Americans routinely dismiss engaging in diplomacy with their adversaries on the ground that their enemies cannot be trusted and that only force will work. Does it ever occur to us that that’s the way we are perceived overseas?
There really is a nation that has at least 100 nuclear weapons — and almost certainly ICBMs — and it is in the Middle East. It repeatedly attacks its neighbors, often without provocation. As you’ve guessed, that dangerous country is not Iran.
Israel’s “hasbara” online goon squads flood online spaces with specious remarks, distractions, whataboutism, ahistorical claims, religious arguments, and every other form of verbal diarrhea in order to dissuade and discourage commentary on the State’s aggressive policy of ethnic cleansing, land theft, and genocide against the Palestinians. People are starting to see through it, but verbal abuse remains an effective way to make people check out.
As J.D. Vance pointed out, the United States has poured billions of dollars into building Israel into the world’s neediest welfare state. But, as David Bowie used to say on MTV, too much is never enough for them.
While the IDF was ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, razing 80% of its buildings and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of its people in an internationally condemned genocide, the Israeli people were calm and happy. Now that Trump is forcing Israel to stop attacking Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli warmongers are furious. This society has screwed-up priorities.
After killing 3,500 Iranians and 13 Americans, while costing billions of dollars and America’s global credibility, Donald Trump settled his joint war with Israel against Iran with an arrangement that left Iran infinitely stronger and the United States with, at most, exactly what it had before: an open Strait of Hormuz.
In the same way that Nixon kept telling the American people that the end of the Vietnam War was right around the corner, Trump has told us at least 36 times that a peace deal with Iran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz—critical to the global economy—were imminent.
Between the destruction of the East Wing and the construction of the octagon for a UFC cage match on the White House lawn, Trump has turned the nation’s presidential mansion into a hideous eyesore representative of his presidency. It’s ironic, considering his obsession with national monuments.
A ceasefire means the temporary cessation of hostilities. Yet, in the current conflict involving the US, Israel, and Iran, Israel in particular continues to bomb and kill. Nevertheless, the media describes the ceasefire as still in effect. Language no longer means anything.
We all know that Trump obsesses over attendance numbers for the big national events he throws. Which is why it’s curious that he has made clear half the country — Democrats — are not invited to the nation’s big 250th birthday party this summer.
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