I'm not about to turn this account into US political drama posting full time, but I'd like to take a moment to talk about the Linsdey Graham tweet about the Gaza flotilla and anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg. If you haven't seen it, there's a screenshot in the Zeteo article below, but the short story is that Graham posted or quoted an image of Thunberg on the deck of a flotilla vessel, and wrote over top "hope Greta and her friends can swim."

Graham's behavior is of course disgusting and condemnable on its face. I want to talk about it today however because I think if you take the Senator from South Carolina's post in the proper context, it reveals quite a lot about where the US government, buttressed by a pro-genocide corporate media, stands in contrast to the rest of the world on the subject of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Lindsey Graham's Disgusting Tweet About Greta Thunberg Is 'Brain Rot' in Its Truest, Most Vulgar Sense

zeteo.com/p/lindsey-grahams-di…

"The warped logic, wildly insulting to the intelligence or basic morals of the Americans he serves, is one thing. As with their comical hypocrisy, the refrain about the modern Republican Party that “the cruelty is the point” is baked into US politics. But the extent to which these threads undergirding American conservatism are put into total overdrive when it comes to Israel is jarring to any observer.

Because, to be clear: Graham, a US senator, paid by our taxes, is apparently calling for a government that’s killed at least 54,000 (and likely, far more) Palestinians to bomb a boat carrying food to a starving population (or, if I’m being incredibly generous, he is just hoping the ship sinks). It’d be one thing if Graham was operating in the already-broken framework of the draconianism we’re used to: egging on the detaining of protesters and cheering for the bombing of Gaza under the auspices of “eliminating Hamas.”

Think how far we’ve come: pointing out Israel’s bombing of humanitarians was a “blood libel.” Now, it’s a punchline.

Here, we reach the endpoint of it all: a Republican, sealed off in his grotesque, hermetically-sealed bubble, finding it not only appropriate, but actively helpful in his (and his Israeli friends’) PR crusade to buoyantly rejoice at the idea of 12 volunteers – including a young college-aged person – being bombed, and left to tread in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea."

There's honestly so much going on here that you could write a whole book about this tweet, and the political moment in America that produced it. There are literal layers of grotesque inhumanity behind a US Senator cheerfully wishing death on a world famous activist and her friends for the high crime of trying to feed people we're helping to starve out of existence. Graham's callous, if not gleeful disregard for human life speaks to a modern, cultishly-devoted to Trump Republican Party whose broader motto might as well be "we're for killing and starving people" at this point; a sentiment their voters seem to embrace so long as the leopards aren't eating *their* faces.

If you know that the previous flotilla food aid attempt involving Thunberg was unable to reach Gaza after being struck by weaponized drones widely-believed to be Israeli in origin, then Graham's tweet reads like an open threat by a US Senator on behalf of a foreign government conducting a genocide we're paying for; which at almost any other point in American history would be earth-shaking news, but passes more or less for business as usual in the American pro-genocide reality bubble. This would be appalling under any circumstances, but for Graham to post this at the very same time the US government under Trump is pretending it is forcing Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while openly concentrating starving Palestinians into corrals for the IOF to shoot at, is next-level Third Reich-type shit; and the whole world knows it.

Which then brings us back to the larger point about Israel's genocide in Gaza, and failing international support for the Netanyahu regime and an IOF committing open war crimes and mass murder. At the precise time that the entire international order except the United States is running away from their prior support for Israel's genocidal actions because starving children to death on livestream is extremely unpopular, the United States is accelerating the body count and a US Senator is openly threatening a European peace activist on behalf of our openly eliminationist ally, for the high crime of attempting to feed starving people our govt would clearly prefer dead. The Trump regime and the broader pro-genocide establishment in America are out of step with the rest of the Pig Empire, and out of touch with reality; Israel isn't the only country flirting with pariah state status as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza continues to unfold.

#USPol #Gaza #Israel #UN #LindseyGraham #GazaFlotilla #GretaThunberg #Genocide #Starvation #WarCrimes #Palestinians #GOP #Trump

Lindsey Graham's Disgusting Tweet About Greta Thunberg Is 'Brain Rot' in Its Truest, Most Vulgar Sense

As the Zeteo contributor set sail on the Gaza aid flotilla, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: "Hope Greta and her friends can swim!"

^{Prem Thakker (Zeteo)}

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)}

I don't know if most people realize the overall quality of foreign policy reporting in American media is generally pretty horrible. Part of this is because structurally under capitalism for profit media tends to align with US imperial objectives at the expense of the truth, part of it is that reading audiences aren't diplomacy wonks so the complex details of international relationships have to be shoehorned into some form of narrative, and part of it is that most state level negotiations are conducted in secret so you can print pretty much any bullshit you want and call it "reading the tea leaves" because nobody is going to hold you to account for being wrong later. Which isn't to say it's impossible to do good foreign policy reporting, just that it usually involves interrogating primary sources who aren't going to want to talk to you if you're critical of their decisions and (often false) arguments. In a modern, eviscerated media age that places profit and cultural relevance much higher than journalistic accuracy in their hierarchy of priorities, pretty much every corporate media news outlet employs at least one name-brand foreign policy analyst who writes opinion columns based on vibes.

I mention this because over the past week I've read at least a dozen "front page" opinion pieces, primarily from "centrist" analysts, arguing that Trump's recent MENA mutual hand-job tour indicates that Downmarket Mussolini has "abandoned" Israel, or at least "put Benjamin Netanyahu on notice." Typically, the evidence to support this conclusion will revolve around Trump's cozy relationship with Qatar, sealed by an open bribe in the form of a $400M dollar luxury jet, and the fact that Der Leader's top diplomat Steve Witkoff negotiated with Hamas to secure the release of U.S. citizen and Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, apparently without consulting Israel. The implication, which is sometimes even stated openly, is that this "deteriorating" relationship and one throwaway statement about starving Palestinians, means the Trump regime may be about to break with Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza.

This is of course, absolute bullshit for one extremely obvious reason; namely that the Trump administration continues to openly greenlight Israel's genocide in Gaza. This is not supposition; between Trump's statements, the US government's actions, and the Netanyahu regime's responses it is abundantly clear that the project to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into riverfront property is still on, and Der Leader is happy to trade tacit US approval for the genocide or removal of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, to simply smooth over a MENA foreign policy initiative designed to increase Trump's global influence while enriching him and his family.

To demonstrate why I know this let's look at this detailed report by Jeremy Scahill who actually *did* contact a source for his foreign policy analysis; specifically a senior Hamas official.

dropsitenews.com/p/witkoff-ham…

Hamas Says Witkoff Personally Promised to Lift Gaza Blockade in Exchange for Edan Alexander

“It was a deal,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau who has previously engaged in direct talks with U.S. officials. He said the pledge was made by “Witkoff, himself.” In an interview with Drop Site, Naim said the agreement was: “If we release [Alexander], Trump will speak out thanking Hamas for its gesture, obliging Israel on the second day to open the borders and allow aid to come into Gaza, and [Trump would] call for an immediate ceasefire and to go for negotiations to end the war.”

“He did nothing of this,” Naim added. “They didn't violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.”

This is a detailed, granular piece of journalism that explores the genocidal behavior Israel is engaging in as it attempts to starve Palestinians to death while continually bombing hospitals and refugee camps, as well as why the things Trump claims he's actually doing to mitigate engineered starvation in Gaza are mostly bullshit. What's important for our purposes here is the knowledge that the Trump regime pretty much just straight up lied to Hamas in order to secure the release of Edan Alexander and some flattery for Der Leader, and the reality that both Israeli leadership and the President are *still* openly talking about ethnically cleansing Gaza!

Look, I have no problem believing that Netanyahu is irked at Trump for his embarrassing love affair with the Qataris, but the idea that the Klepto Kaiser is "abandoning" Israel even as his regime continues to ship Israel billions of dollars in weapons while mapping out a post-Palestinian future for Gaza, is either embarrassingly naïve, or an open admission that Palestinian lives have so little value to you that their extermination or exile doesn't rise to the level of discussion. In this media environment, it could be both.

#Trump #Fascism #Gaza #Israel #Genocide #Netanyahu #Qatar #ForeignPolicy #WarCrimes #EthnicCleansing #Media #Hamas

Hamas Says Witkoff Personally Promised to Lift Gaza Blockade in Exchange for Edan Alexander

The U.S. immediately broke the deal, senior Hamas official Basem Naim tells Drop Site. “They threw it in the trash” and there has been “zero” progress on a Gaza ceasefire.

^{Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)}

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)}

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)}

For weeks I have been telling reporters that #Trump could have the power to switch off our tech in #Europe. It felt a bit alarmist until I just read that #Microsoft, on the behest of the #US gov, has suspended the email account of Karim Khan, the #ICC chief prosecutor.

One of the most important international courts and a legal bulwark against #genocide, crimes against humanity, and #warcrimes is threatened by #BigTech dependency.

apnews.com/article/icc-trump-s…

#DigitalSovereignty #FOSS #EthicalTech

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972mag.com/members/

@israel @palestine

#Israel #Palestine #WarCrimes #InternationalCriminalCourt #Gaza

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