The Israeli military has itself admitted to the destruction or damage to seven of its military vehicles, including a large troop carrier known as Panther, and also the destruction of a helicopter. 

On Monday, June 20, Israeli occupation forces invaded parts of the northern Palestinian town of Jenin, and its refugee camp. The invasion, which has been routine in recent months, didnt go as planned. 

Six Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, including a child, Ahmed Saqr, and over 91 were reportedly wounded, including a journalist. According to eyewitnesses and a statement by the Palestinian Red Crescent society, the Israeli army intentionally hampered the work of medics that could have saved some of the lost lives. 

Eight Israeli soldiers were injured, some of whom are reportedly in serious condition. The Palestinian Resistance said in a statement, a copy of which was received by the Palestine Chronicle, that the Israeli military is outright lying about its losses, due to fear of political repercussions. 

Is the Israeli Military Hiding the True Number of Its Casualties? 

The Palestinian claim was substantiated by three factors: 

One, is the fact that the Israeli military has itself admitted to the destruction or damage to seven of its military vehicles, including a large troop carrier known as Panther, and also the destruction of a helicopter. 

Two, the fact that it took the Israeli army hours to evacuate its damaged vehicles and its wounded due to the stiff resistance, and the siege imposed on invading Israeli troops in the Jenin neighborhood of Jabriyat. 

Three, the fact that Israel had to resort to the use of its air force for the first time since the Second Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) over 20 years ago. 

Who Were the Palestinians Involved in the Fighting? 

Although fighters from all main Palestinian Resistance groups took part in the Monday battle, two dominant forces were involved: Izz ed-Din Al-Qassam, the military wing of the political movement Hamas, and the Jenin Brigades, a branch of the Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad.

While Al-Qassam fighters have reportedly been the ones that ambushed the Israeli force in the Jenin camp, the Jenin Briga...

Make serious efforts to achieve an immediate ceasefire in the war in Ukraine and stop delivering weapons to Ukraine. This is a call a group of Japanese citizens including academicians made in their appeal to the G7 leaders.

In a move encouraging to the Japanese group, Noam Chomsky, a US theoretical linguist, and public intellectual, has come up with his support for its call for an immediate ceasefire while denouncing those who oppose it.

Commenting in his e-mail to this writer, Chomsky said, The criticism (against the idea of an immediate ceasefire), which is the standard one, is intellectually and morally scandalous in my opinion. It assumes that if facing defeat, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will quietly slink away to a bitter fate and not use the weapons which all know he has to escalate the war, if necessary obliterating Ukraine. It is a ghastly gamble with the fate of Ukrainians, while merely striking heroic postures.

In calling the G7 leaders to set up a negotiation table for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, the Japanese group said, The war already shows signs of being a proxy war, with outcome determined by weapons provided by NATO countries.

Although Ukraine is reported to have started a counter-offensive in earnest, we believe that both Russia and Ukraine should start discussions toward an immediate ceasefire since no party wants an all-out war, said Haruki Wada, a member of the 32-member group and professor emeritus (Russian/Soviet history and Korean history) at the University of Tokyo.

Report: Ukraine Exacts Revenge on Israel at UN

Both countries should learn from the fact that about one year after the start of the Korean War in June 1950, formal ceasefire talks began and also from the fact that in the Ukraine war, formal ceasefire talks began five days after it began although they eventually collapsed, he said.

Kenji Isezaki, another member of the group and professor emeritus (peace and conflict studies) at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, said that delay of a ceasefire in the Ukraine war will lead not only to an increase in deaths but also an increase in war crimes and fading of war crime-related evidence.

In Japan, voices have been raised, even from liberals, criticizing the groups call for an immed...

(War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine by Norman Solomon, The New Press, 2023)

Following a string of United States forever wars, a profusion of well-written, often riveting novels, memoirs, and analyses have been published. Talented authors have aimed to promote an understanding of the human cost of war.

In the same period, mainstream media sources have continually developed ways to make war appear normal something necessary, justifiable, or in some cases, humane.

Norm Solomons War Made Invisible erects an edifice of evidence showing deliberate, consistent, coordinated, and well-funded efforts to squelch movements opposing the vicious consequences of war.

Solomon asks why people identify more with the bombers rather than the bombed. Then he traces the history of embedded reporters. He shows how the presence of embeds (journalists who live among and travel with units of the military) has changed the way wars are covered. The embeds are beholden not only to the military that protects them but also to corporate heads who collude with war profiteers and war planners.

Militarists justifications for wars often emphasize the terror wielded by insurgents using bloody tactics. Solomon points out the similarities between suicide bombers causing slaughter on the ground and sophisticated warplanes maiming and killing civilians from the air.

The legendary peace activist Phil Berrigan once likened racism and threats of nuclear war to the many faces of the hydra written off in Greek mythology. Cut off one head and another appears. The many-faced hydra of racism and war now turns to all corners of the globe. Any country refusing to subordinate itself to serving US national interests risks being devastated by US. military and economic wars. Increasingly, war planners invoke the nuclear threat.

Authors and orators who challenge the status quo of glorifying and justifying wars face well-organized opponents with deep pockets and a vice-like grip on mainstream media. Astonishing past efforts, in US history, to outlaw war and denounce the merchants of death reached millions of people after the industrial slaughter of World War I.

Eugene Debs, the indefatigable campaigner imprisoned for op...

Every two years American voters begin searching for the perfect candidate who will return the country to its alleged former greatness. On the left, that means to its Democratic principles, on the right, it reflects a desire to return to the days when white men were the ruling majority and Empire was at its finest.

Sadly for the former, this country has always had the potential to fulfill its democratic goals, but instead was founded on the backs of enslaved men and women along with the extermination of the Native population to make way for imperialist expansion.

That desire to maintain an Empire has never faded, though since around 1900 expansionists have focused mostly overseas. For Palestinians and their supporters, this is common knowledge. In their world, presidential candidates are viewed with an eye to their position on Palestine.

According to the late activist/intellectual Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine is at the center of the anti-colonial struggle, both as a symbol of resistance and as a victim of Israels brutal colonial regime. As Louis Brehoni notes, Kanafani was an uncompromising internationalist who wrote the following:

The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.

It follows that every anti-imperialist activist should hold true to that invective by judging those who aspire to office accordingly.

Perhaps Congress has shown more progress than sitting presidents and their aspirants. Though the US remains a strong supporter of Israel, Ramzy Baroud explains, there are some indications that the supposed unbreakable bond with Tel Aviv is faltering, though more in terms of language than deeds.

According to the US-Palestinian journalist, media consultant, an author, internationally-syndicated columnist, Editor of Palestine Chronicle, support for Israel is declining among Democratic Party members, there is some hope that Congress will pass several pieces of pending legislation aimed at weakening the most egregious elements of the Occupation.

So far, Biden, along with most of his contenders, remains in the Zionist camp. In an article during the lead up to the last election, Baroud...