Sunshine and flowers

[Ziggy.Jones @fahoo_foray]

“If you want to be an agent for change, it's not enough to talk. I want to die peacefully fighting.” -Eric Schiller (90), on being previously arrested.

after 3 hours, today’s action in the name of climate change concluded with the arrest of 6 seniors.

let their voices be heard.

[CBS News @CBSNews]

New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The images were sent to CBS News by active service members on condition of anonymity.

"This is major damage to our bases that hasn't been communicated to the American public," one deployed service member said. "We're standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face."

CBS News' @JonahPKaplan has more. https://t.co/dxfBRsgLvM

[Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson]

According to an informed federal official, in the coming months the Trump administration plans to send a total of 40,000 Mark 84 and Blu-117 bombs to the government of Israel. Each bomb weighs 2,000 pounds. This appears to be the largest transfer of conventional explosive ordnance from the United States in modern history.

How big is this shipment? It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. That same month, March of 1945, the US Army Air Forces began the single most destructive bombing raid in human history, Operation Meetinghouse over Tokyo. More than 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. By the end of that operation, the US had dropped 1,600 tons of bombs. That’s four percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. World War Two ended five months later, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The shipment Trump is sending to Israel amounts to more than three times the destructive power of that nuclear explosion. There is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.

Nor is there a justification. The government of Israel is not fighting World War Two, or even a war. It is engaged in periodic skirmishes with a guerrilla force in Lebanon, and it is working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza. Neither front requires modern 2,000-pound bombs.

An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile. It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapor. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the US military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.

For the Netanyahu government, that’s been the upside. In the weeks after October 7, the IDF dropped nearly six hundred 2,000-pound bombs on densely populated areas in Gaza, including on more than 100 officially designated civilian evacuation zones. The slaughter was so grotesque and embarrassing that for a moment the Biden administration paused a shipment of Mark 84s. Those shipments quickly resumed under Trump. Now they’ve accelerated.

It’s hard to overstate the scale of the crime the Israeli government is committing in Gaza. Over the last three years, more than a quarter-million Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces there. The majority of them have been noncombatants: women, the elderly and tens of thousands of children. Many thousands more remain missing, presumably entombed under the rubble of 200,000 collapsed buildings. So far the Israelis have destroyed 92 percent of all homes in Gaza, and 34 of the 36 hospitals. By comparison, the 1945 Allied bombings of Dresden, now acknowledged as a war crime, destroyed about half of the city’s inhabited buildings.

By any definition, what the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza is genocide. The 40,000 new bombs the Trump administration is sending will be used to do the same in Lebanon, and likely in other countries in the region. If you wanted to extend the Iran war into the indefinite future, this is exactly what you’d do.

So far none of this has received public scrutiny. At some point, inevitably, it will be described in media accounts as an “arms sale.” It is not an arms sale. It is a gift, funded by American taxpayers through the Foreign Military Financing program, an arrangement designed to disguise welfare as capitalism: Congress appropriates money to the executive branch, which transfers the cash to Israel to “buy” American-made weapons, in this case from General Dynamics. Politicians claim this is a win for America. Most voters have no idea they paid for it. The bill in this case is about $3 billion. Add that to the $352 billion the US Treasury has transferred to Israel since 1951.

How did this happen? The request for 40,000 new high-explosive civilian-killing bombs originated at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which is run by Christian Zionist Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his aide David Milstein, who is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin. From there it moved to the State Department, where Marco Rubio enthusiastically approved it.

At this point, only four more people need to sign off before the bombs ship to Israel: Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Congressmen Brian Mast and Gregory Meeks, the top two members of the equivalent House committee. All four are committed neocons. Collectively they’ve taken millions from the Israel lobby. In 2015, Brian Mast traveled to Israel to volunteer for the Israeli military. In 2023, Mast showed up in the House of Representatives wearing an IDF uniform.

It’s hard to imagine any of them hesitating before sending more free bombs to Israel. Only public outrage can stop this.

[Nur Dogan @nurdogandiyorki]

HAPPENING NOW in Toronto!

Anti-war protesters are gathering at Nathan Phillips Square to protest Mark Carney’s billionaire CEO Summit, accusing corporate leaders of profiting from war, genocide and exploitation.

[AJ+ @ajplus]

Israeli forces raided a kindergarten in Gaza, trapping some 200 Palestinian children under gunfire.

Their teachers tried to calm them, saying it was fireworks.

[Josh Breiner @JoshBreiner]

תראו את הטירוף הזה:
תחת אבטחה של צה"ל ומג"ב ובתיאום מלא איתם,
ח"כ צבי סוכות ועוד שלושה ישראלים נכנסו לכפר הפלסטיני מדמה בשומרון והחלו להרוס אנדרטה במקום.
החיילים רואים, ולא נוקפים אצבע.
סוכות אגב אישר כל האירוע: "זו אנדרטה למחבלים שלא צריכה לעמוד".
תגובת צה"ל טרם התקבלה.

[Muhammad Mazen @mhmd_s09]

One of the most brutal scenes in human history has been leaked.

The Israeli army bombed an ambulance carrying wounded people to a hospital in the Gaza Strip during the war of extermination two years ago.

A video that the world must never forget.

[Jvnior @Jvnior]

These are the IDF soldiers who took a photo with her kidnapped son. I found them.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

A video shows an Israeli settler terrorist attacking Palestinians in the Arab al-Arara community in the occupied West Bank.

He can be heard shouting, “Go home,” at Palestinians standing on their own land.

[Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East @CJPME]

🚨 For the 3rd time in 7 months, Netanyahu has entered Canadian airspace en route to the United States.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, Canada is obliged to enforce the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu. Instead, @MarkJCarney is allowing him to circumvent justice and avoid any consequences for his war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to protocol, foreign state flights must seek permission before entering Canadian airspace, which should be submitted at least 72 hours in advance.

Why does Carney continue to give safe passage to this war criminal? Canada should deny diplomatic clearance and close the airspace to ICC fugitives.

[Mohammed Sowailem @Eng_M_Sowailem]

You remember this crime
When a foreign individual working in Swiss weapon manufacture business who punched a Muslim woman in the face
He pleaded guilty that he punched her intentionally
What was the judge decision
He dropped the charges
Racist system

https://t.co/rXhRh4yMQL

[Yipeng Ge 葛义朋 @yipengGe]

⚠️ Don’t stop talking about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya ⚠️

Urgent new health warning issued: FREE DOCTOR ABU SAFIYA! #FreeAbuSafiya

Dr. Abu Safiya, a Palestinian pediatrician, is in grave danger. He’s been detained by Israel without trial for over 560 days and it’s been reported his health is rapidly deteriorating. The latest from his lawyer is that he fears he’ll die.

Doctors like Dr. Abu Safiya should be protected, and yet he and other Palestinian medics are being systemically detained and tortured when they could be saving lives.

Sign the petition today calling for his immediate release: https://t.co/nZGqKqBZqD

[Ziggy.Jones @fahoo_foray]

#FCK_ICE

[Salma Zahid @SalmaZahid15]

On Friday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, a new exhibit “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present” was debuted, and its now open to the public.

Palestinian voices have been silenced for too long. Their stories, their lived experiences – their struggles –

[InfoGram @_InfoGram_]

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan blew the lid off Trump and Netanyahu 🔥👏

Khan: "They threatened ICC judges, UN staff, and my family over Israel cases.

🇺🇸 12 U.S. senators sent a letter saying 'Go after 🇮🇱 Israel and we go after you and your family.

Then came sanctions, frozen accounts, travel bans. It is deeply dangerous for states to bully international justice."

Finally someone said this. What a COURAGE this man has 💪 🫡

[mustafa yazıcı @myzccc]

Irish fighter Paddy McCorry defeated Israeli Shuki Farage, raised the Palestinian flag, and repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” inside the cage while beating Shuki who is a soldier in the ‘IDF’.

[Ashok Kumar @comrade_kumar_]

Take notes kids this is how you answer cynical accusations of antisemitism

[Dr. Omar Suleiman @omarsuleiman]

This should be a MAJOR story. Someone shot a bullet at Sabah Mooswi, a Muslim organizer with Dallas Shias for Justice & Palestinian Youth Movement. The bullet went through her car & into her child’s car seat as she was leaving a protest.

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 WOW! JD Vance is DIRECTLY calling out Israeli cabinet members for their personal attacks on President Trump

"Donald J. Trump is the ONLY head of state in the ENTIRE WORLD who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world superpower.

If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have ANYWHERE left in the entire world."

"The other thing that I would say is that over the last 3 months, TWO-THIRDS of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by AMERICAN HANDS and paid for by AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS.

The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to WAKE UP and smell the reality of the situation that country is in."