Our Wednesday News Analysis | From Toe Hold to Freehold: Zionist Occupation Strategies

Photo courtesy of Atlantic Council 

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Editor’s Note: This is a text from one we love. Like my two oldest children, she also serves humanity as a medical doctor. She refers to me as ‘Uncle Bram.’ Bram is the Dutch abbreviation of Abraham.

The future is bleak. Governments and some societies are morally bankrupt, and it is increasingly complex to distinguish right from wrong.

I’ve been so depressed about the news coming out of Gaza. 80% of children are at stage 5 malnutrition, and we are still debating if aid can come in. They’re all dead.

Even if food comes in, refeeding syndrome will happen, and they will all die. By that time, Israel will open aid again and say, “This is not us, we have distributed food,” knowing that refeeding will kill them. They need doctors, medicine, and medical equipment.

I’ve held babies as young as 3 months old who died from malnutrition, Uncle Bram. It stays with me for the rest of my life, as I remember them. Them. Not one child, multiple children.

And now this?? A man-made starvation as a tactic of genocide.

The children will all die. I’ve seen it. In our country, with layers of doctors and nurses, with IV drips and Smofkabiven for parental nutrition, and a complete set of proper protocols for refeeding, they still died. (SmofKabiven includes amino acids (for protein building), glucose (for energy), lipids (for energy and essential fatty acids), and electrolytes.)

…

And now, that is all I am focusing on. Our son will be the leader we needed.

The genocide must end.

I know it sounds crazy, but everything we do for our newly born son is aimed at building his character. We will teach him.

This is resistance.

He will have a bigger purpose in life… he will not just be another corporate slave.

He doesn’t have to go there. That’s my calling. I am a medical doctor. That’s what I will do. But for him, he will be bigger than me, he will be the problem solver, the thinker.

It starts by teaching him compassion. It begins by teaching him critical thinking. It begins by teaching him emotional intelligence.

To care with humility, mercy, and compassion.

For that, I’m still trying to build little friendships with parents who will raise their kids like us. So that he will have his community

No social media, no screens for as long as we can… and more importantly, not just “obey obey obey”

We don’t want an obedient child. I want a strong-willed child with a gentle heart. I want him to question us with manners (adab in Islam). Firm to know when he is right, wise to know when he is wrong, and accept new teachings.

Sorry, Uncle Bram, we are going off on a tangent, haha.

I am texting you about your health, not to rant about this. I will stop. 

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When US President Donald Trump arrogantly suggested that the neighbouring Arab States should absorb the Gaza population as a solution to Israel’s decimation of Gaza, he announced what discerning persons the world over had already perceived – the earliest Zionist Israeli arrivals, courtesy Lord Balfour, had come to take it all.

From a toe hold then to a freehold today, Israel has turned international law, UN mechanisms for a safer world and street ethics on its head. It demolishes Palestinian homes and occupies their lands, detains and kills as it pleases and then along with its allies, accuses those who object of anti-Semitism.

Terror reinvented

The multiple, horrific acts of humiliation and cold blooded murder of children, women and men, wallowing in the Gaza dust for scraps of food, have played and replayed before a stunned world today and predictably tomorrow. Beyond Palestine, picking and choosing independent sovereign nations to bomb and assassinate at will, Israel warns its neighbours and others to keep off while it perfects the art of genocide on dying humans half buried in the rubble.

There is no need for covert crime as Israel goes about its deadly mission of “all of Palestine, for Israel only”. Big brother US ensures her impunity through a fine-tuned scheme of rewards and punishments while British and EU leaders, cringing before President Trump, expertly reconcile their vacant, performative expressions of public concern with a resolute defence of these same atrocities at global assemblies.

The UN has been thrashed toothless. The whole world knows that peace keeping forces are an option only when they have the US nod. Unable to keep its original mandate of a warless world, the UN is clearly troubled with its current identity crisis.

But the complicity is also of most Middle East states. The posh life with posh airlines, posh hotels, posh sports stadiums, posh golf courses and posh desert safaris, raised out of the harsh desert dunes, cannot be allowed to end up in rubble. US proxy bases, ominously scattered among the nations of the region and a nuanced diplomatic vocabulary, crafted to sound as if the mayhem will be stopped any moment, keep Israeli missiles at bay...

Read more: From Toe Hold to Freehold: Zionist Occupation Strategies
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WHILE THERE IS STILL A STATE TO RECOGNISE

Source: Jews for Justice for Palestinians
https://jfjfp.com/while-there-is-still-a-state-to-recognise-israeli-annexation-plans-settlements-and-humanitarian-impacts/

Brian Brivati writes in the Britain Palestine Project Substack on 6 August 2025:

Israeli annexation plans, settlements, and humanitarian impacts.

Palestinians walk through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, early in 2025

Israel appears poised to escalate policies that could irrevocably undermine the prospects for an independent Palestinian state – making robust international pressure more critical than ever. In recent weeks, some of Israel’s closest allies have signaled unprecedented steps to push for a policy change: Britain, France, and Canada have all moved toward formally recognising a Palestinian state as leverage against Israel’s actions, amid growing outrage over Gaza’s humanitarian. The US, while “complaining” about the humanitarian situation has condemn these moves.

So rather than heeding these signals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government appears to be doubling down on territorial consolidation. The Israeli war cabinet is reportedly poised to approve a full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, and the coalition has revived the contentious E1 settlement plan in the West Bank – a move so detrimental to any two-state solution that France insists it “must not be implemented”. These moves occur amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where UN agencies warn famine is unfolding despite there being sufficient food in the region to feed Gaza for three months. This coincides with a crackdown on humanitarian organizations through new regulations that threaten to de-register most international NGOs operating in the occupied territories.

Recognition must be only the beginning of a broader process – a first step in raising the political and economic cost to Israel for persisting in the breach of international law, until its changes course...

Read more: While there is still a state to recognise
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ANALYSIS | WITH AN EMPTY SEAT FOR ISRAEL, OPEN QUESTIONS REMAIN IN THE GLOBAL PUSH FOR THE GAZA WAR'S DAY AFTER

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2025-08-03/ty-article/.premium/un-two-state-solution-conference-leaves-israels-gaza-presence-hamas-fate-unresolved/00000198-6fd1-d0d4-adba-eff3934e0000

By Jack Khoury
Published August 3, 2025

In a document set to become a diplomatic benchmark, the conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia last week was the first to present sustainable operating principles, precise demands of both sides and offer mechanisms to ensure both Israel and the Palestinians meet their obligations – but left critical questions unanswered

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud meet at the Two-State Solution conference at the U.N. in New York, July 29, 2025.Credit: Eduardo Munoz/ REUTERS

The first coherent and detailed operational document outlining a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be presented since the outbreak of the war in Gaza was laid out in the closing declarations of the New York conference co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and with the participation of key international players.

In contrast to other conferences held in recent months, such as the Arab League summit in Cairo in March, the recent UN summit convened to discuss a two-state solution outlined operating principles, precise demands of both sides and proposals for civil, security and political mechanisms to ensure both Israel and the Palestinians meet their obligations. The document, even if it has no legal binding, has essentially become a diplomatic benchmark.

As an integral part of the call for a sustainable solution to the conflict, the document states that all states involved in its writing "reiterated our condemnation of all attacks by any party against civilians, including all acts of terrorism and indiscriminate attacks, and all attacks against civilian objects, acts of provocation, incitement and destruction."

In the document, the Arab League, among other states, condemned the October 7 attacks committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians and the subsequent holding of hostages, adding that there is no justification for breaches in grave violation of international law.

The document states a demand that Hamas release the hostages and disarm, as a precondition for rebuilding Gaza. This demand stands in contrast to the Arab League's remarks in March, which avoided placing responsibility on Hamas for the massacre, let alone calling for it to lay down its arms.

In tandem, the document states that the Israeli siege of Gaza and the starving of its people, which have resulted in a "devastating humanitarian catastrophe," also contravenes international law. A senior Palestinian official said in that context that this was a "package deal."

Another principle stated in the document is the gradual transfer of civilian and security powers in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, assisted by an international force which will supervise, mediate and help create governmental stability. The Palestinian Authority will also undergo comprehensive reforms and hold general elections in the West Bank and Gaza...

Read more: Analysis | With an Empty Seat for Israel, Open Questions Remain in the Global Push for the Gaza War's Day After