Weekly Briefing: The Business of Ethnic Cleansing

This week, the world saw even more clearly the brutal logic driving U.S. and Israeli policy in Gaza—and the moral clarity of the people who are rising to stop it.

Our top story, reported by Tareq Hajjaj, exposes how the U.S.-funded and run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is not a humanitarian project at all—it’s an instrument of control and displacement. Under the guise of aid, the GHF is building a parallel infrastructure of local collaborators and foreign mercenaries to distribute food under military guard. Palestinian organizations that refused to participate have been shut down. Civilians seeking aid have been fired upon or disappeared. These are not system failures. This is the system.

And now, thanks to investigative reporting from the Financial Times, we know that one of the world’s most powerful consulting firms—Boston Consulting Group—was at the center of it all. BCG didn’t just help design the GHF; they also created a financial model for a postwar Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would be “relocated” with cash payouts. One scenario estimated $5 billion to push half a million Palestinians out of Gaza entirely, in what amounts to a spreadsheet for ethnic cleansing

BCG claims they’ve disavowed this work and fired the partners and executives involved. But none of this could have happened without a political green light from the very top. Donald Trump suggested turning Gaza into a “Riviera” without Palestinians months ago. The GHF is part of that genocidal fantasy.

And yet, even as elite institutions lend their power to war and displacement, the global resistance to this violence continues to grow.

This week marks 20 years since the launch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In an interview with Mondoweiss, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti reflects on the moral and strategic power of BDS as a nonviolent, grassroots response to Israeli apartheid and occupation. Just like the global campaign that helped end South African apartheid, the BDS movement is building pressure through people power. That’s why Israel—and its backers in Washington—are so desperate to criminalize it.

Here in the United States, we’re seeing how that desperation is backfiring. The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, voted overwhelmingly this week to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League. The NEA’s resolution makes clear that the ADL, despite its reputation, is not a partner in the fight for justice. This is a seismic shift in mainstream civil society—and a rebuke to those who have weaponized accusations of antisemitism to silence solidarity with Palestine.

Mahmoud Khalil, a former student leader and political prisoner detained by ICE, is suing the Trump administration for $20 million. His case is about more than one man’s unjust imprisonment—it is a direct challenge to the machinery of political repression being built to suppress Palestine advocacy in the U.S.

The common thread through all of these stories is this: Palestinians are being targeted not because they are weak, but because their struggle for liberation reveals the violence and hypocrisy of the powerful. And as that truth becomes harder to deny, more people—unions, journalists, students, teachers—are choosing to stand on the side of justice.

This week’s newsletter is full of stories that matter. Please read them, share them, and remember: this isn’t just about Gaza. It’s about whether we believe in freedom, justice, and dignity for all.

– Dave Reed, Publisher

Must read: This is how the U.S.-run GHF tried to build a local network of ‘aid collaborators’ in Gaza

Tareq Hajjaj: The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has taken over the aid system in Gaza on behalf of the Israeli army by cultivating a local network of companies and organizations to collaborate in its operations. The organizations that refused have been shut down.

20 years of BDS: An interview with Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the movement

Michael Arria: On the 20th anniversary of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Mondoweiss speaks with Omar Barghouti about the movement’s past, present, and future.

Catch-up

👨‍⚖️ Michael Arria: Mahmoud Khalil is seeking $20 million in damages from the Trump administration, alleging that he was falsely imprisoned. Khalil says he would use the funds to assist others targeted by Trump’s crackdown.

🧑‍🏫 Emmaia Gelman: In a momentous vote, the National Education Association voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League. The reason? “Despite its reputation as a civil rights organization, the ADL is not the social justice educational partner it claims to be.”

📰 Phil Weiss: The New York Times’s shocking race-science investigation into Zohran Mamdani shows the paper will stop at nothing to upend the progressive star. It is a clear sign of how the paper is stuck in the worst muck of the Israel lobby.

🇺🇳 Craig Mokhiber: The Trump administration’s sanctions against UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese show how far the U.S. is willing to go to ensure impunity for Israel as it commits genocide.

🍎 Billy Estrine: Activists say the City University of New York is escalating its repression against Palestine activism by suspending a student leader and terminating the positions of four faculty members who have been active in protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

🐤 Michael Arria: A senior ICE official says the Trump administration used the shadowy, anti-Palestine website Canary Mission to find students to target for deportation.

🇵🇸 Noor Alyacoubi: Palestinians have delivered testimony after testimony about the Israeli-backed and U.S.-run “death traps” masquerading as aid sites. But no one listened until Haaretz published direct testimony from the perpetrators.

📰 Qassam Muaddi: The Wall Street Journal would have you believe its report on a “sheikh” who wants to form a Hebron “emirate” under Israeli control is a groundbreaking political revelation. But anyone with basic knowledge of Palestine will tell a different story.

🇵🇸 Tareq Hajjaj: After the U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused Hamas of attacking two American employees at its distribution center, eyewitnesses and local journalists say the GHF fired grenades at the crowd first before aid-seekers threw them back at them.

🇺🇳 Jonathan Ofir: A new report from UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese uncovers the economic interests benefiting from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.