“During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK ordered a ‘quarantine’ of only offensive weapons to Cuba and sought Organization of American States agreement; all other ships were allowed to continue through. When a member of the media was goading JFK into aggressive action, he responded: ‘A blockade is an act of ag[ression], war.’

“Mass demolition in the southernmost parts of Lebanon is an ongoing problem, with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz quoted as saying the country was ‘applying the Rafah Model’ on Lebanon, and that southern Lebanon would ultimately turn into Gaza, citing the mass level of destruction inflicted on the Gaza Strip in recent years.”

“What top Israeli officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — are quietly backing is not a reduction in American support, but a reorganization of it: shifting billions in resources from State Department-administered foreign aid grants into general Pentagon procurement accounts, industrial partnerships, and sustainment pipelines. The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.”

“Trump’s statement today that the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding is ‘over’ should not come as a surprise” since it was designed to create conditions for wider negotiations. However, “those conditions have largely collapsed. The Israeli war in Lebanon has not ended. Iranian frozen assets apparently remain largely inaccessible. The U.S. has revoked Iran’s oil waiver. Threats, explicitly prohibited by the MOU, never ceased. And the Strait of Hormuz has remained fiercely contested.”

“Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has been in Israeli custody, without charges, since late December 2024. During that time he has been tortured and even starved. He has lost much of his bodyweight. His lawyer reports that he has been beaten so badly over the past several days and weeks that he did not recognize Dr. Abu Safiya the last time they met. He is being held in the Rakefet section of Nitzan Prison, which was shut down for notorious human rights abuses in the 1980s but was reopened by Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the Israeli Prison System and whom the…

Following the victories of three democratic socialists in the Democratic congressional primary on June 23 in deep blue New York City, the fourth such win came this week on Tuesday in a Denver district.

In his substack The Kucinich Report, former Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich writes that there is an upcoming effort in Congress to formally merge the Israeli and U.S. militaries. “Section 219 (formerly Section 224) of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, provides for an unprecedented unification.” Kucinich writes: “Money can be appropriated one year and withdrawn the next. Institutional integration is permanent.” DENNIS KUCINICH; [email protected]  Kucinich argues that Section 219 would create “permanent mechanisms through which military planning, intelligence sharing, weapons development, procurement, research, artificial intelligence, and strategic coordination become increasingly intertwined between the United States and Israel. “It…

“Friday, July 3 marks 1,000 days since the beginning of Israel’s siege and military campaign in Gaza. For 1,000 days, healthcare workers, teachers, humanitarian workers, faith leaders, and families have struggled to preserve life under unimaginable conditions. More than one million children remain under siege; at least 20,179 children have been killed — one child every hour for 1,000 days. More than 1,700 healthcare workers have lost their lives, and hundreds of healthcare professionals have been detained, including 18 physicians who remain imprisoned under reported conditions of torture.”

“Petro can work to get a strong resolution through the UNSC. He can also work with South Africa (the other co-chair of the Hague Group) to get another round of emergency orders from the International Court of Justice. The last emergency orders in 2024 were granted in just two weeks. Colombia could make such orders the basis for an especially strong U.N. Security Council resolution.“

“The doubletalk coming from many congressional Democrats in response to President Trump’s peace initiative with Iran has been a political wonder to behold,” Norman Solomon wrote in The Hill today. “While correctly declaring that Trump should not have started the war, they’ve routinely gone on to condemn the memorandum of understanding that offers a process to end it.”