Ultimately it comes down to courage. Being brave enough to stare squarely at the horrors of Gaza. To face the harsh reality that we are ruled by monsters and our civilization is diseased. To bring our own inner darkness into the light of consciousness where it can be healed.

Ultimately it comes down to courage. Being brave enough to stare squarely at the horrors of Gaza. To face the harsh reality that we are ruled by monsters and our civilization is diseased. To bring our own inner darkness into the light of consciousness where it can be healed.

Coming into a truth-based relationship with reality requires courage. That’s all I’m ever really talking about in this space, when all is said and done: coming into a truth-based relationship with reality, both collectively as a society and as individuals.

Because that’s the only thing that can ever lead to health and harmony. The human species will never move into a healthy relationship with each other and with Earth’s ecosystem as long as our behavior is driven by power-serving systems justified by indoctrinated lies and propaganda. The human individual will never know inner peace if it remains driven by unconscious inner forces and unhealed trauma.

These unwholesome dynamics are not going to correct themselves. Untruth needs to be directly confronted, both in the empire under which we live, and inside ourselves. This takes courage.

It is uncomfortable to look directly at the horrors the western empire is unleashing in Gaza, and elsewhere.

It can be scary to confront the possibility that everything you’ve been taught about your world and your country is a lie.

It can be extremely frightening to look deep within yourself with the intention of uncovering all the unpleasant truths you have hidden from yourself over the years.

It can be downright terrifying to seek spiritual enlightenment only to discover that it entails losing yourself and your entire world.

Lies are comforting. Truth is scary. But truth is the only way out of the dysfunction we have created for ourselves. So if we want peace, health and happiness, we’re going to have to get brave.

We must look precisely where we don’t want to look. We must welcome the revelations we least hope to see. We must make friends with the ugliest of truths. We must get comfortable with discomfort. That’s the only way out of this mess.

The transition into a healthy and harmonious world will be a great leap into the complete unknown, because it will be a shift into something that has never existed on this planet before. That leap will not be made until we are ready to make it, come what may.

Until then we can only act in courageous service of truth, in what little ways we are able. Learn as much as we can about our world and our society, especially the parts we’d rather avoid. Speak the truth about what we are seeing, especially when our voice shakes. Bring our unconscious wounds and delusions into consciousness and enlighten that which is endarkened, especially in the ways we’re most reluctant to.

Humanity can only walk into the light of truth one trembling step at a time. And we are each responsible for our own steps on that journey.

Article: A truth-based relationship with reality requires courage

QUESTION: Some claim that the entire strength of the dollar is oil, which backed it after the gold standard fell. I know you said that was a convenient theory, and some now claim Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia is Petrodollar 2.0. You managed money for OPEC and were even in an OPEC meeting, so who better to address this issue than you? I was at your 1985 conference in Princeton, and there were all the Arab nations attending in their white robes, while the Hasidic Jews were attending from the NY garment industry in their black garb. That was an eye-opening conference. So my question is, does oil have any basis for supporting the dollar, or is this another conspiracy theory, like gold going up with inflation?

Yours truly

SM

BTW, Anyone who refuses to interview you is part of the Deep State propaganda.

REPLY: Sam, it’s good to hear from you. You bring up old memories. We have grown old together. If I recall, you were there with your father. I remember when he died. To start with, the percentage of world trade attributed to oil and petroleum products is approximately 8-10% based on the 2022 data. Merchandise Trade in 2022 globally totaled around $25 trillion (WTO data). Of that, crude oil and refined petroleum product exports worldwide were estimated to be between $2.2 and 2.5 trillion (depending on price fluctuations and trade volumes). This includes contributions from OPEC, which are only 40% of crude exports, and non-OPEC exporters like the U.S., Russia, and Canada.

Therefore, if we take the $2.5 trillion and filter out OPEC, this comes to $1 trillion. Now let’s look at just Saudi Arabia, with Nixon’s secret deal (memo) made in 1974 was a negotiation not to support the dollar, but to deal with the Oil Embargo of 1973. Saudi Arabia’s annual oil sales can be measured in both volume (barrels) and monetary value (revenue), which fluctuates based on production levels, OPEC+ agreements, and global oil prices. Even if we look at the numbers from 1974, OpPEC was only about  13% ($112 billion) of world merchandise trade ($846 billion). This significant share was a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, during which OPEC member countries imposed an embargo and drastically increased oil prices, leading to a quadrupling of oil revenues.

Saudi Arabia typically exports 6.5–7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and petroleum products. In 2023, Saudi Arabia’s oil revenue was estimated at $211 billion (based on ~7 million bpd and ~$80/barrel). This means that Saudi Arabia’s total petro sales amount to .0084% of world trade. The Petrodollar 2,0 is sophistry and just another conspiracy theory. If they priced all the oil in yuan, it would not alter the world economy.

Given the number of emails pouring in on this subject and people claiming Trump’s trip is Petrodollar 2.0 or whatever, I will lay out the truth. This appears to come from the perpetual dollar bears who never look outside the United States and constantly forecast the demise of the dollar since the 1970s. Why anyone listens to them shows that the old saying fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! They have been wrong for more than 50 years. They never look at the facts and have ZERO understanding of international investment flows.

Yes, we were all dealing with OPEC money in Geneva during the Wild ’80s. That is where all the OPEC money was being managed. Even the Saudi oil minister had a house in Gstaad, Switzerland.  That’s where I learned to ski, besides attending exciting parties. Yes, I even participated in OPEC meetings by phone. They would put me on the speaker box. So, I think I know more from the inside out rather than cooking up theories from the outside. This is all tied into this de-dollarization theory as well. I will try to put this together ASAP.

Article: Petrodollar conspiracy

How are businesses supposed to plan for the future if they have no idea what the rules of the game are going to be?  Businesses thrive in a predictable environment, but we have entered a period of time of extreme uncertainty.  One day we are facing high tariffs, the next day one court strikes them all down, and then the next day another court temporarily reverses that decision.  How is anyone supposed to make solid business decisions in such an environment?  Our economy has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, and we need to take bold action to fix things.  But if legal battles are going to be constantly upending the rules of the game, there is no way that we are going to be able to pull out of our economic death spiral.

On Wednesday, three judges at the U.S. Court of International Trade made headlines all over the world when they dramatically struck down all of President Trump’s tariffs…

Read full article: All of this uncertainty is causing a tremendous amount of chaos for businesses of all sizes

Article: Trump proclamation blocks nationals from 12 countries from entering US

In horror movie terms, fraud is a shapeshifting monster. In the era of easily accessible generative AI tools, fraud morphs at the pace of criminal ingenuity amplified at massive scale. Some say static fraud prevention methods are no longer adequate – that fraud prevention, too, must operate in a state of constant adaptation, spotting new threats in real time.

National fraud strategy must prioritize prevention, accountability: BioCatch

UK Finance has released its annual fraud report, in partnership with BioCatch. And the news is consistent, if bad: “fraud continues to be the most common crime in the UK,” it says. While the fraud landscape changes over time, with some techniques proving more popular or effective, the cumulative effect is still massive: per the report, “the net effect was over £1.1 billion of losses in 2024.”

Authorized push payment (APP) fraud, in which victims are tricked into making payments, is down. However, remote purchase fraud has increased to take up the slack.

The agility of fraudsters means that fraud prevention must be seen as a process, rather than an end result. “Rather than trying to ‘solve’ fraud, our objective should be to protect as many people as possible by reducing and managing the evolving threat,” says an introduction from Ben Donaldson, managing director of economic crime for UK Finance. He calls for “a system-wide, strategic approach to countering fraud, rather than tactical interventions which target individual components of the broader threat.”

Labeling the fraud issue a matter of national security, Donaldson says “our collective priority should be preventing these crimes from happening in the first place. We need layers of defence spanning the technology, telecommunications, financial services, and public sectors.”

Director of Global Advisory for EMEA at BioCatch Jonathan Frost says that, while industry is holding its own against the rising tide of fraud, “the gains made by fraudsters demonstrate that the fraud threat is persistent; tackling it necessitates that we collectively innovate and adapt at a pace they cannot match.”

When one hole is plugged, another emerges: investment scams are on the rise, as the UK government considers measures to encourage consumers to switch their cash savings into stocks and shares, and remote purchase fraud could get supercharged by a new development in the upcoming iPhone that allows for remote control.

Frost also believes that fighting the surge requires the development of a strong comprehensive national fraud strategy.

“Outdated policing, patchy regulation across sectors like crypto and telecoms, and reimbursement rules have created an over-reliance on banks,” he says. “If the government is serious about stopping this tsunami of digital fraud, its national fraud strategy must prioritize prevention, demand accountability from all sectors, embrace smarter technologies and drive real collaboration across law enforcement, banks, tech firms and telecoms.”

“Until then, banks will remain unfairly burdened, while fraudsters continue to profit from a system that inevitably fails too many.”

Power of AI only unlocked through access to meaningful, quality data: Feedzai

A release from Feedzai announces the launch of Feedzai IQ, a new family of products that “enables network fraud intelligence without compromising customer privacy.” The tools leverage insights from hundreds of financial institutions across four continents and over $8 trillion in annual payment volume.

“We’ve always believed that the true power of AI is only unlocked through access to meaningful, high-quality data,” says Pedro Barata, chief product officer at Feedzai. “While AI is surrounded by hype today, Feedzai has led the way in applying real AI to real problems – and now, with Feedzai IQ, we’re combining our AI expertise with secure, network-wide intelligence.”

Feedzai IQ uses federated learning to transform anonymized, distributed data into real-time fraud intelligence. Its features include real-time fraud risk scoring and pre-calculated risk indicators to boost detection accuracy and improve payment acceptance.

Goal is to create ‘cyber-DNA’ based derived from behavioral biometrics: Facephi

Spain’s Facephi also has a new real-time fraud prevention product. A release says its Behavioral Biometrics tech analyzes over 3,000 contextual signals and is capable of generating a unique behavioral profile for each user to detect suspicious activity – “without relying on traditional biometrics.” Instead, it identifies individual characteristics in how people interact with their electronic devices: changes in typing rhythm, screen focus shifts, abnormal response times or “details about when, from where, and what the user is accessing.”

The goal, says Facephi General Manager Jorge Sanz, “is to create a sort of ‘cyber-DNA’ based on various user parameters derived from behavioral biometrics – something as unique as their fingerprints.”

By evaluating every digital interaction within its context, Facephi ensures that only legitimate users gain access to systems and services in highly regulated sectors such as banking, fintech, insurance and healthcare.

Fraud teams must move beyond static defenses: SEON

SEON has launched its expanded Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance suite, calling it in a release “a significant step in the company’s evolution from fraud prevention to a unified risk solution.” It introduces real-time payment screening, transaction monitoring and integrated fraud and AML case management with regulatory reporting functionality.

“Risk teams don’t need more tools – they need one that gives them a full picture,” says Tamás Kádár, CEO of SEON. “This launch gives fraud and compliance teams a multi-dimensional command center to manage risk in one place. And because we own our data pipeline and can control data accuracy, this means our models deliver more accurate risk decisions.”

The tool enables teams to investigate efficiently and close out cases faster with unified fraud intelligence, AML signals and transaction data in one dashboard; reduce time spent on regulatory reporting with autofill capabilities and AI-powered SAR narratives; and submit SAR, CTR and Form 8300 reports to FinCEN in one click, with status tracking and audit history.

According to SEON’s 2025 Digital Fraud Outlook, real-time transaction monitoring is the top investment priority for compliance and fraud teams this year, with 62 percent of organizations making the shift. “Fraud teams must move beyond static defenses to dynamic, contextaware models that continuously adapt in real time,” Kádár says. “This shift will enable organizations to anticipate threats, respond instantly and refine fraud strategies as risks evolve.”

Summy is there to support every step of the way: Sumsub

Sumsub has announced a major update to its Case Management solution, which a release calls “a ready-to-use, cross-functional hub for financial crime investigations designed to streamline fragmented risk operations.”

The name of the game is the same: automation and real-time risk assessment. But that’s not all: the upgrade also introduces Summy, Sumsub’s AI assistant, to provide case summaries and action recommendations for risk, compliance and fraud teams – sort of like a highly evolved Clippy for Case Management.

“Fragmentation is one of the biggest threats in modern risk management,” says Andrew Novoselsky, chief product officer at Sumsub. “With the rise of deepfakes and complex fraud schemes, teams can’t afford to work in silos. That’s why we built a platform that’s not just unified, but smart – where AI like Summy supports every step of the investigation.”

In horror movie terms, fraud is a shapeshifting monster. In the era of easily accessible generative AI tools, fraud morphs at the pace of criminal ingenuity amplified at massive scale. Some say static fraud prevention methods are no longer adequate – that fraud prevention, too, must operate in a state of constant adaptation, spotting new threats in real time.

National fraud strategy must prioritize prevention, accountability: BioCatch

UK Finance has released its annual fraud report, in partnership with BioCatch. And the news is consistent, if bad: “fraud continues to be the most common crime in the UK,” it says. While the fraud landscape changes over time, with some techniques proving more popular or effective, the cumulative effect is still massive: per the report, “the net effect was over £1.1 billion of losses in 2024.”

Authorized push payment (APP) fraud, in which victims are tricked into making payments, is down. However, remote purchase fraud has increased to take up the slack.

The agility of fraudsters means that fraud prevention must be seen as a process, rather than an end result. “Rather than trying to ‘solve’ fraud, our objective should be to protect as many people as possible by reducing and managing the evolving threat,” says an introduction from Ben Donaldson, managing director of economic crime for UK Finance. He calls for “a system-wide, strategic approach to countering fraud, rather than tactical interventions which target individual components of the broader threat.”

Labeling the fraud issue a matter of national security, Donaldson says “our collective priority should be preventing these crimes from happening in the first place. We need layers of defence spanning the technology, telecommunications, financial services, and public sectors.”

Director of Global Advisory for EMEA at BioCatch Jonathan Frost says that, while industry is holding its own against the rising tide of fraud, “the gains made by fraudsters demonstrate that the fraud threat is persistent; tackling it necessitates that we collectively innovate and adapt at a pace they cannot match.”

When one hole is plugged, another emerges: investment scams are on the rise, as the UK government considers measures to encourage consumers to switch their cash savings into stocks and shares, and remote purchase fraud could get supercharged by a new development in the upcoming iPhone that allows for remote control.

Frost also believes that fighting the surge requires the development of a strong comprehensive national fraud strategy.

“Outdated policing, patchy regulation across sectors like crypto and telecoms, and reimbursement rules have created an over-reliance on banks,” he says. “If the government is serious about stopping this tsunami of digital fraud, its national fraud strategy must prioritize prevention, demand accountability from all sectors, embrace smarter technologies and drive real collaboration across law enforcement, banks, tech firms and telecoms.”

“Until then, banks will remain unfairly burdened, while fraudsters continue to profit from a system that inevitably fails too many.”

Power of AI only unlocked through access to meaningful, quality data: Feedzai

A release from Feedzai announces the launch of Feedzai IQ, a new family of products that “enables network fraud intelligence without compromising customer privacy.” The tools leverage insights from hundreds of financial institutions across four continents and over $8 trillion in annual payment volume.

“We’ve always believed that the true power of AI is only unlocked through access to meaningful, high-quality data,” says Pedro Barata, chief product officer at Feedzai. “While AI is surrounded by hype today, Feedzai has led the way in applying real AI to real problems – and now, with Feedzai IQ, we’re combining our AI expertise with secure, network-wide intelligence.”

Feedzai IQ uses federated learning to transform anonymized, distributed data into real-time fraud intelligence. Its features include real-time fraud risk scoring and pre-calculated risk indicators to boost detection accuracy and improve payment acceptance.

Goal is to create ‘cyber-DNA’ based derived from behavioral biometrics: Facephi

Spain’s Facephi also has a new real-time fraud prevention product. A release says its Behavioral Biometrics tech analyzes over 3,000 contextual signals and is capable of generating a unique behavioral profile for each user to detect suspicious activity – “without relying on traditional biometrics.” Instead, it identifies individual characteristics in how people interact with their electronic devices: changes in typing rhythm, screen focus shifts, abnormal response times or “details about when, from where, and what the user is accessing.”

The goal, says Facephi General Manager Jorge Sanz, “is to create a sort of ‘cyber-DNA’ based on various user parameters derived from behavioral biometrics – something as unique as their fingerprints.”

By evaluating every digital interaction within its context, Facephi ensures that only legitimate users gain access to systems and services in highly regulated sectors such as banking, fintech, insurance and healthcare.

Fraud teams must move beyond static defenses: SEON

SEON has launched its expanded Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Compliance suite, calling it in a release “a significant step in the company’s evolution from fraud prevention to a unified risk solution.” It introduces real-time payment screening, transaction monitoring and integrated fraud and AML case management with regulatory reporting functionality.

“Risk teams don’t need more tools – they need one that gives them a full picture,” says Tamás Kádár, CEO of SEON. “This launch gives fraud and compliance teams a multi-dimensional command center to manage risk in one place. And because we own our data pipeline and can control data accuracy, this means our models deliver more accurate risk decisions.”

The tool enables teams to investigate efficiently and close out cases faster with unified fraud intelligence, AML signals and transaction data in one dashboard; reduce time spent on regulatory reporting with autofill capabilities and AI-powered SAR narratives; and submit SAR, CTR and Form 8300 reports to FinCEN in one click, with status tracking and audit history.

According to SEON’s 2025 Digital Fraud Outlook, real-time transaction monitoring is the top investment priority for compliance and fraud teams this year, with 62 percent of organizations making the shift. “Fraud teams must move beyond static defenses to dynamic, contextaware models that continuously adapt in real time,” Kádár says. “This shift will enable organizations to anticipate threats, respond instantly and refine fraud strategies as risks evolve.”

Summy is there to support every step of the way: Sumsub

Sumsub has announced a major update to its Case Management solution, which a release calls “a ready-to-use, cross-functional hub for financial crime investigations designed to streamline fragmented risk operations.”

The name of the game is the same: automation and real-time risk assessment. But that’s not all: the upgrade also introduces Summy, Sumsub’s AI assistant, to provide case summaries and action recommendations for risk, compliance and fraud teams – sort of like a highly evolved Clippy for Case Management.

“Fragmentation is one of the biggest threats in modern risk management,” says Andrew Novoselsky, chief product officer at Sumsub. “With the rise of deepfakes and complex fraud schemes, teams can’t afford to work in silos. That’s why we built a platform that’s not just unified, but smart – where AI like Summy supports every step of the investigation.”

Article: 2025 is the year of adaptive fraud prevention, say experts

Uber is to begin trials of driverless taxis in London next year, ahead of the Tesla Cybercab, which is touted to make its debut in the US “before 2027”.

The ride-hailing platform has already been working with UK artificial intelligence firm Wayve to perfect its Level 4 autonomous driving technology in what Uber has described as “complex driving environments”.

This announcement comes shortly after the Government said it would begin implementing a fast-tracking framework to introduce autonomous “taxi and bus-like” pilot services to UK roads; the previous Conservative administration originally intended to put in place legislation to see fully autonomous taxis on UK roads by 2026, but this has since been pushed back a year.

In a statement, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the UK’s commitment to autonomous vehicles will “drive growth, create 38,000 jobs and add £42 billion to our economy.”

Uber has not confirmed whether its driverless taxi pilot scheme will be open to the general public or how it will be implemented; the firm says it will announce details in the coming months. Nevertheless, its chief operating officer, Andrew Macdonald, reiterated that: “[Uber’s] vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere, and this trial in London brings that future closer to reality.”

Of course, there is still a long way to go before our streets are fully populated by autonomous vehicles; the Government’s Automated Vehicles Act will require driverless cars to “achieve a level of safety at least as high as competent and careful human drivers”.

Liability in the event of an accident will be placed on the firm responsible for the taxi itself, with occupants blameless for anything that occurs. If there are controls mounted in the car, occupants will instead be referred to as “users-in-charge”, but they can still escape liability in some instances.

Article: Checkmate, Tesla Cybercab! Uber to trial driverless taxis in London

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said once the new offensive begins, it will not end until the Strip is ‘conquered’

The Israeli government has approved plans to expand the genocidal war on Gaza that Israeli officials say will lead to the full Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territory.

The plan involves capturing more territory in Gaza, expanding the so-called “buffer zone” where the IDF has demolished virtually every structure, and forcibly displacing Palestinian civilians to move them all to a small area of southern Gaza.

Read more: Israeli Government Approves Plan for Full Military Occupation of Gaza

Article: Israeli government approves plan for full military occupation of Gaza

The former PM says humanity is entering its biggest transformation since the Industrial Revolution and that it’s ‘absurd’ not to do more in the NHS

Britain should embrace a future of AI doctors, nurses and even teachers or risk being left behind in the biggest upheaval since the Industrial Revolution, Sir Tony Blair has said.

The former prime minister said that fears over artificial intelligence should be outweighed by the “absolutely transformative” impact it could have on public services by saving time and cutting costs.

“When I stand back and I look at what [AI] is doing, I think we’re in the foothills of the most transformative revolution since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century,” he told the SXSW London festival.

“Government’s all about process, so you could use AI to speed up the process of the government, making sure that we do, for example, all the routine jobs of government much more efficiently. You could be responding to people in a much more sensitive, faster, better, more efficient way.

“If, for example, you’re able to merge data sets across departments, you’re going to save money. You’re going to analyse, based on health data, in a way that allows you to make better health policy. And then, when you look in public services, you should be able to personalise education in the future.

“You could have AI tutors, you should have AI nurses, AI doctors. We are already doing a lot of imaging much, much better through using artificial intelligence. It will make [government] much smaller, more efficient, cost less and give a better service to the customer.”

The country cannot afford to be squeamish about the power of this emerging technology, said Blair, adding: “It’s absurd we haven’t yet put all of our NHS data there available to be used for innovation.”

Full article: Tony Blair: Britain should have AI doctors and nurses

* Warning: indelicate language.

If we in the West are the most propagandized people in the world; Gazans are the least propagandized. Outwardly captives, Gazans are liberated from the illiberal political propaganda that grips the West

WHAT has Israel been up to since March 18, 2025, which was when the “genocidal entity” formally broke the nominal ceasefire agreement in Gaza? Oracular insight here is unnecessary.

Israel has been trampling underfoot everything decent and good.

Genocide is back. This time with President Trump in fawning agreement, playing procurer and pimp for the Israeli State, and subjecting ingrate Bibi Netanyahu to no more than a curt jerk of the leash: During a press conference with the US president, on April 7, the Israeli prime minister’s face, nevertheless, grew as dark as a thundercloud on mention of possible diplomacy with Iran.

Under such favorable circumstances, Israelis are louder and prouder about killing and destroying with monomaniacal diligence. Indifferently, and for the first time, Israel openly admitted to targeting journalist Hussam Shabat for “elimination,” in December of 2024, and executing the him on March 24. The sadistic serial killer stalked its prey, then pounced.

The predator has so far singled out and assassinated 232 other Palestinian journalists.

Shabat thus knew, as he put it, that “journalism meant Israel would kill him.” Only 23, so full of promise, Shabat wrote his epitaph in advance of his death. It read:

“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces. … For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury.

I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents — anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.”

By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to tell the truth, and now, at last, I have found rest—something I have not known for the past 18 months. I did this because I believe in the Palestinian cause, in our right to this land. The greatest honor of my life was to die defending it and serving its people.

I ask you now: Do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.

For the last time,

Hussam Shabat, from northern Gaza.”

Trampling underfoot everything decent and good: Fatma Hassona was to be the subject of an upcoming documentary, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” to debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Israel could not allow that. So, Air Force Genocide bombed the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist, also murdering nine members of her family.

After a brief, relative lull, eighteen months into the genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza, Israel has resumed its slaughter of civilians at an average rate of 103 souls a day, with 223 individuals dealt life-altering injuries, also daily. Since March 18, reports Ha’aretz, Israel has killed 1,652 people and wounded 4,391 in strikes on Gaza. (Ha’aretz “Israel News” newsletter, Wednesday, 16.04.2025.) The number murdered now approaches 2,000.

With 62,000 Palestinians missing, over 52,000 confirmed dead; and indirect deaths ranging from three to fifteen times the number of direct deaths, by the Lancet’s account—the fake, fossilized media should be obligated to report the official number of Palestinians dead by Israel as well over 100,000. That too is a vast undercount.

The mind is crowded. Palestinians murdered melt into a montage of faces. Yet remember we must men like Rifaat Radwan. Radwan was among fifteen medical and humanitarian workers who were summarily executed pointblank, on March 23, by the Israeli regime in Gaza.

The underworld that is the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)—the world criminals and lawbreakers inhabit—is premised upon lies. By now you know The Liar’s lines, as he drops American “earthquake bombs” on kids at community kitchens:

“Hamas. Terrorism. If Palestinians die; they needed killing.”

But Satan’s non sequiturs can’t conceal the truth—or silence the deeply felt devotionals of the righteous. As the SS IDF stood above him, riddling his colleagues and himself with thousands of bullets, Radwan, Palestinian Red Crescent Society medic, did not beg the agents of his demise. Instead, he recorded their crime for posterity while righteously reciting his last prayers. These are achingly beautiful:

“Oh Lord, accept us. Oh Lord, accept me as a martyr. Mother, forgive me. This is the path I chose … that I help people. … .” Until he expired.

As Monday of April 7 dawned, a Wi-Fi rigged world watched a funeral pyre of Palestinians, except that the people Israel lit up were alive. The IDF incinerated “a tent housing Palestinian journalists in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.”

Late last year, when teenager Shaban al-Dalou smoldered alive, the presstitutes did what they always do: Fudge the English language in the service of Israel. To shore up this oppressive foreign regime, media deploy euphemisms and the passive voice; syntactic devices that mask the excruciating death of a boy kind, beautiful and bright, who was driven by devotion to kin and community.

“Killed in a fire,” media said about Shaban’s murder. The same fate has now befallen Helmi Al-Faqaawi, “a correspondent for Palestine Today News Agency, and Youssef Al-Khazandar, a civilian assisting the group of journalists.” Photojournalist Ahmed Mansour, seen in images engulfed in flames, is fighting for his life in Gaza.

Does Mansour have a fighting chance, what with the last barely functional hospital in the Strip having been obliterated by Israel? On the morning of Palm Sunday, IDF fiends flattened the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, which had stood since 1882. “Burning a journalist alive in Gaza, exclaimed Lima Bustami, Euro-Med Monitor’s legal department director, “is not aimed at silencing the truth. Israel already relies on a far greater force: the world’s indifference to the truth.”

With a world of indifference as backdrop, Israel set ablaze yet more civilians in tents on April 17. (And still more again on April 21.) Seventeen Palestinian civilians, including nine children, were dispatched, apparently, dead by “waves of [some sort].” Yes, even Al Jazeera has caught the botched-English bug, writing that, on April 18, “a wave of Israeli air strikes” killed them.

Another trope of the malpracticing media is to qualify the daily carnage in Gaza with the clause, “mostly women and children.” Or, “Including many women and children.” As though Palestinian men were fare game.

This genocide exclusionary clause is pronounced among the vanishingly small number of conservative influencers who have registered their objection to Israel’s crimes. Out of Christian charity, these influencers allow that the murdered are “women and children,” for the most. Or, that among the murdered are Christians. This from creedal conservatives who otherwise champion the centrality of men and manliness in society.

This from the same conservatives who must surely know that Jesus Christ stood not for sectarian favoritism, but for the universal value of all human beings.

“Meet the Palestinian men the media don’t want you to know exist,” narrates Lara Elborno, a Palestinian daughter, human-rights attorney and activist. This here is a woman who can speak both poignantly and with authority about Palestinian men. By now, so can we. And it is the men of Palestine whom we’ve watched on our screens first to the scenes of slaughter. They dig, carry, evacuate, comfort, perform religious rites of burial, and cry when lulls allow.

The contrast between Palestinian men and the IDF stares at you like blood on a Kaffan, the traditional Palestinian shroud.

At bottom, the most cowardly army known in military history doesn’t engage in battles. The IDF is an air force: It strafes civilians from above. Since it broke the ceasefire, Israel has conducted daily massacres by airstrikes, shelling, and drone strikes, reports Jon Elmer, military analyst for the Electronic Intifada. Well over 1000 such airstrikes—fifty a day—have seen nearly 600 children and babies blown to bits.

With every avenue of ingress and egress sealed off by the Israelis for the last six weeks, fuel to power earth-moving machinery is unavailable. So when, on April 10, thirty-five civilians were murdered and fifty injured by warplanes strafing a “densely populated residential block,” in a Shuja’iyya neighborhood—civil defense teams, Palestinians, were on the scene. They always are. How they do it nobody knows. They currently use trawls, spades, finger nails and faith to get at the trapped.

Ugly and evil seeks to eradicate its opposites. Reflexively do the West’s brash, technocratic, atomistic and irreligious societies aim to eradicate communities unlike their own. Decadently woke and cruelly impersonal Gaza is not. Gaza, attests Zahad Rahman, an American nurse who volunteers in what remains of the enclave, is a community-centered, gracious society. Rahman is not a Palestinian. Israel has murdered more than 1,000 individuals like him—”members of the medical, defense and aid teams in Gaza,” confirms B’Tselem (an Israeli human rights organization). Despite the risk, like so many medical volunteers who go to Gaza, Rahman has found himself drawn back to people who will give you their shirt in zero weather.

In the Ramadan tradition of “cultivating empathy,” in the ruins, Gazans thus laid tables to celebrate. Eid al-Fitr, in particular, explains Imam Dr. Omar Suleiman, a scholar and theologian, “is meant to continue that empathy into our celebrations. On the morning of Eid, every Muslim is required to pay Zakat al-Fitr—a form of charity designed to ensure that no one is left out of the feast. It is a beautiful practice: a way of saying that joy is only complete when shared, that our celebration is meaningless if others are starving.”

Inescapably, Eid al-Fitr spirituality was shattered by Israeli barbarity.

On April 3, Israel murdered 92 worshippers. A volunteer doctor from Gaza Medic Voices spent Eid, which marks the conclusion of Ramadan, cutting away party clothes from the bodies of kids dressed to the nines for Eid. By day’s end, the number of human beings murdered had swelled. Little girls festively dressed were, instead, transported to the morgue, jewelry and finery shrouded in the garments of death.

While 100 Palestinian kids are now “killed or injured in Gaza every day,” since [genocide] resumed,” Israelis have gone and slapped a disability classification on “over 20,000” of their own safe and sated offspring. Victims of terror, claim the Israeli State’s mental-health mavens.

The Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is an ever-mutating manual, now in its fifth iteration. The criteria for manufacturing illness under the DSM, or similar industry-developed manuals, are malleable. In real life, no psychiatric manual required, tens of thousands of Palestinian children are being terrorized, are actually dead, mutilated, mentally scarred for life, orphaned without a soul in the world.

Still, one can well-understand why their Israeli adversaries—predators parading as prey—would want to tar even the Palestinian toddler as an irremediable terrorist-in-the-making. Like so many of their formative figures, Palestinian children are formidable, fierce.

Amid the worry and wear of finding food and staying alive, a slip of a girl composes and recites the poetry of resistance:

“I’m Palestinian and proud.”

“I’m proud because I’m the strong brave girl, the daughter of heroes.”

“The daughter of Gaza, the land of the free…”

And so she goes in modulated, melodic Arabic. Here another young Palestinian girl stops her idol, the late Mr. Shabat, aforementioned, to tell him of her admiration. When she grows up; she wants to be a brave journalist like her hero, since martyred. These are very centered children.

If we in the West are the most propagandized people in the world; Gazans are the least propagandized. Outwardly captives, Gazans are liberated from the illiberal political propaganda that grips the West.

And Gabi Siboni knows this. The former IDF colonel, now an unthinking member of Israel’s think-tank ranks, reflects Jewish-Israeli public and political discourse. For Gazans Siboni expresses genocidal contempt and intent—but also a warped understanding of Gazan ferocity about liberating their ancestral homeland. Said Siboni:

“Hamas is not the problem in Gaza. Hamas is a symptom of a bigger problem. The population in Gaza is a ‘barbaric mob.’ If we don’t wish to bleed our soldiers for decades—because in Gaza there will be Hamas B and C—the only solution is Trump’s ‘vision.’”

Sidoni is a lot more honest, and only a tad less subtle, than the oleaginous Bernie Sanders, an unreconstructed liberal Zionist.

Gaza is no more because of a concerted campaign to wipe it out; because of extermination and depopulation; not because of “Israeli self-defense,” which is when one sovereign state wards off the armies of other sovereign nation-states. Yet “in the year 2025,” Sanders’ mass rallies are festooned with the line, “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

Bernie Sanders’ sophistry should explode the brain like an ammunition dump!

In international law, explains Philip Proudfoot, a British political scientist, “Occupation is temporary, imposing duties, not rights, upon the occupier. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly demands that an occupier safeguard civilian rights. Accordingly, Israel cannot resort to anything more than police powers to ‘defend itself.’”

Genocide is the acid test. Sanders’ insistence, well into genocide, that “Israel has a right to defend itself can only be interpreted as blatant genocide apologia,” propounds Caitlin Johnstone. Clearly an expert in untruths, Sanders, who oversaw the removal from his rallies of protesters and their Free Palestine flag, has further exposed himself as a slick establishment operative, who seeks to capture naïve, politically homeless Democrats.

Back to the malodorous cauldron of death and decadence that is the Israel Defense Forces. (Or perhaps the Israel Defense Feces?)

A new load of grief came, in March, to residents of the al-Faraa refugee camp in the foothills of the Jordan Valley, in the northern occupied West Bank. Slatternly IDF soldiers have a familiar signature. They leave behind human waste in the homes they wreck:

“Feces, urine and used condoms—these are just some of the things that Israeli soldiers left behind in these Palestinian homes during their 11-day assault [in March],” reports the Electronic Intifada.

That the IDF has a documented “tradition” of defecating and urinating in the West Bank and Gazan homes they occupy and vandalize is seconded by a 2014 account in the Guardian: “Palestinians returning home find Israeli troops left feces and venomous graffiti.”

Somebody should rub IDF noses in their own mess to teach them a lesson, once and for all. Nobody has.

Yes, Israel makes atrocities past and present look like sandbox play. Still, puzzling even to me is this recent account of used condoms left by the IDF in these West Bank homes. Why puzzling? We know that despite the feel-good official designation of some Israeli females as combat soldiers, the few women in combat roles “are not explicitly deployed into combat situations.” During these ostensible “military” raids, the IDF functions, I believe, as a male-only “fighting” force.

So, why the condoms left in vandalized Palestinian homes, in the course of the IDF’s Dionysian bacchanalia in the West Bank? Whose are they, exactly?

Is this what Ha’aretz, Israel’s center-liberal paper of record, calls “the homoerotic side of Israeli army life”? Is “copulating” to be added to the documented IDF “tradition” of male soldiers defecating and urinating in Palestinian homes?

Ha’aretz, I’ve noticed, waters down debauchery—but not because it is concealing the truth for the “Fatherland.” They tell the truth but frame it differently. Thus, the debauchery of uniformed IDF doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal in the Israeli State. Israel doesn’t appear to share American sensibilities—at least so it seems to me, who has closely observed this society in the Hebrew, for eighteen ugly months.

American culture is quite prudish; Israel’s expressed aesthetic is more pornographic. An example is the familiar images of IDF wearing or rummaging through the sexy lingerie of Palestinian women dead or dispossessed. You and I would consider these cross-dressing displays among uniformed men as inappropriate, kinky.

Not Haaretz. Kinky acts of cowardice and sadism—invading Palestinian homes, looting, vandalizing and manhandling private effects—a writer at Ha’aretz is wont to label “Machismo”: The “Military machismo of Israeli soldiers in Gaza will rear its ugly head at home,” blared a January 2025 Ha’aretz headline.

I’m a subscriber. I read enough of Ha’aretz to get a sense that Israel has a different, un-American aesthetic. Take this depiction of Purim, which used to be celebrated, largely, as a children’s festival. To “a brief history of Purim, the Halloween of Jewish holidays,” Ha’aretz has appended an erotic image of men flirting and kissing deeply. Ha’aretz appears to consider this image to be Halloween/Purim-appropriate, wholesome.

The only reasonable, quality newspaper in Israel, Ha’aretz, also dishes a lot of bafflegab. The IDF has invaded large swathes of Syria, is bombing the place, annexing kilometers for a so-called buffer zone, and making overtures to certain cowed Syrian communities so as to further divide and rule that country.

An “overbearing embrace,” however, is how Ha’aretz has euphemized the violence of conquest and the breach of Syrian borders, in March of 2025: “Israel’s Overbearing Embrace Threatens Syria’s Druze at a Critical Juncture.

Utter opposites, too, are Palestinians. If Palestinians are united in the yen for freedom; Israeli circuitry is wired for cruelty.

Israel Katz, defense minister, stonily threatened all of Gaza’s civilians, on March 19, 2025. As a Twitter adage goes, “Translating an Israeli tweet from the Hebrew is like finding a lost page of Mein Kampf.” Listen to the “sound of impunity”—and for that matter, never believe any Hebrew-English translation come to you via Israeli officialdom.

These are Katz’ precise words translated from the Hebrew:

“Residents of Gaza, this is the last warning. The first Sinwar destroyed Gaza. The second Sinwar will ruin her completely. The assault of the air force against the Hamas terrorists is just the first step. The rest will be many times harder, and you will pay the full price. Evacuations will soon start from areas of battle. If all the Israeli hostages are not released, and Hamas is not expelled from Gaza—Israel will act with the kind of force unfamiliar to you. Take the offer of the president of the US: return the hostages and expel ‘The Hamas,’ and other options will then open before you, including migration to other places across the world, for whomever wishes it. The alternative is destruction and complete ruin.”

Defense Minister Katz further reiterated, on April 16, his policy of “halting the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.” “The State of Israel’s policy is clear. No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, as this is one of our main pressure tactics” with Hamas. Under the current reality, nobody intends to stray from the policy, barked Katz.

In an instant, Minister Katz had pacified the “Hostages and Missing Families Forum.” While “emphasizing that the release of the hostages and the continuation of the war cannot happen simultaneously,” the group had nonetheless condemned the Israeli government for “quietly preparing to reinstate humanitarian aid.” (Ha’aretz’s “Israel News” newsletter, Wednesday, 16.04.2025.)

On the whole, it has been well-established that from janitor to general, from soldiers to supreme court justices; in words and in deeds—Israeli society generally shares in the genocidal mindset. The exceptions are a few heavily proscribed, miniscule (“around 300 Israelis come to hold pictures of Gazan children”), pro-peace, Arab-Jewish groups. All told, Israelis speak of Palestinians as though they were sub-humans, untouchables, unmentionable, lacking any say in how they live or die.

When I wrote, moreover, that “criminality is codified in Israeli law; that genocide, snuff films, extra-judicial assassinations and rape of Palestinians are de facto legal in Israel; I was not engaging in hyperbole. Systemic, societal criminality is regularly codified by the highest court in that land. Late in March came a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court, “explicitly and directly legitimizing Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip.”

Both asinine and depraved, the Israeli high court used, in support of its authoritative ruling for starvation, “the argument that the State of Israel is exempt from the obligations of belligerent occupation under international law in all cases pertaining to the Gaza Strip.”

Sure, you may subsume in logic, as the Israeli supreme court indirectly does, that you are not obligated to help dying human beings. But you cannot make a cogent, rational case for your right to stop others from feeding and healing dying human beings. This displays a defect in the faculty of reasoning, as well as a defect of character. By default, the outcome of the Israeli high court’s ruling is the death of the starved population—the process of mass murder will play out to its legislated conclusion.

The fault for inaction lies now entirely with those who won’t act to save Gazans: The USA, Western European- and East European countries, East and West Asian governments.

The emanations from the minds of Israel’s Supreme Court are mind-numbingly boorish and banal. Most pertinent for our purposes here is that Israel does not enjoy an independent judiciary. Yet Israel regularly exploits the principle of complementarity in international law, according to which the International Criminal Court (ICC) shares legal jurisdiction with the democratic nation-state under investigation, provided the latter has an independent judiciary.

Beware! With chameleon alacrity, Israel typically scurries to “investigate” itself, and to exploit the principle of complementarity, when the world looks like it’s had enough. Legal investigations by Israel of its own crimes are part of the Israeli superstructure of deception. Nominal prosecutions, or ersatz investigations, by genocidal Israel of its crimes against Arabs must themselves be treated as part of Hasbara’s meta-chicanery, aimed at concealing the Israeli State’s transparently despotic tendencies.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, like Joe Biden before him, has made Americans confederates in Israel’s crimes. A malign conjunction of events engineered by Trump has further positioned Israeli leadership to finalize its genocidal goal, as its lobby proxies and influencers stateside successfully silence us, and sunder our Bill of Rights protections, including the First Amendment right to think and speak freely.

The level of “state capture” by Israel, a small, oppressive foreign regime, is unprecedented, inveighs Craig Mokhiber, activist and scholar of international, humanitarian law. This is “state capture” at every level: foreign and domestic, federal, state, county and city. For Israel, law enforcement agencies under this and the previous government are willing to silence and disappear activists against genocide for exercising our American liberties.

Absurd, of course, but Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had tweeted that their job is to stop illegal ideas at the U.S. border: “People, money, products, ideas. If it crosses the US border illegally, our job is to stop it.”

“An American-style Cultural Revolution” à la Mao Zedong.

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