Human Rights Group Urges Congress to Block ‘Illegal’ Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel

“A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

Crew members with the 28th Munitions Squadron warehouse 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs inside a hardened structure at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota on April 21, 2010.
(Photo by Airman 1st Class Corey Hook/United States Air Force)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A human rights organization called on members of Congress to block the Trump administration’s proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, warning that approving the massive weapons package could violate US law and expose lawmakers to potential liability for complicity in war crimes.

In a letter to congressional lawmakers, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) urged legislators to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) once the administration formally notifies Congress of the sale.

“Forty thousand of the bombs that flattened Gaza is not a defense package, it is a down payment on the next round of atrocities,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. “Every member of Congress now has the law and the evidence in front of them. A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

The proposed package includes 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, along with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, according to reporting by The Washington Post. The weapons would be purchased largely through Foreign Military Financing, meaning US taxpayers would pay for Israel’s acquisition of the munitions.

The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.

“Munitions experts [said] that US forces almost never drop bombs of this size in populated areas,” DAWN wrote in its letter. “Israel has used them hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon. The Biden administration paused a shipment of these bombs in May 2024 precisely because of the risk of mass casualties in Rafah; President [Donald] Trump released it within days of taking office.”

Loosened rules of engagement implemented by the Israel Defense Forces following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, combined with the IDF’s use of artificial intelligence technology to select targets far more rapidly than humans, resulted in a staggering loss of civilian life in Gaza when 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs were dropped.

“Israel’s assault has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, and the killing has not stopped,” DAWN said on Friday, adding that the United Nations Children’s Fund “said last month that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire, an average of one child every day.”

DAWN argued that the proposed transfer would violate multiple US laws, including provisions of the AECA and Foreign Assistance Act governing how American weapons may be provided and prohibiting assistance to governments engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations. The organization also invoked the Leahy Laws, which prohibit certain assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights abuses.

The group further warned that knowingly providing weapons that are subsequently used to commit war crimes could also be “illegal” under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Israel and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty stipulates that people from nonsignatory nations who commit crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be held criminally accountable for their acts.

The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas leaders; all three were extrajudicially assassinated by Israel.

The proposed sale has already encountered some congressional resistance. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Wednesday that he would not clear the transfer, citing the absence of sufficient assurances that the weapons would be used consistently with US and international law and concerns about civilian protection in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also vowed to block the sale in the upper chamber.

However, DAWN cautioned that a congressional hold is not necessarily sufficient to stop the transfer. The organization noted that the Trump administration has previously invoked emergency authorities to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Under the AECA, Congress can attempt to block a major arms transfer through a joint resolution of disapproval. DAWN is urging lawmakers to bring such resolutions to recorded votes in both chambers and to hold public hearings examining the administration’s use of emergency authorities to circumvent congressional oversight.

“The administration is betting that Congress will do what it always does: complain, then look away,” DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar said on Friday. “Congress should show the administration that it’s no longer the rubber stamp it long has been on arms to Israel and block this sale.”

UK’s New Israel Sanctions Haven’t Actually Suspended Any Weapons Transfers

One anti-arms trade advocate said it showed the UK’s new policy toward Israel was “nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change.”


An Israeli Air Force F-35I Adir multirole fighter aircraft flies over the Negev Desert after taking off from a military base en route to the Gaza Strip on October 14, 2023.
(Photo by Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 24, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

Earlier this month, the UK government announced plans to cut off trade with Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank—including weapons shipments.

But according to new disclosures made to Parliament, reported Thursday by Declassified UK, the sanctions regime has not actually led to any weapons licenses being suspended or revoked, validating warnings by some critics that the new Labour government’s effort to cut ties with Israel’s occupation was only skin-deep.

Back in 2024, as Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza was raging, then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer had suspended 30 out of approximately 350 arms export licenses to the country.

According to the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has still approved at least £178 million ($235 million) worth of fixed-value military export licenses to Israel since October 2023—a figure that excludes exports authorized under open licenses, including much of Britain’s contribution to the F-35 program.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described the new restriction on arms export licenses as a “double lock against arms sales” to Israel under which the government would continue its existing suspensions and refuse applications for arms that “materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestine.

However, CAAT warned the following day that the policy, while welcome, “does not go far enough,” and included several loopholes—including one that allowed the UK to continue supplying F-35 fighter jet parts to an international pool used by the Israeli military and another allowing Israel to potentially use military equipment exported there for use by third countries.

Several prominent leftists in Parliament, including Your Party co-founders Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, as well as Green Party leader Zack Polanski, said that the trade bans should ultimately be just a first step on the way to a full arms embargo.

On September 16, the UK’s trade department acknowledged, following a question from MP Iqbal Mohamed, that “no additional licenses have been revoked or suspended since September 8,” according to Declassified.



The department explained that this was “largely because licenses for items that might materially contribute to the occupation have already been suspended because of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza conflict.”

Declassified called this into doubt, however:
The government insists that many of the extant licenses for Israel cover items that are for re-export to a third country or military-grade goods for civilian use such as body armor.

Yet fighter jet components are still being exported to global spares pools used by Israel, and UK-made trainer aircraft parts, which help to sustain the F-35 program, continue to flow directly to Tel Aviv.

When asked about trainer aircraft, the trade department told Parliament that such components “are not used in Gaza and… do not materially contribute to Israel’s illegal occupation.”

This is despite the Foreign Office previously acknowledging that Israel’s M-346 trainer aircraft are “used to train [Israeli Air Force] fast-jet pilots” and “facilitate the development of an offensive capacity.”

Dearbhla Minogue, a lawyer from Global Legal Action Network, which took the UK to court over arms exports to Israel in 2024, told the outlet that these revelations appear to indicate that there will be “no concrete consequences for Israel after this government recognized the likelihood of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and what it terms Israeli terrorism.”

“Successive governments have done everything in their power to continue aiding and abetting genocide and war crimes with deadly and devastating consequences,” said Sam Perlo-Freeman, CAAT’s research coordinator. “The new so-called ‘double-lock’ on arms exports to Israel exemplifies this.”

He added that it is “nothing more than a soundbite designed to appease voters, whilst failing to deliver meaningful policy change, and continuing to allow arms dealers to profit from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”



This news comes days after Prime Minister Andy Burnham also affirmed that the UK would provide military support—specifically “defensive” air-to-air refueling—to Saudi Arabia as it launches new strikes on Yemen’s Houthis.

A new CAAT report says the UK approved £464.8 million in military exports to Saudi Arabia in just the first quarter of 2026, with most of the value consisting of air-to-surface weapons.

The Saudi-led war against Yemen that lasted from 2015-22 killed an estimated 377,000 people from direct and indirect causes. During that time, CAAT found that the UK approved £7.1 billion ($9.4 billion) worth of military goods to Saudi Arabia.

‘Baseless Lies Meant to Sanitize His Genocide’: Mamdani Hits Back After Netanyahu’s Attacks During UN Speech

“No lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity,” New York City’s mayor said of the Israeli prime minister.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a pager as he speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York on September 24, 2026.
(Photo by Timothy Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hit back Thursday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the United Nations General Assembly podium to accuse him of supporting Hamas and making Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe—remarks that came after delegates from scores of countries walked out of the chamber to protest the far-right fugitive’s presence.

Refuting allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,500 children, since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023—Netanyahu said, “To all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the antisemitic mayor of New York City, I say this: Shame on you.”



“Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York,” the prime minister claimed. “It’s no wonder... You falsely and repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide. Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that’s exactly what Mr. Mamdani’s Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them. They would have killed every last one of us.”



Mamdani issued a statement later Thursday saying: “As he has done time and again, Prime Minister Netanyahu used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians. Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, where they are accused of murder and forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The ICC also issued arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, but Israel assassinated them.

While neither Israel nor the United States is a party to the Rome Statute governing the ICC, the treaty states that people from nonsignatory states who commit alleged crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be arrested in third countries and subsequently tried by the court.

Mamdani has said that Netanyahu should be arrested and brought before the Hague-based tribunal for trial, but that he lacks the legal authority to apprehend the prime minister in New York.

The International Court of Justice—also located in The Hague, Netherlands—is currently processing a genocide case filed against Israel by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The case is based on what the ICJ called the plausibility that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court has issued a series of provisional orders for Israel to adhere to the Genocide Convention—orders that critics say Israel has simply ignored.

Last year, an independent UN commission of inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a conclusion shared by the International Association of Genocide Scholars and other experts including many Israeli and diaspora Jewish academics, jurists, human rights campaigners, and others.

As Netanyahu prepared to deliver his UN speech Thursday, delegates from a reported 77 nations walked out of the chamber in protest.

“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall—please do so now,” the prime minister said. “Thank you very much.”



While some observers applauded the display of solidarity with Palestinians, others expressed disgust that Netanyahu was allowed to address the world body and that he has not yet been brought to justice.

“The head of the genocidal Israeli apartheid regime, a fugitive indicted for crimes against humanity, was allowed to enter the US and to address the UNGA today, without arrest,” said Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in protest of what he described as the world body’s failure to stop Israel’s genocidal war.

“Netanyahu insulted delegations, openly celebrated the regime’s many crimes, bragged about its terrorist pager attacks on Lebanon, repeated the regime’s debunked genocide propaganda, defended the illegal occupation of Palestine and Syria, lied incessantly, called violent, racist, illegal Zionist settlers ‘peaceful’ and ‘honorable people,’ labeled human rights defenders as ‘antisemites,’ even arrogantly attacked American citizens and officials for speaking out against the regime’s crimes,” he continued.



“This violent psychopath cannot hide behind [US President Donald] Trump’s skirts forever,” Mokhiber added. “He (and his collaborators) must be captured and brought to justice. And the UN must finally act to isolate the regime and hold it accountable. ”

Referring to Netanyahu’s address and Trump’s threat on Tuesday to “annihilate” Iran during his rambling, lie-laden General Assembly speech, University of Colorado Law School associate professor Maryam Jamshidi said on social media, “Between Trump threatening Iran w/annihilation and Netanyahu bragging about Israel’s pager attacks, the UN podium has become a venue for promoting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.”

Meanwhile, people took to the streets of New York to protest Netayahu’s presence in the city, US complicity in Israeli crimes, and to show solidarity with Palestinians.



Hundreds of protesters gathered outside UN headquarters in Turtle Bay for a sit-in demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace. Demonstrators blocked roads while chanting slogans including, “Netanyahu you can’t hide, you are wanted for genocide!”

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, more than 100 demonstrators were arrested.



Among those reportedly arrested were progressive congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier; actors Susan Sarandon, Hannah Einbinder, and Cynthia Nixon; New York state Assemblymember Emily Gallagher (D-50); Democratic New York City Councilmembers Chi Ossé and Alexa Avilés; former Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning; and Palestinian American political activist Linda Sarsour.

“I will never, ever be silent,” Sarsour said on Facebook. “I will never just accept the world as it is. I want history to record for future generations of Palestinians that we fought. At every turn. In every way. When it was easy and when it was hard.”

“I want Palestinian girls in Gaza to see me in my hijab and my unapologetic Palestinian blood fighting for them to live FREE,” she added. “This is bigger than all of us. Netanyahu is a war criminal and belongs in The Hague, not the United Nations.”

‘Netanyahu Wanted for Genocide!’ 100+ Arrested Outside UN Speech

“I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people,” said actor and activist Cynthia Nixon, “who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime.”


Pro-Palestinian demonstrators block First Avenue near the United Nations headquarters building, ahead of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York, on September 24, 2026.
(Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As she waited to be loaded into a police vehicle with several other pro-Palestinian protesters in New York City on Thursday, Democratic US House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier said she was among hundreds of New Yorkers who had risked arrest “because we can’t allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city.”

“He needs to be tried in The Hague,” she added, speaking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose arrival in the city for the United Nations General Assembly sparked the protest outside the UN headquarters.




Other politicians who joined the protest included Brad Lander, Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, Melat Kiros of Colorado, and Adam Hamawy of New Jersey, while celebrities who have been outspoken supporters of Palestinian rights, including actors Hannah Einbinder, Susan Sarandon, Elliot Page, Cynthia Nixon, and writer Tony Kushner also joined the demonstration led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

“I’m here because I want to stop US complicity in the genocide that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank,” said Nixon. “I want to stop us funding Israel, I want to block the bombs, and I want elected leaders here in this country to catch up to the American people and people everywhere around the globe who understand that what is happening in Gaza and Palestine is a war crime, it’s unacceptable, and it’s wrong, and history will judge them very harshly.”



The demonstrators blocked roads outside the UN headquarters, and The New York Daily News reported that more than 100 people were arrested.

“There’s an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu for the war crimes he’s committing in Gaza,” said Sumaya Awad, director of the New York-based Organizing for Adalah Justice Project. “ Trump is refusing to arrest him so we’re taking to the streets to make it clear to our government, and to future generations who will look back on this moment, that we refuse to normalize genocide. We refuse to normalize sending billions to commit war crimes, meanwhile our own schools and hospitals here are underfunded.”

The US has provided at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel since the country began its military campaign in Gaza—on top of $3.8 billion it provides annually.

But as Nixon noted, public approval for US funding of the Israel Defense Forces has plummeted in recent years. A Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 60% of Americans no longer support providing Israel with weapons and military funding.

Nixon was among many attendees who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Fund People, Not Bombs.” Protesters chanted, “Netanyahu, you can’t hide, you are wanted for genocide!” and “Not another penny, not another dime, no more money for genocide!”



Netanyahu has been welcomed to the US multiple times since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant in November 2024 for his arrest, along with that of former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who was killed several months later.

Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the military campaign his government has ordered in Gaza since October 2023, in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—which, according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz earlier this month, the prime minister was alerted about ahead of time by the United Arab Emirates.

In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, decimated the vast majority of housing units, and bombed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps. According to testimony from IDF soldiers, commanders have explicitly allowed the mass killing of civilians.

The government has also blocked humanitarian aid, leading to the starvation of hundreds of people, including at least 130 children. Amnesty International said last year that Netanyahu’s government had used starvation as a “weapon of war,” and the group is one of numerous human rights organizations that have called the assault on Gaza a genocide.

Netanyahu has joined US politicians in accusing critics of the Israeli government of “antisemitism,” but JVP noted that a majority of people who took part in Thursday’s protests were “Jewish New Yorkers, joined by Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian New Yorkers, including parents, teachers, nurses, grandmothers, and descendants of Holocaust survivors who were determined to raise their voices as Netanyahu roamed free in the streets of New York City.”

Stefanie Fox, executive director of JVP, noted that “as we protest, the Israeli military expands its genocide in Gaza and destruction across the region,” while “we are living through the crushing conditions of expanding fascism here in the US.”

“But this is a movement that refuses to give up, and we know we can end this,” said Fox. “From the streets of NYC to the halls of Congress we will be relentless in our demands to stop arming Israel.”

Inside the UN headquarters, a number of delegations walked out of the room as Netanyahu began addressing the General Assembly on Wednesday afternoon—leading to jeers from the prime minister, who called the leaders “moral cowards” for objecting to the presence of an accused war criminal at the UN.

By continuing to back Israel, said Utah state Sen. Nate Blouin (D-13), “The US is very much not in step with the rest of the world.”

Israeli Election Panel OKs Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s Far-Right Parties After Voting to Ban Arab Ones

“Meanwhile, ministers and MKs threaten to nuke Gaza, starve the population, annex the West Bank, call to arrest journalists and enshrine Jewish law. This is who gets the all-clear,” noted one Israeli writer.


Palestinian protesters take part in a demonstration against Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in front of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City on January 12, 2023.
(Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


On the heels of voting to disqualify all Arab-majority political parties and multiple candidates from Israel’s October 27 Knesset election, the Israeli Central Elections Committee on Thursday declined to bar various far-right parties—a series of events that critics condemned as anti-democratic and racist.

The CEC—which is chaired by a Supreme Court justice but dominated by members of the Knesset’s governing coalition—rejected petitions to ban National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, and Zehut, founded by Moshe Feiglin, a former member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

“Under Israel’s Basic Law on the Knesset, candidates and party slates can be barred from elections for rejecting Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism, or supporting armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against Israel,” explained Haaretz.

In an unsuccessful bid to bar the Otzma Yehudit slate, Gilad Kariv, a member of the Knesset for the Democrats, declared that “Ben-Gvir is not a right-wing Zionist; he is a racist Kahanist who has been convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization.”

While the panel ultimately refused to pass petitions on the right-wing parties, the previous day, it voted to disqualify the United Arab List—also known as Ra’am and led by Member of the Knesset Mansour Abbas—and the Joint List, an alliance made up of the parties Balad, Hadash, and Ta’al.

The committee disqualified the Joint List on grounds including its alleged rejection of Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state and support for armed struggle against it, and the United Arab List on those grounds, plus incitement to racism.



Sharply condemning the “political, racist, and anti-democratic decision,” the Joint List said that “Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir know that the only way they can remain in power is by disqualifying Arab political representation and suppressing voter turnout in Arab society. This is how they seek to pave their way to another term.”

“It is deeply regrettable to see that those who claim to seek to replace Netanyahu are once again falling into the racist trap set by Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir and lending their support to this political campaign,” the coalition continued. “In doing so, they are contributing to the continued racist persecution of the entire Arab public, deepening racism, and perpetuating the rule of Netanyahu and his political partners.”

“The Joint List is the only party that has placed at the forefront of its platform the struggle for democracy for all, genuine equality, justice and comprehensive peace. It is the only alternative to the racist policies of Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir,” it added.

Dov Waxman, a professor of Israeli studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, similarly suggested on social media Wednesday that the CEC disqualified the Arab-majority parties “to delegitimize” them “in the minds of Israeli Jewish voters, and they want to do that in order to make it harder for the opposition to form a coalition government.”

An opposition coalition including Ra’am “is the most likely way that an alternative, Eisenkot-led government could take power if the anti-Netanyahu bloc wins the election,” Waxman added, referring to Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot.



The CEC on Wednesday also disqualified MK Ofer Cassif of the left-wing Arab-Jewish Hadash party and Balad’s leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh. The Times of Israel noted that a representative for Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara reaffirmed her “position that none of the petitions before the CEC had sufficient grounds except the one against Abu Shehadeh.”

“All opposition parties—Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, Yair Golan’s Democrats, Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White—backed the petition” against the Balad leader, as did Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, the panel’s chair, according to The Times of Israel.



“The backing of Sohlberg and Baharav-Miara raises the prospect that the Supreme Court may uphold the decision, despite its historically high threshold for disqualifying candidates and its repeated overturning of such decisions by the committee,” the newspaper added, pointing to plans for the justices to consider the decisions next week.

Otzma Yehudit sought to disqualify Abu Shehadeh over an article in which he called the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel—which led to the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip widely denounced as genocide—as “an important historic event militarily, politically, and strategically.”

As Haaretz detailed:
Abu Shehadeh said he regretted writing the article at the center of the request to disqualify him. “I wrote it on October 7, and I didn’t know the scale of the atrocities. If I had known, I would not have written it this way,” he said. “I agree with the justified criticism of the article. I should not have written it, and I should have clearly condemned [the attack].”

“My intention was for the military campaign to be halted and for the parties to move to a diplomatic track led by the Palestinian Authority and Arab states,” he explained.

As for Cassif, whose ban was spearheaded by Likud, he said that “the disqualification requests are intended to achieve the complete delegitimization of Arab society and Israeli-Arab partnership, and to perpetuate totalitarian rule and majority tyranny,” according to the newspaper.

“There is no contradiction between the absolute condemnation I have expressed of the Gaza massacre and the war crimes being committed by the Israeli government, and the absolute condemnation I have expressed of the October 7 massacre and Hamas’ horrific crimes,” he added.



After the Wednesday decisions, the Haifa-based rights group Adalah said in a statement that “the hearings, like the motions themselves, showed once again that this is an arbitrary, inciting, and racist process, devoid of any legal process. The CEC conducted an illegitimate political process aimed at persecuting ideas the majority does not accept, and it ended with the disqualification of all Palestinian representation in the Israeli Knesset.”

“The CEC approved every disqualification motion except a separate motion against Balad/Tajammu’ alone, which it rejected on procedural grounds,” noted Adalah—which “represented all the political party lists and individual candidates before the CEC, and will represent them against these decisions before the Supreme Court.”

NAZA Filmmakers to Make Film Available for Free Online Amid Israel’s Smear Campaign

“It is the duty of every citizen whose government commits crimes to know, and of every soldier who witnessed them to tell.”

Israeli journalists and filmmakers Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham attend the red carpet of the closing ceremony of the 83rd Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido on September 12, 2026
(Photo by Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Israeli journalists and filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are determined to ensure that their documentary, NAZA, has the farthest reach possible even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government accuses them of “blood libel” for interviewing soldiers who described the Israeli military’s mass killing of civilians, and threatens to revoke their citizenship for making the film.

Abraham said Thursday morning on social media that he, Szor, and The Guardian, which produced the film, had decided to make NAZA accessible “online for free, without any time limit, so that every person can watch it and the soldiers’ testimonies,” starting in November.



‘Pathetic’: Israeli Minister Threatens to Revoke Citizenship of NAZA Filmmakers

Israeli Documentary ‘NAZA’ Exposes ‘System of Killing’ in Gaza From Eyes of Secret Intelligence Unit

Until then, the filmmakers are approaching movie theaters in Israel and offering the film “at no cost, in the hope that it will be screened in the country” as it is distributed worldwide.

Commentators in Israel have criticized Abraham and Szor for not making the film free, said journalist Ryan Grim, and theaters are now “being dared to follow through on their bluff and screen it.”

The film builds on reporting Abraham has done since the beginning of Israel’s current assault on Gaza, which started in 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. In NAZA, as well as in investigative reports for the Israeli news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call, Abraham has extensively covered the Israel Defense Forces’ rules of engagement in Gaza, including its use of artificial intelligence for targeting and the IDF policy of allowing the killing of more than 100 Palestinian civilians for every Hamas commander killed.

The film’s title refers to the IDF’s term for the number of civilians commanders expected to be killed in a particular strike.

“ Journalism is not betrayal. Criticism is not betrayal.”

NAZA received a record-breaking standing ovation and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival this month, and the film will premiere in North America at the New York Film Festival this Saturday, with a theatrical release beginning four days later. A wider release in the US is scheduled for October 9, and 50 other countries and territories are also expected to release the film.

While the film has been widely acclaimed, Abraham noted that at home in Israel, “many incorrect things were said about us and about the film in the past week.”

Officials have accused the filmmakers, who interviewed 24 military and intelligence officers for the film, of lying about the IDF’s practices in Gaza.

Netanyahu, who is facing legislative elections next month, said after the film’s release at the Venice Film Festival that he would introduce a bill to revoke the citizenship of Israelis who defame the IDF. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff at the IDF, said military lawyers were considering legal action against Abraham and Szor.

Protesters outside Szor’s family home could be heard chanting, “Death sentence for traitors” one evening, and the Committee to Protect Journalists noted that the call for violence “followed days of increasingly hostile public rhetoric targeting the filmmakers, which underscores the risks created when government officials publicly target journalists.”

The offices of +972 Magazine and Local Call were also reportedly broken into.

“We made the film to spark a public discussion about the government’s actions in Gaza, the killing of more than 73,000 people, most of them civilians, the normalization of a war of extermination, of the notion that ‘there are no uninvolved,’” said Abraham.

“Journalism is not betrayal. Criticism is not betrayal,” he continued. “It is the duty of every citizen whose government commits crimes to know, and of every soldier who witnessed them to tell. There are thousands of such soldiers walking around here, who will watch the film and recognize what is described in it personally: the killing of unarmed people crossing an imaginary line, the [NAZA] approvals in the hundreds, the systematic attacks on family homes, the burning and physical destruction of Gaza, murder and shooting at hungry people in food distribution centers, and other crimes that have no justification.”

Ali Abunimah, director of Electronic Intifada, said the filmmakers should have made the film free for viewers “from the start.”

He also called for Abraham and Szor to “turn over any and all evidence they have that could lead to the arrest and punishment of perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide to the International Criminal Court,” which has a warrant out for the arrest of Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Macklemore and the US Cultural Revolution for Palestine

The attempt to punish Macklemore ultimately placed Robert Kraft, Ed Sheeran, and the entertainment establishment itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Far from silencing the message of Palestinian freedom, their actions amplified it.


A Palestinian man walks past a mural painted on the rubble of a destroyed building and dedicated to US rapper, singer, dancer, and DJ, Benjamin Haggerty, known as Macklemore, in Gaza City on September 19, 2026.
(Photo by Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP via Getty Images

Ramzy Baroud
Sep 24, 2026

Common Dreams


Page Six Hollywood recently declared: “War of Open Letters Erupts Between Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine Factions in Hollywood.” Only a few years ago, a headline like this would have seemed unthinkable.

The article described an increasingly open struggle between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel forces within the entertainment industry. On one side are artists and other industry figures taking a clear stand against Israel’s genocide in Gaza; on the other are defenders of Israel attempting to deny that genocide in the face of irrefutable evidence.



Rapper Macklemore Says NFL Owners Got Him Kicked Off Concert Tour For Criticizing Israel

Yet even this framing failed to tell the whole story. What is unfolding is far more consequential than a quarrel among celebrities or a “war of open letters.” It is part of a brewing cultural revolution in American society—one that has now reached the highest echelons of the country’s cultural establishment. And in that struggle, Israel is losing—and losing badly.

When the pendulum swings this far, neither Kraft’s money nor the stadiums he controls can stop the movement.

Though the article acknowledged that support for Palestine has become powerful enough to divide Hollywood openly, it concealed the scale of the transformation underway by presenting the moment as a “war” between two factions.

Long before Israeli filmmakers, production companies, and actors established a significant presence in Hollywood, the industry’s cultural infrastructure routinely elevated Israel at every opportunity. Film and television constructed a glossy image of a heroic nation whose establishment and continued survival were portrayed as miraculous, while the dispossession and violence underpinning that narrative were largely erased from view.

Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, meanwhile, were almost invariably cast in a negative light: the uncultured and menacing “other,” supposedly possessing no legitimate claim to civilization, no recognizable morality, and no history or identity worthy of serious consideration.

Indeed, Hollywood played a central role in the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians in Western popular culture. When thousands of actors, filmmakers, producers, and artists begin taking principled public stands for Palestine—often at considerable professional risk—we can therefore speak confidently of a cultural shift of historic proportions.

Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Tilda Swinton, Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Cynthia Nixon, and Riz Ahmed are only some of the most visible names on an ever-expanding list of morally driven and courageous artists confronting an archaic industry establishment.

The story, however, extends far beyond Hollywood. Consider the major controversy that recently erupted in the US following Macklemore’s removal from the remaining dates of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour.

Macklemore is far more than a pro-Palestine singer. The Grammy-winning rapper and songwriter is a gifted political storyteller whose career has combined mainstream artistic success with an enduring commitment to social causes. Since the beginning of the genocide, he has emerged as one of the most powerful voices of Palestinian solidarity in the US and beyond.

During Sheeran’s recent concerts at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Macklemore expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, called for a “free Palestine,” and performed “Hind’s Hall,” his protest anthem honoring Hind Rajab, the Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The response to Macklemore’s courageous stand was immediate, but also predictable. The billionaires who controlled the venues reached for the weapon still at their disposal: financial power. Robert Kraft, the owner of Gillette Stadium, refused to allow Macklemore to perform there.

Sheeran, who appeared to underestimate the gravity of the moment, went on the defensive. “I am not complicit,” he declared, insisting that Macklemore’s removal had been the promoter’s decision rather than his own. But such a weak response by one of the world’s most influential musicians, particularly while an artist on his own tour was being punished for speaking out, could hardly be presented as a politically “neutral” position.

In the past, the story might have ended there. Macklemore would have been isolated and his career placed in jeopardy, while Sheeran, the promoters, and the stadium owners continued largely untouched.

Those days are gone. Global solidarity with Macklemore—and, by extension, with Palestine—spread so rapidly that the people responsible for his removal were forced to issue a succession of defensive and sometimes contradictory explanations.

By then, however, the damage had been done. Sheeran faced mounting boycott calls, protests, and even the suspension of his music by an Irish radio station. Finneas, Lukas Graham, and Aaron Rowe withdrew from the tour, while Beoga, Sheeran’s backing band, also pulled out. Artists and public figures began speaking openly about the genocide, freedom of expression, and the power of billionaires to dictate the political boundaries of art.

Podcasters and social-media commentators also mobilized, reaching audiences of millions and digging deeper into the controversy. They began asking who Kraft was, examining his longstanding relationship with Israel; his campaign against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions; and the enormous financial machinery behind his political advocacy.

The attempt to punish Macklemore ultimately placed Kraft, Sheeran, and the entertainment establishment itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Far from silencing the message of Palestinian freedom, their actions amplified it.

Ultimately, this is not a story about two feuding artists, just as Hollywood’s transformation cannot be reduced to two camps trading open letters. Both are manifestations of a much larger cultural upheaval rooted in grassroots American society, where people from diverse backgrounds are finally opening their eyes to Israeli crimes and to the extraordinary influence Tel Aviv has long exercised over their country.

Beyond the occasional opinion poll, that story rarely makes headlines. But when the pendulum swings this far, neither Kraft’s money nor the stadiums he controls can stop the movement.

Nor can they silence Macklemore’s cry of “Free Palestine”—a cry now echoed by millions of people throughout the world.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Ramzy Baroud
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author, and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of nine books. His latest books are Before the Flood (Seven Stories Press) and Gaza Rising (Clarity Press). His other books include Our Vision for Liberation, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, and The Last Earth. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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Macklemore Announces ‘Free Palestine Tour’ With Dates in Paris, London, and Dublin

“When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention.”

Macklemore performs at Virgin Media Park on June 5, 2025 in Cork, Ireland.
(Photo by Debbie Hickey/Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Sep 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Rapper Macklemore on Thursday revealed a new phase in his campaign to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians.

Macklemore, whose pro-Palestinian statements got him removed as a supporting act for fellow musician Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour, announced a series of live shows aimed at raising money for organizations that provide aid to Palestinian civilians suffering under Israeli military occupation and assault.

Several other opening acts for Sheeran subsequently quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

“What happened to me is bigger than one artist or one stage,” Macklemore wrote. “When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention. So we’re going on tour. All proceeds will benefit organizations supporting the Palestinian people and movement.”

The “Free Palestine Tour” so far has concerts scheduled in London, Dublin, and Paris, and Macklemore said that additional musical guests would be revealed at a later date.

Earlier this month, Macklemore pledged to donate $1 million to six organizations who were aiding Palestinians: HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and American Near East Refugee Aid.

Those groups will also be beneficiaries of the upcoming tour, as will organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Rachel Griffin Accurso, the YouTube star and child educator known popularly as Ms. Rachel, last week pledged to match Macklemore’s $1 million donation to Palestinian aid groups, and encouraged “every wealthy white celebrity to match it and speak out against the genocide in Gaza.”

“Over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed and children continue to be killed every day,” Ms. Rachel said. “We have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights.”