May 19th – May 25th, 2025

Gaza Famine

The UN warns that the specter of famine lurks in the shattered ruins of Gaza. Famine, as an “official” metric is as arbitrary as any other, a facsimile of the reality that nearly every one of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza face severe malnutrition already – that 14,000 infants are facing imminent death. Many have likely already succumbed as of this writing.

The only solution to the famine, the only way to stem the exsanguination of Palestinians, of children, is to end the siege, to allow the basic necessities of life to flow once more.

Instead, the United States of Genocide, and their murderous lap-dog Israel, have chosen to subsume UN efforts to supply aid to the people of Gaza, and have formed the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF. No amount of criticism of this organization is sufficient; the plan calls for four centralized hubs situated around Gaza in “safe-zones,” each capable of providing for around 300,000 persons. Aid will be restricted to “eligible” persons, and security will be provided by Private Military Contractors, who previously operated in the Netzarim corridor – a military cordon established by Israel to bifurcate Gaza and funnel displaced persons into kill zones. 

Some of you have likely done the math and come to realize that GHF only has provision to supply humanitatiran aid to slightly over half of Gaza’s population. Israel claims that security is necessary to stop Hamas from stealing food aid – a nonexistent problem according to the UN.

All of this, the shortcomings of the GHF, the blatant lies, the imperialist entities behind the GHF lead to one inescapable conclusion: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is merely another deception, to lure the surviving population of gaza into concentrated pockets of land so that they can be exterminated, by bombs, by artillery, and by the Israeli Einsatzgruppen.

Gideon’s Chariots

This week has seen the commencement of the first phase of Operation Gideon’s Chariots, concomitant with the Israeli-engineered famine. The objective is simple: to expel the remaining civilian population from Gaza, to isolate and destroy Hamas, and to finally annex the Gaza strip, so that developers can build luxury condos and resorts on the site of the most disgusting act of inhumanity since the holocaust.

Netanyahu said it best the week prior, per al-Jazeera: “We are destroying more and more homes. They have nowhere to return to … The only inevitable outcome will be the  desire of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip.”

Nearly all hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza have already been destroyed, but this never was enough for Israel. The opening flurry of depraved violence targeted four of the few remaining in Gaza: al-Awda, Indonesia Hammad, Kemal  Adan, and European Gaza. This is the culmination of Israel’s policy of destroying the any and all means the Palestinian people have to guard their basic dignity – their lives.  Much has been made of international calls for decency, from US senators, to the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Russia, China, the UN. But we know that this is mere bluster – no platitudes, nor legal suits are sufficient to bring to halt the destruction of Palestine.

Against this juggernaut, Palestine stands alone, as David against Goliath. But they needn’t; if the decent, moral people of the world – and particularly those of us in the United States – stood up, threw off the shackles of bourgeois cowardice, realized their strength and got dangerous, as the heroic people of Yemen have, something could be done, the genocide could be stopped. We must do this, or be condemned forever in the annals of history.

Philippine Elections

On May 12th, midterm elections were held in the Philippines. These elections took place less than a month after 17,000 US troops participated in the annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) Exercise in the Philippines. The US, a former colonial power of the Philippines, views its influence in the country as essential for countering the economic and military presence of China in the region. It continues to station troops in the Philippines and conducts mock war games, undermining Philippine sovereignty. How can elections held under these conditions be said to represent the population?

As part of its overall domination of Philippine politics, the US has supported the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the notorious US-backed dictator. The Marcos dynasty has been feuding with other powerful dynasties in the country, particularly the Duterte family, over how subservient to US imperialism they should be. The former president, Rodrigo Duterte, who remained loyal to US imperialism in practice while questioning it in words, won his re-election bid as the mayor of Davao City while awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court. Overall, Marcos lost ground in the elections, as Duterte-backed and liberal opposition candidates secured a number of seats.

Candidates from the Makabayan bloc, a consistently anti-imperialist group, experienced their worst results in years. Their treatment highlights the reality of elections in countries dominated by imperialism: they were harassed by authorities and red-tagged, a practice that often leads to false arrests and even assassination. With economic unpredictability and increased inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and China, the Philippines is increasingly in the crosshairs. It is critical to expose the violations of sovereignty and warmongering by the US and demand: US imperialists – hands off the Philippines!