To the surprise of no one, 2025 ended with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago pushing a wider war on Iran.
The Israeli Prime Minister has received virtually everything he has wanted from this administration thus far. Six months ago, he wanted an Iranian nuclear site bombed, and Trump complied. In September, Israel was also able to attack Qatar, a key U.S. ally, without repercussions. The killing of Palestinians has also continued, despite a truce that was announced as a historic breakthrough.
“The ceasefire that has been in effect since October 10 has proven as fragile as the one that prevailed in the Gaza Strip from January 19, which Israel broke after only a few weeks,” writes Jean-Pierre Filiu in Le Monde. “It fundamentally suffers from the absence of any on-the-ground monitoring mechanism, which would be responsible for overseeing ceasefire compliance and sanctioning any violations.”
In November, the BBC reported that Israel had destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire was reached. “The actual number of destroyed buildings could be significantly higher, with satellite imagery for some areas being unavailable for BBC Verify’s assessment,” noted the piece.
Is the Trump administration concerned about any of this stuff? Do they think their “peace plan” for the region is threatened by Bibi’s bellicosity?
Their actions certainly suggest these things aren’t sticking points, but that hasn’t stopped the media from running with its usual narrative about a potential U.S./Israel rift.
On December 15, Axios’s Barak Ravid claimed that the White House had “scolded” Netanyahu for breaking the ceasefire.
According to Ravid, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner were all “frustrated” over a recent Israeli strike. Trump was allegedly “looking into” the situation, marking the “latest in a string of flare-ups.”
You might recall that Ravid wrote dozens of articles like this during the previous administration. He consistently reported that Biden was perpetually aggrieved over Israel’s actions, but they were never reeled in, and the genocide continued.
In reality, there are no visible cracks that impair the special relationship.
“We had about a five-minute meeting, and we’ve already settled about three of the difficulties,” Trump assured reporters in Florida.
Echoing Netanyahu’s positions, the President said the U.S. would support an attack on Iran if the country continues to develop weapons and insisted that Hamas disarm.
“I’m not concerned about anything that Israel is doing,” he added.
Good to know.
2025 BDS Wins in the U.S.
The crackdown on Palestine activism intensified in 2025, but activists were able to push for multiple victories nonetheless.
In recent weeks, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Michigan have all divested from Israel Bonds in some capacity. We published an explainer at the site, detailing the history of Israel Bonds and focusing on the aforementioned campaigns.
“We know that genocide and apartheid are not a good investment — and the growing wave of city and state divestments across the country demonstrates that more and more people agree,” Ari Rosenberg, a member of the Break the Bonds NC Coalition, told me.
Somerville, Massachusetts, became the first U.S. city to divest from Israeli apartheid. A ballot initiative instructing local elected officials “to end all current city business and prohibit future city investments and contracts with companies as long as such companies engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and illegal occupation of Palestine” passed with 56% of the vote.
“It was just such a beautiful night, a culmination of just so much our community has built … Looking out into the crowd and seeing every single person there, whose name I knew, who I had spent countless hours talking to, working with, learning from, it was so overwhelming and beautiful,” organizer Mia Haddad told Truthout. “I will never forget this moment. It was historic.”
After months of protest, Elbit Systems shut down its facility in Raleigh, North Carolina. Elbit is Israel’s largest weapons company.
“Over the past two years, the world has opened its eyes to Israel’s continued aggression in Gaza and the West Bank,” said Samira Haddad, an organizer with the Palestinian
Youth Movement Network in a statement. “This moment demands more than recognition—it demands action. We must dismantle every organization and system that enables the production and delivery of weapons to the Zionist state, whether through shipping, data infrastructure, logistics, or any other contribution along the weapons supply chain.”
Iowa City Council unanimously approved a resolution that bars the city from directing any public money toward any entity “complicit in the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and occupation of Palestine,” including corporate investments and Israel Bonds.
It’s the first municipality in a majority Republican state to pass a boycott resolution.
I spoke with Uchechi Anomnachi, a member of Iowa City Action for Palestine, about the win.
“The biggest thing that I’ve learned through this process is that you have to ask for more,” he told me. “We were dealing with a progressive city council in a progressive city, and we got what we asked for in terms of city investments, but there’s obviously still more for us to ask for. There’s still more levels at which we hope we can affect change.”
“These state governments want you to believe that you’re not allowed to ask for these things and that you can’t organize a boycott, but we’ve realized it’s totally feasible.”
Odds & Ends
🤝 Understanding the relationship between Zionism and Fascism
📱 Right-wingers ignite anti-Palestinian doxxing campaign amid Brown shooting
📺 Responsible Statecraft: Bari Weiss just handed Trump a ‘kill switch’ for news it doesn’t like
📰 Jewish Currents: The Genocides The New York Times Forgot
🇻🇪 Common Dreams: From Powell to Venezuela: The High Cost of Evidence-Free Escalation
🇮🇱 Counterpunch: Frozen Aid, Gaza Shivers, and Trump’s Deal Melts Away
👀 Jewish Insider: Trump-appointed Holocaust Museum board members pushing to oust Bernie Sanders
🇮🇷 Al Jazeera: Trump says US would back strikes against Iran’s missile program
🇵🇸 Haaretz: Trump’s Embrace of Netanyahu Is a Strategic Tactic That Offers Little Clarity on Postwar Gaza
🎥 JTA: Jewish actress Odessa A’zion pushes back after IDF t-shirt controversy: ‘Not a zio!’
🇺🇸 The Nation: Brace Yourselves for Trump’s New Monroe Doctrine
BDS actions at the State and local level must continue to expand. Only then will the elected politicians find the “courage” to follow the law and do their job and stop supporting Israel’s Genocide and ethnic cleansing policies in the illegally occupied territories of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
There is no leadership on this issue in the US Congress, and our Naked Emperor only cares about lining his family’s pockets with financial assets.
Imagine had exercising the right to armed resistance been determined to be too long a shot and Mandani’s idea about equal rights been front and center.