Nonviolent Strategy to Halt the Genocide in Gaza, Liberate Palestine and Defeat the Global Technocracy

By Robert J. Burrowes

In accordance with its long-planned, detailed and comprehensive blueprint labeled ‘The Great Reset’, the Global Elite is currently implementing its program to reshape world order, kill off a substantial proportion of the human population, enclose the Commons ‘forever’, transfer all remaining wealth to the Elite and enslave those left alive in one of their technocratic ‘smart city’ prisons. See ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’

The methods for killing off people include the mandatory ‘Covid-19’ injection, which has killed at least 17,000,000 people worldwide so far – see ‘Global Study Links 17 Million Deaths to COVID-19 Vaccine, Reveals 0.126% Mortality Rate’ – and manipulation of the world economy, which has killed tens of millions historically, with the death rate now being dramatically accelerated as it is ransacked and dismantled. See Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’

Beyond these methods, there are other more insidious killers such as electromagnetic radiation (with deaths rapidly accelerating as 5G is rolled out) – see ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate the Extinction of All Life on Earth?’ – and geoengineered disasters – see ‘Geoengineering Watch’ and the trilogy of books by Elana Freeland culminating in Geoengineered Transhumanism: How the Environment Has Been Weaponized by Chemicals, Electromagnetism & Nanotechnology for Synthetic Biology – as well as old and reliable favorites such as war and genocide currently being illustrated, respectively, by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the genocides against the Amhara in Ethiopia – see ‘We’re Still Breathing: Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia’ – and the Palestinians in Gaza.

While this article will focus on the genocide in Gaza, it is important to recognize that this genocide against the Palestinians – second only in its severity to the original Nabka in 1948 – is simply exploiting longstanding Zionist aspirations to play a key part in fulfilling a wider Elite program.

Thus, in accordance with its Dahiya Doctrine – see ‘The Dahiya Doctrine and Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force’ – the rapidly developing technocratic state of Israel, financed and weaponized by the United States, is fulfilling its role in the Elite program by genocidally attacking the Palestinian population of Gaza to kill as many people as possible – see ‘Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated’ – displace the remainder and fully technocratize Gaza.

Since long before its establishment on Palestinian land in 1948, Zionists committed to creating a Jewish homeland (‘Israel’) have wanted the entire land (and resources) of Palestine; they have never wanted the people. For brief accounts, see ‘The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip’, ‘The War in Gaza: It’s Not About Hamas. It’s About Demographics’ and Amir Nour’s five-part series culminating in ‘The War on Gaza, Part V: How We Got to the “Monstrosity of Our Century”’.

For detailed scholarly treatments, see Professor Nur Masalha’s Expulsion Of The Palestinians: The Concept Of Transfer In Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948, Professor Walid Khalidi’s books All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 and Palestine Reborn, Professor Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance as well as the classic Israeli work on the subject by Professor Ilan Pappé The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

If you prefer watching film, this four-part series does an excellent job with archival footage to also illustrate the long history of Zionist planning, political manipulation and imperial collusion that generated and maintains the extraordinary violence inflicted on the people of Palestine. See ‘Al-Nabka: The Palestinian catastrophe – Episodes 1-4’.

But whichever way(s) you acquire a deeper understanding of what has taken place and why it is still taking place, several things will become clear. Most notably for me was (again) perceiving the sheer terror and insanity (and thus warped worldview and predisposition to violence) of those ‘behind’ the entire enterprise from the beginning right through to those responsible for imposing it now. I have discussed this issue many times previously, including here: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

And if you would like to read the 23 emotional characteristics that define the psychological profile of ‘archetype perpetrators of violence’ (such as people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and the Elite figures who put people like this in place), you can do so in the document ‘Why Violence?’ pp.12-15.

This partly explains why the amount of time it takes to kill or displace the bulk of the Palestinian population is of no consequence to Elite agents, including the Israeli and US governments, despite some authors expressing concern that the death of Israeli soldiers is costing the Israeli government support for its genocidal invasion. See ‘Industrial Killing of Civilians in Gaza Won’t Defeat the Armed Insurgency’.

This is because it is neither the Israeli government nor the government of the United States orchestrating this genocide, even though it appears to constitute the latest manifestation of C19th Zionist aspirations to create a Jewish ‘homeland’ in an ethnically cleansed Palestine. Hence, what the respective electorates of Israel and the United States think of this genocide is inconsequential to their governments. The governments answer to a higher power.

Moreover, beyond killing or displacing the Palestinian population, the Israeli government will pursue one of two possible courses of action (or a combination of both): it will facilitate construction of the Ben Gurion Canal through Gaza – as discussed in ‘Will Palestine Ever Be Free? Understanding Elite Strategy in the Global Context’ – and/or it will impose the necessary ‘smart city’ technologies on the predominantly Israeli-settler population that they intend will be living in Gaza when the war is concluded – see ‘As genocide unfolds, Israel settlers plan “dream” beach house in Gaza’ and ‘Israeli company announce controversial housing project in devastated Gaza’ – and the inevitable technocratic rebuilding commences. See ‘Palestine: “Peace to Prosperity” Through Technocracy’.

Having written that, however, it is worth noting that Gaza was already significantly technocratized, with several studies documenting that fact. See The Reality of Gaza Strip Cities towards the Smart City’s Concept. A Case Study: Khan Younis City’, ‘The Smart City of Gaza: Technologies of Containment and the Urban Condition’ and ‘Why The Gaza Strip May Be The City Of The Future’.

But with Elite plans for all cities extensively documented in the ‘smart city’ literature readily available, there remains much more to make Gaza, particularly following its recent substantial destruction, into the technocratic prison that Elite planners envisage for us all.

This was highlighted by Elon Musk’s latest visit to Israel to discuss ‘the operation of Starlink satellite internet in Gaza’ with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, during which it was made clear that deployment of the satellites – a critical foundation stone that enables creation of the new technocratic surveillance and control-oriented ‘smart cities’ – is already being planned even while the genocide is still being conducted and whatever ‘humanitarian’ slant might be attached to their deployment in the short-term. The agreement between Musk’s company SpaceX and Israel allows the company’s Starlink Internet satellites to operate in the Gaza Strip ‘with the approval of the Israeli ministry of communication’. See ‘Has Power of Starlink Turned Elon Musk Into Tech Oligarch?’ and Elon Musk’s Power as Geopolitical Arbiter Signals “Decay” of US State’.

Given that Israel agreed to it and there is no record of any Palestinian being consulted on this development, it is a straightforward conclusion that the satellites will be used to enhance Israeli surveillance and control (which is already substantial) of Gaza – see ‘The Weapons Israel Tests on Palestinians Will be Used Against All of Us’ – and will, for example, presumably include deployment of AI-controlled machine guns, like those already deployed in the West Bank. See ‘Israel deploys AI-powered robot guns that can track targets in the West Bank’.

After all, even with Gaza largely populated by Israeli settlers, Elite plans to imprison us all in ‘smart’ cities means that there is no distinction between Palestinians and ‘ordinary’ Israelis when it comes to how the future population of Gaza will be treated.

If you would like to read an account of how the televised genocide in Gaza is being used to advance the Elite program – including the extensive interests of the Rothschild family – while some sections of the world (including the UN, various national leaders, some Islamic and Arabic organizations and members of the protesting public) complain powerlessly, even while Hamas and its allies within Gaza and the West Bank as well as in the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Syria, the Ansar Allah [Houthis] in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq) offer military resistance, you can do so in this article: ‘Will Palestine Ever Be Free? Understanding Elite Strategy in the Global Context’.

But before departing this subject, what about those who argue that Israel is already suffering, or at least facing, strategic defeat in Gaza? See ‘What Does Pentagon Chief’s Warning of Israeli “Strategic Defeat” Mean?’ and ‘Israel Headed for Strategic Defeat in Gaza’.

The problem is simple. Whether in politics or in other domains, while listening to what people say it is imperative to observe what they do. While articles such as these document a range of actors from the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, prominent actors in West Asia such as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and others in key Arab and Muslim states suggesting what Israel should do to end the genocide, none of them is willing to take any action that would force Israel’s hand, such as cut off weapons supplies, or even take action that would seriously impede Israel’s genocidal assault. The unspoken message to Israel is as follows: ‘We will make ourselves look good by calling on you Israelis to take some token action to end the genocide but we won’t get in your way. So go ahead.’

And it has never troubled the Elite (and thus its agents) about what might appear to be happening. To reiterate, it is no ‘strategic defeat’ for Israel, as some commentators have argued, or even a ‘political defeat of Israel on the global stage’ because it ignored ‘the fundamental precepts of international humanitarian law’ and allowed itself ‘to be characterized as a practitioner of genocide, and its actions against Gaza as war crimes’. See ‘Israel Headed for Strategic Defeat in Gaza’.

So why don’t these issues concern the Elite and its agents? The answer is simple: As explained below, at the superficial level, the Elite knows that it cannot be held accountable (and it can protect those of its agents that it chooses for as long as it chooses). But there is a more fundamental reason which I will explain after briefly elaborating why the Elite knows it cannot be held accountable.

First, international law is a toothless tiger. Moreover, there is no national jurisdiction that can hold the Elite accountable either. The Elite is immune from prosecution in any court, anywhere.

Which means that even when international law is violated by Elite agents, efforts to prosecute them will fail. See ICJ Application Instituting Proceedings by South Africa against Israel in Gaza’, ‘South Africa’s Charges of Genocide Against Israel: The World Court Judges’ Vote Is Political, Not Legal. Neither “Evidence” Nor “Law” (The Genocide Convention) Will Convict Israel’, Westerners believe in international law but there’s really no such thing’ and ‘The Criminalization of International Justice [both the ICJ & the ICC], Putting an End to the Genocide against the People of Palestine. Nuremberg Principle IV. Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield under Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter’.

Second, the United Nations is powerless to enforce its resolutions when they run counter to Elite interests. See ‘UN General Assembly votes by large majority for immediate humanitarian ceasefire [in Gaza] during emergency session’. Who is paying attention to this resolution?

Third, public opinion is worth nothing when merely expressed in the form of statements, petitions and demonstrations. See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’

So don’t be impressed/deceived by governments ‘calling for a ceasefire’ or its various equivalents, UN resolutions, scholars and others signing statements, calls for accountability under international law and large numbers of people signing petitions or protesting. Whatever the level of revulsion expressed, history teaches us that such actions mean nothing but are useful in convincing the ill-informed wider public that ‘something is being done’. It isn’t.

And this brings us to the most fundamental issue: For the Elite, ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in limited contexts such as Gaza is not important. Killing as many people as possible, enslaving those left alive (these days, technocratically), redistributing wealth and reshaping world order to enhance Elite control are the desired outcomes. As has been the case for the past 230 years at least.

This is why, for example, the United States has been engaged in perpetual war since World War II, has conducted a wide range of coups d’état (‘regime changes’) or otherwise militarily intervened in other countries. See Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

But it hasn’t mattered, from the Elite perspective, when the US lost, as it did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. See Despite Trillions Spent, the US Military Hasn’t Won a Real War Since 1945’.

The point is this: These wars killed millions of people (mainly civilians), enslaved many people (by forcing them into the periphery of the world economy), transferred enormous wealth to the Elite in a wide range of ways and consolidated Elite control. So it matters nought to the Elite if the US government is $34trillion dollars in debt – see US Debt Clock – and much of the US population impoverished.

But to return our attention to Gaza: If you want an accurate understanding of what is actually being done, just keep an eye out for any individual, government, international organization or other entity taking action that actually impedes the genocide and/or moves Palestine closer to liberation.

By this measure, the actions of Ansar Allah in Yemen – see ‘The Houthis Have Biden By the Shorthairs’ – and Hezbollah in Lebanon – see ‘Hezbollah Hit Israeli Gatherings on Border with Rockets, Artillery & Drones’ – constitute the forefront of solidarity action, in the military realm, being taken by third parties in defence of Palestine.

And people participating in the ongoing Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement – see ‘Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People’ – are leading the resistance to the Israeli occupation and genocide in the nonviolent realm, although a great deal more needs to be done in this realm for it to have the strategic impact necessary to succeed.

My point is straightforward: After documenting ‘this catastrophe for the Palestinians’, long-time and highly regarded scholar Professor John Mearsheimer poses ‘one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?’ See ‘Death and Destruction in Gaza’.

The answer, of course, is ‘no’. Elite agents, whether in Israel or the US (or elsewhere), do as they are directed, and morality of any kind is not a consideration. If wars and genocides throughout history, including the C20th, have taught us anything, it is that ‘decency’ is not a factor that enters into Elite deliberations when mass killing is organized and perpetrated to serve Elite ends. And anyone with a cursory knowledge of history and the capacity to analyze should know this too.

Because what other conclusion can be drawn from 5,000 years of war, genocide, human sacrifice, slavery, imperialism, colonialism, exploitation in a vast range of ways, and all of the other forms of violence? See ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’

The truly great tragedy is that vast numbers of ‘ordinary’ people, as emotionally-damaged as the Elite agents who ‘order them into battle’, carry out the orders they are given without reflection, as Israeli soldiers in Gaza are doing now. See Why Violence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice.

In essence, if the primary objectives of Hamas – notably including statehood for Palestine, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and an end to Israeli settler and police incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem: see the Hamas document ‘Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ – are used as the measure of progress (as they should be), then the results are little short of catastrophic so far.

How even ‘winning’ the war in Gaza, assuming this ultimately occurs, achieves Palestinian statehood is problematic, to put it mildly; so far only about 240 Palestinian detainees and prisoners out of 5,000 – see ‘Statistics on Palestinians in Israeli custody’ – have been released in exchange for over 100 Israeli hostages; and there is no mention in anything I have read that suggests that any progress has been made on putting in place a protocol for ending Israeli civilian and police incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque, with the latest Good Shepherd Collective report advising ‘Settlers continue with their program to change the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with armed incursions.’ See ‘Weekly Report’.

So the only clear tangible gain for Hamas so far (in relation to its apparent objectives) is some 240 released prisoners.

The cost, on the other hand, is in excess of 30,000 deaths (of mainly children and women), the kidnapping of nearly 3,000 Palestinian civilians – including children and women – as part of Israel’s policy of ‘enforced disappearances’, the substantial physical destruction of Gaza including much of its key infrastructure as well as sites of profound historical and cultural significance including the al-Omari (Great) Mosque (which was of comparable age to al-Aqsa), ‘the destruction of countless olive groves’, contamination of aquifers and the environmental degradation of Gaza creating an ‘unlivable hellscape’. See On 100th day of Gaza genocide: 100,000 Palestinians killed, missing or wounded, ‘1,000 children have undergone amputations without anaesthesia in Gaza’, ‘Israel required by law to reveal the fate of dozens of women arrested in Gaza, intl. community must investigate images and claims of torture, harassment’, ‘The wanton destruction of mosques and churches’, ‘Israel’s war on Gaza silences its historic mosques’, ‘The Killing of Gaza’s Environment: Or How to Create an Unlivable Hellscape on One Strip of Land’ and ‘In Gaza, Israel has turned water into a weapon of mass destruction’.

And while there is the intangible gain of considerably greater sympathy for the Palestinian plight among the general public around the world, the bulk of this support is being frittered away on appeals that will have no consequence, such as the signing of public statements directed at Elite agents – see for example, ‘Public Statement: Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza’ and ‘International Coalition of Human Rights and Antiwar Organizations forms to Demand End to Genocide in Palestine’ – and on demonstrations, again directed at Elite agents, such as the hundreds that have occurred widely around the world already. See ‘Pro-Palestine protests held around the world as Gaza war nears 100 days’.

The strategic reality is that halting the genocide in Gaza and, ultimately, liberating Palestine while also defeating imposition of the global technocracy which this conflict is facilitating, will not be achieved by such tactics.

Similarly, the tactics articulated by various Palestinian groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which called for ‘weekly global strikes’ – see ‘PFLP calls for weekly global strikes on Mondays’ – or the Gaza Coalition which called for a ‘general range of actions’ – see ‘Escalate the Struggle against 75 Days of Genocide NOW: #CeasefireNow #EndTheSiege’ – have no value, in a strategic sense, unless they also are used to mobilize strategically-oriented resistance.

And the genocide will not be halted, Palestine liberated or the advancing global technocracy impeded by those solidarity groups, such as Palestine Action in the UK, that campaign against Elbit (Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer) by encouraging secretive acts of sabotage by individuals or small ‘cells’ – see ‘The Underground Manual’ – despite occasional apparent ‘victories’. See ‘Palestine Action Campaign Leads to Fisher German Ending Ties with Elbit’.

Nor can anything worthwhile be achieved by groups such ‘It’s Going Down’ in the United States, despite their admirable intentions. See ‘Lacey, WA: Report Back From “Blockade The Genocide” Action’ and ‘Amazon Construction Site Disrupted By Pro-Palestine Activists In Central Point, Oregon’.

Halting the Genocide in Gaza and Ending the Occupation of Palestine using Nonviolent Strategy

If the genocide is to be halted and the occupation ended, it will require a substantial mobilization of people to participate in a comprehensive strategically-oriented campaign that precisely identifies the tactics to be undertaken (not just a random list of actions) and, as the historical record demonstrates, not by using secrecy and sabotage in their execution. For detailed explanations of these points, see The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

Before proceeding, if you doubt that a nonviolent strategy can halt a genocide in progress, you can read a solid account of when this has occurred historically and how it was accomplished in the section titled ‘Nonviolent Defense Against an Extremely Ruthless Opponent’ on pp.238-245 of the book just cited.

But if we are able to mobilize enough people to halt the genocide, we will be in a stronger position to keep struggling to end the occupation as well so, strategically speaking, it is useful to see these two political purposes as related.

And while defeating the attempt to impose a global technocracy on us all will require a worldwide mobilization far beyond what has even begun yet, success in Palestine could bolster these efforts. After all, what is happening in Gaza is coming to us all, one way or another, although few people are aware of this yet.

Anyway, to illustrate what both a nonviolent strategy to halt the genocidal assault by Israel against Gaza and a nonviolent strategy to liberate Palestine would entail, I have reproduced below just nineteen ‘consolidated’ strategic goals, written in a form appropriate for this particular context, taken from the comprehensive but generalized list of 50 Strategic Goals for Defeating a Genocidal Assault’.

In most cases, I have also briefly explained the value of that strategic goal and perhaps offered examples, either historically or in the current context, where tactics in pursuit of that goal have been undertaken.

Identification of the strategic goals is one component of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy explained on the website Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. You can see a diagram illustrating all twelve components of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy here: Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. And you can read a brief explanation of why nonviolent action is so powerful here: ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’.

This incomplete/consolidated list of strategic goals is based on principles not explained here but carefully elaborated on the website just identified. Needless to say, it is a straightforward task to consult the full list of strategic goals (to halt a genocide or liberate an occupied country) and reword each of the remaining goals to make it appropriate to the Palestinian situation and nominate the specific groups that should be mentioned where appropriate.

And, for example, the American Friends Service Committee has compiled a valuable resource that can be used in planning this strategy by identifying ‘The [Weapons] Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023 Attack on Gaza’.

Thus, just nineteen strategic goals that would contribute both to defeating Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and liberating Palestine (which conform to the formula described on the website) are listed below (with brief explanations and historical examples where appropriate). It should be noted, however, that the list would be considerably longer as individual organizations – such as each organization involved in inciting, facilitating, organizing, conducting and/or benefiting from the genocide (for whatever reason but including national and religious groups with competing perspectives as well as corporations involved in media, banking and resource extraction) – should be specified separately.

Of course, individual groups within the defense would usually accept responsibility for focusing their work on achieving just one or two of the strategic goals. It is the responsibility of the struggle’s strategic leadership to ensure that each of the strategic goals (identified and prioritized according to local circumstances) is being addressed (or to prioritize if resource limitations require this).

If there is no identified strategic leadership, individuals and local groups should proceed to tackle those strategic goals most relevant to their circumstances, interests and capacities.

(1) To cause the people of Palestine (men, women and children) to identify their support for, and participation in, the Palestinian resistance strategy by wearing a symbol of Palestinian unity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible actions in the article ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(2) To cause the people of Israel (men, women and children) to identify their solidarity with the people of Palestine and opposition to the genocide and occupation by wearing a symbol of solidarity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

Government and corporate media and social media have long been used to control the narrative regarding what is happening in Palestine. If you choose to boycott these outlets, in favor of outlets committed to telling you the truth, you play a valuable role in holding media that lies accountable and supporting those telling the truth who are often suppressed.

(3) To cause people elsewhere in the world (men, women and children) to identify their solidarity with the people of Palestine and opposition to the genocide and occupation by wearing a symbol of solidarity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

With virtually all government and corporate media and social media owned and/or controlled by Elite agents and much of it acting on behalf of powerful Israeli interests, Gaza’s inhabitants have been treated as nonpersons for decades ‘and daily life in Gaza as non-news’. Consequently, the ‘shameful legacy of narrow, pro-Israel coverage indirectly laid the groundwork for the atrocious human suffering taking place there now.’ See ‘How Corporate Media Helped Lay the Groundwork for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza’, ‘Are social media giants censoring pro-Palestine voices amid Israel’s war?’ and, for an example, ‘Facebook Approved an Israeli Ad Calling for Assassination of Pro-Palestine Activist [in the USA].

(4) To cause young people in Israel to resist conscription and recruitment into the military, police, intelligence services and other forces/organizations inciting, facilitating, organizing and/or conducting the genocide or maintaining the occupation of Palestine.

This is already happening, given long-standing and significant Israeli opposition to the occupation but it would be invaluable to focus more effort in this realm. See ‘“Youth Against Dictatorship”: Meet Israel’s new class of conscientious objectors’ and watch ‘Young Israelis refuse to participate in Gaza “genocide”’.

For example, prior to the current genocide and despite four stints in prison, 19-year-old Israeli woman Hallel Rabin resolutely stood her ground, refusing to serve in the Israeli army occupying Palestine. This article includes a video of Rabin speaking eloquently about her reasons for resisting. See ‘Refusing to serve in the army is my small act of making change’.

Just recently and despite knowing he would be imprisoned, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick conscientiously chose jail rather than being responsible for killing Palestinians in Gaza. See ‘“I refuse to take part in a revenge war”: Israel jails teen for opposing army draft’.

And despite the risk of a significant jail sentence, Ariel Davidov, a 19-year-old Israeli ‘refusenik’ believes that ‘not joining the army is one of the most effective things you can do’ to ‘end the cycle of violence’. See ‘Why Israeli army refusers are crucial to ending the cycle of violence’.

These intelligent and conscientious young people are far from alone and highlight the possibilities open to those of us who choose to mobilize an effective nonviolent resistance to violence, wherever it occurs in the world.

We just need their commitment and courage.

(5) To cause soldiers, airmen, sailors, intelligence personnel, drone pilots and others in the Israeli military to refuse to obey orders that will lead to the arrest, assault, torture, shooting, bombing and other forms of harm to Palestinians, medical personnel, foreign aid workers, journalists, solidarity activists and others in Palestine.

There are precedents of conscientious objection at various levels in Israel where the human right to conscientious objection is only allowed in extremely limited circumstances. See, for example, ‘Who are the Israeli refuseniks who refuse to fight the Palestinians in Gaza’.

Of course, the right and duty to make decisions based on conscience were enshrined in international law a long time ago, including in Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter: ‘The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of [their] Government or of a superior does not relieve [them] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to [them]’. See ‘Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal 1950’.

The importance and potential of military personnel (and anyone involved in the genocide) making moral choices has been discussed by Professor Michel Chossudovsky as part of a review of what he identifies as ‘the criminalization of international justice’ during the US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza. See The Criminalization of International Justice, Putting an End to the Genocide against the People of Palestine. Nuremberg Principle IV. Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield under Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter’.

And the historical record demonstrates that dialogue and nonviolent action designed to convince troops to disobey their orders have sometimes been successful. For example, it was a vital element of the Czechoslovakian resistance to the Warsaw Pact invasion during 1968, it was the defining feature of the nonviolent revolution in the Philippines in 1986, it was the crucial factor in thwarting the Chinese government’s first attempt to clear Tiananmen Square on 20 May 1989, and it was fundamental to the defeat of the Soviet coup in 1991. See The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach. pp.256-8.

Individuals in Israel who make such conscience-based choices are supported by Mesarvot, one of the organizations that supports Israeli ‘refuseniks’ in a campaign against the occupation of Palestine.

[An earlier organization – Yesh Gvul (‘There is a limit’) – was founded in 1982 ‘as a political movement aimed at supporting refuseniks and conscientious objectors’. It now appears to be inactive.]

But the potential for something more significant might be inferred from this article by Shimri Zameret, a soldier who conscientiously resisted participation in the Israeli military response to the Palestinian second Intifada, spending 21 months in prison as a result, and now comments on disquiet within the military for the anti-democratic ‘reforms’ pursued by Netanyahu in 2023. See ‘A mass wave of Israeli army refusal could be a transformative moment’.

Zameret and many others are part of another organization – the Refuser Solidarity Network – that also supports soldiers opposed to the occupation and the policies (genocidal and otherwise) that derive from it.

A version of resistance of this type – not reported as based on conscience or international law – has just occurred when ‘half the soldiers of an Israeli reserve battalion refused to fight in the Gaza Strip and were released from duty by their commander… after the army tried to send them to fight and carry out combat missions within Gaza for which they were not qualified or adequately equipped’. See ‘Israeli reserve soldiers refuse to fight in Gaza: Half a brigade was released from duty after complaining of poor training and lack of weapons before deployment to Gaza’.

In any case, there is enough evidence of disquiet among young Israeli conscripts and serving soldiers (and possibly personnel in other services, such as the intelligence services) concerned about participating in the genocide and occupation to make it strategically worthwhile for people, whether in Israel or elsewhere, to contact serving personnel with encouragement to consider their conscience about the moral path in this context and offers to listen while they deliberate.

(6) To cause the private military contractors (mercenaries) employed by the Israeli Army to refuse to participate in the genocide in Gaza and/or in maintenance of the occupation.

One way in which Israel minimizes Israeli deaths in Gaza (and conceals the extent of the overall death toll) is by employing mercenaries to fight on the front line of the genocide. See ‘Israel’s use of thousands of foreign mercenaries in attacks on Gaza sparks debate’.

According to one source, there are an estimated 28,000 mercenaries in the Israeli military. This constitutes a heavy drain on the Israeli economy, which is now being threatened by various measures. See ‘Gaza Exhausted Israel’s Economy’.

Apart from efforts to dissuade foreign soldiers from joining the Israeli military, increasing pressure on the Israeli economy will make it difficult for ordinary Israelis impacted – as Mohandas K. Gandhi understood the Indian boycott of cloth imports from Manchester in defence of the indigenous khadi industry would make it difficult for workers in England – but the Israeli leadership will endeavour to hold out against enormous pressure as it will be directed to do. Nevertheless, there are many measures that can be taken, including those outlined below, to keep this pressure building.

(7) To cause the officers in the Israeli police and Shin Bet (the security agency) in Israel to refuse to obey orders to inflict violence on Israeli nonviolent activists and to arrest, assault, torture and shoot Palestinians, medical personnel, foreign aid workers, journalists, solidarity activists and others in Palestine.

Again, there are many historical precedents around the world of police refusing orders to inflict violence on populations they police, including during the lockdowns imposed as part of the restrictions enforced under the recent Covid-19 regime. See ‘Policing the Elite’s Technocracy: How Do We Resist This Effectively?’

And there is already substantial dissatisfaction within the Israeli Police for various reasons, leading significant numbers to leave the force. A key reason for the dissatisfaction is that senior officers are often abusive of lower ranks (in various ways) and, whether in the police or Shin Bet, punishment of these officers is virtually non-existent (or trivial when it happens). See ‘Why do so many Israel Police officers quit?’

Nevertheless, there is enormous pressure on Israeli activists against the genocide and occupation with police beatings and recent bans on protests just two of the hurdles. See ‘Israel Police Bars Protests Against Gaza War, Citing Inability to Protect Public, Prevent Violence’.

Despite this, key personnel in the Israeli anti-occupation movement are not bowed as the short video of 23-year-old Gaia Dan clearly demonstrates. See ‘Police Are Beating and Arresting Anti-Zionists in Israel’s “Coexistence” Capital: Israeli authorities are trying to stamp out Haifa’s anti-occupation bloc’.

Fortunately, the long legacy of nonviolent struggle in extremely violent contexts has much to teach nonviolent activists about dealing powerfully with such situations. This article offers 20 ideas of use in both the Israeli and Palestinian contexts: ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Not every police or Shin Bet officer will follow orders to be violent unthinkingly. Our challenge is to amplify their inclination to do what is right, irrespective of the orders they are given.

(8) To cause military personnel in the military forces of Israeli-allied countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere to refuse deployment to the conflict zone near Israel and Palestine.

In immediate response to Israel’s attack on Gaza, the United States deployed military forces – including two aircraft carrier strike groups, a range of aircraft and troops – to the Middle East. See ‘2,000 US Troops Ordered to Prepare for Deployment in Growing Response to Israel War with Hamas’.

Since then, the United States has set up and deployed ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’, a multinational coalition supposedly intended ‘to help protect merchant ships in the Red Sea area from drones and missiles’ fired by Yemen’s Ansar Allah against vessels perceived to be supporting, directly or indirectly, Israel’s attacks on Gaza. See ‘US unveils international force to defend Red Sea. Here’s what we know’.

But deployments of this nature increase the risk of the war escalating in Palestine or expanding into the region, as the US foreign policy elite has long planned – see Expanding Middle East War. Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, the War on Energy, Strategic Waterways’ – and is now happening. See Three Hours of Fire and Fury: How US and UK Unleashed Over 100 Missiles on More Than 60 Houthi Targets Using Jets, Warships and a Sub in Meticulously Planned Strikes on Iran-backed Rebels in Yemen’.

This can also be resisted by people, including anti-war activists, in the various countries (the United States, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain) that are deploying troops and weapons systems to the region by taking targeted nonviolent action against weapons producers and the troops facing deployment to the region. As always, see the list of possible actions in the article ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(9) To cause members of trade unions and professional associations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in Israel to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott all government/corporate media and social media that support the genocide or occupation and to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] from any organization complicit in the genocide and/or occupation.

It is clear that there is disagreement among key Israelis about the genocide in Gaza and this is already manifesting. For example, lawyer and human rights activist Michael Sfard, ‘on behalf of a group of lawyers and Israeli public figures, sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara requesting that she take measures against public figures and officials, including lawmakers, who called for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing.’ See ‘Israeli judiciary accused of silence concerning incitement to violence by officials against Palestinians: Lawyer. Michael Sfard says Attorney General does not care about incitement against Palestinians’.

And while loudly condemned by most of his fellow MPs in the Israeli Knesset, Ofer Cassif had the courage to sign a petition in support of the hearing at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. In response to his widespread condemnation, Cassif noted ‘I will not give up the fight for our existence as a moral society. This is true patriotism…’. See ‘Balls of Steel’.

While it will clearly take stronger actions than these to halt the genocide, like the efforts of those young Israelis resisting conscription into the Israeli military, they are undertaken by those who have a conscience and the courage to live it and all movements for justice are built on such individuals.

No doubt Israel has plenty more yet and one of our tasks is to encourage Israelis to act and support them when they do. There are plenty of people in the United States and elsewhere who could usefully focus some effort on contacting Israelis they know and encouraging them to take a conscientious stand (and perhaps listen supportively while any individual considers such a course).

As mentioned above, there are trade unions, professional associations, religious bodies, women’s organizations and a great many other groups in Israel that can be approached to ask their members to boycott media supporting the genocide/occupation and to consider withdrawing their labor from organizations that are complicit.

The wider the resistance is spread, the less pressure there is on any one individual.

(10) To cause members of trade unions and professional associations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in countries in which governments are complicit in the genocide (including the USA, UK, Germany and other European countries particularly) to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott all government/corporate media and social media that support the genocide or occupation and to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] from any organization complicit in the genocide and/or occupation.

Just one of many examples where such noncooperation is now occurring is in the United States government where both Administration and Congressional staffers who are distressed by the genocide are clearly expressing their dissent – see ‘U.S. diplomats slam Israel policy in leaked memo’ – two have already resigned rather than be complicit ‘in Biden’s fervent support for the war’ – see ‘War on Gaza: Internal anger with Biden and Congress reaches boiling point’ – and hundreds of federal employees across 22 federal agencies were due to walkout to observe a ‘Day of Mourning’ to mark 100 days of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. See ‘US government employees plan walkout over Biden’s Gaza policies’.

The point is that this discontent is everywhere and, at some point, the more courageous will act and inspire many around them, whatever organization in which they work.

And other forms of resistance that are especially effective in that particular context can be considered. Again, for inspiration, consider ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(11) To cause members of trade unions and labor organizations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in countries in which governments are complicit in the genocide (including the USA, UK, Germany and other European countries particularly) to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott those products that are extracted (or produced) and exported by corporations acting in concert with the Israeli government.

Notably, in this category, Israel is using corporations such as Siemens and Chevron to extract gas from the eastern Mediterranean – see ‘Siemens and Chevron: Stop Fueling Apartheid and Climate Disaster’ – and, as some authors have explained previously, yet another part of the long-standing plan behind the current genocide is undoubtedly to enable Israeli seizure of the gigantic Leviathan maritime natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza. See ‘“Wiping Gaza Off The Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves’.

While Felicity Arbuthnot, in the 2013 article just cited, nominated the interest of the BG Group in Gaza’s gas and oil reserves, in early 2016, the BG Group became part of Shell Global. See Combining Shell and BG: a simpler and more profitable company’.

Of course, Shell has been a Rothschild corporation since the very early 20th century. According to the Rothschild Archive: ‘As it turned out, Rothschilds had a decisive influence in shaping Royal Dutch Shell, more so than anyone had previously imagined.’ See ‘Searching for oil in Roubaix’. But Shell does not represent the only Rothschild investment in energy supplies.

Consequently, widespread and persistent consumer boycotts that target Shell, Chevron (for which the key brand names are Texaco and Caltex) and Siemens products could play a valuable role in compelling these corporations, and their Elite owners, to reconsider their role in sponsoring the genocide and occupation.

(12) To cause people in your country to boycott Israel as a tourist destination.

The genocide in Gaza has had a significant, adverse impact on the Israeli economy. See ‘Gaza Exhausted Israel’s Economy’. Causing people to boycott Israel as a tourist destination (in favor of traveling elsewhere) is an effective way to reduce Israeli government finance available for the genocide and occupation.

An important subset of this, which focuses more on removing the apparent legitimacy attached to Israeli institutions, is advocated by the BDS Movement and involves the encouragement of academics, prominent entertainers, cultural figures (such as writers and artists) and sportspeople to boycott Israel. See Academic Boycott’ and Cultural Boycott. Individuals in this category can set a powerful example for their colleagues/fans.

In her own variation on what the BDS Movement encourages, popular Bosnian author Lana Bastasic has taken a huge cut in earnings to express her solidarity with Palestine. See ‘Author’s split with German publisher over “silence on Gaza” causes her huge loss of earnings’.

(13) To cause the workers in the trade unions and professional associations that work for individual weapons corporations (such as Elbit Systems, Rafael, Lockheed Martin and Boeing) that supply weapons to the Israeli military to withdraw their labor [partially/wholly], [temporarily/permanently].

The American Friends Service Committee has compiled a valuable resource identifying ‘The [Weapons] Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023 Attack on Gaza’.

Thus, whether in relation to an Israeli weapons corporation, such as Elbit Systems and Rafael, or a weapons corporation in the US, the UK, Germany or other countries that supply weapons to Israel, each trade union and/or professional association representing employees working for the corporation is effectively supporting individuals to participate in enabling the genocide and maintenance of the occupation.

Individuals and organizations can be encouraged to choose not to do so using a variety of means, always beginning with dialogue but then, if the issue cannot be resolved through listening and clear communication, using a range of nonviolent tactics at worksites, ranging from demonstrations and picket lines to blockades. But again, plenty of options here: ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(14) To cause corporations that provide vital services/components to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel to cease doing so.

This could happen by campaigning against companies such as Martin-Baker, https://martin-baker.com/ the family business in Britain that supplies the ejection seats for fighter jets such as the F-35’s made by US weapons corporation Lockheed Martin and used by Israel. See ‘How One British Business Could Stop Israeli Jets Bombing Gaza: UK-made ejection seats are in the cockpit of most Western fighter jets, including Israel’s air force’.

But there are a great many possibilities as the sheer diversity of parts in military weapons means that many corporations are drawn into the staggering array of supply lines. Choosing those services and components that are more specific and critical to military impact – including command, control, communications, delivery, targeting – rather than some insignificant, generic part, will ensure strategic value derives from success in any campaign.

If this isn’t feasible (or efforts fail) in a particular context, consider the following strategic goal.

(15) To cause the workers in the relevant trade unions or labor organizations to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] [partially/wholly] from those corporations that supply services/components to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel.

A corporation management might not have a conscience but plenty of workers do, and approaching them through their trade union or labor organization might open opportunities to discuss possible ways they can noncooperate with the genocide and occupation.

(16) To cause vessels and cargo planes engaged in transporting goods and weapons to or from Israel to cease doing so [temporarily/permanently].

This has already happened in response to the military attacks by Ansar Allah [the Houthis] in the Red Sea. See ‘Chinese Shipping Giant COSCO to Stop Visiting Israeli Ports: The decision comes despite the low chances of the Houthis attacking a Chinese vessel’.

These attacks have also caused significant disruption. See ‘Support for vessels rerouting from the Red Sea’.

And while Ansar Allah’s use of violence ‘justifies’, in the eyes of many, the violent response of the United States which has now attacked Yemen (thus paving the way for a wider war) – see ‘Major Escalation: Biden Launches War On Yemen’ and ‘Joint US-UK Assault on Houthis: Here’s the Latest’ – there are variations on delaying/halting shipping that can be achieved by nonviolent means, including by government decision such as that made in Malaysia. See ‘Global Supply Chains Falter as Malaysia Blocks Israeli Cargo Ships’.

Beyond that, however, and given that most governments won’t do this, activists working in conjunction with local trade unions can do it too. For example, starting in the late 1980s in Australia, the combined efforts of nonviolent activists and trade unionists caused significant delays in the unloading of imported rainforest timber from cargo ships. The awareness generated by these widely publicized and graphic actions was used to mobilize a massive boycott of imported rainforest timber by the Australian community, effectively eliminating the trade within three years as entire industries switched to sourcing timber from more sustainable sources. Watch ‘Time to Act’ and see ‘Nonviolent Struggle for the Rainforests’.

Of course, trade union action of this nature has a long history. For example, during the apartheid era in South Africa, Danish dock workers in 1963 decided not to unload ships carrying South African products, triggering a similar boycott in Sweden, England and elsewhere.

In relation to Palestine, the first solidarity action of this nature occurred in South Africa when the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) decided not to unload an Israeli ship due to arrive in Durban on 8 February 2009. See The BNC Salutes South African Dock Workers Action!’

And in 2014, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in the United States launched Block the Boat in response to the call by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and a coalition of all major Palestinian workers unions and professional associations who called on their fellow trade unionists and workers worldwide to boycott Israel and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime. They specifically urged a refusal to handle Israeli goods and support for union members refusing to build Israeli weapons.

Analysing the ten-year history of ‘Block the Boat’ actions in various countries, researchers Rafeef Ziadah and Katy Fox-Hodess identified some crucial variables worth addressing to make these nonviolent actions have maximum impact. Critically, this included thinking carefully about how activists could most effectively get involved in working with unions and how activists can take some of the more extreme pressures off workers, particularly when sanctions for taking solidarity action are onerous. See ‘Dockworkers and Labor Activists Can Block the Transport of Arms to Israel’.

As an adjunct to their research, they offered these downloadable documents to assist activists and workers seeking to work together: Lessons on Organizing with Trade Unions to Build Solidarity Actions’ and, from Workers in Palestine this Guidance Sheet for Trade Unionists on Building Solidarity with Palestine.

Workers in Palestine has recently posted a video of nonviolent actions undertaken around the world to shut down weapons factories and disrupt weapons shipments to Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza.

This has included several delays of ships of Israel’s ZIM Integrated Shipping Services at two ports by activists and workers in Australia, as discussed here: ‘In Australia, Palestine Solidarity Activists Are Blockading ZIM Ships Owned by Israel’, ‘The Economic Incentive: Blocking Israel’s Supply Chain’ and ‘Australian police attack pro-Palestine protests blockading Israeli ship’.

If nonviolent actions of this nature in solidarity with Palestine appeal to you and other activists in your local port, you can identify the arrival of Israel’s ZIM vessels on their port schedule – see ZIM vessels Port schedule – and track their vessels on either Marine Traffic or Vessel Finder.

Similarly, nonviolent action can be undertaken to disrupt, delay or halt the movement of military weapons by air, although it will need more than just protests such as this one in Cyprus. See ‘UK’s alleged use of Cyprus bases to arm Israel and hit Yemen draw protests’.

(17) To cause consumers, including members of religious, service, sporting, business and other community organizations, to boycott those products produced by companies taking advantage of the Israeli occupation economy in Palestine.

As the BDS Movement points out, it is superior strategy for people to focus their efforts on certain companies prioritized for targeting (because of their deep complicity in the occupation) rather than dissipate effort so widely that little impact is felt anywhere. See ‘BDS Guide to Strategic Campaigning for Palestinian Rights’.

Consequently, the companies that the BDS Movement recommends for targeting are listed in ‘Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People’.

But if you want more comprehensive lists to view other companies you can boycott, the Who Profits Research Center has compiled a list of companies to boycott because they profit from the Israeli occupation economy.

The American Friends Service Committee has also compiled a list of companies, with two sectors additional to the ‘Who Profits’ list above. See ‘Investigate: What are you invested in?’

And the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has compiled a comprehensive A/HRC/43/71: Database of all business enterprises involved in… the Israeli settlements… throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’.

Another simple option is to sign the ‘No Tech for Apartheid’ letter to Google and Amazon for providing ‘cloud technology to the Israeli government and military… to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land’. But boycotting Google and Amazon is a far more powerful option given they are spying on you too as part of their role in advancing the Elite’s technocracy.

(18) To cause the individual and organizational investors (including religious and sporting bodies) of banks, asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds in Israel and elsewhere to shift their money to ethical banks and credit unions, asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds that do not finance, invest in or are otherwise involved in supplying banking, asset management, insurance or pension services to Israel (and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine) or to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel.

Don’t Buy Into Occupation has compiled a valuable list of European banks and other financial institutions to boycott in their report ‘European Financial Institutions’ Continued Complicity in the Illegal Israeli Settlement Enterprise’.

The BDS Movement specifically encourages divestment from the French multinational insurance giant AXA ‘for its investments in Israeli banks [with Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank being the main five], which are deeply complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise on occupied Palestinian land’. See ‘AXA Divest’.

If you live outside Europe or an organization is not listed and you are in doubt, the general principle is to always seek those (invariably smaller) institutions that identify as ‘ethical’ and investigate these to see if they deserve your patronage.

As an aside, if your knowledge of the management (or membership) of a financial institution with which you deal suggests they might be willing to divest from Israel (or weapons corporations) without significant public engagement first, it may be worth your while to approach them to find out. Obviously, you do not need to boycott or organize a wider boycott of an institution that is responsive to dialogue.

(19) To cause SpaceX, which manufactures and deploys Starlink spy satellites to facilitate genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine generally, to cease doing so.

One way in which pressure can be exerted is by mobilizing people, wherever they live, to boycott the Starlink service (and switch to another provider) in their area. Another less direct way is to boycott X (formerly Twitter) because it is also owned by Elon Musk (who owns SpaceX).

Summary

Not all of the strategic goals nominated above will need to be achieved for the strategy to be successful but each goal is focused in such a way that its achievement will functionally undermine the power of those conducting the genocide and the occupation.

Once the genocide is halted, this list would still constitute the foundation for a refined set of strategic goals to guide the strategy to liberate Palestine (taken from the generalized list here): Strategic Goals for Removing a Military Occupation’ or, for the fullest elaboration, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

I have reproduced the nineteen strategic goals listed above here: ‘Strategic Goals to Halt the Genocide in Gaza and Liberate Palestine’.

And if we are to defeat the Elite technocracy being imposed on the entire human population, with Palestine (in both the West Bank and Gaza) being used as the testing ground and incubator of so many of the technologies that will be used to kill or enslave us all, then we must resist strategically, as explained in the campaign of We Are Human, We Are Free’ with one-page flyers, identifying the simplest version of the strategy, available in 23 languages.

Conclusion

The people of Palestine have the same choice we all face in relation to the Elite’s rapidly advancing technocracy.

We can do nothing, we can complain (by lobbying and petitioning governments or international organizations), we can sign public declarations, we can turn up at demonstrations, and do all of the other things that put the power to change things in the hands of others. And watch this come to nought.

According to Dr Anis Sayigh, Palestinian intellectual and chairman of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut until it was destroyed by Israel in 1983, in 1936 the Palestinians were convinced by Arab leaders in the region to end a nonviolent general strike to give Britain a chance to prove its ‘good intentions’. Dr Sayigh goes on to state: ‘Unfortunately, to this day, we are still discussing UN resolutions and American and European initiatives to give the West a chance to prove its good intentions.’ Watch episode 2 of ‘Al-Nabka: The Palestinian catastrophe – Episodes 1-4’.

The point is simple: Until we learn that the Elite and its agents – no matter who or where they are: western, Arabic, Israeli, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, international organization, corporation, NGO, philanthropic foundation…. – will never change a system from which they benefit enormously by exploiting us, we will continue to run the treadmill of defeat whatever the cause for which we fight.

So we have a choice: Keep doing what history clearly demonstrates does not work or plan and take strategically-focused action that makes a difference ourselves.

That choice is yours whether we are fighting to defend Palestinians in Gaza from the ongoing genocide, liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation or defend humanity from the rapidly advancing technocracy.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

How the U.S. Regime Carries Out Its Oppression

By Eric Zuesse

Source: The Duran

The U.S. regime carries out its oppression by coercion, and by delay and outright suppression of news-reporting about the key facts of the case. It does this both in domestic matters and in international ones, as will here be exemplified first by the example of an innocent man who was framed by the U.S. regime and given a life sentence in a murder-case, and then by the example of the deeply corrupted Ukrainian nation which was grabbed by the U.S. regime in a February 2014 U.S. coup that the U.S. regime hid behind popular 2013-2014 anti-corruption demonstrations on the Maidan square in Kiev and so turned that nation into a battering-ram against the U.S. regime’s top target for conquest, which is Russia right next door to Ukraine.

In both examples — both domestic and foreign — the U.S. regime’s motivation was to increase and to intensify the power of its owners, whom it serves and who are never satisfied with the immense power that they already have but always crave to acquire yet more.

HOW IT DOES DOMESTIC OPPRESSION

On 4 May 2020, Jordan Smith headlined “MISSOURI’S ATTORNEY GENERAL IS FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT TO KEEP AN INNOCENT MAN IN PRISON: Despite ample evidence that Lamar Johnson was wrongfully convicted, Eric Schmitt is sparing no effort to keep him locked up as the coronavirus spreads”, and reported that:

The police had nothing concrete to go on. But by the time they finally interviewed Elking, they had already latched onto a suspect: 20-year-old Lamar Johnson.

Johnson would soon be arrested and tried for the October 1994 murder on thin and troubling evidence. …

In 1995, Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Still, he has long maintained his innocence — and now has a powerful ally in his corner: Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, chief prosecutor for the city of St. Louis.

Gardner ran on a reform agenda and in 2016 became the first black elected prosecutor in the city’s history. She won federal funding to start a conviction integrity unit and in 2018, at the behest of the Midwest Innocence Project, began investigating Johnson’s case. A year later, she concluded that he was innocent.

In July 2019, Gardner filed a motion with Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Hogan conceding that Johnson was wrongfully convicted. She asked the judge to grant a hearing on the matter and, ultimately, a new trial for Johnson. “When a prosecutor becomes aware of clear and convincing evidence establishing that a defendant in the prosecutor’s jurisdiction was convicted of a crime that the defendant did not commit — the position in which the circuit attorney now finds herself — the prosecutor is obligated to seek to remedy the conviction,” Gardner wrote in the court filing.

But [Judge] Hogan balked, questioning whether Gardner had the power to challenge the conviction. She called in Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to see what he had to say about it. Schmitt argued that not only did Gardner lack that authority, but the court couldn’t even entertain the matter. Hogan aligned herself with Schmitt and dismissed the case without considering the evidence Gardner had uncovered.

Hogan’s decision sparked a unique legal battle that, on April 14, culminated in a video conference hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court. The question before the judges, who are working remotely amid the coronavirus crisis, is whether a prosecutor has any power to right a wrongful conviction. …

Gardner’s yearlong inquiry revealed that Johnson’s conviction had been marred by extensive police and prosecutorial misconduct. She found that police had fabricated witness statements in an effort to frame Johnson (the witnesses said they’d never told police the things that had been attributed to them) and had pressured Elking into making an identification after he’d repeatedly told them he did not know who had attacked Boyd that night. Elking said that a detective told him who to pick out of the lineup.

Elking said that a detective told him who to pick out of the lineup.

Gardner learned that Elking had been paid more than $4,000 in exchange for his testimony and that prosecutors had also fixed a string of traffic tickets for him. None of this information was turned over to Johnson’s defense. … The state also failed to tell the defense that the jailhouse informant, Mock, had an epic criminal history (some 200 pages long) and a history of testifying for the state. … There was also the fact that Johnson had an alibi: He was with his girlfriend, child, and two friends several miles away at the time of the shooting.. … On top of it all, Gardner learned that not long after Johnson was convicted, two men, Phillip Campbell and James Howard, had each separately confessed to killing [Markus] Boyd. Both insisted that Johnson had nothing to do with it. … Given the breadth of the misconduct, Gardner felt she had to find a way to make things right — after all, it was her office that was responsible for Johnson’s conviction.  …

Not everyone agrees with that position. Schmitt’s office has since doubled down in opposition to Gardner with a mind-numbing array of arguments. …

No prosecutor in the state of Missouri has the power to undo a wrongful conviction, says the attorney general. … Schmitt says that Johnson can vindicate his rights by following regular post-conviction procedure: File a challenge based on the evidence Gardner has supplied and let the legal system work its ordinary, slogging magic. …

Even if Johnson’s appeal were to survive a procedural challenge, the process would only draw out his already wrongful incarceration. …

Unless the Missouri Supreme Court steps in, prosecutors in the state may remain hobbled, which is essentially what Schmitt is advocating: Keep the power to vet these claims in his hands and dismiss from the process elected prosecutors like Gardner, who vowed on the campaign trail to work toward a more equitable criminal justice system. …

Reform prosecutors across the country have faced varying degrees of backlash from the entrenched power structures they’ve challenged, and they’ve repeatedly had their discretion questioned as they’ve sought changes that upset the old guard. …

On 15 February 2023, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch bannered “Judge frees Lamar Johnson after 28 years in prison: Original murder case was ‘suspect at best’”, and reported:

Lamar Johnson walked out of the downtown courthouse Tuesday afternoon, a free man for the first time in decades.

Just hours earlier, a St. Louis Circuit judge vacated Johnson’s murder conviction, ruling he was wrongly imprisoned nearly 30 years ago and that there is clear and convincing evidence of his innocence.

The ruling by 22nd Circuit Court Judge David Mason comes roughly two months after a weeklong hearing in December during which another man confessed to the 1994 killing of Marcus Boyd — the crime that sent Johnson to prison with a life sentence.

Cheers erupted in the courtroom as Mason read his decision. …

The ruling ends Johnson’s decadeslong fight to prove his innocence. After years of being turned down on appeals and habeas corpus petitions, Johnson’s case attracted national attention in 2019 when Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner’s Conviction Integrity Unit reported misconduct by the investigation’s lead detective and other constitutional errors in the 1995 trial. …

Much of Mason’s decision centered on the main witness in Johnson’s 1995 trial, Greg Elking, who said at the December hearing that police coerced his original identification of Johnson as the man who wore a ski mask and shot Boyd. Mason described that identification as “suspect at best.”

”All Elking witnessed was the assailant’s eye, giving a new meaning to the phrase ‘eye witness,’” Mason said, describing it as “yet another serious weakness in the case against Johnson.”

Without Elking’s identification, there was no case. …

Photos: Wrongfully convicted inmate Lamar Johnson set free after serving 28 years for murder he did not commit. …

Once Lamar Johnson was freed, the national press reported the case, as being an example showing that though ‘mistakes’ can happen in American ‘justice’, they can be rectified: in this ‘democracy’, such mistakes can be rectified — the Government isn’t set up so as to produce these ‘mistakes’; it’s not set up that way so as to produce the world’s highest percentage of its population (almost all of which are poor people) being in prisons. It’s only mistakes. So, the public don’t know that it’s NOT mistakes — that it’s the way ‘our’ Government functions.

On 8 November 2022, Eric Schmitt won Missouri’s election to the U.S. Senate, and became appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he joins the other key Senators that represent the interests of U.S. armaments contractors (America’s most profitable industry), such as Boeing Corporation, which is the largest manufacturer in the state and is seeking tax-breaks from people such as Schmitt.

HOW IT DOES FOREIGN OPPRESSION

Ukraine was neutral between Russia and America until Obama’s brilliantly executed Ukrainian coup, which his Administration started planning by no later than June 2011, culminated successfully in February 2014 and promptly appointed a rabid anti-Russian to impose in regions that rejected the new anti-Russian U.S.-controlled government an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” to kill protesters, and, ultimately, to terrorize the residents in those regions in order to kill as many of them as possible and to force the others to flee into Russia so that when elections would be held, pro-Russian voters would no longer be in the electorate.

The war in Ukraine started in 2014, as both NATO’s Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s Zelensky have said; but Russia responded militarily on 24 February 2022 in order to prevent Ukraine from allowing the U.S. to place a missile there a mere 317 miles or five minutes of missile-flying-time away from The Kremlin and thus too brief for Russia to respond before its central command would already become beheaded by America’s nuclear strike.

However, even after at least $360 billion in support to Ukraine’s war against Russia after Russia’s invasion, from the U.S. and its colonies and their IMF, Ukraine’s prospects of winning against Russia have been declining not increasing throughout the course of the war and are now close to nil.

So: how did the U.S. regime carry out this oppression of the Ukrainian people? It was done by the same means as it had been done in the Lamar Johnson case: coercion, including coercion against the mind, which is deceit, and including coercion against public officials who might otherwise try to do the right thing in order to serve the public instead of to serve their masters who have been funding their political careers.

On 17 June 2015, I headlined “THE WHO’S WHO AT THE TOP OF THE COUP” in Ukraine, and focused upon Dmitriy Yarosh, whom Obama’s Victoria Nuland chose to run the Maidan demonstration in Kiev that provided cover for the Obama-Nuland-organized February 2014 coup in Ukraine; and, on 1 February 2015, I headlined “The Ideology of the New Ukraine”, and focused upon Andrei Biletsky (or Beletsky), who organized and ran the openly nazi Ukrainiani Azov Battalion and, unlike Yarosh, Biletsky didn’t equivocate about his being a Ukrainian Social Nationalist or (National Socialist) in the Hitler vein, but he aimed “to create a Third Empire [a Ukrainian Third Reich],” instead of Hitler’s German “Third Reich.” Then, on 20 March 2022, I headlined “How The Western Press Handles The Ukrainian Government’s Nazism” and presented a universally hidden-in-The-West photo of Biletsky leading his men in salute to what had been Nazi Germany’s Wolfsangel insignia.

On 27 May 2019, the OBOZREVATEL online Ukrainian news site headlined (as translated into English) “Yarosh: if Zelensky betrays Ukraine, he will lose not his position, but his life” , the transcript of their interview with Yarosh, right after Zelensky had won the Presidential election against Poroshenko, and, in that interview, Yarosh made unambiguously clear that if as President, Zelensky were to negotiate seriously with Russia, “he will lose not his position, but his life.” Yarosh — the agent of the regime in Washington DC — was sending the new Ukrainian President the very clear message, that even if the U.S. wouldn’t get rid of such a Ukrainian President, Ukraine’s nazis would. So: Zelensky (like Poroshenko before him) was being controlled not only from above, the empire’s imperial regime in Washington, but also from below, the U.S.-empowered nazis whom the U.S. regime had used in order to take over Ukraine during February 2014.

CONCLUSION

The U.S. Establishment (called “neocons” in foreign policy, and “neoliberals” or “libertarians” in domestic policy, but, in any case, America’s under-1,000 billionaires and their numerous employees and other agents) work via threats, not only against heads-of-state abroad such as Zelensky, but ALSO  against domestic public officials such as the Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, to turn the screws upon those down below (such as in plea-bargains to lie in court cases) in order to keep those billionaires on top, and everyone else down below; and this is the empire’s social and political and even international, “rules-based order.” Whereas Lamar Johnson, as an extremely lucky exception to the rule (or “rules-based order”) managed finally to get free in 2023 after entering prison in 1995 for a frame-up against him by the regime that he and other Americans are forced to fund with their taxes, few others are and will be so lucky, but America’s ‘news’-media won’t and don’t report this fact. For example: there is nothing to indicate that Lamar Johnson sees what happened to him as being a frame-up by the regime instead of just a bunch of tragic mistakes that the U.S. Government had made. Even the victims usually remain ignorant of the reality. — the ‘news’-media cover it up. But the whole operation — like that of any other empire — is based ultimately upon requiring the public officials to impose by raw coercion if necessary, their masters’ rule, in this “rules-based order.” It’s the way that any empire functions. And, in the world of today, the only empire that remains is the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’).

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

War Propaganda Intensifies as US Mainstream Media Calls for War on Iran to Stop the “Axis of Resistance”

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Source: Silent Crow News

Remember when the mainstream media especially FOX News was calling for an attack on Iraq because Saddam Hussein and the Bath Party was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)?  FOX News was the main cheerleader for the US and its European allies to invade Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein.  To be fair, CNN and MSNBC and other news outlets were also cheerleading for war, but FOX News was clearly, the loudest voice.  Today, FOX News is at it again with other right-wing media networks who have been also calling for the US and its allies to bomb Iran to stop the Axis of Resistance that includes Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, Syria, Iraqi resistance groups and now Yemen, with the Houthi rebels who have been launching missile attacks against Israeli and Western commercial ships in the Red Sea in support of Gaza. 

Fox News senior strategic analyst, who a former General with the US Army, Jack Keane, a war hawk who served as an advisor to manage the US occupation of Iraq and a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee.  Keane is also chairman of AM General, a heavy vehicle and automotive manufacturer that produces military Humvees for civilian and military use.  Recently, Keane spoke on FOX News regarding the 60 + strikes conducted by US and British fighter aircraft on Yemen.  The main points he made on the FOX network was that US and its British allies already had their targets pinpointed due to Centcom, the US central command, “they were likely tracking the Houthis were trying to hide some of this capability for the last few days.  But we got excellent surveillance there, and likely we will, we are able to determine whether they are moving a lot of this, they will finish the assessment, believe me, I think if there is capability there, that is still significant, we should reattack and then we got to remind ourselves what’s really happening here.” 

Keane went on to say that Iran is “the center of gravity”, therefore it must be attacked to stop its proxies in the region:

The center of gravity for the aggression in the Middle East that we’re experiencing is Iran. We have said this time and time and time again, and to deter the proxies themselves by hitting them will not be sufficient.  We have got to go after Iran themselves by hitting them will not be sufficient.  We have got to go after Iran, they are, as I mentioned, the center of gravity, Centcom has a table of targets that they have provided to the administration in how to go about doing that comprehensively to shut down their support for these proxies that has got to be high on our list.  And what that really means Brian, we have got to re-set the strategy in dealing with Iran in the region and admit the fact that this thing has failed.  When they came in, they removed the Trump sanctions.  Iran’s flush with oil money now, as a result of it, they went after the nuclear deal.  That failed    

Keane is not the only psychopath who wants World War III, another frequent quest on FOX News, Lindsey Graham who is South Carolina’s Republican Senator and a Pro-Israel activist was quoted in a FOX News article, ‘Lindsey Graham calls for warning Iran of retaliation if Hamas escalates, tells ‘Squad’ to ‘shut the hell up’ reported that the “South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham castigated the far left’s “appeasement” of Iran’s regime, which he said has not prevented attacks by Hamas against Israel, telling the Palestinian-friendly “Squad” contingent in Congress to “shut the hell up.”  On America Reports, a show produced by FOX News, Graham said that “The only way you’re going to keep this war from escalating is to hold Iran accountable. How much more death and destruction do we have to take from the Iranian regime? I am confident this was planned and funded by the Iranians.”

Sounding like a far-right Israeli politician, Graham also said that “Hamas is a bunch of animals who deserve to be treated like animals” he added that “Israeli forces should use this opportunity to invade Palestinian territory and “dismantle” the militant group.”  Graham used the Hitler comparison to the Hamas’ resistance as “an effort to kill Jewish people on par with that of former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.” 

In 2005, a few years after Iraq was already invaded and destroyed, Pew Research found that FOX News was more biased in reporting on the war in Iraq than CNN and MSNBC, “measurably more one-sided than the other networks, and Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air” and that “the news channel was also decidedly more positive in its coverage of the war in Iraq, while the others were largely neutral. At the same time, the story segments on the Fox programs studied did have more sources and shared more about them with audiences.”  This does not mean CNN and MSNBC is innocent nor any better on the lead-up to the war on Iraq, but FOX News is surely on the frontline when it comes to war propaganda. 

Iran is the ultimate prize for the neocons in Washington and Israel.  Israel wants to get the US military into another war but this time to attack Iran.  They are using the mainstream media that they control to gain support from the US population who are clueless about what is happening in the Middle East.  FOX News is a major part of the propaganda machine, so they will continue to call for another major war to appease their Zionist masters in Israel. 

In an article published in 2003 by The Guardian that was correctly titled, ‘Their Master’s Voice’ on Rupert Murdoch, the owner of FOX News said that “you have got to admit that Rupert Murdoch is one canny press tycoon because he has an unerring ability to choose editors across the world who think just like him.”   It goes on to say how much influence Rupert Murdoch, who is a neocon at heart, has in his media empire:

Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corp which owns more than 175 titles on three continents, publishes 40 million papers a week and dominates the newspaper markets in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. His television reach is greater still, but broadcasting – even when less regulated than in Britain – is not so plainly partisan. It is newspapers which set the agenda

What was Murdoch’s agenda during the war in Iraq? In an interview in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, one of the newspapers that Murdoch owns, said that “We can’t back down now, where you hand over the whole of the Middle East to Saddam…I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly, and I think he is going to go on with it.” He was also asked about another war criminal-at-large and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair:

I think Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong… It’s not easy to do that living in a party which is largely composed of people who have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist. But he’s shown great guts as he did, I think, in Kosovo and various problems in the old Yugoslavia”

Fox News is cheerleading for another war but this time against Iran who is not Iraq.  Iran has the capabilities to hit every US base in the Middle East especially those in Iraq and Syria. It has a formidable military that is ready to defend their territorial integrity. If the US and their Israeli counterparts decide to attack Iran, rest assured, the entire Middle East would erupt and they would support Iran and that will be the end of all US bases in the region and possibly, the end of a 75-year-old occupation of Palestine.      

FOX News has supported every war, it has supported every assassination of foreign military and political leaders, and it has supported every regime change operation on all corners of the globe.  There is nothing “Fair and Balanced” with FOX News and their paid propagandists who basically work for Military arms manufacturers, major corporations, the right-wing part of the American and European political establishment and of course, Israel. 

This is dangerous war propaganda all over again, we can call it, Iraq 2.0., but this is much worse because this coming war will involve many countries and resistance groups, especially those in the Middle East.   

US-British Attacks on Yemen a Portent for Wider War

By Brian Berletic

Source: New Eastern Outlook

In the opening weeks of 2024, the US and British unilaterally launched several large-scale missile and air strikes on targets in territory held by Ansar Allah (referred to as the “Houthis” across the Western media) in Yemen.

The strikes follow a campaign of missile strikes and boardings conducted by Ansar Allah against commercial shipping destined to and from Israel in response to Israel’s ongoing punitive operations in Gaza.

While the stated purpose of the US-British strikes are to protect commercial shipping, hostility of any kind in the Red Sea is likely to prompt international shipping companies to continue seeking out and using alternative routes until fighting of any kind subsides.

Indeed, according to Euronews Business, despite the US-British strikes on Ansar Allah, the CEO of Maersk, responsible for one-fifth of global maritime shipping, believes safely transiting the Red Sea is still months away.

Despite the political posturing that accompanied these attacks, strategically, they will do little to impact Ansar Allah’s fighting capacity. The political movement possesses a formidable military organization that has weathered years of full-scale war waged against it by a Saudi-led Arab coalition, backed by both the US and UK.

Not only did the US and UK encourage Saudi Arabia to sustain an air and ground war against Yemen, both Western nations contributed directly to Saudi Arabia’s war efforts.

The New York Times in a 2018 article titled, “Army Special Forces Secretly Help Saudis Combat Threat From Yemen Rebels” admitted that US special forces were operating, at a minimum, along the Saudi-Yemeni border, assisting Saudi Arabia’s armed forces in choosing targets.

The same article admits that the US was also lending assistance related to “aircraft refueling, logistics and general intelligence sharing.”

The Guardian in a 2019 article titled, “‘The Saudis couldn’t do it without us’: the UK’s true role in Yemen’s deadly war,” admitted to the scope of support provided by the UK to Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen. It included supplying weapons and munitions, thousands of maintenance contractors, pilot training, and even sending British troops to fight alongside Saudi soldiers in Yemen itself.

The scale of both Saudi Arabia’s own war on Yemen and the scale of US and British assistance to Saudi Arabia, including through the use of thousands of contractors and hundreds of soldiers on the ground, dwarfs the current missile and air strikes conducted by the US and British from the Red Sea. Even if the US and British significantly expanded their current missile and air strike campaign, it would still pale in comparison to the war that has been waged against Yemen in recent years.

Clearly then, the current US-British strikes on Yemen hold little prospect of deterring Ansar Allah, so why is the US and British carrying out these strikes anyway?

Washington’s True Motives for Striking Yemen 

CNN in an article titled, “US and UK carry out strikes against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen,” would claim:

For weeks, the US had sought to avoid direct strikes on Yemen because of the risk of escalation in a region already simmering with tension as the Israel-Hamas war continues, but the ongoing Houthi attacks on international shipping compelled the coalition to act.

Yet, because the strikes only ensure shipping in the Red Sea remains obstructed and because the strikes themselves have little hope of impacting Ansar Allah strategically, the only other explanation as to why the US launched them was to specifically raise “the risk of escalation in the region.”

Ansar Allah’s ally, Iran, has been the target of US-sponsored regime change operations for decades. Entire policy papers have been written by US government and corporate-funded think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and its 2009 paper, “Which Path to Persia?,” detailing options to achieve regime change including through deliberate attempts to draw Iran into a war by both covert action within Iran, and through attacks on Iran’s network of regional allies.

The Brookings paper admits:

“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)”

Preceding the US-British missile and air strikes on Yemen, the US has carried out strikes on Iranian allies across the region, including in Syria and Iraq. Israel, with US-backing, has also carried out attacks across the region on Iranian allies, specifically on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

There was also recently a terrorist bombing inside of Iran, likely carried out by one of several terrorist organizations sponsored by the US to carry out just such attacks, as per the Brookings paper’s own suggestion regarding “ratcheting up cover regime change efforts inside Iran.” It should be noted that elsewhere in the Brookings paper the option of using known terrorist groups to carry out US-backed “insurgency” is afforded an entire chapter (Chapter 7, Inspiring an Insurgency – Supporting Iranian Minority and Opposition Groups). 

Together, this constitutes a strategy of attempting to degrade Iranian allies in the region ahead of a wider conflict, and as a means of provoking and thus drawing Iran itself into that wider conflict.

So far, Iran has exhibited tremendous patience. Iran, as both Russia and China who face similar US policies of encirclement and containment, knows time works in its favor. Iranian patience has already served Tehran well. It has afforded it the ability to diplomatically resolve tensions between itself and Saudi Arabia through Chinese mediation. It has also allowed Iran to continue building up not only its own military capabilities, but those across its network of allies in the region, leading to a gradual shift in the balance of power in Tehran’s favor.

Washington realizes this. This time next year, if events continue to unfold as they have in recent years, Iran will only be stronger and the US more isolated in the region. The US faced a similar problem of waning primacy in Europe, using its proxy war in Ukraine against Russia as a means of reasserting itself over Europe. Washington likely imagines it can use a similar strategy to reassert itself over the Middle East while using a regional conflict to collectively weaken and thus subordinate the nations therein.

Only time will tell if the US is as “successful” in the Middle East as it was in Europe. Already many factors are working against the US, but from Washington’s perspective, it isn’t paying the price for any of these conflicts – the regions these conflicts are fought in are paying that price. As long as Washington is absolved from any direct cost in such a foreign policy, it will continue pursuing it until it is finally and fully denied the means to continue doing so.

When Yemen Does It It’s Terrorism, When The US Does It It’s “The Rules-Based Order”

We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise. 

By Caitlin Johnstone

Source: CaitlinJohnstone.com.au

The Biden administration has officially re-designated Ansarallah — the dominant force in Yemen also known as the Houthis — as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. 

The White House claims the designation is an appropriate response to the group’s attacks on US military vessels and commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying those attacks “fit the textbook definition of terrorism.” Ansarallah claims its actions “adhere to the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” since it is only enforcing a blockade geared toward ceasing the ongoing Israeli destruction of Gaza.

One of the most heinous acts committed by the Trump administration was its designation of Ansarallah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), both of which imposed sanctions that critics warned would plunge Yemen’s aid-dependent population into even greater levels of starvation than they were already experiencing by restricting the aid that would be allowed in. One of the Biden administration’s only decent foreign policy decisions has been the reversal of that sadistic move, and now that reversal is being partially rolled back, though thankfully only with the SDGT listing and not the more deadly and consequential FTO designation.

In a new article for Antiwar about this latest development, Dave Decamp explains that as much as the Biden White House goes to great lengths insisting that it’s going to issue exemptions to ensure that its sanctions don’t harm the already struggling Yemeni people, “history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.” DeCamp also notes that US and British airstrikes on Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services to the country.

So the US empire is going to be imposing sanctions on a nation that’s still trying to recover from the devastation caused by the US-backed Saudi blockade that contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths between 2015 and 2022. All in response to the de facto government of that very same country imposing its own blockade with the goal of preventing a genocide.

That’s right kids: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the middle east, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.

It just says so much about how the US empire sees itself that it can impose blockades and starvation sanctions at will upon nations like Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea for refusing to bow to its dictates, but when Yemen imposes a blockade for infinitely more worthy and noble reasons it gets branded an act of terrorism. The managers of the globe-spanning empire loosely centralized around Washington literally believe the world is theirs to rule as they will, and that anyone who opposes its rulings is an outlaw.

What this shows us is that the “rules-based international order” the US and its allies claim to uphold is not based on rules at all; it’s based on power, which is the ability to control and impose your will on other people. The “rules” apply only to the enemies of the empire because they are not rules at all: they are narratives used to justify efforts to bend the global population to its will.

We are ruled by murderous tyrants. By nuclear-armed thugs who would rather starve civilians to protect the continuation of an active genocide than allow peace to get a word in edgewise. Our world can never know health as long as these monsters remain in charge.

Something Lost, Never to Be Found Again

Defeat in Ukraine may be but one part to an accumulation of western ‘defeats’. Defeat in Israel would strike at the very core of U.S. political being.

By Alastair Crooke

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

A strange ennui and distracted attention envelops the West today.

Hat-tip to Simplicius’ Bones of Tomorrow, in which he reflects on a Culture that has become debased; its lures that used to trap us into the ‘Myth of the West’ lie withered, as patently false idols. The dimming fire has squandered any sense of ‘magic’ in the guttering West, or indeed of hope to recoup this something ‘lost’. It is the wistful realisation that – as it stands – the myth is never likely to offer anything of lasting value again.

The figments of a utopian future once promised, nonetheless continue their seductive hold on our psyche, but only on attention-hopping, hypnotic touch-screens. Cultural touchstones crumble around us like rotting edifices one after another. Yet, we are too distracted to take real notice, or to absorb the significance. Counter ‘currents’ in the shadows gleefully applaud.

Where we stand now is where we’ve always stood – in the quicksands of time. A passing of the guard; one world fading, deep into the slow, declining burnout phase, the natural process of decay and renewal, whilst taking us forward towards some next, still-to-sprout, green shoots. A sense of something lost and never to be found again, which we all endure these days.

The ‘Elect’ though, have deliberately raised the stakes. They do not want to ‘let go’. They have determined that, with the western train wrecked on its own cultural ‘wall’, the ‘End of Time’ story of convergence on a common future is ‘over’ too.

And along with it, the claimed western mandate to dictate the ‘direction forward’ is over also.

Beneath the gimcrack and baubled veneer, the western meta-narrative “from Plato to NATO, that superior ideas and practices whose origins lie in ancient Greece, and have been transmitted down the ages so that those in the West today, are the lucky inheritors of a superior cultural DNA” has transpired to be nothing more than the faded tinselry of hollow narrative.

This is the deep fear of western political leaders – they know the ‘Narrative’ to be a fiction. Nonetheless, they go on telling it to themselves, despite knowing that our era has been made increasingly and dangerously contingent on this meta-myth. Absent the Myth, they sense, the western project, and western prosperity, could disintegrate utterly.

The ‘Elect’ hoped that the dredged-up, chimeric dreams of material prosperity and western savoir faire could still prop the Myth ‘aloft’, but only (and only if) the West possessed the better narrative. The right narrative was everything. It had to outmatch and outshine the ‘clunky narratives’ of adversaries. This deceptive covenant had to endure at all costs, lest the baubled veneer of the Myth come undone.

So the narrative ‘factory’ is put hard to work. The kinetic war in Ukraine is settled in an evident and overwhelming Russian victory – albeit without it yet being ‘over’. Of course not: Ukraine was but one single battlescape in the wider struggle to force the ‘Rimland’ (the Atlanticist world) to accept an agreed upon frontier between it and the ‘Heartland’ (Russia, China and their Asian depth), and gracefully to renounce its claim to exceptionality in determining our global future.

The MSM media therefore is abuzz with analysis of how to define a ‘western win’: Is it possible to ‘flip’ the narrative of Ukraine, they ponder, to being ‘another’ western win? They want to continue to feed Ukraine into the grinder – to persist in the fantasy of ‘total win’: “There is no other way than a total win – and to get rid of Putin … We have to take all risks for that. No compromise is possible, no compromise”.

Call the Ukraine conflict a ‘stalemate’, and insist that it represents a ‘defeat’ for Putin and a ‘win’ for Biden, since Russia was unable to seize the whole of Ukraine (falsely imputing this to have been Moscow’s objective, from the start). This approach is thought rather ‘cool’ by western analysts: Frame the narrative of a ‘win’ and ensure that from top-to-bottom of society, all adhere to the correct narrative without demur.

But this is little more than a simple projection from the YouTube ‘influencer’ culture, by which random individuals earn ‘street cred’, (and lots of cash), by curating slick narratives – whether about fashion, or political events. It may work insofar as the addled western public is concerned, but it has limited traction beyond western cultural tinselry.

The flaw when ‘flip-narratives’ are weaponised geo-politically, however, is that propaganda which is so divorced from a reality that is evident simply is not a winning narrative (except in the most fleeting of ways). Plainly said, it leads to the self-isolation of its authors.

The glee with which evident western ‘reverses’ seemingly can be narratively ‘flipped’ by Intelligence ‘leaks’ propagating rank lies to support a narrative has become a contagion amongst western intelligence services. Yet rather, this ‘deceptive covenant’ is a poisoned chalice.

If the West had any remaining sense, it would concentrate more on setting a ‘narrative of western defeat’ in Ukraine, rather than promulgating yet another rotting ‘narrative of victory’.

Why so?

Because a wise leadership would be preparing its people for defeat. Unlikely and false stories of glory on the battlefield come back to bite the perpetrators, as (metaphorically) the wounded and dead return to contradict visibly the tale of victory.

The West, by contrast, is still fed on stories of western leadership, election, innate qualities and exceptionalism. Put simply, this ‘influencer’ fad signally is failing to help westerners cope with the tectonic shifts occurring across the globe. Its peoples are wholly unprepared for the ‘Winter that is Coming’.

Yet, the purveyors of ‘winning’ hug themselves in sheer glee as their ‘flipped’ delusions are relayed through a compliant MSM.

Childish propaganda and lying however will only serve to make the new era all the more painful. A ‘narrative of defeat’, told with integrity, by contrast, is one that helps a people to understand how a particular crisis arose and came to afflict them. It should also signal a way forward. In Iran this was understood: ‘Ashura’ gave the key to understanding the pain and crisis Iranians had been enduring, and the Mahdi signalled a future that lay beyond immediate crisis.

The need for a return to an integrity of messaging is all the more pressing as attempts to repair one reversal, with a false narrative – inverting realities to achieve the putative ‘win’ – will only lead to further losses.

Deceit is exposed in the instant. Trust takes a decade to build. Does the West really believe it can recoup in this way? Nobody beyond their authors believes these western Intelligence narratives, post- Ukraine. They are now tainted for the long run. In the end, military facts are more powerful than political waffle.

There is another factor at play here too. EU spokesman on foreign affairs, Peter Stano, when asked this month by TASS about the Ukrainian missile strikes on the Russian city of Belgorod, resulting in over two dozen civilian casualties, said: “Regarding the specific incident in Belgorod, no information that comes from Russia can be considered trustworthy”, the spokesman added, accusing Moscow of “constant lies, manipulation and propaganda”.

Here lies the dark underside to ‘Win Narratives’ that become unyoked from the facts on the ground: The EU spokesman is compelled to affirm the mandatory narrative of Ukraine’s “right to defend itself … from aggression” – but then to nix anything and everything that Russia may say.

Put plainly, ‘win narratives’ kill empathy; they kill active listening and understanding. Diplomats are supposed to practice deep listening. If what they hear jars with what they expect, or want to hear, they are supposed to listen harder, and try to run-down what it is that lies out-of-sight, behind what they hear, so to understand what was intended, and to better understand their interlocutor. The West does not practice this now.

People often ask why is there so little empathy evident today? Why do states talk past each other? Why are channels of communication jammed? Well, that’s why: Flipped narratives based on easily exposed untruths.

Yet the western defeat in Ukraine may be but one part to an accumulation of western ‘defeats’. Defeat in Israel, for one, would strike at the very core of U.S. political being – too close to the quick to be lightly brushed aside. And there may be more hurts to come in the Middle East.

Just to be clear: the spinning of a fabric of delusion, unfaithful to the granular truth lurking beneath, ultimately hurts its authors. It leaves people disorientated, insecure, kicking at the loose gravel of the past, rummaging for some understanding of the crashing defeat, for which they are wholly unprepared.

The risk is then of a nation being swept off-course to ultimate catastrophe by the romance of ‘winning’ slogans such as ‘together we will win’ (heard all across Israel today): “Anyone who has studied German history and watched Goebbels’ career, sees what a dangerous instrument propaganda is – one that can lead to a [catastrophic] national loss of way.”

Fake Intellectuals Working For Think Tanks Funded By the Arms Industry Are Driving Support For War After War After War

By Jeremy Kuzmarov

Source: Covert Action

A few days after the October 7 attacks in northern Israel, The Atlantic Council ran an inflammatory article on its website by Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy national intelligence officer, entitled “It doesn’t matter whether Iran planned the Hamas attack—Tehran is still to blame.”[1]

The article referenced a Wall Street Journal article that claimed unfoundedly that Iran was responsible for planning the attacks, and expressed belief that even if Iran didn’t directly plan it, Iran was still responsible because it had supported Hamas in the past.

The article went on to support an aggressive military response by the U.S. and Israel that could potentially entail bombing Iran. The latter was a long-held dream of neoconservatives who have wanted to overthrow the regime of the Ayatollahs since it took over from the Shah, a U.S. and Israeli client, in a 1979 revolution.

Glenn Diesen, The Think Tank Racket: Managing the Information War With Russia (Clarity Press, 2023) looks at the influence of think tanks like The Atlantic Council in driving gargantuan U.S. military budgets and endless wars that have no end in sight.

The Atlantic Council has been particularly hawkish with regards to Russia, helping to fuel a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in Ukraine that has decimated a generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth and left us on the threshold of World War III.

Diesen is an associate professor at the University of Southeast Norway and an associate editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.

His book emphasizes the undue influence that think tank pseudo-intellectuals play because of their ubiquitous presence in the mainstream media as well as academia and because of their authorship of policy reports that often guide government policy.

Rather than being even-handed or in any way objective in their analysis, the think tank fellows follow a preordained narrative.

According to Diesen, their job is to manufacture consent for the goals of their paymasters—weapons manufacturers and oil companies who profit off of war along with foreign governments courting more U.S. military aid.

Diesen writes that “think-tanks have become a symptom of hyper-capitalism in which all aspects of society have become an appendage to the market. Even political influence is regulated by the free-market, in which think tanks are an important component.”

Diesen notes that a brilliant achievement of propaganda has been to convince the population that propaganda is only an instrument of authoritarian states—that the U.S. is supposedly combating—and not liberal democracies.

The think tanks help condition the public to fear foreign threats and support wars of aggression under the veneer of providing independent expert analysis.

Paul Craig Roberts, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan, has called The Atlantic Council the “marketing arm of the military-security complex,” while Diesen calls it “NATO’s Propaganda Wing.”

The Atlantic Council’s financial report from 2019/2020 reveals that it received over $1 million from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to Diesen. It also received major contributions from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. State Department, a Saudi oil billionaire (Bahaa Hariri), Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, Crescent Petroleum, and Burisma, an energy company owned by Ukrainian oligarchs which appointed Hunter Biden to its board along with former CIA counter-terrorism director Cofer Black.

The Atlantic Council’s close ties to the CIA were further evident when its former executive vice-president, Damon Wilson, was appointed CEO of the NED, a CIA offshoot that promotes propaganda and supports dissidents in countries whose governments have been targeted by the U.S. for regime change.

Former CIA Director James R. Woolsey is listed as a lifetime director of the Atlantic Council, while former CIA Directors Leon Panetta, Robert Gates and David Petraeus are listed on its Board, along with such war criminals as Henry Kissinger, and Condeleezza Rice.

Over the past decade, the Atlantic Council has published countless reports on Russia’s kleptocracy and disinformation being spread allegedly by Vladimir Putin, and has hosted anti-Russian dissidents and Belarusian opposition figures such as Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who called for more aggressive intervention by the U.S. in Belarusian politics

One of The Atlantic Council’s fellows, Michael Weiss, spreads his anti-Russia invective as an editor at the popular online media outlet, The Daily Beast. He helps run a neo-McCarthyite website, PropOrNot that promotes the worst kind of fear mongering imaginable, attacking independent media outlets, including the Ron Paul Institute, for allegedly advancing Russian propaganda.

In 2015, the Atlantic Council helped prepare a proposal for arming the Ukrainian military with offensive weaponry like Javelin anti-tank missiles—the same year that it presented its Distinguished Leadership Award to Marillyn Adams Hewson, then the CEO of Lockheed Martin, which produces Javelin missiles and many other lethal weapons.

Since the commencement of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, The Atlantic Council has doubled down on its long-standing Russophobia, calling for bombing Russia and starting World War III.

Last February, Matthew Kroenig, the Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, argued for consideration of the U.S. preemptive use of ’tactical’ nuclear weapons.[2] This would not only kill thousands of people directly but likely cause what scientists characterize as a “nuclear winter” by injecting so much smoke and debris into the air that it will block sunlight and cause a precipitous drop in global temperatures, affecting food production across the globe.

Triggering New Cold and Hot Wars

The Atlantic Council’s support for war with Russia is characteristic of think tanks which played a crucial role in pushing the decision to expand NATO after the Cold War.

George F. Kennan and other foreign policy experts had warned against this because NATO was perceived as a hostile military alliance by Russia and it would undermine new European security initiatives involving Russia. Vietnam War architect Robert S. McNamara at the time also called for a new “peace dividend” by which the U.S. would reduce its military budget and address social needs with taxpayer dollars.

The overriding imperative of the weapons industry, however, was to revitalize cold war thinking to ensure continuously high military budgets and the expansion of NATO and the think-tanks were enlisted to fulfill that end.

Diesen points out that the Brookings Institute, one of the oldest American think tanks, played an instrumental role in the Russia Gate hoax, which greatly contributed to the spread of Russophobia underlying the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

A primary researcher and contributor to the Steele dossier, the seminal document in Russia Gate which spread false information about Donald Trump being blackmailed because of an alleged encounter with Russian prostitutes, was an employee of the Brookings Institute named Igor Danchenko, who was indicted by Special Counsel John Durham for lying to the FBI.

Working under Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and renowned anti-Russian hawk, Danchenko claimed to have accrued incriminating information against Trump from a meeting with Russian-American Chamber of Commerce President Sergey Millian, who said that this meeting never actually took place.[3]

The Atlantic Council was another false purveyor of Russia Gate whose revenues increased tenfold from 2006-2016 when it began demonizing Vladimir Putin and smearing politicians like Tulsi Gabbard who advocated for cooperative diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia.

Leaving out the fact that Putin revitalized Russia’s economy after the failed privatization and shock therapy initiatives of the 1990s, The Atlantic Council made people believe that Putin invaded Ukraine on a whim and would destabilize all of Europe if he was not stopped.

This kind of analysis obscures the true origins of the conflict in Ukraine and the Western role in supporting NATO expansion and a 2014 coup against Ukraine’s legally elected government led by Viktor Yanukovych, which led to the outbreak of civil war.

The Atlantic Council continues today along with other think-tanks to whitewash Ukrainian war crimes, corruption and close ties with the far-right and neo-Nazis.

Michael McFaul of the Hoover Institute even celebrates Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s crackdown on opposition politicians and media, while hypocritically framing the struggle against Russia as one of authoritarianism versus democracy.

McFaul and others have made clear that a primary U.S. foreign policy goal is to try and delink Ukraine and the rest of Europe from Russia while expanding U.S. natural gas sales in Europe.

In 2019, the RAND Corporation, the think tank of the intelligence agencies, issued a report calling for threatening NATO expansion and the arming of Ukraine in order to draw Russia into a conflict that would facilitate its overextension militarily and economically and cause the Russian government to lose domestic and international support.

The same report advocated for intensifying the ideological and information war against Russia to weaken the legitimacy and stability of its government, and voiced support for the anti-corruption crusade of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whom Diesen identifies as a British intelligence asset supportive of policies designed to weaken the Russian Federation.

RAND earlier had advocated for provoking civil war within Syria through covert action and informational warfare and by capitalizing on the sustained Shia-Sunni conflict in order to undermine the nationalist Assad regime and draw Russia into the conflict there.

RAND also advocated for the destabilization of the Caucuses in order to cause a fissure between Russia and its traditional ally, Armenia, hence weakening Russia.

This latter goal was achieved when Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed no-confidence in Russia’s ability to protect it after Azerbaijan—heavily armed by the U.S. and Israel—invaded the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

RAND had also issued policy recommendations for reducing Russian influence in Moldova and undercutting Russian trade with Central Asia and promoted regime change in Belarus to destabilize a Russian ally and alter the country’s orientation westward.

Following this prescription, the NED and other U.S. agencies provoked an uprising in 2020 against Belarus’ socialist leader Alexander Lukashenko, who was demonized in western media though he helped curb inequality and poverty considerably while resisting the rapid privatization initiatives carried out by other post-Soviet leaders.

CNAS and Team Biden

One of the most influential think tanks today is the Center For a New American Security (CNAS), which received huge sums from oil companies like Chevron and BP, financial giants like Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, and Amazon and Google from Big Tech.

CNAS’s former CEO, Victoria Nuland, was a former adviser to Dick Cheney and a key architect behind the 2014 coup in Ukraine.[4]

CNAS’ founder, Michèle Flournoy, was a board member of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy helped develop counterinsurgency policy for Afghanistan and contributed to convincing Barack Obama to invade Libya. More recently, she has advocated for an aggressive military buildup in the South China Sea to counter a rising China.

When Joe Biden became president, at least 16 CNAS alumni were selected for foreign policy positions. CNAS had pushed heavily for making Kamala Harris Vice President as her foreign policy team consisted of an army of CNAS think-tankers—including Flournoy.

The appointment of CNAS alumni to prestigious positions and their lobbying influence epitomizes the so-called revolving door in which high level White House and Pentagon officials who serve corporate-military interests while in power are rewarded with lucrative paying jobs in which they continue to serve the same underlying interests.

Diesen emphasizes at the end of his book that think tanks in the modern U.S. have helped to subvert democracy and obstruct U.S. foreign policy in the interests of wealthy corporations that profit from endless wars. He sees as a solution more public disclosures about the sources of think tank funding and public pressures that could help reduce their influence.

Another more radical solution is a socialist revolution that would result in the nationalization of the weapons industry, taking profit out of war, and reorganizing research, development and production toward fulfilling human needs.


  1. Panikoff is the Atlantic Council’s Director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. 
  2. In John Bellamy Foster, John Ross, and Deborah Veneziale, Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2023), 42. 
  3. The New Knowledge think-tank fabricated a story of Russian interference in the 2017 Alabama state election with the intent of causing the defeat of Republican candidate Roy Moore. 
  4. Nuland was also a fellow at the Brookings Institute. 

In Gaza genocide, US defends Israel’s ‘aura of power’

As South Africa accuses Israel of genocide, the Biden administration endorses Israel’s bid to sow “fear” in Gaza’s defenseless civilians.

By Aaron Maté

Source: Aaron Maté Substack

Days after South Africa filed a motion to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, the Biden administration responded with indignation. The allegation, White House spokesperson John Kirby declared, is “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

South Africa’s 84-page submission is in fact exhaustive in its documentation of Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza and Israeli leaders’ open intention to carry it out. By contrast to this detailed intervention, Israel’s chief sponsor in Washington openly admits that it still refuses even minimal scrutiny of the extermination campaign that it is funding and arming.

Nearly three months into an Israeli assault that has relied on billions of dollars in US weaponry, the Biden administration has still “conducted no formal assessment of whether Israel is violating international humanitarian law,” Politico reports. While going out of its way to avoid this assessment, the Biden administration has gone around Congressional review to transfer $147.5 million in artillery shells and other gear to Israel – the second time it has invoked emergency powers to do so.

A senior administration official insists to Politico that there is nothing to worry about: “If you just look at what Israel is doing, they aren’t systematically targeting civilians.” Even if that were true, which it clearly is not, what is indisputable is that Israel is systematically killing civilians. As even President Biden blurted out last month, Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate bombing,” an unambiguous war crime. For this reason, the New York Times reports, when Biden offered that “not… scripted comment,” his blunder “sent aides scrambling to explain.”

How the White House is now scrambling to explain its view that Israel is not committing genocide or even violations of humanitarian law is even more revealing. According to Politico: “The U.S. came to that conclusion in part after looking at press reports and conversations with Israeli officials about their military operations.” Absent from the Biden administration’s list of source material is its own intelligence, which recently found that almost half of the munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza have been indiscriminate “dumb” bombs that have predictably murdered countless civilians in their homes and shelters.

Instead, the US is only relying on “press reports” – but clearly not those documented in South Africa’s ICJ submission, which collects Israeli leaders’ genocidal rhetoric in nine pages of chilling detail (p. 59-67). That leaves “conversations with Israeli officials” – who, unsurprisingly, are not keen to admit that they are the 21st century’s worst war criminals.

Israel’s bombing campaign is accompanied by an unprecedented blockade that deprives Gaza of vital aid. According to Arif Husain, the chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program, “80% of the people [globally], or four out of five people, in famine or a catastrophic type of hunger are in Gaza right now.”

At the White House podium, Kirby said that he is “not aware of any kind of formal assessment being done by the United States government to analyze the compliance with international law by our partner Israel.” And given that Kirby has previously stated that the White House has “no red lines” when it comes to Israel’s conduct, that will remain the case. “We have not seen anything that would convince us that we need to take a different approach in terms of trying to help Israel defend itself,” he said.

But just as the US is fully aware that its partner Israel is committing genocide, the US is also aware that Israel’s professed “right to self-defense” against occupied territory has nothing to do with self-defense. Biden administration officials have admitted as much to one of their most reliable media mouthpiece since Oct. 7th, the New York Times. “The Americans say Israel’s forceful response… reflects the importance that it places on re-establishing deterrence against attacks from adversaries in the region,” the Times reported in November. “The Israeli military’s aura of power was shaken by the Oct. 7 attack, the officials say.”

To restore Israel’s shaken “aura of power,” therefore, the empathetic Americans have given Israel a free pass to slaughter more than 22,000 defenseless civilians, all while pushing the two million survivors into famine and desperation.

This imperative of “deterrence” – establishing a monopoly on violence against occupied Palestinians and regional neighbors – has guided Israeli strategy since its inception.

As a divisional military commander in 1967, future Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon voiced concern that Israel was losing its “deterrence capability,” which he defined as “our main weapon – the fear of us.”

In 1988, one month into the first Intifada, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin boasted that his policy of brutalizing demonstrating Palestinians was successfully employing Israel’s main weapon of fear. “The use of force, including beatings, undoubtedly has brought about the impact we wanted—strengthening the population’s fear of the Israel Defense Forces,” Rabin said.

When Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, a three-week long assault that killed 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children, in the Gaza Strip, Israel wielded the same weapon. According the New York Times, Israeli officials were guided by a “larger concern”: that their “enemies are less afraid of it than they once were or should be.” Therefore, the Times reported, “Israeli leaders are calculating that a display of power in Gaza could fix that,” using slain Palestinians civilians to “re-establish Israeli deterrence.”

The same imperative applies to Israel’s current extermination campaign in Gaza. In calling for “a war of unprecedented magnitude” on Gaza, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett explained in October that “Israel’s future depends not on pity from the world, but on fear in the hearts of our enemies.”

In a new account of the Biden administration’s dealings with Israel, the New York Times again confirms that Israel seeks to preserve its monopoly on state terror. In Gaza, the Times explains, “strategically, Israel does not mind too much if the rest of the world thinks it is willing to go overboard with overwhelming force.” After all, Israel has spent more than a “half century… fostering the image of invincibility, an image shattered on Oct. 7. Israeli leaders want to reestablish the deterrence that was lost.”

Israel indeed need not mind that the world opposes its genocidal campaign when the world’s top superpower gives it free rein to “go overboard with overwhelming force” – the Times’ artful euphemism for state terror.

The White House continues to make this endorsement clear, even as it occasionally feigns concern about the civilian toll. According to the Times, “there is no serious discussion within the Biden administration about cutting Israel off or putting conditions on security aid.” The only “real debate” concerns “the language to use and how hard to push,” on marginal tactical issues. But no matter how many more civilians die, “no one inside is really pressing for a dramatic policy shift like suspending weapons supplies to Israel — if for no other reason than they understand the president is not willing to do so.”

Israel undoubtedly appreciates Biden’s unwillingness to stop the genocide. As Israel’s former US ambassador Michael Oren explains, Israel was “dependent on the United States,” after Oct. 7th. “And that meant they have a say in things.” The White House’s main contribution, Oren adds, is that “Biden has not used the two most obvious tools available to him to force Israel’s hand, namely the flow of U.S. arms to Israel and the U.S. veto at the U.N. Security Council that protects Israel from international sanctions.” According to White House insiders, while Biden and Netanyahu “are not truly friends,” both “understand each other’s politics and their mutual dependence at this point.”

Biden and Netanyahu’s mutual dependence only means that Israel must occasionally temper its savagery to meet US public relations needs. According to Times, Netanyahu “agreed to let humanitarian aid into Gaza as a condition for Mr. Biden visiting” Israel after Oct. 7th. In other words, Netanyahu let a trickle of humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza death camp solely for the political benefit that a Biden visit could offer him. The Times offers this revelation in passing without further comment. In the view of the Times and its Biden administration sources, it is perfectly reasonable for Israel to block vital supplies to Gaza just to extract a gesture of US political support for its extermination campaign there.

In a recent opinion article for The Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu described his “three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza” as follows: “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized.”

But Netanyahu’s vision of “peace” is predicated on exterminating his Palestinian neighbors in Gaza. Along with its bombing campaign and starvation siege, Israeli officials have openly called for ethnic cleansing. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich recently told Israeli Army Radio. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different.” According to The Times of Israel, Netanyahu has informed cabinet members that: “Our problem is [finding] countries that are willing to absorb Gazans, and we are working on it.”

Any serious “prerequisite for peace” therefore requires the inverse of Netanyahu’s strategy: the Israeli government must be demilitarized and Israeli society must be deradicalized. The same applies for the Biden administration, which is so radicalized that it openly flaunts its support for what South Africa calls “the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza,” all to help defend Israel’s “aura of power.”