MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Gaza’

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Israel’s genocide is big business – and the face of the future

Posted by M. C. on July 24, 2025

US corporations and military planners welcome the ‘legal maneuver space’ Israel has opened up for them to profit from warfare that slaughters and starves civilians

The Financial Times revealed this month that a cabal of Israeli investors, one of the world’s top business consulting groups and a think-tank headed by former British prime minister Tony Blair had been secretly working on plans to exploit the ruins of Gaza as prime real estate.

In an interview with US journalist Chris Hedges, Albanese, an expert in international law, concluded: “The genocide in Gaza has not stopped, because it is lucrative. It’s profitable for far too many.”

https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/israels-genocide-is-big-business?fbclid=IwY2xjawLszmtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHutSTazskILOib6uoGFkK3nfq7Wp5pFQIr4N63jyUuJIN5JgzuWmflivFsdt_aem_ggA6_gPBFPGEM65lkuN1Dg

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/k-9yO7u6AaE?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Albanese lists dozens of major western companies that are deeply invested in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

This is not a new development, as she notes. These firms have exploited business opportunities associated with Israel’s violent occupation of the Palestinian people’s lands for years, and in some cases decades.

The switch from Israel’s occupation of Gaza to its current genocide hasn’t threatened profits; it has enhanced them. Or as Albanese puts it: “The profits have increased as the economy of the occupation transformed into an economy of genocide.”

The special rapporteur has been a growing thorn in the side of Israel and its western sponsors over the past 21 months of slaughter in Gaza.

That explains why Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, announced soon after her report was issued that he was imposing sanctions on Albanese for her efforts to shed light on the crimes of Israeli and US officials.

Revealingly, he called her statements – rooted in international law – “economic warfare against the United States and Israel”. Albanese and the UN system of universal human rights that stands behind her, it seems, represent a threat to western profiteering.

Window on the future

Israel effectively serves as the world’s largest business incubator – though, in its case, not just by nurturing start-up companies.

Rather, it offers global corporations the chance to test and refine new weapons, machinery, technologies, data collection and automation processes in the occupied territories. These developments are associated with mass oppression, control, surveillance, incarceration, ethnic cleansing – and now genocide.

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The Unspeakable Suffering That U.S. Taxes and Bombs Have Inflicted on Gaza

Posted by M. C. on May 23, 2025

Whatever mayhem Israel choices to inflict, why do we have to pay for it and risk our troops?

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

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Liberals Believe In Nothing And Remember Even Less

Posted by M. C. on March 31, 2025

What is said between the lines here is there is little difference liberals and so-called conservatives on war.

And planetary interventionism, empire building, spending, social programs, the Constitution, individual rights, privacy…

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/liberals-believe-in-nothing-and-remember

Caitlin Johnstone

The other day I shared a short post about a video that was going around showing a father in Gaza tearfully cradling the head of his son who was decapitated in an Israeli airstrike, and some guy responded with the comment “Good thing you helped get TRUMP ELECTED!!”

And I must admit I was actually, truly shocked. I mean, what exactly did this fellow think was happening under Biden that whole time?

I saw a post on Twitter where a leftist responded to a liberal who was acting like ICE just suddenly transformed into a modern gestapo under Trump, saying, “Liberals believe in nothing and remember even less.”

And it’s just so true. They don’t believe in anything. They don’t stand for anything. It’s just a team sport for these people. Politics for the mainstream liberal is not about advancing values or building a better world, it’s about their team winning solely for the sake of winning. And because they have no real values or causes beyond winning for its own sake, what their team does when it’s in office doesn’t matter to them.

A Democrat president can be as tyrannical and murderous as he wants and liberals will just brunch away in cheerful obliviousness, content with their knowledge that their team is holding the trophy.

You see this in the way our friend believes that I “helped get Trump elected” by criticizing the people who were perpetrating an active genocide. He just automatically took it as a given that it was my responsibility to stay silent on Gaza because the person in charge was a Democrat and his veep was running for president. The fact that it was a genocide which needed to be ferociously opposed never entered into the equation for him. All he cared about was winning.

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If It Happens…”Taking Over Gaza” Could Be Trump’s Vietnam

Posted by M. C. on February 6, 2025

No Kidding!

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Trump Reveals Plan For The Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza

Posted by M. C. on January 29, 2025

The president said that this new arrangement could be either temporary or long-term, but one would have to be extremely naive to believe that either Israel or Washington plan on emptying out Gaza of its inconvenient population, rebuilding it, and then bringing them all back to shiny new homes.

How is helping Israel cleanse Palestine of Palestinians a US problem? Is it because Israel has the power to prevent re-election of anyone who is critical?

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/02/how-the-media-cracks-down-on-critics-of-israel

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/trump-reveals-plan-for-the-ethnic

Caitlin Johnstone

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/yChkAGlVmto?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Well that didn’t take long. President Trump has said he wants to “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to US client states Egypt and Jordan, which would of course be a textbook case of ethnic cleansing. It would also align perfectly with longstanding Israeli agendas to remove Palestinians from their homeland so that their territory can be seized and settled by Jews.

Speaking with the press on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said he talked to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about taking in large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza, and said he plans to speak with Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about doing the same.

“I’d like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters, saying the Gaza Strip is “a real mess” and “literally a demolition site”.

“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qwvMvm3gf0g?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

The president said that this new arrangement could be either temporary or long-term, but one would have to be extremely naive to believe that either Israel or Washington plan on emptying out Gaza of its inconvenient population, rebuilding it, and then bringing them all back to shiny new homes. Israel has a very extensive history of grabbing land from Palestinians and then refusing to give it back, which is why there are so-called “refugee camps” for displaced Palestinians that are as old as the state of Israel itself.

“Just five days into his second term as president, Trump left no doubt about what his intentions are for Gaza,” Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News on Trump’s comments, adding, “He tried to present what he was saying as humanitarian concern, but only the most ill-informed person about Gaza would not see that he is talking about committing the crime of forcibly relocating a population.”

Trump supporters will no doubt defend his stated plans as a compassionate effort to rescue Palestinians from unfortunate circumstances, because Trump supporters are chowder-brained bootlickers who would defend literally anything their president did. But make no mistake: this is the advancement of an agenda to end the existence of the Palestinian people in their historic homeland, and would fulfill the darkest desires of the most depraved political factions in Israel.

Mere days after the Hamas attack on October 7 2023, Israel’s Intelligence Ministry produced a document proposing the removal of Gaza’s population to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. At around the same time, an Israeli think tank called the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy published a paper arguing that “There is at the moment a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip in coordination with the Egyptian government.”

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War on Gaza: Blood mixed with flour as Israeli kills Palestinians receiving food

Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2024

Air strikes hit civilians seeking aid in so-called ‘humanitarian zone’

Israeli forces have killed more than 43,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, including over 17,000 children and nearly 12,000 women, according to the health ministry and local officials. Thousands more are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinians-seeking-food-killed-israeli-strikes-gaza-humanitarian-zone

By Ahmed Aziz in Khan Younis, occupied Palestine and Lubna Masarwa in Jerusalem and Nader Durgham

Published date: 14 November 2024 06:39 GMT | Last update:1 day 3 hours ago

Editor’s note: This articles contains a photo that may be disturbing to some readers

Israeli forces killed several Palestinians seeking food supplies in the Gaza Strip’s so-called “humanitarian zone” earlier this week, rescuers and relatives of victims told Middle East Eye.

The deadly air strike had struck a tuk-tuk vehicle near an aid distribution point in the Miraj area north of Rafah.

Disturbing images from the scene show victims’ blood mixed with flour on the floor.

Ziad Farhat, the director of rescue teams in Rafah, told MEE the area where the people were hit is within Israel’s so-called “humanitarian zone”, which is supposed to be safe for displaced people. 

“From what we are seeing as rescue teams, there is no such thing as a humanitarian area,” Farhat said.

Mohammad Abu Armana, a journalist volunteering with Gaza’s civil defence, said the road where the strike took place was regularly used by civilians travelling between Khan Younis and Rafah.

While the civil defence repeatedly warned people against heading to Rafah where it is too dangerous, some still go to check on their homes, Abu Armana said.

Israeli forces killed at least 400 aid seekers in Gaza earlier this year in various air strikes and also bombed aid distribution centres.  

They have also repeatedly forced people to flee to certain zones with the promise of safety, before bombing them and killing them in their makeshift tents. 

‘What humanitarian area?’

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How Political Corruption Allows Antony Blinken To Break The Law

Posted by M. C. on September 26, 2024

Two government entities subordinated to the State Department concluded, in writing, that Israel was blocking their humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, reported to Congress the opposite conclusion because he intended to deliver more military aid to Gaza.

Moon of Alabama

How Political Corruption Allows Antony Blinken To Break the Law

ProPublica headlines:

Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.

The selected formulation is unfortunately not covering the real issue at hand.

U.S. law prohibits military aid to countries which are hindering U.S. humanitarian aid.

Two government entities subordinated to the State Department concluded, in writing, that Israel was blocking their humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, reported to Congress the opposite conclusion because he intended to deliver more military aid to Gaza.

By misleading Congress on humanitarian aid to Gaza Blinken deliberated broke the law.

That should have been the headline:

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The craziest ‘pro-Israel’ votes on the Hill today

Posted by M. C. on June 28, 2024

Congress is in rare form even for this issue

Two of the amendments seek to “prohibit funds” appropriated in the bill from being spent on holding Israel accountable for any violations of U.S. law.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/congress-israel-palestine/

Blaise Malley

In the more than seven months since Israel’s war on Gaza began, the Biden administration has been almost entirely deferential to the war effort, providing Tel Aviv with $6.5 billion worth of weapons, offering rhetorical and diplomatic cover, and holding Hamas wholly responsible for the inability to strike a ceasefire deal.

To some members of Congress — mostly Republicans — this level of support for Israel does not go nearly far enough.

This week, the House of Representatives will be voting on the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations legislation. Among the 75 amendments to the bill that were made in order and will be voted on are a series of anti-Palestinian proposals that seek to eliminate any appearance of balance in the United States’ approach to the war.

Two of the amendments seek to “prohibit funds” appropriated in the bill from being spent on holding Israel accountable for any violations of U.S. law.

One, introduced by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) “Prohibits funds from enforcing Executive Order 14115,” which Biden announced in February of this year as a way to sanction individuals or groups who the administration deemed “undermining peace, security and stability” in the West Bank. The effort was widely seen as an effort to punish extreme Israeli settlers — as of March, nine Israelis have been sanctioned under the law — but in June the U.S. also sanctioned a Palestinian armed group.

The other, introduced by Reps. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), would block “the use of funds from being used to administer or enforce National Security Memorandum 20.” NSM-20 is the memo issued by Biden in February that required the administration to receive written assurances that recipients of American military aid were complying with international law — in essence, ensuring that no one is using our weapons while committing atrocities, including blocking aid and medicine from getting to civilians.

The first report issued to Congress under this memorandum found that Israel had not violated the law in war conduct or in the distribution of international law. The directive would require the State Department to issue a new report each fiscal year.

Both Executive Order 14115 and NSM-20 call on Israel to do the bare minimum to comply with U.S. law, and critics, including in Congress, have argued that the administration has not gone nearly far enough in administering them.

How exactly Congress could “defund” either of these operations is not exactly clear, but both of these are likely intended as symbolic messages that the United States should not do anything that could in any way constrain Israel as it carries out its war.

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Gaza – The Next Fort Lauderdale?

Posted by M. C. on June 11, 2024

By Eric S. Margolis

Meanwhile, supporters of Israel’s far right are having a field day cracking the whip on scared politicians.  The new House, speaker, Mike Johnson, has already invited Israel’s prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, to address the US Congress.  Netanyahu is being denounced around the globe as a mass murderer and tyrant, but his wealthy US supporters – who largely fund the Democratic Party- are making sure that the US continues to see the Israeli dog wag of the US tail. 

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/06/eric-margolis/gaza-the-next-fort-lauderdale/

Watching the US Navy build a temporary pier in Gaza was a pathetic display of ineptitude and helplessness.  It was a crass attempt by the Biden administration to deflect the storm of worldwide criticism over its encouragement of Israel’s far right government to crush Gaza to rubble.  The pier fell apart due to poor construction and rough seas. I was reminded of America’s gallant fighting Seabees who build harbors and airports almost overnight during World War II.

To date, some 400,000 Gaza Palestinians have been killed by Israel using many US-supplied arms.  Over half were women and children.  A proud moment for the USA.  Biden claims he was not involved in this mass killing.

Of course not.  He just authorized delivery to Israel’s powerful air forces of building-busting 2,000 lb bombs that flatten entire blocks of apartments housing Palestinian refugees.  This is not self-defence but mass murder.  The World Court has demanded Israel cease its savaging of Gaza. The Biden administration has used its UN veto to block all attempts to curb Israel’s mass murder which Israel’s supporters say must be done to free scores of Jewish/Israeli hostages.

Meanwhile, other Palestinians on the Israeli-occupied West Bank are being gunned down or evicted from their homes by heavily armed Jewish settlers who see occupying Palestine as their God-given right.  I have interviewed many of these militant settlers and found their views and actions beyond the pale.  Many hale from Brooklyn or Queens.  I was surrounded by these extreme nationalists – or Jewish fascists as the late great Israeli columnist Uri Avnery called them – last week in New York. They were showing their electoral and financial muscle.

Meanwhile, supporters of Israel’s far right are having a field day cracking the whip on scared politicians.  The new House, speaker, Mike Johnson, has already invited Israel’s prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, to address the US Congress.  Netanyahu is being denounced around the globe as a mass murderer and tyrant, but his wealthy US supporters – who largely fund the Democratic Party- are making sure that the US continues to see the Israeli dog wag of the US tail. 

Candidate Trump has also lavished attention on Israel’s far right.  Like some ancient Roman deity, Trump has told Israel it may have all of Galilee (Judea and Samara in Israeli speak), the old city of Jerusalem, Gaza, Golan and most of the West Bank.  The biggest slice of donations to Trump’s campaign comes from the pro-Israel Adelson family that made its fortune in the sleazy gambling business.  We are also told that Trump son-in-law plans a Vegas-style seaside resort in Gaza – minus its Arabs, of course.

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Michael Gould-Wartofsky, Creating an All-American Homeland Security Campus

Posted by M. C. on May 29, 2024

Repress U., Class of 2024

Sometimes it seems as if we just can’t learn, even when we’re talking about America’s centers of higher learning, its colleges and universities. In mid-April — the day after being grilled and intimidated by House Republicans — Columbia University’s president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik decided not to listen to, or even negotiate with, her own students. Instead, she called in the police to dismantle a peaceful tent encampment protesting the horrors then underway in Gaza. For anyone who remembers the past history of on-campus antiwar protests, it was almost ludicrously predictable that, in doing so, she would launch a set of remarkably peaceful protests on more than 500 campuses nationwide that, despite the arrival of so many police on campus and nearly 3,000 arrests, have yet to end (and, in fact, have spread elsewhere on the planet).

And talking about not learning, imagine this: Last October 7th, the Israelis had a thoroughly grim set of war crimes committed against them by Hamas. Their response would prove to be a set of crimes so staggering that they’ve left Hamas’s horrors — and they were horrors of the first order — in the shade, removing almost all sympathy for Israel globally.

Sound familiar? And the thing we so often forget, whether the subject is Israel and Gaza or student protests in this country, is that when such horrors occur, there’s always a history that has, in some grim fashion, prepared the way for them.

With that in mind, consider Michael Gould-Wartofsky’s latest piece on the all too many increasingly armed camps that now pass for colleges and universities. Such campuses, barricaded, walled off, and sometimes occupied by local police, don’t come out of the blue either. In fact, Gould-Wartofsky has been writing about the creation of just such a “homeland security campus” for TomDispatch since 2008 — about the creation, that is, of what, by 2012, he was already calling Repress U.! Tom

Repress U., Class of 2024

How to Build a Homeland Security Campus in Seven More Steps

By Michael Gould-Wartofsky

The academic year that just ended left America’s college campuses in quite a state: with snipers on the rooftops and checkpoints at the gates; quads overrun by riot squads, state troopers, and federal agents; and even the scent of gunpowder in the air.

In short, in the spring semester of 2024, many of our campuses came to resemble armed camps.

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