One year after October 7, the Israelis continue to slaughter Gazans, and now Lebanese, en masse with U.S. weaponry.
One of the latest victims of U.S.-Israeli barbarism is Wafa Aludaini, a Gazan journalist, who was killed along with her husband, Munir, and two children, Balsam and Tamim, in an Israeli air strike in Deir al-Balah, Central Gaza on September 30.
According to Middle East Monitor, Aludaini is one of 174 journalists and other media workers who have been killed in Gaza since the war started on October 7.
Aludaini appeared twice on the CovertAction Magazine podcast to provide analysis of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and how it affected the local population, and about Israeli protests directed against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In one interview in April 2023, Aludaini lamented the racism of Israeli officials who portrayed Palestinians in a sub-human way, stating that this was the “true face of the Israeli occupation.”
Aludaini also detailed some of the horrific violence carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestnians well before October 7 and treatment of Palestinians as “second-class citizens,” and discussed in another interview the use of phosphorus bombs against Gazans by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the war that started after October 7.
The Forum of Palestinian Journalists praised Aludaini for devoting her life to conveying the suffering of her oppressed people through international and Palestinian media, especially through her involvement in writing articles in English, conducting interviews with foreign activists, and holding online conferences and different activities in the English language.
Aludaini first gained prominence for her coverage of Gazan border protests in 2018, known as the Great March of Return, where she captured the pain and hopes of Gazans trapped by the Israeli occupation. Wafa joined the protesters, reporting on a daily basis on the killing and wounding of unarmed youth who flocked to the fence that separates besieged Gaza from Israel, to demand their freedom and basic human rights.
The Palestine Chronicle wrote that, “through her words and actions, [Aludaini has] stood as both a storyteller and a symbol of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.”
In an interview with The Palestine Chronicle, Aludaini stated that she was a journalist and “a refugee. My parents were expelled from their village in Palestine, which is now in Israel.” Aludaini added that “being a journalist in Gaza is not easy, because every single day, you are subjected to [the possibility] of being killed, injured, or arrested by the Israeli occupation forces. In fact, many journalists were murdered by Israeli fire this way.”
On why she chose journalism as a career although she studied English literature at a local Gaza university, Aludaini said that the more she understood mainstream media’s reporting on Palestine, the more frustrated she felt by the unfair depiction of Palestine and the Palestinian struggle.
“Journalists who are [advancing] mainstream media [narratives on Palestine] are, in a way, helping the Israeli occupation in killing more innocent people in Palestine, in particular, in the Gaza Strip. [They] are strengthening the [Israeli] people who expelled us in 1948, encouraging them to violate international law,” Aludaini said.
“So I am asking them to come here, to Palestine, to see for themselves, to see the apartheid wall, to see the checkpoints, to see what is happening in Israeli jails. Only after they see it with their own eyes, can they tell the truth, because journalists should tell the truth and stand for humanity, regardless of religion and regardless of anything else.”
In a similar tone, Aludaini challenged “defenders of the Israeli occupation” to come to Palestine and to “listen to the people who had their children killed; to those who got expelled from their homes. In every home in Palestine, there is a story of misery, but you will never find [these stories] in mainstream media.”
Regarding the Great March of Return, Aludaini said that the march was “a popular protest where the people of Gaza collectively gathered at the separation fence between Gaza and Israel,” to exhibit various forms of resistance that focused mostly on cultural resistance.
Protesters carried out various forms of “traditional activities, like dancing dabke, singing old songs, cooking Palestinian dishes,” Aludaini said, noting that the most touching of these scenes were those of “elderly Palestinians holding the keys of their homes from which they were forcibly expelled in 1948 during the Nakba,” or the Great Catastrophe.
“This kind of popular resistance is not new for Palestinians [as they] have always used all their means to fight for their rights, to fight [against Israeli military] occupation, like the weekly protests [at the Gaza fence], or [the symbolic acts of] stone-throwing. Even when Gazans resort to armed resistance, people never stop displaying popular [forms] of resistance as well.”
Triggering a Regional War
Recent events make clear that the Israelis are intent on triggering a wider war with Iran, to the delight of U.S. neo-conservatives.
On September 27, the Israelis assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, having previously assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil.[1] The murder of Nasrallah—in a bombing attack that also destroyed four multi-story apartment buildings—prompted Iran to unleash a missile strike into Israel, which Israel has vowed to avenge.
Press reports indicated that the assassination of Nasrallah was likely carried out with U.S.-supplied munitions, in particular, the U.S.-made BLU-109s and JDAM guidance kits, otherwise known as bunker-buster bombs that can blast through hardened targets and underground bunkers.
Trevor Ball, a former senior explosive ordnance technician for the U.S. Army who reviewed footage of the attack for CNN, said that the BLU-109s—which are produced in McAlester, Oklahoma—were visible in the footage.
The use of U.S. weapons in the assassination of Nasrallah makes clear that Israeli war making has been a joint project with the U.S., which has provided diplomatic cover at the UN and recently provided another $8 billion military aid package to Israel.
Around the time of Nasrallah’s death, the Pentagon announced that it would add a “few thousand more troops to the equation” and essentially doubled its air power. The New York Times reported that “in the 12 months since Hamas attacked Israel, launching a conflict that includes Yemen, Iran and Lebanon, the Pentagon has sent a bristling array of weaponry to the region, including aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships and fighter squadrons.”
After 9/11, General Wesley Clark recounted how he was provided a list of seven Middle Eastern governments the Bush administration wanted overthrown, including Lebanon and Iran.
Iran has been a target of U.S. regime change since the 1979 Iranian Revolution secured the sovereignty of the country after a quarter-century of U.S. neo-colonial control under the Shah.
On the day after the October 7 attacks, The Wall Street Journal—an organ of neo-conservatives—published a piece of yellow journalism blaming Iran for planning the attacks, suggesting a clear agenda at play.
Since that time, more rumors have been spread about Iran, including that it is behind attempts to assassinate Donald Trump. The purpose of these kinds of rumors—like with the attempt to link Iraq with 9/11 in 2003—is to build public hatred and mobilize support for war.
After a helicopter crash killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Iranians elected a moderate cardiologist, Masoud Pezeshkian, who had campaigned on reconnecting with the West, though his diplomatic overtures have been rebuffed.
Commentators who suggest that the Israeli lobby has hijacked U.S. policy obscure the fact that the U.S. has willfully supported Israel over many decades as a key strategic proxy and junior partner in its attempt to dominate the Middle East and its vast oil supplies.
A turning point occurred decades ago when those elements in the elite establishment who believed that unfettered support for Israel would strain U.S. relations with other Arab countries and jeopardize U.S. access to Middle Eastern oil were purged.[2]
Israel has performed yeoman services for the U.S. in the past by a) humiliating U.S. nemesis Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Pan-Arab socialist, in the 1967 Six-Day War; b) bombing Syria and participating in efforts to balkanize and destroy the country and remove the secular nationalist Assad dynasty from power; c) murdering Iranian nuclear scientists; and d) supporting shady U.S. covert operations in Africa designed to secure control over Africa’s mineral wealth.
The U.S. also operates secret military bases in Israel and benefits from Israeli military technological innovations, having helped in the development of its military industry.
Jewish people who blindly support the Israeli state today and cry wolf about anti-Semitism among anti-genocide protesters are foolish in their failure to recognize that alliance with the U.S. will likely mean the destruction of Israel.
The example of the South Vietnamese, Kurds, Laotian Hmong and Ukrainians[3] should be at the forefront of their minds, though many do not study history with any seriousness or have any degree of political consciousness.
The waging of an unwinnable war in Iran—like Iraq—will be devastating for Israel, as it will further make it a pariah state and invite acts of violent retribution that will make life a living hell for its citizens, if it is not already.
The moral fabric of Israel has long been destroyed and it will experience some of the same pathologies as the U.S., with its endemic gun violence and mass shootings along with the decay of any semblance of functioning democracy.
The U.S. provoked a war with Hezbollah by carrying out terrorist attacks in Lebanon that involved blowing up pagers and walkie talkies allegedly held by Hezbollah operatives. The pager attacks killed 37 people and wounded 2,931, according to Lebanese authorities. ↑
Two key figures who warned that unfettered support to Israel would compromise U.S. relations with other Arab states and hinder U.S. ability to dominate the Middle East and control its oil supply were: a) James Forrestal, the nation’s first Defense Secretary, and b) CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, who had set up a CIA front organization, American Friends of the Middle East, to lobby against aid to Israel. Forrestal appears to have been murdered after being admitted to the Bethesda Naval hospital for “mental health” reasons, and Roosevelt was pushed out of the CIA and given a plush job as an executive at Gulf Oil. ↑
Ukrainians have allowed themselves to be manipulated into attacking a stronger neighbor, Russia, as part of the U.S.’s neo-conservative agenda of weakening Russia and dominating all of Eurasia. The result has been the loss of 20% of Ukrainian national territory, killing off of the flower of its youth, and loss of the country’s economic sovereignty. Even more stupid are the fools in the U.S. who wave Ukrainian flags as they cheer on the waste of their taxpayer dollars and destruction of a nation and its people and policies that threaten the outbreak of nuclear war and World War III. ↑
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About the Author
Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Left on Left.” He is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). Besides these books, Kuzmarov has published hundreds of articles and contributed to numerous edited volumes, including one in the prestigious Oxford History of Counterinsurgency . He can be reached at jkuzmarov2@gmail.com and found on substack here.
