Despotic power glutton that he is, Trump launched a stupid, unprovoked, unsanctioned war after being fully informed of just how needless, costly, and destructive it would be. He then proceeded to lose the war in record time – 108 days. A lover of superlatives, Trump added fastest war-time loser of any American president to a list that includes “worst president ever,” “dumbest president ever,” and “most corrupt president in history.”

Issuing threat after threat, he frequently chose to present himself to the world as a genocidal maniac — posting on Un-Truth Social for example that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Yet fortunately, he backed off of every threat. Each deadline passed. Each ultimatum was walked back. The blowhard commander of the most powerful military force in history issued regular threats that evaporated without consequence.

Wallowing in self-delusion, Trump declared victory several dozen times before his surrender. On day 8, he said “We’ve already won!” On day 10, he asserted, “The war is very complete.” On day 12, he proclaimed that he had won five times in 13 seconds – “We’ve won, let me say we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won, we won, we won the bet in the first hour it was over.” For 100 days, this lie was obsessively repeated ad nauseam. Trump’s duplicitous triumphalism deepened America’s humiliation, bitterness, and anger at the war that was reflected in poll after poll.

Trump also claimed a deal to end the war was just around the corner 38 times. The first time he raised the imminence of peace, on day 24, he said the two sides had reached “almost all points of agreement.” Aside from re-writing reality, these blatantly phony pronouncements — usually issued on Friday — repeatedly fed markets what they wanted to believe thus conning them into keeping oil prices from skyrocketing further and the stock market from cratering.

Obvious to the world, Trump‘s “victory” is — like everything Trump claims to have accomplished — a total fraud. The MOU ratifies the reality on the ground that Iran won the war. In a boon to Iran, Trump waived oil export sanctions, opened access to tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets, and committed to a mysteriously funded $300 billion “Reconstruction Plan” that might have unspecified side deals. Reconstructing war-ravaged countries is big business that will present a tremendous opportunity for corruption and self-dealing — the only thing Trump excels at.

The man who styled himself as history’s greatest dealmaker has just made one of the worst deals in history. In brief, Trump failed to change Iran’s hardline regime; elevated Iran into a major force in the global economy; exposed to the Gulf states that the U.S. is an unreliable ally that could not protect them. He further alienated our European allies that distanced themselves from the war, even after he begged them to help. He increased the global influence of China and drastically wasted U.S. military power. He obliterated the last shreds of U.S. prestige, already severely damaged by his own unhinged authoritarian behavior.

By the time he had finished with the war, Trump‘s already-low credibility was non-existent. Exposing himself as a serial liar and non-stop propagandist was redundant, though still catastrophic with the whole world watching. He became the “Bagdad Bob” of the Iran War, mocked viciously by Iran’s viral Lego propaganda animations that also rallied a global audience against America’s long history of global wars and abuses.

The most notable geopolitical consequence of this war is that Iran proved it can effectively close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and other small-scale weapons the U.S. can’t entirely stop. This strategic victory is a major lever the Iranians can use in nuclear negotiations as well as to deter or fight back against future aggression by its enemies, even without the added windfall of being able to charge fees for passage, perhaps forever.

Trump empowered Iran and foolishly admitted that the continued closure of the Strait might cause a global depression. “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump said. “If we keep bombing, those ships won’t be going. You would never have the Hormuz Strait open.”  Absurdly, Trump seemed to believe he should get credit for negotiating the opening of the Strait, which was fully and freely open before he and Netanyahu started the war and closed it.

“It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict,” wrote conservative Robert Kagan. “A setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored.”

The U.S. strategy in the Middle East for decades has rested on a tacit guarantee: we protect you, you host our bases, you price oil in dollars, and we all get rich. The Gulf monarchies — UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar — built their entire identities around that guarantee. Singapores-on-the-sand, they constructed gleaming city-states of luxury real estate, insulated enclaves, tax-free finance, Formula 1 races, and superyacht marinas — the financial and social havens for the Epstein class of the globalized ultra-wealthy.

The war forced a stress test of that premise. Iran’s retaliation focused heavily on its Gulf neighbors, targeting civilian infrastructure such as airports, apartment buildings, opulent hotels, and even desalination plants that are vital for producing the freshwater on which the arid Gulf states are existentially dependent. Threatening their status as safe destinations for financial giants, billionaires, and wealthy tourists, frightening images of lavish resorts engulfed in flames spread on social media as Iran lobbed missiles and drones at them. One worker in the finance sector, who had relocated to Qatar for its tax-free environment, summed it up on X: “Moved to Qatar to hide from taxes, now I’m hiding from missiles.”

The U.S. proved itself a “pitiful, helpless giant,” as disgraced President Richard Nixon, now beloved by VP JD Vance, feared in a 1970 speech that expressed concerns about America‘s credibility if seen to retreat, hesitate, or get outmaneuvered as Trump did. Gulf and other Arab states will now need to accommodate Iran.

“The Gulf Arab economies were built under the umbrella of American hegemony. Take that away — and the freedom of navigation that goes with it — and the Gulf states will ineluctably go begging to Tehran,” wrote Iran scholars Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh. Iran’s Gulf attacks not only exposed the vulnerability of the U.S. defensive shield, but have also showed that the safety of U.S. allies was ignored by Trump as a deciding factor in going to war in the Mideast.

One seemingly positive outcome of the war is the falling out between two mad predators – Trump and Netanyahu. Desperate to end the war so gas prices drop before the midterm elections, Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of Netanyahu who hustled him into a historic debacle that other presidents had carefully avoided. Furious at the Israeli prime minister, the equally deranged Trump called Netayahu “fucking crazy” and “a very difficult guy” explicitly condemning his bloodthirsty proclivity to kill innocents by attacking entire apartment buildings using the pretext of attacking a single Hezbollah member (although the same criticism can be made of Israel’s genocidal attacks in Gaza, which Trump aided and abetted).

The MOU requires that Israel end its attacks in Lebanon though a recent agreement with the U.S., condemned by Iran, allows Israel to occupy southern Lebanon. That gives Netanyahu the opportunity to play spoiler, given his quest for an ongoing war with Iran. But Netanyahu may not dare to jeopardize future U.S. support despite feeling betrayed by Trump. In making a head-spinning reversal, Trump said he’s open to Iran having “some” conventional ballistic missiles. “If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” he told reporters on June 27 at the G7 summit. Of course the same argument could be made about nuclear weapons.

The next day Israel Hayom, the rightwing newspaper that is considered a mouthpiece for Netanyahu and is published by Miriam Adelson, who gave more than $100 million to the 2024 Trump campaign, ran a scathing editorial addressed to Trump: “Mr. President, you have gravely harmed the human interests of the enlightened world, and you may be remembered forever as the president who brought about America’s humiliation. You betrayed us, the Israelis. And in a single moment, the contempt you once faced suddenly seems so justified and logical.” Ouch!

Mr. Art of the Deal negotiated a national embarrassment and mortifying defeat with horrific human and financial costs — vast sums squandered in the Persian Gulf. “The eventual total bill for this war including bombs, repair of bases, replacement of munitions, and years of benefits to injured veterans is very likely to be $1 trillion,” according to Linda Bilmes a Harvard expert on war financing.

Thirteen Americans were killed and many more were injured. Whatever hardships Americans may have endured — including higher gas prices and creeping inflation — paled in comparison to the pain felt elsewhere. The downstream impact of the conflict has been acute in Asia, Europe, and Africa, where there is far greater reliance on fossil fuels coming from the Persian Gulf, and greater vulnerability to the soaring costs of energy, fertilizers, and industrial chemicals exported from the region.

Ordinary Iranians have been hurt the most. American and Israeli air strikes killed at least thirty-four hundred people, injuring thousands more, and destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, including universities, schools, and water facilities. In the deadliest known civilian casualty incident, a U.S. missile strike demolished an Iranian school and slaughtered at least 175 people, including over a hundred children, on the first day of the war. Trump never apologized or even accepted responsibility.

“You knew I was a snake when you hired me.” (actual words of Trump). credit: (c) 2021 f.j.zirbel

In January, after the Iranian regime massacred thousands of its own people, Trump said, “Help is on its way.” Instead Trump has left Iranians to suffer under a more oppressive government — and with less hope for change. The war cut short a period of mourning, despair and global condemnation. Instead, Trump and Netanyahu have shored up and consolidated the Iranian state, raising its profile as a world-wide symbol of clever defiance.

Despite the war‘s unpopularity, U.S. demonstrations against the war were smaller and more fragmented than against the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, or the widespread college protests against the genocide in Gaza. The campuses were noticeably quiescent.  Americans don’t get too worked up when the U.S. is killing Muslims or brown people via remote risk-averse bombing, either in Iran or off the coast of Venezuela. In the extra-judicial killings in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, 205 people have been summarily executed without trial or proof of guilt for any crime. A few Democratic peeps of protest were made in the Senate, then nothing.

While the No Kings Protests have been historically huge, they do not demand any particular action or policy shift and occur only intermittently. They built no momentum nor exerted pressure for any specific change. None occurred during the Iran War.

The upshot is that America’s 250th birthday feels particularly joyless, less a celebration of America’s freedom than a case study in how a demoralized, self-doubting nation has fallen prey to the malignant narcissism, epic corruption, and moral depravity of its leader.

A national disgrace, Trump has hijacked America’s celebration to make it about him such that even local celebrations look like an endorsement of the buffoon president. That is why even second and third tier musicians canceled their appearance at the formal kickoff for the so-called Great American State Fair — a vulgar, poorly attended MAGA rally rather than a unifying nationwide birthday bash.

Trump’s henchmen have dismantled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and medical research, as well as shattering the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provided food as well as HIV care in many countries. This is a disgusting betrayal of America’s ideals and a historic stain on the country’s promise of compassion.

The killing of innocent people all over the world and the phony pronouncements of victory to cover up a demeaning surrender undermine the commemoration of Independence Day and the freedoms it represents. Trump and his MAGA puppets in Congress and on the Supreme Court rolled back the achievements of the civil rights movement, attacked immigrants and LGBTQ people, and tried to delegitimize protest while painting direct action as terrorism. Celebrating the overthrow of tyranny when the country is now ruled by a tyrant feels like a sham.

•  

  by Tamer Ajrami

  ( Middle East Monitor ) – In politics, words are not changed for no reason. When a policy becomes too costly morally, legally, or internationally, states do not always abandon it. Sometimes they simply rename it, so it becomes easier to sell and harder to condemn.

  This is what is happening today in the Israeli debate on Gaza. The term “voluntary migration” no longer serves the purpose. It sounds too close to transfer, and it opens the door to direct accusations of forced displacement. So new language is being tested: “freedom of movement” or “free passage,” or “opening the way for those who want to leave”.

  But the problem is not the name. The problem is the reality that produces this so-called choice.

  A Palestinian who leaves Gaza after losing his home, his work, his hospital, his school, and his future is not making a free choice. A person living in a tent, under siege, with no clear path to rebuild his life, is not simply choosing to travel. He is moving under extreme pressure created by war, destruction, and the absence of any horizon.

  In this case, leaving is not a free decision, but a direct result of a policy that made staying almost impossible.

  That is why changing the wording does not change the issue. International law does not only look at declared intentions. It looks at facts on the ground. If bombing, starvation, destruction, and the blocking of reconstruction push civilians to leave, then the name used for that policy does not change its nature. It may reduce the political cost, but it does not remove the reality of displacement.

  What makes this more dangerous is that the debate does not come from nowhere. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has treated the idea of removing Gaza’s population as a political option, not only as an accusation made by its critics. When Donald Trump suggested moving Gaza’s population, many in Israel welcomed the idea. Even after he stepped back or softened his language, the idea did not disappear. Only the way it was presented changed.

  Instead of speaking openly about displacement, the language became about “opening crossings” or “allowing departure” or “humanitarian options”. But the real political question remains: why should Palestinians be asked to leave instead of rebuilding the place that was destroyed over their heads?

  This reveals the nature of the project. The war is no longer presented only as a war against Hamas or a military structure. A growing part of the Israeli debate now treats Gaza’s population as part of the “problem”. And if the declared military goal has not been fully achieved, and if Hamas remains in the scene in one form or another, then some voices in Israel see the practical alternative as reducing the Palestinian population inside the Strip.

  This is a dangerous shift. It turns the war from a confrontation with an armed group into an attempt to re-engineer Palestinian demography.

  More importantly, this idea is no longer limited to the margins of the Israeli far right. What was once said in Kahanist circles or at the edges of Israeli politics is now moving closer to the center of public debate. The war has made Israeli society more accepting of ideas that were once considered embarrassing or extreme. Transfer is not always named directly, but it is present in policy, in calculations, and in the way Gaza is being managed after destruction.

  This is why the massive destruction of Gaza cannot be separated from the debate over “departure”. The delay in reconstruction, the life in tents, and the absence of basic conditions for survival cannot be separated from the idea of long-term pressure on the population. When Gaza remains destroyed, and when normal life is not allowed to return, despair becomes a political tool. Staying becomes a punishment, and leaving is presented to the victim as a “solution”.

  This is the danger of the current moment. Israel does not need to announce an official expulsion plan in order to push people out. It is enough to make life impossible, then tell the world: no one was forced to leave.

  But Gaza is not only a humanitarian crisis. It is a political and demographic question at the heart of the Israeli project. Since 1948, the demographic question has always been present in Israeli thinking: how can Israel preserve a Jewish state in a land where the Palestinian people have not disappeared, have not abandoned their land, and have not become a temporary detail?

  From this angle, the current war looks like part of a wider attempt to settle the demographic question before time settles it. Iran is not the only “existential threat” in Israeli thinking. Hamas is not the only one either. The deeper threat, as many in Israel see it, is the continued presence of Palestinians as a political and demographic fact between the river and the sea.

  But history gives a clear lesson. Force can control for a time, but it cannot erase demographic realities forever. France ruled Algeria for more than a century, but it could not erase the Algerian people. South Africa’s apartheid regime had powerful security and legal tools, but it could not erase the political reality of the majority.

  Israel faces a similar question, even if the details are different. It can either accept a political solution that recognizes Palestinian rights to statehood, dignity, and sovereignty, or it can continue to manage one reality between the river and the sea based on control, inequality, and repeated violence. The second option does not solve the problem. It only delays the next explosion.

  The irony is that the Palestinian state, long rejected inside Israel as a strategic danger, may in fact be the last chance to avoid the one-state reality. It is not only the minimum national right of the Palestinians. It may also be the only remaining way for Israel to preserve itself as a state with clear borders, instead of sliding into a long apartheid reality that cannot be defended forever.

  This is why renaming displacement will not solve the crisis. “Voluntary migration” or “freedom of passage” is only new language for an old idea: pushing Palestinians out of the equation. But the people who were not removed in 1948, and who were not broken by decades of occupation and siege, will not become a language problem today.

  
  Photo by Hosny salah: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-washing-clothes-amidst-rubble-in-gaza-36193756/

  In the end, Israel can change the names of its policies. It can call displacement “passage”, coercion “choice,” and destruction “humanitarian pressure”. But it cannot change the basic truth: when a people are pushed to leave because their life has been made impossible, this is not voluntary departure. It is political expulsion under a new name.

  Israel may discover too late that what it rejects today as a threat (a Palestinian state) was in fact its last chance to avoid what it fears most: one state, two peoples, no equality, and no clear end to the conflict.

  The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

  Via Middle East Monitor

  Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

(The Conversation) – When it comes to covering the Middle East, News Corporation has two guiding principles. The first is that it supports Israel, which means it opposes any nation, organisation or individual that doesn’t. This support is decades old and it’s unwavering, even in the face of global condemnation of Israel for the atrocities committed in Gaza.

News’ loyalty doesn’t just determine news content in the foreign pages of its newspapers. It also shapes the way it covers local events, down to who gets targeted for criticism.

Young Jewish lawyer Sarah Schwartz has campaigned against Israel’s human rights abuses. For this, she has been subjected to sustained criticism that has demonstrated the other principle guiding News’ coverage. You could call this the “we’re‑always‑right‑no‑matter‑what” approach, which allows News to sustain its editorial assaults even in the face of inconvenient inconsistencies.

On the one hand, News has attacked Schwartz for being supposedly antisemitic. On the other, it has criticised her for calling out the antisemitism she’s been subjected to by her Zionist opponents. But when you’re always right no matter what, this is not an inconsistency at all.

Her story demonstrates how News goes about contriving controversy to discredit both individuals and what they’re saying, with little regard for the effect it has on the person being targeted. We interviewed her about her experience of News’ coverage last August.

Like so many other liberal Jews, Schwartz was appalled by Israel’s conduct in Gaza. She joined with several others to form an organisation called the Jewish Council of Australia, a diverse coalition of Jewish academics, lawyers, writers and teachers. They represent people who believe Israel’s response was not only disproportionate, but counterproductive to regional security and peace.

This posed something of a threat to News, which for several decades has championed Israel and the Zionist cause. The notion of a Jew speaking out against Israel and in defence of Gaza challenged the News line that Israel can do no wrong and that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic.

Initially, News outlets wrote a few disparaging pieces, dismissing the council as unrepresentative and irrelevant, even though its membership was steadily growing and its board comprised many high‑profile and influential people. But then Schwartz did something that gave News an opportunity to sharpen its attack.

‘Painted as a Judenrat’

In January 2025, she was invited to speak at the “pre-event” for an academic antiracism conference. “The Greatest Race Debate” was held at a university, but billed as a comedy event. Essentially, it used the format of a debate to call out the absurdity of what constitutes race conversations in this country; everyone was to give their best “worst” takes on race debates in Australia.

So, Schwartz entered into the spirit of things by creating a cartoon image of a caped superhero whose chest carries the letters “DJ”. She titled the slide “Dutton’s Jew”, to depict the then opposition leader’s stereotyping of Jews as anti‑immigrant and hateful of Muslims, using them as “a human shield”. She said: “For Dutton and his ilk, Jews are just the perfect avatars to use to peddle racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.”

Admittedly, the term “Dutton’s Jew” was open to misinterpretation and what unfolded could have been predicted. But at that stage, Schwartz wasn’t as media savvy as she’s since become.

The Australian and Murdoch’s Brisbane daily, The Courier Mail, pounced on the story, although they did take the time to add an important clarification, requested by Schwartz. She wanted to make it clear she wasn’t saying Jews were anti‑immigration and hateful of Muslims; this was about Dutton’s conception of Jews. In other words, it was political commentary.

Unfortunately, some of the subsequent stories left out that important distinction. They referenced the “Dutton’s Jew” cartoon as if to make the point that Schwartz was controversial, maybe even antisemitic.

Both papers stayed on the story, with follow‑ups about federal ministers criticising the Queensland University of Technology for hosting the event, and vice chancellor Margaret Sheil rushing to apologise for any “hurt and offence” the conference caused.

They also covered Sheil’s decision to commission former Federal Court judge John Middleton to determine whether the Jewish community had been vilified. A few months later, Middleton found that nothing Schwartz said was racist.

He concluded, “Ms Schwartz’s slide was photographed and delivered to The Australian and The Courier Mail devoid of context” and “Ms Schwartz’s depiction of ‘Dutton’s Jew’ was not critical of Jewish people themselves, but of the way in which political figures may typecast Jewish identity to serve particular narratives”.

But Middleton’s report came too late to stop the abuse Schwartz was copping from online activists such as pro‑Israel advocate Zara Cooper, who according to Schwartz posted “over 600 times” on Instagram about Schwartz and the Jewish Council of Australia. One image was of a rat, another was of Schwartz’s face superimposed over a train. Was the latter suggesting she would be deported to a concentration camp for siding with Palestinians?

Schwartz told us she was “painted as a Judenrat, as someone who is collaborating with Nazis because Nazis and Palestinians had become conflated in some Zionists’ minds”. She says her opponents became “utterly fixated” by the idea of her being harmed by Palestinians, the very people she was defending. It became so extreme that Schwartz went to the police.

This is when things got a little crazy, because, as Schwartz says, up until then the paper’s “whole narrative had been that Jewish people have been the victim of antisemitism”. But when Schwartz, as a Jewish person, complained about being the victim of antisemitism, The Australian switched. Its line suddenly became, she says: “That’s outrageous that she’s going to the police, she’s trying to suppress her enemies.”

When the police proposed an intervention order against Cooper to stop the online abuse, Schwartz says the newspaper suggested she was a hypocrite because she was “a lawyer who cares about free speech”.

When the matter first went to court, Schwartz insisted the paper correct its claim that she, rather than the police, had initiated the intervention order. She says the paper bullied her by republishing the “incredibly distressing” memes that surfaced online.

“I think those images are antisemitic; whatever you want to say, they are certainly racialised, they are attacking me because I’m Jewish and because I hold a particular political view. The Australian is then republishing those images in articles that are smearing me.”

Schwartz says the pressure made it “untenable for the intervention order to proceed” so she asked the police to withdraw it. She says, “It’s like the bullies won.”

For her part, Zara Cooper told The Australian, “I have never met Sarah Schwartz. I have never spoken with her, threatened her, posted private information about her or encouraged others to do so.”

‘A malicious pile-on’

Schwartz says a particularly hurtful aspect of the paper’s coverage was an opinion piece by Indigenous scholar Professor Marcia Langton, who wrote that Schwartz “deeply offended Jewish Australians and other Australians, including me”.

Referring to the “Dutton’s Jew” cartoon, Langton said,

There was nothing satirical about this message. It was objectively anti-Semitic in its depiction of her nemesis, the ‘bad Jew’, who [Schwartz] imagines has lost all agency and is an unwitting puppet of various warmongering masters.

Langton concluded, “As a Jewish friend said to me about this, the ‘good Jew/bad Jew’ narrative is the ‘absolute epitome of anti‑Semitic conspiracy theory’.” Schwartz’s requests for corrections to Langton’s column prior to publication were ignored by the paper, she told us.

Following publication, her lawyer argued the piece took the cartoon out of context and portrayed Schwartz as an antisemite who had publicly represented all Jews as “bloodthirsty monsters”. The lawyer asserted the opinion piece “contributed to a malicious pile‑on, attacking Ms Schwartz and attempting to inflict maximum personal and reputational harm on her, based on an entirely false premise that does not withstand the slightest scrutiny.”

The Australian denied the allegations and warned it would invest heavily in defending what it said was clearly an opinion piece on a matter of public interest.

A ‘serious threat to News’ narrative’

Schwartz has had time to ponder why she became a News target: “I think I represent a really serious threat to News’ narrative that criticism of Israel is antisemitic.” She told us, “News wants to use Jews to bolster their right‑wing claims, but I and the Jewish Council of Australia represent a real threat to that.”

She accuses the Murdoch press of “working hand in hand with Zionist lobby groups with the intention to silence me or shame me or stop my advocacy”.

Creating a negative image of a person under attack is a fundamental component of a Murdoch campaign. Schwartz says the papers “cultivated this image of me as controversial, obscene, dangerous, frivolous or attention seeking”. This “false narrative” was based on “concocted events”, but its effect was powerful: “Now when they refer to me they can refer to me as just a controversial individual,” says Schwartz.

When an article appeared with a headline describing her as a “Radical fringe Jewish voice”, she knew “they were complete in their objectification of me”.

This sort of treatment is damaging because it reaches so many different audiences. “Maybe I can explain individual incidents to people in my life who still read The Australian, but I’ll never be able to get over this confected persona they’ve created for me,” she told us. “I think that’s the most hurtful thing.”

Even within her own community, the coverage is caustic. “There is just a whole segment of the Jewish community who now look at me as someone who is antisemitic and who is offensive and who is radical, and that affects me going about my day‑to-day life, going to synagogue, going to Jewish communal events.”

While on one level this coverage is just about one person in a far corner of the world, far removed from the atrocities of the Middle East, it is also indicative of News’ broader coverage of the conflict and of its framing of both Jewish and Muslim people.

News is unquestioningly loyal to Israel and Zionism, and deeply sceptical of, if not aggressive towards, Israel’s enemies, both perceived and real. And that means News is especially hostile towards Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Something nasty and scary and manipulative

In a recent interview for The Atlantic, Rupert’s youngest son, James, described the way tabloid culture “is contrarian for the sake of it” and “delights in poking people in the eye”. He said, “At its worst, it metastasizes into something nasty and scary and manipulative.”

By that definition, Fox News should be classified as tabloid, but so too The Times and The Australian, even though the latter still retains its broadsheet format. Along with many News mastheads, they’ve been poking at Muslims and Islam for
decades. They’ve aggravated fear and done little to encourage understanding or tolerance. And, like a cancer, that kind of coverage has spread and metastasised in grotesque forms.

No longer is there a need for the proprietor to hammer out his fury in the middle of the night in the New York Post newsroom, as Murdoch had in 1977, when a group of radical Hanafi Islamists seized control of three buildings in Washington DC and held 149 people hostage.

By now, everyone knows where he, and consequently his publications, stand. Islam is posed as an ever-present threat to Western society and Judeo-Christian values. Muslims are too often characterised as hateful and untrustworthy. The Palestinian side of the current conflict does not warrant equal treatment because News stands with and for the other side.

Therefore, it almost didn’t matter how Israel responded to Hamas’ atrocities of October 7 2023. It was always going to be considered proportionate, regardless of how many thousands of innocent Palestinians were killed.

On the first anniversary of the war, many media outlets paused to reflect, most with at least some balance. There was recognition that both sides had suffered trauma and loss, which in some cases prompted analysis about the blurred boundaries
between defence and retribution.

The Weekend Australian, however, had no interest in balance. Despite devoting 13 broadsheet pages to the topic, it could not find room to even note that 100,000 Palestinians had been injured and that two million had become refugees.

The Weekend Australian instead blamed the Australian government for abandoning Israel, while focusing on Israeli suffering and instances of antisemitism within Australia. The paper described the conflict as “Israel’s war in defence of world order”.

As Paul Barry, the then presenter of the ABC’s Media Watch, noted, “42,000 dead Palestinians rarely get a mention” and there was “not one picture or human story of a Palestinian child, woman or family”. Barry concluded, “To call the coverage
one-eyed is the understatement of the year. It is quite frankly astonishing and a journalistic disgrace.”

It was happening in every corner of the News empire. In February 2025, Trump had a thought bubble. Along with annexing Greenland, turning Canada into the 51st state,
retaking the Panama Canal and giving Putin Ukraine, he had an idea that the United States could “take over” and “own” Gaza.

After the Palestinian people were resettled somewhere else, the US could turn Gaza into a new Middle East Riviera, where there would be “unlimited numbers of jobs and housing”. As you’d hope, reputable media outlets pulled apart the plan, and within minutes revealed its thoughtless cruelty. World leaders said it was inconceivable. Arab leaders said it was a violation of international law.

But the idea found supporters on Fox News. Ainsley Earhardt, the co-host of Fox & Friends, asked her audience, “If you have the opportunity for economic development, and supplied unlimited number of jobs and housing, and a good, fresh, ‘beautiful piece of land’ like he calls it, why wouldn’t you consider it?” She seemed genuine, like she actually believed it, when she asked, “Why wouldn’t they say thanks for doing this?”

But perhaps the most egregious example was provided by Sharri Markson, a host on Murdoch’s Sky News Australia. In 2025, Markson scored a 16-minute interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but then wasted it by asking not a single probing question.

Instead, she provided a platform for Netanyahu to further his personal attack on Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who had just announced Australia would recognise the state of Palestine.

She declared, as fact, that the Albanese government was “aiding and abetting” a “propaganda campaign” against Israel. Many of her questions were mini editorials, like this one: “Is it true you still plan to take over Gaza and eliminate the terrorists if they do agree to a deal?” She nodded in agreement throughout the
interview. “Absolutely, absolutely,” she added enthusiastically as he explained Israel’s good conduct. The result was that she let a man charged with war crimes off the hook.

The interview was widely condemned. Veteran television interviewer Ray Martin told Media Watch it was a “sycophantic endorsement” that “failed journalism 101”. In a responding statement, Markson said she “had been inundated with high praise from leading editors and journalists, describing the interview as outstanding, first class and agenda setting”.

Photo by Hümâ H. Yardım on Unsplash

‘Determined avoidance’ of other perspectives

The company’s editorial line was on display in its coverage of the Bondi Beach massacre in December 2025, when two terrorists killed 15 people, and injured a further 40 who were celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

News Corp mastheads rightly deplored the appalling violence and questioned whether the Australian government had heeded warnings about such an attack. The papers rightly commemorated and mourned the loss of innocent life, and investigated and exposed the ugly ideologies and personal pathologies behind the killings.

But inevitably – and sadly for the health of public discourse – the coverage displayed a determined avoidance to present any perspectives other than its own on the rise of antisemitism in Australia.

This is an edited extract of Getting Murdoched: How Murdoch’s Media Wields Power and Punishment by Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson (Hardie Grant).

Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University and Andrew Dodd, Professor of Journalism, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

At the political level, relations between Turkey and Israel are extremely tense. Diplomatic missions in both countries have been reduced to a minimum. Turkey sharply condemns Israel’s policies in Gaza, the West Bank, as well as the attack on Iran and the killing of its leaders. Like many countries around the world, as well as international human rights organizations, Turkey regards the mass killings of the local population as genocide, the aim of which is to “cleanse” the entire territory under Israeli control of any Palestinian presence. As is well known, the drive to expand “living space” and purge “undesirable population” has already led to genocide several times in the last century. 

Turkey reacted predictably and condemned the decision of the Israeli cabinet. However, the transfer of oil from Azerbaijan to Israeli tankers at the Turkish port of Ceyhan continues, meeting a significant portion of the energy needs of the Zionist state. Moreover, Azerbaijan, while joining Turkey’s condemnation of Israel’s decision, has not halted these shipments either. Israeli special forces, intelligence, and other branches of the Israeli armed forces continue to operate against Iran from Azerbaijani territory. Finally, Israel supplied Azerbaijan with weapons that were used in the war against Armenians and the conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh. One should not attach too much significance to the angry statements coming out of Ankara and Baku. 

However, one should heed the opinion that has taken root in Israel that Turkey is the next adversary after Iran. Israel is doing everything it can to prevent the production of American F-35 stealth fighter jets in Turkey. Trump, who has increasingly expressed irritation with and even condemnation of Israel, has promised to bring a certain gift for the host of the NATO summit in July in Ankara. Many believe this concerns the resumption of Turkey’s participation in the production of the F-35. 

Thanks to still-reliable U.S. assistance, Israel possesses qualitative military superiority in the region. The appearance of the F-35 in Turkey (as well as in Saudi Arabia) could reduce or even abolish this advantage. The agreement on joint arms production among Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia should further this trend as well. 

All of this is extremely troubling for Israel, especially against the backdrop of the U.S. vice president’s recent remark addressing Israel: “you can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem”. Condemnation of Israel in the United States is steadily growing, which over time could result in reduced military aid. It is telling that Netanyahu promises to turn Israel into a “super-Sparta,” capable of confronting all the countries in the region even without American help. 

Armenians escaping from starvation and approaching the British front lines during the Armenian Genocide.
Date: 1 January 2014. This photograph Q 24744 comes from the collections of the Imperial War Museums. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons .

It is precisely political considerations—mobilizing the Armenian lobby in the U.S. Congress to fight against the strengthening of military-industrial cooperation with Turkey—that explain Israel’s decision to recognize the Armenian genocide. Israel is ready to grasp at any straw, as it finds itself in a difficult situation after having drawn the United States into a hopeless war against Iran. Morality and historical truth, clearly, have nothing to do with it. 

The recognition of mass murder as genocide is becoming a tool of foreign policy, supposedly granting moral superiority to the heirs of the victims. The glorification of collaborators in Ukraine provokes outrage not only in Russia but also in Poland and Israel. Former colonies in Africa are demanding compensation from former metropoles in Europe for centuries of enslavement, exploitation, and mass killings. History simply cannot remain in the past. 

The Founding Fathers set forth those principles in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal” and have “unalienable Rights [to] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” To “secure these rights,” Jefferson wrote, the government must “derive just powers from the consent of the governed.”

America has come a long way over two and a half centuries, but today we face a grave challenge from within — and especially from our own leaders.

Of course, those founding ideas have always been more aspiration than reality. In a sense the Declaration of Independence was an invitation to struggle over the inequalities that marred the new nation: slavery and white supremacy, the subjugation of Native peoples, the legal subordination of women, the limitation of voting rights to the well-off.

In the course of 250 years, those struggles have achieved tremendous progress.

A bloody Civil War won what Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom.” Slavery was abolished and the Constitution amended to strengthen the government’s ability to safeguard the rights of African Americans and other people.

Women were eventually enfranchised and achieved formal legal equality. The lawless subordination and genocides of Native Americans were eventually recognized as the evils they are. The Civil Rights Movement repealed American apartheid and restored rights that had been stripped away.

But equality and democracy are openly contested today in a manner not seen in a century. Those who oppose the Founding Fathers’ fundamental values are using our government to attack equality and democracy. The good news is that tens of millions of Americans are fighting back.

America is and always has been a nation of diverse peoples — a multi-ethnic, multi-racial  mix — and that is what the Framers and their successors had in mind.

Indeed, the Declaration of Independence complained that the King obstructed the “Naturalization of Foreigners” and failed to “encourage migration hither.” Enslavers brought millions of Africans to our shores, and America became their land as well. National expansion westward incorporated French, Spanish, and Mexican peoples into America, too.

But today the Trump regime seeks to erase the diversity essential to our national character. White supremacy and white nationalism are threads running through nearly every policy — from ending civil rights enforcement to discriminating against African-American military leaders, terminating refugee programs for nonwhites, slandering Haitians, and calling Hispanic migrants “the worst of the worst.”

Free elections, majority rule, and democracy itself are Trump’s targets — from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election to his unrelenting assault on voting rights and representation today.

“Herkimer at the Battle of Oriskany,” by Frederick Coffay Yohn (1875–1933), Utica Public Library. Public Domain Via Wikimedia Commons

Today, gerrymanders demanded by Trump are likely to eliminate one third of African-American members of Congress. The Supreme Court has erased the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Evidence-free voter suppression laws are making it more difficult for eligible voters to cast their ballots, while Trump seeks to outlaw voting by mail and his backers threaten to deploy ICE to intimidate midterm voters.

On this 250th anniversary of our first struggle for American freedom and democracy, Americans are fighting back against this war on what makes America America — in the voting booth, in the courts, in the streets, and in our hearts.

The lesson of 250 years: Democracy is hard won and may be easily lost unless we are vigilant in protecting it. The vision of our Founding Fathers depends on you, me, and all of us to safeguard it.

Via Otherwords )

I mean, what can you expect from the man who, if he truly lasts until January 2029, will indeed be the oldest president in American history (although give Joe Biden full credit, he at least came close)? On the first day of Biden’s presidency, in fact, he was 78 years and 61 days old. On Donald Trump’s first day (the second time around), he was 78 years and 220 days old. And to put that in perspective, only two other presidents in our history came even faintly (and I want to emphasize that “faintly”!) close to either of them: Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower was 70 years and 98 days old on the last day or his presidency, and Reagan was 77 years and 349 days old on his final day. And don’t think it means nothing that the leadership of what, in this century (and much of the last one), was the greatest power on the face of the Earth (and probably in all of human history), is now aging presidentially in quite such a striking fashion. Sometimes, believe it or not, the most ridiculously symbolic things turn out to have meaning.

And of course, don’t think it was a mistake or purely happenstantial either. The American people had a choice and still went for the oldest person in the room (three times in a row). So, at some deep level, our voters must know (or at least sense) something about what’s happening to this country of ours, especially older voters who (unlike me) significantly favored a Trump presidency. As a great power on this planet of… well, I was going to say “ours,” but these days whether it’s really ours or not couldn’t be more up for grabs.

Nonetheless, it, too, seems to be growing older by the second. Or, thought of another way, while electing essentially the oldest president imaginable a second time, Americans have also supported a man who seems distinctly intent on turning this planet into… well, an old fart of a place that will be hotter than hell and possibly ready for the garbage heap of history.

And let me tell you, when you get into your very late seventies and early eighties, even when your brain is still more or less working, it’s distinctly not the same as it once was. It is indeed easier to get confused and tired out.

But perhaps we Americans — those of us, at least, who voted for Donald Trump the second time around (and, of course, I wasn’t one of them) — are indeed ready for this country to go down, down, down and, thanks to Donald J., ever more weirdly so. I mean, how many of us would celebrate turning 80 with an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn in “an eight-sided cage wrapped in cryptocurrency advertisements”? Not me, I’ll tell you that!

 

Buy the Book

Can there be any question that the 47th president of the United States is a genuinely weird old man? I doubt it. Once upon a time, if you had written a piece about the future presidency of Donald J. Trump, it would have seemed like the most ridiculous satire of all time. Abraham Lincoln and Donald J. Trump? John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump? Okay, I won’t go on, but you get the idea, right?

In short, we are now distinctly in an all-too-weird world. And although it’s a term he complains about and blames on other people, we are indeed in a world where “Trump derangement syndrome” seems ever less like a fantasy term. In fact, by now, as Aaron Blake of CNN recently reported, 61% of Americans and even 30% of Republicans believe that President Trump has indeed become “more erratic with age.” And that’s mighty polite of them, don’t you think?

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash, modified slightly by Juan Cole using IbisPaint X

And imagine that this is the very man who now runs (walks, limps, staggers?) the United States of America and, barring a surprise, will do so for the next two and a half years. As far as I’m concerned, that gives the phrase “what a world!” new meaning.

Yes, his version of fighting was recently on the White House lawn, but let’s be clear, he’s also been boxing (okay, in a different sense than on that lawn) in this country and the world in an all too literally striking fashion, including by launching another war against Iran essentially out of the blue, ensuring that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed for weeks, if not months, and that the global economy would be pushed to the very edge of recession, if not — to use a term he brought up recently — a “worldwide depression,” before, in true Trumpian fashion, changing his mind in the face of Iranian opposition and signing a 14-point agreement with that country to (at least theoretically) reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while claiming a “major win” for the United States (not that anyone in this country filling their car with gas or buying groceries would have thought so).

Phew! That was one long sentence, but let’s face it, Donald J. Trump is proving to be a genuinely long haul of a president.

And it doesn’t matter where you look, things are just getting grimmer and stranger by the month. Why, only the other day, the Trump crew redirected $352 million of your tax dollars, previously designated for the Secret Service, to fund the building of Trump’s fantasy White House ballroom. (But of course, what else could they possibly have done when Congress refused to put the necessary money into that crucial building project, which Trump had previously been claiming would be financed by private funders?)

And imagine this: all of that (and undoubtedly so much more to come in this ever-stranger world of ours) has been happening due to the whims of just one old man — Donald J. Trump, who distinctly has our world by the throat. So, yes, let me wish you (just a little late) a truly happy 80th birthday, Donnie! For all we know, in this ever-stranger world of yours (and, ever so sadly, ours, too), you may even have the urge to be president a distinctly unconstitutional third time, so that some distant day, you can dance (and even doze off) in that ballroom of yours. (God save us!)

Via Tom Engelhardt Substack

After all, when ISIL swept into an area, they had a mandate to kill all those they saw as unbelievers or so they said. This meant the Americans, seen as occupiers and Iranians, whose Islamic nation was not deemed to be Islamic enough, with its veneration of the family of the Prophet.  In practice, they targeted vulnerable minority groups like the Yezidi or the Shia Turkmen for extermination and enveloped the areas they took in violence. In the end, ISIL would lose ground in Iraq and Syria with US President Donald Trump claiming victory over the group in 2017. 

But that victory did not belong to the U.S. alone. Instead, it was the product of many uneasy alliances between those on the ground and those who controlled the air. From Kurdish fighters, Iraqi militias, Syrian forces (on either side of the civil war), Russian and American special forces, Iranian republican guards including Qasem Soleimani  and the myriad smaller national, ethnic and religious groups at play, ISIL’s defeat was a joint effort, the result of years of uneasy alliances between multiple groups on the ground. The United States was only one of many nations and organizations involved in bringing ISIL to heel.

And that work is not done. Groups like ISIL do not merely fade away if unaddressed, they fester on the margins and the halted efforts to provide justice to those impacted not only by ISIL but the Iraq and Syrian War(s) have left open wounds. The reluctance of wealthy nations to repatriate their citizens including children, in worsening conditions, or to provide substantial support for those whose lives  have been thoroughly devastated by ISIL means that the harm these groups and their franchises may cause has not been defeated but merely been delayed as Yezidi survivors fear.

In the current onslaught against Iran, it is worth remembering this fact. It is also worth remembering the intermingling of forces like the US special forces who drew Turkey’s wrath for wearing the insignia of the YPG. The role of their female contingent, the YPJ, in hindering ISIL’s genocide of the Yezidi people. The work of the Kurdish groups and militias like the PMU who did a massive amount of the fighting and the bravery of Russian soldier,Senior Lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko, who called down an airstrike on his own position when he was overrun. 

Now the very same militias that fought ISIL are agitating against the United States, again, due to the Iran War.  while never friendly towards the US, were also instrumental in retaking Mosul. It may also be worth remembering that  Soleimani, whose name has become a boogeyman of the far right,  was also a key part of this victory and while Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi’s plans integrating many of these groups alongside Muqtada al-Sadr’s dissolution of  Saraya al-Salam has changed things the political landscape it is not a landscape that is amendable to US interests but it is one that may align when its own interests align.

Photo of old city of Mosul after defeat of ISIL by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Thus, only a few years ago, the United States and Iran were able to work alongside one another to reach a common goal. That’s not to say that it was an easy accommodation or that the actions of this forced coalition were always noble. The Unites States bombed the PMU (and Iranian forces) outside of Mosul in Iraq and, inadvertently, dropped aid to ISIL in Mosul. The PMU has been linked numerous human rights abuses.  Iran made ample use of vulnerable Afghan refugees in their campaigns in Syria. Russia laid waste to numerous Syrian cities.

And yet they are all still necessary interlocked components in the fight against ISIL even if their own culpability make them unlikely arbiters of anything approaching justice. That is not to say that the  world would be a more whole place without disagreement between these nations nor that the US and Iran would be better served as allies, even.

It is to say that adopting exterminationist rhetoric, not wholly unlike that utilized by ISIL, is not only an act against human rights, it also makes us all less safe. Hopefully the Hormuz hotline indicates a change in policy towards a more familiar if less than ideal uneasy alliance.

•  

  by Jenny Williams

  ( Middle East Monitor ) – There is a hard truth Gulf capitals do not like to say aloud: hosting an American base does not only buy protection. It also rents out geography. It turns ports, airfields and small countries into possible addresses in a war they may not have chosen and cannot easily control.

  That truth became impossible to hide after Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait in response to US strikes. The details will be argued over, as they always are in war. Officials will speak of interceptions, limited damage and military readiness. Washington will insist that its regional posture deters danger. Gulf governments will try to reassure their publics. But the political meaning is already clear. When the United States goes to war with Iran, the map of retaliation is not limited to Iran, the Strait of Hormuz or US territory. It includes the countries that host the machinery of American power.

  This is the security bargain Washington has sold to the Gulf for decades. In exchange for bases, arms sales, training and political backing, Arab partners are promised stability. Yet the latest strikes show the bargain’s darker side. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet and US-led maritime coalitions. Kuwait hosts thousands of American forces, primarily at Camp Arifjan and Ali Al Salem Air Base, while US Army Central describes its Kuwait presence as a base operations and security co-ordination hub. Those facts are usually presented as proof of American commitment. In a regional war, they become something else: coordinates.

  It is not anti-American to admit this. It is basic strategic honesty.

  A base is not a shield if it makes the host country part of the target set. A foreign military presence may deter some threats, but it also imports the conflicts of the power that operates it. For Bahrain and Kuwait, the question is no longer theoretical. Their territory has been pulled directly into the cycle of US-Iran escalation.

  Their skies, air defences and civilian nerves now carry the consequences of decisions made in Washington.

  This is why the phrase “regional security architecture” deserves more suspicion than it usually receives. It sounds clean, technical and protective. In practice, it often means that smaller states absorb the risk of great-power policy. The US builds layered military access across the Gulf, then calls the arrangement stability. But if that architecture cannot prevent US strikes from producing Iranian retaliation on Gulf soil, then what exactly is being protected? Oil routes? American freedom of action? The security of ruling elites? Or the actual people who live beneath the flight paths?

  The answer matters because Bahrain and Kuwait are not empty platforms. They are societies. Families live near airports, ports and bases. Workers drive through roads that become military corridors during crises. Migrant labourers, local contractors and ordinary residents do not sit in the rooms where escalation is approved, but they are often closest to the places where escalation lands. Earlier this year, civilian contractors in Kuwait described feeling exposed as tensions with Iran rose around US facilities. That fear should not be dismissed as background noise. It is the human underside of a security order built around forward deployment.

  Washington’s defenders will say the Gulf asked for this relationship. There is some truth in that. Gulf governments have long relied on US protection and have often welcomed the prestige and leverage that come with American military presence. But consent by governments does not erase the strategic cost to societies. Nor does it make American policy wise.

  The problem is not that Bahrain and Kuwait have security relationships with the United States. The problem is that those relationships can turn them into extensions of America’s battlefield.

  Iran’s message, whether Washington likes it or not, is straightforward: if US force is projected from the region, the region will not remain insulated from the reply. That does not make war desirable. It makes escalation predictable. The more Washington treats Gulf bases as convenient launchpads or pressure points against Iran, the more those bases expose the host countries to counter-pressure. No amount of diplomatic language can remove that reality.

  There is also a moral contradiction here. The United States tells its Gulf partners that its presence prevents chaos. Yet its confrontation with Iran has repeatedly brought chaos closer to their borders, waters and infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption moved in 2024, has already strained shipping and energy markets. Renewed strikes lifted oil prices, while producers and shippers kept working through a dangerous and uneven recovery. Missile and drone exchanges now remind Gulf states that a war sold as necessary for their protection can quickly make them less safe. This is not a failure of one night’s air defences. It is a failure of the whole premise.

  A serious debate in Bahrain, Kuwait and the wider Gulf should begin with a simple question: does hosting American power still increase national security, or does it simply make each country more useful to Washington and more vulnerable to Tehran? That question is uncomfortable, but avoiding it is more dangerous. A security arrangement that cannot survive scrutiny is not a strategy. It is dependency.

  For Americans, the lesson is different but just as urgent. The US public is rarely asked to consider what its overseas footprint does to the people living around it.

  Bases are discussed as assets, not as political burdens carried by host societies. They appear on maps as dots of reach and readiness. In real life, they sit beside neighbourhoods, highways, ports and workplaces. When conflict comes, those dots acquire human shadows.

  
  Photo of Manama, Bahrain, by Ondrej Bocek on Unsplash

  This is why de-escalation with Iran is not only an Iranian or American interest. It is a Gulf interest. Bahrain and Kuwait should not have to become warning shots in a war between Washington and Tehran. Their people should not be told that vulnerability is the price of partnership. If the United States genuinely values its allies, it should stop using their territory in ways that make retaliation foreseeable.

  The Gulf does not need another layer of American hardware. It needs a different political logic. Less forward deployment. Fewer blank cheques for escalation. More diplomacy with Iran. More regional arrangements that reduce the need for foreign garrisons in the first place. As mediators prepare new de-escalation channels, Washington should understand that security cannot mean living permanently beside someone else’s tripwire.

  The attacks on Bahrain and Kuwait should be understood as a warning, not only from Iran but from the structure of the region itself.

  A foreign base may look like protection in peacetime. In war, it can become an invitation to be struck. Washington promised its allies security. It has instead built an architecture in which their territory can become the front line.

  That is not protection. It is exposure.

  The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

  Jenny Williams is an independent American journalist and writer focusing on foreign policy, human rights and conflict. She aims to bring clarity to complex security debates and to foreground the domestic consequences of overseas engagement. Contact: jennywilliams9696[at]gmail.com | Twitter: @Jenny9Williams

  Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

(The Conversation) – A recent United Nations report has detailed serious allegations of Israel deliberately targeting Palestinian children during the conflict since October 2023.

The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, which has been rejected outright by the Israeli government, documents harrowing child deaths. It describes the scale of the deaths as “unprecedented”.

Legally, the report itself does not prosecute anyone, but it can have major consequences by adding to a growing record of international law evidence.

An independent investigation

The commission is a standing investigative body created by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 after the escalation in Gaza and East Jerusalem that year.

Its mandate is unusually broad and ongoing. It’s tasked with investigating all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, identifying root causes and preserving evidence for accountability.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 2023, the commission has published several reports on the conflict, including on the deaths of Israeli children.

This latest report is significant because it focuses specifically on children, examining the impact of Israeli military operations on Palestinian children between October 2023 and March 2026.

The report notes that the commission sent requests for information to the State of Palestine, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli government. The first two responded, but the latter did not.

Four major findings

The commission’s report makes four highly significant findings.

1. The scale of child deaths is unprecedented

The report finds more than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed and more than 44,000 injured since October 2023.

The commission says the “overwhelming scale and rate of children killed and injured in Gaza have been unparalleled across modern conflicts globally”.

UNICEF describe the Gaza Strip as “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child”.

2. Evidence of deliberate targeting

This is the report’s most legally explosive finding. It documents repeated incidents of children being killed by single sniper or drone shots, often in the head or upper torso, suggesting deliberate targeting rather than incidental harm.

Cases such as Hind Rajab and other children shot while evacuating or sheltering are central examples.

Doctors on medical missions in Gaza reported to the commission that it appeared Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers were engaged in a “game” of target practice with “different body parts being targeted on different days”.

The commission concluded that based on forensic evidence and military analysis, there are reasonable grounds to believe some children were deliberately targeted.

3. Systematic attacks on child-essential infrastructure

The report documents attacks on hospitals, schools and orphanages, which enjoy special protection under international law. The commission found these attacks have directly contributed to preventable child deaths, long-term disability and educational collapse.

The commission’s findings raise serious questions about whether those special legal protections were respected, especially where attacks disrupted paediatric care, neonatal treatment and emergency surgery.

4. Arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence

The report documents patterns of child detention, ill-treatment and abuse in custody.

The commission noted that dehumanising rhetoric by political leaders, soldiers and public figures has normalised violence against Palestinian children and contributed to an environment where such harm becomes acceptable.

How do these findings fit with international law?

This report is important because it reframes the war not only through the lens of civilian casualties, but through special legal obligations owed to children.

International humanitarian law and international human rights law apply concurrently in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This is because Israel retains effective control over its borders, airspace and territorial waters, and has re-established military control on the ground.

As an occupying power, Israel has specific obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. These include ensuring food, medical care and the protection of civilians, especially children.

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Israel must protect children’s rights to life, survival and development. It must prohibit arbitrary detention, torture and deprivation of life. It must also ensure the best interests of the child remain a primary consideration in all actions affecting them.

The commission’s conclusions are stark: children have not simply been caught in the crossfire of war. Many appear to have been deliberately targeted, denied essential care, detained, tortured, displaced and subjected to conditions that threaten their survival. It reframes the suffering of Palestinian children not as collateral damage alone, but as a possible site of serious international crimes.

Serious legal questions

Many of the acts documented in the report amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

If children were deliberately targeted, this would constitute a grave breach of the international humanitarian law principle to distinguish combatants from civilians.

The sheer scale of child deaths raises serious concerns about whether Israeli forces have been adhering to the proportionality analysis: if civilian harm is excessive compared with the concrete military advantage anticipated, the attack is unlawful.

Parties must take all feasible precautions to minimise civilian harm. The report argues Israel’s use of heavy explosive weapons in densely populated civilian areas indicates repeated failures of precaution.

Photo by Hosny salah: https://www.pexels.com/photo/children-playing-in-flooded-gaza-refugee-camp-35934177/

Adding to the evidence record

In international law, accountability is often slow, but reports like this help build the legal architecture for future prosecutions.

The findings may feed directly into ongoing investigations by the International Criminal Court into alleged crimes in Palestine. The commission explicitly recommends further scrutiny by the court.

States could rely on this evidence in domestic prosecutions under universal jurisdiction. This allows domestic courts to hear cases alleging international crimes, regardless of where the crimes occurred, or the nationality of the victims or perpetrators.

States may also impose targeted sanctions or arms embargoes based on credible findings in UN reports documenting serious violations of international humanitarian law, even without a court ruling.

The findings could shape arguments in existing and future proceedings before the International Court of Justice, particularly around genocide and occupation.

Under international law, children are supposed to be the most protected people in war. The children of Gaza have not just suffered in the war, they have become one of its defining legal fault lines.

Shannon Bosch, Associate Professor (Law), Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.