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  • Kushner’s “Future of Gaza”: A Humanitarian Obscenity, Not a Peace Plan

    Kushner’s “Future of Gaza”: A Humanitarian Obscenity, Not a Peace Plan

    By Amal Zadok

    Kushner’s “Future of Gaza” is not a peace plan; it is a speculative real‑estate prospectus laid over a mass grave, an investor deck pitched on top of fresh rubble and uncounted bodies.  This brutality dressed in the language of “opportunity” and “master plans” is not statesmanship but moral bankruptcy of the highest order, especially in a territory where tens of thousands have been killed and more than 80% of buildings have been damaged or destroyed by war.

    Skyscrapers on top of corpses

    Jared Kushner arrives in Davos with glossy slides of 180 towers along Gaza’s shattered coastline, talking of ports, airports, logistics corridors and “catastrophic success,” as if he were zoning vacant desert land instead of a territory systematically pulverised for years.  He boasts of timelines of “two or three years” to rebuild Rafah, as though bulldozers and cranes were the missing ingredient rather than the deliberate destruction of an entire society and its basic infrastructure.

    The same presentation that sells Gaza as a “regional hub” requiring tens of billions in capital does not pause to name a single family still digging loved ones from under concrete, a single amputated child, a single mass grave.  When the slides show towers and yacht marinas but never cemeteries and bombed schools, this is not reconstruction; it is a visual coup against reality, a marketing campaign against memory.

    Genocide repackaged as redevelopment

    While Kushner and his patrons speak of “demilitarization” and “free market principles,” Gaza’s human losses remain almost unmentionable, reduced to an awkward footnote to the grand business vision.  Independent tallies already report tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, with epidemiologists warning that war injuries, disease and hunger could easily push the total toward or beyond 100,000 deaths in the medium term; that scale of killing matches the language of genocide and ethnic cleansing far more than it does the vocabulary of “development.”

    This is not a “market opportunity”; it is a demographic wound carved into a trapped population of barely 2.2 million.  The language of the plan is not the language of mourning, justice or accountability; it is the jargon of venture capital—“special economic zones,” “investment funds,” “GDP targets,” “microgrants”—sprayed like perfume over the stench of war crimes.  A territory in which perhaps one in fifty residents has already been killed is being treated as a distressed asset to be flipped, not a society entitled to self‑determination, reparations, and the prosecution of those who orchestrated its devastation before a competent international court.

    The Board of Peace: genocide for a fee

    The so‑called “Board of Peace” is the most obscene twist of all: a one‑billion‑dollar buy‑in for a permanent seat at the table where Gaza’s future will be decided.  This is not peace building; it is a pay‑to‑play cartel that monetises both suffering and sovereignty, turning an occupied, bombed people into the underlying asset of a global prestige club.

    Chaired by Donald Trump and populated by hand‑picked elites, the board offers plutocrats and compliant politicians a new status symbol: “I helped reshape Gaza”—for a price.  The promise that all funds will go to reconstruction does not cleanse the structure of its immorality; buying your way into steering the fate of a stateless population turns human rights into a luxury commodity.  When peace has an entry fee of one billion dollars, justice has already been priced out of the room, and genocide has acquired its own VIP lounge.

    Tony Blair, from Iraq’s lies to Gaza’s loot

    And then there is Tony Blair, whose name and institute have circulated around “day‑after” schemes and advisory circuits linked to Trump’s Gaza ambitions, even if reports now suggest he has been dropped from the final shortlist for the board.  A politician who helped sell the Iraq war on the basis of “weapons of mass destruction” that did not exist, and whose legacy is inseparable from hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, has no moral authority to co‑design—formally or informally—the future of another Arab population bombed and displaced under the banner of “security.”

    Blair’s presence in this orbit is not an anomaly; it is the system revealing itself.  The same political class that lied a country into war two decades ago now returns, scrubbed and suited, to sanitise an experiment in colonial redevelopment: dispossess, bombard, blockade, then invite the architects and apologists of previous disasters to broker the “rebuild” in partnership with investors.  In this cycle, Western leaders are never exiled by their failures; they are recycled into advisory boards and consulting roles, endlessly monetising the ruins they helped create.

    Erasing Palestinians to sell the land

    Kushner’s masterplan speaks fluently about towers, income levels, industrial zones and data centres, but stutters into silence when it comes to who owns the land, who governs the territory and who grants permission.  There is vague talk of technocrats and executive committees, of partner states and vetted locals, but no meaningful space for Palestinians to define their own future outside the conditions imposed by their jailers and their jailers’ patrons.

    This is how erasure works in the twenty‑first century.  You do not have to deny that Palestinians exist; you simply frame them as a logistics problem inside a larger story about corridors, ports and foreign capital.  You point at destroyed refugee camps and call them “phases” of a master plan.  You turn survivors into statistics and then into target demographics for tourism, cheap labour in someone else’s Riviera built on the ruins of their homes.

    Free markets over mass graves

    At the heart of the plan lies the dogma that “free market economy principles” will heal what bombs have broken.  Its authors talk as if unemployment, poverty and blockade were glitches in a spreadsheet rather than the deliberate tools of a regime of control, apartheid and dispossession.  By pretending that skyscrapers and special economic zones can substitute for justice, they ensure that the structural violence underpinning Gaza’s suffering remains untouched, unexamined and unpunished.

    “Catastrophic success,” Kushner calls it: a phrase so revealing it hardly needs commentary.  Catastrophe is the ongoing reality of Gazans; “success” is reserved for those who can turn that catastrophe into contracts, portfolios and keynote speeches in the Alps.  The dead, the displaced and the starved are not invited to Davos; they are the unacknowledged collateral in someone else’s growth projections and the invisible cost of a new speculative frontier.

    An unforgivable obscenity

    To unveil a glittering business blueprint for “New Gaza” while bodies are still decomposing under collapsed homes is not just premature; it is an unforgivable obscenity.  It tells the world that Palestinian life is so cheap that even their mourning period can be shortened to fit an investment cycle.  It signals to every future aggressor that you can flatten a territory and, if you have powerful friends, return as the visionary who will monetise the ruins.

    This is the line that must be drawn. A just future for Gaza begins with ceasefire, full humanitarian access, and international prosecutions for war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide—not with glossy renders, not with billion‑dollar seats on a “Board of Peace,” not with the rehabilitation of men whose careers are built on lies that killed entire nations.  Until the architects and accomplices of this horror stand in the dock instead of on Davos stages, every tower they imagine for Gaza will be nothing more than another form of occupation, another monument to a world that chose profit over people—and another reminder that no skyscraper, no board, and no master plan will ever be tall enough to cast a shadow long enough to hide the blood on their hands.

    References

    BBC News. (2026, January 21). Jared Kushner lays out Trump‑backed “master plan” for post‑war Gaza. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jared-kushner-lays-trump-backed-master-plan-post/story?id=129461124

    CNN. (2026, January 22). 180 skyscrapers for Gaza: Trump’s son‑in‑law Kushner unveils “masterplan” for enclave’s reconstruction. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/22/middleeast/kushner-trump-postwar-plan-gaza-board-peace-davos-intl-latam

    Breitbart / UPI. (2026, January 22). Kushner unveils $25B Gaza masterplan including skyscrapers, housing. https://www.breitbart.com/news/kushner-unveils-25b-gaza-masterplan-including-skyscrapers-housing

    BBC News. (2026, January 22). US unveils plans for “New Gaza” with skyscrapers. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7mmpljze7o

    Reuters. (2026, January 22). US pitches “New Gaza” development plan; Israeli fire kills five Palestinians. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-pitches-new-gaza-development-plan-israeli-fire-kills-five-palestinians-2026-01-22

    CNN. (2026, January 18). Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza to require $1 billion payment for permanent membership. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/18/politics/board-of-peace-gaza-trump-payment-membership

    CNN. (2026, January 20). Trump says Board of Peace established to oversee reconstruction of Gaza “might” replace the United Nations. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/20/politics/trump-gaza-board-of-peace-united-nations

    ABC News (Australia). (2025, November 18). As Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza gets UN approval, critics warn it turns ruins into real estate. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-19/rebuilding-gaza-donald-trump-plan-investment-potential/106006900

    The New York Times. (2024, February 21). War and illness could kill 85,000 Gazans in 6 months, new analysis finds. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/health/israel-gaza-war-deaths.html

    Wikipedia. (updated 2026). Casualties of the Gaza war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_war

    Al Jazeera. (2025, January 15). The human toll of Israel’s war on Gaza – by the numbers. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/15/the-human-toll-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers

    The Washington Post. (2026, January 22). Trump’s “master plan” for Gaza contrasts with reality on the ground. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/01/22/trump-kushner-gaza-plan

    The Independent. (2026, January 22). Is Trump building peace – or a property deal on the graves of Gazans? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/trump-gaza-kushner-peace-board-property-b2869059.html

    The Guardian. (2025, December 8). Tony Blair reportedly dropped from Trump’s Gaza “board of peace” shortlist. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/08/tony-blair-reportedly-dropped-from-donald-trump-gaza-board-of-peace-shortlist

    Al Jazeera. (2025, December 9). Tony Blair ruled out of Trump’s proposed Gaza “peace board”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/9/tony-blair-ruled-out-of-trumps-proposed-gaza-peace-board-report

    France 24. (2025, December 9). Tarnished legacy: What role for Tony Blair in Trump peace plan for Gaza? https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20251209-tarnished-legacy-what-role-for-tony-blair-in-trump-peace-plan-for-gaza

    ©️2026 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Wrong and dangerous strategy: appeasing a bully 

    Wrong and dangerous strategy: appeasing a bully 

    Trump has turned Gaza into the set of The Apprentice: governments pay to sit in his boardroom over the ruins, and their only real job is to obey or get fired. Appeasing that is not strategy; it is complicity.

    By Amal Zadok

    Appeasing Donald Trump is not a strategy; it is complicity. Every time governments, institutions and political elites bite their tongues in the name of “stability,” they are not moderating him; they are underwriting his attempt to replace law with money, fear and his own ego as the organising principle of world politics. A man who combines the power of the U.S. presidency with the traits of a malignant narcissist, an obsession with personal “glory,” and open enablement of mass atrocities is not a “difficult partner”; he is a direct threat to any order that claims to be based on human dignity and the rule of law.

    Malignant narcissism is not mere vanity with extra hairspray. It is a configuration of grandiosity, lack of empathy, paranoia about enemies and a willingness to use cruelty to protect a fragile ego. In Trump’s case, this has meant delight in domination, compulsive lying, routine public humiliation of opponents and a chilling indifference to mass suffering, most starkly visible in his embrace of Israeli policies in Gaza and his political cover for a war that has devastated an already trapped population. For such a personality, other people’s lives and entire territories are props in his heroic narrative: if flattening a people or turning them into bargaining chips makes him look “strong” and pleases his base, then it is not a moral dilemma, it is an opportunity.

    The same pathology is visible in his maniacal fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize, and the humiliating spectacle of allies staging fake “peace” honours to soothe him. When a foreign leader like Marina Machado feels compelled to hand him a framed imitation of an accolade he never earned, it is not diplomacy; it is ritualised ego‑massage that tells every despot watching that even democratic politicians will debase themselves rather than confront his fantasies.

    This pathology is written all over his latest creation: the so‑called Board of Peace for Gaza. On paper, it is billed as a mechanism to oversee reconstruction and governance; in reality, it is The Apprentice metastasised to a global scale, with Gaza as the burned‑out set and whole governments auditioning for his favour. A $1 billion payment secures a permanent seat on this Trump‑chaired “board,” while poorer states are relegated to rotating spots, turning the future of a shattered territory into a billion‑dollar membership club. This is not multilateralism; it is monetised feudalism. It is “The Apprentice: Gaza Edition” – pay to get into the boardroom, sit around his table, follow his orders, and hope you are not the next one he effectively tells: “You’re fired.”

    The Board of Peace is also a direct attack on the UN‑centred system that, however imperfectly, recognised Palestinian rights and tried to put reconstruction under universal, not personal, authority. By dangling access to Gaza’s future as a perk for those willing to buy in, Trump is building a private mini‑UN in his own image: hierarchical, cash‑gated, unaccountable and centred on his personality. States that treat this scheme as just another diplomatic forum, rather than a frontal assault on multilateralism, are not hedging; they are helping him prove that you can sideline global institutions if you are ruthless and rich enough.

    None of this is accidental. Trump has begun saying the quiet part aloud. In a recent interview he declared that “my own morality, my own mind” is “the only thing that can stop me,” brushing aside international law and institutional checks as unnecessary constraints on his quest for “global supremacy.” For a man who has shown that his “morality” stretches to cheering bombardments, openly musing about annexations and threatening the use of force abroad, that line is not colourful rhetoric; it is a confession of megalomania. It tells allies and institutions exactly how he sees them: not as co‑equal guardians of a rules‑based order, but as furniture in a set he believes he owns.

    The Davos episode over Greenland and Canada completes the picture. Trump has openly pushed to “acquire” Greenland, tying tariffs and other economic weapons to the goal of securing “complete and total” U.S. control, before offering the thinnest possible reassurance that he will not, for the moment, use military force. He used a global stage to humiliate Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, sneering that “Canada lives because of the United States” and instructing Ottawa to “remember that” before daring to criticise his Greenland ambitions. This is not alliance management; it is hostage‑taking conducted in the language of reality television and mob protection rackets.

    His behaviour toward Canada and Denmark illustrates the pattern that runs from NATO capitals to Gaza’s ruins. Security guarantees, trade access and even basic recognition are treated as favours that can be withdrawn if insufficient loyalty is displayed. Tariffs are brandished like a baseball bat; territorial integrity is discussed as if it were a line item in a real‑estate portfolio; prime ministers are reduced to contestants he can dress down in front of the cameras. When allies respond with nervous laughter, cautious communiqués and private grumbling instead of coordinated pushback, they teach him exactly the wrong lesson: that they will swallow humiliation and coercion rather than risk open confrontation.

    Layer this onto Gaza and the result is grotesque. Trump is offering political and diplomatic cover to a campaign that has destroyed much of the strip’s infrastructure and displaced the overwhelming majority of its population, then presenting himself as the indispensable architect of what comes next. Under his plan, those who pay the price of his Board of Peace get influence; those who cannot pay get whatever trickles down. The people of Gaza themselves are spectators in a show supposedly scripted for their benefit. Their homes and bodies are reduced to scenery for a global audition in which states compete to impress the man who helped enable their destruction in the first place.

    Supporters will insist this is “hard‑nosed deal‑making” and a necessary way to get things done in a brutal world. That is precisely the illusion appeasement feeds. When governments attend his board, they legitimise the idea that the future of a devastated people belongs in a private club chaired by the man who cheered on their devastation. When media treat his “Board of Peace” branding and his “only my morality can stop me” line as colourful copy, they normalise the premise that checks and balances are optional extras in a nuclear‑armed superpower. When Canada, Denmark and other allies respond to tariff blackmail and annexation fantasies with little more than pained diplomacy, they validate his worldview that laws and treaties are decorations, not boundaries.

    The stakes extend beyond Trump himself. Autocrats and would‑be strongmen everywhere are watching. They see a U.S. president who tries to build a pay‑to‑play mini‑UN over Gaza, who declares that only his own morality restrains him, who bullies allies over territory and trade, and who still finds a line of states willing to buy seats at his table. If that behaviour is indulged, why shouldn’t they copy it? If the “leader of the free world” can treat international law as a suggestion and treat entire nations like contestants on a show, the message is clear: there is no real price for running the world as a personal franchise, so long as you are powerful enough.

    Refusing to appease Trump means more than tut‑tutting and diplomatic eye‑rolling. It means:

    -Boycotting and delegitimising the Board of Peace, insisting that Gaza’s reconstruction and governance be anchored in transparent, UN‑based mechanisms where seats are earned by responsibility, not bought with cash and flattery, and prosecution of those responsible for the genocide and war crimes in Gaza.

    -Responding to tariff blackmail, Greenland fantasies and open insults against allied leaders with coordinated economic, legal and diplomatic measures, rather than fragmented “concerns” that he can ignore one by one.

    -Treating declarations like “only my morality can stop me” as a mandate to reinforce external checks—courts, parliaments, alliances—not as a quirky line to be replayed on talk shows.

    Appeasing Donald Trump—appeasing his bullying, his megalomania, his reality‑show Board of Peace, his threats against allies and his contempt for law—is not prudence. It is surrender. Each time leaders choose silence over truth, access over principle or a paid‑up seat at his fake mini‑UN over a real fight for international law, they edge the world closer to a future in which power answers only to itself. A political system that wants to survive, and a world that wants to remain even minimally just, cannot afford the luxury of appeasing this bully any longer.

    References

    1.New York Times. (2026, January 18). $1 billion in cash buys a permanent seat on Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/world/middleeast/trump-board-of-peace-gaza.html[nytimes

    2.PBS NewsHour. (2026, January 19). $1 billion contribution secures permanent seat on Trump’s “Board of Peace.” https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/1-billion-contribution-secures-permanent-seat-on-trumps-board-of-peace

    3.CNN. (2026, January 18). Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza to require $1 billion payment for permanent membership. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/18/politics/board-of-peace-gaza-trump-payment-membership

    4.The Atlantic. (2026, January 17). Trump’s billion-dollar Board of Peace. https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/01/trump-billion-dollar-board-of-peace/685671/

    5.The Wall Street Journal. (2026, January 19). Trump’s $1 billion-a-seat diplomacy club takes aim at the U.N. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trumps-1-billion-a-seat-diplomacy-club-takes-aim-at-the-u-n-2bccd9f9

    6.Business Times. (2026, January 19). What to know about Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/global/billion-dollar-membership-fee-what-know-about-trumps-board-peace-gaza

    7.PBS NewsHour. (2026, January 21). Trump’s Board of Peace is dividing countries in Europe and the Middle East. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/divisions-emerge-among-western-european-nations-over-trumps-board-of-peace-for-gaza

    8.The Hill. (2026, January 21). Trump to Carney: “Canada lives because of the United States.” https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5699148-trump-carney-canada-greenland/

    9.Global News. (2026, January 20). Trump says Canada “lives” because of U.S. https://globalnews.ca/news/11622445/donald-trump-mark-carney-davos-speech/

    10.Axios. (2026, January 21). Trump responds to Carney in Davos: “Canada lives because of the United States.” https://www.axios.com/2026/01/21/trump-davos-speech-carney-canada

    11.People Magazine. (2026, January 8). Trump says “my own morality” is “the only thing” stopping his global supremacy. https://people.com/donald-trump-says-morality-only-thing-stopping-global-supremacy-11881997

    12.Esquire. (2026, January 8). Trump says his “morality” is the only thing stopping him. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a69960918/trump-morality-in-check/

    13.New York Times. (2026, January 8). Trump addresses Venezuela, Greenland and presidential power in new interview. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html

    14.CNN. (2026, January 20). Trump says Board of Peace meant to oversee Gaza reconstruction and security. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/20/politics/trump-gaza-board-of-peace-united-nations

    15.PBS NewsHour. (2026, January 19). News Wrap: World leaders weigh whether to join Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/january-19-2026-pbs-news-hour-full-episode

    ©️2026 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Cowards in Uniform: The Strategy of Hiding to Escape Justice

    Cowards in Uniform: The Strategy of Hiding to Escape Justice

    by Amal Zadok

    The Israeli army’s recent strategy of photographing its soldiers with faces hidden and backs turned is not a trivial bureaucratic change; it is a desperate, coded admission, a sign that Israel’s leadership recognizes its actions against Palestinians as war crimes and crimes against humanity. With each blurred visage and anonymous portrait, the state announces, louder than words could ever do: “We know what we are doing is indefensible.” This subterfuge is both a confession and a shield, calculated to obscure individual responsibility in a campaign that, by any honest reckoning, is genocide and ethnic cleansing.

    Authentic Israeli photo catalog
    of members of the IDF

    The policy’s timing—issued amid mounting international scrutiny, tribunal threats, and documentation of unspeakable atrocities in Gaza—is revealing. For decades, Israel insisted on the moral superiority of its “most ethical army.” Now, as civilian casualties skyrocket and legal obligations close in, it has adopted an extraordinary regime of institutional secrecy. The faces turned away from cameras mirror the state’s evasion before the world’s demand for justice.

    Consider the sequence of events: Airstrikes level hospitals, schools, and residential blocks. Water, electricity, and humanitarian access are systematically cut. Food supplies run out. Famine and disease spread among besieged Palestinians. Journalists and aid workers become deliberate targets. The UN and respected human rights bodies document war crimes—collective punishment, indiscriminate killing, denial of medical care, forced displacement. Israel’s leadership, aware of growing evidence, now tries to disappear the very perpetrators from world memory.

    Legal experts warn that this pattern—intentional targeting of civilians, destruction of infrastructure vital for survival, dehumanizing propaganda that calls Palestinians “human animals”—fulfills multiple prongs of the UN’s Convention on Genocide. The concealment policy is not merely a precaution: It is a tacit admission that prosecution is a real possibility. Already, global institutions and independent media—from The Washington Post to Al Jazeera and The New York Times—report Israel’s attempts to rationalize airstrikes on journalists and medical workers as attacks on “Hamas operatives.” The legal sleight-of-hand echoes the military’s attempt to vanish its own soldiers from public record.

    A truly “ethical” nation would champion transparency and the rule of law. Instead, Israel has constructed a fortress of impunity, betting that anonymity for its soldiers can shelter them from accountability. In reality, the world’s memory is longer than a press release. Satellite evidence, survivor testimony, and eyewitness reporting form a mountain of documentation that no photo policy can erase.

    Reviewing court filings, leaks from inside Israel’s security apparatus, and international humanitarian law reveals the scale of responsibility. Legal organizations confirm that Israel’s new strategy follows secret recommendations from internal legal counsel who assessed the risk of foreign prosecutions—a risk now heightened by the International Criminal Court’s investigations into war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Israel’s defenders argue that security demands secrecy. But this rationale collapses under scrutiny: Blurring rank-and-file faces does not deter Hamas, which already possesses detailed intelligence; it only impedes efforts to identify individual responsibility for war crimes. The message to Israeli soldiers is clear—participate in war crimes, but rest assured that your identity will be shielded by the state. This is not the logic of a democracy; it is the logic of a criminal enterprise.

    The human impact is undeniable. Palestinians in Gaza describe living in a “giant concentration camp.” Children are orphaned overnight. Families are pulverized in seconds. Hospitals face impossible choices: treat the dying or ration the last bags of flour to stave off starvation. UN officials and independent humanitarian monitors consistently assert that these conditions cannot be justified under international law. Their verdict: these are crimes against humanity.

    The IDF’s photo policy, in its chilling banality, is a watershed moment: a state staging its own cover-up in real time. Reporting must call this out—not with meek equivocation, but with unflinching clarity.

    Let the record show: the government of Israel knows that what it orders its soldiers to do is criminal. Let it be remembered that an official policy of concealment is itself evidence of intent. The world must reject the cowardice of the back-turned portrait, demand the unmasking of the perpetrators, and refuse silence in the face of genocide. Journalism, at its highest calling, is justice’s witness—and truth’s last defense against the machinery of impunity.

    Yet the march of history and the reckoning of memory are unyielding. Every child consigned to mass graves, every family shattered under bombardment, every Palestinian voice silenced or erased—in the end, all stand as an indictment more permanent than any border wall or buried truth.

    A nation that orders the erasure of both victim and perpetrator, that strives to obliterate not just people but the record of their extermination, cannot hide its shame behind bureaucratic anonymity. The world will not allow Israel’s faceless executioners to vanish into the shadows of policy and propaganda.

    The day is coming when those who presided over and participated in this crime will no longer be able to turn their backs to the camera, to the court, or to the conscience of humanity. Justice, though delayed, is relentless. It will bear the names, faces, and command signatures of the guilty through time. The faceless photos are the last refuge of the powerful before history’s damning exposure. The world will remember, witness, and one day, finally, judge.

    References

    1. Reuters. (2025, January 8). Israeli military tightens media rules over war crimes prosecution concern. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-tightens-media-rules-over-war-crimes-prosecution-concern-2025-01-08/

    2. Middle East Eye. (2025, January 8). Israeli army to hide soldiers’ identities from media. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-set-hide-soldiers-identities-media

    3. Yahoo News Australia. (2025, November 19). Why Israeli soldiers and their leaders may be increasingly … https://au.news.yahoo.com/why-israeli-soldiers-leaders-may-043027389.html

    4. The Media Line. (2025, January 8). New IDF Social Media Policy for Soldiers a ‘Lost Cause,’ … https://themedialine.org/top-stories/new-idf-social-media-policy-for-soldiers-a-lost-cause-cybersecurity-expert-tells-tml/

    5. ABC News. (2024, April 16). IDF’s conduct, ethics under scrutiny following soldiers’ social media posts. https://abcnews.go.com/International/idfs-conduct-ethics-scrutiny-soldiers-social-media-posts/story?id=109035616

    6. The New York Times. (2025, August 21). He Was the Face and Voice of Gaza. Israel Assassinated … https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/opinion/israel-al-sharif-killing-gaza.html

    7. Washington Post. (n.d.). Finalist: Staff of The Washington Post. https://www.pulitzer.org/node/staff-washington-post-38

    8. Maghrebi.org. (2024, May 8). Pulitzer Prizes honour journalists’ coverage of Israel-Gaza war. https://maghrebi.org/2024/05/08/pulitzer-prizes-honour-journalists-coverage-of-israel-gaza-war/

    9. Al Jazeera. (2023, June 7). Israeli troops hit with social media ban. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2013/6/7/israeli-troops-hit-with-social-media-ban

    10. BBC News. (2013, March 1). Israeli army ire over social media posts. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21627500

    11. World Records Journal. (2022, July 27). How the IDF Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Video Activism. https://worldrecordsjournal.org/spectacle-as-camouflage-how-the-idf-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-video-activism/

    12. FPA. (2025, February 9). Photo Exposes More About Israel Than Its Subjects. https://fpa.org/photo-exposes-israel-subjects/

    13. OHCHR. (2024, October 9). UN Commission finds war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli attacks. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/un-commission-finds-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-israeli-attacks

    14. Human Rights Watch. (2024, November 14). Israel’s Crimes Against Humanity in Gaza. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/14/israels-crimes-against-humanity-gaza

    15. Amnesty International. (2025, October 1). Israeli military must be investigated for war crimes of wanton destruction in Gaza. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/09/israel-opt-israeli-military-must-be-investigated-for-war-crime-of-wanton-destruct

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Witness to Suffering, Testament to Courage: The Unyielding Spirit of Palestine Under Siege

    Witness to Suffering, Testament to Courage: The Unyielding Spirit of Palestine Under Siege

    by Amal Zadok

    In the heart of every refugee camp, amid the shattered homes, beneath the relentless echo of drones and artillery, the Palestinian struggle endures. It is not a passive legacy. It is the living story of a people refusing to bow to the machinery of oppression. The world has grown used to numbers—statistics of dead, lists of imprisoned, columns of hunger and destruction. But these numbers conceal real lives, resilient souls, and a will for justice that no regime of terror can erase.

    Zionism’s story, as echoed in volumes of scholarship and documentary record, began as a colonial vision intent on overwhelming and displacing Palestine’s indigenous population. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International describe the lived result as apartheid, a cruel system where suffering is manufactured and dignity daily denied.

    Today in Gaza and the West Bank, winter storms flood battered tents, worn-out shelters collapse beneath the weight of cold and rain, and 1.5 million displaced Palestinians struggle to survive. Humanitarian organizations report that 93% of all displacement tents are no longer suitable for shelter, their fabric torn by bombardment and the elements. Families huddle on soggy ground amid the ruins—still alive, still witnessing, still demanding justice as the world shuffles corridors of power and banishes relief to endless administrative red tape.

    Parents describe the agony of watching their babies die in malnutrition wards, denied lifesaving formula by the blockade. Aid convoys are halted, water lines are destroyed, and each shelter becomes a symbol of survival amid engineered deprivation. Despite a fragile ceasefire, access to shelter, food, and clean water remains catastrophic. The UN, local partners, and courageous volunteers scramble to provide what little aid is allowed: winter clothing, blankets, mental health support for traumatized children, and emergency nutrition for the sick and undernourished.

    The siege is relentless. Israeli bombardments erase whole neighborhoods. Households become mass graves. Generations of families vanish inside collapsing buildings and burning camps. Ambulances and clinics are targeted; hospitals run out of medicine, and medical workers patch up bodies only to send them back into tents and hunger. Yet, Gaza’s spirit refuses surrender. “As long as there is life in Gaza, there is hope. We will not surrender. And we will return,” vows a survivor. Each personal tale, each poem and prayer, is a fierce assertion of Palestinian identity against those seeking its erasure.

    Behind every headline, the machinery of crime is visible and documented. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for those responsible—Netanyahu, Gallant, and others—charging them with war crimes for orchestrating mass starvation and carnage. These charges rest not on rhetoric but on medical records, survivor testimony, and forensic analysis.

    Inside prisons and detention centers, the horror is magnified. Reputable sources such as Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have documented cases of torture and sexual violence. Women and men speak of rape, forced nudity, and assaults during interrogations and raids. These acts are supported by medical exams and investigative reports and are used destructively—to extract confessions, destroy spirit, and mandate silence. Children, too, are targeted: threatened, stripped, abused, and forced to see their bodies as instruments of humiliation.

    This sustained reign of terror is not only documented but openly condemned by human rights experts and legal authorities. Displaced families speak in the language of resilience, refusing victimhood, and insisting on the restoration of dignity. The world is commanded not to look away—to witness the suffering and to respond, not with charity, but with uncompromising justice.

    Legal experts, advocates, and survivors invoke Nuremberg’s legacy, demanding not only trials for the architects of atrocity, but the dismantling of the oppressive system itself. The demand for justice is not vengeance, but restoration: for those who survived torture and rape, for every child lost to blockade and shellfire, for every family left to mourn exile and separation.

    Palestinian suffering is not a tragedy to be pitied, but a summons to action—a reminder that humanity cannot exist while some lives are expendable. Their courage sharpens the case for accountability, their endurance keeps alive the hope of genuine peace. Witnessing suffering must become a rallying cry, pushing the world to confront what it has refused too long to see.

    As long as there are survivors, there will be testimony. As long as testimony endures, there will be judgment for those who inflicted these crimes. The world’s duty is clear: to be not merely spectators, but co-authors of justice for Palestine. Their unyielding spirit is a testament not just to their own courage, but to the possibility of a reckoning—and the birth of a new dignity, unbroken by siege.

    References

    1. Human Rights Watch. (2023). “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution

    2. Amnesty International. (2022). “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

    3. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. (2024). “Occupied Palestinian Territory: Humanitarian Impact Report.” https://www.ochaopt.org/

    4. B’Tselem. (2023). “Statistics on Palestinians in Israeli Custody.” https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners

    5. Al-Haq. (2024). “Accountability for War Crimes: Patterns of Violations in Gaza.” https://www.alhaq.org/

    6. International Criminal Court. (2024). “Arrest Warrants for Israeli Leadership: Netanyahu and Gallant.” https://www.icc-cpi.int/palestine

    7. CNN. (2025). “Turkey issues ‘genocide’ arrest warrants against Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.” https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/world/turkey-netanyahu-arrest-warrant-genocide-intl/index.html

    8. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. (2025). “Testimonies of Systematic Rape and Sexual Torture in Israeli Prisons.” https://pchrgaza.org/en/

    9. BBC. (2023). “Released Palestinians allege abuse in Israeli jails.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67649824

    10. The Lancet. (2023). “Civilian Casualties and Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: Medical Perspective.” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00727-5/fulltext

    11. Mondoweiss. (2024). “Months of Israeli torture, abuse, and sexual violence in detention.” https://mondoweiss.net/2024/02/months-of-israeli-torture-abuse-and-sexual-violence-in-detention/

    12. The Conversation. (2025). “Israel is on notice for using sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.” https://theconversation.com/israel-is-on-notice-for-using-sexual-violence-against-palestinian-prisoners-224580

    13. Amnesty International. (2025). “Gaza: Israel’s Use of Starvation Evidence of Genocide.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/gaza-israel-use-of-starvation-evidence-of-genocide/

    14. The Nation. (2025). “‘I Have Watched My People Suffer in Ways That Would Shock the World.’” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestine-gaza-suffering/

    15. PubMed Central. (2025). “War-Related Trauma in Narratives of Gazans.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123456/

    16. Al Jazeera. (2025). “Displaced Palestinian families suffer as heavy rains flood Gaza tent camps.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/14/displaced-palestinian-families-gaza-tent-camps-flood

    17. Daily Sabah. (2025). “Tents flooded in Gaza as Israel keeps blocking shelter materials.” https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/tents-flooded-in-gaza-as-israel-keeps-blocking-shelter-materials/news

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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  • Kabuki in the Killing Fields: Why Gaza’s Latest Ceasefire Is a Cruel Farce

    Kabuki in the Killing Fields: Why Gaza’s Latest Ceasefire Is a Cruel Farce

    by Amal Zadok

    The newly announced Gaza ceasefire deal is being widely criticized as fundamentally flawed—a political theatre designed to secure accolades for its architects rather than justice for Palestinians or genuine peace for the region.

    Despite the celebratory messaging and headline-making promises, the underlying dynamics of ethnic cleansing, settler violence in the West Bank, and entrenched rejections of a two-state solution continue unabated.

    This article analyzes the ceasefire’s context, the international reaction—especially President Trump’s frustrated pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize—and the prospects of renewed conflict in both Palestine and the wider Middle East.

    A Ceasefire With No Guarantees

    Despite high-profile announcements, what the Gaza ceasefire offers in concrete terms to Palestinians is gravely insufficient. On October 9, 2025, a new agreement, heavily promoted by President Trump as a historic peace initiative, ostensibly promised a cessation of fighting, staged hostage exchanges between Hamas and Israel, and increased humanitarian aid to Gaza. In exchange, Israeli military forces were to withdraw partially, and the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages would theoretically be secured through a phased release, balanced by the liberation of about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails (Reuters, 2025; BBC, 2025; CNN, 2025).

    However, the deal’s mechanics are telling: Israeli troops will maintain control over more than half of Gaza, and a multinational armed force under US oversight is tasked to monitor the truce (BBC, 2025; CNN, 2025). Yet, for Palestinians in Gaza and even more acutely in the West Bank, the so-called peace offers little material change. Settler violence and property seizures by Zionist groups in the West Bank have intensified throughout the negotiations, with the Israeli army escalating its actions against Palestinian communities (Aljazeera, 2025a; Britannica, 2025).

    International observers note that in the days before and after the ceasefire’s declaration, Israeli air raids and armed incursions have continued in multiple “exception zones,” and Israeli settlers—emboldened by government policy—have persisted in taking over Palestinian homes and farmlands (Aljazeera, 2025a; United Nations OCHA, 2025). Amnesty International and the UN report over 1,800 attacks by Israeli settlers since 2023, including killings, beatings, and the destruction of property (Aljazeera, 2025a). The latest ceasefire never conditioned its implementation on the cessation of West Bank violence and did not include guarantees for Palestinian rights or protection from dispossession.

    Hostages and Political Theatre

    The released hostages—on both sides—have become the central media spectacle of the deal. Hostage exchanges, while emotionally charged for the families involved, are a recurring feature of Israel-Hamas negotiations with little enduring political impact (BBC, 2025; Britannica, 2025). What emerges is a familiar pattern: an initial round of celebration, then a return to violence (Britannica, 2025).

    Observers recall the January 15th truce, another US-mediated temporary pause reportedly linked to Trump’s election win and transition. That deal, too, saw a brief halt in airstrikes and a round of hostage releases, only for Israel’s military campaign to resume with greater force weeks later (Britannica, 2025). The present ceasefire is widely seen as another episode in this “kabuki dance,” a performative but transient break in hostilities that does nothing to address the structural factors underlying the conflict (Britannica, 2025; Wikipedia, 2025).

    The Question of Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

    Underlying these “peace deals” is an accusation that cannot be ignored: the ongoing project of ethnic cleansing and, as some international legal scholars and human rights organizations maintain, genocide in Gaza. More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed during the two-year Israeli assault, and massive displacement continues (Reuters, 2025; Britannica, 2025).

    The West Bank has seen an expansion of settler enclaves, mass arrests, demolitions, and expulsions targeting Palestinians (Britannica, 2025; United Nations OCHA, 2025). With Israeli authorities refusing to halt settlement growth or address the root causes of violence, the international consensus is that the Zionist project in both Gaza and the West Bank remains geared toward territorial maximalism—at the cost of Palestinian lives and sovereignty (Britannica, 2025; Aljazeera, 2025a; United Nations OCHA, 2025).

    Trump, the Nobel Prize, and the Search for Glory

    President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, actively promoting the Gaza ceasefire deal as proof of his peacemaking prowess (Washington Post, 2025a; Aljazeera, 2025b; Euronews, 2025). Openly stating he “deserves” the honor, Trump and his surrogates have lobbied for the prize, highlighting his administration’s role in producing the 20-point peace initiative underpinning the agreement (Washington Post, 2025a; Aljazeera, 2025b; Euronews, 2025).

    In fact, official Israeli government accounts circulated images depicting Trump with a Nobel medal in response to the deal, and senior US officials argued that his diplomatic efforts—framed as having delivered peace in “seven or eight wars”—should have been recognized by the Norwegian jury (Washington Post, 2025a; Aljazeera, 2025b; Euronews, 2025).

    However, the Nobel Committee controversially awarded the prize elsewhere, reportedly prompting anger and disappointment in the Trump administration and fueling politicized accusations of bias (BBC, 2025b; CNN, 2025a; Independent, 2025).

    The short-term ceasefire, therefore, appears at least as much about political accolades as humanitarian outcomes. Critics argue that the initiative was pushed through with unprecedented haste primarily to secure Trump’s Nobel candidacy rather than achieve lasting peace (Aljazeera, 2025b; Euronews, 2025; BBC, 2025b).

    Why the Deal Will Not Deliver Peace

    The fundamental issues that doom the ceasefire to failure are anchored in the intransigence of both the Israeli and Hamas leadership. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly and publicly rejected any path to a two-state solution—a central demand not just for Palestinians but for the entire international community (Britannica, 2025).

    Simultaneously, all evidence suggests that Hamas will not disarm nor abandon its armed resistance, meaning the logic and machinery of war remain intact (Britannica, 2025; BBC, 2025; ABC, 2025).

    What awaits, then, is grimly predictable: Israel will recover its hostages, but the machinery of occupation, dispossession, and blockade will persist. The political establishment in Israel, long wedded to the policies of territorial expansion, shows no sign of retreat or compromise.

    Once the ceasefire’s media utility is exhausted—once its architects have benefited from the global acclaim—the bombs, detentions, and home demolitions will almost certainly resume, perhaps in even greater volume than before (Britannica, 2025; Wikipedia, 2025).

    The Coming Storm: Iran and Next Steps

    With the “performative peace” of the Gaza ceasefire deal already fraying at the edges, regional powers are bracing for what many analysts fear will be an expanded war with Iran (Britannica, 2025). Trump’s own rhetoric on social media—notably his warning that “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East”—strongly implies renewed military interventions and a hard-line posture towards Iran, inevitably linking the Gaza deal’s failure to a broader regional conflict (Britannica, 2025).

    The true legacy of the deal, therefore, is likely not peace but escalation—a “theatre” that, once concluded, will see the return of extreme violence under the same logic and leadership that has sustained it for years.

    Without meaningful guarantees for Palestinian rights, a halt to settler violence, and clear steps towards a negotiated two-state future, the project of ethnic cleansing and the reality of genocide will continue, dressed in the temporary trappings of international diplomacy and media spectacle (Aljazeera, 2025a; Britannica, 2025; United Nations OCHA, 2025).

    If world leaders and the global public accept this deadly kabuki as ‘peace,’ they become spectators in a theatre that demands blood for applause—where every standing ovation buries the truth deeper under the rubble of Gaza, and the curtain never falls for those condemned to live in the killing fields.

    References

    ABC. (2025, October 8). Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement. What does it mean? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-09/israel-and-hamas-gaza-peace-plan-hostage-deal-explainer/105870194

    Aljazeera. (2025a, October 10).

    Attacks by Israeli army, illegal settlers injure 36 in occupied West Bank. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/10/attacks-by-israeli-army-illegal-settlers-injure-36-in-occupied-west-bank

    Aljazeera. (2025b, October 9). Nobel Peace Prize 2025: What are Trump’s credentials and can he win. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/9/nobel-peace-prize-2025-what-are-trumps-credentials-and-can-he-win

    BBC. (2025, October 9). What we know about the ‘first phase’ Gaza ceasefire deal. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgqx7ygq41o

    BBC. (2025b, October 10). White House blasts Nobel Committee for not awarding Trump. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7842qg15p6o

    Britannica. (2025, October 9). Israel-Hamas War (Gaza conflict) | Explanation, Summary. https://www.britannica.com/event/Israel-Hamas-War

    CNN. (2025, October 10). Israel-Hamas war: Ceasefire agreement. https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-agreement-10-10-25

    CNN. (2025a, October 10). Trump speaks with Nobel Peace prize winner Machado after Gaza deal. https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/politics/trump-nobel-peace-prize-winner-machado

    Euronews. (2025, October 10). US president deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, top Trump advisor says. https://www.euronews.com/2025/10/10/us-president-deserved-the-nobel-peace-prize-senior-trump-advisor-says

    Independent. (2025, October 10). Trump claims Nobel Peace Prize winner called and told him he really deserved it. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-truth-social-nobel-peace-prize-b2843249.html

    Reuters. (2025, October 8). Gazans trek to ruined homes as Israeli forces pull back. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-agree-gaza-ceasefire-return-hostages-2025-10-09

    United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). (2025, October 9). West Bank demolitions and settler attacks data. https://www.ochaopt.org

    Washington Post. (2025a, October 10). How much credit does Trump deserve for Gaza ‘peace’ deal? https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/10/10/trump-nobel-peace-prize-ceasefire-gaza

    Wikipedia. (2025, May 11). 2025 Gaza war ceasefire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Gaza_war_ceasefire

    ©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.

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