Links - 9th March 2026 (2 - Iran Attack [including International Law])

David Frum on X - "According to the self-proclaimed experts who get quoted at times like this, the corpus of international law can be reduced to one simple rule: "Terrorists and communists are always allowed to strike democracies, but democracies are never allowed to strike back.""

Meme - Noam Blum: "This post was about Venezuela, but applies here too:"
Cristian Campos: "If international law cannot prevent me from being tortured in a cell in El Helicoide, but it does protect Maduro so he can keep torturing me in El Helicoide, then international law not only does nothing for me, but it is actually fucking me over."

Meme - Yuan Yi Zhu: "The norm against the use of force to settle international disputes is an important achievement. But if every international lawyer's reaction to scenes such as this is to sourly lecture people to not be happy about scenes such as this, international law will be held in contempt."
OSINTdefender @sentdefender: "Crowds are seen gathering in the streets of Isfahan, Iran following the news of the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during joint U.S./ Israeli strikes earlier today. The crowds appear to be jovial."

AG on X - "The last few years have really exposed so much of the “human rights” establishment.   The Islamic Republic massacred hundreds of thousands of Syrians and these groups and the organizations supposed to defend human rights barely said a word. The regime would daily execute people for the crime of speaking out against them or even crimes like women wearing loose clothing, which was met with few condemnations. Even when they shot down 30-40K Iranians for the crime of protesting peacefully, the relative silence was deafening. They were responsible for countless other deaths in Lebanon, Israel, Yemen, and throughout the region via their terror proxies.  Yet now that someone is finally making that evil regime pay the price,  they whine about international law and other nonsense in defense of evil.   For these groups, the only side with agency and that must be held accountable is the west. The worst abusers get a pass.   Did you know the UN general assembly has had more resolutions condemning The United States (13) than the Islamic Republic since 2015 (11)? (187 condemning Israel FYI)  So can we stop pretending any of these corrupt organization and groups have any moral authority? That their complaints mean anything?   They are, for all practical purposes, just tasked to provide cover for our enemies. Despite receiving massive funding from us. The system is broken and we should stop rewarding it."

Dr. Brian L. Cox on X - "During the coming days & weeks, you're bound to encounter all kinds of claims that "attacks on Iran by Israel & the United States are illegal, unprovoked & unjustifiable."  These claims are false. Here's why.  @Israel  has publicly announced - correctly so - it is in an "ongoing armed conflict" against Iran (pic 1). For anyone interested in specific reasons & justifications, I invite you to review an info paper published @IsraelMFA  on Op Rising Lion available at this link (pic 1 is screenshot of 1st few paragraphs): https://gov.il/en/pages/opera tion-rising-lion-key-factual-and-legal-aspects-of-the-iran-israel-hostilities-june-2025-11-aug-2025   🇮🇱 is also designated with 🇺🇸 Major Non-NATO Ally status (pic 2). This doesn't provide a specific legal basis for 🇺🇸 to intervene in this ongoing armed conflict, but it shouldn't be a surprise that @POTUS  directs @DeptofWar  to do so on behalf of our MNNA - as he did for Op Midnight Hammer.  Don't let mass disinformation agents like Corbyn here distort reality & rewrite history in service of their preferred progressive social or political agenda.  Yes, there have been "illegal, unprovoked & unjustified attacks" in this strategic setting. They were carried out by IRAN & it's regional proxies starting on 10/7. Israel exercised the inherent right of individual self-defense, as reflected in art. 51 @UN  Charter, in response.  Intervention by 🇺🇸 to support its MNNA 🇮🇱 is an issue of neutrality, not the Charter. Joining an ONGOING armed conflict is not illegal - it just means 🇺🇸 is now a belligerent (again) in the conflict.  And yes, "peace & diplomacy" WERE possible.  During diplomatic engagement BEFORE Op Roaring Lion, 🇮🇷 refused peace. Now they get an escalation of this ONGOING armed conflict.  This IS behaviour of a rogue state. The "rogue state" is 🇮🇷...and now that behavior is met with escalated consequences.  Colloquially, I believe this is referred to as #FAFO. Khamenei & his gov't have been on FA axis of that calculation for quite a while. Now, they're transitioning further along on the FO axis. No surprise there.  Finally, the "flagrant breach of international law" here occurred on 10/7. Since then, 🇮🇱 has been involved in an ONGOING armed conflict against 🇮🇷 & its proxies.   Responding to the enduring threat is NOT "aggression." It is war. Governments like Corbyn's 🇬🇧 can join in or stay out of the way. Either way, ops by 🇮🇱 & 🇺🇸 do NOT constitute a "violation of international law."  Jeremy Corbyn here is misrepresenting both facts AND language of int'l law. Also no surprise there, considering the source.  But he most certainly won't be the only one. When you encounter disinformation like his rhetoric going forward, now you'll know exactly how you're being misled.  #TheMoreYouKnow"

International law is becoming a suicide pact for Western democracies - "World peace is a long-held dream, but ironically the agendas of some of its loudest cheerleaders expose the hypocrisy that often accompanies such lofty goals. During his nearly 30 years as head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth led the politicisation of both the organisation and the wider movement through the use of the institutional facades of international law as applied to modern war.  A blatant example is Roth’s recent essay in the Guardian, arguing that joint American-Israeli strikes against the Tehran regime constitute an illegal “act of aggression” and “no different from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine”. In facile terms, he effectively claims that, according to the law of armed conflict, the use of force is illegitimate unless it responds to an attack that has already occurred, is obvious and visible to all (so not, presumably, through proxies or thinly disguised attackers), and acknowledged by the United Nations Security Council.  It is a simple theory. It is also dangerously removed from the real world. Roth condemns the joint US-Israeli attack against Iran’s top leadership and military assets as though the decision was taken totally out of the blue, and not a necessary response to aggression. To make this case, he conveniently omits the central fact that, for decades, the Islamic Republic has been waging a violent war against the United States (the Big Satan), Israel (the Little Satan), and many of its Arab neighbours... Article 51 of the UN Charter affirms the inherent right of self-defence. That right is not erased because the aggressor pretends to aim its attacks at military targets or operates through intermediaries.  Then there is the nuclear question. Iran’s nuclear weapons programme has long violated both the spirit and letter of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The combination of advanced enrichment capacity, ballistic missile development, and explicit threats against Israel creates a uniquely destabilising mix. A regime that calls for the elimination of another UN member state cannot reasonably expect that state (i.e. Israel) to treat its march toward nuclear capability as a routine matter of sovereign discretion, regardless of actual international agreements. Roth’s analysis leans heavily on a narrow conception of “imminence”. Under such a reading of international law, unless a nuclear weapon is about to be launched, preventive action is supposedly unlawful. But international law has never been suicidal. The entirely justified Caroline standard of anticipatory self-defence – rooted in 19th-century diplomacy – recognises that, when a threat is “instant, overwhelming”, with no time for hesitation, preventive action is entirely justified. In a world of precision missiles and nuclear breakout timelines measured in weeks, not years, waiting for the mass slaughter of a mushroom cloud is not prudence; it is abdication. Critics often counter that striking Iran would inflame the region and erode global norms. But norms erode primarily when they are weaponised by aggressors who exploit legalisms as shields to hide their preparations for slaughter. The Islamic Republic has built a regional architecture of terror: Hezbollah’s entrenchment in Lebanon; Shiite militias violating Iraq’s fragile sovereignty; Houthi missiles from Yemen targeting Israel and attacks against international shipping. This is not a justifiable defensive posture, as apologists like Roth repeat. It is a bellicose strategy aimed at destroying Israel and hurting America. In the face of these very tangible threats, the responses available to the United States and Israel are limited. Allow Iran to consolidate a missile-and-nuclear umbrella under which its terror proxies can operate with impunity, or act decisively and precisely to block and dismantle that capability. The first course risks a future in which deterrence collapses and nuclear war in the Middle East becomes far more likely. The second may cause limited destruction, but it preserves the basic moral and political principle that violence and aggression will not be allowed to succeed. Roth’s attempts to market his interpretations of the ambiguities of international law by erasing the history of Iran’s terror are the antithesis of justice and morality. If accepted, they would become a suicide pact for democracies and for status-quo states opposed to the mass killing in the name of religion or ideology.  The war against Iranian tyranny is not the result of lust for conflict in Washington or Jerusalem – it comes because Tehran has made the status quo untenable. In the pursuit of justice and the rule of law, the correct question is not why the United States and Israel struck the regime, but why those claiming to embrace justice condemn this necessary act of self-defence."

Erielle Azerrad on X - "The big “secret” of modern international law is that it is now designed to cripple the West, make wars impossible to win, and keep us trapped in hostile quagmires. That’s the end game. It’s the great “equalizer,” the pinnacle of post-liberal equality. Under international law, bad actors have the privilege of acting with impunity while Western forces that respond get chastised by various Singham-funded NGOs and the Atlantic. Trump is the first president to buck this nonsense."

David Bernstein on X - "The mainstream of the Western international law establishment thinks/hopes that the purpose of international law is to restrain the United States from acting without the approval of the UN and the like. For those who specialize in international humanitarian law, it’s to make sure Western powers can’t defeat their enemies. Neither are concerned about human rights."

Haviv Rettig Gur on X - "I say this as gently as I know how, because it seems to me unforgivably obvious.  You cannot simultaneously build a strong international law system while also hating the West. International law is a Western idea born of a particular Western historical, cultural and political experience.  And because God loves irony, no one exemplifies this fact more than the evil regime whose travails since yesterday have sparked so much legalistic hand-wringing.  Both Khamenei himself and his teacher and predecessor Khomeini consistently and explicitly rejected international law as a tool of "global arrogance" (estekbar-e jahani) — i.e., of powerful secularist, individualistic democracies. Khamenei was even more explicit, routinely declaring legal frameworks like UN conventions as "colonial" traps.  These declarations weren’t marginal to their ideology. They were fundamental planks of the regime’s political theology.  I’ll say this, again, as gently as I can: The fact that international law and international institutions have transformed in practice into a system that more often than not runs defense for the most virulent and explicit enemies of said law might have something to do with their decline as an organizing framework of international affairs.  For example, when UN agencies and international institutions target Israel more than Iran, or more than China, Iran and Russia put together, or more than all the dictatorships and wars in the world combined — they’re doing more harm to the law than to Israel.  Similarly, it matters that so many of international law’s loudest spokespeople had nothing to say about Khamenei’s crimes just six weeks ago, but swung into action only when Khamenei’s long reign of terror was finally brought to an end.  That’s not law. It’s the opposite of law.  International law can be saved, but only if its scholars and practitioners grow up and shed the instinctive anti-Westernism and racist paternalism of the present-day academy. When international law is no longer seen by its own practitioners primarily as an instrument for containing, weakening and delegitimizing the West, but becomes genuinely about actual law, it will once again have a claim on us.  If you fail to see in Khamenei the bitter foe of international law that he was, if in the midst of your legitimate critique of a war you can’t summon at least a little joy that this avowed enemy of your purported moral system is dead and gone, then you haven’t actually been fighting for international law."

Randy Barnett on X - "The social contract is not a real contract but without reciprocity, there can be no rule of law internationally—or domestically. Without reciprocity, the rule of law is a sucker’s game."

Meme - Stephen R. C. Hicks @SRCHicks: "Fascinating (and new to me) 1979 NYT article on Ayatollah Khomeini, who is apparently: (1) an honest man, (2) surrounded by moderates concerned w/ human rights, (3) one who will leave his internal enemies (Jews, atheists, leftists) free to express themselves, & (4) overall a beacon of hope for the region's future. (File under: 100% wrong wishful-thinking predictions.)"
"Trusting Khomeini"

Ajit Pai on X - "In Feb. 1979, the @nytimes ran “Trusting Khomeini,” an op-ed from a @Princeton “expert” who opined: “Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance.”
Some other quotes from the op-ed (whose author was appointed by @UN @Refugees in 2008 as "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories"):
- "The news media have defamed [Ayatollah Khomeini] in many ways, associating him with efforts to turn the clock back 1,300 years, with virulent anti‐Semitism."
- "More even than any third‐world leader, he has been depicted in a manner calculated to frighten."
"[Khomeini] has also indicated that the nonreligious left will be free to express its views in an Islamic republic."
- "To suppose that Ayatollah Khomeini is dissembling seems almost beyond belief."
- "What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals" who "share a notable record of concern for human rights and seem eager to achieve economic development that results in a modern society."
From the New York Times obituary of Ayatollah @khamenei_ir: “He affected an avuncular and magnanimous aloofness, running the country from a perch above the jousting of daily politics.”"

The US submarine which torpedoed the Iranian frigate will soon be flying the Jolly Roger
Does a submarine in combat make any effort to rescue survivors when they surface if enemy sailors are in the water? If yes, how much room does a sub have for prisoners? - Quora - "Submarine warfare is essentially “unrestricted warfare”. However, submarine commanders will endeavor to take prisoners, within the sensibilities of safety. That is, submarines are not ideal ships due to the compactness of their design to mission to have enemy combatants onboard. A handful of prisoners might be reasonably accommodated without endangering the submarine."
"Prisoners of War could reasonably be taken and there’s precedent in ww2 for recovering pilots shot down - both friendly and enemy.  However: when your submarine is surfaced, it’s sonar is less effective, it’s noiser and takes longer to dive. It also is much more susceptible to pitch and roll on the surface. So it’s blind, lame and very much out of its best performance envelope. If it was detected or sighted by other enemy ships (or planes) responding to the distress call of the sunken ship, you can bet they will be able to detect the submarine easily.  Submarines, once detected, are much less effective at engaging the enemy - and much more vulnerable.  So surfacing to recover enemy prisoners is at best a risky endeavour and at worst can be considered such a tactically bad idea as to be almost suicide.  Any captain choosing to recover POWs will most likely be doing it under direct orders - as it endangers the lives of every sailor and the submarine. That POW better have some amazing intelligence they are willing to share if you want to risk 100’s of sailors and an expensive if not irreplaceable submarine."
"Nuc boats rarely surface- they don’t need to and (as noted in pretty much all the other answers) doing so is huge security risk.  Likewise, engagement of surface targets can be done from many nautical mines away with modern torpedoes, even farther with anti-shipping missiles. So the odds of you being in the proximity of the sunk ship is low, in addition to hazardous."
"They have no space for survivors.  The best a u-boat can do is to provide compasses, maps, food, maybe blankets.  Actually providing assistance proved fatal to u-boats more than once, the most memorable instance being the Laconia incident"
Left wingers were very upset, of course, and went on about how this was a war crime, because they don't understand anything
Left wing logic: left wingers call it a war, but even though it's a war, you're not allowed to attack the enemy military first (and the clock resets with each individual engagement, so you must always wait for the enemy to attack you first). But of course, from Oct 7th we know they think you're not allowed to fight back either if you're from the West

Bob Koonce on X - "I should know better than to actually share my thoughts as I doubt you really want to hear from someone who was in that position. But here goes.   As a former SSN captain, I would certainly be weighed down with the thought of those sailors drowning and those that died - every sailor is a human and anyone who is sane would feel for them.   However, this was a lawful order that my crew carried out against a regime that has spewed hate and killed Americans for decades. So, my crew and I would do our duty.  As for a rescue attempt, modern nuclear submarines are not designed to surface and open hatches in open ocean without significant risk to the crew and the ship (low free board - possible flooding). So I would not endanger my ship and crew to attempt a rescue. And that doesn't even factor in the risk of exposing my ship to the enemy while on the surface. So surfacing and rescuing "enemy" sailors is out of the question.  I could radio in for help in the clear to local coast guard or authorities - as we would do for a peacetime at sea accident for a military or civilian crew. But I am pretty sure the explosion was enough to get others' attention to conduct a rescue. And my mission likely was Top Secret and I was under EMCON orders - no unsecure communications. I may break that EMCON for a civilian accident in peacetime, but again I think others were notified of the problem by the explosion.   So, years later in my rocking chair, would I think of those sailors? Yes. But as a professional military officer and submariner under lawful orders, I did my duty. I would sleep well at night.   God will judge someday, but I personally would not carry that burden nor want my crew to. War sucks."

ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi on X - "The father of one of the Islamic Republic Navy personnel says they were warned by the U.S. forces to evacuate the ship before the attack. But their commanders refused to let them leave. Eighty members of the crew died as a result."
Damn US killing "unarmed" sailors!

Eitan Fischberger on X - "Mehdi Hasan says the U.S. military is worse than the Nazis because it sank an Iranian submarine and didn’t save the crew"
Mark Dubowitz on X - "This supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood says the U.S. military is worse than the Nazis. He naturalized as an American citizen in 2020 and lives in the U.S. Disgraceful."
He needs to be protected from a fate worse than what the Nazis did by removing his citizenship and evacuating him to a safe country so the US can't persecute him anymore

The Iran War began on 7 October - spiked - "Not even three years ago, paid goons of the Islamic Republic murdered a 13-year-old British girl. They bashed their way into the room in which she had scrabbled for sanctuary with her mother and sister and shot her to death. The tyrants in Tehran celebrated. They marshalled their supporters on to the streets to sing and dance over this orgy of violence that entailed the merciless slaying of a British innocent. It’s a ‘turning point in history’, they crowed in the wake of that unconscionable horror.  Her name was Yahel Sharabi. And I intend to say it to every fellow Briton who says the crisis in the Middle East ‘has nothing to do with us’. And to every slack-jawed Labour minister twiddling awkwardly with their ties as one of the great geopolitical emergencies of our time swirls all around them. And to every keffiyeh-smothered smug leftist who is currently painting the Islamic Republic as the innocent victim of an ‘unprovoked war of aggression’. Was the killing of a British girl not a provocation? Was the murder of her in the arms of her mother and sister – who were also killed – not an act of aggression? Was the slaying that day of a thousand others who were guilty of the same crime as young Yahel – they were Jews – not war?   Yahel was one of 18 British citizens murdered by Hamas and its allies on 7 October 2023... And their killers were backed by the Islamic Republic. The Iranian regime funded Hamas to the tune of $100million a year. It provided Hamas with weapons tech and logistical support. It had intimate knowledge of Hamas’s fascistic plans for 7 October. It has since held numerous official celebrations of the barbarism of that day. Nothing to do with us? The Iran-backed murder of 18 British citizens, most of them Jews? Perhaps Britain’s handwringers might let us know their threshold for Jew-murder, the point at which the foreign-funded killing of our Jewish compatriots might finally prick their slumbering consciences. Tell us: how many dead British Jews would be the price of your moral concern? Twenty-five? Fifty? A hundred?... The woke left’s depiction of Iran as the guiltless victim of Western imperialism is an outrageous lie. The crank right’s claim that Israel is the cause of every war in the Middle East – if not the whole world – reeks to the heavens of anti-Semitic ahistoricism. The UK government’s flummoxed nonchalance about the whole thing speaks to how thoroughly the technocratic mind-virus blinds one to truth and morality. This tyrannical regime funded the murder of our Jewish countrymen. Including a child. Does that mean nothing to you?... When people describe the Israel-US attack on the theocrats in Tehran as ‘unprovoked’, what they are really saying is that they do not consider the mass murder of Jews to be a provocation. When they call it unwarranted aggression, they’re saying the violent destruction of Jewish life is not something worth getting aggressive about. When they describe Israeli strikes against Tehran as an ‘escalation’, and never used that word for the Tehran-sponsored barbarism inflicted on Israel, they betray their own hyper-paternalistic Third Worldism. They confirm that in their Western-centric worldview, America and Israel are responsible for every earthly ill, while child-like states such as the Islamic Republic merely respond. Or ‘resist’. It’s ‘resistance’ when the Islamic Republic and its proxies kill Jews, but a ‘war crime’ when the Jews and their allies push back. We see you.   Events in Iran speak not to any criminal madness or bloodlust on the part of the American Empire and the Jewish State, but rather to the suicidal lunacy of 7 October. You don’t have to support the current regime-change efforts to recognise that the Iranian regime and its murderous proxies brought this calamity upon themselves. The 7 October attacks will go down as the most self-destructive military adventure of modern times, an act of apocalyptic vanity. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of that grim day, thought he would bring Zionism to its knees and provoke a Nazi-like expulsion of Jews from the Holy Land. Yet now he is dead, his movement of Hamas is decimated, Hezbollah is flagging, and the Iranian backers of their anti-Semitic crusade are under severe pressure.   The Islamic Republic did this to itself. It forgot that killing Jews has consequences now. It isn’t the 1490s or the 1930s. The rape and murder of Jews comes with repercussions these days. That the regime forgot this is somewhat understandable. It is, after all, consumed by cosmic delusions, by an inflated sense of holy importance as the final boss of Jew hatred. The Western left’s neglect of this truth, however, is less forgivable. You would think that woke agitators who love to talk about ‘consequence culture’ would recognise that murdering a thousand Jews might provoke war. Their demonisation of Israel and absolution of the Islamic Republic is not ‘anti-imperialism’ – it is the double racism of seeing the Jewish State as the sole author of violence in the Middle East and ‘brown’ Persians and Arabs as witless, wide-eyed victims... What concerns me is that the military suicide committed by Islamists on 7 October is finding its echo in the moral suicide of the West in the same period. Witness the Hamas sympathy on our streets these past two years or the current floundering of our rulers who can’t even bring themselves to say the Islamic Republic is a wicked regime whose Jew hatred, misogyny, homophobia and intolerance run counter to the moral virtues of our own civilisation. If you don’t think the killing of Yahel Sharabi and a thousand other Jews is an act of historic importance, then you have been defeated, too. Iran and its proxies may not have succeeded in destroying the Jewish nation, but they destroyed your soul."
Oct 7th showed us that there is no atrocity left wingers think justifies retaliation on the part of a Western countries, because they just hate the West (which Israel is considered part of)

The Atlantic on X - "Most of the press corps is not allowed into the Pentagon, where decisions about the war in Iran are being made. This lack of information makes it harder for journalists to do their jobs and harder for the American public to understand what’s happening, @nancyayoussef argues:"
John Ʌ Konrad V on X - "Why do you think these operations are going so well? It’s not just that they locked out the MSM. They also locked out, many think tanks, self proclaimed experts and allies. They are letting the warfighters cook."
L A R R Y on X - "Press corps is allowed in the Pentagon. They just forfeited their hard passes and their offices because they wouldn't promise to not peddle classified information. @seanspicer"

Meme - "EVERYBODY GANGSTA 'TIL THE SKY STARTS MISSING PIXELS *stealth bomber*"

Konstantin Kisin on X - "It's the third time WW3 has broken out in a year and as many smart people have predicted we're all going to die. Like the last two times. It's been a pleasure knowing you all and I hope to see you in the afterlife. Or just back here tomorrow reading the same panic slop."

Raffi on X - Remember when taking out Soleimani in Jan 2020 was FOR SURE the start of world war 3??"

Matt Van Swol on X - "So let me just get this straight… 12 months ago - Ukrainian flags 9 months ago - Palestinian flags 6 months ago - Mexican flags 1 month ago - Venezuelan flags Now - Iranian flags WHAT ON EARTH?????!!!!!! Do Leftists literally stand for EVERY COUNTRY but America?????"

Moy Miz on X: - "The Muslim world is divided about Iran:
Muslim countries in favor of removing the regime: Jordan 🇯🇴 Kuwait 🇰🇼 UAE 🇦🇪 Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 Oman 🇴🇲 Qatar 🇶🇦 Bahrain 🇧🇭
Muslim countries against the removal of the regime: Great Britain 🇬🇧 France 🇫🇷 Spain 🇪🇸"

Debra Lea on X - "This is the first time in history where the citizens of a country being bombed are celebrating, while some citizens of the country who did the bombing are protesting. Leftists man, they’re retarded."

The Iran Watcher 🇮🇷 on X - "The selective outrage of the “I hate the West but live in the West” leftists over Iranian deaths is pure hypocrisy. Not once did Mehdi post about Iranians being massacred by the Islamic Republic regime, many of them children. Now he suddenly cares about Iranian children because it fits his West-bashing political narrative."

Asra Nomani on X - "2:34 AM: 10 minutes BEFORE Trump even revealed strikes against Iran, a U.S. nonprofit network funded by China-based tycoon Neville Roy Singham activated foot soldiers to hit the streets for PRO-REGIME, ANTI-U.S. protests. Read my latest @FoxNews Digital ⬇️"
Eric Schwalm on X - "Their ability to respond is ridiculous. They have the ability to respond with protests faster than your local emergency services center. In the military we call this "flash to bang time". It is the difference in time it takes from seeing a bomb hit until the sound wave hits you.  Their flash to bang time is Fortune 500 level stuff. They responded faster than Trump could announce it.  "Organic"...My ass."

Insurrection Barbie on X - "Catastrophizing escalation rhetoric.   Take a surgical, limited military action and describe it in the most apocalyptic terms possible to attach a 20-year war prediction and make the audience emotionally unable to distinguish between “airstrike” and “Iraq War.”  This is not just about being wrong and these people know it.   What Carlson, Bannon and their whole network do is structurally identical to Iranian state propaganda, and that’s not an accident.  Trump authorized the Twelve-Day War strikes as a limited, surgical operation to degrade nuclear infrastructure and then brokered a ceasefire within days. That is the Trump doctrine in action: decisive, fast, no boots on the ground, out.  Iran is already economically shattered, militarily degraded, facing its own people in the streets and cannot sustain a prolonged conflict.   According to World Bank projections, Iran’s economy is expected to contract by  2.8% in 2026, with inflation near 50% and the cost of basic goods having risen at least 50% in the past year.   There’s a reason why the same people who are screaming bloody murder about a war right now are being amplified on Iranian State TV.   Their messaging does not serve the best interests of the United States of America.   Their messaging only serves the best interests of the Iranian regime.   And whereas in June, you could’ve given them the benefit of a doubt .  Today not only are they doing this but they know exactly what they are doing.   They hate Israel so much that they would side with genocidal head choppers  over their own president who they campaigned and voted for.  And that is why Jew hatred is a brain virus from the pits of hell."

The Passion of the Talarico

The Passion of the Talarico
When scripture becomes a tool for advancing contemporary progressive politics, Christianity begins to resemble secular humanism dressed up in religious language.

I’ve called Texas Democrat James Talarico “Pastor Pornhub” because if I could create the living embodiment of Satan on earth, he would look just like Talarico, a leftist caricature of a Christian, smug, self-righteous and generously quoting Bible verses to justify his political positions.

The problem is not so much quoting of the Bible, but the heretical interpretations of those verses because Pastor Pornhub is a “progressive” Christian, which is to say he is not a Christian at all.

In recent years, the rise of what is called “progressive Christianity” has been celebrated by its advocates as a natural evolution of the Christian faith. According to this view, the church is simply adapting to new moral insights and social realities, much as it has done throughout history, but that description strikes me as deeply misleading. What is happening is not evolution, it is divergence.

For nearly two thousand years, Christianity has rested on a recognizable set of core beliefs. Christians across centuries, continents, and cultures have disagreed on many secondary questions—church governance, liturgy, the finer points of theology—but they have largely shared a common foundation. That foundation includes belief in the divinity of Christ, the authority of scripture, the reality of sin, the need for redemption, and the resurrection. These were not invented by modern evangelicals or any particular denomination, they were articulated early in the church’s history and affirmed in statements such as the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed.

Those beliefs formed the boundary lines of what Christianity was understood to be.

Progressive Christianity, however, increasingly treats those doctrines not as defining truths but as optional metaphors. The resurrection becomes a “symbol of hope.” The divinity of Christ becomes an “inspirational idea.” Sin becomes a social construct rather than a condition of the human heart. Salvation becomes collective political improvement rather than reconciliation with God.

At that point one has to ask an obvious question: if those beliefs are no longer essential, what exactly remains that makes the system Christian?

Advocates often insist that Christianity has always evolved, pointing to past moral developments such as the abolition of slavery or the expansion of civil rights, but those examples do not demonstrate doctrinal abandonment; they demonstrate moral application. Christians argued against slavery because they believed human beings were created in the image of God. They fought for civil rights because they believed in the equal dignity of souls before God. The underlying theology remained intact.

What we are seeing today is something quite different. The underlying theology is being reinterpreted—or more accurately, rewritten—to conform to modern secular assumptions and that distinction matters. Where interpretation attempts to understand a text within its original framework, rewriting changes the framework itself.

If this sounds like the deconstructionism of Jacques Derrida, it should because it is a close cousin of the tactic of stripping all meaning from a thing and reassigning a meaning that better supports a preconceived agenda.

Progressive Christians often claim they are simply reading scripture through the lens of compassion and justice. Yet compassion and justice were hardly invented in the 21st century. The problem is not that progressive Christians emphasize moral concern for the poor or marginalized - Christianity has always done that - the problem is that modern political ideology increasingly determines which parts of scripture are emphasized, which are ignored, and which are redefined beyond recognition. When that happens, scripture ceases to function as an authority. It becomes a symbolic resource that can be reshaped to match whatever the current cultural consensus happens to be.

In that sense, progressive Christianity begins to resemble secular humanism more than traditional Christianity. The moral framework is no longer grounded in divine revelation but in contemporary (and malleable) social values. Ethical goals like equity, inclusion, and social justice are defined primarily by modern political discourse. Government policy becomes the primary instrument for achieving those goals. The language may remain Christian, but the underlying worldview is largely secular and politicized.

This is why I am not alone in arguing that progressive Christianity is not a development of Christianity so much as a religiously flavored version of modern progressivism.

Many people sincerely believe that moral truth is best derived from human reasoning and evolving social consensus, but that approach is fundamentally different from the historic Christian claim that moral truth is revealed through God and preserved in scripture.

Blending the two systems inevitably changes both.

Once doctrine becomes infinitely flexible—once miracles become metaphors, sin becomes sociology, and salvation becomes public policy—Christianity loses the very elements that once distinguished it from other moral philosophies, and the faith becomes less a religion grounded in divine action and more a spiritual vocabulary for contemporary political goals.

Some may welcome that transformation, but it should at least be described honestly. We seem to be condemned to replaying the French Revolution over and over.

In my honest opinion, what is happening is not the organic evolution of Christianity. Evolution implies continuity with the past. What we are seeing instead is a gradual departure from the beliefs that defined Christianity for centuries and the replacement of those beliefs with politically useful narratives.

A faith that systematically replaces its historic doctrines with modern secular assumptions may still call itself Christianity but whether it remains Christianity in any meaningful sense is not a hard question to answer.

Talarico is an example of evil personified, and one must really consider what that means since the entire Democrat establishment is behind him in his run for the US Senate.

 

Links - 9th March 2026 (1 - Donald Trump)

Josh Marshall on X - "Harvard sociologist/polisci Theda Skocpol explains how the vast expansion of ICE in BBB may be Trump's secret weapon to overcome the barriers of federalism and complete his autocratic takeover of the American state. (History from Germany & Hungary in 20s/30s.)"
Thread by @dilanesper on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Prediction: there will not be an autocratic takeover of the American state in the next 3 years, and when it doesn't happen the academics like Skocpol who predicted it will face no loss of standing in elite discourse, just like foreign policy pundits who supported the Iraq War. There's a whole Cry Wolf Caucus in academia who are constantly telling us we meet, e.g., 16 of the 17 signs of Hitler taking over. In an ideal society this sort of thing-- which is CLEARLY politically motivated and careerist-- would cost people credibility when it doesn't happen. At any rate we have very strong institutions against any sort of Hitler-style takeover. There's a lot of stuff the Trump Administration is doing that I think is very bad, including, for instance, the Medicaid cuts he just signed or the immigration policies. But American democracy will survive. There will be free elections in 2026 and 2028 and most likely the Republicans will not do well in them. And while President Trump will have a lot of power to do damage in the area of immigration, Presidents have always had lots of power over immigration (Joe Biden did too) and it is inaccurate to label that an autocratic takeover and destruction of federalism."
Sam Roberts on X - "This has been Marshall’s schtick for over 20 years now. Go back and read his old blogs from the Bush 43 years. It was things like, “Gore Vidal Explains How the Bush Regime Will Declare Martial Law and Cancel the Midterm Elections.” And then those elections happened freely and fairly and Dems did very well!"
Or, just look at all the hysterical predictions from before and during Trump's first term. There's nothing new under the sun

mike bski on X - "Dear Fellow Americans Who Love Calling Trump "Literally Hitler," So you want to play the Hitler comparison game? Alright, let's do this. But fair warning, you're probably not gonna like where this goes. I find it fascinating that folks throw around "literally Hitler" like confetti at a parade without ever cracking open a history book. So let me walk you through how Hitler ACTUALLY rose to power, and then we can compare notes on which American president's rise looks more like that playbook. Buckle up. Hitler's rise depended on a few key things. First, media control and propaganda. Goebbels created a machine that flooded Germany with pro-Nazi messaging while crushing opposition voices. They used newspapers, radio, and film to build the "Hitler Myth" where he was portrayed as some kind of messiah who would save Germany. Second, Hitler demonized his political opponents. He didn't just say "I disagree with you." No, he called them ENEMIES of the German people who needed to be destroyed. The rhetoric escalated from "political opponent" to "existential threat to the nation." Third, he weaponized government agencies against his political enemies. And fourth, he exploited a grassroots movement during economic disaster, the Great Depression, with promises to fundamentally transform the country. Sound familiar yet? Now let's talk about Obama's rise. In 2008, Pew Research found that 37% of Americans believed media coverage was biased IN FAVOR of Obama. Only 8% thought it favored his opponents. That's not me saying it, that's Pew Research. The 2008 election got dubbed "The Facebook Election" because Obama's team revolutionized how to manipulate media and bypass traditional journalism entirely. One strategist bragged about it. They created celebrity endorsements, http://will.i.am 's "Yes We Can" video, murals... Chris Matthews said he got "a thrill going up my leg" listening to Obama speak. That's not political coverage, that's worship. And about demonizing opponents? Obama LITERALLY called Republicans "ENEMIES" in a 2010 Univision interview. His exact words were telling Latino voters to "punish our enemies." Not opponents. ENEMIES. When he got called out, he backtracked and said he meant "opponents." Sure you did, buddy. This was the FIRST time a modern president used "enemies" to describe fellow Americans who disagreed with him. You have to go back to the Civil War to find that kind of language from a president. Here's the kicker though. Under Obama, the IRS systematically targeted Tea Party groups and conservative organizations. Anyone with "patriot" or "9/12" or "Tea Party" in their name got flagged for extra scrutiny. Their applications got delayed for YEARS while liberal groups sailed through. The IRS later APOLOGIZED and settled lawsuits admitting they wrongly used "heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays." A Harvard Kennedy School study concluded this targeting cost Romney between 5 and 8.5 million votes in 2012. Obama won by about 5 million. You do the math. Weaponizing the IRS against political opponents during an election year? Gee, where have I heard that tactic before... Now compare that to Trump. The media didn't carry water for Trump. They attacked him relentlessly. Studies showed 90%+ negative coverage. That's the OPPOSITE of what happened with Hitler's propaganda machine. The FBI was weaponized against HIM, not by him. Remember Crossfire Hurricane? The Russia hoax? These weren't Trump weaponizing agencies against opponents. This was agencies being weaponized against Trump. And here's where your Hitler comparison really falls apart. Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews. Trump has Jewish grandchildren. Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Trump created the Abraham Accords bringing peace between Israel and Arab nations. Trump made expanding Israeli peace deals his "personal legacy issue." Trump threatens Iran to PROTECT Israel. Real Hitler move there, right? Brokering peace for the Jewish state and having your daughter convert to Judaism. Let me spell it out real simple. The ACTUAL Hitler targeted Jews, destroyed Jewish businesses, built concentration camps, started World War II, and murdered millions. Trump pressures Arab nations to recognize Israel, makes Israeli peace deals his personal legacy, threatens Iran over their nuclear program because of Israel's security, and has Jewish grandchildren he adores. Which one sounds more like Hitler to you? Quinn's Third Law says "Liberalism must always conceal its true purpose." You don't call Trump "Hitler" because the comparison makes any historical sense. You do it because it dehumanizes your political opponent and justifies treating him and his supporters as subhuman threats who deserve whatever happens to them. That's LITERALLY the tactic Hitler used against Jews. You've become the thing you claim to hate. But what do I know? I'm just someone who actually studied history instead of getting my political analysis from TikTok and late-night comedy shows. The 6 million victims of the ACTUAL Hitler deserve better than your lazy political hyperbole used to score cheap points against a guy who champions the Jewish state."

“I just can’t do it”, Wife cancels thanksgiving and christmas with her husband’s family because they all voted for trump
Proof that Trump supporters are intolerant and hateful

Melissa Chen on X - "🇺🇸America has withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO)🇺🇸 If you're unsure of how to feel about it, let me remind you of this incident from the hellish covid year of 2020 that shows how utterly captured and corrupt the WHO is: When this reporter asked senior WHO official Dr. Bruce Aylward to comment on how Taiwan 🇹🇼 handled the covid pandemic (the answer is VERY WELL), he pretended that he couldn’t hear her question, then accidentally cancels the Skype call and refuses to answer when she calls back. This is important because the WHO has done nothing short of sycophantically praising China's handling of the crisis since Day 1. When she presses him, he then kowtows and says "well all of China has done a good job" before abruptly ending the interview. By the way, as early as Dec 31 2019, Taiwan's health authorities emailed WHO alerting them to reports of "atypical pneumonia" cases in Wuhan, China, noting that patients were being isolated - a detail implying possible human-to-human transmission Because Taiwan is excluded from the WHO (they gave Taiwan's seat to the Peoples' Republic of China) and therefore lacked direct access to WHO's formal reporting mechanisms, the alert was ignored. Instead, WHO publicly echoed China's assurances that there was NOTHING TO SEE HERE for at least another month. Meanwhile, China arrested and jailed their OWN DOCTORS for reporting what they SAW and NOTICED with their OWN eyes. This delay was a major reason that the virus spread unchecked in its early stages, with global cases exploding shortly. I want to also emphasize that besides doctors, citizen journalists who reported the truth about covid in China were also arrested and charged for "spreading rumors and disrupting the social order." Many were jailed and some have disappeared - to this day we have no idea what happened to them. It's time to let go of the nostalgia for the supranational organizations that supposedly underpinned the liberal world order - they have long surpassed their utility thanks to corruption. If you're wondering why Trump is leaving the order and "ceding" it to China, this is why. They already run it."

Meme - William E. Donnelly @Tulsabill55: "There is not a single major issue that Trump is right about."
Byron York: "The global elite lament: Trump is terrible, an authoritarian, mentally ill, Hitler, a know-nothing, but on the really big issues it turns out he's...right. Can one admit that and stay in the club? Maybe if we call the Greenland move a 'putsch'..."
Byron York on X - "As concerns Europe, I think there are four:
1) Trump told Europe: You're killing yourself with mass migration. Stop.
2) Trump told NATO: You've got to spend more on your own defense.
3) Trump told the EU: You're hurting yourselves with draconian regulations.
4) Trump told Merkel and others: Don't build Nord Stream 2. It's a terrible idea to depend on Putin's Russia for your energy.
I think Trump was right about all of those things."
aerodawg on X - "Those 4 things are the majority of the reason the euros are so ticked off. One of the uppity peasants told em they were being stupid and was right"

America vs. the World - The Atlantic - "Some pundits who welcome a post-­American world and the return of multi­polarity suggest that most of the benefits of the American order for the U.S. can be retained. America just needs to learn to restrain itself, give up utopian efforts to shape the world, and accommodate “the reality” that other countries “seek to establish their own international orders governed by their own rules,” as Harvard’s Graham Allison put it. Indeed, Allison and others argue, Americans’ insistence on predominance had caused most conflicts with Russia and China. Americans should embrace multi­polarity as more peaceful and less burdensome. Recently, Trump’s boosters among the foreign-­policy elite have even started pointing to the early-19th-century Concert of Europe as a model for the future, suggesting that skillful diplomacy among the great powers can preserve peace more effectively than the U.S.-led system did in the uni­polar world. As a purely historical matter, this is delusional. Even the most well-managed multi­polar orders were significantly more brutal and prone to war than the world that Americans have known these past 80 years. To take one example, during what some call the “long peace” in Europe, from 1815 to 1914, the great powers (including Russia and the Ottoman empire) fought dozens of wars with one another and with smaller states to defend or acquire strategic advantage, resources, and spheres of interest. These were not skirmishes but full-scale conflicts, usually costing tens—­sometimes hundreds—­of thousands of lives. Roughly half a million people died in the Crimean War (1853–56); the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) resulted in about 180,000 military and up to 250,000 civilian deaths in less than a year of fighting. Almost every decade from 1815 to 1914 included at least one war involving two or more great powers. Today’s equivalent of 19th-­century multi­polarity would be a world in which China, Russia, the United States, Germany, Japan, and other large states fought a major war in some combination at least once a decade—redrawing national boundaries, displacing populations, disrupting international commerce, and risking global conflict on a devastating scale. That was the world as it existed for centuries prior to 1945. To believe that such a world can never return would seem to be the height of utopianism. Precisely to escape this cycle of conflict, the generations of Americans who lived through two world wars laid the foundations of the American-led liberal world order. They were the true realists, because they had no illusions about multi­polarity. They had lived their entire lives with its horrific consequences. After 1945, instead of reestablishing a multipolar system, they transformed the United States into a global force, with responsibility for preserving not just its own security but the world’s. Doing so meant checking the rise of regional hegemons, especially in Europe and East Asia. They did this not because they wanted to re-­create the world in America’s image, but because they had learned that the modern world was interconnected in ways that would ultimately draw the United States into the great-power conflicts of Eurasia anyway. No country had ever before played the role that the traditionally aloof United States took on after 1945. That is partly because no other power had enjoyed America’s unique circumstances—­largely in­vulnerable to foreign invasion, because of its strength and its distance from the other great powers, and thus able to deploy force thousands of miles from home without leaving itself at risk. This combination of geography and reach allowed the United States after World War II to bring peace and security to Europe and East Asia. Nations scarred by war poured their energies into becoming economic powerhouses. That made global prosperity and international cooperation possible. Perhaps more extraordinary than America’s ability and willingness to play the dominant role was the readiness of most other great powers to embrace and legitimize its dominance—­even at the expense of their own potency... This was truly aberrant behavior and defied all theories of international relations as well as historical precedent. The normal response to the rise of a newly predominant power was for others to balance against it... This was the grand bargain of the American order after 1945. And it was what allowed for the extraordinary peace and stability of the subsequent decades, even during the Cold War. The American order established harmony among the great powers within it, and left those outside it, Russia and China, relatively isolated and insecure—unhappy with the global arrangement but limited in their ability to change it.
Left wingers keep hating on America and demanding a multipolar world, yet they get upset when the US doesn't want to totally subsidise the "rules-based international order" anymore. And they will still blame the US when they get what they want and it intervenes less
The author has a... particular reading of World War I that just blames Germany

🐬 🇬🇱 #FreeTylerRobinson on X - "Rightoids always speak as if they have zero agency, it's so stupid. One of their most popular sentiments is that rightoidism is just some unrelated phenomenon that came to being because libtards existed. They don't want to be seen as individuals with choices."
wanye on X - "This is the line you always get in response to this, but all it does is demonstrate an inability to understand the actual point.
* I mostly want Republican policies
* Democrats say that the *man* who represents those policies is so bad that I should instead choose the party whose policies I do not want
* So I’m already in a bad position, because I don’t want *your* policies. You’ve gotta give me a good reason to believe that I’d be smart to tolerate them, anyway.
* Instead, Democrats did the opposite and got *way more extreme*
I *do* have agency. I’m using that agency to *reject* you. Imagine how bad you think Trump is. Well I like you even less than that."

Meme - Duffyevsky: "Like 2 weeks into this administration libtards like Kyle Kulinski would be like "how are those egg prices?? Eh? Did they go down?" Humiliating."
Barchart: "BREAKING: Eggs. Egg Prices have now plunged 95% over the last 10 months"
Left wingers don't care, and just continue the gish gallop

Meme - Minocqua Brewing Company: "Apparently Fox News wants to interview us about our upcoming "celebration of life" party, in which we promised free beer for the whole day when he finally dies. Here's our response. If you'd also like to send Lindsay Kornick a quote that she can use for her upcoming state propaganda article, you now have her email and work phone."
"Our official response is: "Lindsay Kornick and Andre Kugle, funny you ask. you'd like to come to our party celebrating the impending death of a twice-impeached convicted felon covering up for the largest child sex ring in the history of the United States-someone who has enabled his contemporary American Gestapo to brutally murder two American protesters in a matter of weeks, then we'll invite you and any FOX news colleagues of your on one condition... ..No red hats allowed." Give your bosses at Faux News my best, Kirk Bangstad, Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company"
From the side of "coexist" and "love" who are against "hate"

Meme - *Luigi Mangione*
Democrat Soyjak: "Thank you for standing up to the Big Pharma and healthcare industry"
Donald Trump: "For many years the World has wondered why Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceuticals in the United States States of America were SO MUCH HIGHER IN PRICE THAN THEY WERE IN ANY OTHER NATION, SOMETIMES BEING FIVE TO TEN TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE SAME DRUG, MANUFACTURED IN THE EXACT SAME LABORATORY OR PLANT, BY THE SAME COMPANY??? It was always difficult to explain and very embarrassing because, in fact, there was no correct or rightful answer. The Pharmaceutical/Drug Companies would say, for years, that it was Research and Development Costs, and that all of these costs were, and would be, for no reason whatsoever, borne by the “suckers” of America, ALONE. Campaign Contributions can do wonders, but not with me, and not with the Republican Party. We are going to do the right thing, something that the Democrats have fought for many years. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history. Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. They will rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA! I will be instituting a MOST FAVORED NATION’S POLICY whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World. Our Country will finally be treated fairly, and our citizens Healthcare Costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before. Additionally, on top of everything else, the United States will save TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Democrat Soyjak: *upset*"

Meme - Megan Basham @megbasham: "Oh my gosh I went on Threads and ppl there are NOT okay."
tudors_reimagined: "Recently I found out a very good friend of mine and someone I've collaborated with for years was a secret MAGA. It happened when I came across a post she "liked" on IG. Then I went down her follower list and saw more horrific things she had "liked". Every single day since I told her off and blocked her, new Trump atrocities have come out. And every day I'm more and more happy I made the decision to punt her friendship to the curb. These people have told us who they are. I believe them."
polwoggy: "Yes- the final straw for me was noticing a former cousin-in-law was laughing at posts with people offering to deliver food for neighbors afraid to leave their homes. On her page she tried to appear neutral- because she's a realtor. But the magaisms kept leaking out- more by her posts on community pages. I realized she was hateful and unreachable."
The "coexist", "love" and "empathy" people go absolutely batshit insane bonkers when people disagree with them politically

Jacob M. Wright | Facebook - "No, Trump did not post a video of the Obama’s as apes. Trump posted a screen recording of a video on election fraud and when it ended the feed scrolled to the next video which auto played for a split second which was a video of politicians heads on different animals singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The video features the Obama’s and Biden as apes, Hillary as a warthog, Hakeem Jeffries as a meercat, Schumer as a giraffe, AOC as a donkey, etc. Trump’s team must’ve failed to review and trim it out. Once he realized what had happened, Trump deleted the post. That’s the context of everyone screaming “racism” today."
This didn't stop the media and left wingers spreading fake news as usual

Facebook - "Notice how the vast majority of the people who are talking about the post that came from Trump’s account being racist are nowhere to be found when white liberals are calling federal agents in Minnesota the N word with the Hard R. The selective outrage is very real..They aren’t principled. They just care about pushing their narrative and winning politically."

Meme - "According to democrats, only two of these photos are offensive *Trump as monkey* *Bush as monkey* *Obamas as monkeys*"

I am Ken on X - "A WALKING, TALKING CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Yesterday, we reported on federal judge Ana C. Reyes, who invented a novel legal theory to explain why she somehow had the authority to block President Trump from ending the “temporary” protected status of 350,000 Haitians granted by Joe Biden. Well, to quote an old catchphrase from “Get Smart,” would you believe, that Reyes is from Uruguay herself? That she got her start as a pro bono attorney for refugees? And that she’s donated thousands of dollars exclusively to Democrats, including $2700 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Trump in 2016, two $2800 contributions to Biden’s campaign against Trump in 2020, and $4500 to Kamala Harris’ campaign against Trump in 2024? credit: Huckabee Post"

A Gene Robinson on X - "BREAKING… Remember that No Kings uprising…? This spreadsheet detonates the biggest lie in Democrat politics. There is no grassroots movement. What you’re seeing is a grant-funded uprising…designed, timed, and financed from the top down. Same donor pipelines… Same foundations… Same year… Dozens of “independent” groups… All pushing the same narratives at the same time. That isn’t democracy. That’s orchestration. They sell protests as spontaneous outrage…yet outrage doesn’t come with coordinated budgets, synchronized lawsuits, identical messaging, and fiscal sponsors baked in. This isn’t people rising up. It’s elites pulling strings. And here’s the part they never want spoken plainly… When the same money simultaneously fuels climate chaos, border chaos, court pressure, election agitation, media NGOs, and “No Kings” theatrics, the goal is not reform. The goal is destabilization. Overwhelm institutions… Delegitimize authority… Exhaust the public… Then step in as the “solution.” That’s the playbook. The hypocrisy is staggering. They scream about “dark money” while hiding behind NGOs designed to obscure donors. They rail against oligarchs while depending on them. They invoke “the people” while answering to grant committees. Read it again… Every chant has a budget. Every protest has a sponsor. Every “organic” movement has a funding deadline. This isn’t activism. It’s astroturf revolution. Once people see it…they can’t unsee it. #SilentMajoritySpeaks #AStoneGroove"
Left wingers mock the idea that left wing protesters could be paid, despite the evidence, and claim right wingers just don't understand how people could spend time on a cause - even though right wingers spend more time volunteering than them. Ironic.

Meme - "The president has 5 kids, 3 baby mamas, lives in government housing, and has a mugshot, yet the liberals still hate him."

Meme - Leading Report @LeadingReport: "BREAKING: House has passed a bill to ban noncitizens from acquiring federal business loans."
Seamus (FreedomToons) @seamus_coughlin: "every day since Trump got elected theres another headline like "Illegal Aliens BANNED from accessing nuclear codes" or "MS-13 LOSES diplomatic immunity" and you're like wait they were allowed to do WHAT?
Headline: Trump bans illegal aliens from captaining aircraft carriers
normal people: wait we were letting them WHAT?
liberal: "first they came for the immigrants, and I said nothing...""

Links - 8th March 2026 (2 - Jeffrey Epstein)

Mario Nawfal on X - "🇺🇸 JPMorgan admits it closed 50+ Trump accounts in February 2021 after Jan 6, telling him to "find a more suitable institution." The same JPMorgan that maintained accounts with Jeffrey Epstein for years after his 2008 conviction and paid $290 million to settle lawsuits from his victims.  A convicted child sex trafficker was a suitable client.   A sitting president was not.  Source: NYT"

Reuters on X - "Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a 'global criminal enterprise' that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council says"
Jonatan Pallesen on X - "There is worse proven child rape and rape slavery of 11-13 year old girls by any Muslim rape gang from Rotherham than the total involving Epstein or Epstein island. Or in Rochdale. Or in Telford. Or in Oxford. Or in Newcastle, Huddersfield, Keighley, Bradford, Sheffield, Derby, Aylesbury, Burnley, Halifax, Blackburn, Blackpool, Coventry, Peterborough, High Wycombe, Banbury, Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham, Oldham, Dewsbury, Manchester, Luton, …etc."

Cynical Publius on X - "It's important sometimes to remind people of the news stories that the Democrat/Media Complex buries.  Do you know who Kathryn Ruemmler is?  She was Obama's White House Counsel.  A few days ago she resigned from her incredibly lucrative position as General Counsel of Goldman-Sachs when it was reveled that she was a close friend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein.  She used to call him "sweetie" and "Uncle Jeffrey," and Epstein showered her with expensive gifts and career advice.  She was Obama's White House Counsel.  AND SHE WAS A CLOSE FRIEND OF EPSTEIN.  Let that sink in, and if your Democrat friends or relatives are unaware of this, make sure they become aware."

Bad Hombre on X - "Obese pedo Reid Hoffman funded and provided Christine Blasey Ford with a private jet to testify against Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Hoffman then used the same strategy against Trump by funding E. Jean Carroll. Sexual assault smears are his preferred tool."
SKDoubleDub on X - "Because this is their playbook! Reid Hoffman and David Brock wrote a playbook outlining their strategy.   All of these “SA” claims have been made by women paid in one way or another, by David Brock, Reid Hoffman and their circle of investors.   This has been well known since 2016. There are even memos/emails that have been released detailing their strategy Kavanaugh accusations.   They know exactly what they’re doing, which is why it’s so ironic that Reid Hoffman appears in the Epstein Files and has his panties in a wad over being dragged on the internet over the honorable mentions.   The left has been using the Epstein files as narrative warfare. They know all that matters is being able to level accusations at Trump. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. The perception of the public is all that matters. They have their propaganda machine media companies, like Media Matters, the Bulwark, Fulcrum, and almost all of MSM, wiling to parrot their propaganda talking points to “BREAK” the authoritarian regime that is Trump. It is necessary for them to “Defend Democracy.”  This is exactly what @DataRepublican  @iamlisalogan  and I have been trying to explain and outline.   It’s all a part of the big picture plan of the color revolution."

Michael Tracey on X - "Look at this madness from (bizarrely) one of the most popular podcasts in the country.   @karaswisher  declares how wonderful it is that Prince Andrew was arrested for some vague "public misconduct" offense, because he "should've been arrested for something else," but "this is what they could get him on."   And she also declares that she knows Andrew "did this," meaning commit a child sex crime, even though the central claims of his accuser have been resoundingly discredited, including by US government investigators, according to newly released Epstein Files that Kara evidently never got a chance to read.   But in any event, "show me the man and I'll show you the crime" used to be regarded as the quintessential Stalinist ethos of how to enforce criminal law. Kara explicitly calls on the US to import this once-reviled philosophy, because in her mind, "everybody's dirty" who was ever associated with Epstein, in any way, ever.  She therefore calls for a US special counsel of some sort, to pursue further prosecutions on the basis of her newly embraced Stalinist philosophy.   Scott Galloway, whose apparent appeal as a media personality I'm still constantly baffled by, agrees with his co-host and says US prosecutors should simply pour through Epstein's flight logs, and pick out some random people to prosecute. He demands "dozens if not hundreds" of new indictments on the basis of this quintessentially Stalinist imperative.  Just incredible stuff. The contemporary podcast media ecosystem is such a ridiculous blight on humanity."
sonch on X - "The most mind-blowing thing to me about this wave of Epsteinism is still that literally none of it would be happening if a certain cohort of people hadn’t become convinced it’s a way to Get Trump.  If in 2015 you’d tried to babble something about Jeffrey Epstein to any of the people currently in a frenzy about him, they’d roll their eyes, assume you were some kind of anti Bill Clinton right-winger, and say there wasn’t any proof of anything.   And they’d be right! There wasn’t any proof, and there’s still not, not really. I mean I may have suspicions myself, but I know full well they’re not based on anything that could add up to legally-actionable ‘proof’.  Even when Epstein (didn’t…) kill himself in 2019, today’s Epstein-frenziers didn’t make much of it. It was *still* kind of right-wing-coded to care about him. The joke was usually that Hillary Clinton killed him or something along those lines.  What seems to have happened is that after exhausting Russiagate and Ukrainegate and the Wuhan Virus and finally trying to sic Superman Jack Smith on Trump, none of it succeeded in derailing him as a political actor for good. So finally, with nothing else to turn to, a certain kind of person has turned to the Epstein thing.  And the hope - a desperate one obviously - is that if they just scream enough to ‘release files’ and ‘arrest someone’ and whatever, abandoning all normal evidential or legal criteria in the process, then maybe, just maybe, eventually, finally, somehow, Donald Trump will get swept up in the legal-splash-damage. That seems to be the hope anyway.  And while, yes, some on the right have been talking about Jeffrey Epstein and the ‘Lolita Express’ etc. for *over a decade*, the people you see newly saying this stuff wouldn’t be holding this opinion or adopting this stance *at all* if not for the dream of Getting Trump. It’s amazing!"

THE HYPOCRISY OLYMPICS - "In his latest Commentary newsletter, Abe Greenwald writes:
Yes, there was a sex ring. The multimillionaire at the heart of it traveled with a harem of women and used them for his own sexual needs. But he regularly pimped them out to high-profile men as well. He assigned each woman a number so that the john, after viewing what was on offer, would just have to tell him which number he wanted. When the pimp had used up a particular woman, he’d discard her and replace her with a new one. It was really as vile as all that, and it’s absolutely true. The guy bragged about it.  Jeffrey Epstein?  Heck, no. I’m talking the man who’s currently being celebrated for his role as honorary coach of Team USA at the Winter Olympics: Snoop Dogg, America’s most beloved thug.  “I put an organization together,” Snoop told Rolling Stone in 2013. “I did a Playboy tour, and I had a bus follow me with ten bitches on it. I could fire a bitch, f**k a bitch, get a new ho: It was my program. City to city, t**ty to t**ty, hotel room to hotel room, athlete to athlete, entertainer to entertainer…. A lot of athletes bought p**sy from me.”  Well, at least he sounded conscience-stricken about it.  And there’s this. Snoop went on his pimp tour in 2003, when he had already been a rich and wildly successful recording artist for a decade. Which is perhaps why he was more generous than most pimps. “I’d act like I’d take the money from the bitch,” he said, “but I’d let her have it.”  What a guy, huh.  I previously wrote about Snoop in the context of anti-Semitism. Namely, about how the liberal establishment took a career-long defender of Louis Farrakhan and elevated him to the heights of cultural acceptability.  Why am I writing about him now? Because while Americans have worked themselves into a moral fit and launched a witch hunt for anyone whose name is mentioned glancingly in the Epstein files, they’re also delighted to their core that, as one CNN headline has it, “Coach Snoop is having a blast at the Olympics.” This is about moral hypocrisy."

Peter Mandelson arrested in Jeffrey Epstein probe - "British police on Monday arrested Peter Mandelson, a former U.K. ambassador to the United States, in a misconduct probe stemming from his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein. It came days after a friendship with Epstein landed the former Prince Andrew in police custody."
So much for that meme claiming that almost everyone in the Epstein files is Jewish, but the only one arrested is ex-Prince Andrew, who is the only non-Jewish one

Globe Eye News on X - "BREAKING: Former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland attempts suicide shortly after being charged with corruption in connection with Jeffrey Epstein."
General Mike Flynn on X - "Isn’t this the guy who gave @BarackObama his Nobel peace prize? Asking for 77 million voters."

Meme - Gays Against Groomers @againstgrmrs: "SHOCKING: Jeffrey Epstein spoke to a Harvard scientist about the s*xual benefits of turning children trans, and spoke of doing so as young as 3 years old."
From: Robert Trivers ***
To: Jeffrey Epstein
Subject: Trans
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2018 04:52:10 +0000
it is very simple-i will compare male to female with female to male.  with greater molecular control over development we are increasingly capable of producing novel phenotypes- more feminine men, by blocking testosterone receptors (or castration) and, at the same time, increasing estrogen production-the one bocks male features, the second encourages female features. more masculine women-heavy testosterone dosage-incredible external effects, heavily bearded men, you would never guess they had a female bone in their body
first kind-male -> female is 4 times more frequent than female -> male
the first is attractive-he is a woman with a cock, so that if your fantasy is to suck a man's dick, otherwise you are completely heterosexual, it would be much nicer if the rest of the organism is female, then you get the best of both worlds
so many transsexual women are very attractive and easily make money which in turn they assert promotes their prostitution since they have to pay hefty fees for injections every week, but they are sexually happy, -- once you have reached manhood even castration does not prevent the sensation of organism
contrast the poor female to male versions, they are unhappy and lonely-they are men with mum-pums, the worst of both worlds
if you like smelly masculine men, you want that hard cock that comes with the show-you do not want one of nature's more complex and variable structures, the pum-pum-that is an acquired tasted-and not with a man
there are 100's of female Trans videos and websites, i have never seen a male one
BTW we are now pushing the intervention earlier -- so you notice your 3-year old son has trans tendencies, so now you intervene with hormones-i would be frightened to do that-but who knows ?"

Meme - Drew Pavlou: "Fidel Castro with Epstein"
Commie Trucker @commie_trucker: "I mean yeah, communism isn't perfect, but under a dictatorship of the proletariat every single monster on the Epstein list would've been shot."
Readers added context: "Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's chief of secret police, was a notorious pedophile, with the skeletons of murdered young girls being found under his former residences in the 1990s."

M.A. Rothman on X - "The Epstein List could have 100,000 names on it. And Liberals only want to see ONE name. Period. Just One They couldn't care less about the victims or what happened on that island. Hating Trump has become their entire identity. It's kind of pathetic if you think about it."

Jay 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on X - "The epstein files are mental because do you want to know who's not in them?
- Gay people.
- Trans people.
- Black people.
- Muslim people.
Not a single one. Its entirely wealthy "straight" white Christian and Jewish men. Thats a bit weird isnt it??"
DP World boss emailed Epstein about sexual experiences - "Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, one of the most senior business figures in Dubai, maintained a relationship with Epstein long after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, the documents show.  The emails include Sulayem describing to Epstein women with whom it appears he had had sexual relations, at times apparently sending images as attachments.  In one instance in June 2013, Sulayem sent Epstein an email with a series of details about an individual, including age, weight, height and bra size... after discussing religion, Sulayem told Epstein: “I am off the [sic] sample a fresh 100% female Russian at my yacht.”... In September 2015, Sulayem wrote to Epstein about a “girl” he was involved with, saying it was “the best sex I ever had amazing body”.  In November 2013, Sulayem sent an email to Epstein saying: “By the way the Ukrainian and the Moldavian arrived. Big disappointment the Moldavian is not as attractive as the picture while the Ukrainian is very beautiful.” Epstein responded: “photo shop”.  In 2017, Epstein sent Sulayem a link to a website providing escorts in Italy. Sulayem responded with “Wow”.  It appears Sulayem sent Epstein a price list for prostitution services in December 2013, writing: “I am in Tokyo I just tried the full massage.”  The list included explicit details about the types of sexual services a “full massage” entails at the establishment, as well as the cost of more “popular” workers.  In June 2013, Sulayem had told Epstein of a meeting he had had with someone, suggesting he was “one if [sic] us”. When Epstein responded “no, lots of drugs”, Sulayem said: “Of [sic] my god no no i do only girls thank you for the heads up I will stay away.”... Sulayem had helped to arrange for a Russian “masseuse” from Epstein’s “private spa” to train at the Rixos hotel in Antalya, Turkey, at the convicted paedophile’s request."
Michael Jackson detailed his thoughts on children in previously unheard audio - "The singer was shown in one picture posing with Epstein next to a large painting"
Epstein's African connections included presidents, heirs and recruiters
Peter Mandelson resigns from U.K. Labour Party over Epstein ties - "U.K. Labour peer Peter Mandelson has resigned from the Labour Party over his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has indicated that he may be stripped of his “lord” title."

Rubio raised alarm with Labour over Mandelson - "In comments understood to have been relayed to Downing Street, the US secretary of state is believed to have expressed deep unease about the peer’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and links to China... It will prompt further questions over the Prime Minister’s judgment in appointing Lord Mandelson as US ambassador... The Labour peer was handed the role at the end of 2024 and lasted nine months before he was sacked when the extent of his friendship with Epstein was made public... Fresh photos have also emerged of Mandelson in the Epstein files, which the US department of justice released, including images of him in his underwear. The extent of the friendship raises questions about Epstein’s influence over Mandelson and whether he was potentially at risk of blackmail... Sir Keir admitted that he was aware that Lord Mandelson had continued his relationship with Epstein after the financier’s conviction, but still made him US ambassador.  Lord Glasman, a Labour peer, said he had both privately and publicly warned Sir Keir not to appoint Lord Mandelson... a revolt by Labour MPs forced Sir Keir to hand control over the release of the files relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Parliament’s intelligence and security committee.  The files were set to be released by the Prime Minister’s most senior civil servant. But in a severe blow to Sir Keir’s authority, Downing Street was forced to hand the process to the committee after Angela Rayner, his former deputy, and senior Labour MPs insisted No 10 should not decide what material is published.  It was the latest climbdown by Sir Keir after several Labour rebellions and more than a dozen about-turns during his time in government."

Beware the excessive hounding of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor - "I was once what modern society would term “MeToo’d”. A lunch invitation from an older man in a senior position (itself almost a high crime today) became an unwanted lurch and, much to my misfortune, a clumsy grope.  It wasn’t pleasant, but nor was it life-altering. Before MeToo – the bona fide movement against genuine sexual abuse which swiftly metastasised into a great global witch-hunting exercise – this sort of thing, for better or worse, was not uncommon. Today, even behaviour no rational person would consider predatory – a compliment on a new dress, say – is so viciously condemned that schoolboys are terrified of asking a female classmate to borrow their ruler.  I thought of this experience reading an article reporting that Thames Valley Police are assessing allegations that a woman was “sent” to Britain by Jeffrey Epstein for a “sexual encounter” with the former Prince Andrew. It is alleged she spent the night with the then Duke of York and is described as an “Epstein survivor”. The woman, not British, was in her 20s at the time – well over the age of consent. The experience was apparently so dreadful that she stayed for tea and a tour of Buckingham Palace the following day.   It may well transpire this woman was trafficked against her will, that there was coercion, force, or some other form of abuse. If so, that is criminal, and should be treated as such. But based purely on the facts currently in the public domain, doesn’t this sound slightly tenuous? Or, at the very least, contestable?... The pressure now must be relentless, week after week. And it will never be enough: the pile-on crowd want him banished. Where to? Chagos? An American hellhole prison? Even then, he must know that out of sight will never be out of mind.  The problem is that legal presumption of innocence is no match for moral crusading. Yes, it all looks a bit sordid and debauched, and 30 years is an uncomfortably wide age gap, but so long as no crime was committed the reaction is pure pearl-clutching, hectoring virtue-signalling. One of my friends married her godfather, 25 years her senior. So what? That fact alone tells us nothing about consent or happiness.  What this saga really reveals is not the questionable behaviour of two powerful men, but the character of our society – its priggishness, schadenfreude, rush to judgment and belief that every uninformed opinion is as valid as any other. All of it amplified by social media algorithms and foreign bots.  Prostitution is not the same as paedophilia, it’s why one is a legal grey area in this country and the other is rightly considered a heinous crime. We accept – sometimes, perhaps, through gritted teeth as in the case of Bonnie Blue – that adults may sell sexual services of their own volition.  But beware condemning behaviour in even the recent past according to the ever-changing moral standards of today. Give it long enough, and we might all find ourselves in the dock."

Epstein files must be taken down, victims demand - "The Epstein files should be taken down, victims of the paedophile have demanded, accusing the Trump administration of failing to protect their identities.  Nude photos and the names of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims were published as part of the release of almost three million documents relating to the convicted paedophile on Friday.  Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who represent more than 200 Epstein victims, told judges in New York that there was an “unfolding emergency” and the files needed to be removed from public view.  They said that almost 100 of their clients had found unredacted information about themselves and that their “lives had been turned upside down”... The DoJ had been ordered to release all the Epstein files by Dec 19 by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but missed the deadline by more than a month."
Damn pedo protectors! Time to check all their hard drives!
Clearly, Trump must be held in contempt of court for not publishing the documents sooner

Why I’m in the Epstein Files - "among the documents: an email I sent in June 2020 to a number of senior figures who worked in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.  I had been pursuing a comment on a colleague’s story about Andrew and his friendship with Epstein. A source close to Andrew claimed US Attorney Geoffrey Berman was lying about the prince refusing to cooperate. I emailed Berman and his deputies – including James Comey’s daughter Maurene! No reply came.  I had completely forgotten about this interaction until yesterday"

𝐟𝐚𝐮ᛋ𝐭 on X - "People whose worst crime is pirating movies: I always use a VPN and I only use protonmail and if my password is ever typed in wrong even one time it autodeletes everything Jeffery Epstein on a gmail account with his initials: "yeah we fuck kids nigga" - sent from my ipad"

Meme - "Photo 1: A man that solicited money from Jeffrey Epstein after he was arrested for child prostitution. *Hakeem Jeffries*
Photo 2: A man that claimed Republicans were running "Pedofi1e Protection Program". *Hakeem Jeffries*"

Meme - *Drake Hotline Bling* "Being disappointed in Chomsky for associating with Epstein
Being disappointed in Epstein for associating with Chomsky"

Thread by @RichardHanania on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts released! See here for thread on the most interesting parts.
Ghislaine is asked whether Epstein ever received money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad. She replies that not as far as she knows and she would be surprised if he did. Epstein started taking testosterone in the late 1990s. But he was not on any other substances. Epstein would get bored with masseuses and always wanted to find new ones. She says she never thought anyone giving massages was under 18. She disputes claims that she recruited one of Epstein’s accusers while at Mar-a-Lago, but concedes she did sometimes meet spa workers and might have casually asked if they wanted to work, without remembering specifics.
Maxwell on Epstein's relationship with Trump: "I don't know how they met, and I don't know how they became friends. I certainly saw them together and I remember the few times I observed them together, but they were friendly. I mean, they seemed friendly."
Maxwell: "I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects." Now you know why she got transferred to a lower security prison.
Bill Clinton also never got a massage.
She is exasperated with how stupid this all is. "So that narrative that was created and then built upon, and it just mushroomed into what – basically this is like a Salem witch trial. People have gone and lost their minds for this thing."
Ghislaine on Epstein: "He's not some – they've made him into this – he's not that interesting. He's a disgusting guy who did terrible things to young kids.
Gislaine: "A man wants sexual favors, he will find that. They didn't have to come to Epstein for that."
She doesn't know anything about Epstein's relationship with Ehud Barak.
"I never, at any time, set Andrew up to have relations with her or any other human being ever."
Ghislaine says that Epstein told her he had issues having sex. But she thinks he was lying, because he masturbated and liked to get blowjobs.
Ghislaine said that she never told any woman how to pleasure Epstein. If he needed someone to know, "he clearly was able to explain himself."
Ghislaine denies she was paid $30 million to recruit girls for Epstein.
In sum, this whole thing is very dumb. The entire Epstein story is a stupid moral panic with nothing behind it. Leftist MeToo hysteria combined with rightist pedo hysteria. Watch @mtracey and I discuss.  If you fell for this, rethink everything."

The ‘Gaza genocide’ myth debunked

For some reason this is only available as a PDF, so it's not going to be properly indexed. So I am re-posting the entire text:

The ‘Gaza genocide’ myth debunked

 

Why is a finding of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) highly unlikely? In the following discussion I will look to include an unpacking of the travaux preparatoires of the Genocide Convention (1948) because it is so little known or studied and because it is critical in interpreting the Convention, as prescribed by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) Article 32. Travaux préparatoires (TP) is the name used to describe the documentary evidence of the negotiation, discussions, and drafting that led to the final treaty text.

Before launching into this analysis, it is worth bearing in mind the statement made by Professor Rosalyn Higgins, the first female President of the ICJ in the foreword to the first published consolidation of the TP in 2008. She said, “There is undoubtedly a degradation of the concept of genocide in its all too easy invocation by politicians who have not troubled to learn the distinction between (other areas of law) and genocide. Lawyers have not been immune from contributing to this degradation”. Hirad Abtahi and Philipa Webb, the compilers of the published TP added in the preface, “Bearing in mind that genocide is a complex crime (many have opined that it has a subjective surplus and an objective deficit)…”

Let’s begin with the current ICJ process initiated by South Africa and what the Judges have had to say so far. There are three steps in the process. The first hearing was purely procedural to determine issues such as is there a dispute between states, has the initiating state correctly cited the convention, do the Palestinians qualify as a "national, ethnical, racial or religious group" and evaluating provisional orders sought or what they might need to make on their own initiative etc. The second step is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceeding to a full trial on the substantive question (the so-called merits of the case) and then finally a possible trial itself if the first two hurdles are navigated. There have and will likely be further procedural deliberations along the way. As the President of the Court at the time of the procedural hearing, Joan Donoghue, has since explained, the court found that there was a dispute and that the Palestinians met the definition of a protected group but this did not mean that Israel was "plausibly committing a genocide" simply that Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present its claim to the court. That is all.

The ICJ deliberated on the provisional orders sought by South Africa, which included an order for the immediate cessation of operations in Gaza. The Court rejected every one of the South African provisional orders sought, including the cessation of operations. It instead made a few orders of its own including the requirement on Israel to prevent the possibility of genocide in accordance with the convention (a standard statement), prevent and punish acts of incitement, enable the provision of services and relief, preserve evidence to facilitate later hearings, submit regular reports, and a demand that Hamas immediately and unconditionally release all hostages. This is in contrast to the Ukraine v Russia case where the Court did order the cessation of operations. The Russian invasion was also very clearly an act of aggression, which is a crime against peace. That they did not make such an order against Israel was a clear signal that they accepted Israel was operating in accord with Article 51 of the UN Charter under the inherent right of self-defence.

So let's consider some of the comments in the separate judicial statements. Noting that the merits of the case were not up for determination in the procedural hearing some judges felt compelled to manage expectations by reference to the standard of proof required to establish genocide. The current Vice President of the ICJ, Julia Sebutinde from Uganda was dismissive of the entire case stating,

"Unfortunately, the failure, reluctance or inability of States to resolve political controversies such as this one through effective diplomacy or negotiations may sometimes lead them to resort to a pretextual invocation of treaties like the Genocide Convention, in a desperate bid to force a case into the context of such a treaty, in order to foster its judicial settlement: rather like the proverbial 'Cinderella’s glass slipper'".

Judge Nolte of Germany directly commenting on the special level of intent required to establish genocide stated:

"I am not persuaded that South Africa has plausibly shown that the military operation undertaken by Israel, as such, is being pursued with genocidal intent. The information provided by South Africa regarding Israel’s military operation is not comparable to the evidence before the Court in The Gambia v. Myanmar in 2020.”

“The Applicant must be expected to engage not only with the stated purpose of the operation, namely to “destroy Hamas” and to liberate the hostages, but also with other manifest circumstances, such as the calls to the civilian population to evacuate, an official policy, and orders to soldiers not to target civilians, the way in which the opposing forces are confronting each other on the ground, as well as the enabling of the delivery of a certain amount of humanitarian aid, all of which may give rise to other plausible inferences from an alleged “pattern of conduct” than genocidal intent."

Judge Bhandari of India noted, on the question of the relevant intent, the ruling of the IJC in another matter, “in order to infer the existence of dolus specialis (special intent) from a pattern of conduct, it is necessary and sufficient that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question” Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2015 (I), p. 67, para. 148.

Let's look at cases brought to the ICJ alleging violation of the Genocide Convention as the most immediately relevant jurisprudence:

• 1993 Bosnia against Serbia. Only Srebrenica (1995) was declared as a genocide incident in its 2007 decision. The ICJ ruled Serbia had not committed, conspired to commit, or been complicit in the genocide. Serbia was only ordered to cooperate with ICTY (ad hoc tribunal for former Yugoslavia) and transfer accused individuals. No financial compensation was required. The case took 14 years to complete. In relation to Srebrenica there was overwhelmingly conclusive evidence derived from the communications passing amongst the Serb actors, video evidence, the extensive testimony of witnesses and the physical evidence.
• 1999 Croatia against Serbia. (See the quote from this case by Judge Bhandari above indicating that genocide has to be the ONLY inference that can be drawn from the conflict circumstances to prove the allegation). Dismissed in 2015.
• 2019 The Gambia against Myanmar. Still underway.
• 2022 Ukraine against Russia. Still underway. ICJ ordered an immediate halt to Russian military operations.
• 2023 South Africa against Israel. Still underway. No order to halt IDF military operations. Possible completion by 2027 or 2028.

In following the deliberations of the ICJ in these previous cases and considering the obiter dicter (said in passing) of some of the judges, a very high bar will be set for establishing genocide in the context of an active war zone.

Moving to the Convention itself, it is critically important to note that this document was drafted in a process that stretched from 1946-1948 in the shadow of WWII and the Holocaust, and following the establishment of Nuremberg trial process. The design of the convention such as relates to the scope of the crime, the required intent and as revealed in the extensive deliberations of the process, was shaped by deconfliction with modern war realities, the laws of armed conflict and the general category of crimes against humanity.

It began with a General Assembly Resolution and was processed through ECOSOC and the UN “Sixth Committee” (which deals with legal issues). The drafters were aware that fully defining a new crime of this nature under international law was too challenging to be properly and fully detailed in the Convention. They therefore kept to a simple formula in Articles II & III, trusting to the supporting body of material in their Travaux Preparatoires (TP, preparatory work) of the drafting process and judicial deliberations that would advert to it in the years ahead. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) Article 32 codified the customary law that the TP is to be used in interpreting treaties in these circumstances. The other aid to interpretation is Jurisprudence, found in State Courts and International Tribunals.

The primary distinction of the crime of genocide relates to the dolus specialis or special intent. It is necessary to establish certain acts happened (actus reus), that there was an intent not only to commit the actions (mens rea) claimed but conclusively establish the act was done with the intent to destroy a group. As noted previously this has to be the “only conclusion” that can be drawn, supported by a clear and substantial body of evidence. What the drafters had in mind were the examples of the transcript of the Nazi Wannsee Conference of Jan 1942 and the vast documentation, physical evidence (ie death camps, gas chambers, rail heads, round up processes and ghettoes) and witness testimony of the Holocaust. They were highly conscious that they were defining this crime for the first time and that it was on higher level of turpitude than all other crimes under international law. They were therefore at pains to divorce genocide from large s>cale casualties of war, with the experience of the scale of conflict required to subdue the fanaticism of the Nazis and Japanese militarists in mind. They also wanted to clearly separate it from war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The following extracts underline this point. They made it clear for example that:

“[t]he infliction of losses, even heavy losses, on the civilian population in the course of operations of war, does not as a rule constitute genocide. In modern war belligerents normally destroy factories, means of communication, public buildings, etc. and the civilian population inevitably suffers more or less severe losses. It would of course be desirable to limit such losses. Various measures might be taken to achieve this end, but this question belongs to the field of the regulation of the conditions of war and not to that of genocide.”

“Genocide is the deliberate destruction of a human group. This literal definition must be rigidly adhered to; otherwise there is a danger of the idea of genocide being expanded indefinitely to include the law of war, the right of peoples to self- determination, the protection of minorities, the respect of human rights”.

“The destruction of the human group is the actual aim in view. In the case of foreign or civil war, one side may inflict extremely heavy losses on the other but its purpose is to impose its will on the other side and not to destroy it.”

The point they were making in these prescriptions was that other bodies of law would be relevant to assessing things like war crimes, general crimes against humanity and civil rights as distinct from genocide.

The Russian delegation through the drafting process reinforced the distinction between the laws of armed conflict and genocide by referring to the latter as actions “entirely independent of the conduct of military operations”. They did not in the TP process, for example, cite the siege of Leningrad or the battle for Stalingrad as situations of genocide despite the tremendous civilian death tolls. They and the other delegates were well aware of the scale of the civilian casualties in the battles for Berlin, Cherbourg, Dresden and other urban battles in WWII. The Chairman in this respect stated that:

“in times of war, the motive for the act was not to destroy a group as such, but to impair the military strength of the enemy. The report should make clear that the Committee had not contemplated the case of war, since the codification of the laws of war was not within its competence.”

In relation to genocide he added, “The intention was the important factor and the destruction of a fraction of the group would constitute genocide provided that the intention was to destroy the group totally.”"

The Nazis, for example, in the Wannsee transcript detailed the intent to kill all 11 million Jews in Europe but fell short at 6 million.

In the case of the Palestinians in contrast, it is therefore relevant to consider that in relation to Arabs under Israeli jurisdiction the population dynamic has been as follows:

Aabs in Israel:
1948 = 156,000
2023 = 2,100,000
Arabs in the West Bank:
1967 = 661,000
2023 = 2,747,943
Arabs in Gaza:
1967 = 354,700
2005 = 1,300,000
2023 = 2,100,000

The reason for the 2005 marker is that this is when Israel withdrew completely from Gaza. The population in Gaza grew significantly before and after being under Israeli jurisdiction.

From these figures we can see that beyond the combat zone of Gaza where deaths have resulted from an armed conflict there has been no attempt to kill all Palestinians. This is a serious blow to claims that Israel has the requisite intent to kill the entire group given the clear views of the drafters of the Convention.

The drafters commented further on the theme of the distinction with armed conflict:

“Take the example of a defensive war… Modern war was total, and there might be bombing which might destroy whole groups. If the motives for genocide were not listed in the Convention, such bombing might be called a crime of genocide; but that would obviously be untrue.”

“Under international law any State had the right to defend itself against elements which committed certain acts against the Government. If the rebellious group were destroyed, it would be because of its activities, and not because of its political views.”

Again, they are not saying in this case that other bodies of law might not be relevant to the conduct of the hostilities but simply that the Genocide Convention would not be. The shorthand indicator that makes clear the distinction is the quote in the TP that the Nazi genocide, with the well documented plan to exterminate all Jews:

“had been committed systematically and as a government plan, diabolically conceived and cold-bloodedly executed”.

That is what a Court will be looking for, as clearly already flagged by some of the Judges in the ICJ South African case.

With regard to the issue of incitement the drafters set a similarly high bar. They did this because, as they stated, during war there will be speech by leaders that will be intended to motivate the armed forces and rally the home front. There are endless examples of this in WWII, including in Australia. The drafters stated, therefore, that:

“The propagation of hatred alone would not constitute sufficient grounds for conviction… it would be necessary for the propaganda to have been carried out systematically and with intent to instigate the crime. In practice the clause would only apply to the most extreme cases.”

“…the inclusion of incitement might undoubtedly give rise to abuses, for any criticism of one group by another, whether in good or bad faith, (could) be represented by certain countries as an incitement to genocide”.

Let us now turn to some of the objective facts that will also mitigate against a finding of genocide. Starting with relief activities in Gaza since the war began until the ceasefire, we know for certain that a total of 2,174,489 tons of humanitarian aid crossed into Gaza since October 7. Per the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the standard emergency ration is 0.7 kg per person per day, providing the minimum 2100 kcal (standard human caloric need). For Gaza’s 2.2 million people, that would be enough to feed everyone for more than 3 years. So if people were going hungry, it’s not because aid wasn't getting in, it is because of what happens after it does. The reality is the relief was subject to systematic looting by Hamas in particular. When financial resources to Hamas were cut off, they adopted a new business model that revolved around earning money from selling material on the black market and as a means of rewarding operatives and their families and punishing opponents. The UN's own data shows 87% of aid trucks over the months leading up to the ceasefire were "intercepted" before reaching their destination, looted by Hamas, raided by gangs, or mobbed by desperate civilians.

There can be no doubt that the evidence shows an effort to support relief activity into Gaza by Israel's COGAT organisation and the other NGO actors permitted to operate in the strip. The main allegation against Israel that is cited in support of the claim of genocide is, therefore, the period during which aid was paused from 2 Mar-26 May 2025.

This action was taken to come up with a new distribution system that would prevent the looting and the relief supplies being diverted by Hamas to support its ongoing operations. We will look at whether it is lawful to take such action under the laws of armed conflict shortly.

The question is, was the pause intended to inflict genocide under the provision of the Genocide Convention that cites "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" as a genocidal act if done with that specific intent. We know from the TP that the drafters had in mind the conditions intentionally created in the ghettoes, death and labour camps by the Nazis in WWII.

To assess this it must be understood that 338,767 tons of food entered Gaza between 19 Jan-18 Mar 2025, amounting to over a trillion kcal (unit of energy used to measure the energy in food). Given the population in Gaza of 2.2m, and given the above cited WFP criteria of the requirement of 2100 kcal per day to sustain a person, this amount of food should have lasted 220 days. Using that calculus of 220 days commenced from 18 Mar takes you to 24 Oct, well after the relief activity was resumed on 26 May. There is no way Gaza could have run out of food during the relief reorganisation unless it was being deliberately withheld and exploited by Hamas.

Another issue that would seriously impede proving the intent that this was a deliberate effort of genocide, is the specific provision for managing relief under the laws of armed conflict. Recall that it must be shown that genocide is the only possible explanation. Under Article 43 of the Fourth Geneva Convention the obligation to allow the free passage of the consignments is subject to the condition that the High Contracting Party (ie the State of Israel) must be satisfied that:

"there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods."

“The Power which allows the passage of the consignments indicated in the first paragraph of this Article may make permission conditional on the distribution to the persons benefited thereby being made under the local supervision of the Protecting Powers (if any are in place)."

“Such consignments shall be forwarded as rapidly as possible, and the Power which permits their free passage shall have the right to prescribe the technical arrangements under which such passage is allowed."

In this case Israel was perfectly within its rights to attempt to put relief activity on a more secure footing. At the very least this amounts to a valid and obvious explanation for the pause.

It will be recalled that the measures that Israel in partnership with the US attempted to put in place following the pause was to use the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). There are a number of legitimate criticisms that can be made of the initial operation of the GHF. The manner in which Secure Distribution Sites (SDS) were established provided too much opportunity for disruption by Hamas who predictably responded with extreme violence against their own people to prevent their business model being broken. They did this by attacking civilians along routes to and from the SDS, placing disruptive elements around the SDS, disseminating false information about these actions placing the blame on the IDF and stealing food from those bringing food away.

The sites themselves were not designed effectively to ensure an orderly process of distribution. The Australian troops deployed to Somalia in 1993, in which I served, had the same issue in their first attempt at a food distribution point. The point is that the GHF effort to distribute food makes it strong probative evidence against a genocidal intent, even though initial efforts were flawed.

In any event GHF subsequently remedied these issues. GHF boxes could feed 5.5 people for 3.5 days. The redesigned SDS could feed 300k per day, with continuous delivery enabled through more sites and a chambered system for a more orderly process, using biometrics and T walls to ensure less abled people would also be properly catered for.

GHF also provided employment to 45 local workers per site where they were provided accommodation for their safety from Hamas retaliation. Ultimately the expanded plans were not proceeded with after the ceasefire agreement came into effect and relief proceeded under a different regime. This new relief regime and the ceasefire also mitigates against proving genocidal intent.

Next we come to the provision of medical support to the population. There have been a number of assertions that all the hospitals in Gaza were destroyed by the IDF. What we know is that Hamas certainly compromised the protection of hospitals through utilizing them to conduct operations and to provide shields for their military facilities. They also damaged the Al Ahli hospital with one of their many rocket misfires.

Notwithstanding these issues the facts are that 17 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza remain operational even though struggling to operate to full capacity due to their location in the middle of an active war zone. The remainder are unserviceable or damaged at present but not destroyed.

To compensate for the unavailability of some hospitals or the reduced capability, Israel has facilitated the establishment of 15 Field hospitals including 6 of their own and others provided by Jordan, the UAE, 2 by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Red Crescent, 2 by the International Medical Corps (IMC), and the UK. The UAE, France and Italy also provided three hospital ships. In addition, Israel facilitated the operation of nine mobile clinics and the introduction of 34 ambulances. Over the last two years more than 95,000 babies have been born in Gaza. This strongly mitigates against proving genocide.

The 15th Field Hospital recently established, opened in coordination with the IMC, is designed to expand essential medical services in the areas of prenatal care, mental health, physiotherapy, and inpatient care for the civilian population. The hospital includes 150 beds, 200 medical staff, and has been treating over 1,000 patients a day.

See the below photo: *photo*

In addition to these measures in February 2025, the World Health Organisation (WHO), with Israel’s cooperation, completed a mass polio vaccination campaign for over 600,000 Gazan children under age 10, about 95 percent of that age group (more than existed of this age group pre-war). This was the third round of vaccinations that began in September 2024.

There were 1300 medical staff rotated in and out of Gaza to administer the vaccines. It would be very hard to prove genocide in the face of that level of action.

We should now turn to the question of the conduct of hostilities by the IDF and Hamas in terms of assessing whether the intent to commit genocide is clearly proven by the method and actions of the operation and is the only explanation for those operations. One independent and authoritative commentator in this respect is former Air Chief Marshall Mark Binskin, who was asked to examine the World Central Kitchen (WCK) incident where seven aid workers were killed, including one Australian.

In his report Binskin concluded that:

"The IDF’s view of the material issues in respect of targeting law relevant to this incident – particularly precautions in attack, including identification criteria and classification of people in terms of liability to lethal targeting – are the same as the Australian Defence Force (ADF) would likewise be concerned with in such a situation."

"Similarly, the IDF’s view of the role of Rules of Engagement and Standard Operating Procedures in respect of where delegations to engage are held, also appears similar to that of the ADF."

"This is not dissimilar to situations that other Western militaries have faced, such as in relation to the Kunduz hospital attack in Afghanistan, which killed many civilians and destroyed a hospital, but where the underlying conduct – while culpable – was not assessed as meeting the requirements for a charge of unlawful killing. In this case the sanctions applied were administrative and disciplinary including suspension and removal from command, letters of reprimand and formal counselling.”

The Kunduz incident he is referring to occurred on 3 October 2015. A United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Centre operated by MSF in the city of Kunduz, in the province of the same name in northern Afghanistan. There were 42 people killed and over 30 were injured.

Binskin noted that in the case of the WCK incident the IDF Brigade Fire Support Commander, at the rank of Major, who guided the strikes, was dismissed from his position. The Brigade Chief of Staff, a Reserve Colonel, was dismissed from his position. The Brigade Commander, a Colonel, was formally reprimanded. The Division Commander, a Brigadier General, was formally reprimanded. The IDF Southern Command Commander, a Major General, was formally reprimanded.

Binskin was describing a framework and response no different from how western militaries operate and therefore the operations were being conducted in an unremarkable way from other urban battles. The disciplinary action sent a clear signal that such outcomes were not acceptable, further indication that genocide was not the policy or aim of the operation.

It is important in this analysis to note the context of the military operations that have been conducted by the IDF in the Gaza War. We have already highlighted that it was a war of self-defence against a large-scale attack initiated by Hamas, the culmination of 17 years of armed attacks on Israel and compounded by assaults from seven other directions.

The other critical context to note is the urban terrain in which the Gaza specific operations have been fought. It has often been overlooked that Hamas continued to prosecute the war and retain hostages until the ceasefire.

Urban warfare has always been highly casualty intensive for combatants and civilians alike. Consider these two examples from WWII:

Stalingrad:
Axis Overall = 800,000 Killed in Action (KIA), wounded, missing or captured (around 300,000 Germans KIA).
Soviet = around 1m KIA, missing or captured.
Civilians = 40,000 dead (out of roughly 100,000).
Berlin:
Soviets = 70,000 KIA.
German = 92,000 KIA. (45,000 total regular troops engaged and supplemented by Volkssturm & Hitler Youth).
Civilians = 125,000 dead (out of approximately 2.7m at the time).

A more contemporary and like comparison to Gaza is the international and Iraqi siege of Mosul during the fight against ISIS from Oct 2016- Jul 1017. The scale was similar to Gaza in that over 1.5m people were displaced. In the course of the 9 month siege coalition forces, including RAAF strikes and air battle space management, flattened over 40,000 buildings. This included 47 compromised mosques and hospitals.

The ISIS forces numbered only 12,000 and the civilian casualties amounted to around 10,000. ISIS had no underground military infrastructure or rocket launch sites.

Here are some images from the Mosul and the Cherbourg and Berlin WWII battles. *photos*

The Gaza battle space was perhaps the most challenging any armed force has ever faced including the characteristics of:

Terrain and intensity of civilian population
HAMAS use of human shields, compromise of protected places
Channelising and kill zones (requiring breach manoeuvre through buildings to circumvent).
IED, reserve demolitions, spider holes, snipers, rocket & mortar launch sites, widespread tactical Command and Control (C2) locations, countless tunnel shafts, mobile and underground manoeuvre operations by Hamas.
Over 1000 km of underground military infrastructure.
A 360 degree and multi-dimensional battle space

Hamas had spent 17 years and well over a billion dollars to militarise every square inch of the Gaza strip to draw in, trap and kill the IDF and to secrete hostages. The Israeli stated war aims were the destruction of the Hamas war making and regime capability and the recovery of the hostages. These were legitimate war aims under the law of armed conflict.

In addition to the physical challenges of the environment was the fact that the only times Hamas wore distinct uniforms was for media propaganda opportunities and not during combat. In addition, the Hamas regime had a program that took boys from the age of 12 and giave them military training, deploying them as combatants from age 15. This is in violation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child but also meant as armed assailants they became legitimate targets. This must be factored in to the casualty statistics when deaths of children are cited (classified as those under 18).

Another relevant factor in evaluating the nature of the conflict and the damage is to understand the scale. I have given examples of WWII battles and Mosul. The Gaza War was on an equivalent scale to the WWII battles. For example When the allies landed at Normandy they faced around 50,000 Nazi troops. There were approximately 156,000 allied troops landed or air dropped to assault them. We have seen the consequent damage to places like Cherbourg in the photo above and Caen during the Normandy battles.

In Gaza there were over a dozen armed groups that were coordinated under a "joint operation room" with the largest force belonging to Hamas. Hamas Qassam Brigades were organised into 24-30 Battalions (around 40,000). They could mobilise additional support from youth cadres equivalent to the Hitlerjugend (eg the 12th SS Division). Islamic Jihad Al-Quds Brigades could add around a further 10-20,000. These forces were equipped with tens of thousands of rockets and sophisticated weapons. The over 1,000km of underground military infrastructure included widespread assault shafts, weapons factories, munitions storage, and multiple command sites for tactical combat as the formation and unit level operations became unsustainable and the forces disaggregated into terrorist cells.

The mobile operations of Hamas combat teams using this system meant that while they may not have been in every building at one time they would utilise almost every structure above and below them in the course of the war. Their own rockets are also notoriously unreliable and up to 40% of them malfunctioned during the war causing great damage in Gaza, including the casualties caused at the Al Ahli hospital. Similar damage was done to many buildings where reserve demolitions were emplaced to trap groups of IDF present in them.

An example of one engagement was the fighting in and around the buildings of the Al- Shifa Hospital sparked by the deployment of an augmented mainly Hamas Battalion force of around 1,000 into the hospital in a pitched battle in March 2024. The hospital suffered damage in this fighting but is still partially functioning.

Let's now turn to the question of casualties. Firstly the point should be made that there is no organisation or person that can definitively specify what the number or break down of the casualties have been. It is not plausible to rely on Hamas for these figures. As a terrorist organisation one of their primary lines of operation is propaganda. Israel has not commented on the casualties other than to estimate the number of Hamas and its allied operatives killed in battle.

One organisation that has done a detailed examination of the available information on the ground is the Henry Jackson Society. This study found as follows:

"We have identified distortion of statistics, misreporting of natural deaths, deaths from before the war started and a high likelihood of combatant deaths being included on the list. This report also challenges the assumption that (Hamas) Ministry of Health (MoH) fatality reports from previous conflicts are reliable and reveals evidence of efforts to hide militant fatalities. We also identify critical differences in the demographic breakdowns reported by the MoH and the Hamas Government Media Office."

The primary and obvious missing delineation is from Hamas statistics is combatant deaths. We have seen according to Hamas' own claims that their armed strength combined with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and what can be mobilised is somewhere between 50-60,000. We know these forces have been comprehensively and actively engaged in fighting as their own video material demonstrates. Israel estimates that there have been around 25,000 militants killed. We know that the average natural death rate for Gaza is around 7,000 and that these have been included in the statistics. It is estimated that the Gazan deaths caused by Hamas and PIJ rocket misfires, combat activity, executions and clashes with Gazan clans amounts to around 3,000. Hamas is estimated to have executed another 6,000 Gazans since the ceasefire.

If the Hamas figure of 70,000 killed is taken at face value this would mean that around half of that number would be civilian collateral casualties. That would be the best ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths ever achieved in the history of urban warfare. In the context of an armed conflict and in the middle of an active combat zone it would not of itself provide evidence of a genocide. The numbers of children included in the casualty figures makes no distinction between non-combatant deaths and the active combatant role performed by the Hamas youth force, which includes thousands of children from the age of 15-17. There is further reason to doubt the accuracy of the Hamas figures given the unprecedented precautions in attack that the IDF employed in this conflict. We will look at those next.

There is no doubt the IDF has pioneered new methods of precautions in attack in the Gaza campaign. These were beyond, for example, what the Coalition force used in the siege of Mosul that Australia was a part of. The array of measures utilised included:

1. Phone calls, of which tens of thousands have been made to Gazans during the conflict, warning residents of IDF strikes in an area.
2. Leaflets which the Israel Air Force (IAF) dropped over Gaza warning civilians to stay clear of Hamas.

   The leaflets read in Arabic:

   “Important announcement for the residents of the Gaza Strip: For your own safety, take responsibility for yourselves and avoid being present in the vicinity of Hamas operatives and facilities and those of other terror organizations that pose a risk to your safety."

3. Diverting missiles in mid-flight, aborting many missions seconds before they were to be carried out, due to civilians being present at the site of the target.
4. Roof Knocking where the IAF targeted a building with loud but non-lethal ordnance that warned civilians they were in the vicinity of a weapons cache or other target. This method was used to allow all residents to leave the area before the IDF targeted the site with live ordnance.
5. Whenever possible the IDF used precision and lower yield munitions to single out terrorists and target them in a way intended to endanger few or no bystanders.
6. The use of drones with loudspeakers warning of more immediate attacks or threats.
7. The sending millions of texts and prerecorded voicemails, which was a measure adopted for the first time in the history of warfare, in a warning regime.
8. Equipping units with doctors and humanitarian supplies to reduce noncombatant deaths during urban operations.
9. The issuing of instructions to vacate a tactical area of operations and move to designated safe zones. These instructions were followed by residents despite Hamas attempts to force non-compliance by firing on civilians attempting to move. This measure alone undoubtedly saved thousands of lives and contradicts a genocidal intent.

The government and the IDF issued several directives to the IDF to ensure the avoidance of civilian casualties prior to the invasion of Gaza. These included:

1. The government and IDF directed that all military actions were conducted strictly in accordance with international humanitarian law.
2. The government and IDF implemented measures to enhance oversight and monitoring of military operations to prevent civilian casualties.
3. Military personnel were trained and educated on the importance of avoiding civilian casualties and the proper procedures to follow during military operations.

There were also regular reviews and updates such as following the World Central Kitchen targeting error referred to above. There is no doubt even higher levels of caution were applied at times in an effort to try and avoid killing hostages.

There have been allegations that protocols were occasionally relaxed or not properly applied. There have also been allegations of the lowering of standards through the comments made to troops by lower-level military leaders in a few instances and of some breaches of the law of armed conflict at the tactical level.

The point here is that whatever allegations there are regarding individual instances, the settings for and overall conduct of the operation in no way support the allegation that there was an intent to systematically and totally annihilate all Palestinians in Gaza, as would be required to be proven under the Genocide Convention.

This is underlined by recent admissions by Hamas that its claim that 70 per cent of its casualties were women and children was false. They now concede that 72 per cent of fatalities were men between the ages of 13-55, the demographic category aligning with Hamas combatants.

Another important point to note is that if a genocide were official policy, then there would be no disciplinary action being taken into alleged breaches of the laws of armed conflict. The IDF has a process that is fully independent of the chain of command in this respect. The Operational Compliance – International Law Division Legal Officers are not subject to chain of command and have their own separate Military Advocate General (MAG) chain. There are around 350 MAG officers. The advice of these officers on targeting is binding on the operators. In relation to the Gaza operations the MAG teams have initiated around 2,000 fact finding reviews into all allegations. There are around 100 open criminal investigations with 52 of these relating to death or mistreatment.

This indicates a rigour to the system but also indicates the message being sent to the troops and the contraindication against a policy of genocide. To put this in perspective, altogether over the 20 years of ADF involvement in Afghanistan we had a total of around 40,000 troops serve there, of whom a much smaller number saw combat. There have been allegations of around 39 lethal crimes against ADF members. It has taken 13 years for the first of these allegations to reach trial. The IDF has had hundreds of thousands of troops passing through Gaza, both regular and reserve, in a WWII scale battle. This is not to excuse any proven actions of crimes, but it certainly underlines that allegations of a genocidal policy in the ADF or IDF cases would be ludicrous.

Let us now turn to the reliance on assertions made by so-called "expert" claims that a genocide has been proven. Firstly nothing is "proven" until a court says it's proven so any group, association, individual or UN body other than the ICJ, ICC or a national court, are not in a position to make a legal declaration in this respect. For example let's go to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Commission of Inquiry Report of 16 September 2025.

It has been cited as an "independent authority" and therefore its finding that “Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” constitutes conclusive proof of that allegation. It is nothing of the kind. What they have delivered is a partisan brief recycling unsubstantiated Hamas and activist claims and falsifications. This is unsurprising given the state of many UN institutions at the moment, which have become clearing houses for the propaganda of the world's autocracies and the worst human rights violators, acting as a whitewashing vehicle for their regimes.

The appointees to the Commission had lengthy records of open hostility to Israel and no attempt was made to appoint more neutral authorities and legal scholars on the subject of genocide.

An example of how the UN made an intentional effort to amplify the genocide propaganda is that Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, was dismissed from the United Nations due to her refusal to label Israel's military actions in Gaza as genocide. This sacking by UN Secretary-General António Guterres followed the issuing of guidance by Nderitu on the correct usage of the term genocide, emphasizing the legal requirements for its classification. Ms Nderitu stated after her sacking that:

“This push that I should say that there’s a genocide going on in Gaza, they knew that I’m not a court of law, and it’s only a court of law that can determine whether a genocide has happened. But I was hounded, day in, day out. Bullied, hounded, with protection from nobody.”

“It’s instructive that this never happened for any other war. Not for Ukraine, not for Sudan, not for DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], not for Myanmar,” she said. “The focus was always Israel.”

“This was a war. Palestinians were killing Israelis, Israelis were killing Palestinians. It needs to be treated like other wars. In other wars, we don’t run and take one side and then keep going on and on about that one side… By taking one side, condemning it every day, you completely lose the essence of what the UN was created for.”

The September 2025 Report very clearly did not set out to deal systematically and objectively with the legal tests and issues such as I have set out above in the quote from Judge Nolte in the case currently before the ICJ. It instead produced deliberately falsified or irrelevant material utterly insufficient to meet the legal tests.

For example, one quote relied on in the report was purportedly from an Israeli official stating Israel is "focused on what causes maximum damage" in Gaza instead of the longer actual quote which is "maximum damage to Hamas military capabilities”.

In another example the HRC pointed to the exhortation by Prime Minister Netanyahu to "remember Amalek". This is a call reminiscent of the US historical cry of "remember the Alamo". It was in the vein of many other historical examples designed to inspire and steel a nation for the fight confronting them in an existential struggle. The drafters of the Convention reflected on those situations in wake of WWII and made it clear that such comments would not reach the threshold for incitement to genocide. In fact the Amalek were a people described in the bible as having attacked the Israelites after they left Egypt, targeting the weakest and weary stragglers. Jewish commentators interpret this biblical exhortation to “remember Amalek” as a call to rid the world of evil.

What the authors of the HRC report have done is bizarrely use quotes from the bible in the absence of a specific statement of a genocidal policy by Netanyahu, as required by the Genocide Convention. I refer to the test for proving incitement to genocide spelled out in the TP. Nothing cited in the report satisfies that test. This is also contrary to all the actual official directives to the IDF.

The report uses unverified casualty figures and makes no allowance for the fact that the area was a war zone with Hamas conducting operations throughout. There is no mention of casualties caused by Hamas through its rocket misfires, executions, their killings to prevent evacuation or civilian resort to GHF relief sites, by their cross fire, reserve demolitions in buildings, booby traps and IED. It makes no reference to the issue of what proportion of the deaths are combatants from the ranks of Hamas and its allies.

In relation to the numbers of children killed there is no mention of the deployment by Hamas of 15-17 year olds. There is no consideration of the scale of conflict, the extent of Hamas militarisation of Gaza, the comparison to other urban wars or the tactics of Hamas in the exploitation of civilians as human shields and compromise of otherwise protected facilities and safe zones.

There is no consideration of the casualties caused by the secondary detonation of Hamas concealed ordnance within civilian locations and its accidents in handling this ordnance and explosives. The report dismisses a claim by Israel that a Hamas tunnel complex was under the European Gaza Hospital by claiming this complex was actually under the Jenin Secondary School 100m away, without being aware of the irony that this would be an admission of an example of Hamas war crimes in compromising such a protected facility.

The report ignores the scale of medical support rendered in Gaza, including the vaccine operations and the fact that there were over 95,000 babies delivered during the war, instead making the patently absurd claim that damage to the Al-Basma fertility clinic proves genocidal intent. Seven paragraphs in the HRC report are devoted to this incident in an indication of how much they pinned their findings on it. Only two facts are clearly known about the clinic. There was some non-structural combat damage, and embryos were lost. There is no established account of the events and combat action around the building or proof that the minimal damage evident was caused by the IDF. To underscore this deficiency there is no confirmation of what weapons caused that damage, no known witnesses, and no evidence of intent.

It is utterly ludicrous to assert that damage to one fertility clinic was an attempt to stop Gazans from reproducing, particularly given the vaccination campaign and the large numbers of births cited above. This part of the report shows most clearly that it was not an exercise in the objective gathering of information but intended only to attempt to prove a claim of genocide against Israel.

The looting of relief supplies by Hamas and their business model of exploiting these supplies is completely disregarded, and there is no mention of the proven scale of the quantity of food that Israel facilitated going into Gaza.

There is no reference to Hamas ceasefire violations and that their only use of uniforms was in propaganda parades, making no effort to distinguish themselves from the civilian population in the fighting. They totally disregard the statements and information available in interviews given by Hamas and their own video material, including the clear evidence of their own genocidal objectives and actions. There is no reference to IDF orders, directives, training or precautions in attack. The Report ignores the investigations and processes in train within the IDF in relation to all allegations of crimes or misconduct, which is clear evidence against a claim of an official policy of genocide.

They present no evidence of the specific intent of a plan to destroy the Palestinian group as such. Mitigating against such a claim they neglect to mention that Israel did not initiate the war and that they were fighting in self-defence against the actual war crime of war of aggression under Article 8bis(g) of the Rome Statute, committed by Iran and its proxies. They do not consider the context that there has been no IDF presence in Gaza since 2005 and that Hamas continuously engaged in armed attack against Israel, particularly with the launching of over 52,000 rockets over 19 years. There is also no reference to the fact that Egypt flatly refused to provide temporary shelter for the civilian population to keep them safely out of the combat zone, forcing Israel to use other less sure measures. They neglect to consider the recent example of the fight against ISIS in Mosul from 2016-2017 where the same number of people were displaced and the same extremist tactics employed as were replicated by Hamas.

The report also ignores the evidence that the population of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the Israeli Arabs has grown significantly under Israeli jurisdiction.

*photo*
Above is a photo of the Al-Basma fertility clinic, which the UN HRC Report said was totally destroyed by the explosion of its nitrogen tanks after an IDF tank round was fired at the building. It is still standing with no evidence of a massive internal explosion.

In conclusion, if the world were intent on widening the scope of the Genocide Convention to the extent the activists have tried to bend it, completely reversing the intent of the drafters and the international process that generated it, then it would be obliged to convene a new diplomatic process to re-write it. In that event, as noted by the drafters of the existing Convention, participants would be obliged to commit themselves to avoiding absolutely all civilian casualties in an otherwise lawful defensive war lest they be found guilty of genocide. They would be at the mercy of the sort of tactics employed by Hamas and ISIS ruthlessly exploiting their own people and be obliged to engage in a reverse onus of proof to show that combatants who made themselves indistinguishable from civilians were not in fact civilians.

Mike Kelly
17 February 2026

Dr Mike Kelly AM is an Australian former politician (ALP) who twice represented the Division of Eden-Monaro in the Parliament of Australia, from 2007 to 2013 and again from 2016 to 2020.

Mike Kelly was born in Adelaide and studied history and law at Macquarie University before joining the Australian Army in 1987 and subsequently attained a PhD in International Law from the University of NSW, particularly relating to the laws of armed conflict. He went on to serve in Somalia, East Timor, Bosnia and Iraq. He was among senior Australian military personnel in the Iraq War. He finished his military career in 2007 with the rank of Colonel as Director of Army Legal Services.

While he was an MP, Mike Kelly served as the Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Industry, and Minister for Defence Materiel in the Gillard Government. He also served on the Shadow National Security Committee, and served for four years on the bi-partisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. He also served as National Security Adviser to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mike Kelly is a leading expert on peace and stabilisation operations, post conflict reconstruction and counter-insurgency. He has published two books, numerous articles, and has been a regular speaker at military training programs and conferences around the world.