Israel

The Andes

‘Anti-terrorist’ militarization in Bolivia

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)

Palestine

Gaza: Great March of Return still faces repression

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that President Donald Trump has the power to suspend refugee admissions to the United States, though the court provided some relief to refugees who had already been conditionally approved before the policy was implemented. Refugees and refugee resettlement organizations filed the lawsuit challenging a January 2025 executive order signed by Trump, which suspended refugee resettlement programs in the United States. The lawsuit, filed in a federal district court in Washington state, won a preliminary injunction requiring the government to continue aspects of the refugee program. The government appealed the decision, stating that the refugee program was within the president’s legal authority. The dispute may ultimately reach the US Supreme Court if the parties seek further review of the Ninth Circuit's decision. (Photo: Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)

New York City

Podcast interview: Yoseph Needleman-Ruiz

The US Senate turned down a War Powers Resolution (WPR) in a 47-53 vote, declining to impose limits on President Donald Trump's ability to wage war with Iran. If it had passed, the resolution would have required President Trump to seek congressional approval prior to any continued military action. The vote mostly fell along party lines, with only two senators crossing the aisle—Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) voted in favor of the resolution, while Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) voted against it. Later, the House of Representatives also rejected a WPR, which would have directed President Trump to cease all military action against Iran unless authorized by Congress through a formal declaration of war or authorization to use military force (AUMF). The vote tally was 212 to 219. Four Democrats—Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, Maine Rep. Jared Golden, Ohio Rep. Greg Landsman, and California Rep. Juan Vargas—joined Republicans in opposing the resolution. (Photo: bones64/Pixabay)

Iraq

Multiple powers still bombing Iraq

Trump continues to pursue his perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize—now profferring "peace" plans for Ukraine and Gaza that would actually reward war crimes, and therefore portend wider war. In both cases these new "peace" plans are merely sanitized recapitulations of earlier proposals—for the surrender of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia, and for Israeli annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and "transfer" of their indigenous inhabitants. Meanwhile, the actual winner of this year's Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, is obsequiously pandering to Trump, and playing along with his bellicose designs on her country. In Episode 306 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg cuts through the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda. (Image via Twitter)

Greater Middle East

Did Assad sign off on Israeli air-raid in Syria?

Human Rights Watch called for the immediate and unconditional release of a former Macau lawmaker and pro-democracy activist following his arrest on "national security" charges. The arrest marked the first time Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China, has invoked its sweeping Law on Safeguarding National Security. Au Kam San was arrested after authorities accused him of violating Article 13 of the national security law, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and criminalizes "links with organizations or groups" outside Macau to "conduct activities endangering national security." This presumably refers to Au’s work with the Macao Union of Democratic Development, which for years organized annual commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Members have repeatedly met with threats and harassment from the authorities. (Image: Macau police block annual Tiananmen vigil, June 2020. Credit: Choi Chi-chio/United Social Press via HKFP)

Greater Middle East

Egypt: ‘crimes against humanity’ in Sinai feared

With the sounds of war starting to fall silent in the Gaza Strip after 470 days of brutal Israeli military assault and siege, a tiny crack of hope has opened for the Palestinian residents of the enclave that they will be able to gather the shattered pieces of their lives and begin the daunting task of rebuilding. But whether the deal reached by Israel and Hamas will lead to a decisive end to the war remains entirely unclear. Under a Trump administration that promises to be even more staunchly pro-Israel than the Biden administration, it's difficult to imagine Palestinians seeing anything resembling their aspirations for a state being met—or justice and accountability for the crimes committed over the past 15 months. (Photo: Rita Baroud/TNH)

Palestine

Gaza invasion averted; West Bank land-grabs escalate

Over 26 rights organizations, including the Kurdistan Human Rights Network and Center for Human Rights in Iran, issued a joint statement calling for the immediate revocation of the death sentence imposed on Kurdish women's rights activist Pakhshan Azizi. This sentence, handed down by the Iranian judiciary, has sparked international outrage, with the organizations calling it "a blatant violation of human rights principles and standards as well as international conventions and treaties." Held in solitary confinement for months, during which time she was subjected to torture to coerce confessions, Azizi was sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran on charges of "armed insurrection" and "membership in opposition groups." Her lawyers maintain that Azizi has no involvement in any armed groups, but that she spent years working in displaced persons' camps in Syria's Rojava region, providing humanitarian aid to those displaced by ISIS violence. (Image: ANF)

Iran

Russia-Iran alliance in Syria unraveling?

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) charged pro-democracy activist Au Nok-hin and Cantopop singer Wong Yiu-ming, AKA Anthony Wong, with "corrupt conduct" for allegedly breaching election laws by having Wong perform two songs at a rally for Au in his 2018 run for the Legislative Council. The ICAC cited provisions of the Elections Corrupt & Illegal Conduct Ordinance, which define corrupt conduct as meeting "all or part of the cost of providing food, drink or entertainment for another person for the purpose of inducing a third party to vote or not vote for a particular candidate at an election." Hong Kong's Department of Justice withdrew the charges against the pair two days after Wong was arrested, but they were placed under a "bind-over order." Under terms of the order, they each put up a $2,000 bond and will face no criminal charges if they maintain "good behavior" for a period of 24 months. "Hongkongers keep singing, Hongkongers keep going," Wong told reporters as he left the courtroom. (Image: IFC via Twitter)

Palestine

Netanyahu pledges to annex West Bank territory

US-led forces are currently carrying out war games in Morocco, the periodic "African Lion" exercises—this year taking place near the disputed region of Western Sahara. Morocco is trumpeting this as a re-affirmation of US recognition of its claim to the territory. The Trump administration last year formally recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Moroccan diplomatic recognition of Israel as a part of the so-called Abraham Accords. But Spain, the disputed territory's former colonial ruler, is opposing Morocco's current push for international recognition of its claim. Just before the war games opened, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya called US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging him to reverse Washington's recognition of Moroccan rule in Western Sahara. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Palestine

Escalation in Gaza; Orwell in Golan

Amid a new round of Israeli air-strikes on Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump in Washington for the signing of a presidential proclamation officially recognizing the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory. At the joint press conference, Trump said, "We will confront the poison of anti-Semitism." We hope it is unnecessary to point out the perversity of Trump exploiting the threat of anti-Semitism to justify US recognition of an illegal Israeli annexation of Syrian territory. (Image: Ma'an)

North America

Podcast: Ilhan Omar, anti-Semitism and propaganda

In Episode 29 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg advances a progressive and anti-Zionist critique of Rep Ilhan Omar's controversial comments, which have posed the problem of US support for Israel in terms of "allegiance to a foreign country"—the nationalist and xenophobic language of our enemies. As a Somali-American woman in a hijab, Omar is ultimately legitimizing reactionary forces that threaten her with the use of such nationalist rhetoric. As the massacres of Christchurch and Pittsburgh all too clearly demonstrate, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are fundamentally unified concerns—and the way Jews and Muslims have been pitted against each other by the propaganda system is part of the pathology. Contrary to the canard of "dual loyalty," Weinberg declares himself a "zero-loyalist," repudiating both Zionism and America-first nationalism, calling for an anti-Zionism based on solidarity with the Palestinians, not "allegiance" to the imperial state. Listen on SoundCloud , and support our podcast via Patreon. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Inner Asia

Podcast: Tibet and the struggle for cyberspace

In Episode 28 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes with trepidation Google’s plans to develop a censored search engine for China, and thereby be allowed back through the Great Firewall to access the world's largest market. But the next and more sinister step is imposing China's draconian standards for control of information on all Internet users, worldwide. Harbingers of this are already seen in Facebook's censorship of the Tibetan struggle, and of the Kurdish struggle in Turkey, as well as initiatives to suppress footage of Israeli war crimes. While protesting such moves is imperative, the potential for such abuses in inherent to the technology—and this, ultimately, is a deeper and more complex problem that also demands a thoroughgoing critique. Listen on SoundCloud , and support our podcast via Patreon. (Photo: Students for a Free Tibet)