Op-Ed

The Right Wants to Write Indigenous People Out of US History. We Won’t Let Them.


The Trump administration is reviving the visual language of manifest destiny and weaponizing the US’s founding myths.

By Johnnie Jae , 

Truthout

November 27, 2025

Indigenous demonstrators gather to protest an anti-immigration law signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2023.

CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP via Getty 

A new vision for the United States is being forced into place — one rooted not in liberty or justice, but in subjugation and the quiet normalization and acceptance of fascism. You can see it in the memes, the slogans, and the curated nostalgia flooding social media accounts aligned with the Trump administration. You can see it in the way frontier and 1950s iconographies have returned not as history but as aspiration. And you can see it in the current administration’s campaign to control what young people learn about history, colonization, slavery, genocide, and the violent foundations of this country.

This revival is not about remembering the past or indulging in a trendy, nostalgic aesthetic. It’s about promoting and embracing a version of “America” built on authoritarianism and white supremacy. It’s a version that elevates conquest, cruelty, and dominance as virtue and heritage over liberty and justice. It’s a digital-age rebranding of Manifest Destiny — the idea that the United States was ordained to expand across the North American continent, seizing land, displacing and eradicating Indigenous people in the name of progress — now crafted to make subjugation look like patriotism and to turn historical distortion into accepted truth.

That is why an incident like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s defense of the Medals of Honor awarded to the soldiers who carried out the Wounded Knee Massacre is dangerous. And that incident was far from an isolated example of the Trump administration actively embracing and defending the violent legacy of Manifest Destiny and the belief systems that justified genocide and land theft.

Indeed the official social media account of the Department of Homeland Security posted the painting American Progress by John Gast on X — a scene that portrays westward expansion as a noble mission, with a floating white woman carrying “civilization” toward the frontier, while settlers, soldiers, trains, and telegraph lines push Indigenous people and buffalo into darkness and out of the frame — alongside the text, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.” Examples like these are evidence of a larger project that uses nostalgia as a political weapon and mythmaking as a tool to justify violence.

This narrative shapes policy, fuels immigration enforcement, and drives efforts to suppress education about Thanksgiving and the realities of colonization. It transforms federal agencies, social media, and public institutions into extensions of a worldview that treats Indigenous people as obstacles, the “Indian Problem” that the U.S. must still eradicate.

With Wounded Knee Medals, Trump Admin Suggests There’s Valor in Genocide
The call to rescind those medals is not about erasing history, but about refusing to let lies and conquest define it. By Johnnie Jae , Truthout September 30, 2025

Across campaign-aligned pages, far right networks, and the administration’s own digital channels, westward expansion has been recast as an aspirational identity. The genocide, land theft, forced removals, and destruction of Indigenous nations that built the frontier are erased, and what remains is a cinematic mythology built for political use.

Federal agencies have circulated frontier-themed memes meant to promote everything from joining ICE to pro-natalism.

This reframing is not limited to fringe accounts. Federal agencies have circulated frontier-themed memes meant to promote everything from joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to pro-natalism. When institutions tied to national security adopt the language of “restoring the frontier” and “taking back the country,” they lay the groundwork for violent policies that demand reclaiming and recreating an imagined past at any cost.

The nostalgia is intentional because it shapes how people feel before they decide what to believe. Once that groundwork is laid, the defense of injustice and violent authoritarianism, like Hegseth’s insistence that Wounded Knee soldiers “deserved” their medals or violent ICE raids at daycare centers and workplaces, no longer shocks. It becomes an extension of the myth of American Exceptionalism wrapped in patriotism. As it becomes more normalized, injustice becomes inevitable, and inevitability becomes destiny.

The administration’s modern Manifest Destiny stretches into the operations of federal agencies tasked with policing borders and communities. ICE has become one of the most powerful tools in this new frontier project, targeting Indigenous people under the guise of national restoration.

Navajo and Tohono O’odham leaders said the recent detentions mirror older federal efforts to control Indigenous movement and identity. They pointed to cases where Navajo citizens carrying state IDs and Certificates of Indian Blood were still detained or questioned by ICE, and where Tohono O’odham citizens were told that their ties to their own homelands did not matter because officials only recognized the border. These incidents reflect a long-standing pattern of dismissing tribal documents, Indigenous mobility, and Indigenous identity as invalid. In Iowa, a member of the Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community was nearly turned over to federal immigration agents after the Polk County Jail issued an ICE detainer meant for someone else. As Iowa Public Radio reported, police told the 24-year-old woman’s family that she would be removed to a country she had never lived in. She avoided deportation only because the jail finally acknowledged the detainer was filed in error.

These cases reveal a pattern rather than isolated mistakes. The American Immigration Council recently warned that the Supreme Court’s refusal to limit racial profiling in immigration enforcement has given officers even more room to target people based on appearance alone. This puts Indigenous people at particular risk, since tribal identification, Native languages, and even clear proof of citizenship are often ignored or treated as suspect by federal agents. The result is a system where Indigenous identity itself becomes grounds for questioning, detention, or removal, no matter how much documentation a person carries.

The Indian Law Resource Center has also sounded the alarm, noting that many of those targeted for removal are Indigenous migrants whose nations long predate the borders being used against them. The center points to the planned deportation of more than 600 Guatemalan children, at least 90 percent of whom are Maya, stressing that these children are Indigenous people with rights under both U.S. and international law.

These cases reveal a deeper reality. The same systems that once worked to erase Indigenous nations within the United States are now being used to remove Indigenous children and families from beyond its borders. It reflects the same thinking that once justified westward expansion. The ideology did not disappear; it simply learned to present itself in new ways.

The administration’s revival of Manifest Destiny builds on this ongoing pattern of targeting Indigenous peoples, shifting it into the realm of imagery and narrative using a nostalgic blend of frontier myth and mid-century Americana to normalize subjugation and erase accountability. When that narrative takes root, it becomes easier to dismiss harm, ignore injustice, and discredit those who speak against it. This same narrative machinery is at work to shape how people in the U.S. understand Thanksgiving.

For many households, the holiday is a time to gather with loved ones, share a meal, watch football, and express gratitude. Many Native people celebrate in these ways too, because feasting is Indigenous, and we also enjoy good food and football. Yet the holiday carries a heavier weight for our communities. It marks the beginning of a violent era of colonization set in motion when European settlers arrived on these lands.

For generations, Thanksgiving has been offered as a simple tale of peace between settlers and Native peoples, a comforting story that reassures the country of its own goodness. This “friendly” version of Thanksgiving serves the broader strategies of historical revisionism used to justify settler colonialism by distorting, minimizing, or erasing the violence, exploitation, and resistance at the heart of this nation’s formation. These myths reinforce settler identity and national pride, encouraging people to avoid uncomfortable truths and discouraging any critical engagement with our shared, complicated history.

Even so, Native communities have never stopped pushing back against the sanitized Thanksgiving narrative.

In Plymouth, the National Day of Mourning has gathered hundreds of participants each year since 1970 to confront the Thanksgiving myth at its origin point. On Alcatraz Island, the Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering honors resistance, survival, and sovereignty. Across Native nations, youth-led teach-ins, community fasts, and cultural events counter the national narrative with history, presence, and truth.

These gatherings do more than disrupt the myth. They expose the fragility of American exceptionalism and the power of Indigenous memory, survival, and resistance.


The struggle over history, from Wounded Knee to Thanksgiving to ICE detentions, is not a debate about the past. It is a struggle over who defines America and whose humanity matters.

The struggle over history, from Wounded Knee to Thanksgiving to ICE detentions, is not a debate about the past. It is a struggle over who defines America and whose humanity matters. A nation that cannot face its own history cannot repair its present. A country that denies genocide cannot claim justice. A society that clings to myth will repeat the violence it refuses to see.

Telling the truth about the United States, the beauty and the brutality, the promises kept and the promises broken, is not destroying the country. Insisting on telling the truth asserts that we are capable of more than myth and refuse to accept a future shaped by denial, distortion, and the quiet normalization of authoritarianism. Honesty is the path that lets us reconcile with our complicated histories, repair the harm that continues, and choose a different way forward.

When we confront our history with honesty instead of lies, we create the possibility of a country where life, liberty, and justice are not privileges for the few but shared, inalienable rights for all. That is the measure of a nation brave enough to face itself. That is the only way the United States can ever live up to its own reputation as the land of the free, not as a slogan, but as a lived reality.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Johnnie Jae

Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw) is a writer, speaker, and founder of Red POP! News and the late A Tribe Called Geek. Known for her journalism, mental health advocacy, and digital activism, she is dedicated to amplifying Native voices through storytelling, media, and art. You can find her in the Bluesky and Instagram.

“A House of Dynamite,” the “Failsafe” Film for 2025

Judith L. Hand

November 24, 2025

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My interest in conflict and war goes back decades. In 1961, the film Failsafe starring Henry Fonda as the U.S. president presented a dire warning about the nuclear arms race taking off. It revealed our vulnerability: human error, miscommunication, and technological failure. The tragic ending was shocking. Film director Kathryn Bigelow’s new A House of Dynamite is equally gripping, demonstrating to viewers the reality of our modern world, our closeness to global destruction. Failsafe was alarming. House of Dynamite is foreshadowing.

In 1961, I was at UCLA earning a doctoral degree in evolutionary biology and studying animal behavior, including humans. My early interests included conflict resolution and gender differences. Decades later, after a period of writing fiction and promoting one of my novels, I was drawn back to the topic of war. Voice of the Goddess, a Bronze-age epic, told of a non-violent, non-warring, goddess-worshipping culture on the island of Crete and a warrior hero from the nearby mainland Mycenaean culture. To promote the book, I gave a talk entitled, “If women ran the world there would be no war.”

During the talk, a woman in the audience challenged my book’s core message. She cited the work On Aggression by my academic forefather, Konrad Lorenz, arguing that aggression is an unchangeable part of human nature. With limited speaking time, I couldn’t explain why Dr. Lorenz was only partly right, particularly when it comes to the relationship of women to war.

But the question did rattle my certainty that if women ran the world, war wouldn’t exist. I subsequently launched into two and a half decades of research to answer the questions: when did we start making war, why do humans make war, and could we stop? In my research, I determined that men have not been and will not be able to end war without significant shared leadership with women. The number of women who were able to break into powerful decision-making spaces was, to my knowledge, so few in 2015 that I felt the problem wouldn’t be remedied in my lifetime. In 2018, I wrote my last book on the subject – War and Sex and Human Destiny. It felt like a farewell to the subject.

Time moved on, and I went back to writing fiction. But six years later, Mika Brzezinski, a TV host on Morning Joe, announced that Forbes magazine would soon host another meeting in Abu Dhabi of 500 powerful women from around the world. Women from Forbes’s annual 50 Over 50 and 30 Under 30 lists would gather to address the world’s challenges. I caught my breath! A sufficient empowerment of women had happened without my noticing. This change in women’s status, along with advancements in technology and communication since the 1960s meant that ending international wars had become a genuine possibility.

So how does that relate to A House of Dynamite? The global community has built a house and stored explosives within it: landmines, Semtex, C-4, atomic and other bombs, and yes, dynamite. And we are choosing to live in that house. Democracies around the world appear to be losing their grip. Nuclear-armed nations are spending to refurbish and upgrade nuclear arsenals. The president of Russia, after invading Ukraine, on several occasions has brandished his nuclear saber. Non-nuclear nations like Iran are feeling the urgent need to acquire their own Weapons of Mass Destruction (WAMDs). All this to say, an enforceable international peace treaty is urgently needed. The good news is that in this century we have the knowledge and the means to fashion one.

In 2024, I, with several close friends, laid the foundation for a campaign to make enduring international peace a reality, Project Enduring Peace (PEP). Drawing on my research, we have developed a petition that outlines the means to secure a lasting treaty, based on historical examples from the Iroquois Confederacy to the European Union. If the global community successfully blocks wars between nations, none need fear attack by another. Disputes would be resolved by negotiations or other means. Eventually, nuclear arsenals would be perceived as dangerous and expensive burdens. Nations would become secure enough to abandon them, allocating the saved resources elsewhere.

A House of Dynamite makes the case that we need to act before it is too late. PEP is offering a perspective that anyone can support by signing the Project Enduring Peace Petition urging the United Nations to make haste to begin peace treaty negotiations. It’s our choice: we can continue to risk living in our existentially dangerous house or rise up, escape the treadmill of international warfare, and leave behind an enduring legacy of global peace.

Dr. Judith L. Hand is an evolutionary biologist and author whose work centers on the biological roots of human conflict and the pathways to a warless future. She is also the Co-Founder of Project Enduring Peace, a non-profit committed to educating the public about peace systems and ending all inter-state wars through a global peace treaty.

H: Kathryn Bigelow’s Empire of Fear

Hamza Shehryar

November 21, 2025

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Still from A House of Dynamite.

Kathryn Bigelow is back, and not much has changed. Eight years since her last feature film, the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for her unwavering depiction of the trauma of the occupier, the American filmmaker has made yet another war film – one that, like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is seeped in the language of responsibility, yet, like those movies, remains problematic at its core.

A House of Dynamite arrives dressed as an anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons story. It claims to confront the horror of nuclear weapons with clear-eyed realism – to show, without melodrama, the suddenness with which the world could unravel. But peel back the surface and the film reveals something far darker: a work of imperial fantasy, a fever dream – wholly detached from any semblance of political reality – in which the United States imagines itself as the victim of the bomb it invented.

The film’s plot is absurd. It imagines a nuclear strike on the US – a missile bound for Chicago, which will wipe out the city and kill ten million people in the blink of an eye. It’s a fantasy that might have made sense in the 1960s, at the height of Cold War paranoia after the October Crisis (Cuban Missile Crisis). In 2025, however, it borders on delusion. No nation on Earth could, or would, launch a nuclear attack on the US. In fact, the only country ever to have used atomic weapons against civilians is the US itself – and not once, but twice. Yet Bigelow asks us to imagine – in 2025, no less – that the empire which annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki now trembles beneath its own mushroom cloud.

This inversion is not new to the veteran filmmaker. Bigelow has always filmed the machinery of empire with reverence. In Zero Dark Thirty, torture is procedural, and the lives of Pakistani civilians are afterthoughts – objects in the way of the US manhunt for Bin Laden; collateral ultimately rationalised by the ends. In The Hurt Locker, war is stripped of history and turned into a soldier’s addiction. A House of Dynamite continues the same project but with a slightly different disguise. Gone are the overt symbols of triumphalism or battlefields; in their place, a solemn tragedy. The film mourns American fragility so earnestly that the terror of annihilation becomes one more opportunity for self-mythology.

It follows officials, generals, and analysts struggling to save the homeland, all from different perspectives, which ultimately collapse into the same one anyway. Even as these people repeatedly make comments about how this could spell the deaths of hundreds of millions around the world, the US is all we see. Beyond a token exchange with Russia’s foreign minister, the rest of the world ceases to exist for the duration of the film’s almost two-hour runtime. No one asks what would happen to Pyongyang, Tehran, or Beijing if a nuclear war began; the only catastrophe worth filming is American. The empire’s imagination, it turns out, cannot stretch beyond its own borders. Even at the end of the world, the camera never leaves Washington.

This claustrophobic gaze serves a purpose. By erasing everyone else from the frame, the film plays on the fears baked into American exceptionalism. And so, the dread of sudden obliteration it imagines is less an argument against nuclear weapons and more for endless defence spending. Early in the story, a $50 billion missile-interception system is introduced. It has a 61 per cent chance of success, according to the film. “A coin toss,” as the viewer is constantly told. When it fails, the not-so-subtle implication is this: even as millions of Americans struggle to live paycheck to paycheck, without access to healthcare, the billions going towards the war machine are necessary because what if, one day, an adversary decides to nuke us on a whim?

This logic comes at a time when militarism, in the eyes of the US public, is waning. The US military faces plummeting recruitment, record scepticism, and rising outrage over its global conduct – at the core of which lies its facilitation of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. Within this climate, A House of Dynamite functions as a cultural triage designed to resuscitate faith in the institution by reminding Americans of their supposed vulnerability. Want to protect your family from the next imaginary nuke? Well, you’d better keep funding the war machine that is currently incinerating fishermen in the Caribbean.

Part of what makes the film so insidious is how convincingly it moves. Bigelow’s realism – her eye for detail and her fluency in military ritual – is well regarded. This gives every frame in A House of Dynamite a sheen of authenticity, especially for those unfamiliar with the politics of empire. It is also why Bigelow has long enjoyed privileged access to the security state. The procedural accuracy of Zero Dark Thirty, for example, famously benefited from CIA cooperation. “We really do have a sense that this is going to be the movie on the UBL [Bin Laden] operation – and we all want the CIA to be as well-represented in it as possible,” stated an internal email sent from the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs in June 2011, about that movie. This is how modern propaganda works, not through flag-waving, but through immersion. The more “authentic” it feels, the less you question the fantasy. It is why Zero Dark Thirty retains credibility and reverence among the liberal elite and American critics, and Red Dawn doesn’t.

When A House of Dynamite reaches its climax, the unnamed POTUS (Idris Elba) must decide how to retaliate after the $50-billion coin-toss fails. An adviser mutters to the president about “bad guys” – the script’s actual term, believe it or not – for the possible culprits. The president hesitates, reluctant to start a nuclear holocaust yet seemingly forced to defend the US. Bigelow stages the moment as tragedy, but the politics are obscene. The implication is that even the contemplation of mass murder is a uniquely American burden. There is no anti-war message here, only the self-flattering belief that US violence, even nuclear annihilation, would be reluctant, and therefore righteous.

By the time the film reaches its conclusion, A House of Dynamite has achieved something almost admirable in its cynicism. It transforms a fantasy of impossible destruction into moral theatre. It asks us to sympathise with the empire’s fear while ignoring the empire’s victims. This is propaganda for an age of liberal despair. The danger is never what America does. The danger is what might happen to America.

For all its talk of “the human cost”, A House of Dynamite never imagines a human outside the frame of the US flag. And to put this movie out now – while Gaza starves under American bombs, while arms manufacturers post record profits – is to see how seamlessly culture serves capital. The mushroom cloud over Chicago is fiction; the bombs over Fallujah and Rafah are not.

Hamza Shehryar is a writer and journalist. He covers film, culture, and global politics.

The UN Has Voted to Put the Occupation of Iraq in Charge of Gaza

by David Swanson / November 19th, 2025

Ah, those were the days. The UN had been blocked by a worldwide popular movement from approving of a war on Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had dragged the UK along after secretly demanding that George W. Bush first attack Afghanistan, because Blair believed he would be better able to sell a war on Iraq once there was a war on Afghanistan. And once the destruction of Iraq was well underway, the UN crept out of some New York sewer pipe to support the occupation, er, excuse me, the peaceful transition to paradise.

Blair once had a meeting with Bush in which Bush schemed up plans to get a war in Iraq started, such as painting an airplane with “UN” on it, flying it low, and hoping to get it shot at. Then Bush and Blair wandered out to a press conference at which they swore they were doing everything possible to avoid a war. To my knowledge, neither the UN nor any “journalist” in the room that day has, since the exposure of the pre-press-conference conversation, publicly expressed the slightest concern.

Fun fact: no war has ever been launched by people doing everything possible to avoid it.

Bonus fun fact: no modern war has ever been launched by people not claiming they were doing everything possible to avoid it.

The United Nations has now voted — the “Security” Council that is (with Russia and China abstaining, as if they have some other planet to live on) — for an Orwellian “Peace Board” concocted by Donald Trump, to be run by Tony Blair, to oversee a military occupation of what’s left of Gaza.

If there were ever a moment for the nations of the world to save themselves, to step forward and override the Security Council through the General Assembly with a “Uniting for Peace” measure (such as this) this is it!

Sadly, some opponents of genocide raised in a culture unable to imagine solving certain problems without a military have convinced millions of people that any “Uniting for Peace” action must involve a military force. The Security Council has now provided the military force under Viceroy Blair. The General Assembly would now have to not only take bold action it has refused to take for years, but also reverse the action taken by the Security Council in the name of “peace,” and bar the use of a military labeled “peacekeepers” in favor of nonmilitary solutions beyond the imagination of millions of people. This is what one might call a big ask.

The alternative is the normalization of not just genocide but also colonialism. By this precedent, which country will elder statesman Benjamin Netanyahu oversee the Peaceplundering of in some future decade?

If that course is unacceptable, and the United Nations is thoroughly useless, and giving up is not an option, what should we do?

The fact that not everyone immediately knows the obvious answer to that question is the fundamental educational dilemma of our time.

We should of course multiply our nonviolent activism 1,000 fold. We should send daily flotillas. We should block the doors to all government buildings and the path of all weapons shipments. We should general-strike every country with a genocide-supporting government. Why should Italians have all the fun? We should not allow a moment’s tranquility to any war profiteer or to any elected official not actively working to

1. Arrest Israeli or any other officials facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court.
2. Prosecute Israeli criminals under universal jurisdiction.
3. Establish a complete embargo on weapons or weapons parts to or from Israel and to or from any nation not upholding such an arms embargo on Israel.
4. End diplomatic relations with Israel.
5. End financial transactions, trade, and travel to and from Israel.
6. Train and send unarmed civilian defense teams, food, medicine, doctors, and aid workers to Palestine.
7. Develop a major public educational campaign about the genocide in Gaza and the propaganda that has facilitated it.
8. Halt membership or support for weapons-dealing institutions that do not uphold an arms embargo on Israel: the Abraham Accords, NATO, etc.
9. Prevent any support or participation in the War Board Occupation of Gaza.

How can we find the resources to do all that and also take on the devastating and omnicidally risky wars in Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere — with more coming in Venezuela, etc.?

The answer to that is much easier and simpler, and yet even more elusive for even more people. The answer is to stop distinguishing good from bad mass slaughters, to drop the idea of a theoretical good one, and to work for the immediate reduction and abolition of all militarism. Here’s the to-do list:

1. Make governments reduce military spending to zero.

• First published at World BEYOND War.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and War Is a Crime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook. Read other articles by David.

Gaza resolution

Editorial 

Published November 19, 2025

DAWN


THOUGH the UN Security Council has passed a US-drafted resolution that basically endorses President Donald Trump’s ‘peace plan’ for Gaza, the document’s ambiguities, and Palestinian objections to many of its stated aims, means that it is unlikely to bring long-term peace to the occupied territories. Moreover, those countries — including Pakistan — that are considering contributing troops to the international stabilisation force that the Trumpian scheme envisages, must be clear on its mandate. While the UNSC has approved it, it is very much an American plan.

For example, the ISF will not act as a UN peacekeeping force; it will work in ‘consultation’ with Israel and Egypt. Moreover, the language about a path to Palestinian statehood is ambiguous. On the other hand, the Israeli prime minister has reaffirmed his commitment to blocking a Palestinian state. The framers of this resolution, and the supporters of this plan, must be asked how they expect to reconcile these divergent positions. China and Russia abstained while Pakistan supported the US resolution. Hamas, meanwhile, has been critical of the resolution, while questioning the ISF’s neutrality.

The resolution calls for the ISF to demilitarise Gaza, while the US ambassador to the UN has said the ISF will “support a region free from Hamas’ grip”. These statements clearly indicate that foreign troops will be deployed in Gaza to engage and disarm Hamas. Pakistan, and other Muslim states that are reportedly considering troops for the mission, must therefore be clear about what is expected of them. Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN has said that disarmament should be carried out “through a negotiated political process”, while also observing that further clarity was needed about all aspects of the plan.

Without this clarity, and without debate in parliament, Pakistan should not commit troops. We must not partake in an Israeli-American exercise to disarm Palestinian resistance movements and help perpetuate the occupation. However, if the stated purpose of the ISF is to facilitate Gaza’s reconstruction and rehabilitation, and most importantly, to protect Palestinians from Israel’s savage assaults, which continue despite the ‘ceasefire’, then the contribution of troops can be considered.

It would have been much better for the UN to have taken the lead in this peacekeeping mission, instead of simply endorsing the American plan. While it is hoped that Gaza’s long nightmare is over, and the Palestinians in general can restart their journey towards a sovereign state, we must not hold our breath. The main reason for pessimism is Israel’s lack of commitment to peace, and its historical disregard for Palestinian lives. We should know quite soon whether the effort is genuine, or the plan just endorsed by the UN is another smokescreen that will strengthen the occupation, this time with international sanction, and Arab and Muslim buy-in.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025

Sheer Wickedness: Genocide in Gaza is Enabled by “Global Complicity,” Says UN

Powerful 'Third States' have helped US-Israel destroy the Palestinians and their homeland

by Stuart Littlewood / November 19th, 2025

A new report, ‘Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’ by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and her team in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 5/1, concludes that “the ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States” and is “facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation”.

It is not an opinion piece but a carefully researched, factual work. And it paints a sad picture of the depth of depravity to which ‘civilisation’ has sunk. The UN should have presented this information as soon as the truth was known and when it might have concentrated global minds in good time.

Better late than never, the report pulls no punches and tells the international community what they should already know about lawfully resolving the long-running Israel problem and restoring to the Palestinians their homeland and rights to self-determination. Now there is no excuse for ignorance in the corridors of power.

The report is a long-ish read, but worth it. Most of the key points are lifted from it and listed here.

• On 9 October 2023, immediately after Israel announced a tightened siege on Gaza, key Western leaders expressed support for the “self-defence” of Israel – unwarranted under article 51 of the UN Charter. President Biden repeatedly cited unsubstantiated reports of “beheaded babies”. British opposition Leader Keir Starmer defended Israel’s right to cut off water and power to civilians.

• By 20 October 2023 international law experts, genocide scholars and human rights organizations had warned of impending genocide. On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice confirmed the serious risk of genocide in Gaza, giving rise to States’ obligations to prevent it and to punish incitement, commission or complicity.

• Post-October 2023, the United States used its veto in the UN Security Council seven times, controlling ceasefire negotiations and providing diplomatic cover for the Israeli genocide. The US was not acting alone. Abstentions, delays, and watered-down draft resolutions reinforced the diplomatic protection and political narrative Israel needed to continue the genocide. The United Kingdom maintained alignment with the US position until November 2024.

• By May 2024 the ICC Prosecutor had sought arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, and Third States had “actual or constructive knowledge” of the ongoing international crimes they had failed to prevent, triggering a heightened responsibility on their part to act.

• In July 2024 the ICJ determined the illegality of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and its obligation to withdraw totally, unconditionally and as rapidly as possible. The UN General Assembly subsequently declared that the occupation must be dismantled by 18 September 2025. Israel has failed to do so.

• On 16 September 2025, the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, reaffirming the obligations of all States to prevent genocide, to cease committing and/or aiding and assisting genocide, and to punish those perpetrating and/or inciting genocide.

• The ICJ’s ground-breaking ruling on the illegality of the occupation has yet to bring change. On 18 September 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution ES-10/24, reaffirming the binding nature of the Court’s legal obligations and formulating a roadmap to end the occupation by 17 September 2025 through diplomatic, economic and legal measures which States have yet to implement.

• More States have declared recognition of the State of Palestine since October 2023, but with restrictive conditions (e.g., concerning governance, territorial integrity, political independence and demilitarization) that are incompatible with the very essence of self-determination and out of line with international law.

• Since October 2023 only Belize, Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua have suspended diplomatic relations with Israel, and only Bahrain, Chad, Chile, Honduras, Jordan, Türkiye and South Africa have downgraded their relations with Israel.

• Prolonged political and diplomatic support by influential Third States enabled Israel to initiate and sustain its assault on the Palestinian people. In the past two years their complicity has muted the urgent calls for action and obscured the web of political, financial and military interests at play. The longstanding failure to address flagrant violations of international law by Israel – threatening international peace and security – has normalized and deepened relations with it, entrenching oppression, domination and erasure.

• Many States have sought to undermine the ICJ’s arrest warrants, and at least 37 were non-committal or critical, signalling intent to evade arrest obligations. The United States imposed sanctions to paralyse the Court; the United Kingdom threatened its funding, while Prime Minister Netanyahu travelled freely across European airspace.

• On the other hand the Hague Group initiative, which includes Colombia, South Africa and 13 other States, have committed to enforce six concrete measures against Israel. 21 other States joined the third meeting of the Group in New York on the fringe of the 80th Session of the General Assembly. But despite their efforts Israel still holds its UN credentials.

• On 30 September 2025, many States, including Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the UAE, endorsed the “Trump Plan” despite its failure to even mention ending the occupation, ensuring accountability and providing transitional justice; and despite its imposition of imperial foreign governance for Gaza which, even if temporary, further undermines Palestinian self-determination.

• The United States has financially and militarily supported Israel since its creation. The 60-year strategic partnership has been underpinned by a legislated commitment to ensure Israel always has a “Qualitative Military Edge” over its neighbours, US military cooperation, a steady supply of military and economic aid and preferential access to US military sales. $3.3 billion/year in military financing plus $500 million/year for missile defence are guaranteed until 2028.

• US support to Israel has escalated since 7 October 2023. The Biden Administration announced it would request an additional $14.3 billion for Israel and in April 2024 this passed Congress as a $26.4 billion package. Israel was later exempted from the Trump Administration freeze on military aid.

• The UK has also played a key role in military collaboration with Israel. From its bases in Cyprus, the UK has enabled a crucial US supply line to Tel Aviv and flown over 600 surveillance missions over Gaza throughout the genocide, sharing intelligence with Israel. Flight numbers and durations, often coinciding with major Israeli operations, suggest detailed knowledge and co-operation in the destruction of Gaza, extending beyond “hostage rescue”. Furthermore, Israeli soldiers are trained at the UK Royal College of Defence Studies.

• In addition, thousands of citizens from the United States, Russia, France, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, among others, have served in the Israeli military since October 2023. Few have been investigated, and none prosecuted for crimes in Gaza.

• States frequently deploy two arguments to justify arms trade with Israel: such arms are said to be either “defensive” or “non-lethal”. The Arms Trade Treaty does not recognize either distinction, but requires a holistic assessment of how all arms, parts and components will ultimately be used. Given that the occupation of Palestinian territory is an ongoing unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter, nothing Israel does there can be understood as “defensive”.

• Israel profits from the decades-long occupation – and now genocide – by expanding its range of weaponry and surveillance systems ‘battle tested’ on the captive Gaza population. The value of its arms exports increased by 18 percent during the genocide.

• Attempts by civil society aid groups to break the siege by sea have been unlawfully intercepted by Israel in international waters – amid silence and inaction by Third States.

• No trade or economic agreement signed with Israel since 1967 has been suspended – States having largely avoided their legal obligations. Other countries have increased their trade with Israel during the genocide, including Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy, Denmark, France and Serbia, as well as Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.

• The EU–Israel Association Agreement makes human rights and democratic principles an “essential elements clause”. However, these principles remain unfulfilled, the EU being determined to preserve business-as-usual despite evidence of Israeli violations of the terms of the agreement. The proposal of the European Commission to cancel core trade preferences on 37 percent of Israeli exports to the EU still awaits approval.

• Energy trade has often been subject to embargoes aimed at bringing countries in line with their international legal obligations. In the case of Israel, only Colombia, which banned coal exports to Israel in 2024, has acted. The European Union and Egypt have continued to import gas from Israel through the Eastern Mediterranean Gas pipeline, which illegally passes through the sea adjacent to the Gaza Strip, violating Palestinian sovereign rights. In August 2025 Egypt expanded its partnership with Israel through a $35 billion natural gas deal.

• Ports known to have facilitated the trans-shipment to Israel of F-35 parts, weapons, jet fuel, oil and/or other materials include Türkiye, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Greece, Morocco and the US. Airfields in Ireland, Belgium and the United States also support transfers. Many ports facilitate Israeli gas exports, including via the EMG Pipeline to Egypt.

• So it is clear that the genocide in Gaza was not committed in isolation, but as part of a system of global complicity. Rather than ensuring that Israel respects the basic human rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people, powerful Third States have allowed violent practices to become an everyday reality and continue to provide Israel with military, diplomatic, economic and ideological support. The horrors of the past two years are not an aberration, but the culmination of a long history of complicity.

• Their disregard for international law undermines the foundations of the multilateral order painstakingly built over eight decades. Justice must involve accountability and reparations: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, by Israel and by the Third States that have supported its crimes. The power structures that enabled these crimes must be dismantled.

• Third States’ acts, omissions and discourse in support of a genocidal apartheid State are such that they could and should be held liable for aiding, assisting or jointly participating in internationally wrongful acts.

Recommendations

At this critical juncture, it is imperative that Third States immediately suspend and review all military, diplomatic and economic relations with Israel. The report insists that States step up to their responsibilities. No State can credibly claim adherence to international law while arming, supporting or shielding a genocidal regime. All military and political support must be suspended; diplomacy should serve to prevent crimes rather than to justify them. Complicity in genocide must end.

The Special Rapporteur, in her recommendations, urges States to:

(a) Exert pressure for a complete and permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops;

(b) Take immediate steps to end the siege on Gaza, including deploying naval and land convoys to ensure safe humanitarian access and mobile housing before winter;

(c) Support the re-opening of Gaza’s international airport and sea-port to facilitate aid delivery.

States must recognize Palestinian self-determination and justice as essential to lasting peace and security, and therefore:

(a) Suspend all military, trade and diplomatic relations with Israel;

(b) Investigate and prosecute all officials, corporates and individuals involved in or facilitating genocide, incitement, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other grave breaches of international humanitarian law;

(c) Secure reparations, including full reconstruction and return;

(d) Co-operate fully with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ);

(e) Reaffirm and strengthen support to UNRWA and the UN system as a whole;

(f) Suspend Israel from the United Nations under Article 6 of the UN Charter;

(g) Act under “Uniting for Peace”, in line with General Assembly resolution 377(V), to ensure that Israel dismantles its occupation.

To this I would add suspending the United States – or at least showing America the red card – and relocating UN headquarters away from US territory.

And any resolution brought to the Security Council for a mandate to resolve the Gaza+West Bank situation must, of course, conform strictly to international law. There is no sign of that so far, nor will there be, I think, as long as the international community allows the US to seize and keep “transitional authority”. The big unanswered question is, what gives Trump of all people the right to assume leadership in engineering peace and reconstruction?

Yet Trump’s plan, as per Resolution 2803, is accepted by the Security Council 

So, what are we to make of the UN Security Council’s adoption of Trump’s ‘peace’ plan in the light of the UNHRC’s report on Third States’ complicity?

The Council welcomes the scheme announced by Trump on 29 September. The first phase established a fragile ceasefire, the release of hostages and detainees, a partial withdrawal of Israel Defence Forces and increased humanitarian aid. But there is no peace. And no real ceasefire. And humanitarian aid is still cruelly withheld.

The second phase calls for Hamas to disarm, further Israel Defence Forces withdrawal, the deployment of the Israel Security Forces and the creation of an interim technocratic government under a ‘Board of Peace’ before eventual Palestinian Authority control. The plan predicts a 20,000-troop enforcement mission next year.

The Board of Peace (BoP) is to be established “as a transitional administration” in Gaza that will coordinate reconstruction efforts and the resolution authorizes the BoP to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza “to deploy under unified command acceptable to the BoP”. Countries will contribute personnel to the force “in close consultation and cooperation” with Egypt and Israel.

The Security Council has five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. They are currently Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia. The resolution was adopted by 13 votes with Russia and China abstaining.

Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama stressed that genuine peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved “without justice for the Palestinian people who have waited for decades for the establishment of their independent State.”

According to Reuters the UN ambassadors of Russia and China complained that the resolution does not give the UN a clear role in the future of Gaza. Russia’s Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said the Council was in essence “giving its blessing to a US initiative on the basis of Washington’s promises,” and “giving complete control over the Gaza Strip to the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force (ISF), the modalities of which we know nothing about so far”.

China’s UN Envoy Fu Cong also said after the vote that the draft resolution is “vague on many crucial issues” including the scope and structure of the ISF. And China’s Foreign Ministry said that the US-drafted resolution did not fully demonstrate Palestinian governance and the two-state solution. “There is ambiguity in the key issue of post-war arrangement of Gaza in the US resolution, and important principles of the Palestinians governing Palestine and the two-state solution have not been fully demonstrated. This is different from China’s consistent position. That’s why China didn’t vote for it.” Beijing supports the UN Security Council on “doing what is necessary to promote a ceasefire, de-escalating the humanitarian crisis, and restarting reconstruction. China will continue to take constructive measures and be responsible, and support Palestinian people in the just cause of resuming their legitimate rights.”

The Palestinian Authority issued a statement welcoming the resolution, and said it is ready to take part in its implementation. Diplomats said the Authority’s endorsement of the resolution last week was key to preventing a Russian veto.

Hamas repeated that they will not disarm and argued that their fight against Israel is legitimate resistance, potentially pitting themselves against the international force authorized by the resolution. “The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject.”

Trump celebrated the vote as “a moment of true historic proportion” in a social media post. “The members of the Board, and many more exciting announcements, will be made in the coming weeks.”

Netanyahu said that Israel remained opposed to a Palestinian state and pledged to demilitarize Gaza “the easy way or the hard way.”

The UK Government, in a press release, said it voted for the resolution because it is “a critical means of implementing the Peace Plan for Palestinians, Israelis, and the region – turning the page on two devastating years of conflict, towards a lasting peace”. Charge D’Affairs in New York, James Kariuki, explained that the UK will continue working to build on this momentum so an International Stabilisation Force can be deployed quickly, support the ceasefire and avoid a vacuum being left which Hamas can exploit. He reiterated the importance of implementing the transitional arrangements set out in the resolution in accordance with international law, with respect to Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination, strengthened unity of Gaza and the West Bank, and empowered Palestinian institutions which enable a reformed Palestinian Authority to resume governance in Gaza.

But adherence to international law in all this is sadly lacking so far. Third States’ complicity is still hard at work. When, if ever, will we see a UN-generated peace plan rather than a vanity project proposed by, and personally led by an avid enabler of the genocide who refuses to recognise Palestinian statehood?

A Russian counter-proposal was rumoured to be circulating… what happened to that?

Stuart Littlewood, after working on jet fighters in the RAF, became an industrial marketing specialist. He served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and a member of the Police Authority, produced two photo-documentary books including Radio Free Palestine (with foreword by Jeff Halper), and has contributed to online news and opinion publications over many years. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Trump’s Ploy at the UN Is American Imperialism Masquerading as a Peace Process

Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli maneuvers. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond.

by Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares | Nov 18, 2025 | 

The Trump administration is pushing an Israeli-crafted resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) this week aimed at eliminating the possibility of a State of Palestine. The resolution does three things. It establishes US political control over Gaza. It separates Gaza from the rest of Palestine. And it allows the US, and therefore Israel, to determine the timeline for Israel’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza – which would mean: never.

This is imperialism masquerading as a peace process. In and of itself it’s no surprise. Israel runs US foreign policy in the Middle East. What is a surprise is that the US and Israel might just get away with this travesty unless the world speaks up with urgency and indignation.

The draft UNSC resolution would establish a US-UK-dominated Board of Peace, chaired by none other than Donald Trump himself, and endowed with sweeping powers over Gaza’s governance, borders, reconstruction, and security. This resolution would sideline the State of Palestine and condition any transfer of authority to the Palestinians on the indulgence of the Board of Peace.

This would be an overt return to the British Mandate of 100 years ago, with the only change being that the US would hold the mandate rather than Britain. If it weren’t so utterly tragic, it would be laughable. As Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Yes, the proposal is farce, yet Israel’s genocide is not. It is tragedy of the first order.

Incredibly, according to the draft resolution, the Board of Peace would be granted sovereign powers in Gaza. Palestinian sovereignty is left to the discretion of the Board, which alone would decide when Palestinians are “ready” to govern themselves – perhaps in another 100 years? Even military security is subordinated to the Board, and the envisioned forces would answer not to the UN Security Council or to the Palestinian people, but to the Board’s “strategic guidance.”

The US-Israel resolution is being put forward precisely because the rest of the world – other than Israel and the US – has woken up to two facts. First, Israel is committing genocide, a reality witnessed every day in Gaza and the West Bank, where innocent Palestinians are murdered to the satisfaction of the Israel Defense Forces and the illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Second, Palestine is a state, albeit one whose sovereignty remains obstructed by the US, which uses its veto in the UNSC to block Palestine’s permanent UN membership. At the UN this past July and then again in September, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for Palestine’s statehood, a fact that put the Israel-US Zionist lobby into overdrive, resulting in the current draft resolution.

For Israel to accomplish its goal of Greater Israel, the US is pursuing a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, squeezing Arab and Islamic states with threats and inducements. When other countries resist the US-Israel demands, they are cut off from critical technologies, lose access to World Bank and IMF financing, and suffer Israeli bombing, even in countries with US military bases present. The US offers no real protection; rather, it orchestrates a protection racket, extracting concessions from countries wherever US leverage exists. This extortion will continue until the global community stands up to such tactics and insists upon genuine Palestinian sovereignty and US and Israeli adherence to international law.

Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli maneuvers. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond. Israel and the US are currently at war, overtly or covertly, across the Horn of Africa (Libya, Sudan, Somalia), the Eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Syria), the Gulf region (Yemen), and Western Asia (Iraq, Iran).

If the UN Security Council is to provide true security in accordance with the UN Charter, it must not yield to US pressures and instead act decisively in line with international law. A resolution truly for peace should include four vital points. First, it should welcome the State of Palestine as a sovereign UN member state, with the US lifting its veto. Second, it should safeguard the territorial integrity of the State of Palestine and Israel, according to the 1967 borders. Third, it should establish a UNSC-mandated protection force drawn up from Muslim-majority states. Fourth, it should include the defunding and disarmament of all belligerent non-state entities, and it should ensure the mutual security of Israel and Palestine.

The two-state solution is about true peace – not about the politicide and genocide of Palestine, or the continued attacks by militants on Israel. It’s time for both Palestinians and Israelis to be safe, and for the US and Israel to give up the cruel delusion of permanently ruling over the Palestinian people.

Reprinted from Common Dreams.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2020). Other books include: Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable (2017), and The Age of Sustainable Development, (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN.