaign in Gaza and more broadly human rights abuses against Palestinians living under Israeli occupation; particularly the three G7 governments that formally condemned Israel's engineered famine in Gaza on Monday.

Look, I don't blame folks for being skeptical of the idea that Pig Empire politicians that have actively enabled Israel's genocidal war of extermination in Gaza for 19 months, actually care about Palestinian lives. They don't; but public opinion across pretty much all of the Western world has now swung so hard against "starving babies to death" that the very same governments that enabled this nightmare are trying to distance themselves from the slaughter they've helped create. Time is running out for team genocide and I realize that the Netanyahu government is jam-packed to the gills with emboldened, bloodthirsty racists, but this is an unprecedented act of global aggression that is going to live in infamy right alongside the genocide Israel is conducting against Palestinians in Gaza, and the multiple US governments who've made all this carnage and murder possible. Zionists have lost their fucking minds if they think they can bully the whole world at once; the tide *is* turning against Israel and Netanyahu, which is why they're trying to wipe out all the Palestinians in Gaza as fast as possible, before anyone works up the courage to actually try and stop them.

All of which might cause you to ask where exactly the US stands on all of this? Well, as it turns out US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was only a few miles away, speaking to the media from Tel Aviv in Israel proper. Was Huckabee on hand to pressure Israel to stop slaughtering innocent Palestinian civilians, or starving Palestinian babies to death in Gaza? Absolutely not. The former US Senator was there to express his outrage at Canada, Britain, and France for condemning Israel, even as the settler colonial nation is murdering hundreds of Palestinians via airstrike, and starving women and children to death in Gaza.

npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1-54049…

So, let me just sum up here: the entire planet has turned against Israel's genocide forcing even Pig Empire governments to say something, the IDF is firing "warning shots" at foreign diplomats, and our ambassador to the region thinks *Palestinians* are like the Nazis from WWII? We're ruled by monsters who clearly think we're all stupid.

#Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Palestinians #MikeHuckabee #WarCrimes #Imperialism #Colonialism

Outrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank

Among those shot at were representatives of three nations that threatened "concrete actions" if Israel doesn't end its assault and siege on Gaza and others that support a genocide case against the country.

^{brett-wilkins (Common Dreams)}

Well, I guess members of the Isareli government have repeated their intentions to permanently occupy and ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians enough times that even American corporate media has to care; the Guardian however is doing a much better job of honestly acknowledging what Israel's latest plan for Gaza ultimately means.

On the heels of the Netanyahu government's plan to displace the population of Gaza and consolidate territorial control over the occupied region, Finance Minister Smotrich said the quiet part out loud - Gaza will be completely destroyed, and Palestinians will (be forced to, presumably) "leave in great numbers for other countries" - essentially as refugees from a genocide the colonizer world refuses to acknowledge; but we can't expect Smotrich to admit that part too.

Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich

theguardian.com/world/2025/may…

Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says

"An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory.

The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.

The Israeli threats to seize control of the territory permanently has stirred global outrage.

“We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s operations,” the UK’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said. “Any attempt to annex land in Gaza would be unacceptable.”

The disturbing part here is that Smotrich's horrifying, genocidal statement is really only "news" because Pig Empire media is objectively pro-genocide and has caught a case of intentional amnesia about Israel's now-nineteen month long campaign to wipe out the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israeli ministers have been talking about emptying Gaza of Palestinians for months, the goddamn President of the United States has openly mused about turning the entire area into beachfront condos built by American companies, and as we speak Israel is actively engineering a famine in Gaza by blockading food and medical supplies into the occupied region.

Ethnic cleansing is just a more polite term for genocide, and even if you're too ignorant to understand that, International Courts have already ruled that Israel is plausibly committing a genocide in Gaza, and warrants have been issued for the arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Taken as a whole, the actions and statements of the Israeli government, both before and after it broke the ceasefire, have always indicated that their plan was to permanently occupy and "ethnically cleanse" Gaza; it is only through willfully complicit ignorance that clearly pro-genocide mainstream media outlets have refused to properly contextualize news from Gaza through the lens of Israel's obvious and openly articulated intentions to complete the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

Unfortunately for the cowards, collaborators, and profiteers in our mainstream establishment however, the combination of Israel's announced Operation Gideon’s Chariots offensive, and Smotrich's crude, gleeful bluntness, have made it more or less impossible to pretend we don't know what the Netanyahu government is doing; even if that same mainstream establishment is still struggling to admit there can't be any good reasons to conduct "ethnic cleansing" regardless of their political alliances and personal racisms.

#Facism #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #EthnicCleansing #Palestinians #Smotrich #ICC #ICJ #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #Media #Collaboration #MassMurder #EngineeredFamine #WarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity

Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says

Bezalel Smotrich says Palestinians will ‘leave in great numbers to third countries’, raising fears of ethnic cleansing

^{Jason Burke (The Guardian)}

Speaking before the International Court of Justice, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands articulated what everyone who isn't openly lying to obscure a genocide already knows; Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war and its blockade of Gaza is an international crime.

commondreams.org/news/icj-hear…

Palestinian Envoy to ICJ: Israel Using Starvation as 'Weapon of War' in 'Genocidal Campaign'

"The siege has created conditions that are "incompatible with sustaining life or the continued existence of Palestinians in Gaza," Hijazi said.

The ambassador noted that the ICJ hearing was taking place to consider whether Israel is violating international law.

"It is not about the number of aid trucks Israel is or is not allowing into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially Gaza," said Hijazi. "It is about Israel destroying the fundamentals of life in Palestine while it blocks U.N. and other humanitarians from providing lifesaving aid to the population. It is about Israel unraveling fundamental principles of international law, including their obligations under the U.N. Charter."

"Starvation is here," Hijazi added. "Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war."

My friends, I honestly don't know what more I can say here when the facts speak for themselves. Israel has totally blockaded Gaza, they're bombing the shit out of the people inside, and the military isn't allowing enough food, or seemingly any medical supplies or other lifesaving humanitarian aid through to the Palestinian people its bombing. As this clearly genocidal shit is going on, a US media is largely ignoring the crisis while apparently hoping all the Palestinians will be dead before their audience notices we're helping Israel exterminate or ethnically cleanse an entire people in Gaza.

And all the while a Pig Empire establishment continues to manufacture consent for the slaughter by pretending the Netanyahu government's motives are unknowable in the fog of war, despite the fact that cabinet ministers keep blurting out their intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza and we're watching what can only be an attempted genocide unfold on Tik Tok videos day, after horrifying day. History is going to be written about the cowardice, complicity, and depraved indifference to human life on display in the Pig Empire establishment here; the only question is will we as Americans survive our own fascist chickens coming home to roost long enough to help write it.

#Fascism #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #ICJ #Imperialism #Famine #SettlerColonialism #WarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Starvation #AmmarHijazi #Blockade #Netanyahu #Palestine #Palestinians #WhiteSupremacy

Palestinian Envoy to ICJ: Israel Using Starvation as 'Weapon of War' in 'Genocidal Campaign'

"Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives," said Palestinian envoy Ammar Hijazi.

^{julia-conley (Common Dreams)}

After seven weeks of bombing and a genocidal blockade of all humanitarian and food aid going into Gaza, the UN's World Food Program is now announcing that it has run out of food inside the strip; which will further exacerbate a humanitarian crisis engineered by the government off Israel as part of the genocide it's conducting against Palestinians in the enclave.

commondreams.org/news/gaza-foo…

UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade

"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."

Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."

While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."

The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."

I need to stress here that this isn't an activist organization, or political representatives from Gaza talking here; this is a UN program that feeds refugees, the exploited, and folks in crisis situations. There is absolutely no reason to believe they're exaggerating the situation, which in turn means we're watching Israel commit a crime against humanity in real time. If this were anyone other than a US client state in the MENA, the entire American establishment would be able to see that there is no reason to continuously bomb Gaza while enforcing a nearly two month long blockade on food, supplies, and humanitarian aid, unless you're actively trying to kill innocent people. Which of course Israel is; they're committing a genocide, the Trump administration is happily paying for it, and a bipartisan US establishment awash in PAC and donor money, is quietly ignoring that genocide for political, financial, and ideological reasons.

#Israel #Genocide #Gaza #Palestinians #Blockadge #UN #WorldFoodProgram #Starvation #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Fascism #Trump #Media #Blackout #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism

UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade

"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.

^{jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)}

I think folks who argue with me when I point out that stories which don't align with the interests of the investor class of rich people who own media companies are suppressed in corporate media, somehow forget that I simply consume so much "news" that I can literally feel a shift in coverage. Which is why this short blog by media critic Adam Johnson, which mathematically confirms, more or less, everything I've been saying about how Gaza has been driven from the mainstream discourse even as Israel's genocide ramps back up and US public opinion shifts against our client state, did not surprise me at all.

columnblog.com/p/as-trump-and-…

As Trump and Israel Escalate Genocide in Gaza, Popular Media Continues to Ignore It

"Nowhere is the absence of urgency any more glaring than the total erasure of Gaza from the “agenda setting” Sunday morning news shows that both reflect and curate Washington political priorities for the week. In the 5 episodes each for the four Sunday News Shows—ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union—for the weeks of March 23, March 30, April 6, April 13 and April 20, Israeli’s assault on Gaza, and the Trump administration’s full-throated support for it, has not been discussed or mentioned once. That’s 880 minutes of “agenda setting” debate, discussing, and reporting that did not see fit to mention the US support for what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both call an ongoing genocide."

So, just let that set in for a minute. In the time frame listed, Israel has committed a confirmed war crime by murdering 15 medics in cold blood, bombed the last functioning hospital in Gaza, instituted a total blockade on aid designed to starve Gazans to death, and its ministers have on multiple occasions bragged about Trump's support being instrumental for their plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians; and those are just the stories *I* covered but the vaunted "Sunday Shows" couldn't spare a minute for. An ongoing genocide in Gaza being aided an abetted by the US President who is also black bagging anti-genocide protestors in American cities and citing foreign policy concerns to justify it, simply did not come up.

If you're wondering why the "Sunday Shows" matter, it's because while very few people reading this watch them, pretty much everyone with power and influence in American politics does. With that having been noted however, it really doesn't matter because Gaza was barely covered in the mainstream nightly news either.

"Despite Israel killing almost 2,000 Palestinians since they broke the ceasefire on March 18, the subject of Gaza has barely registered a blip in the nightly news coverage as well. In the 78 episodes the three major network nightly news shows have aired, there’s only been two segments about Gaza: one 4 minute 17 second segment I noted in The Real News from March 26 on CBS Evening News, and another 1 minute and 44 second segment about the IDF killing 15 medics that aired on ABC’s World News This Week on April 3. In over 1,500 minutes of evening news from the three major networks since March 19 only 6 minutes, or less 0.4 percent, has been reporting on Gaza. NBC Nightly News has not covered the suffering in Gaza at all since March 20, but it did take time out on April 13 to do a 1 minute 46 second profile on an Israeli captive still being held in Gaza."

Surely, the newspapers were better, right? Well, if we're talking about America's paper of record, the New York Times - I wouldn't get your hopes up folks:

"Since March 20, The New York Times has run a total of three front page stories about Gaza out of roughly 220 total front page stories (two on April 6/April 8 about the IDF killing of medics in Gaza and one April 3 about Israel “Initiating Tactics to Hold Gaza Territory”) By way of comparison the Times has run 12 front page stories about Ukraine. “For Ukraine’s Sick Children, a War Within the War,” read one sympathetic front page headline from March 26. “Attack Devastates Ukrainian City,” read another on April 14. Front page coverage of Gaza, when it does exist, does not lead with Palestinian suffering or humanity but instead Israeli denials or sterile coverage of IDF “tactics.”

And finally, while this is just personal analysis, Johnson also thinks the shift has taken us back to pre-2024 media conditions when it comes to the genocide in Gaza; specifically citing the bipartisan support for the US-backed genocide in the American political establishment as the factor that allows the media to simply ignore the situation.

I'm not gonna bother saying I told you so; but I did.

#Fascism #Gaza #Genocide #Media #Imperialism #Trump #Netanyahu #SettlerColonialism #Censorship #Israel #Palestine

As Trump and Israel Escalate Genocide in Gaza, Popular Media Continues to Ignore It

Under Biden, Gaza was excused, downplayed and natural disaster-rized. Under Trump it’s simply not a priority at all.

^{Adam Johnson (The Column)}

As an add on to the post above, if you don't think speaking out against Israel's genocide in Gaza and on behalf of the people being slaughtered there matters, then why is the Netanyahu government working so hard with multi-billion dollar social media companies like Meta to suppress pro-Palestinian speech online?

dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-data…

Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram

"A sweeping crackdown on posts on Instagram and Facebook that are critical of Israel—or even vaguely supportive of Palestinians—was directly orchestrated by the government of Israel, according to internal Meta data obtained by Drop Site News. The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023. Israel is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally by far, and Meta has followed suit—widening the net of posts it automatically removes, and creating what can be called the largest mass censorship operation in modern history.

Government requests for takedowns generally focus on posts made by citizens inside that government’s borders, Meta insiders said. What makes Israel’s campaign unique is its success in censoring speech in many countries outside of Israel. What’s more, Israel's censorship project will echo well into the future, insiders said, as the AI program Meta is currently training how to moderate content will base future decisions on the successful takedown of content critical of Israel’s genocide."

As I've noted elsewhere, it's very clear that the pro-genocide Pig Empire establishment used the sham ceasefire Trump supposedly brokered in Gaza as an excuse to reset the discourse and resume the genocide at pace. We've returned to a pre-2024 media environment of silence and minimization of crimes against humanity, particularly in America, and these folks are working overtime to keep you from talking about, and hopefully (for genocidal monsters) thinking about Gaza while Israel attempts to wipe out the Palestinians there before we wake up and realize what's going on.

The only way to fight this, is to keep talking about it, and resisting both the genocide and the US government's support for it. We've been here before and broke through the cone of silence; in fact that's the whole reason the ruling class establishment is trying to rewind the discourse around the genocide in Gaza to a pre-2024 state. We must not let them get away with it by contributing to that cone of silence.

#Fascism #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #Censorship #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Propaganda #Mark Zuckerberg #OnlineCensorship #Zionism #Netanyahu

Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram

^{Waqas Ahmed (Drop Site News)}

In writing about the Trump regime's fascist assault on foreign student anti-genocide protestors, a lot of what we talk about is the domestic social costs these authoritarian actions and a failure to oppose them produce. I don't mean to be callous, because injustice and repression against any part of the opposition to fascism, is injustice and repression that harms us all; to say nothing of the personal costs to the students targeted for having the audacity to think conducting an ongoing genocide in an open air concentration camp is morally wrong. If you want to know why the regime is pursuing these fascist, repressive policies however, and why the administration before them was happy to lay the groundwork that is today enabling Trump to target anti-genocide protests under the false banner of "fighting antisemitism," I must unfortunately conclude that the answer is "probably, because it's working."

How else can you explain political and military leaders in Israel all but admitting they intend to finish off the genocide they've been conducting against Palestinians in Gaza, without much notice in the American media environment, and amid a collapse in popular resistance to the genocide, even as polling indicates a strong shift in American sympathies away from Israel and its crimes against humanity in Gaza?

commondreams.org/news/israel-t…

'Only Hellfire': Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza

"Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.

"Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid."

I want to be clear, I'm not saying there's no active resistance to the genocide going on in America, only that the regime's fascist repression is contributing to a climate of fear that's suppression discussion about and resistance to Israel's crimes against humanity in the broader culture. And let's be fair here, the still quite bipartisan nature of support of *this* particular application of fascist terrorism in the American ruling establishment makes opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza perhaps one of the most dangerous acts of anti-fascism a person can undertake in this political moment. When Trump kidnaps a Maryland father and traffics him to a torture prison in El Salvador, the oppositional political and media apparatus in this country are quick to condemn him and demand action. When Trump starts black bagging student protest leaders and shipping them to nightmare jails in politically favorable court districts, that same establishment equivocates, says nothing at all, or sometimes outright supports that repression. Take for example former Biden antisemitism Envoy Deborah Lipstadt:

forward.com/news/712297/studen…

Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy

"I’m not opposed to the administration rescinding the student visas of some of the people that they’re rescinding the student visas of,” she said. “But I just think it should be done properly, according to the laws of the country.”

So uh, you got that? The fascism is fine, but god-damnit there are *rules* people! Please keep in mind that this woman is one of the foremost authorities in the world on The Holocaust, so we can presume she knows she's protecting fascists to support a genocide. I assume, but don't know, that she holds no special place in her heart for the Klepto Kaiser, so I can only surmise that she's just a hardcore Zionist and a big fan of bombing children and hospitals.

Look friends, I know that this is a really bad time to ask people to stick their necks out to oppose a genocide, but Israel just bombed literally the last hospital in Gaza and it barely made the evening news. The regime, and indeed much of the larger ruling class establishment that supports settler colonialism, and profits from the genocide by various means, wants to create an environment where speaking out against the genocide in Gaza and Israel's settler colonial massacres is just criminal and subversive enough to stop most of us from doing it. This will then allow them to easily pick off a much smaller number of people who are brave enough and otherwise able to resist the genocide directly. It is vital that we counteract that by keeping the genocide on our lips, and our outrage about crimes against humanity in the discourse; they can't arrest us all - and Gaza, is running out time.

#Fascism #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #Media #Trump #Palestine #ICE #CrimesAgainstHumanity #DHS #Propaganda #Protest

'Only Hellfire': Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza

"Israel's defense ministers can't stop publicly confessing to war crimes," said one U.S. journalist.

^{brett-wilkins (Common Dreams)}

At this point I'm starting to believe the primary purpose of the sham ceasefire in Gaza, broken by Israel to continue a US-backed genocide of Palestinian people, was to allow US corporate media to catch its breath and reset to a position of trying very hard to ignore blatant war crimes against clearly innocent Palestinians. A United Nations investigation has revealed that the IDF executed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including a UN employee, in March 23rd; then tried to bury the evidence, including crushed ambulances, to hide this crime against humanity. Details of the murders make it clear that this activity was deliberate, and yet the portions of the mainstream western media that remain firmly pro-genocide have hardly registered any sort of outcry or calls for action.

1) theguardian.com/world/2025/mar…

Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN

“Seven days ago, civil defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene,” the head of Ocha in Palestine, Jonathan Whittall, said in a video statement. “One by one, [the paramedics and civil defense workers] were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave.

“We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave,” Whittall said. “These ambulances have been buried in the sand. There’s a UN vehicle here, buried in the sand. A bulldozer – Israeli forces bulldozer – has buried them.”

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said that one of its employees was among the dead found in Rafah."

As an American, please let me once again remind you that none of these atrocities would be happening without US financial, material, and diplomatic support. We're subsidizing the Israeli government, we're shipping the IDF the bombs and weapons being used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza, and it is by US diplomatic force that Western support for Israel even as it commits a genocide, remains strong, if somewhat less overt than it was at the start of this genocide. Trump (and Biden before him) could end this inhuman slaughter today if he wanted to; he just doesn't want to because killing brown people and taking their resources (beachfront property and natural gas, in this case) is a important business activity for the entire Pig Empire.

In an environment where the media is actively cultivating a numb complicity, and western states are either ignoring the massacres, or as in the Trump regime's case, openly celebrating them, it behooves all of us in the so-called West to reject these attempts to rewind time and protect the genocide. In the months leading up to the ceasefire, Western political leaders and media were on the backfoot as independent media, folks with Tik Tok accounts, protestors, and even everyday people refused to accept the complicity of silence and demanded action. This "reset" must not be allowed to continue while Palestinians in Gaza are murdered with impunity and the complicity of the larger Pig Empire; as noted by Ahmed Moor writing in the Guardian - which is sadly where I have to get my mainstream news about a US-enabled and supported genocide the Trump administration is happily paying for, because US media outlets are still trying to pretend none of this is real:

2) theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Israel executes unarmed Red Crescent paramedics with the west’s blessing

"Nor will global leaders intervene to end the mass murder which has been punctuated by this latest obscenity. Some of them – such as Emmanuel Macron, who called for a ceasefire, might appear to want to end the slaughter. After all, dead babies in incubators and paramedics in a mass grave are unpleasant garlands to wear. But 18 months in, they are too deeply implicated. Who can forget Ursula von der Leyen’s embrace of Netanyahu? Or Keir Starmer’s affirmation of Israel’s “right” to starve Palestinians in Gaza?

Today, those who are tasked with upholding international law have been co-opted by the Israeli leadership, whether they like it or not. The logic of gangland drug dealers and criminals – new members commit crimes to join, and are locked in – prevails.

So far from being complicit, US and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in Gaza."

#Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Trump #CrimesAgainstHumanity #USA #WarCrimes #Netanyahu #IDF #Media #EthnicCleansing #UN #Imperialism #Netanyahu #UNRWA #SettlerColonialism #RedCrescent

Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN

Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian office

^{Lorenzo Tondo (The Guardian)}

To the surprise of precisely no one who isn't a credulous rube high on imperialism, settler colonialism, and weapons contractor bribes, Israel has started bombing children and houses again in Gaza. Naturally of course a Trump regime that wants to pave over Gaza and build luxury hotels and casinos for an obscenely wealthy, globetrotting ruling class if it can just find a way to get rid of all those pesky Palestinians, stands fully in support of resuming the US armed, funded, and politically protected genocide.

commondreams.org/news/israel-v…

Backed by Trump, Israel Shreds Cease-Fire Deal and Kills Over 400 Across Gaza

"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."

Speaking frankly, there are more detailed articles featuring a lot more atrocity porn available online, but I chose to highlight this short piece because the headline writer understood the importance of centering the Trump regime's full support for this monstrous, objectively illegal bullshit. The US government is supplying the bombs, funding the Netanyahu government, and actively praising Israel for resuming crimes against humanity; that makes the atrocities in Gaza Trump's genocide, the same as it made them Biden's genocide before him. None of this is lost on most media observers outside of the United States, but an American corporate media complex that has always supported the mass murder of Palestinians remains reluctant to center that knowledge, even if it hurts the fascist assclown currently calling their work "illegal" and threatening to come after them with the full force of the U.S. government.

Of course everyone in the media, American or international, is claiming to be "shocked" that Israel has willfully imploded the ceasefire, and telling you that you should be shocked too. Naturally however, that position too is a grotesque farce that ignores available evidence and reality itself. This may be the first large-scale bombing since Netanyahu agreed to pretend he cared about a cease-fire for a while, but Israel already resumed the genocide when it tightened the blockade of, and cut electricity to Gaza; a region that is more or less constantly in a state of humanitarian crisis because Israel has been conducting a war of extermination there and purposely starving the population inside for seventeen months and counting. Furthermore, all of this is pretty consistent with statements made by various high ranking officials in the Netanyahu government, who have openly flouted their intentions to break the cease fire and ethnically cleanse (by whatever means are necessary) the Palestinian people in Gaza. The fact that American corporate media rarely reports on these stated intentions, and is foundationally committed to credulously taking Netanyahu's word for it when he claims to be seeking peace while bombing hospitals and murdering babies, does not mean the larger US establishment is unware of these facts - just that they're hoping you are.

The fact is, Trump, his administration, and American arms manufacturers should be on trial for crimes against humanity as we speak, and the reality that he is not alone in that because committing genocide in Gaza is a largely bipartisan position in the American establishment does absolutely nothing to alter the situation.

#Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Fascism #SettlerColonialism #Israel #Netanyahu #Imperialism #EthnicCleansing #Media #CrimesAgainstHumanity

Backed by Trump, Israel Shreds Cease-Fire Deal and Kills Over 400 Across Gaza

"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 (Common Dreams)}