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Will be interesting to witness how many signs will be focused on Israel and U.S.’s war on Iran. Israel’s war on Lebanon at the “No King’s march.” Will be in Athens Ohio which is predominately a white middle to upper income town. Sad not to be in Dayton Ohio where there is substantive diversity. Even though at the last two “No King’s ” protest seriously 99% white participants in a 40 % black community. Early April will be digging down into why the black community did not participate in last 2 large “No King’s” protest.

“Should Trump have the right to start a war with China all by himself? Do we say he should if we don’t think the Chinese government is very nice?” Could U.S. citizens (Kushner, Witkoff) who are so clearly working for Israel and their intentions, “Agents of influence” Could U.S. Chinese Americans so clearly operate out in the open, control a U.S. administration’s foreign policy decisions?

Former CIA intelligence analyst Larry Johnson on where things stand with Iran. “Dehumanization”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXD5xz9B2E

jrg “The No Kings movement is a grass-roots effort on behalf of the American people to stop Trump and his Administration from corrupting our body politic and our society and thereby harming us and our posterity.” Being aware of “Indivisible’s” birth and development I would agree with sentence. In the beginning little to no comments, focus on Israel’s disproportionate influence control over U.S. foreign policy decisions. “Indivisible’s” focus was very limited.

Have been hearing their leadership open up to the criticizing of Israel committing genocide. Clearly learning more, opening up to the facts on the ground. Widening their scopes about how the U.S. oppresses, slaughters others and supports Israel doing the same.

Starting a major war with likely catastrophic consequences for the entire world without even going through the motions of persuading Congress to declare war is the very epitome of what a tyrannical king does.

This is so freaking obvious I should not have to point it out. That the Iranian government is a massive human rights violator is completely irrelevant. Should Trump have the right to start a war with China all by himself? Do we say he should if we don’t think the Chinese government is very nice?

Slightly off topic, this is a reminder to our colleagues at Hasbara U who believe that Mondoweiss is the locus of anti-Israel sentiment:

Israel is being ‘dismantled’ by practicing apartheid says Tzipi Livni – Middle East Monitor

Former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni has said Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is “dismantling the State of Israel”, accusing it of allowing armed settler militias, parallel legal systems and indefinite occupation to undermine the basic foundations of statehood. 

Ex-PM Olmert calls for ICC intervention against settler violence | The Times of Israel

Ex-PM Olmert calls for ICC intervention against settler violence

“Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur, issued a report to the Human Rights Council this month finding that Israel has imposed a continuous regime of psychological terror across the entirety of occupied Palestinian territory…”

To elaborate on that,

“UN expert says world has given Israel ‘licence to torture Palestinians’...UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese says torture ‘has effectively become state policy’ in Israel.”

UN expert says world has given Israel ‘licence to torture Palestinians’ | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Interview in Haaretz with Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents:

She traces her radicalization to the 2014 Gaza war. “I was paying close attention to the chain of events, and the story I’d been told – the IDF as the most moral army in the world, and how Israeli society relates to that kind of militarization – just didn’t hold anymore, with that scale of civilian casualties,” she said in an interview with New Left Review. “I remember seeing an article in the Times about Israeli citizens carrying a couch up to a hilltop overlooking Gaza, to cheer as the bombs fell. And the famous image of the little boys on the beach, essentially decapitated, exploded. And I just broke. I mean, it fell all at once. I spent weeks just weeping by myself. It was a hugely destabilizing event.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/03/the-shift-newsom-flipflops-on-israeli-apartheid-comments/#comments

As outlined in the article, Israel wants chaos and instability. This will facilitate the continued genocide in Gaza, pogroms & ethnic cleansing in the WB & East Jerusalem and additional land theft of Lebanese & Syrian territory, As for Trump. He’s not in control. Not when it comes to Middle East policy, His administration is infested with Zionists and dual US-Israel citizens. The Zionists are both Jewish and non-Jewish evangelical “Christian” loons (a violent Christianity I do not recognize).

While the genocidal Israelis are wholly loathsome—surveys show over 90 percent support for genocide, land theft and industrial scale killing of Arabs—the elephant in the room are American 5th columnists who are not serving genuine US interests.

As Israel’s supporters do with tedious regularity, you make the fundamental error of equating opposition to America’s and Israel’s wars with support for the other side. Trump has just sown chaos worldwide with this war. Discussing it should be part and parcel of any efforts to stop Trump’s rampage.

Israel, legally and politically, has no actual citizens. It is a state different from others, one that privileges one religious group above all other people in its systems of law, criminal justice, politics et al.

Wrong, wrong, wrong from above. “At both “No Kings” in Dayton (which is 40% black) protest it was 99% black at both protest.” Such a serious error. Both “No Kings” marches in Dayton were literally 99% WHITE. Huge typing mistake.

Most all of the people I talked with (again I was collecting signatures for our hospital initiative) were from the suburbs and smaller cities, towns, around Dayton Ohio. Very few people of color attended those two rallies.

It is revealing of the depravity caused by Zionism that there are still commenters – probably Israelis – on this site adamantly defending their own criminality and pointing at Palestinians as if those people are the problem. Meanwhile on the Left, many still have their heads down the endless rabbit holes of the Epstein files and claim that the USA’s activities in the Middle East are a means to distract public attention from those. Really?

The No Kings movement is a grass-roots effort on behalf of the American people to stop Trump and his Administration from corrupting our body politic and our society and thereby harming us and our posterity. It would make no sense to add the Iranian issue, because that would be on behalf of a regime that calls us the Great Satan and espouses the slogan Death to America. Why should we demonstrate on behalf of people who call us demonic, and who hate and wish death on us?

“Put not thy faith in princes” See: The Bible…Machiavelli, et. al.

To “revere” Israel is, to my mind, evidence of at least the willingness to genuflect to political Zionism as well as to be gaslit and potentially much worse.

I can imagine a mass of young Americans now saying:

“OK, fine Gavin you have your opinion. FYI it is our opinion that, if elected President in 2028 you would behave exactly as another Democratic officeholder, Genocide Joe Biden, who proudly, repeatedly and publicly declared, “I am a Zionist” and proved it by enabling the Israel you revere so much to launch and continue the genocide of Gaza. Your reverence is misplaced and will be weaponized by machine Zionism when necessary. In revealing just how vassalized you are you have lost, at least, the young voters who will decide the future of the Democratic Party. Way to go!

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the room where you surrendered your principles, your dignity and your credibility. What were you promised in return?

View here 280 new Palestine solidarity posters

Brent— A lot has changed since the 90’s. I remember how the issue was discussed then and before and after. The vast majority of white liberals were socialized to think that Israel was the good guy, though the settlements were a problem. I remember a friend echoing what someone in the NYT had said ( might have been Madelaine Albright) that it was one thing to quarrel about land and other to murder innocent people. In those days you just didn’t hear much about Israeli atrocities in the mainstream. Only the Palestinians were guilty of terrorism, not those civilized Israelis and hovering over all discussions were liberal Zionists telling you just how much criticism of Israel is allowed before it becomes antisemitic. Everything orbited around what was good for Israel. The occupation was bad for Israel, etc.. in the 2000’s and the 2010’s I used to read a liberal Christian blogger who was a harsh critic of rightwing Christian Zionism, the dispensationalist types, but not because it supported oppression of Palestinians but because it was antisemitic in his view. The dispensationalist only supported Israel because it was supposed to play a role in the End Times.

Things have changed drastically in the past two or three years. Now the average liberal knows Israel is guilty of massive war crimes at the very least. Some still think it is just Netanyahu but at this point only the hard core fanatics deny Israeli atrocities. I agree it is not helpful if some people defend Hamas’s atrocities but Israel is not going to get its reputation back any time soon.

The problem of coexistence isn’t something Americans can solve. What we can do is tell the Israelis that we aren’t supporting their crimes any more and while we are at it, we should stop committing crimes ourselves.

“ If Brent was talking about the 90’s I would be more inclined to agree with him. Lots of sincere talk about coexistence might have helped then.”
________________________________________________________

Yes to that point, especially when the average Israeli was the party to influence.

It makes sense currently to be seen as open to co-existence due to hasbara success regarding “self-defense”. It is doing harm to the Palestinian cause to be characterizes as being against peace and co-existence. Voter understanding is ever more important today.

Not difficult to imagine Israeli soldiers doing this to a Palestinian children. Israel is a rogue, sick nation in so many ways.

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/children-killed-gaza

U.S. has done in Vietnam, Iraq…shameful and sick

““For years, the antiwar movement in this country has been worn down – piece by piece, argument by argument, until even its language was made suspect,” writes journalist Sana Saeed. “But in these last three years, something more deliberate has taken hold: to be anti-war now is to be marked; it’s to risk deportation, violence, abduction, and imprisonment. And we watched it happen: we watched students – who have always been the conscience of any movement – be met not only with the force of the state, but with the violent compliance of the institutions meant to protect them.”

Have to say that more than ever before during my decades of activism I feel more “beat down” as if all of our efforts to stop the U.S. government from entering or starting unnecessary, brutal, heinous wars is all for naught. That trying to influence main stream media outlets, our Reps, Americans etc to come face to face with the facts on the ground in the Palestine Israel conflict. The barbarism of Israel. The complete lack of accountability gets away with over and over again. Ok the percentages have shifted more in support of the Palestinians, however, clearly with 75,000 Palestinians literally massacred by Israel, hundreds of thousands injured, starving at times, living in tents, losing more land in West Bank to savage Jewish Israeli land thieves. Yes, more people are coming to understand yet the situation has only gotten worse for Palestinians.

Israel’s cherry on top of their massive death and destruction is convincing Trump and team to bomb the hell out of Iran based on falsehoods while Israel continues to kill more Lebanese, steal more land.

Yes, thinking some people are feeling beaten down.

Our dear Athens Ohio farmer human rights activist friend Art Gish never stopped standing up for the Palestinians or any people being beaten down by hatred.

https://palsolidarity.org/2010/08/remembering-art-gish/

We know what the numbers of people who show up on the streets across the U.S. will say to our Reps is “your asses are grassed in the mid terms” unless Republicans are successful at stealing the mid term elections…If we get there. We have to keep showing up!

Continued from above:

Those in attendance at both “No Kings” protest in Dayton Ohio (again 40% black) were mostly white and from suburbs around Dayton. Later as I talked with the black community in Dayton I am deeply involved with many said there was actually a concerted effort by some leaders in the black community who encouraged the black community in Dayton not to attend because their issues were not being addressed by “Indivisible.” Again, I found this fascinating and disturbing.

“Indivisible” has come a long way, however, how those numbers of people at those rallies turn it into action is critical. CRITICAL.

Hopefully the March 28th protest across the country have a major focus on U.S. Israel relations and how those forces have often been joined to kill, destroy and steal others lands and resources.

I think Judging Freedom has been doing a kick ass job of covering the Palestine, Israel, Iran, U.S. issues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq32fmNwp9A

7 years we were and continue to work on the Good Samaritan Hospital issue:

Hanging out with mostly older black activist continues to be enlightening.

https://www.wyso.org/tags/clergy-community-coalition

Like so many social justice and human rights activist in their 70’s 80’s I developed my awareness during the 1960’s civil rights movement (for me born and bred as a Catholic..no longer) the Berrigan Brothers and, MLK, Malcolm X, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, some of the Sisters of Notre Dame turned on my conscience soul lights. Once those lights were turned on they have guided all of my acts of conscience having to do with human rights and social justice actions over the decades. Civil Rights, Vietnam, anti apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian rights issue, Guatemala, Nicaragua , Iraq etc etc etc. Damn those etc’s. As older activist of the Berrigan era filled my head with wise comments and actions “sadly there will never be a shortage of human rights issues to stand up for” said one of the Catholic nuns who inspired me to get involved and stay involved.

Ten years ago I noticed right away the “Indivisible” officials steered away from the Palestinian/Israel conflict. Their leaders of “Indivisible” did not mention the crimes Israel was continually committing at that point in time “Indivisible” seemed to be in line with the stay silent about Israel’s human rights crimes, while standing up against Trump and team first time around. That is what seemed to stir them up. I have noticed over these 10 years “Indivisible”s” leadership has become more willing to put Israel’s crimes under a spotlight. Better late than never.

Have been to two of the “No King’s ” rallies, both in Dayton, Ohio where a group of mostly black human rights activist that I have been working with in Dayton were collecting signatures to get a ballot initiative up and over the signature numbers hump to build a new hospital in NW Dayton where the 93 year old Catholic hospital Good Samaritan hospital was closed and torn down (we fought the closing and destruction for two years). https://www.wyso.org/news/2024-07-17/community-group-gathers-signatures-to-build-west-dayton-public-hospital

We busted our asses collecting signatures and getting this over the hump. https://www.whio.com/news/local/voters-pass-tax-levy-looking-fund-public-hospital-dayton/P7IYFCEZ5ZDA7FAJ3FOX3VTCFA/

At both “No Kings” in Dayton (which is 40% black) protest it was 99% black at both protest. I found this both fascinating and disturbing. As I talked with hundreds upon hundreds of people at both rallies (trying to collect signatures for our initiative) they were almost all from around the suburbs of Dayton.

Newsom’s tone-deaf comments show that the billionaire class controls an increasingly corrupt political system in the Republican and Deomcratic Parties.
The fact that the handfull of wealthiest Americans would continue to support the most corrupt person to ever serve as the US President shows how money and power are the only things valued by America’s billionaire club.
Democracy, justice and moral character are meaningless to these American oligarchs. They and this President see personal wealth as the only measure of success.

Joe Kent on Piers Morgan
note 18:35 to 30:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35X5S5G_xxg

Israel is a country filled with war criminals.
People like MK Yitzhak Kroizer have become the norm in apartheid Israel.
Israel is now the most violently racist country in the world.

This isn’t hard, Brent. US foreign policy has been run by people who lean over backwards understanding Israeli fears, real and imagined, and what it has done is show them that we will support them no matter what.

A kick in the backside is needed. Tell them we won’t support their apartheid policies, we won’t support genocide and if they expect our help, they had better start acting like Palestinian lives matter.

A kick up the backside gains what beyond feeding your ego?

‘There are no innocents in Jenin’: Far-right MK backs troops who shot dead Palestinian family…MK Yitzhak Kroizer at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, November 10, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Far-right MK Yitzhak Kroizer defends the conduct of Israeli security forces who shot dead a Palestinian couple and their two young children earlier this month, claiming that their vehicle sped toward them in the northern West Bank….“I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation. Even if the collateral damage is children or women — it does not matter to me,” Kroizer says in remarks at a Knesset plenary session….“And in Jenin, there are no innocent civilians. In Jenin, there are no innocent children,” Kroizer claims.

‘There are no innocents in Jenin’: Far-right MK backs troops who shot dead Palestinian family | The Times of Israel

“The U.S. has been necessarily vague about its goals, frequently shifting them. When Trump is most interested in an off-ramp, he goes back to the mantra of “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” “

I haven’t the foggiest idea about what it takes to build a nuclear weapon but I keep reading experts who say that Iran can build a crude device with the uranium it already has. The latest from The Independent,

“To develop a nuclear bomb small enough to go on top of a warhead missile, it would need to be about 90 per cent enriched. The first bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the Second World War was 80 per cent enriched, and at 60 per cent it is still possible to make a nuclear bomb – it just can’t be delivered by missiles….In the worst case scenario, Iran could develop that 60 per cent material into bombs to take them out onto ships to ports, which could lead to a nuclear explosion like Hiroshima. If they don’t explode properly, you’ve still got a dirty bomb, which would create a spread of radioactive material, contaminating an area for a long time and leading to widespread panic.”

I’m a nuclear expert and this is what I’m worried about Iran’s enriched uranium | The Independent

You could say that the failure is the anti-war movement’s failure. But really, the failure justly belongs to other movements not to embrace the problems that war preparations pose for their campaigns. Trying to get 350.org to include militarism was a fraught failure overall. Even many who celebrate MLK’s “radical legacy” emphasize racism and economic exploitation but understate or exclude the third important tine of MLK’s “Triple Evils”: militarism. The failure may be ours, but efforts at making intersectional common cause have generally not succeeded in generating more anti-war messaging or understanding.

“‘No Kings’ protest refusal to address the war on Iran reflects the failure of the U.S. antiwar movement”

The same stuff as happened during the early stages of the movement against the war against the war in Vietnam. The same liberalists demanding that we call for negotiations rather than an immediate end to the war because they were afraid of being called commies, afraid to anger liberal politicians and were especially afraid of being seen as agreeing to a unified Vietnam.

ThisWreckage is correct— that is the irony of defending Israel by saying it is a democracy. Yes it is, for its citizens, and it chooses to practice apartheid and commit genocide and the vast majority of voters agree with the genocidal actions.

As for Iran, targeting civilian infrastructure or civilians is a war crime, but it is both extraordinary and utterly predictable to hear Israelis complain about that. And Israel uses its people as human shields. The Israeli Pentagon is underground in the heart of Tel Aviv. And do you condemn Israel annd America’s attack on Iran and Lebanon and the targeting of civilians and infrastructure? You expect a heavily outgunned country to fight cleanly when Israel always acts like a policeman firing a machine gun into a crowd to get one bank robber.

We spent years listening to Israel apologists in and out of the press bending over backwards trying to make every civilian death in Gaza and Lebanon just regrettable collateral damage and really all Hamas’s fault. It was crap— Israel was willing to wipe out dozens or even hundreds of civilians to get one Hamas member and they almost certainly saw those deaths as a collateral benefit and not a tragedy. They called their policy of blowing up a Hamas member in his home with his family “ Where’s Daddy?”

“Do you condemn the Iranian attacks on innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians?”

And do you condemn the Israeli attacks/aggression on Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians?

Who attacked, who initiated this deliberate aggression that killed/is killing hundreds, thousands of innocent lives?

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-problem-isnt-kings-the-problem

Removing Israel’s leaders would result only in their replacement with similar criminals or worse. Israel, as poll after poll shows, is a deeply criminally-minded society, ruled by open racists. Whichever racist is in power, Palestinians and Iranians will suffer.

I mean, seriously… you are demanding condemnation against Iran defending itself against your unprovoked criminal attacks? Cluster munitions are widely reviled, and rightly so. Yet Israel produces them, while you condemn their use. Are you, at last, condemning Israel?

Since 2023, the number of countries producing cluster munitions increased from

16—Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, South Korea,

Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Türkiye, and the US—to 17 with the

addition of Myanmar.

(‘Cluster Munition Monitor 2024 Major Findings’, International Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition)

Meanwhile here in the UK, the leader of the Green Party of England & Wales, Zack Polanski, who has garnered enormous positive publicity in leftist media (apart, thankfully, from the WSWS) refuses to admit that Zionism is a racist ideology. He apparently thinks that there are good Zionisms.

Read the rest of my sentence.

Yonah, that is a lot of issues in one comment, so I will just take on one or maybe two. My impression from thousands of miles away is that there was a chance of a 2ss ( for better or worse, but that is a separate issue) in the 90’s through 2001 and yes, actors on both sides stomped on it. In this case you had the Israeli far right murderers and then Hamas launched its own murder campaign. I think that was the order of events but in this case it doesn’t matter that much— murders committed by both sides poisoned the atmosphere. If Brent was talking about the 90’s I would be more inclined to agree with him. Lots of sincere talk about coexistence might have helped then.

Once the 2nd Intifada started and there were atrocities on both sides things went into the sewer, But it didn’t have to stay that way.

I think the mistake made by American politicians was the pandering. It was easy to condemn Hamas terrorism but one heard virtually nothing in condemnation of Israeli atrocities. And Clinton decided to put 100 percent of the blame for the failure of Taba on the Palestinians. And on the Democratic side this was largely due to the Lobby. On the Republican side there is the Lobby and also the Christian Zionists who are essentially on the side of the extreme Israeli Right. Huckabee is a fair representative of that crowd. Israel was a sacred cow, to be supported no matter what, and that culminated in 2023 in Biden and Blinken thinking that it was more important to arm Israel than to pressure Israel not to slaughter civilians. I think our “ ironclad” support was a disaster.

As for Iran, the government is tyrannical but there are no “ good guys” on either side. All likely outcomes of this war are bad. It should never have been started.

Jews in the Jewish historic homeland are not “White racial supremacist European Zionist colonial settler invaders,” We are a people quite at home in our historic homeland, which is also the Palestinian homeland.
The declared intention of the Palestinian representatives is an Islamic State, with Sharia law, not a secular state..

Many of us are doing what we can to be rid of them.
Do you condemn the Iranian attacks on innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians?

By not issuing building permits, Jumaa says, Palestinians are forced to build homes without them, which are then demolished.

A gun to the head? An offer they cannot refuse?

Reed did a foul. Also, is not facilitating understanding for his promotional.

You say “bolstered”, I ask “how so”.

RE: I’m not aware of any significant Palestinian support for a democratic secular state.

A Zionist propagandist never ceases to peddle the false Zionist propaganda script.

Before the Nakba, the three major occupations of Palestinians were peasant-farming, small shopkeeping, and hospitality. Palestinian religion was always easy-going. Palestinians had to be religiously easy going. We hosted Christian, Muslim, and Jewish visitors, who according to their travel writing all loved their experience in Palestine.

When Iraq received its independence in 1932. Palestinians expected their independence and always specified that the independent Palestinian state would be secular civil national, one-man one-vote. Every one would live on terms of mutual respect and equality. White racial supremacist European Zionist colonial settler invaders, who intended to steal the Mandate from the true Palestinian beneficiaries, rejected this civil national state categorically.

Zionist colonial settler invaders intended from the start to create an extremist organic nationalist state, that was based on false and ahistorical concept of the Land of Israel. Palestinians never deviated from seeking a secular civil democratic nation state in Palestine. Palestinians argued for this state before UNSCOP. After Zionist put the long-planned Zionist genocide into full operation in Dec 1947, Palestinian resistance has been primarily secular from FATAH and the majority of organizations in the PLO.

In a sense, Zionism is an extremist religion that has replaced Rabbinic Judaism, which the Zionist movement has murdered by transformation into a program of genocide.

Zionism is based on the fairy tale (contrafactual religious belief) of a Roman Expulsion that never happened after 70 CE. Scholarship since 1819 and the invention of Wissenschaft des Judaism has found that the modern Rabbinic Jewish metapopulation is formed from the non-Judean Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora, from the non-Judean Mesopotamian Jewish Diaspora, and from non-Judean groups that are descendants of converts like Yemini Jews, who are descendants of Arab converts.

It is hard to find a more extreme and psychotic religion than Zionism which claims the right to commit genocide against Palestinians and steal their country on the basis of Zionist contrafactual religious belief.

[2] The Truth About US Christian Zionism

Footnotes


1) Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980), 85–115.

2} Paul Harvey, Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities among Southern Baptists, 1865–1925 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 114–155.

3) Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (New York: Liveright, 2020); Anthea Butler, White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021).

4) Daniel G. Hummel, Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019); Samuel Goldman, God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

Christian Zionism in Britain befpre the invention of Jewish Zionist by Hovevei Zion in 1881 is a misnomer. Christian Restorationism was a ridiculously ignorant theology that was unaware that Rabbinic Jews are not descendants of 1st century CE Judeans, who are ancestors of Palestinians. Rabbinic Jews practice Rabbinic Judaism, which is a religion that differs radically from Greco-Roman Judean Biblical Temple Judaism. Jewish Zionists made opportunistic use of British Christian Restorationism.

In the USA especially after 1967, white racists opportunistically injected Christian Restorationism into white Christian Redemption politics and theology to increase popularity.

[1] The Truth About US Christian Zionism

Grace rhymes with race!

While Christian Zionism is commonly traced to 19th-century Anglo-American Restorationism, which envisioned Jewish return to Palestine as a prerequisite for Christ’s return, this narrative neglects the deep imprint of Southern white Redeemer ideology on the political and theological shape of American Zionism in the 20th century. After the Civil War, Redeemers sacralized the political reclamation of white supremacy in the South by deploying a religious vocabulary of redemption, divine election, and messianic victory.¹ This ideology reimagined the South as a “redeemed” land restored to its rightful Christian (white) stewards through suffering and eventual triumph—an eschatological narrative strikingly parallel to Christian Zionist portrayals of Israel’s national restoration. In both cases, divine favor is tied to territorial conquest, racial hierarchy, and prophetic destiny.

As Paul Harvey demonstrates, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals fused regional identity with a racialized theology of order, preparing a cultural soil in which the later political Zionism of Christian America could flourish.² Although Restorationist theology provided the scriptural scaffolding for Christian Zionism, Redeemer ideology supplied its political psychology: a belief in righteous domination, national exceptionalism, and sacred violence.³ This fusion is especially evident in the Cold War and post-1967 era, when U.S. evangelicals increasingly cast Israel’s geopolitical triumphs as divinely sanctioned and mirrored their own imagined Christian dominion.⁴ Thus, Christian Zionism in the U.S. is not merely a legacy of Restorationist prophecy, but also a rearticulation of the South’s white redemptive myth, projected onto a global stage.

You brought it on yourselves. Deal with it. Get rid of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Herzog, Gallant, and the rest of your countrymen who have brought this up on you. Your leaders said that’s what they expected Iranians to do. Show them it cuts both ways.

Re: where is the condemnation from those who support human rights?

See: the article about allegations of Iranian cluster munitions in Arad. ‘We Came Out of the Shelter and Saw Everything Destroyed. Like What We Do in Lebanon‘ — Haaretz

Israel has used hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions in Lebanon most notably in 1978, 1982, and extensively in 2006, with recent evidence suggesting heavy use began again in late 2024, 2025, and 2026. See the report in the Guardian four months ago. Israel used widely banned cluster munitions in Lebanon, photos of remnants suggest FYI, based upon data from UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) as of late November 2025, Israel had committed over 10,000 violations of the ceasefire agreement with Lebanon, which went into effect on November 27, 2024. So, Israel was always conducting a continuous illegal occupation and full scale shadow war.

I’ve always noted that massacres and the initiation of wars of choice are crimes, whether the victims are Arabs, Iranians, or Jews. As usual, I’ve been reading and writing about that fact right here at MW and the ICC Portal. I financial support Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the ICRC, the UN Human Rights and Refugee Agencies, JVP, and HIAS. The Trump and Netanyahu regimes have defunded, imprisoned, legally attacked and libeled them, expelled humanitarian organizations, and in hundreds of cases they have systematically murdered their local staff and workers. The human rights record of the Ayatollahs regime is no better or worse – and that’s why it’s regularly reported upon by the organizations I just cited.

Right now Iran is attacking the civilian population in Israel and the Palestinians with ballistic missiles, with cluster munitions… where is the condemnation from those who support human rights?

Is this what it means for the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland??

Some days, some articles are just too upsetting to read.

There was a good example of the depth of Israeli racism in Tuesday’s Guardian, in an article commenting on the attack on ambulances in Golders Green, London.

A few weeks ago in Tel Aviv, on my first days there – before what has now become an extended stay due to the war – I stopped at a small place to grab lunch. I began my order in hesitant Hebrew, thinking I was doing well, but after a moment that exposed my linguistic limitations, the man behind the counter switched to English to ask where I was from. “London,” I said. “Ah,” he replied with a chuckle. “Londonistan,” echoing the denigration often heard on the far right.

With the easy certainty of someone stating a fact, he then went on to claim that London is no longer safe for Jews. I brushed that off. But certainly there is understandable anxiety at the moment.

The article was by David Davidi-Brown is chief executive of the New Israel Fund.

Notice the man’s undisguised racism and Islamophobia. Notice, too, how the writer “brushed it aside” rather than remonstrating with him, correcting his misapprehension of life in London, or walking out of the eatery.

Appealing to the decency of decent people is all well and good but it needs to be bolstered by giving the racists a good (if metaphorical) kick up the backside.

Donald, I reject your rhetoric, but you’re the only one here that I feel that I can talk to. Israel came close to a deal with the Palestinians in 2000 and in 2008 and both times the failure came from both sides (or if one wants the US to help, particularly in 2000, the failure came from 3 sides.) The Israeli offers were sufficient as original offers, but they were offered on a kind of “take it while you can or else we won’t be in office to sign an agreement” and because the majority of Jewish Israelis did not support what was offered by Ehud Barak in 2000 and by Olmert in 2008, the elections held soon afterwards kicked those who made the offers out of office, because for better or worse, the majority of Jewish Israelis do not trust the Palestinian desire for peace, nor do they trust the leadership of the Palestinians. (Actually their distrust is logical and it is only an illogical faith in the need to solve the problem despite the distrust that I disagree with the Jewish Israeli majority). Although most supporters of Palestine view Iran from an angle of that support, I do not feel that this is accurate. Iran is not Arab and Iran is far away and Iran is cuckoo, meaning led by nutso ayatollahs and in America the fact that Iran has death to America written on their missiles causes very little worry, Iran’s hatred for Israel and their death to Israel written on their missiles (added to their bombing Jewish community center in Argentina, added to contests for the best holocaust denial cartoons added to their support for Assad, Hezbollah and Hamas and their disruptive foreign policy) it is entirely logical to want to see the reign of the ayatollahs come to an end. there is nothing extreme about that. nothing. as far as mister Trump goes, if we compare him to Bush (W), mister Trump has no friends and no advisers, he has his gut. and his closest confidante regarding the middle east happens to be Netanyahu, more than rubio and more than senator graham, I think trump has respect for Netanyahu’s intellectual heft, which is far greater than his respect for anyone in the administration. Bush (W) had Cheney and Cheney had a pro Israel staff, so that’s an entirely different situation, but Trump has his own gut and he really only trusts Netanyahu. it really has very little to do with midterm elections, because oil crisis will wipe out the republicans so mentioning electoral advantage of big donors is irrelevant and way off base. (attention: Phil Weiss.)

Am NOT saying most Israelis are not racist…rather saying many are not and they are important allies to have. That nothing is lost presenting a true face to them. Being silent, standing on position for being right all along is short-sighted.

Additionally, American support is enhanced as they note/hear the propaganda being rebutted. When they believe co-existence is the objective, political power is enhanced. Perhaps you see a better approach?

The more it is understood/overheard that co-existence is the goal, the greater the political leverage over the racism. The less powerful the self-defense card and the stronger the liberation possibilities.

This will not change things right away.

Related:
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/989#:~:text=Jewish%20Israelis%20were%20asked%20to,66%25%20select%20%E2%80%9Cto%20commit%20genocide

Brent, you keep making the same mistake over and over— acting like most Israelis are closet liberals just needing reassurance. It’s like you never met a hardcore racist and can’t believe they actually exist.

Now people like that can change, sometimes, but it requires outside pressure. Americans have been reassuring Israelis for decades no matter how badly they act and the result is what you might get with a child— a spoiled genocidal brat. At best, Palestinian rights were something Israelis were willing to talk about. And talk. And talk. Meanwhile they kept stealing land.

And now it is far worse.

Brent the majority of both left wing and right wing Knesset members have never accepted the co-existence of their own Arab pollical parties, There was only one year since 1949, from 2021 to 2022, when a single independent Arab was ever allowed to help form a part of the governing coalition, They received absolutely zero cabinet ministerial positions and were not part of the government coalition afterward. That happened before October 7th 2023; So get a firm grip on reality and drop your incessant flood of bullshit. No one here is that gullible.

Further reading: as we all know, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has reached colossal proportions. What should we think about the hasbara that it’s all the work of a relatively few bad apples among the settlers? In this interview with Daniel Levy**, who served as a negotiator for Israel in the Oslo negotiations, Levy explains that it’s not the settlers, it’s the entire apparatus of occupation:

But I also want to challenge this notion that the problem in the West Bank is the settlers. There is no armed settler militia without the IDF. The settlers roam the West Bank with the active backing of Israel’s military. Occasionally, they may call a handful of people to account and say, “No. Stop.” But most of the occupation and the entrenchment of a matrix of control and an apartheid regime, that is run not by lone settlers. That is run by the Israeli state. That is run by the IDF. It is the IDF and the Israeli state that run that regime of control, that also, as you mentioned, despite the so-called ceasefire, are in control of about 60% directly of Gaza, carrying out daily military assaults, daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza, still not allowing the necessary humanitarian assistance or shelter into Gaza, and, in parallel, conducting the largest military intervention in the West Bank…

“Israel First”: Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy Says Netanyahu Led Trump into Illegal Iran War | Democracy Now!

**
Daniel Levy (political analyst) – Wikipedia

The other, non-moderate, 93% of Israelis needed no encouragement or persuasion.

Propaganda regarding treacheries on 10-7 and suspected meanings of chants and slogans have turned moderate Israelis against co-existence with Palestinians…. to the delight of Israel’s extreme right.

The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner posted this report from last June:

Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip, part of a widespread and relentless assault against the Palestinian people in which Israeli forces have committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said in a new report today….While the Commission paid special attention to the situation in Gaza, the report focuses on attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, and in Israel….In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the education system has suffered from increasing military operations by Israeli security forces, the harassment of students, and an increase in checkpoints, demolitions and settler attacks which have affected more than 806,000 Palestinian students. Israel has done little to prevent or prosecute settlers who have intentionally targeted educational facilities and students to terrorise communities and force them to leave their homes….

Israeli attacks on educational, religious and cultural sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, UN Commission says | OHCHR

I’m not aware of any significant Palestinian support for a democratic secular state.

From Juan Cole’s blog:

Zionism, to be more precise, “Zionism avant la lettre,” was not invented by Jews but by evangelical Protestants, starting in the 16th century. They pursued two aims: to bring Christ back to this world and to convert Jews to Christianity. This deep affinity with evangelical Protestant beliefs helps explain the massive support the State of Israel enjoys today in the United States and other countries, where evangelical Protestants number in the hundreds of millions and form an impressive pro-Israel force. Christian Zionists view the State of Israel through apocalyptic lenses, viewing it as a tool to provoke Armageddon and hasten the End of Days. (Yakov M Rabkin)

https://www.juancole.com/2026/03/christian-zionists-column.html

“Ninety-three percent of Israeli Jews support the war on Iran.” I read that the other day several places, which is so discouraging that the majority of Israeli Jews feel that. Ethnic superiority in Israel is out of control from what Max Blumenthal and a few others have reported.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-most-jewish-israelis-support-iran-war-toppling-regime-arab-backing-far-lower/

“But there is one group of Americans who understand better than most exactly how extreme Israeli society has become: the American Jewish community.”

I think that may that be the case as of late that the American Jewish community who understand better, however, I know 40 -45 years ago that was not the case. I asked all of my close Jewish friends as I became more and more aware if they knew the details about the oppression, incarceration without due process,humiliation, theft of more Palestinian land etc etc and they did not. They were as in the dark as many others. They were all sending money to many charities and groups in Israel long ago. All went completely and mentally closed down to hearing facts about the conflict. Did not want to know

Many Jewish friends are far more willing to discuss the issues these days. Most still make excuses for Israel’s consistently brutal ways. In regards to people who I have known on the front lines of being focused on human rights and social justice for Palestinians have been non Jews over the decades. That has clearly changed last 10-15 years.

Main stream U.S. news seemed committed to keeping most people in the dark up until the last three or so years.

Israel wants endless wars in the Middle East, with limitless support from the United States.
This is not in the best interest of America, the Middle East or the world.
In addition, Israel will not survive with a pattern of such unhinged aggression.

“But there is one group of Americans who understand better than most exactly how extreme Israeli society has become: the American Jewish community.”

When religion becomes less about human kindness and more of a business transaction. Silly me!

Kula, “What is being defended against is almost certainly a combination of grief, guilt and shame”_________________________________________________________

Moral awareness can be suppressed by existential danger, imagined, perceived or real.

Did Harvard Hillel have anything to say about the Jeffrey Epstein links with Harvard?
It is my understanding that Epstein considering himself to be a zionist, and he was an active supporter of Israel.

Re: Look at a map, Mr. Plitnick. How does Israel “threaten” the Gulf States? 

Israel has never hesitated to highjack airplanes, seize ships on the high seas, bomb civilian airports, kidnap, assassinate, imprison, blockade, invade, occupy, ethnically cleanse, deport or commit mass murder against other peoples, territories, and states without any meaningful agreement to abide by the prohibitions in the law of nations, treaties, extradition or armistice agreements, much less observe any cease fire terms.

If we just look at assassinations committed by Mossad and arms sales to terrorist groups alone, Wikipedia and Ronen Bergman articles at Ynet and The New York Times have documented shadow wars, real wars, and involvement in acts of war all the Gulf states, and on every continent, except Antarctica. What have you been smoking?

Re: “Hostage” is encouraged to express more vile hatred, with a dose of obscenity.

Yes, and No. In a landmark decision on artistic freedom, the Illinois Supreme Court in People v. Lenny Bruce (Ill. 1964) ruled that the Jewish comedian’s “thoroughly disgusting and revolting as well as patently offensive” routine was social commentary and not illegal obscenity. FYI, the States’ have broad power to prohibit obscene expression under US law, but SCOTUS has subsequently ruled that the use of the four letter word “fuck” was not obscene, illegal, or even disgusting when a Jewish protestor wore a jacket that simply said “Fuck the Draft” into a California Court house, i.e. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). Since then, Jewish broadcaster, comedian, and media personality Howard Stern and George Carlin have explained the term’s proper usage and advised us to “say it loudly and proudly Fuck You!”. FYI, Carlin’s “seven dirty words” routine was central to the 1978 SCOTUS case FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision affirmed the government’s power to censor offesive material on public airwaves. The Carlin routine was “indecent but not obscene”. Therefore, the Commission could not ban such content outright, but it could restrict broadcasts to certain times of day.

You are still confused. “From the river to the sea” has been used in Israeli political platforms (e.g., the 1977 Likud Party Platform) to declare exclusive racial “Israeli” or “Jewish” sovereignty.

But the PLO had already used the phrase since 1969 to call for a one-state solution, that would mean “one democratic secular state that would supersede the ethno-religious state of Israel. See for example: Arab Israeli senior lecturer was briefly arrested in April on suspicion of incitement, has called for the end of the Jewish state — Times of Israel. See the accused’s (Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian) comments on the fact the Israeli Courts and IDF’s use of sexual violence is still prevalent, from the way settlers assault Palestinian women, to how Israeli checkpoints and the occupation control pregnant women’s access to hospitals. She says: “The inscription of power over Palestinian women’s bodies is always there.” — RE-EXPOSED: A horrific story of Israeli rape and murder in 1949: Her tragedy remained hidden in the Israeli army’s archives for 54 years, recorded in military court testimonies

Condemning the phrase when used by Palestinians in support of equal rights in one state and freedom by arguing that it constitutes genocide, but not when employed by Likudniks or IDF sodomites and rapists when they display their own ignorance about geography and female anatomy. constitutes a double standard. Here is an example on a Merkava main battle tank bumper sticker. Employing explicit Zionist racial propaganda against so-called “Goyim” (Kushites, Amalekites, Philistines, Canaanites, & et. al.) who are indigenous Judeans, descended from Jews, is just a confession that undermines your whole point.

I would like to send you this gift:
Ask Jonathan Ofir what it means.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/From-The-River-To-The-Kushelaima-Shelachem-Retro-Vintage-T-Shirt/5453551877

No response from Mr.Reed. No explanation, clarification, apology, justification, whatever…

As to other regular commenters, what do they think of the Publisher using my name in a mocking and insulting way?
“John O” thinks it’s funny.
“Hostage” is encouraged to express more vile hatred, with a dose of obscenity.
The rest are silent.

But there is one group of Americans who understand better than most exactly how extreme Israeli society has become: the American Jewish community.

Irwin Kula is a seventh generation rabbi; in 2008 Newsweek listed him as among the ’50 most influential rabbis’. Here he writes an essay in Shaul Magid’s substack – I cannot do justice to his writing but I’ll give a few quotes that illustrate how much the Jewish community is disturbed by the kind of Zionism Israel has come to represent:

Newhouse’s article is a 6,000 word argument affirming that Zionism now serves as no less than the “civilizational model” for the West. This written during Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, displaced nearly the entire population of a territory, and generated genocide proceedings at the International Court of Justice — while simultaneously at war with Iran and Lebanon, and accelerating the annexation of the West Bank. Israel is described positively as passing the “survival test” of self-defense. Gaza is mentioned once — as the location of an invasion ordered “in response to” October 7th, with the Hamas atrocities detailed and the subsequent two and a half years of devastation elided entirely. Iran and Lebanon appear only as theaters of Israeli military prowess. The West Bank does not appear at all. This isn’t an oversight. It is the essay’s organizing psychological move – a defensive operation requiring that the thing being defended against — the actual moral weight of what Israel has and is doing — never be allowed to fully appear….

Irwin Kula’s Response to Alana Newhouse: “The Sophistication of the Defense: A Critique of Alana Newhouse’s ‘Zionism Is for Everyone'”

This is the paragraph you’re objecting to:

“The media will ignore all these political issues. As they will ignore Kent’s most anguished claim, that the war in Syria that killed his first wife was also fomented by Israel.”

Is there anything else in this entire article you disagree with?

“This is the predictable result of a media environment in which Fox News and MSNOW (formerly MSNBC) alike, conservative and liberal corporate media across the board, systematically center the Israeli narrative in their coverage of this conflict. The result is an American public that is structurally prevented from understanding what is actually happening.”
______________________________________________________

Highly relevant for Americans to understand motives and intentions of both Israelis and Palestinians.

It’s not just “Forever Live By The Sword”, it’s also “Diplomacy Is For Weaklings”. The most recent observations of Israel’s allergy to diplomacy is this piece by Dahlia Scheindlin:

Kill or Die: How Israel’s Netanyahu Has Waged War on Diplomacy for Decades…Lebanon’s ignored offer, the sidelining of the Arab Peace Initiative and the collapse of Iran diplomacy all point to the same conclusion: after years of political messaging, Israelis have been persuaded that negotiations and diplomacy are futile – and the only option is military force… the offer by Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun of direct negotiations with Israel last week, toward an agreement to defang Hezbollah, was extraordinary. Aoun also excoriated Hezbollah’s decision to launch a war again with Israel in solidarity with Iran, and outlawed the group’s military wing. France’s President Emmanuel Macron offered to mediate a deal involving Israeli withdrawal in exchange for actual diplomatic recognition between Lebanon and Israel….But three sources told Reuters that the offer fell on “deaf ears” among Israeli and American officials. It was left to a small civil society group in Israel, Zazim, to try to rally the public to sign an online petition for this process, which the government will never see. About 1,600 people had signed by Thursday…. for years, Israelis have effectively been taught that diplomacy is dead, at least when it comes to solving problems.…Netanyahu had no intention of reaching any agreement with the Palestinians that would allow them a state and end the occupation. No Israeli believed the 2013-2014 talks would succeed; it’s as if Netanyahu held those talks in order to prove their futility….During all that time, there were other forms of diplomacy available, such as the Arab Peace Initiative – which was ignored by pretty much all Israeli leaders since it was declared in 2002. But Netanyahu had more time than any other leader to seize such alternatives, had he wanted to. He did not….

Kill or die: How Israel’s Netanyahu has waged war on diplomacy for decades

Gulf States Now View Israel as an Agent of Chaos Equal to Iran – Opinion

Gulf States Now View Israel as an Agent of Chaos Equal to Iran…

Why the Gulf fears Israel’s ‘day after’ in Iran | Middle East Eye

Why the Gulf fears Israel’s ‘day after’ in Iran…Secondly, they fear that the conflict will enable Israel’s regional revisionism and its encroachment into the Gulf. This is why the GCC lobbied hard against the war. It also explains why Gulf states are now trying to buy time by sticking to a defensive strategy. 

Israel and the Gulf: From potential partner to a growing threat

Gulf states are increasingly viewing Israel not as a potential partner, but as a growing threat to regional stability and security…

OPINION – Israel as a threat: How Tel Aviv is reshaping the threat perception of Gulf Cooperation Council states

Israel as a threat: How Tel Aviv is reshaping the threat perception of Gulf Cooperation Council states

Read.

History is filled with soulless warring states like Israel. It never ends well for them. And so many innocents are killed in their brutality.

Part of the reason for this mass pro-war psychosis in Israel is the fact that they have not experienced a defeat. For five generations, since the Balfour declaration, the Zionists have, with imperial protection, moved from victory to victory with trivial casualties, especially in comparison to the slaughter and genocide they have imposed on their enemies. The most fundamental part of this insanity, which is actually an ineluctable part of human nature, is to assume that your recent experience can continue indefinitely.

Israel was one of the components “fomenting” a civil war in Syria. HRC, Saudi Arabia etc as well.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-and-the-s_b_9231190

Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran’s influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.

Oh yes then there was Robert Malley.

https://www.commentary.org/articles/eli-lake/robert-malley-noxious-views-now-mainstream/

When you are brought up believing you or “your people” are ethnically, culturally and religiously superior than “the others”, what one would expect with leaders who preach “Amalek.”

All creating a disaster that continues to grow!

Israel has already done so.

On 9 September 2025, during the Gaza war, the IDF conducted an airstrike in the Leqtaifiya district of Qatar’s capital Doha, targeting the leadership of Hamas, housed in a Qatari government residential complex, as it met to discuss an active ceasefire proposal presented by the US.

“And they absolutely see Israel as a far greater threat than Iran,” Look at a map, Mr. Plitnick. How does Israel “threaten” the Gulf States? Is it going to bomb or fire missiles at them? Is it going to sail its navy through the Suez Canal and blockade them? It it going to fly paratroopers to land in and occupy them? What are you smoking, Mr. Plitnick?

To suggest that the Syrian civil war was fomented by Israel is toxic and malignant garbage. It will be obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Syrian history that it was a result of the murderous oppression inflicted by the Assad dynasty, along with the material deprivation resulting from their incompetence and callous indifference. Asma Assad’s behavior in shopping for new shoes in Europe while her husband was attacking their people with poison gas illustrates the situation in a nutshell. To try to implicate Israel in that bloodbath is so absurd that one makes a fool of oneself in trying to do so.

If the Irish Times is any reflection of the Irish citizenry it’s no wonder there’s a backlash in Ireland-

Israel’s strategic aims, rather than America’s, are shaping the war with Iran – The Irish Times

Israel’s strategic aims, rather than America’s, are shaping the war with Iran…Worldview: Netanyahu’s primordial Zionism and Trump’s National Security Strategy have a lot in common…
If you thought Hizbullah were a spent force, think again – The Irish Times

If you thought Hizbullah were a spent force, think again…Israel has underestimated the resilience of the Iranian-backed group…
Surge in Israeli settler violence in West Bank since start of Iran war – The Irish Times

Surge in Israeli settler violence in West Bank since start of Iran war
etc

Without falling down Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous “Unknown unknowns” rabbit hole, we shouldn’t fall prey to the “ignotum per ignotius” conundrum either. You can’t really explain “The unknown by the more unknown”. The White House Communications Director who helped perpetrate the “Yellow cake uranium” myth and the missing WMDs should be one of the last persons anyone consults to explain why Trump won’t explain the re reason he went to war. See:

*“Nicolle Wallace on why Trump can’t explain his reasoning for the war in Iran” on YouTube

*Jim Mattis and Ryan Holiday | Full Episode 3.20.26 | Firing Line with Margaret Hoover | PBS

I’m very reluctant to suspend my disbelief in the wisdom of former federal officials, like Mattis or Hoover. They were both instrumental in establishing the Bush and Trump era Department of Defense and newly created Department of Homeland Security policies in the immediate aftermath of “Operation Enduring Freedom”:
*The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism);

*Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001; and

*Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.

I’m glad that Mattis is against the current policies of Trump and Hegseth, but at the same time, I doubt he has learned the right answers.

In 2024 Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told President Biden, “The people of Gaza desperately need food, medicine, and shelter. Most especially, they need the bombs to stop. This has to stop.”

Varadkar resigned immediately upon returning to Ireland.

Thanks for this tidbit. Many of us were puzzled as to why Leo resigned when he did. Now it makes more sense.

Here is a link to very detailed gift article and an excerpt from Haaretz
Israel Security
Under Cover of War, Israel’s Right Pushes to Expand Borders – and Settle Lebanon. Amid war with Iran, what was once considered a far-fetched initiative has turned into a systematic campaign supported by lawmakers and the right-wing press: expansion of Israel’s northern border as far as the Litani River.

In June 2024, at the height of the war in the Gaza Strip, hundreds of right-wing activists gathered on Zoom to discuss a new border for Israel. The First Lebanon Conference, as it was called, barely aroused public interest or serious media coverage. The event featured a speech by Dr. Hagai Ben-Artzi, the prime minister’s brother-in-law, who told the participants that the Lebanon border is “completely artificial,” asserting that, “the Galilee extends as far as the Litani [River in Lebanon].”

The organization behind the virtual gathering – Uri Tsafon (“Awaken, O North – The Movement for the Settlement of Southern Lebanon”) – had been founded only two months earlier, but its ambitions were bombastic on an almost biblical scale. The group’s logo consists of a cypress tree, a symbol of Lebanon, and a Star of David. Its founders pull no punches about their aims: “In order to triumph over the Iranian evil, and in order to stabilize the State of Israel for generations, we must get to Lebanon. Southern Lebanon must be under Israeli control,” according to the (Hebrew) website, which also suggests a variety of activities for its supporters: distributing T-shirts, setting up information booths and holding Zoom talks under the heading “Lebanon in the Living Room” – a nod at “Memory in the Living Room,” an event in which Holocaust survivors tell their stories in private homes. …. …. & etc.

Re: What took Joe Kent and so many others so long?

You’d need an organizational chart, and must remember that many Executive branch officials wear “dual hats”. They can serve in separate departmental and operational chains of command, especially during armed conflicts. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Department of Homeland Security have a joint staff that work in close partnership. The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is part of the ODNI is staffed by personnel from various agencies, including DHS. DOJ, and FBI. So, Joe Kent was not just advising, and taking orders. He was in the drivers seat on making policy and determinations regarding who was an “enemy alien”, “narco-terrorist”, and etc.

there is real fear of antisemitism making a comeback

owing, partly, to Israel’s explicit linking of itself to every Jew on the planet. Is it strange that some people might take it seriously and assume that all Jews are like Israeli Jews? They would be wrong – Jews are, notwithstanding their own claims, just like everyone else – but people misinformed by corporate media might draw erroneous conclusions. Of course, there are also Israel’s anti-semitic far right allies.

the spectre of an Iranian nuclear weapon

What? How terrible. Iranians, of course, are uniquely primitive savages unworthy of being trusted with weapons more dangerous than rocks, then. Iran has been invading, bombing, ethnically cleansing, causing chaos in the Middle East? Oh, that’s Israel and the USA, two nuclear-armed states, one of which refuses to admit it possesses them or to allow international inspection.

Morally Iran has every possible right to develop as many of those illegal weapons as it wants. Start from that premise and read Annie Jacobsen’s ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’ as to why the USA, China, Israel and the rest must disarm immediately.

The Warmongers Will Never Admit They Were Wrong And Will Never Learn From Their Mistakes
Caitlin Johnstone

Mar 20, 2026

Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has a tweet that’s got me absolutely fuming right now.

“In 2018–2019, I made the case for regime change in Iran as often as I could. Voices in Trump’s orbit often cited Iran’s capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as a reason against regime change. Trump has been fully aware this is a possibility, and yet did not prepare,” Bolton posted.

Can you believe this shit? Dude’s like “Hey, Trump should have known this war would be hard because people tried to warn him not to listen to me!”

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-warmongers-will-never-admit-they

We keep hearing Iran is playing the “long game”

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/3/19/vali_nasr_iran_middle_east

Brooks lied hard for the invasion of Iraq. He is still floating around in thousands of innocent Iraqi people’s blood. He is always making excuses for his complicity in the push for the invasion of Iraq. Making weak and hollow excuses while pretending he is some kind of humble and compassionate human being. He makes me sick every time I hear him speak. He should be on trial at the Hague for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yes, a third tier war criminal…still a war criminal.

Yes, it is worrisome that people may commit violence against Jews for this horrific war. Although again I don’t believe for a second that msmedia host etc are worried about the potential hate crimes that could be committed against Jewish people and that is why they will twist the facts in the wind before they will ever get close to reporting accurately about this unnecessary, immoral and deadly war that Israel and the U.S. started. About their jobs.

You and Phil are both right— there is real fear of antisemitism making a comeback and a great many people in the mainstream are guilty of support for this war, the Gaza genocide, and if they are old enough, the Iraq War.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. We are used to all the endless fake charges of antisemitism but the real thing is here as well. If the vast majority of Americans left and right start to see Israel as a racist state guilty of genocide which helped push us into stupid wars that were bad for America, the bigoted subset of Americans may take that viewpoint as a reason to be antisemites, just as 9/11 brought out a lot of Islamophobia.

Speaking of complicity, I am watching the PBS Newshour and David Brooks is endorsing the Israeli idiom “ mowing the grass” and the idiot Newshour host and the supposed liberal Capehart both accept Brooks’s framing of the U.S. and Israel as the good guys doing a great thing weakening “ the regime”. Neither of the other two pushed back on the murderous racism of the “ mowing the grass” idiom.

The Brooks- Capehart ( sp?) portion of that show is nearly always on a low moral and intellectual level because Brooks is a racist when it comes to anything involving the Mideast and Capehart is at best useless, but tonight was especially bad.

“Two blocs, connecting the Middle East to South Asia, seem to be coalescing, and this war is likely to spur that on. An Israeli-Emirati-Indian bloc and a Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani bloc are forming, and given the animosities and competitions contained between those two groupings, it is not a recipe for peace.”

With Israel, Pakistan and India’s refusal to sign the IAEA Non Proliferation Treaty for decades. Iran’s reasoning that they really need nuclear weapons to push Israel, U.S. others back the possibility of nuclear weapons being used grows by leaps and bounds.

With Israel being the worst bad actor likely to use nuclear weapons!

Phil I seldom disagree with you, however, I think this paragraph is basically a bunch of hogwash.

“It is obvious why the mainstream media try to dismiss the Israel lobby’s influence. The media do so because it fears antisemitic attacks will target Jews and Jewish institutions in our country. I get that, but this is not about Jews. These are serious and important allegations about a faction influencing foreign policy. And that faction has a track record for pushing disastrous Middle Eastern wars. “

While there may be a few main stream host who are concerned about how this unnecessary and immoral attack on Iran (being confirmed even by Rubio) that Israel had a major influence on Trump doing so. Most main stream news host, guest etc hold back because they do not want the light shining on their own complicity in this invasion of Iran. Keeping their mouths shut, not informing the American public about Iran based on verifiable information, not having intelligence guest like Ritter, McGovern, Johnson, Colonel Wilkerson, Kwiatowski on their programs. Not having programs educating the public about the IAEA’s non Proliferation Treaty. Not questioning Israel’s unwillingness to sign the NPT for decades.

The mainstream media do not want the light shone on their own bloody fingerprints on this war. Once again the majority MSMer’s went along and continue to go along with this illegal, immoral, deadly war. They are afraid to be canned, to lose their grossly over paid pay checks. Maddow being one of the worst I lobby ass kissers. She has real power because for whatever reason MSNBC wants to hang on to her. She NEVER EVER goes out on a limb on the I lobby, Israel influence on U.S. foreign policy decisions. NEVER, EVER goes out on a limb.. CCCCCHHHHIIING

I watched Tucker’s interview/exchange with Joe Kent yesterday. Quite honestly I wondered what the hell took him so long and yet better late than never. There have been many professional intelligence analyst who have been trying to inform us about questionable so called “intelligence” for quite some time. Former CIA middle east analyst Kathleen and Bill Christison (I believe deceased) former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett (after invasion, although I believe one of them quit in the run up to the invasion), former head IAEA weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and others warned us before the invasion of Iraq. Many have written about the WMD lies. Ritter has been trying to warn about Israel’s intent with destroying Iran for decades. He wrote “Target Iran” Former CIA analyst Flynt and HIllary Mann Leverett wrote “Going to Tehran.” They were everywhere (not many main stream cable outlets) trying to warn us. Where are they now I wonder. Phil can you track them down and interview them about the disaster now?

What took Joe Kent so f—ing long? If a then soccer mom in Athens Ohio 24 years ago could access these professionals questioning the validity of the Bush administrations WMD pack of lies and the push by Israel to convince the U.S. to attack Iran then what was up with Kent’s ability to question and search out details? Was not just lefties questioning. Larry Johnson, McGovern, the Leverett’s, Ritter, Colonel Wilkerson (after the fact), Lt Colonel Kwiatowski, etc etc. Not a bunch of lefties questioning.

What took Joe Kent and so many others so long?

Then we had Mearsheimer and Walt’s book about the “lobby” confirming what we had been knowing and reading about for decades before. Finkelstein wrote about. Chomsky some as well…Finkelstein and Chomsky would of course be considered lefties. Hell I heard Scowcroft, Zinni and others question so called pre war “Intelligence” and the Iraq pack of lies.

Not just the left questioning before the invasion of Iraq. Not just the left questioning this massive and wicked attacks on Iran. The majority of the American public against. The MAJORITY!

Not just the left questioning? Judge Napolitano no leftie. The man used to be a major part of Fox. He is leading the way digging down into the attack on Iran with amazing interviews. Interviewing many of the CIA analyst I listened to 24 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS-1rBBw0eA