At this point I'm starting to believe the primary purpose of the sham ceasefire in Gaza, broken by Israel to continue a US-backed genocide of Palestinian people, was to allow US corporate media to catch its breath and reset to a position of trying very hard to ignore blatant war crimes against clearly innocent Palestinians. A United Nations investigation has revealed that the IDF executed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including a UN employee, in March 23rd; then tried to bury the evidence, including crushed ambulances, to hide this crime against humanity. Details of the murders make it clear that this activity was deliberate, and yet the portions of the mainstream western media that remain firmly pro-genocide have hardly registered any sort of outcry or calls for action.

1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/israel-killed-15-palestinian-paramedics-and-rescue-workers-one-by-one-says-un

Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN

“Seven days ago, civil defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene,” the head of Ocha in Palestine, Jonathan Whittall, said in a video statement. “One by one, [the paramedics and civil defense workers] were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave.

“We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave,” Whittall said. “These ambulances have been buried in the sand. There’s a UN vehicle here, buried in the sand. A bulldozer – Israeli forces bulldozer – has buried them.”

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said that one of its employees was among the dead found in Rafah."

As an American, please let me once again remind you that none of these atrocities would be happening without US financial, material, and diplomatic support. We're subsidizing the Israeli government, we're shipping the IDF the bombs and weapons being used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza, and it is by US diplomatic force that Western support for Israel even as it commits a genocide, remains strong, if somewhat less overt than it was at the start of this genocide. Trump (and Biden before him) could end this inhuman slaughter today if he wanted to; he just doesn't want to because killing brown people and taking their resources (beachfront property and natural gas, in this case) is a important business activity for the entire Pig Empire.

In an environment where the media is actively cultivating a numb complicity, and western states are either ignoring the massacres, or as in the Trump regime's case, openly celebrating them, it behooves all of us in the so-called West to reject these attempts to rewind time and protect the genocide. In the months leading up to the ceasefire, Western political leaders and media were on the backfoot as independent media, folks with Tik Tok accounts, protestors, and even everyday people refused to accept the complicity of silence and demanded action. This "reset" must not be allowed to continue while Palestinians in Gaza are murdered with impunity and the complicity of the larger Pig Empire; as noted by Ahmed Moor writing in the Guardian - which is sadly where I have to get my mainstream news about a US-enabled and supported genocide the Trump administration is happily paying for, because US media outlets are still trying to pretend none of this is real:

2) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/02/israel-red-crescent-paramedics-europe-us

Israel executes unarmed Red Crescent paramedics with the west’s blessing

"Nor will global leaders intervene to end the mass murder which has been punctuated by this latest obscenity. Some of them – such as Emmanuel Macron, who called for a ceasefire, might appear to want to end the slaughter. After all, dead babies in incubators and paramedics in a mass grave are unpleasant garlands to wear. But 18 months in, they are too deeply implicated. Who can forget Ursula von der Leyen’s embrace of Netanyahu? Or Keir Starmer’s affirmation of Israel’s “right” to starve Palestinians in Gaza?

Today, those who are tasked with upholding international law have been co-opted by the Israeli leadership, whether they like it or not. The logic of gangland drug dealers and criminals – new members commit crimes to join, and are locked in – prevails.

So far from being complicit, US and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in Gaza."

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm only a solitary analyst, working through health complications and chronic pain issues; as hard as I try, I can't talk about every story or I want to, or debunk as much spin as I observe in corporate media outlets. Unfortunately in the time since I last covered the Trump regime's ICE abduction of a student protest leader legally residing in the United States, for purely ideological reasons, the Pork Reich has expanded its war on international students who protested Israel's US-back genocide of Palestinians in Gaza; first targeting other students at Columbia, and now expanding to additional schools, like Tufts University, and the University of Alabama.

As I (and many others) predicted, the Trump regime's use of immigration powers to engage in fascist ideological policing, and its loyal Gestapo (DHS/ICE) didn't stop at the illegal abduction of Mahmoud Khalil. In the time I've been writing about other stories, I've failed to talk about a lot of important information and events that shed light on how Trump is using his authority over immigration enforcement to prosecute a war on protestors, and protect a genocide he now owns just as much as the last administration and the rest of the imperialist US establishment do. Unfortunately, I can't rewind time; but I'm going to include some short posts with links to articles talking about what we've missed. It's a lot of reading, but putting it all here in this thread at least allows me to reference these incidents later, once I'm up to current events.

Let's start by looking at Betar; an international, pro-Israel right wing extremist (so, fascist) group who claims to be behind the ICE abduction of Khalil and boasts about supplying the Trump regime with a target list of "thousands" of people for harassment and deportation.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/betar-deportation-list

Far-Right Group Sent List of Palestine Defenders to Trump Officials for Deportation

"Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security's arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent "thousands of names" of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.

"Jihadis have no place in civilized nations," Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group's activities.

Earlier this week, Betar said: "We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands."

And just in case you think I'm being uncharitable about describing Betar as a fascist organization:

"Critics have voiced alarm about Betar's activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League's recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.

Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel's assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!"

As noted elsewhere, White House officials refused to comment on whether or not they were working with Betar, but given that former executive director of the US chapter, Ross Glick, confirmed the existence of the targets list, and held bipartisan meetings about punishing anti-genocide campus protesters with Senators like (R) Ted Cruz, and (D) John Fetterman, it seems entirely plausible that the regime is using Betar's list to target international student protesters for fascist reprisals and deportations.