Gaza Strip

Palestine

Israel’s election and the Gaza genocide

A new report from the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories finds that Israel has continued to commit “genocidal acts” in the Gaza Strip since the signing of a ceasefire with Hamas last October, and continues to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout the occupied territories. The situation, alas, seems unlikely to fundamentally change regardless of the eventual outcome of the Israeli elections. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party received the most seats, but does not have enough support to form a government with its far-right allies. The anti-Netanyahu bloc led by former IDF commander Gadi Eisenkot also fell short of a majority. This puts Palestinian citizens of Israel—who constitute some 20% of the population, and who voted in record numbers—in the position of potential kingmakers. However, most parties in Eisenkot’s bloc are refusing to enter a coalition with the Arab parties. Pro-coexistence activists have marched in Tel Aviv to demand such a coalition, including in a mobilization outside Eisenkot’s home in the suburb of Herzliya, chanting “There is no change without partnership.” (Photo: Shane Burley via Facebook. Banner reads: “Israel is not a democracy. It’s apartheid”)

Watching the Shadows

US imposes full sanctions on ICC

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio placed full sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in response to investigations into potential war crimes committed by the US and Israel. The sanctions permit the federal government to seize ICC assets in the US or controlled by "US persons." The ICC issued a response statement in which it condemned the action and accused the US of undermining international justice. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

Podcast: West Bank at genocidal threshold

The three-year commemoration of the October 7 attacks saw ugly manifestations around the world of the growing atmosphere of polarization and dogmatism on the Israel-Palestine dilemma. There is, alas, the grave potential for everything to get much worse. Benjamin Netanyahu, under siege politically within Israel, is seeking not only a re-occupation of Gaza, but to extend the eliminationist project to the West Bank. In Episode 349 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: RJA1988 via Jurist)

Planet Watch

Criminalization of peasant seed systems threatens global food supply

The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts warned. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries. According to the report, peasants' rights and the food supply as a whole have come under threat from the commercialization of seed systems and implementation of plant variety protection laws (PVPs), which punish farmers who trade seeds of a company's protected variety. These laws may additionally prohibit the sale or exchange of any seed that is not catalogued, targeting the diverse peasant variety seed that does not meet industrial standards. (Photo of indigenous Mexican corn varities: Feria de Productores via Earth@Home)

Palestine

Israeli leaders announce plan to cleanse Gaza

The foreign ministers of eight Muslim countries issued a joint condemnation of remarks by Israeli cabinet ministers announcing plans for the mass displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel is seeking the support of Donald Trump for the scheme, adding that there is "no real solution for Gaza without migration" and that the Israeli government is "organized and ready to get them out." National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir followed up by saying that Israel has a plan to expel all 2.1 million Palestinians from Gaza over the next six years, starting with 250,000 people in the first year. Ben-Gvir is alternately calling his plan "Disengagement 7-10," a reference to the October 7 attacks, or the more euphemistic "National Work Plan for Voluntary Emigration from the Gaza Strip." (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

North America

US sanctions Palestine Action over ‘terrorism’ ties

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three organizations and two individuals, accusing UK-based Palestine Action, the Italy-based Autistici Inventati, and the Masar Badil network of ties to "violent far-left extremism." The designations were made under Executive Order 13224, the post-9-11 authority allowing the US to block the property of designated "terrorists" and of those who support or are linked to them. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said "far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice" that the Department "will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear." He added that "we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated." (Photo: Cary Bass-Deschênes via Good Law Project)

Palestine

Mahmoud Khalil sues US officials, pro-Israel groups

Prominent Palestinian rights activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a lawsuit in US federal court alleging a "coordinated" conspiracy between senior Trump administration officials and three private organizations—the Heritage Foundation and online surveillance or "doxxing" groups Canary Mission and Betar—to target him for deportation over his advocacy work. Khalil is a former Columbia University graduate student who became the public face of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism following his detention by ICE last year. (Photo: Office of Rep. Jim McGovern via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

US to seek dismantling of International Criminal Court

The US will launch a diplomatic campaign aimed at dismantling the International Criminal Court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Rubio wrote that the US will work alongside allied governments to take the Court apart "brick by brick, if necessary," using all tools at the government's disposal. He said the campaign's message to other governments will be a choice of "sovereign states over globalism," and pledged that the administration will protect US service members from ICC jurisdiction. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Resist digital hegemony! III

At the UN's Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa warned that artificial intelligence poses the threat of an "information Armageddon." Scholars of critical theory perceive that online culture reproduces a "cycle of epistemic injustice" by fostering "organized stupidity" that fuels extremism and authoritarianism. And the same technology now implements the grim material application of this degraded intellectual climate, with a UN Human Rights Council study especially accusing Palantir of being part of an "economy of genocide" through its enabling of Israel's AI-enhanced targeting in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pollution generated by the data centers that power AI is now "almost incomprehensible." Despite all this, UNESCO in Geneva glibly called for a "safe and inclusive AI that benefits all," and an openly boosteristic "AI for Good" confab was held alongside the Global Dialogue. The "anti-tech rebellion" against screens in school classrooms is a significant sign of hope, but the end of reading and death of literacy are already upon us. Moves toward greater regulation of AI are most significant as a catalyst for the conversation that needs to be had: how to launch an effective movement for abolition. In Episode 336 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case. (Image: CounterVortex, after JSCSR)

Watching the Shadows

Civil society call to end AI in warfare

More than 200 civil society groups and advocates issued a joint statement calling for an immediate halt to the use of artificial intelligence systems in military "kill chains," warning that AI-accelerated warfare risks facilitating violations of international criminal, human rights and humanitarian law. The signatories said that claimed safeguards such as "human in the loop" mechanisms cannot prevent the lethal consequences of AI-accelerated targeting, but instead risk becoming a means of "rubber-stamping" killing at greatly accelerated speed and scale. (Image: Andrew West via Pixabay)

Palestine

Cyber-attack targets Gaza aid recipients

A cyber-attack targeting the World Food Program has exposed sensitive personal information belonging to some 600,000 households in Gaza, the UN's food agency has confirmed, in what may be the largest-known breach of humanitarian beneficiary data to date. WFP is investigating a "security-related incident" in which "unauthorized actors" accessed personal information submitted by Palestinians in Gaza, the agency said in a statement sent to aid recipients via Telegram. The exposed information included names, ID and mobile numbers, and location data, the statement said. (Photo: Mohammed Nateel/UNICEF via UN News)

Palestine

Israeli leaders reaffirm plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has ordered the Israeli military to take over 70% of the territory of the Gaza Strip, adding: "Let's start with that." Defense Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said the government is planning for large numbers of Palestinians to leave the enclave "at the right time and in the right manner"—which rights groups say amounts to ethnic cleansing. As global attention has shifted elsewhere, Israel has created its own facts on the ground by progressively inching forward the so-called "yellow line" demarcating its area of control. More than 60% of Gaza's territory currently falls within this line, and the Israeli military regularly kills and injures Palestinians in the vicinity of the shifting boundary. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)