Remembering the Forgotten News: Ukraine, the West Bank, and Gaza
The Latest in Looking Past the Latest Distractions
For much of the past week, wars and rumors of war with Iran has filled up the news cycle. For understandable reasons, of course. However, like I said in my last Kilmar Abrego-Garcia post, I also want to bring the focus back to the forgotten stories.
Take, for example, Ukraine. As we all know, Peace on Day 1 of Trump’s Term has clearly not occurred. Trump said yesterday that he was obviously being sarcastic making that promise.
In other news, we also learned that Donald Trump—at least when it comes to talking about Ukraine and only when it comes to talking about Ukraine—has a very confusing way of expressing sarcasm. :)
(Sorry, couldn’t resist on that one).
But that’s beside the point. Time and time again, Putin has not taken Trump’s extremely and even unexpectedly generous one-sided peace deal offers that would have given Putin everything he wanted and that would have given Ukraine “nothing of substance.” That includes the U.S. officially recognizing Crimea—held by Ukraine until Putin invaded it—as official Russian territory.
Makes you wonder why Putin would stop at Crimea or Ukraine, doesn’t it?
Yet Russia has apparently dismissed these most generous rewards for invading Ukraine in favor of continuing its war crimes against Ukrainian cities and the Ukrainian people. Part of that reflects Russia’s belief that the U.S. will withdraw its support from Ukraine and that Russia will win the war of wills.
Most recently, last week the Russians launched one of the widest attacks of the entire war. It involved 440 drones and 32 missiles, and killed 28 in Kyiv and injured more than 100. While these attacks have gone on, Putin has continued to give his real reason for starting the war: his belief that “all of Ukraine is ours,” that Russians and Ukrainians are really “one people,” and that Russia has the right to conquer any part of Ukraine that it wants.
This is quite a dangerous model for the rest of the world and for world affairs, something that I am sure our NATO allies brought up at the latest NATO summit. At that same summit, Trump suggested that Ukraine might see future Patriot missile system deliveries from the United States, and even admitted that Putin might be seeking to take more than just Ukraine.
But be careful, folks. Trump made no commitments to Ukraine, and he has tried to “talk tough” to Putin before, only to back down after giving his famous “2 week” deadlines. Besides, even if Trump did have a change of heart the day before yesterday or yesterday or today or whenever, who knows if it will stick? The man has the attention span of a flea with ADHD.
Anyways, stay tuned on that. And Slava Ukraini!
Meanwhile, while Israel and Iran were at war, the Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich government placed the West Bank under lockdown.
To give you a sense of how restrictive a lockdown like this actually is, a once-15-minute trip from one village to a nearby city could take a West Bank Palestinian about 2 hours. Yes, you read that right.
With the world’s attention focused elsewhere, Israel has actually increased its military presence in the territory during its fight with Iran. Even as it “justified the lockdown by claiming it needed” to redirect troops elsewhere.
Even in the fog of war against Israel’s greatest foe today, Netanyahu and his cronies continue to move forward on their plans to conquer the West Bank and Gaza. To borrow from the words of one prominent Palestinian, “[E]verything is an opportunity” for the current Israeli government.
Exactly. This is the Netanyahu government we are trusting to tell us whether and how fast Iran was racing towards a nuclear weapon, even if it goes against what our own intelligence agencies were saying in the days leading up to this.
By the way, isn’t this the same Netanyahu who pushed the U.S. to invade Iraq, and said regime change there would be a good thing for the Middle East? Isn’t this also the same Netanyahu that said Iran was close to a bomb at least 20 years ago?
Finally, what can I say about Gaza that has not been already said? Why are we so numb to the reality of anywhere from 30-70 starving Gazans dying daily, shot and killed by Israeli forces at rogue aid centers propped up by our own government? Why are we so numb to what Doctors Without Borders has rightfully called “a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid?”
Open your eyes, America! Is this where you want your taxpayer dollars to go? Are these the types of foreign wars that are worth giving up affordable housing and decent healthcare for? Is it our duty as Americans to air out Netanyahu’s dirty laundry?
It is time for the people to determine where the people’s money actually goes.
You have vocalized serious concern about these horrific atrocities at a time when the voices proclaiming the key details of them are beginning to die out in the echochambers of our mainstream media publications and streams.
The national attention to the war on Ukraine is declining, and the genocide in Gaza (along with the West Bank conflagrations) has been met with such political suppression that one need not wonder as to how America lost its focus on the political implications of supporting the Zionist entity after two years of constant death and bombardment.
Keep the memory of the martyrs alive!