Israel's targeted killings of Palestinian journalists

Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, the Israeli military has killed more than 130 Palestinian journalists in Gaza. That's more than in any other country in a single year since 1992. By comparison, six journalists have been killed in the entire Ukrainian war since 2014. In 2023, 75 percent of all journalists killed worldwide died in Israel's assault on Gaza. 73 percent of the victims were Palestinians. In many cases, the Israeli army deliberately targeted Palestinian journalists at home, with their families, or in the line of duty, using sniper fire, drones, and surgical air strikes. Many of these journalists had received direct and indirect threats prior to their targeted assassination. Israeli officials often claim that the journalists killed were terrorists or that they were caught in an ongoing crossfire. The systematic targeting of journalists is not limited to Gaza. Since October 7, the Israeli military has also killed three journalists in Lebanon. Violence against journalists is also on the rise in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Some 50 Palestinian journalists have been arrested since the Hamas attacks in early October. The Israeli government has used draconian methods to silence Palestinian journalists, such as administrative detention, which allows a military commander to imprison anyone without charge. Israel is one of the world's leading jailers of journalists. Despite the unprecedented number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza, few Western media outlets have spoken out against Israel's calculated assassination campaign and called for an investigation into Israeli war crimes. Those who dare to speak out are often fired or forced out of the profession. The Netanyahu government has prevented international journalists from entering Gaza. Palestinian journalists thus provide invaluable eyewitness accounts of the daily lives of a people under occupation that contradict the propagandistic narrative pushed by the Israeli and Western mainstream media. Israel's war on Palestinian journalists is an integral part of its larger war on Palestine. It is a central pillar of its decades-long regime of settler-colonial occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The goal is to manufacture consent for genocide in Gaza. Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, once wrote that “In war, truth is the first casualty.” By killing those who report, Israel seeks to prevent the transmission of its crimes and to shut down the coverage so that the truth will not be told and the world cannot see what is really happening.

The questions Putin didn't answer in the Tucker Carlson Interview

On February 6, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was the first interview granted to a Western journalist since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. There are at least three key questions that Putin did not answer during the interview. First, U.S.-Russia relations after the collapse of the Soviet Union; second, the geopolitical importance of Ukraine and thrid, the relationship between capitalism, class domination and democracy.

The weaponization of anti-Semitism

Following the Hamas attacks of October 7, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with its Western allies and the mainstream media, launched a massive public relations campaign. Its goal was and is to smear anyone who criticizes the policies of the Israeli government and stands in solidarity with the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. The weaponization of anti-Semitism has played a central role in this hard-hitting media campaign. The charge of anti-Semitism has been used as a powerful political tool and a last-ditch defense by apologists for Israeli crimes against Palestinians under occupation. Many critics of Israel and its assault on Gaza, or advocates of Palestinian rights, have been tarred as anti-Semites. The purpose of conflating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism is to curtail activism and protest and to silence criticism of Israeli policies. The increased efforts to manage the debate, in Israel and on both sides of the Atlantic, are a sign that Israel is losing control of public opinion, especially among the younger generation.

What Israel's far-right wants

On January 28, Israeli settlers held a conference calling for the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip. Twelve ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party attended the so-called “Return to Gaza” conference. However, the central figures of the event were Finance Minister and leader of the far-right Zionist National Religious Party, Bezalel Smotrich, and Public Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the Zionist Jewish Power party. Smotrich is also an ardent supporter of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He calls for the annexation of the entire territory. Smotrich refuses to recognize the existence of a Palestinian people. He strongly opposes Palestinian statehood, arguing that only Jews have a right to all the land of historic Palestine. Smotrich grew up in a religious Zionist West Bank settlement outside Ramallah. He has stated that his ultimate desire is for Israel to become a Jewish theocracy. In 2017, Smotrich published what he called "Israel's Decisive Plan." In the document, he lays out his vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What the media won't tell you about Gaza

The Gaza Strip represents about two percent of Palestine’s historic landmass. Prior to the creation of Israel in 1948, it was administratively, politically, and economically linked to the rest of Palestine. Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist paramilitary and later Israeli military forces destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages. They carried out more than 70 massacres against civilians, killing more than fifteen thousand Palestinians. 750,000 Palestinians, or over 80 percent of the population, were expelled or fled their homes and became refugees. More than one-third ended up in Gaza. Today, more than 80 percent of Gaza's population are refugees and descendants of refugees from that period of ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Zionism and Latin America's far-right

Argentina's new right-wing libertarian president, Javier Milei, describes himself as a “fanatic of Israel". He sees the country as Argentina's main ally and has announced a visit to Tel Aviv in February. Milei plans to move Argentina's embassy to Jerusalem. He is following the example of former U.S. President Donald Trump. In 2017, the U.S. became the first and so far only country to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. In Brazil, former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is a passionate supporter of the Zionist state of Israel. He regularly raised the Israeli flag during his public appearances. Bolsonaro enjoyed strong support from Brazil's influential and fervently Zionist evangelical sector. In 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli leader to visit Brazil. Commitment to Zionism and support for Israel are central ideological elements of Latin America's far right. Its close ties with Israel date back to the late 1970s and 1980s. During this period, Israel forged political alliances with right-wing military regimes and paramilitary movements in several Latin American countries.

What the media won't tell you about Hamas

Hamas was founded in the Gaza Strip in 1987 at the outset of the First Intifada, a period of intense Palestinian protest against Israeli occupation. Its name is an Arabic acronym for "Islamic Resistance Movement. Twenty years earlier, in 1967, Israel had occupied Gaza and the West Bank. So Hamas emerged in response to Zionist settler colonization and the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is a national, Islamist movement and has been at the forefront of armed resistance in the occupied territories. Hamas sees itself as a national liberation movement fighting Israel. It has used guerrilla tactics and violence, often against civilians. Hamas's official history claims that its roots go back to Palestinian militancy in the 1930s. Many historians, however, argue that Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in Egypt in the 1920s. At least in part, the creation of Hamas is also the result of Israeli intelligence maneuvers.

Ukraine war at a stalemate? Will the West fight to the last Ukrainian?

In early November, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, General Zaluzhny, acknowledged that the Ukraine war had reached a stalemate. Since the summer, there have been few territorial advances on either side. Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which began in early June, has not produced the expected outcome. In Ukraine, military morale is declining. Dissatisfaction in civil society and tensions within the country's elite are growing. It is becoming increasingly clear that Ukraine cannot win the war militarily and regain the territory it has lost in the east and south.

Genuine peace talks are possible only between Russia and the U.S. The core of the war has always been Ukraine's NATO membership. Russia will accept nothing less than Ukraine's neutrality. Moscow will not allow Ukraine to become a military outpost of the U.S., nor will it accept the deployment of U.S. nuclear missiles on its border. Russia will not end its military operations without an official commitment from Ukraine that it will never join NATO and will not allow foreign troops to be stationed on its territory.

The Biden administration has called Russian demands unacceptable. A war of position and attrition plays into the hands of the West because it is not directly involved. The U.S. and its European allies are determined to fight the war to the last Ukrainian. The goal is to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian unsinkable aircraft carrier, similar to Israel, in Eastern Europe - a "big Israel," as President Zelenskyy once put it. The U.S. and the EU have pulled most of Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and are now busy integrating the country into the American Empire.

Chile after the referendum: The crisis continues (Interview with Pablo Abufom)

On December 17, Chilean voters rejected a new constitution drafted by conservative lawmakers in a nationwide referendum. The charter would have replaced the neoliberal and authoritarian constitution passed during the Pinochet dictatorship. The vote came more than a year after an overwhelming majority of Chileans also rejected a separate progressive draft that would have strengthened women's and indigenous rights and addressed the environmental crisis. Chilean President Gabriel Boric said Sunday that his government would not seek to change the constitution for a third time. To talk about all this, I spoke to Chilean writer and philosopher Pablo Abufom, editor of the Journal Posiciones and part of the editorial collective of Jacobin Latin America.

Chile after the referendum: What's next? (Interview with Marcela Vera)

On December 17, Chilean voters rejected a new conservative constitution in a nationwide referendum. The neoliberal and authoritarian constitution adopted in 1980 during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet will now remain in place. In late 2019, Chile was rocked by massive anti-neoliberal and anti-inequality demonstrations. As a response, the political establishment proposed a change of constitution to quell the protests. Last September, an overwhelming majority rejected a progressive constitution that would have made sweeping changes to Chile's judicial and political systems.