Conscientious Objector Group: Phone 'Ringing Off Hook' As Huge Mobilization Underway

ZeroHedge

An 80-year-old nonprofit that advises conscientious objectors says its phone is "ringing off the hook" as American service members who object to the US-and-Israel-initiated war on Iran are seeking guidance on how to avoid being a part of it. Ominously, the group's executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the run-up to the ground invasion of Iraq.

"Phone has been ringing off the hook," wrote Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner on X. "A LOT more units have just been activated for deployment than the public knows about." Founded in 1940, the Center on Conscience and War provides guidance to military service members pursuing a conscientious objector (CO) status or a discharge. The group also opposes military conscription.

In a post on the group's account, the Center said it received a call from someone who is on deployment orders and who:

"reports widespread opposition to Iran War within their unit...In particular, they conveyed disgust at the US massacre of the girls' school as well as the attack on the Iranian frigate in international waters."

The US military is reportedly responsible for killing some 150 schoolgirls in Minab, Iran during the opening of the war. In another incident, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian ship that was departing a largely ceremonial naval event in India that involved 18 countries. Compounding the controversy over sinking a lightly-armed vessel 2,000 miles from the war theater, the Americans apparently left surviving sailors to drown in a violation of the Geneva Convention -- that is, a war crime. At least 87 died.

Under US military policy, CO status is defined as "a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief." That would seemingly exclude service members who stand ready to defend America, but who view the war on Iran as an amoral enterprise being carried out solely to advance Israel's agenda in the region.

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Fire still raining down on Gaza

Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation

Trump's elusive peace deal was an excellent ploy to quietly continue with the final occupation plan.

Bomb after bomb

There is no peace for Gaza. Trump's elusive peace plan - or should we say his gigantic real estate plan to make money off the suffering of the people? - was an excellent ploy to quietly continue with the final occupation plan.

The occupation has convinced international public opinion that the violence in Gaza has ceased, when in reality entire families continue to be wiped out in total silence. The world remains silent, perhaps only because something called a "truce" has been proclaimed, an excellent move of infowarfare.

What cannot be seen from the outside is that, day after day, the Israeli army is expanding its grip on the territory of Gaza. It advances slowly, taking over a street, then a neighborhood, then entire areas — silently redrawing the map while the international community celebrates a fictitious calm. The war is not over; it has simply taken on another form: from bombing to silent expansion, from air strikes to creeping occupation.

At the same time, the world fails to notice that a false appearance of normality is being constructed in Gaza: sweets, chocolate, and electronic goods enter freely, as if people wanted the superfluous, while basic goods such as meat, eggs, and medicines are systematically blocked.

The most basic necessities have become rare and precious commodities, and when they do appear, they are sold at unsustainable prices. Traders raise the prices of essentials — medicines, meat — because availability is minimal. Israel continues to deceive the world, and the world continues to be easily deceived. Meanwhile, bombs continue to fall, leaving Gazans in a state of endless war, not only conventional but also psychological, because anything can happen at any time. And this has been "normal" for them for decades.

Israel uses a well-known strategy, tried and tested over the years: it violates the ceasefire, bombs as it pleases, then announces the return of the truce. A unilateral, violent and unpunished act. This now recognizable pattern has a devastating effect on Palestinian communities and constitutes a clear abuse of international humanitarian law.

According to the rules of war, a truce should represent an effective and verifiable suspension of hostilities, aimed at protecting civilians, allowing humanitarian aid to enter, and preventing further loss of life. However, Israel's interpretation of the term seems to be purely instrumental. Every time the army conducts "targeted operations" during the truce — striking densely populated neighborhoods, advancing with armored vehicles, or shifting the boundaries of controlled areas — the truce is effectively violated. Yet, at the end of the attacks, it is announced that the ceasefire has 'returned' or "remains in force," as if nothing had happened.

This dynamic renders the very notion of a truce meaningless and undermines the foundations of international humanitarian law, which requires good faith, transparency, and respect for agreed conditions. Declaring the return of the truce after repeatedly breaking it is not only a formal violation, but a strategy that allows the occupation to operate with total impunity, while the international community remains paralyzed by ambiguous and contradictory narratives.

And it is precisely in the realm of narrative that infowarfare comes into play. Presenting bombings and advances as "limited incidents," claiming that the truce is still in force despite the explosions, and spreading the idea that the situation is under control serves to construct a distorted image of reality. The goal is twofold: on the one hand, to avoid international pressure and formal accusations of violating the truce; on the other, to shape global perception, pushing the media and governments to see stability where destruction reigns.

This manipulation of information is not an accessory element, but an integral part of military strategy. Infowarfare allows operations on the ground to continue while maintaining an acceptable diplomatic appearance. In this way, the use of the truce becomes a narrative tool rather than a mechanism for protecting civilians. This is where the most serious abuse occurs: the transformation of the language of humanitarian law into a rhetorical weapon that masks violence rather than limiting it.

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How the world can resist the UN Security Council’s rogue colonial mandate in Gaza

Craig Mokhiber | Mondoweiss.net

The UN Security Council resolution backing the Trump plan for Gaza is clearly illegitimate, but there are several ways that states and individuals worldwide can challenge its illegality.

n a now infamous moment in television history, former US President Richard Nixon, three years after leaving office in scandal, was asked by interviewer David Frost if the US President could commit illegal acts. Nixon replied: “If the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” 

With those twelve words, Nixon dismissed the core idea of republican government and the very essence of the rule of law. For Nixon (and far too many today), some people and some institutions are simply above the law. And not only are they not bound by the law that binds the rest of us, but we must follow their orders. Afterall, this is the divine right of kings. 

Almost a half century later, Nixonian ideology is alive and well. 

In the wake of the Security Council adoption of resolution 2803 last month (a resolution that shocked legal analysts and human rights defenders around the globe for its blatantly colonial content, and about which I have written previously) even critics of the resolution have thrown up their hands to declare “oh well, the Security Council adopted it, so now its law.” In other words, to paraphrase Nixon, “if the Security Council does it, that means it is not illegal.” 

Nonsense. 

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'DON'T LEAVE UNTIL HE BLEEDS'

Seymour Hersh

One of the initial proposed sites for the prison for alleged Al Qaeda terrorists, I was told more than two decades ago by a senior Army general, as the United States went to war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was a deserted island in the South Pacific that had been used after World War II for testing nuclear weapons. But the islands there were still too hot — too radioactive — and so the prison was set up at a once obscure US Navy base on the eastern tip of Cuba known as Guantánamo Bay.

The United States, initially shocked and enraged by the murder unleashed by Al Qaeda on 9/11, looked away as hundreds of suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere were sent to a hastily assembled prisoner-of-war camp with nothing close to due process. It was later reported that the US military had paid, sometimes handsomely, for many of the alleged Al Qaeda members who ended up at the prison and were treated brutally. President Barack Obama promised during his 2008 campaign to shut down Gitmo, as the prison was known — there were 242 detainees still there — and issued an executive order to do so on his third day in office. The Congressional and public opposition was intense, and Obama retreated, as the military would say, in the face of fire. It wouldn't be his only retreat.

Soon enough the abuses at Gitmo were no secret. I was told early on by a knowledgeable American official that the promised rest and relaxation for some prisoners amounted in some cases to being tied in a straitjacket and flung into a secure outside area for an hour spent in the blistering tropical heat of midday. One group that continues to monitor the prison is the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, a nonprofit that is renowned for its continued efforts to protect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its most recent summary of the situation in the prison doesn't flatter either Democrats or Republicans.

In 2023, the CCR reported:

• "780 men and boys, all of them Muslim," have been imprisoned since early 2002.
• Eighty-six per cent "were sold" to the United States during the time when the US military was offering large bounties for capture, as much as $5,000 per man.
• Twenty-two or more were children when taken to the detention camp.
• Fifteen men remain at the prison and have been detained for more than fifteen years.
• Six men were not charged with any crime of offense, including three who had been cleared for release.
• Nine men still had active cases in the military system.
• Only two still imprisoned have been convicted.
• The same number of men, nine, have died at the prison as have been convicted in the last two decades.
• Not a single senior US government official has been held accountable for wrongful detention and torture at Guantánamo Bay.
• It has cost the US Government an estimated $540 million a year to keep Guantánamo open, "making it the most expensive prison in the world."

A forgotten prison in a forgotten place is the subject of Through the Gates of Hell: American Injustice at Guantánamo Bay, a new book by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a former corporate lawyer who is now special counsel at Human Rights First in New York.

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Israel is killing Gazans trying to return to their homes beyond the ‘yellow line’

Tareq S. Hajjaj | Monodweiss.net

As part of the ceasefire, Gaza has been split in half by the so-called ‘yellow line,’ where Israel’s military controls just over 50% of the Strip. Palestinians are being killed for trying to cross or even get close to the line. 

There is an invisible line dividing Gaza, and any Palestinian who attempts to cross it, or even get close to it, is killed. 

That is what happened to Ibrahim and Mazen al-Najjar, two men from the same family,  on November 5th. Displaced in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, they attempted to go to their home in the eastern part of Khan Younis, to attempt to retrieve some belongings. It was a simple enough task. The only problem was, their home lies behind the ‘yellow line’, which is the area of Gaza under full Israeli military control since the ceasefire on October 10. Ibrahim and Mazen never made it to their home, and returned to their displacement camp in body bags. They were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers while attempting to cross the line.

The al-Najjars are only a few of some 250 Palestinians who have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire began.

Many of those Palestinians have been killed in similar circumstances, while trying to return home. While the ceasefire agreement stipulates a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase, that has not yet begun. The ‘yellow line’ marks the area that Israel now controls in Gaza during this initial ceasefire period. 

This line divides the inner neighborhoods of the Strip into two halves: one where residents are allowed to be present, and another that is forbidden to them. According to Palestinians, anyone who approaches those areas is dealt with by intense force.

The yellow line is a new reality, as it divides the Gaza Strip into two parts, with the eastern part under Israeli army control. According to estimates, there are around 37 Israeli military points and positions within these areas, starting from Rafah to Beit Hanoun. The yellow line passes through the middle of large, densely populated neighborhoods such as Shuja’iyya in eastern Gaza City, Jabalia in the north, and Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, covering about 50% of the total area of the Strip.

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YouTube erases hundreds of videos of alleged Israeli war crimes

RT 

The hosting platform has cited US sanctions against NGOs that investigated the abuses as the reason.

YouTube has removed hundreds of videos documenting alleged human rights violations by Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including eyewitness accounts, investigative reports, and humanitarian footage, according to the American non-profit news outlet The Intercept.

Since October, the video hosting platform has reportedly deleted more than 700 videos and suspended the accounts of prominent Palestinian human-rights groups Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The deleted materials reportedly included an investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces, footage of home demolitions in the West Bank, and a documentary about mothers who survived Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The Intercept described the removals as part of a broader US-backed effort to suppress documentation of alleged Israeli war crimes. The same Palestinian organizations targeted by YouTube were sanctioned by Washington in September for submitting evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The ICC issued arrest warrants for both officials in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

A YouTube spokesperson, Boot Bullwinkle, told The Intercept that the platform's owner Google "is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions."

Washington's influence over tech companies became a national controversy during the Joe Biden presidency. In the Murthy v. Missouri case, federal agencies were accused of pressuring Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to suppress disfavored opinions under the pretext of combating misinformation. The Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2024 on procedural grounds, leaving unresolved whether such government-platform coordination violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

The removals come amid Washington's military and diplomatic support for Israel during the Gaza conflict. The US has provided additional arms to Israel and repeatedly blocked UN resolutions calling for ceasefires and condemning civilian casualties. Critics argue that such moves shielded Israel from accountability and weakened international efforts to end the violence.

The latest violence started when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health authorities, over 68,000 Palestinians have been killed since.

Comment: It's more probably hundreds of thousands. And no mention of how many Silicon Valley companies are controlled by the Zionist Establishment.

How Israel is laying the groundwork for ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon

Hicham Safieddine | Middle East Eye

Domestic haggling over the disarmament of Hezbollah is overshadowing the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war.

Last autumn, Israel launched a brutal and bloody war on Lebanon, with devastating consequences. After fighting broke out on 8 October 2023, and up until a cessation-of-hostilities agreement was signed on 27 November 2024, Israeli attacks killed more than 4,000 people, including more than 300 children, and injured nearly 17,000.

Following Israel's full-scale escalation in September 2024, more than one million people were displaced. Israel's terror tactics ranged from the indiscriminate detonation of hand-held pagers in public spaces, to aerial carpet bombing of residential neighbourhoods, to wholesale assassinations of Hezbollah's top political and military brass, to a ground invasion that left a trail of death and destruction.

Since the ceasefire agreement, Israel's war has continued by other means. Despite Hezbollah's cessation of all military operations, Israeli drone surveillance and attacks, as well as occasional artillery shelling and air raids, are a near-daily occurrence.

Israeli forces still occupy several hilltops inside Lebanese territory that straddle the entire width of the border. Expansion and fortification of these bases are underway.

Media coverage and political analysis of the postwar period have largely centered on one of Israel's declared goals: the disarming of Hezbollah. In Lebanon, political forces allied with the US and Gulf states within Washington's orbit have turned this demand into their do-or-die mandate.

Championed by the vociferous Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and a more calculating President Joseph Aoun, the disarming of Hezbollah is framed as an indispensable step to restore Lebanese sovereignty - and a prerequisite for any economic recovery, including much-needed postwar reconstruction.

Domestic haggling over the fate of Hezbollah's arms in relation to state sovereignty overshadows the long-term and regional dimensions of Israel's war on Lebanon in a post-7-October reality. Israel's pursuit of unchecked regional military supremacy - and its corollary, the establishment of Greater Israel - has meant a new reality in southern Lebanon which, if unchecked, may amount to ethnic cleansing.

Current facts on the ground point in that direction, and are in line with longstanding Zionist colonial ambitions and policies dating back more than a century. 

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The Not-so-Secret History of Netanyahu's Support For Hamas

Ghousoon Bisharat | +972 Magazine

From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict. Even after Oct. 7, argues historian Adam Raz, he's still advancing the same strategy. 

When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to write "The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel's Moral Degradation," he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu's involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict.

Raz's book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a controversial policy whereby Netanyahu's governments for years routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told +972 that this is "just a sliver of the bigger picture," which is rooted in Netanyahu's broader opposition to a just resolution to the conflict. "People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu's strategy," he said.

According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu's priority is not maintaining Israel's security but rather preventing any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. Keeping the cash flowing to Hamas served this objective by ensuring the Palestinian national movement remained splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land. Even after the devastating events of October 7, Raz warns that Netanyahu's playbook remains unchanged.

This book isn't a history lesson about the conflict, Raz emphasizes, but rather a damning exploration of a political alliance that continues to degrade Israel's moral fabric. "I didn't write this book, I yelled it on the pages," he said.

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West weaponizing laws to silence pro-Palestine activism: Study

Al Mayadeen 

The right to protest is facing increasing restrictions across the West, The Guardian reported on Monday, citing a new study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which accuses governments of criminalizing pro-Palestine activism and using counter-terrorism and antisemitism laws to stifle dissent.

The report focuses on the UK, US, France, and Germany, accusing authorities in these countries of “weaponizing” national security and anti-hate legislation to silence criticism of “Israel” and suppress demonstrations supporting Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“This trend reflects a worrying shift towards the normalization of exceptional measures in dealing with dissenting voices,” Yosra Frawes, head of FIDH’s Maghreb and Middle East desk, told The Guardian.

Compiled from open-source data, witness accounts, and institutional reports gathered between October 2023 and September 2025, the study was released just one day after a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire that secured the release of all living Israeli captives and around 2,000 Palestinian detainees.

According to FIDH, restrictions on speech and assembly have extended beyond protests, impacting journalists, academics, and public officials who express solidarity with Palestinians.

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UN Shows Double Standards by Investigating Venezuela Instead of Israel

Sputnik

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) has laid bare its double standards by investigating human rights violations allegedly committed by Venezuela, but not by Israel, Alexander Gabriel Yanez Deleuze, Venezuela’s envoy to the UN in Geneva, told Sputnik.

“The HRC has approved 10 areas of action against Venezuela and allocated $10 million for this. At the same time, you will not find a single mandate that would sound like an ‘investigation of human rights violations by the Israeli government’,” the diplomat stressed.

“There is a mission that deals with human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, but it does not explicitly mention Israel. This proves the HRC’s double standards,” Deleuze stressed.

On Monday, the Independent International Fact-finding Mission in Venezuela presented a report on human rights violations in the South American country, which was rejected as politicized by Caracas.

The Russian Permanent Mission to the United Nations said that Russia opposed efforts to politicize the UN Human Rights Council and condemned its use to exert pressure on Venezuela.

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Criticize Israel? You’re Fired.

The Intercept / Global Research

A climate of fear is gripping U.S. newsrooms as a growing list of journalists have been fired, suspended, or otherwise sidelined after refusing to abide by the pro-Israel bias across the U.S. news media.

The New York Times, Associated Press, BBC, and Los Angeles Times are just a handful of the more prominent news outlets where journalists say they were sidelined after criticizing Israel or expressing sympathy for Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the death toll in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 18,000, and more than 80 percent of Palestinians there have been displaced by the war.

Since October 7, there have been numerous incidents reported in which journalists were fired, demoted, suspended, or otherwise silenced after voicing criticism of Israel, including:

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See also:  "Israel’s Genocide Has Killed More Journalists Than WWI and WWII Combined" - "As of late March [2025] at least 232 journalists have been killed in the Gaza genocide, with the vast majority being Palestinians, according to a new paper by the Costs of War project in Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Nearly 380 journalists have been wounded in the violence as of January, per the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate". 

The head of the Committee to Protect Journalists stated in 2024, "Israel's war on Gaza is more deadly to journalists than any previous war"

The Media Loves “The Experts,” Until it’s Time to Count Gaza’s Dead

Current Affairs | Lex Syd

Public debate around Gaza fixates on a death toll that is probably half the size of the real number. 

ar from being inflated by sneaky Hamas propagandists, the commonly cited death toll of the war in Gaza is an extreme undercount. 

Virtually every news article about the Israel-Hamas war cites the death toll provided by the strip’s Ministry of Health. Currently at 60,900 (and climbing by the day), the MOH toll is widely accepted as an accurate minimum. Still, journalists and political figures aligned with Israel often call it into question in a range of ways, from attaching the label “Hamas-controlled” to the Ministry itself to outright denying its accuracy. In 2023, even former President Joe Biden invoked this idea, saying that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

Because the Ministry’s death toll has attracted this undeserved controversy, the standard reporting line is to explain why the MOH figures are considered reliable. For example, the Washington Post recently published a detailed accounting of the names, and in some cases the photos, of roughly 18,500 children who are counted among the dead overall.

But in defending and insisting on the MOH figures, media outlets have defended the bare minimum, and the result is a public debate that revolves around an understated count. Hence why New York Times columnist Bret Stephens can write an opinion piece arguing that 60,000 dead is tragic, but small relative to what Israel could do. Those terms of debate are accepted even by his harshest critics.

But the figure everyone knows is not an undercount of a few thousand or even ten thousand. The real toll could well be twice as high. That is according to a growing body of research that is conspicuously absent in news coverage of Gaza—despite the eagerness of newsrooms to emphasize expert opinion on other divisive topics, like COVID-19 policy or climate change.

The standard figure largely counts only those whose bodies reached health workers and those who were killed violently. But in reality, the institutions that count the dead are heavily degraded, thousands remain under rubble, and deaths due to malnutrition or easily preventable diseases are rarely included in MOH totals, if at all.

How Many Gazans Have Died According to Experts?

A reasonable, conservative estimate of the death toll in Gaza is about 100,000. And the figure may well tally to 200,000, if not now, then by the war’s end. 

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Humanitarian “Aid” deathtraps: The Israeli-American horrifying new face of Israel’s Gaza genocide

Eva Bartlett

In Gaza

Israel’s relentless slaughter and brutality against civilians in the region has led to Israel’s demise: it is hated around the world and has lost its victim card permanently.

My latest, first published on RT.com, June 30, 2025
*The republished version here is longer. Warning: graphic photos & videos

For over 630 days, the world has watched the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, primarily by bombing, sniping, and starvation. Off-camera, we’ve read about the rape and torture of Palestinian hostages, including the torturing to death of three doctors from the enclave.

For the last 100 days, Israel has reinforced a full blockade on Gaza, depriving starving Palestinians of food, drinking water, medicines, and fuel – meaning ambulances cannot function. This is following prior blockades last year, and the overall blockade of the strip, which has lasted over 17 years.

Since late May, we’ve been seeing horrific video footage of skeletal Palestinians lined up hoping for food aid being gunned down by US mercenaries and Israeli soldiers.

[...]

 Every imaginable crime, Israel has done it to Palestinians: bombed, invaded, destroyed hospitals, abducting doctors and patients; bombed churches, schools, UN centres and tents housing displaced Palestinians—in supposed “safe zones” where they were ordered by the Israeli army to flee to; killed over 200 journalists; deliberately killed medics; even decapitated babies…The list of crimes is too long to summarize here.

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Jonathan Cook: ‘Blood Libel’ Paradox & Israel’s Genocide

Consortium News

Jonathan Cook 

There’s a dangerous paradox that helps to dissuade people, especially public figures, from speaking up even as Israel’s genocide in Gaza grows more horrifying by the day. Let us call it the “blood libel” paradox.

It works like this. In Medieval times, Jews were accused of murdering non-Jews, particularly children, to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Every time a Jew is accused of murdering a non-Jew, so the thinking goes, this endangers Jews by fueling the very kind of antisemitism that ultimately led to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Responsible people, or at least those with a reputation to protect, therefore avoid making any statements that might contribute to the impression that Jews — or in this case, the soldiers of the Jewish state of Israel — are killing non-Jews.

If such criticisms are made, they must be carefully couched by Western politicians, the media and public figures in language that makes the killing of non-Jews — in this case, Muslim and Christian Palestinians — appear reasonable.

Israel is simply “defending itself” in killing and maiming 100,000s of civilians in Gaza after Hamas’ one-day attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

The enclave’s masses of dead innocents are just the unfortunate price paid to secure the “return of Israeli hostages” held by Hamas.

Israel’s active, months-long starvation of Gaza’s children is a “humanitarian crisis,” not a crime against humanity.

Anyone who dissents from this narrative is denounced as an antisemite, whether they be millions of ordinary people; every respected human rights organisation in the world, including the Israeli group B’Tselem; the World Health Organisation; the International Criminal Court; genocide scholars like Omer Bartov, himself an Israeli; and so on.

It is the perfect, self-reinforcing loop, one entirely divorced from the reality being live-streamed to us daily.

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Israel demolishes 24 Palestinian buildings in less than 2 months: UN

Press TV

The United Nations (UN) says the Israeli regime has demolished two dozen Palestinian buildings and structures across the occupied West Bank in less than two months.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a new report, excerpts of which were carried by Palestinian Information Center on Sunday, that Israeli authorities demolished 24 Palestinian buildings and structures across the occupied region between July 30 and August 19.

The OCHA said that the recent demolitions displaced nine people and affected at least 80 other Palestinians, adding that the number of people displaced by such demolitions had amounted to at least 480 people so far this year, more than the 472 Palestinians displaced in the entire 2018.

According to the report, within the reported period, 10 buildings were demolished in East Jerusalem al-Quds, and the remaining demolitions were carried out in four communities in the so-called Area C.

It said 13 of the demolished structures in Area C were being used for humanitarian purposes, including seven located in a herding community in the northern Jordan Valley.

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Crypto Is Part of Free Speech, and Free Speech Is Everything

Graham Smith 
Activist Post 

 On July 23, U.S. Attorney General William Barr gave a speech demanding big players in the tech industry work with government agencies in providing backdoor entry points for encrypted devices and software. Per his reasoning, certain devices and messaging services pose a safety threat by providing a secure, third-party-inaccessible area where crime can rapidly proliferate. He didn’t note that this “warrant-proof encryption” also protects journalists, researchers, and individuals in areas of political unrest living under corrupt governments. Secure encryption also protects and verifies the financial assets and transactions of cryptocurrency holders everywhere. If strings of code — ideas, in essence — are now being made illegal, it would appear that a brand new battle for humanity’s free expression is just beginning. 

Crypto Is Free Speech

Article 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Of course, governments worldwide, and the UN itself, do not abide by this proclamation, but that last point is still of critical importance. The reception, transmission, and search for information via any media “regardless of frontiers” is part of free speech. Crypto is a technology. An idea. And it’s not limited by geographical constraints or “frontiers.” It’s a means by which to impart, receive, and seek information. After all, a bitcoin transaction or encrypted message is, in essence, an expression of information. 

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Israel’s machinery of dispossession has crushed the hopes of an inspirational family

Jonathan Cook
The National

The struggle of Jawad Siyam perfectly illustrates the relentless oppression faced by all Palestinians

Israeli police forced out the Siyam family from their home in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem last week, the final chapter in their 25-year legal battle against a powerful settler organisation.

The family’s defeat represented much more than just another eviction. It was intended to land a crushing blow against the hopes of some 20,000 Palestinians living in the shadow of the Old City walls and Al Aqsa mosque.

Dozens of families in the Silwan neighbourhood have endured the same fate as the Siyams, and the Israeli courts have approved the imminent eviction of many hundreds more Palestinians from the area.

But, unlike those families, the Siyams’ predicament briefly caught public attention. That was because one of them, Jawad Siyam, has become a figurehead of Silwan’s resistance efforts.

Mr Siyam, a social worker, has led the fight against Elad, a wealthy settler group that since the early 1990s has been slowly erasing Silwan’s Palestinian identity, in order to remake it as the City of David archeological park.

Mr Siyam has served as a spokesman, drawing attention to Silwan’s plight. He has also helped to organise the community, setting up youth and cultural centres to fortify Silwan’s identity and sense of purpose in the face of Israel’s relentless oppression.

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Saudi Arabia Lifts Travel Restrictions On Women

Zero Hedge

The gradual liberalization of Saudi Arabia's repressive laws and social mores continued on Thursday with WSJ reporting that Crown Prince MBS plans to drop restrictions barring women from traveling out of the country without a male guardian's permission. Though we suspect that this time, there will be no glowing NYT op-ed praising the young crown prince - the kingdom's de facto ruler - for his reformist tendencies and his respect for human rights.

It won't happen right away: WSJ says the kingdom plans to end the ban some time this year. The plan would end guardianship laws relating to travel for men and women over 18 years old. As it stands, women of any age, and men under 21, must have a guardian's permission to travel internationally. Soon, that won't be the case.

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‘Weaponizing human rights’: UN chief Bachelet’s Venezuela report follows US regime change script

Anya Parampil
The Grayzone

Former UN special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas slams UN High Commissioner Bachelet’s report on Venezuela as a politicized collection of baseless accusations by “advocates of regime change”

When United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet traveled to Venezuela earlier this year, she met with an array of citizens who lost family members to right-wing violence in the country. 

Among them was Inés Esparragoza, whose 20-year-old son, Orlando Figuera, was doused with gasoline and lit on fire by an opposition mob during violent anti-government riots, known as guarimbas, in May 2017. 

“He was stabbed, beaten and cruelly burnt alive,” Esparragoza declared before Bachelet in March. “Simply because of the color of his shirt, the color of his skin, and because he said he was Chavista.”

While Esparragoza poured her family’s torment out before the former Chilean president, Bachelet scribbled notes and glanced down at horrific photos which captured the moment masked men attacked Figuera. As the young man knelt to the ground, a gang of anti-government thugs poured petrol over his body before lighting a match.

“I call on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to make justice,” she said. “These are not peaceful protesters, they are bloodthirsty.”

Yet shockingly, when Bachelet released her long-anticipated report on the situation in Venezuela on July 5, it was as though that meeting never took place.
 
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Report: Israel committed 84 violations against Palestinian journalists in May

Comment: Business as usual for Israel...

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Press TV

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) says the Israeli military committed 84 violations against Palestinian journalists in the month of May as the Tel Aviv regime continues its repressive measures against members of the press both in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip.

MADA, in a report published on Sunday, announced that the number marks a sharp increase compared to the preceding month of April, when 19 violations were documented.

The report then pointed to the recent closure of Facebook accounts of at least 65 Palestinian journalists and activists in a campaign carried out on May 23 and 24.

MADA further noted that Israeli military aircraft targeted and destroyed the office of Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency, besides the office of Palestine Liberation Organization-affiliated Abdullah al-Hourani Center for Studies and Documentation when they bombed the Gaza Strip on May 4.

The report went on to say that Palestinian photojournalist Mohammed Mahmoud Hassan suffered a gunshot wound as he was covering a weekly demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian lands by the Israeli regime in the village of Kfar Qaddum, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on May 10.

Two journalists, identified as 42-year-old Abdel Rahim Mohammed Khatib and Ramzi Hatem al-Shukrit, 35, were also separately injured during their coverage of the anti-occupation Great March of Return protests east of the border city of Rafah, located 30 kilometers south of Gaza City, on the same day.

One of them was struck by a rubber-coated metal bullet, while the other was directly hit by a tear gas canister.

On May 12, Israeli military forces arrested seven journalists and human rights activists in the northern Jordan Valley area, and prevented them from covering deportations being carried out by the military against Palestinian farmers and residents living there.

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