https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2uOGbZ-Dvo

 

Tariq Ali & Rashid Khalidi on Israeli Elections, Palestine, Iran & New Book "The Neck and the Sword"

 

Democracy Now!

Letter from Bethlehem: Mazin Qumsiyeh

 Posted at https://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2026/11/tuesday-election-and-your-role.html

To friends in Michigan: Go out and vote Tomorrow for the best interest of people of the united states not the genocidal Zionist lobby. And do drop by your neighbors, send emails, contact people.

To friends elsewhere: If you know anyone in Michigan do call them, email them etc. Today please.

Also pay attention to other elections like in Texas and mobilize. There are 55000 people receiving this message and if 10% of you act on it, you can and must make a difference.

This is pivotal and existential. The war mongering lobby poured tens of millions to the opponent campaign and she lost the democratic primary to Abdul El-Syed. She is divorced and just got engaged to a Zionist Jewish lawyer. She lied repeatedly and now betrayed her party by “endorsing” the other party. They now switched and donated tens of millions to the Republican Zionist Rogers (Roger Mr. Trump!). This shows that Israel firsters remain so!

The Zionist movement knows that this is a very critical campaign and are resorting to their tricks of promoting Islamophobia and claiming “anti-Semitism” for anyone who opposes genocide and wants tax money to go to people in the US not for endless wars for Israel that are also causing inflation and depriving US citizens of needed services so that they get more billions. This campaign is a choice between racist billionaire enablers profiting from war and common people.  I urge you to vote as if your life depends on it because it does! (Netanyahu is now pushing the US to use nuclear weapons on Iran).

Here in Palestine we keep struggling. Trees being uprooted, colleagues attacked and beaten. Women and Children sniped in the streets. All with US government partnership!

Three years into a genocide livestreamed to the world, Palestinians are still being asked not to document their destruction and stop speaking about it while those with the power to stop it fail to act. There can be no claim that the world did not know. October 2026 issue, “Gaza: Three Years On,” now available at https://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/.
This is a difficult issue to read and an essential one to publish. It brings together Palestinian testimony, historical analysis, and some of the most compelling voices confronting what Gaza means for Palestine and for the world.

New UN report slams ongoing genocide
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-2026-14oct26/

Even CNN (previously ZNN) is forced to acknowledge what “Israel” is doing: colonial expansion and ethnic cleansing https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2026/10/middleeast/west-bank-israeli-settler-violence-netanyahu-intl-vis/

Truth angers Winnipeg Zionists https://www.greenplanetmonitor.net/podcast/palestine-uprooted-nakba-past-present/

Stay human

Mazin Qumsiyeh

(descendant of those Shepherds that witnessed the miracle of birth of Jesus)

At CEC’s ‘public impeachment’, voters question deletion of names from rolls - The Hindu

 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/at-cecs-public-impeachment-voters-question-deletion-of-names-from-rolls/article71650617.ece/amp/ 

Americans Want the Iran War to End. Can Congress Deliver? by Brian Hudson

 A new poll reveals broad, cross-party demand to end the Iran war. Trump’s renewed talk of military escalation exposes the political machinery that prevents public preference from becoming policy.

Donald Trump raised the prospect of another military operation against Iran at a Florida rally on October 23. He invoked “Epic Fury” and hinted at a sequel. The threat itself was hardly new. What made it striking was the timing: in the same news cycle, a new survey showed that most Americans wanted the war to end.

The AP-NORC poll found that roughly seven in ten registered voters believe ending the Iran war should be a top priority for the next Congress. About eight in ten placed the cost of living at the top of their concerns. Conducted October 8–12 among 1,119 adults, with a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points, the survey offers no detailed picture of Americans’ foreign-policy doctrines. It captures something more immediate. The war is no longer merely a distant strategic debate. It has become a household economic concern.

The contrast is difficult to miss. Voters want Congress to act, while the president continues to hold open the possibility of escalation. This is more than a partisan disagreement. It exposes a structural distance between what Americans want and what their political institutions can deliver.

The demand is particularly uncomfortable for Washington because it crosses party lines. At least half of Republicans, including those within and outside the MAGA base, want Congress to prioritize lower costs, an end to the Iran war, and deficit control. Yet only about 20 percent of voters overall consider support for Trump’s political agenda a top congressional priority.

Support for the president, in other words, cannot simply be equated with support for his war.

There are limits to what the poll establishes. A voter who wants the fighting to stop may still disagree with another voter over the timetable for withdrawal, sanctions relief, or the conditions of a negotiated settlement. The survey does not resolve those differences, nor does it establish a common diplomatic prescription. Its significance lies elsewhere: a war that might once have remained largely within the closed world of foreign-policy elites has become a direct public demand on the next Congress.

Whether Congress can meet that demand is another question.

On September 24, the Senate rejected a resolution intended to restrict Trump’s war-making authority against Iran. The vote was 50–49, with four Republicans joining Democrats. There was genuine legislative dissent, and the margin was narrow. Neither was enough. Even a near-majority of senators could not turn opposition into a binding restriction on presidential authority.

This is how the “powerless ballot” operates. Not because elections have no meaning, but because electoral discontent does not necessarily change the policies that provoke it. Americans can vote against the war and send new representatives to Washington. Those representatives will still face the same unresolved constitutional division of war powers. Congress declares war and controls funding; the president commands the armed forces. When military operations continue for long periods without a formal declaration of war, the balance tends to favor the executive.

Changing the people in office does not automatically change that arrangement.

Heather Hurlburt of Chatham House has made a similar argument. Even if the midterms change the balance of power in Congress, voters should not expect a rapid change in either the war or the economic hardship associated with it. An election can rearrange political power without immediately altering the institutional rules that allow a president to sustain a military conflict despite narrow congressional support.

Trump’s October 23 remarks make that problem more urgent. On October 8, he had said the United States would not launch another attack before the November 3 elections. He also described talks with Tehran as productive. His later remarks did not formally withdraw that assurance, and he offered no date for another operation. Still, the renewed suggestion of military action added uncertainty to a conflict already lacking a visible endgame.

Uncertainty carries economic costs.

The war began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran. Since then, disruption in energy markets has helped push fuel prices higher. Brent crude rose sharply during the opening days of the conflict and surged again as traders assessed the possibility of prolonged disruption. The consequences do not depend entirely on whether Washington orders another operation. Without a credible exit strategy, uncertainty itself influences market expectations, investment decisions, and the calculations of households struggling with higher expenses.

The administration owes those households an explanation of how much the war contributes to the cost-of-living squeeze. Reports of military performance are no substitute for an accounting of its economic effects.

There is, of course, a serious counterargument. National-security policy cannot simply follow opinion polls. Threats to American forces, shipping lanes, and questions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program are real concerns. Presidents must sometimes weigh intelligence and consequences that are not available to the public. These considerations cannot be dismissed.

But they do not exempt a president from accountability.

After nearly eight months of conflict, Americans have a right to know what the war is intended to accomplish, how much of that mission has been achieved, and what it has cost in human and financial terms. They are also entitled to an assessment of escalation risks and a credible diplomatic route toward ending the fighting. A president who promises a quick conclusion while leaving the possibility of another military operation on the table must explain what that operation would accomplish that existing measures cannot.

The poll also places an important limit on another interpretation of American policy: the idea of an “alliance leash” tying Washington’s decisions to Israel.

Only about 30 percent of voters consider ending military aid to Israel a top priority for Congress, substantially fewer than those who want the Iran war brought to an end. That difference matters. Opposition to the war should not be mistaken for a public mandate to fundamentally restructure the U.S.-Israel security relationship.

Some Americans may continue to support the alliance while opposing an extended U.S. war against Iran. Others may regard military assistance to Israel as part of a wider problem of American interventionism. The survey does not collapse those positions into one. Nor does it justify stretching the alliance-leash metaphor beyond the evidence. What emerges is a broad demand to end the Iran war, not an equally broad call to remake the Middle East.

For the next Congress, the distinction is consequential. Lawmakers could agree on restrictions on military operations against Iran while remaining divided over sanctions, military assistance, and regional security commitments. Such disagreements would not necessarily undermine the demand to end the war. They would reflect the political complexity of a coalition whose members share a destination without agreeing on how to reach it.

The central question is therefore no longer whether Americans want the conflict to end. On that point, the poll is unusually clear.

What remains uncertain is whether the political system can turn that preference into effective oversight, decisions about funding, and a defined route out of the war. November’s midterms may alter the distribution of power in Washington. But their significance for the Iran conflict will depend less on the election results themselves than on what Congress and other institutions do afterward.

A change in campaign rhetoric would leave the underlying contradiction intact. Voters would have expressed their preference, yet the machinery of war policy would continue much as before.

Congress could instead demand a credible accounting of the war’s objectives, its financial and human costs, and the conditions under which military operations would end. That would not make every ballot immediately decisive, but it could prevent the “powerless ballot” from becoming a lasting verdict on American democracy.

The voters have made their position clear. The political machinery has yet to answer.

Serbia After the Student Landslide: The Black Box in Parliament by Biljana Vankovska

 The student protests in Serbia, which began in the wake of the tragic event in Novi Sad in November 2024, only occasionally made the front pages of the world’s media. That is hardly surprising when so many dramatic and consequential events are unfolding across the globe at once, and the Balkans have long ceased to be a focal point of international attention.

Aleksandar Vučić’s rule was characterised by his ability to satisfy and placate external actors: he was warmly received in Brussels, embraced Zelensky in Belgrade, built economic and security ties with both Israel and Russia, came close to a historic business deal with the Trump family, while for China, the region served as a hub linking Central and Eastern Europe with the European Union. In these circumstances, the discontent of the younger generation and the gradual mobilisation of broader social strata against domestic conditions were treated as an ‘internal matter of a sovereign state’. At least, that was the appearance.

The student movement was portrayed as a geopolitical orphan, although it has remained unclear how such an orphan could survive for two years — organisationally, logistically, in terms of media coverage, digital platforms, algorithms, and so on. There are questions about where the interest in the outcome of this geopolitical Gordian knot might have come from; some suggest that we should ‘follow the money trail‘, as funds quietly flowed through various channels. The movement’s methods, particularly during the period when it claimed to be interested not in power but in justice for the victims of the Novi Sad disaster, gave a déjà vu effect to anyone who had experienced or witnessed a colour revolution. That interpretation was strongly rejected, however, by those who regard the movement as authentic grassroots politics, from which, they argue, we could learn what genuine direct democracy looks like. But the plenums that were seeking only justice changed, perhaps because of Vučić’s stubbornness and hubris. It opened the way to an open struggle for power. The electoral result is now clear, at least as far as the winner is concerned. Everything else remains shrouded in fog.

Had it not been for the short text I published on Substack before the elections of 25 October, this analysis, too, might sound like something written by a general after the battle. Still, it is fair to admit that the ‘avalanche’ of the Student List’s victory — the huge turnout and the crystal-clear result — surprised even those who know Serbian politics, and Serbian political culture in particular, far better and from much closer. At times, it seems that sobering up from the euphoria of victory brings a hangover even to many of those who, until yesterday, formed a seemingly monolithic opposition bloc against what they called ‘the Evil’. What now? What is to be done? The moment when any question about programmatic goals, strategic priorities and the practical solutions demanded by reality could be easily waved away is over. Right up to the elections, the answer from representatives of the Student List was unanimous: we will think about that tomorrow; for now, our goal is to bring down the regime.

But just a few days after the elections, many are rightly pointing to the enigma of the ‘Serbian experiment’. One of those who grasped the movement’s trajectory, and what he saw as its only path to success, as early as 2025 was the brilliant thinker and professor Branko Milanović. His view, which seems to have been taken as advice, was that the movement could succeed only by remaining apolitical and adhering to the practice of anti-politics. The enormous, accumulated anger against Vučić was the only point of convergence for the far right, the far left and centrist liberals. But being apolitical is a two-edged sword.

The Student List had presented no clear political, let alone ideological, platform, but rather 11 points amounting to a wish list, couched in vague promises about creating ‘any decent state’. Whenever one wing tried to emphasise a particular position — for example, severing close ties with Moscow — it risked losing a few percentage points of public support. The result was similar whenever the EU and NATO were presented as key strategic goals. Wherever parts of the movement turned, they encountered a political minefield. The simplest course, therefore, was to mobilise against Vučić and demand the fall of his government. And Vučić, generously, made that possible.

Yet there is a deeper problem here, one that extends well beyond Serbia. Across the Balkans, whenever people begin to question the foundations of their political and social order, a familiar refrain can be heard: ‘Please, don’t philosophise’, or ‘There is too much politicisation’. Politics is treated as a dirty business, philosophy as an unnecessary luxury, and ideological debate as an obstacle to getting things done. I would argue the opposite precisely. The problem in our societies is not too much meaningful politics, but too little of it. We have no shortage of political manoeuvring, personality cults or struggles for office. What is missing is an open debate about the kind of society we want to build, whose interests the state should serve, and what we mean by justice, equality, social solidarity and sovereignty.

These are not abstract philosophical questions. They are the foundations on which any meaningful social contract must be built. A movement cannot simply postpone them until after victory, as though the answers will emerge automatically once the old rulers are removed. Real change requires philosophical deliberation, moral choices and ideological clarity on the fundamental issues that divide society and determine its future. A common enemy is not a common political programme. Anger can bring people into the streets; moral indignation can sustain a protest; a shared demand for accountability can bring down a government. None of these, by itself, answers what should follow.

This is where the limits of anti-politics become apparent. It may be an effective way of uniting people against an incumbent government, especially one that has discredited the established political order. But it cannot, by itself, provide the foundations of a new one. The problem is not that a movement brings together people with different ideological convictions. The problem begins when those differences are concealed, dismissed as irrelevant, or indefinitely postponed in the name of unity. They do not disappear simply because the movement refuses to discuss them. They return when decisions have to be made — about the economy, labour, public services, property, foreign policy, military alliances and the distribution of power and resources. If these questions are left unanswered, the movement risks changing the political personnel while leaving the underlying structures of power intact.

A refusal to engage in ideological debate does not make politics neutral. Nor does it eliminate the influence of economic interests, technocratic elites or external actors. On the contrary, when a movement refuses to define its political horizon, others may define it on its behalf. The language of anti-politics can thus become a way of avoiding precisely those questions that matter most to ordinary people: who owns, who decides, who benefits, who bears the costs, and whose interests are excluded from the decisions that shape their lives. From a left-wing perspective, these are not secondary issues to be addressed after the restoration of procedural democracy. They are central to what political change should mean in the first place.

At a time when young people across Europe, and France in particular, are protesting on a scale not seen for decades, the Serbian case — a victory achieved through non-violent means, long marches and pens in hand — looks like a small miracle. Reactions in neighbouring countries are similar, especially among the young: why don’t we learn something from the Serbian students? Why are we silent? Why are we apathetic? The only exception, of course, is Albania, where protests may gain intensity precisely because of developments next door.

This is the worst possible moment for a rational analysis of what comes next. How does one move from anti-politics to politics, from protest to laws and decisions, and from mobilisation to the functioning of institutions and the mechanisms of procedural democracy? For those who still believe in the romanticised version of the student movement that defeated the Evil, realism is hard to swallow. They are ready to denounce anyone who raises questions as a pro-Vučić element, if not something worse.

Yet the region has quite a few wise heads with grey hair and enough memories to offer a more sober assessment. The words of Nenad Čanak and Žarko Puhovski, for example, are worth considering. Čanak, a politician and activist from Vojvodina — the province where Vučić suffered a crushing defeat — has advanced a thesis that deserves attention. In my paraphrase, he argues that the Student List’s victory marked the end of Serbia’s multiparty system, razing it to the ground. He described the list itself, which has no recognisable leader, structure or programme, as a ‘black box’ brought into parliament. Puhovski expressed a similar degree of scepticism, arguing that the list has everything but students: its members are either entirely anonymous or have ‘laundered biographies’, while the ideological combination of ultra-rightists and far-leftists is an impossible one. I called it a ‘mixture of oil and water’, or perhaps, more aptly, ‘fire and water’.

Vučić’s early and peaceful concession came as a huge surprise, but also as a relief: civil war had been avoided. Vučić had recognised the writing on the wall even before voting ended and chose what he considered the wisest chess move: conceding defeat while positioning himself as the leader of the parliamentary opposition. It is a rather comfortable position, with an MP’s mandate, and a presence on the political scene from which to watch and wait for the Student List’s mistakes. It may even be a relief to him that others will now have to deal with Kosovo, EU pressure, the growing economic and social crisis, Russian sanctions, the war in Ukraine, and so on. If he is not arrested eventually…

As I write this, the names of those who will take power remain largely unknown, despite the huge parliamentary majority they command. The Serbian parliament is now overwhelmingly dominated by two political camps, with a few minority representatives occupying guaranteed seats. Today’s parliament reflects a Serbia divided since the days of the 19th-century socialist Svetozar Marković. The same is true of society, burdened by mutual resentment. The victory was peaceful, but deep divisions and hatred continue to smoulder beneath the surface, and they will hardly be easy to contain. For those on the left, perhaps the most sobering sign is that the name being floated for the future prime minister is that of a man from the banking sector. There will be other surprises, and by the end of the year a new president of the Republic will have to be elected. Gradually, the ‘black box’ will open on the stage, and the figures who were gifted the student movement’s image of innocence and combativeness will emerge. For now, it looks bizarre to hear grown adults speaking of themselves as ‘we from the Student List’.

At this point, it is difficult to offer a full forecast, but one thing is clear: disappointments are still to come, for one side or another, perhaps for everyone. The list and the movement brought together people with different convictions and expectations, including students who did not even secure political representation or agency. The victorious list is, in that sense, also a miniature reflection of a divided Serbia. The question is whether its members can turn that diversity into a genuine democratic debate about the country’s future, rather than conceal it behind the rhetoric of unity. If they cannot, the black box may well produce a change of personnel without transforming the social and economic relations that shape people’s lives.

Apparently, what remains unclear is who the laboratory technician is, who built the laboratory, and for what purpose. But the truth is that in the so-called Western Balkans, experiments are nothing new as are the cooks.

Genocidal intent behind Hebron assault, rights group says

 Maureen Clare Murphy 

Israeli forces obstruct Palestinian shopkeeper Hijazi Shawer and other residents from returning to their homes during a large-scale military operation in the West Bank city of Hebron, 27 October. Two days earlier, Shawer was hospitalized after being assaulted by Israeli forces while attempting to return to his home.

Mosab ShawerActiveStills

Israel’s military is committing international crimes with the intent of genocide in its assault on Hebron, where thousands of people have been displaced from or trapped inside their homes, according to a prominent Palestinian human rights group.

The offensive was launched after a shooting attack that left two soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen dead at a checkpoint outside the city in the occupied West Bank last Friday.

Hebron was put under lockdown after senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declared their intent to forcibly displace Palestinians and destroy their homes, replicating the destruction of three refugee camps in the northern West Bank beginning in January 2025.

The statements have raised concerns of collective punishment, mass forced displacement and ethnic cleansing as senior Israeli officials appeared to use Friday’s shooting attack as a pretext to alter the demographics of the second-largest city in the occupied West Bank after East Jerusalem.

The Global Protection Cluster – a network engaged in protection work in humanitarian crises led by the UN refugee agency – warned that mass forced displacement and collective punishment were underway in Hebron.

Statements by senior Israeli officials “raise serious concerns regarding the risk of unlawful forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing.”

The protection cluster added that Israeli forces have also “imposed extensive movement restrictions” and “carried out widespread home searches and detained dozens of Palestinians.”

Collective punishment

On Wednesday, several days into the Hebron raid, the Israeli military claimed that its forces had “confiscated weapons, including an M16 rifle, knives, a vest [and] a replica gun” during its “counterterrorism operation.”

Photographs published by the military purportedly showing the confiscated “weapons” appeared to show a slingshot, empty holsters, knee pads and a jumble of flags and clothing, as well as plastic-wrapped parts of a rifle – drawing skepticism and ridicule over the little return on the massive display of force.

The Israeli military’s chief of staff intended to end the Hebron operation the day it began, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Monday, but Netanyahu and Israel Katz, the defense minister, “pushed to continue displacing residents and to prevent their return to their homes.”

Reut Shaer, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, told Haaretz that “no security incident grants the army permission to punish an entire city.”

“The mass displacement and destruction carried out by Israel in Hebron are part of its elimination project in the West Bank: systematically dismantling Palestinian collective life,” B’Tselem, another Israeli human rights group, stated.

Thousands forced from their homes

More than 3,000 people had been forced to leave their homes, Khaled Dudin, the governor of Hebron, said on Thursday. The ongoing offensive was hindering people from “accessing healthcare and other essential services,” Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported.

The education of more than a quarter of a million students enrolled in nearly 600 schools was being disrupted, according to Dudin.

Israeli forces shut down the Bab al-Zawiya commercial center in Hebron on Thursday, forcing shop owners to shutter their businesses, according to Wafa.

Israeli flags hang from a residential building in the West Bank city of Hebron as Israeli forces convert Palestinian homes into military barracks in the Deir Baha area, 24 October. 

Mosab ShawerActiveStills

Israeli troops had taken over homes after forcibly displacing their residents, while other homes have been ransacked and looted, rights groups say.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that Israeli troops had stolen money, gold jewelry and other personal property while raiding Hebron homes.

“Israeli soldiers also forced homeowners to leave without letting them take any of their belongings and provided no receipt or itemized list of what had been seized,” the Geneva-based group added. “This constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and may amount to a war crime.”

One home was turned into “a military barracks” with Israeli flags raised on it, according to Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group.

Some people were under siege in sealed-off areas where Israeli forces were preventing the entry of aid.

Local committees were providing emergency assistance to hundreds of families “displaced or otherwise affected by the assault,” Wafa reported.

Genocidal intent

Displaced families were being prevented from returning to their homes, according to Al-Haq. The group said it had documented the assault of a 66-year-old man by Israeli forces as he attempted to return to his home to fetch medication on 25 October.

The Israeli military sealed off the main entrances to Hebron, preventing Palestinians from entering or leaving, affecting preschools, schools and universities, Al-Haq added. The Ibrahimi Mosque was closed on 26 October and Israeli forces were “preventing the call to prayer and the holding of prayers” at the holy site.

The forced transfer of Palestinians in Hebron amounts to “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and which, when carried out with an intent to destroy the Palestinian group, amounts to genocide,” according to Al-Haq.

The group pointed to Israel’s systematic dismantling and obstruction of the work of institutions that protect Palestine refugees, particularly UNRWA, as a means by which Israel creates conditions of life intended to destroy the Palestinian people by “making their continued existence as a group and the realization of their self-determination unviable.”

Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, said that “Israel’s aggressive operation” raises “grave concerns of unnecessary and disproportionate use of force – which must end.”

“Those who have been displaced must be allowed to return home,” Türk said. “Israel must ensure compensation and reparation for unlawful evictions and demolitions, and associated displacement.”