Gaza is only the start. The new world order is one where the weak are obliterated by the strong, the rule of law does not exist, genocide is an instrument of control and barbarism is triumphant.

Mar 15, 2026

The war on Iran and the obliteration of Gaza is the beginning. Welcome to the new world order. The age of technologically-advanced barbarism. There are no rules for the strong, only for the weak. Oppose the strong, refuse to bow to its capricious demands and you are showered with missiles and bombs.

Hospitals, elementary schools, universities and apartment complexes are reduced to rubble. Doctors, students, journalists, poets, writers, scientists, artists and political leaders — including the heads of negotiating teams — are murdered in the tens of thousands by missiles and killer drones.

Resources – as the Venezuelans know – are openly stolen. Food, water and medicine, as in Palestine, are weaponized.

Let them eat dirt.

International bodies such as the United Nations are pantomime, useless appendages of another age. The sanctity of individual rights, open borders and international law have vanished. The most depraved leaders of human history, those who reduced cities to ashes, herded captive populations to execution sites and littered lands they occupied with mass graves and corpses, have returned with a vengeance.

They spew the same hypermasculine tropes. They spew the same vile, racist cant. They spew the same Manichaean vision of good and evil, black and white. They spew the same infantile language of total dominance and unrestrained violence.

Killer clowns. Buffoons. Idiots. They have seized the levers of power to carry out their demented and cartoonish visions as they pillage the state for their own enrichment.

“After witnessing savage mass murder over several months, with the knowledge that it was conceived, executed and endorsed by people much like themselves, who presented it as a collective necessity, legitimate and even humane, millions now feel less at home in the world,” writes Pankaj Mishra in “The World After Gaza.” “The shock of this renewed exposure to a peculiarly modern evil – the evil done in the pre-modern era only by psychopathic individuals and unleashed in the last century by rulers and citizens of rich and supposedly civilized societies – cannot be overstated. Nor can the moral abyss we confront.”

The subjugated are property, commodities to exploit for profit or pleasure. The Epstein Files expose the sickness and heartlessness of the ruling class. Liberals. Conservatives. University presidents. Academics. Philanthropists. Wall Street titans. Celebrities. Democrats. Republicans.

They wallow in unbridled hedonism. They go to private schools and have private health care. They are cocooned in self-referential bubbles by sycophants, publicists, financial advisers, lawyers, servants, chauffeurs, self-help gurus, plastic surgeons and personal trainers. They reside in heavily guarded estates and vacation on private islands. They travel on private jets and gargantuan yachts. They exist in another reality, what the Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Frank dubs the world of “Richistan,” a world of private Xanadus where they hold Nero-like bacchanalias, make their perfidious deals, amass their billions and cast aside those they use, including children, as if they are refuse. No one in this magic circle is accountable. No sin too depraved. They are human parasites. They disembowel the state for personal profit. They terrorize the “lesser breeds of the earth.” They shut down the last, anemic vestiges of our open society.

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life,” as George Orwell writes in “1984.” “All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

The law, despite a few valiant efforts by a handful of judges — who will soon be purged — is an instrument of repression. The judiciary exists to stage show trials. I spent a lot of time in the London courts covering the Dickensian farce during the persecution of Julian Assange. A Lubyanka-on-the-Thames. Our courts are no better. Our Department of Justice is a vengeance machine.

Masked, armed goons flood the streets of the United States and murder civilians, including citizens. The ruling mandarins are spending billions to convert warehouses into detention centers and concentration camps. They insist they will only house the undocumented, the criminals, but our global ruling class lies like it breathes. In their eyes, we are vermin, either blindly and unquestionably obedient or criminals. There is nothing in between.

These concentration camps, where there is no due process and people are disappeared, are designed for us. And by us, I mean the citizens of this dead republic. Yet we watch, stupefied, disbelieving, passively waiting for our own enslavement.

It won’t be long.

The savagery in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza is the same savagery we face at home. Those carrying out the genocide, mass slaughter and unprovoked war on Iran are the same people dismantling our democratic institutions.

The social anthropologist Arjun Appadurai calls what is happening “a vast worldwide Malthusian correction” that is “geared to preparing the world for the winners of globalization, minus the inconvenient noise of its losers.”

Oh, the critics say, don’t be so bleak. Don’t be so negative. Where is the hope? Really, it’s not that bad.

If you believe this you are part of the problem, an unwitting cog in the machinery of our rapidly consolidating fascist state.

Reality will eventually implode these “hopeful” fantasies, but by then it will be too late.

True despair is not a result of accurately reading reality. True despair comes from surrendering, either through fantasy or apathy, to malignant power. True despair is powerlessness. And resistance, meaningful resistance, even if it is almost certainly doomed, is empowerment. It confers self-worth. It confers dignity. It confers agency. It is the only action that allows us to use the word hope.

The Iranians, Lebanese and Palestinians know there is no appeasing these monsters. The global elites believe nothing. They feel nothing. They cannot be trusted. They exhibit the core traits of all psychopaths — superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, manipulation and the inability to feel remorse or guilt. They disdain as weakness the virtues of empathy, honesty, compassion and self-sacrifice. They live by the creed of Me. Me. Me.

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane,” Eric Fromm writes in “The Sane Society.”

We have witnessed evil for nearly three years in Gaza. We watch it now in Lebanon and Iran. We see this evil excused or masked by political leaders and the media.

The New York Times, in a page out of Orwell, sent an internal memo telling reporters and editors to eschew the terms “refugee camps, “occupied territory,” “ethnic cleansing” and, of course, “genocide” when writing about Gaza. Those who name and denounce this evil are smeared, blacklisted and purged from university campuses and the public sphere. They are arrested and deported. A deadening silence is descending upon us, the silence of all authoritarian states. Fail to do your duty, fail to cheerlead the war on Iran, and see your broadcasting license revoked, as the Chair of the F.C.C. Brendan Carr has proposed.

We have enemies. They are not in Palestine. They are not in Lebanon. They are not in Iran. They are here. Among us. They dictate our lives. They are traitors to our ideals. They are traitors to our country. They envision a world of slaves and masters. Gaza is only the start. There are no internal mechanisms for reform. We can obstruct or surrender.

Those are the only choices left.

SOURCE: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-world-according-to-gaza

The post The World According to Gaza- Chris Hedges appeared first on Void Network.

Κείμενο: Crimethinc / Μετάφραση: Blade Runner

Η επίθεση των ΗΠΑ και του Ισραήλ στο Ιράν είναι ηθικά αποκρουστική. Έχει σχεδιαστεί για να ωφελήσει αποκλειστικά μια ελίτ ρατσιστών και ισλαμοφοβικών πολεμοκάπηλων. Δεν θα ωφελήσει κανέναν απλό άνθρωπο — ούτε στο Ιράν ούτε οπουδήποτε αλλού στον κόσμο.

Υπάρχουν αυθεντικά κινήματα βάσης που αντιστέκονται στην ιρανική κυβέρνηση, η οποία είναι ένα αιματοβαμμένο αυταρχικό καθεστώς — όπως είναι και οι κυβερνήσεις των ΗΠΑ και του Ισραήλ που της επιτίθενται. Όμως οι συμμετέχοντες στα ιρανικά κοινωνικά κινήματα δεν θέλουν ο Ντόναλντ Τραμπ να επιτεθεί στο Ιράν. Όπως έγραψαν κάποιοι από αυτούς τον περασμένο μήνα:

«κάθε στρατιωτική ή ιμπεριαλιστική επέμβαση δεν μπορεί παρά να αποδυναμώσει τον αγώνα από τα κάτω και να ενισχύσει τη δυνατότητα της Ισλαμικής Δημοκρατίας να συνεχίσει την καταστολή.»

Τα κοινωνικά κινήματα στο Ιράν αντιστέκονται εδώ και δεκαετίες σε μια καταπιεστική κυβέρνηση. Όμως η εγκαθίδρυση ενός καθεστώτος-μαριονέτας που θα υπηρετεί τις ΗΠΑ και το Ισραήλ δεν θα τα βοηθήσει. Επιτιθέμενος στο Ιράν, ο Τραμπ δεν επιδιώκει κατ’ ανάγκη την ανατροπή της κυβέρνησης, αλλά την υποταγή της στη δική του βούληση, απομακρύνοντας τα πρόσωπα στην κορυφή για να καταλάβει ο ίδιος τη θέση τους. Αυτό ακριβώς έκανε στη Βενεζουέλα τον Ιανουάριο του 2026. Η απαγωγή του Νικολάς Μαδούρο δεν άλλαξε τίποτα στην κατανομή της εξουσίας στη βενεζουελάνικη κοινωνία· το βασικό αποτέλεσμα της παρέμβασής του ήταν να ανοίξει το δρόμο για τη λεηλασία των φυσικών πόρων της χώρας προς όφελος τμημάτων της άρχουσας τάξης των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών.

Όπως και άλλοι αυταρχικοί ηγέτες σε όλο τον κόσμο, ο Τραμπ επιδιώκει να παραμερίσει τους απλούς ανθρώπους, περιορίζοντας όλη την πολιτική σε μια σύγκρουση τυράννων για την εξουσία εις βάρος όσων βρίσκονται υπό την κυριαρχία τους. Θα θυσιάσει πρόθυμα τις ζωές Ιρανών, Ισραηλινών και πολιτών των ΗΠΑ για το δικό του όφελος.

Καθώς η καπιταλιστική κερδοσκοπία προσκρούει στα εγγενή της όρια σε ολόκληρο τον κόσμο, οι κυρίαρχες ελίτ επιστρέφουν στη συσσώρευση πλούτου με τον παλιό τρόπο — μέσω της ωμής κρατικής βίας. Ένα από τα στοιχεία που συντήρησαν την παγκόσμια οικονομία τα τελευταία χρόνια είναι η έκρηξη χρηματιστηριακής κερδοσκοπίας γύρω από λίγες τεχνολογικές εταιρείες που επιχειρούν να πουλήσουν προϊόντα «τεχνητής νοημοσύνης». Στην πραγματικότητα, πρόκειται για έναν αγώνα επενδύσεων στην επόμενη γενιά στρατιωτικής τεχνολογίας, ενόψει μιας εποχής κατά την οποία αυτή θα είναι ακόμη πιο καθοριστική για τον τρόπο με τον οποίο κατανέμονται ο πλούτος και η εξουσία. Απόδειξη αποτελεί η κόντρα αυτής της εβδομάδας σχετικά με το αν ο αμερικανικός στρατός θα πρέπει να μπορεί να χρησιμοποιεί εργαλεία τεχνητής νοημοσύνης που παράγει η Anthropic για μαζική εσωτερική επιτήρηση πολιτών των ΗΠΑ και για την ανάπτυξη πλήρως αυτόνομων όπλων.

Ο ισραηλινός στρατός έκανε εκτεταμένη χρήση τεχνητής νοημοσύνης για να διαπράξει γενοκτονία στη Γάζα. Αυτό — και όχι η «διευκόλυνση» γραφειοκρατών να συντάσσουν τα email τους — είναι η κύρια εφαρμογή της τεχνητής νοημοσύνης.

Για την ισραηλινή κυβέρνηση, ολόκληρη η Μέση Ανατολή αντιμετωπίζεται πλέον σαν μια διευρυμένη Δυτική Όχθη. Η επίθεση στο Ιράν δείχνει ότι είναι αποφασισμένοι να υποτάξουν εκατοντάδες εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους στη βία που ήδη έχουν ασκήσει στους Παλαιστίνιους, τους Λιβανέζους και τους Σύρους.

Στις ΗΠΑ, η απόφαση του Τραμπ να κηρύξει πόλεμο χωρίς να συμβουλευτεί το Κογκρέσο δείχνει ότι ήδη αντιλαμβάνεται τον εαυτό του ως δικτάτορα. Η επίθεση στους Ιρανούς αποσκοπεί στο να σπείρει τρόμο στους αντιπάλους του σε όλο τον κόσμο, συμπεριλαμβανομένων και εκείνων εντός των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών.

Πρέπει να κατανοήσουμε αυτή την επίθεση και ως απειλή εναντίον μας. Από το Καράκας και τις Δίδυμες Πόλεις μέχρι την Τεχεράνη, είναι εύκολο να διακρίνει κανείς τον κόσμο που επιχειρούν να οικοδομήσουν. Τα ίδια όπλα που χρησιμοποιούνται σήμερα εναντίον των Ιρανών θα στραφούν αύριο εναντίον οποιουδήποτε αντισταθεί στον Τραμπ και τους αυλοκόλακές του, αν δεν σταθούμε απέναντί τους από κοινού πριν να είναι αργά.

Πρέπει να οικοδομήσουμε τη δύναμη των κινημάτων βάσης ώστε να διακόψουμε τη λειτουργία της πολεμικής μηχανής. Οι εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες που σφαγιάστηκαν παράλογα στη Γάζα, τη Συρία, το Σουδάν, την Υεμένη, το Ιράκ, τη Μιανμάρ, και την Ουκρανία δείχνουν τι μας περιμένει σε αυτόν τον δρόμο, αν δεν τον σταματήσουμε.

Η πραγματική απελευθέρωση μπορεί να προκύψει μόνο μέσα από την αλληλεγγύη μεταξύ κινημάτων βάσης. Πρέπει να αντισταθούμε στον πολεμοχαρή Τραμπ με κάθε μέσο.

Περαιτέρω ανάλυση

• Πορείες διαμαρτυρίας στο Ιράν εν μέσω πολιορκίας από εσωτερικούς και εξωτερικούς εχθρούς: Αναφορά για την πρόσφατη μαζική εξέγερση
• Εξέγερση στο Ιράν μετά την δολοφονία της Mahsa Amini από την αστυνομία ηθών
• Το PKK Αυτοδιαλύεται: Τέλος εποχής ή νέα αρχή για τη Μέση Ανατολή;
• Συρία: «Γυναίκα, Ζωή, Ελευθερία» ή «Άνδρες, Κράτος και Βία»: Μια ανάλυση από την Jineolojî Academy / Ακαδημία Γυναιολογίας
• Γάζα Αγαπημένη: Κατανοώντας την γενοκτονία στην Παλαιστίνη
• Ο κόσμος αυτός ραγίζει – Πρέπει να αρχίσουμε να χτίζουμε
• Με αφορμή την εξέγερση στο Ιράν: ένα ακόμα σχίσμα διαφαίνεται στον κινηματικό χώρο.
• Στο γύρισμα της παλίρροιας: Πώς να παλέψουμε για να βγούμε από την εποχή Τραμπ

The post Η επίθεση στο Ιράν είναι επίθεση σε όλους μας appeared first on Void Network.

Report by Blade Runner~ Photos by Void Network

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Kurds and supporters filled the streets of London on Sunday 25 January 2026 in solidarity with the people of Rojava. Organised by Kurdish diaspora communities and solidarity networks, protesters gathered outside the BBC at Broadcasting House before marching towards Downing Street, calling on Western governments and international institutions to intervene to prevent an unfolding assault on Kurdish autonomy and rights. Passers-by along the route stopped to engage with the march, expressing curiosity and solidarity.

RiseUp4Rojava, Women Defend Rojava and the 183 organisations and 72 individuals who have already endorsed the international call, urged supporters to escalate organising — through coordinated street actions, social media mobilisation, pressure on national governments and international bodies, and demands for political and legal recognition of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES).

On the ground, the situation remains highly volatile. In early January 2026, jihadist forces forming the backbone of Syria’s transitional government, backed politically and logistically by Ankara, launched a rapid offensive across territory previously administered by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the military defence force of Rojava. Government-aligned forces seized cities, oil fields and key infrastructure east of the Euphrates in a matter of days.

In the initial stages of the offensive, several tribal groups that had previously aligned with the SDF switched sides, accelerating the loss of territory, including in major urban centres. Amid the chaos, ISIS-linked detainees from facilities formerly controlled by the SDF were reportedly released before being recaptured by Damascus-aligned forces.

Clashes intensified around Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Hasakah, before Damascus and the SDF agreed a fragile ceasefire in mid-January. Under the terms announced, the SDF is to be integrated into Syrian state structures, with control of border crossings, energy infrastructure and Islamic State detention facilities transferred to the central government. The ceasefire was reportedly violated almost immediately, though harsh winter conditions and tactical regrouping by SDF forces appear to have slowed the pace of the assault. 

The truce was brokered by international mediators, particularly the United States and France. Washington is reported to be seeking additional time to organise the transfer of thousands of detained ISIS fighters and their families out of the region.

Kurdish-majority cities are currently under blockade, enforced by Turkish-backed militias, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Islamic State cells. Displacement into remaining Kurdish-held areas is placing further strain on already fragile infrastructure and aid capacity as humanitarian conditions deteriorate rapidly. In the encircled city of Kobane, water and electricity supplies have been cut, forcing displaced families into public buildings without heating or basic services. Local sources report that at least five children have already died due to cold conditions, as tens of thousands of civilians flee ongoing bombardment and insecurity across the region. Borders with Turkey, Iraq and Iran have seen increased crossings by Kurds preparing for what many fear could become a decisive confrontation with Damascus and its allies.

Organisers highlighted upcoming international days of action, including 26 January, marking the anniversary of the 2015 liberation of Kobane from Islamic State, and 31 January, a global mobilisation under the slogan “Women Defend Rojava“, calling on women and democratic forces to defend what supporters describe as Rojava’s women-led social revolution.

Solidarity actions have been taking place internationally, including protests across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Spain and South America, as Kurdish communities and allied organisations seek to apply pressure on governments in an effort to avert what many fear could become a genocidal assault on north-east Syria. International networks have also coordinated several convoys from Europe, with additional groups reportedly travelling from Iraq, Iran and Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid or join the defence of the region.

____

The article published also simoultanously at Freedom News:

https://freedomnews.org.uk/2026/01/26/thousands-march-for-rojava-in-london/

The post Thousands march for Rojava in London – 25.01.26 appeared first on Void Network.

NOISE AGAINST WAR #4

Αντιπολεμικό φεστιβάλ avant-garde, πειραματικής και θορυβικής μουσικής αφιερωμένο στα θύματα του πολέμου σε κάθε γωνιά της Γης.

ΣΑΒΒ. 10/1/ 2026
ώρα 21.30

Ελεύθερο Αυτοδιαχειριζόμενο
Θέατρο ΕΜΠΡΟΣ
(Ρ. Παλαμήδη 2, Ψυρρή)

Είσοδος δωρεάν με ελεύθερη συνεισφορά. Ενάντια στον πόλεμο και τον μιλιταρισμό, ενάντια σε κάθε κράτος, κάθε φασισμό και απολυταρχία, ενάντια σε κάθε θρησκευτικό φανατισμό!

LIVE

Spyros Polychronopoulos | Schema Musicalis

Manolis Manousakis | Antonis Vlastos | War 

Morton | Yannis Raouzeos & Maelstrom

courage fuyons (FR) | Victoras Tsilimbaris

Giannis Arapis & Tasos Stamou 

Stelios Tsiloglou | Stefan Zafeiriadis

Visual Art by Global Eye / London Void Network

Διοργάνωση:

ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ  | http://voidnetwork.gr

Σε μια επιτάχυνση χωρίς φρένα, ο πλανήτης γλιστρά προς την επόμενη παγκόσμια ανθρωποσφαγή.

Οι πληθυσμοί, υπνωτισμένοι, βαδίζουν προς το χάος, κλεισμένοι σε κύκλους αυτοκαταστροφικής οργής, απογοητευμένοι από πολιτικές λύσεις που υπήρξαν διαχειρίσεις της ήττας. Το τεχνολογικό πλέγμα απλώνεται σαν ομίχλη: όχι εργαλείο ελευθερίας και κοινοκτημοσύνης, αλλά μηχανή επιτήρησης και επικυριαρχίας, στα χέρια των ίδιων ελίτ που λεηλατούν ζωές, αρπάζουν τη γη, αφανίζουν οικοσυστήματα και  λαούς. Πόλεμος παντού: Βορράς, Δύση, Ανατολή, Νότος· Παλαιστίνη, Ουκρανία, Αφρική, Λατινική Αμερική· πραξικοπήματα, παλιοί και νέοι φασισμοί.

Απέναντι στην αλαζονεία των κυρίαρχων, μόνο ένα παγκόσμιο, διεθνιστικό, πολυεθνικό, αντιπολεμικό κίνημα, που ενώνει αγώνες και κουλτούρες αντίστασης, μπορεί να ραγίσει τον χρόνο και να ανακόψει τη μετάβαση του  παγκόσμιου καπιταλισμού στον τεχνικό ολοκληρωτισμό.

Να ξαναφανταστούμε εδώ και τώρα, μαζί, την Ιστορία από τα κάτω, με αλληλεγγύη, μνήμη και ανυπακοή, πριν το μέλλον σφραγιστεί από τον πόλεμο, τους αλγόριθμους, τα σύνορα και τη σιωπή, για όλους τους ανθρώπους της Γης.

ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ 

The post Noise Against War Festival / Sat. 10-1-2026 – Athens appeared first on Void Network.

Not possessing prophetic visions, it will be difficult to predict what forms Anarchism will take in the 21st century, as this depends on the geographical, cultural, political, social, and temporal context. Undoubtedly, struggles for the expansion of spaces of freedom, equality in differences, and solidarity—individual and collective—(including and especially among strangers) will always constitute the axes around which the specifically appropriate forms and modes of conflict will revolve, depending on the context of anarchism, or rather anarchisms.

I will briefly focus on three global scenarios, not alternatives, but rather intersecting yet not hierarchically descending, within which twenty-first-century anarchists will strive to identify the best forms of action. There is clearly a fourth, linked to gender issues, but other contributions will provide us with general and specific features and contextual objectives of struggle. Of course, these scenarios do not exclude or downplay the more common, more everyday, and perhaps more local spheres of struggle, whose importance is crucial to our rooting in the territories where we live. However, in my opinion, global scenarios will also “over-determine” local or traditional conflicts, changing their forms and modalities and imparting, in my view, significant twists.

The first is climate change, which alters the planet’s living conditions, jeopardising the survival of its ecosystems, with the risk of demographic conflicts, migratory movements, and the violent exploitation of resources (fertile land, water), etc. The nomadism typical (and even original) of the human species cannot be stopped by state or “natural” borders, such will be the pressure of migration in search of better living conditions. If the pace of exploitation of humanity’s resources (land and water, first and foremost) is not reversed, increasingly bloody conflicts will erupt, considering that half the world’s population is of working age, and a quarter of them live in rural areas, where 80% of global poverty exists. This is without considering the informal, obscure, and invisible work that escapes ILO or World Bank statistics. In these conditions, which it would be unworthy to call “emergency”—so endemic and reiterated are they by the dynamics of power and inequality on a global scale—the approach to problems can only hinge on bottom-up self-organisation, to mitigate the destructive effects of current climate policies pursued by unscrupulous state and business elites. It is from this practice of solidarity and self-organisation that an anarchist ethos is forged: a training ground for creativity in horizontal problem-solving that will gradually extend to the complete reorganisation of social life according to libertarian practices and attitudes. It is therefore time for the livability of and on our planet to enter the political agenda of social anarchism with determination, since we cannot count on being among the elite who will migrate to the Moon or Mars following Elon Musk & Co.

The second global scenario is the recourse to war as a challenge to global hegemony in the 21st century, with the risks of nuclear annihilation and mass extermination. Already at the close of the last millennium, many American scholars were questioning which would be the hegemonic power in the second half of the 21st century, seeing China and its allies (including Russia) as the most likely competitor against which to pursue policies of containment and aggressive counterbalancing. It’s not difficult to imagine the same in China, only that analyses and studies are not easily accessible, let alone legible. After all, history has never seen smooth and peaceful successions of global hegemony—quite the opposite. It is no coincidence, then, and not just today, that we are witnessing a growing militarisation of societies, which already directly results in the disintegration of hard-won “rights,” even without losing the pretence of (pseudo)democratic representation, with the reduction of constitutional states to electoral-parliamentary autocracies. Freedom of action, speech, expression, the ability to shape one’s life as one sees fit, and the ability to adopt non-conformist customs and traditions are all practices wrested with difficulty from previous generations and, in some cases, from the living. Whether they are constitutionalised or translated into legal norms is of little importance: positive law grants and takes away based on more or less strengthened parliamentary majorities. The path will make the difference.

By militarisation, we must not and cannot merely evoke the visible presence of signs of armed power (army, police forces, armaments, war industries, etc.). We must address the internalisation of a warmongering and bellicose culture, which arms consciences from a very young age, pressuring them with violent models for solving everyday problems and overcoming the obstacles that life throws at us at every step. Cultural models in which violence is exalted because it is simulated—game over, and we begin again—life as a video game in which you kill and are killed, but then you rise again in a limitless and infinite fight. It is no coincidence that entertainment video games fuel and are in turn fueled by military simulations, by autonomous and automatic weaponry that transform war in its forms, anaesthetising its wounds and physical traumas and transferring them to a psychic sphere. This is at least for those who attack from a position of technological supremacy, not for those who suffer its effects, as every victim of war knows.

We must not underestimate or minimise the hybrid militarisation that insinuates itself from cyberspace into our pockets via digital devices. These devices are not only the source of capitalist surveillance for commercial marketing purposes, but also, and above all, the control exerted by governments and private companies, which now possess an infinite amount of knowledge related to our tastes, our actions, our physical and virtual experiences, which are transformed into numerical data easily processed by algorithms, resulting in a unique mass profiling —and this may not sound contradictory—that is useful for predicting and even guiding our future behaviour.

Which brings us to the third global scenario: the advent of digital technologies, and AI specifically, which is literally revolutionising the way of life in our societies, not only in the areas of living labour, which can be replaced by robots and various machines, nor only in the ways in which “political” opinions are channelled during elections. The split between the corporeal, “real” sphere and the “virtual” dimension, whose effects are just as real, intertwine, delineating the formation of a subjectivity very different from the one we have become accustomed to on the material terrain of social classes and the balance of power. In an era of extreme individualism, advocated and encouraged by the neoliberal policies of recent decades, the collective sphere has shattered to be “resurrected” in the relationship between the self and the screen of my digital device; Physical sociality has in some ways evaporated in favour of a virtual “sociality,” managed by proprietary platforms, within which a fiction of communication and dialogue is enacted with just as many other selves, each connected via their own screen. The fiction of having a following of followers, of having tons of friends: in effect, we are unknowingly immersed in a bubble, within which my opinions resonate, becoming convictions as soon as I see them confirmed by others who think exactly like me. The end of the pluralism of ideas, excluded from echo chambers, the end of the emergence of dissent, the end of dialectical confrontation between different people. And when these virtual expulsions resurface in the space-time of corporeal existence, being unaccustomed of relating to different others turns into gratuitous, senseless, unexpected violence, except as a “defensive” form of a psychology devoid of real sociality, precisely because it is imbued with “social” surrogates.

Neoliberal individualism, further translocated into the digital universe, produces conformist individuals, diversified replicas of a machine matrix whose limits and technological advances we have likely become prostheses, experimentally testing. We think we are the ones using the devices, but perhaps it’s precisely the opposite. Outside of any community of reference, disoriented and tossed from one platform to another, what kind of subjectivity will ultimately consolidate? What community could give rise to the communism of goods and services? What critical and diverse subject could emerge in the increasingly pressing relationship between the human and the machine?

The new ways in which we feel we are subjects of ourselves, aware and critical of reality, push us to deepen and diversify our analytical tools, to seize new opportunities for “social(i)” connections from which we can reconstitute a strong destituent community capable of imagining and therefore experimenting with collective utopias organized around the pivot of the absence of power.

Written by Salvo Vaccaro for Umanità Nova (Italy)

Machine Translation in English- edited by Blade Runner. 

Summary of a presentation at the Carrara Conference (11-12 October 2025) on occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Italian Anarchist Federation.

SOURCE: https://freedomnews.org.uk/2025/12/17/21st-century-anarchism/

READ MORE

The post 21st Century Anarchism- Salvo Vaccaro / Umanità Nova appeared first on Void Network.

Με αφορμή το βιβλίο «Αντι-οφθαλμός: μια φιλοσοφία της απόδρασης» οι εκδόσεις Affect και το Κενό Δίκτυο σας προσκαλούν σε μια παρουσίαση / συζήτηση με τον Adam Jones, συγγραφέα και φιλόσοφο και μέλος της συλλογικότητας Acid Horizon.

Πέμπτη 18/12/2025
στις 20:00
Ελεύθερο Αυτοδιαχειριζόμενο
Θέατρο Εμπρός
(Ρήγα Παλαμήδη 2)

Η ομιλία θα μεταφράζεται στα Ελληνικά. Την εκδήλωση θα ανοίξει ο Αλέξανδρος Γεωργίου από τις εκδόσεις Affect.

Τις περισσότερες φορές η αντίληψη του ελέγχου εξαντλείται στην έννοια της επιτήρησης σαν μάτι της εξουσίας, με τις αστυνομικές συνδηλώσεις που αυτη έχει, και χάνει έτσι τη διαδικασία παραγωγής της εξουσίας του ελέγχου. Με άλλα λόγια, η έμφαση έχει δοθεί συνήθως στην ίδια την εξουσία και όχι στο βλέπειν αυτού του μεταφορικού ματιού.

Τι θα γινόταν αν θέταμε το ερώτημα: τι σημαίνει ότι το μάτι της εξουσίας βλέπει; – ή ακόμα καλύτερα πώς βλέπει το μάτι της εξουσίας; Η απάντηση σε αυτό το ερώτημα είναι που για τους Acid Horizon αποκαλύπτει το διάγραμμα της εξουσίας – το διάγραμμα ως σχηματικό αποτύπωμα των μηχανισμών της εξουσίας.

Ο οφθαλμός ορίζεται στο κείμενο ως εκείνο το μάτι που αναγνωρίζει, και μέσω της αναγνώρισης ταυτο-ποιεί, δηλαδή κατατάσσει τα άτομα σε προκατασκευασμένες
ταυτότητες.

Οφθαλμικότητα λοιπόν είναι ακριβώς η πράξη της αναγνώρισης με στόχο την ταυτοποίηση, η συνθήκη της λειτουργίας εκείνης που αποτελεί προϋπόθεση της άσκησης της κυβερνητικής (cybernetic), της διακυβέρνησης, δηλαδή της άσκησης της εξουσίας στις συνθήκες της κοινωνίας του ελέγχου. Η πράξη αυτή δεν επιτελείται μονοσήμαντα από ένα κεντρικό «μάτι στον ουρανό», αντιθέτως απλώνεται σε ένα σύμπαν από μηχανισμούς. Περισσότερο από ουσία της εξουσίας ή υλοποιημένη οντότητα, η οφθαλμικότητα περιγράφει το modus operandi κάθε εξουσιαστικού μηχανισμού, είναι ο αφαιρετικός πυρήνας με βάση τον οποίο μπορούν να οργανωθούν διαφορετικές εξουσιαστικές διατάξεις, όπως και έχει γίνει ιστορικά και κατά περίπτωση.

Το βιβλίο αυτό αποτελεί μια σημαντική συμβολή στον τρόπο που αντιλαμβανόμαστε την κυβερνολογική του ελέγχου και τις προϋποθέσεις ώστε αυτή να διαμορφώνει τα υποκείμενα πάνω στα οποία ασκείται. Διασχίζοντας το πέρασμα από το Φουκώ του «Επιτήρηση και Τιμωρία» στο Ντελέζ της «Κοινωνίας του ελέγχου» και των Tiqqun της «Κυβερνητικής Υπόθεσης», οι Acid Horizon εντοπίζουν τη διαμόρφωση των τεχνικών ταυτοποίησης και ελέγχου στις κανονικοποιήσεις αυτών που αποκλίνουν: στο φυλετικό ρατσισμό, στο δυισμό του φύλου, στην νευροτυπικότητα, στην αγυρτεία. Από εκεί ακριβώς ανοίγεται και ένα παράθυρο για να φανταστούμε την ιδέα της απόδρασης, για να οργανώσουμε κοινότητες έξω από τις μορφές της κυβερνητικής διακυβέρνησης.

Διοργάνωση:
affect editions https://affecteditions.gr/
Κενό Δίκτυο https://voidnetwork.gr/

The post Ομιλία: «Αντι-οφθαλμός: μια φιλοσοφία της απόδρασης» Adam Jones (Acid Horizon, UK) appeared first on Void Network.

No crystal ball could have predicted that three years later, the example they set would lead to the wholesale arson of Nepal’s government buildings, its parliament, and supreme court. Nepal’s Gen Z hurricane-force uprising makes Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (The Struggle) appear tranquil, even moderate, although at the time the Rajapaksa family were so frightened by protesters that both prime minister Mahinda and his brother, president Gotabaya, went into hiding, the former on an isolated naval base, the latter on a naval vessel.

The term ‘economic crisis’ does not do justice to the indignities Sri Lankans suffered in 2022. Daily blackouts, fuel shortages, high unemployment and debilitating inflation–to say nothing of food shortages–plagued the nation at the same time as the elite enjoyed multiple luxury estates, staffed by servants even when their bosses were away for days at a time. Is it any wonder that young people screamed ‘Go Home Rajapaksas!’ and ‘Go Home Gota!’ As the movement built its momentum, their refrain became ‘Victory to the Struggle!’ (Aragalayata Jaya Wewa), showing how a revolt against perceived injustices was transformed into a revolutionary desire for a new reality.

Little did it matter that two decades previously, scarcely half the country had electricity, that schools, jobs, and basic healthcare had been largely unavailable. The growing gap between young people’s expectations in 2022 collided with the deadly misery crafted by elite politicians until an explosion was the only rational solution. Silent candlelight vigils overnight turned into hundreds of people swarming the president’s house on March 31, 2022. What had been a peaceful, spontaneous protest was then attacked by police firing tear gas and water cannons. The next morning, the president released a statement declaring that ‘extremist’ elements were trying to import the ‘Arab Spring’ to Colombo. The government declared a ‘state of emergency’ and mobilized the military and police to defy constitutional protections of free speech and assembly. Pro-Rajapaksa forces attacked young protesters, leading to a chain reaction of retaliations, a spiral of violence that engulfed even the homes and offices of the rich and powerful. Fishers, cricketers, carpenters and contingents of women all joined students in the protests. Even a nightly curfew and brief social media blackout failed to stop the movement.

Occupation of the Galle Face Green provided protesters with a 24/7 base of operations. The government countered with a mobile phone signal jammer, hoping to isolate resistance, but people refused to back down until the president resigned. Similar to Occupy Wall Street camps, the occupation of Galle Face swelled in both services it provided and supporters who rallied to the cause. Celebrities arrived to serenade the beleaguered demonstrators. By the end of the month, more than 1,000 unions staged a one-day support strike. Led by university students, people surrounded parliament and demanded resignation of all members as well as for the Rajapaksa clan to return their stolen money. “This is our country, not your ATM!’ was one of many placards.

On May 9, Mahinda Rajapaksa organized his supporters to massively assault the Galle Face Green. As police watched, more than one hundred people were beaten so badly they required hospitalization. The attackers’ brutality immediately turned the country against ‘state sponsored terrorism.’ That very same day, Mahinda was compelled to resign as prime minister. Riots against Rajapaksa loyalists proliferated. Many of the buses that carried the mob to attack Galle Face were torched. Politicians who supported Rajapaksa’s attack were beaten on the streets, and more than a few of their homes were torched. Insurgents’ violence was well targeted. They burnt to the ground the home of Sanath Nishantha, the man who had led the attack on Galle Face. The Rajapaksa museum was torched, a statue of the brothers’ father was destroyed, and two family homes were destroyed. A family-owned hotel was burnt along with a Lamborghini, a Hummer, a Cadillac and Ferrari parked there. When it was thought that Mahinda was hiding at the Trincomalee naval base, people surrounded it and demanded that he be arrested. To stop the escalating retaliations, president Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered the military to take charge of the streets with ‘shoot on sight’ orders and authorization to detain people for 24-hours.

Two months of ongoing protests and repression culminated on July 9. After protesters began to surround his house, president Gota fled on an Air Force jet to the Maldives, later to Singapore. People swarmed the president’s residence and made it into an open house for days. Security forces enjoyed taking selfies along with thousands of citizens who came to marvel at the luxurious home. The presidential secretariat, the prime minister’s official residence as well as his private home were all occupied. Two weeks of uncertainty ended on July 13 when thousands of soldiers and police stormed Galle Face in a pre-dawn raid to close the camp. The occupied buildings were next.

Although ‘order’ had been restored by the military, protesters won their main demand, removal of the president, who fled along with more than dozen other clan members. By November, lines for gas and fuel all but disappeared, inflation cooled, and citizens enjoyed the satisfaction of having broken the Rajapaksas’ grip on power. Today, the nation continues to struggle with the legacy of Rajapaksa pillaging of state coffers.

No knew it at the time, but by massively confronting its corrupt and power-hungry elite and forcing them from power, Sri Lanka’s heroic populace set an example that would be followed within years. The recent synchronization of revolts in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal reveals a phenomenon I named the ‘Eros effect’ to understand the global proliferation of revolutionary movements in 1968. Since then, other instances of simultaneous protests are evident in the global disarmament movement of the early 1980s, the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, the alterglobalization insurgencies from the Zapatistas to Seattle, and most importantly, although less well-known, the chain reaction of Asian uprisings in the Philippines (1986), South Korea (1987), Burma (1988), Tibet, Taiwan, and China (1989), Nepal and Bangladesh (1990) and Thailand (1992).

The example set in 2022 by The Struggle in Sri Lanka prefigured subsequent uprisings in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal. They all contained surprisingly similar characteristics. None involved centralized leadership nor involved traditional political parties. All had students at their centers. Each erupted suddenly, without governments’ having a clue about the turmoil ahead. Each targeted leading politicians’ homes and offices. All targeted ostensibly ‘democratic’ regimes that failed to offer any avenue for popular participation other than street protests. Their spontaneous emergence and the success of anti-corruption uprisings have put entrenched elites everywhere on notice. ‘Behave well or you may be next!’

____

* George Katsiaficas is the author Asia’s Unknown Uprisings. He is a retired professor from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. His web site is www.eroseffect.com

The post Sri Lankan Youth: Look What You’ve Started!- George Katsiafikas appeared first on Void Network.

Written by Blade Runner

On Saturday 13 September, more than 110,000 people turned out in central London, travelling from across the UK, in a mobilisation framed as a defence of “free speech” but saturated with white nationalist, Islamophobic, and anti-migrant rhetoric. It is said to have been the largest far-right protest in history.

The social media influencer who called the mobilisation, Tommy Robinson, was joined by international supporters: Elon Musk appeared by video link, calling for the government to be removed and parliament dissolved, while Éric Zemmour, the French far-right politician, invoked the “great replacement” myth in openly Islamophobic terms.

Saturday’s counter-protest drew up to 20,000 people, organised by local trade unions and grassroots groups. After a rally, they marched and ended up behind the far-right stage, where they were surrounded and effectively kettled for hours, with hostile crowds pressing against police lines. A small black bloc was at one point trapped behind far-right lines before withdrawing to the left bloc. Beer bottles and other projectiles were thrown at both police and anti-fascists.

The sheer scale of the crowds overwhelmed the under-resourced police force, which had otherwise been fully prepared to arrest hundreds of supporters of the proscribed Palestine Action. By the end of the day, the Met reported 26 officers injured—four seriously—and at least 25 arrests for assault and violent disorder, mostly of far-right attendees attempting to break through cordons. Anti-fascist blocs were eventually escorted out through narrow corridors in the middle of hostile crowds.

This mobilisation followed a summer of racist outrage, coordinated online, amplified particularly by Labour politicians, and legitimised by media coverage. Already in June, London had hosted a mass rally under the “Football Lads Against Grooming Gangs / For Our Children” banner—another openly racist march where a small anti-fascist bloc was kettled “for its own protection.”

Unlike previous eruptions in Britain, today’s racist outrage is consistently organised. Protests are rapidly mobilised, digitally coordinated, openly backed by political forces and legitimised by mainstream media, who push the myth of a “migrant invasion threatening a decaying country.”

This is part of a broader domestic and international counterinsurgency embedding the far right within Western societies. Fascists present themselves as defenders of working-class communities, co-opting the language and aesthetics of protest, all in service of white supremacy. Clashes with police are disciplinary theatre—reinforcing state power, not challenging it.

Anarchists and the anti-authoritarian left often appear disconnected from local communities, with little presence in the neighbourhoods or direct connections to refugees. We arrive as outsiders, sometimes facing kettling, harassment, and arrests.

Mainstream accounts frame the far-right surge as a backlash to left failures—neoliberal betrayal, cultural elitism, identity politics “gone too far.” But this obscures the deeper truth: Western societies long ago abandoned ideological politics, and whatever radicalism remained was absorbed and neutralised by social-democratic parties acting as pressure valves. Today’s political irrelevance is the result of decades of co-option and betrayal.

The gap between consumerist comfort zones and excluded populations has become an unbridgeable chasm. Digital natives grow up immersed in a technologically curated reality. Inside the citadel of the wealthy Global North, most can meet their basic material needs, while outside survival itself is precarious. Yet on both sides of the wall, the capacity to imagine life beyond the dominant narrative is vanishing.

The new middle classes function as highly specialised technicians and computer operators in a fully automated dystopia that extracts and destroys at unprecedented levels. Those who fail to adapt are rendered expendable. Genocide and ecocide advance hand in hand—perhaps the bleakest picture humanity has painted in civilisation’s history. Both the left and the right struggle to confront this reality in its full scale.

Governments steer reactionary domestic fronts—claiming to counter far-right drift while pushing anti-migrant policies. Repression is intense, with AI-driven surveillance defining a new society of control and feeding into a global shift toward a de facto wartime economy driven by the military–industrial complex. Militarised, racialised social orders prepare for war abroad and repression at home.

The far-right resurgence in the UK mirrors trends across Europe and the US. It is fuelled by wealthy donors and business interests, unfolding amid post-colonial restructuring. Nationalist militarism is global capitalism’s go-to strategy for managing its own contradictions, demanding a compliant, racist, and surveilled population in exchange for hollow “security” and “sovereignty.” War restructures society through displacement and discipline, always along racial lines.

New migration waves toward the citadels will continue, driven by deepening inequality, war, and ecological collapse. Migrants will remain scapegoats for crises they did not cause.

In the Middle East, this scapegoating turns genocidal. Palestinians—once a key source of precarious labour in Israel—have been rendered surplus. Racism so dehumanising it treats them as disease-carriers underpins the ongoing offensive: erasure of an indigenous population to consolidate a Greater Israel aligned with US interests and settler-colonial permanence.

The same logic that obliterates Gaza demonises migrants in Britain, criminalises dissent, and elevates white nationalism. Racism and xenophobia justify both foreign aggression and domestic repression. Liberalism cloaks this in the language of rights—but its function remains control. The UK’s Public Order Act 2023 claims to preserve safety and democracy while criminalising protest and expanding police powers, wrapping repression in procedural fairness.

The left, meanwhile, clings to illuminated vanguardism and backs authoritarian regimes simply because they oppose the West. Reviving the ideological zombies of Marxist orthodoxy and party-line praxis will not get us out of this nightmare. The revolts of this century were announced as joyful majority movements grounded in the lives and resistance of the displaced, exploited, and exiled. Building trust in our communities means abandoning the ideological habits that isolate us and reduce us to joyless, miserable lifestyle cults.

Palestine, climate, migration—these are not separate struggles. Internationalist solidarity must stretch across all fronts. Our enemies are not only abstract “isms” or tanks and cops, but also patriarchy, borders, data centres, and propaganda systems—left and right—that sustain the global war economy.

As global restructuring accelerates, the left–right binary fades. Direct action beyond ideology and party politics gains traction among a new generation. We must revive revolutionary imagination and resist the cynical pessimism of rigid orthodoxy.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel—but we do need to joyfully rise to the occasion. Grassroots counter-information and deep community engagement remain as relevant as ever.

And we must have honest conversations with our leftist friends and allies: there hasn’t been a single uprising in history that left leaders didn’t betray. Disappointment will follow hollow promises for a “better” party.

The spectre of revolt from the past decades still haunts the elites and this reactionary wave is their effort to stop it from taking form again. Our task is to crush the snake eggs before they hatch—to build bonds of trust, create spaces of refusal, and confront not just fascism but the system that breeds it. What it fears most is our capacity to live ungovernable.

The post Far-right eruption in the United Kingdom appeared first on Void Network.

I recently saw yet another progressive with a huge platform say that Trump’s ongoing horror show is proof that we all should have done more to get out the vote for Kamala Harris. This kind of historical amnesia, whether it’s the result of intentional manipulation or panicked myopia, makes me sick to my stomach. I want to take a moment to explain why.

We cannot argue for the lesser of two evils if the difference between those two evils is not enough for survival. If the difference between two choices is not enough to make the difference between life and death, we all have the responsibility to denounce both choices and create other options.

If Republicans under Trump devise new ways to terrify immigrants and weaken meager protections against deportations, but the Democrats still manage to deport more people, the ethical and strategic response is to fight against both parties and the entire system they represent.

Greenhouse gas emissions are shooting past tipping points whether it’s the Right or the Left in power, such that an increasing number of scientists are finally admitting what anarchists and other radicals have been warning for a long time: that in the next few decades there is a very real danger of billions of humans dying¹ amidst a mass extinction event that could wipe out over half the species on the planet. In this situation, anyone who frames capitalism as a lesser evil that can be made sustainable is either harmfully ignorant of what’s actually going on or they have a psychopathic ability to barter unimaginable suffering for short-term profit.

And then there’s the question of ongoing genocide. I wish we could put a spotlight on these progressives and ask them, is genocide not a red line for you? Do you honestly believe that the political Left, in either North America or Europe, when in power, has not enabled or supported Israel’s genocide against Palestinians?

Obviously, the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany all directly arm, supply, and militarily participate in the genocide. The antisemitic government of Hungary gives a great deal of political support to Israel, while Netanyahu helps cover up Orbán’s antisemitism, and the anti-Roma, anti-antifascist government of Germany shows they in fact have learned nothing from the Holocaust and give their own big, self-serving stamp of approval to Israel’s continuous war crimes.

The Socialists in Spain made a few noises and delayed a shipment or two, but in the end it was little more than a symbolic protest.

What the hell is wrong with the world where, on top of all the shitty things going on, we have to say that an ongoing genocide requires more from us than symbolic or peaceful protest? And what the hell is wrong with people that they’ve already forgotten that the largest peaceful protest movement in human history—against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003—quickly killed itself through ineffectiveness and did absolutely nothing to slow or stop the invasion and the US/UK/Australian² slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?

Recently, the Boston Globe, the most progressive major newspaper in the US, reprinted a New York Times article about the recent assassination of two employees of the Israeli government outside the consulate in DC. The article worried that “the killings of the Israeli Embassy workers […] cast a harsh spotlight on the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States and the impact even peaceful protests might be having on attitudes against people connected to Israel. […] The killings also risked painting all pro-Palestinian activists, the vast majority of whom do not engage in violence, with the same brush”.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations and Jewish Voices for Peace both gave voluminous quotes condemning the violence (by which they meant the two dead Israeli government employees), saying things like “Peaceful protest, civil disobedience, and political engagement are the only appropriate and acceptable tools”.

I’ve heard several people claim that the two people killed were not complicit in Israel’s genocide. To be clear, one was an IDF soldier who did “political research” for the Israeli government, whereas the other, Sarah Milgrim, worked on “public diplomacy” and described herself as encouraging “dialogue” and “peacebuilding”. I can’t state emphatically enough, this is a whitewash. Any large US embassy around the world has similar missions, including in countries where the US military supports death squads or has carried out war crimes: the purpose is always to improve the image of the home country so it can continue to carry out atrocities with less resistance. There is no way the Israeli government was paying someone to do public diplomacy if that involved so much as acknowledging the ongoing genocide.

Farther down the page, the Globe ran this article:

This article distorts what is going on in a number of ways. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been subjecting the Gaza strip to starvation conditions, using hunger as a weapon, which is a war crime and a form of genocide. Sometimes they let a little food in, sometimes they let no food in. The tiny convoy Israel allowed last week was not “minimal,” it was completely insufficient to reduce the ongoing starvation caused by the prior two months in which Israel had completely stopped food shipments. Gazans do not “face a high risk of famine” as the article claims; they have been enduring famine for over year, Israel has deliberately engineered these conditions, and thousands of Palestinians have already died from famine. In just two days, the same week as the attack on the Israeli Consulate workers, 29 people in Gaza died of acute starvation, and 71,000 Palestinian children under the age of five are estimated to be suffering acute malnourishment, which can lead to premature death and lifelong disability, and chronic health problems.

Now let’s take these two articles together. Somebody kills two Israeli government employees who are taking large paychecks to help cover up an ongoing atrocity and improve Israel’s political position in the world even as it promises to continue the killings. According to progressives, even though more than 300,000 Palestinians have probably been killed by bombs, guns, starvation, and skyrocketing disease rates in a calculated campaign of genocide, it’s not justifiable to kill two people who are complicit in that genocide, even after the campus occupation movement tried peacefully for over a year to get one set of institutions—the universities—to divest from the genocide, with no major successes. Not only that, but the consulate shootings, carried out by one person, cast a mark of shame and should potentially be cause to demobilize the entire movement.

Meanwhile, that same week, the Israeli military murders 60 Palestinian civilians in an area where they are deliberately subjecting 2 million people to starvation, and Israel’s supporters and business partners are not stained at all, they can just walk around with their heads held high?

Here are some relevant facts that rarely get mentioned in the mainstream conversation about the genocide.

• On a weekly basis, the Israeli state, together with paramilitary settlers, demolishes Palestinian homes, destroys Palestinian orchards and farmland, and steals Palestinian land. On average, every year over 1000 Palestinian homes are destroyed and 2000 hectares of Palestinian land are stolen, with an average of 12,000 Israeli settlers streaming onto those lands every year. (2000 hectares of land equals almost 5000 acres or 3,700 football fields.)
• In the decade prior to the October 7 offensive, the Israeli military killed around 1000 Palestinian children, and over 4000 total Palestinian civilians. They injured over 100,000 Palestinians, leaving many of them permanently disabled.
• By the UN’s count, Israel has killed over 16 times more Palestinians and injured 30 times more Palestinians (i.e. Palestinians are not the aggressors: the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians is miniscule, and all of those killings happen on Palestinian land, which the Israelis are invading).
• The UN inflates the numbers to Israel’s favor, setting a lower bar for registering injuries to Israelis and admitting that they don’t count casualties that overwhelmingly hurt Palestinians, like “access delays” [i.e. ambulances held up at checkpoints] and “unexploded ordnance”. In other words, we’re looking at something closer to 20 Palestinians killed for every 1 Israeli.

This isn’t a secret genocide. It’s not like Israel is effectively covering it up. Just this Monday, Israelis held their annual, state-funded, police supported racist march through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, celebrating the ethnic cleansing of 1967 when Israel seized all of Palestine, and shouting pro-genocide slogans like “Gaza is ours,” “death to Arabs” and “may their villages burn!” as they vandalize and ransack Palestinian shops and homes.

The only people who can’t admit that Israel is the clear aggressor are white supremacists who refuse to believe Palestinian lives have any value.

Since the Hamas offensive in Gaza on October 7 2023, the IDF began killing many more children in the West Bank, which is controlled by the PLO, an anti-Hamas organization not connected with the October 7 attacks. And they accelerated their land theft and forcible displacement—also acts of genocide—in the West Bank.

Saying that Israel is taking advantage of the war to carry out ethnic cleansing isn’t exactly correct, since whether or not Palestinians are rising up in resistance, the Israeli government and paramilitary settlers are killing Palestinians and stealing their land. Nobody can point to a single year this century without Israel erasing Palestinian communities through home demolitions, land theft, torture, mass imprisonment, and lethal force. There is no modern Israel without ethnic cleansing.

(I strongly recommend this historical overview from Al Jazeera, that includes plenty of maps and visuals that represent the progressive occupation of Palestine, as well as this chronology of the occupation and Amnesty International’s description of 50 years of dispossession.)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/27/palestine-and-israel-brief-history-maps-and-charts

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/6/4/the-naksa-how-israel-occupied-the-whole-of-palestine-in-1967

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/

Most of the death tolls that are cited in the media do not include the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died premature deaths because the Israeli military and apartheid regime denied them access to food and medicine. And it usually does not include Palestinians who fight back against the genocidal Israeli regime. For example, the study on the 126 Palestinian children killed in the West Bank in 2023 simply leaves out any children “involved in hostilities,” which as near as I can tell means throwing stones or running messages for resistance groups.

And yet, Israeli deaths are counted even if they’re soldiers engaging in war crimes. Israeli paramilitaries—settlers armed with uzis and sniper rifles living on recently stolen land—are routinely referred to as “civilians” by the news.

With the complicity of the military, police, and rightwing parties, heavily armed, racist and ultranationalist settlers have captured the mainstream of Israeli politics and now set the agenda. Click the link to read a detailed story of how it unfolded.

Here’s something else you probably didn’t know:

Hamas didn’t kill 1,195 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Their primary mission was to take prisoners to use as political leverage. Who caused how many deaths is unknown, but it is well documented by video records and the testimony of the Israeli military itself that the Israeli military opened fire on the music festival as well as convoys and military bases full of imprisoned Israelis, because they have an official policy to kill Israeli soldiers and civilians in a potential hostage situation, to deny any leverage to their enemy.

Also, according to the media, Hamas “kidnaps” or “takes hostages,” whereas Israel “arrests” or “detains,” even though Israel has around 10,000 extrajudicial Palestinian hostages taken from Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, many of them children, and Palestinians held by Israel have no rights of due process, face “sham trials” with 100% conviction rates, and are systematically subject to torture, racist treatment, and sexual violence.

Additionally, the Israeli military systematically uses Palestinians, including children, as human shields, forcing them to walk in front of columns of soldiers, and to open doors and tunnels that are potentially booby-trapped. And yet the media consistently use language that portrays Israelis and Israeli institutions as more legitimate.

What we are dealing with are a series of double standards, many of them reproduced across the political spectrum, that are used either to justify genocide or to pacify and delegitimize any real resistance.

Israel is allowed to have a military, but even though Palestinians are facing down genocide every day, if one of them picks up a gun they become a terrorist. And if a Palestinian child picks up a rock, they are no longer a civilian and their death is quite literally not counted. An Israeli “civilian,” though, can walk around with a semi-automatic rifle, assaulting unarmed Palestinians, destroying their property, harassing them with racist insults, smug in the knowledge that Israel’s military administration of the West Bank is there to protect them and their systematic land theft.

We know peaceful protest is incapable of changing the hearts and minds of IDF soldiers or the Israeli government, and we also know it’s incapable of materially sabotaging the war effort at an effective scale.

We can accept that historically, people who shot back, who killed Nazis, were doing the right thing. When looking at the 19^th century or earlier, many people will also accept that Indigenous peoples had a right of self-defense against the genocidal settlers who founded the US, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Australia… Fewer people will apply those same principles to, say, Iraqis fighting the US invasion and occupation from 2003 onward. A more common version of NIMBY, Not In My Backyard, is Not In My Century: so many people cannot admit that the governments that rule them are completely evil and irredeemable, even if they are carrying out genocide or, in the case of NATO, killing millions of people.

Instead, they claim these are bad things that need to be solved by getting out the vote and choosing the lesser evil. There is nothing about this viewpoint that is reasonable, or caring, or nuanced, or engaged with reality. It is a panicked dissociation based in fear, comfort, and self-interest.

We need to be able to acknowledge that Palestinians have both a valid right and an existential necessity to shoot back; and we also need to be able to criticize the PLO for their total corruption, and to criticize Hamas for being a far Right, homophobic, patriarchal, authoritarian organization.

But if we can’t even validate Palestinian resistance and international solidarity, we become complicit in the current situation, in which Palestinians are subjected to the corruption and brutality of the PLO, the oppressive, authoritarian politics of Hamas, and—the worst by far—the mass killings, calculated starvation, torture, land theft, housing demolitions, hospital bombings, racism, and harassment at the hands of the state of Israel.

Validating Palestinian resistance, supporting meaningful and high-impact acts of solidarity, and supporting the many initiatives and groups that are fighting against apartheid and for a free Palestine and a free world: that is the only conscionable response to the genocide, which has been occurring in one form or another for well over 60 years.

If you encounter anyone who makes knee-jerk condemnations of Palestinian resistance or says we should support the Democrats, the Liberals, Labour, SPD and the Greens – please, call them out and try to explain how they are legitimizing genocide. And if you’re too shy for that kind of confrontation, just drop them a link to this article.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

_____________

Read more articles by Peter Gelderloos and support his magnificent work here: https://petergelderloos.substack.com/p/deadly-double-standards

Peter Gelderloos is a writer and social movement participant. He is the author of The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below, How Nonviolence Protects the State, Anarchy Works, The Failure of Non-Violence, and Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation. He has contributed chapters to the anthologies Keywords for Radicals and Riots and Militant Occupations. His books have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, German, Greek and Serbo-Croat. 

_____________

NOTES:

1. If you google search for the predicted death toll of the climate crisis, you are likely to get articles from 2023 that claim “a billion” deaths over the next decades. Few of them mention that the August 2023 study they reference describes 1 billion as a conservative estimate, and several billion as a more likely death toll. Conservative sources like the University of Chicago and World Economic Forum articles claim that there “might be” hundreds of thousands or even a couple million yearly deaths “in the future,” obscuring the fact that tens of millions of humans are already dying every year from the compounded effects of the ecological crisis, a figure I demonstrate in The Solutions Are Already Here. ︎
2. The Australian government still claims that Saddam Hussein’s regimes had weapons of mass destruction and ties with terrorist groups like al Qaeda, even though both of these justifications were known to be lies even before the invasion was launched in 2003. ︎

The post Deadly Double Standards – Peter Gelderloos appeared first on Void Network.

written by Blade Runner 

Various parts of the article have been published before in Freedom News.

—

The battle for Tishrin Dam in Syria

For almost two months, Tishrin Dam, a vital infrastructure for water and electricity in northeastern Syria, has been subjected to continuous drone and warplane attacks. The likelihood of a catastrophic failure grows each day, and if the dam collapses, it could release approximately 2 billion cubic meters of floodwater, causing widespread destruction to villages, farmland, and lives downstream. Beyond the immediate humanitarian crisis, this would significantly threaten Rojava’s revolutionary project.

On January 8, thousands gathered to create a human shield in defence of the dam. Ongoing drone strikes have already resulted in 25 deaths and numerous injuries, including journalists. Despite the relentless attacks, vigils persist as convoys of supporters have been arriving from various parts of northern Syria. The damaged yet still-standing dam has become a powerful symbol of Rojava’s resistance, inspiring solidarity actions worldwide.

Tishrin Dam is not only a crucial source of water and electricity but also a strategic gateway between contested territories. To the east, it links areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are resisting attacks by the Turkish-backed former ISIS group, the Syrian National Army (SNA)—a militia infamous for looting, robbery, and kidnappings. Supported by Turkish artillery, drones, and fighter jets, the SNA’s offensive on the dam is part of a larger strategy: the assault on Kobani, a key centre of Rojava’s resistance against the Islamic State (ISIS). This renewed aggression seeks to dismantle the autonomous Kurdish-led region.

In recent developments, the Turkish-backed offensive has escalated—a pumping station has been damaged, leaving over 200,000 people without drinking water. This follows weeks of shelling of villages in the countryside area south of Kobani, as the aggressors continue to spread terror in an effort to break the resistance.

Brief history of Rojava’s radical self-governance experiment

The Arab Spring of 2011 was part of a larger global wave of uprisings, beginning with the Zapatista movement in the 1990s, and sparked mass protests across the Arab world. In Syria, governed since 1963 by the Ba’ath party, a political movement blending secular Arab nationalism and Arab socialism that evolved into a family loyalist dictatorship, the initial uprising quickly escalated into a full-scale revolution and civil war. In the northeast, the Kurdish population seized the opportunity to launch their own autonomy project in the Rojava region.

The Kurds are a stateless nation, numbering around 30-45 million people today, and have lived since the Neolithic era scattered across regions currently controlled by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. With a long history of struggles for independence and social justice, the Kurdish movement in Rojava (the Syrian part of Kurdistan) formed an alliance with Arabs, Assyrians, and Turkmen, creating the Democratic Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (DAANES).

This marked the onset of the Rojava social revolution, a movement aligned with the revolutionary ideology of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned founder and ideological leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish political organisation that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy within Turkey. Öcalan, during his imprisonment in Turkey shifted away from Marxist-Leninist nationalism to a form of libertarian socialism known as democratic confederalism.

Rojava’s project is grounded in decentralisation, gender equality, and direct democracy. These principles have led many to idealise Rojava as an anarchist or anti-capitalist utopia. However, it remains a complex endeavour: while it rejects the centralised state model, it retains certain government structures, such as prisons, and continues to engage in trade and monetary exchange. In Rojava, there are some of the most fertile lands in Syria as well as significant oil fields, the exploitation of which has been one of the main sources of revenue.

The military forces defending Rojava include the Kurdish liberation militias of the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ). These were the primary forces that halted the advance of the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) early in the Syrian civil war, safeguarding an autonomous Rojava and allowing the revolutionary experience of democratic confederalism to develop.

YPG and YPJ led the formation of the SDF, a coalition of military and political organisations of which they are the largest. The SDF have increasingly relied on military and political support from the US, entering into realpolitik compromises that have limited the spread and development of the Rojava revolution and its potential for global revolutionary solidarity.

The Kurdish movement remains in tension between the historically entrenched authoritarian Marxist currents that constitute the old guard of the PKK and the anti-authoritarian current developed by Öcalan, as well as the women’s organisations, local communes, and much of the younger generation. Nonetheless, SDF-controlled areas remain by far the safest for women, ethnic minorities like the Yazidi, and atheists and religious minorities.

In Syrian Kurdistan the people were prepared and knew what they wanted. They believed that the revolution must start from the bottom of society and not from the top. It must be a social, cultural and educational as well as political revolution. It must be against the state, power and authority. It must be people in the communities who have the final decision-making responsibilities. These are the four principles of the Movement of the Democracy Society.¹

Radical leftists and anarchists who have travelled to Rojava—whether to fight alongside the local forces or to volunteer in communities—view it as a significant experiment in self-organisation. People from diverse backgrounds, including Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Muslims, Christians, and Yazidis, have worked together in solidarity. The region is structured through a federation of towns and cantons, where local communes, councils, and committees manage governance at all levels.

Rojava’s revolution has significantly transformed society. Women hold leadership positions in governance, the military, and civil institutions. Ethnic and religious minorities enjoy greater protections and representation than in surrounding states. While challenges and contradictions persist, Rojava’s model stands as an alternative to the authoritarianism, sectarianism, and capitalism prevalent in the region.

How the Middle East crisis entered its new phase and the re-ignition of the Syrian war

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a surprise offensive against Israel. Despite millions invested in surveillance technology, settlement expansion, and the construction of a massive separation wall, the Israeli state was caught off guard. In response, Israel has waged over a year of genocidal warfare against the people of Gaza while escalating a US-backed proxy war against Iranian-aligned forces, to secure regional dominance.

Both Israel and Iran have framed their aggression in nationalist and religious terms, justifying military operations as necessary for national security and ideological preservation. Israeli leadership has openly declared its intention to reshape the Middle East by neutralising regional adversaries while advancing a doctrine of Jewish supremacy. Meanwhile, Iran presents the conflict as a “holy war against the forces of evil,” using it to consolidate regional influence with support from China and Russia.

In December 2024, the Syrian civil war, which had been in a period of relative stasis, reignited when a coalition of jihadist rebel groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebranded offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Syria, launched a surprise offensive in northwest Syria. The insurgents advanced rapidly, facing zero resistance and seizing major cities such as Aleppo and Hama within two weeks before capturing Damascus. Initially, the fall of the Assad regime sparked cautious optimism among Syria’s diverse communities, but this quickly turned to fear as HTS imposed fundamentalist rule.

In response to this renewed jihadist offensive, the DAANES declared a state of “total mobilisation.” The SDF have faced coordinated attacks on power stations and vital infrastructure, prompting calls for unity among Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, and Circassians to defend their communities against both ISIS-aligned groups and Turkish military incursions.

In the meantime, Israel’s own military operations diverted Iran and Hezbollah’s focus, and together with Russia’s preoccupation with its war in Ukraine, created a power vacuum in Syria, which Turkish-backed forces have exploited. The timing of Turkey’s military offensive appeared strategic, aligning with the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency and shifting geopolitical priorities. With Iran and Russia facing their own challenges and uncertainty surrounding US policy under the new administration, Turkey positioned itself as a key beneficiary of the region’s shifting power balance.

The diplomatic chessboard and Neo-Ottoman idealism

In this context, Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its expanded operations in Syria further demonstrate the alignment of regional power plays. Israel, backed by the US and UK, has used the crisis to bomb Syrian military infrastructure, ensuring that the new Syrian regime does not re-emerge as a regional threat. Netanyahu’s declaration that “The Golan Heights will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty” reflected Israel’s broader strategy—securing military and intelligence advantages while cutting off Hezbollah’s critical supply routes between Lebanon and Syria.

The future of Syria has been contested. HTS is putting forward a centralised authoritarian regime similar to Assad’s Ba’athist rule. In contrast, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF, advocates for a federal democratic model based on decentralised governance and democratic confederalism. The SDC’s vision includes local autonomy for Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Druze, and other communities, fostering cooperation rather than sectarian rule. 

The US administration faces a complex diplomatic challenge. It must continue supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their fight against ISIS while simultaneously appeasing NATO ally Turkey, which has the second-largest military force in the alliance. Israel and France are pressing for the former scenario, while Erdogan wants the US troops to leave so that he can freely strike Rojava. A 2,000-strong US force remains stationed in Kobani, maintaining a red line that deters Turkey from launching a full-scale invasion. The SDF also retains its own leverage—holding tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families in the Al-Hol refugee camp and serving as the only force capable of containing ISIS’s resurgence. 

Erdogan was threatening an imminent invasion while waiting for the Trump inauguration. A full-scale invasion did not happen, and the SDF forces have been successful in repelling the SNA attacks on the ground. However, the Kurds’ grave concern is based on the previous experience of Turkey’s invasion in Afrin in 2019, and the Erdogan regime’s Neo-Ottoman ambitions, with officials asserting that cities like Aleppo are “Turkish” and signalling broader territorial aspirations. While the US has threatened sanctions in response to potential Turkish aggression, past patterns suggest that Erdogan could proceed regardless, especially in the scenario of US troops’ withdrawal, escalating to one of the most brutal conflicts in the region since the height of ISIS’s rule.

Initially, Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia all had a strong interest in preventing the spread of HTS or the installation of a Turkish-backed government in Damascus. However, the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and the rise of HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa as de facto and self-proclaimed president have altered regional dynamics. Saudi Arabia, which previously balanced clandestine support for various factions, is now engaging directly with Syria’s new leadership, signalling a shift toward stabilisation rather than proxy support. 

Meanwhile, Turkey remains deeply involved in shaping Syria’s future, continuing its backing of the SNA and working diplomatically with al-Sharaa’s government. The role of Israel remains ambiguous, but the likelihood of increased support for the Kurdish-dominated SDF from both Saudi Arabia and Israel remains, especially as the SDF seeks a decentralised and secular post-Assad Syria. Russia, however, faces challenges in navigating this new order, as open support for the SDF would provoke Iran and complicate its relations with Turkey.

With Assad’s removal two months ago, Syria’s conflict entered a new phase and a clear resolution appears to be distant. The country is divided along the lines of the SNA (Turkish-backed mercenaries and Sunni fundamentalists) and the SDF (multiethnic democratic forces with U.S. and possible Saudi and Israeli backing). Given that the U.S. and Turkey remain NATO allies, an open proxy war remains unlikely. Instead, Syria could face a long-term partition between these two factions, with the new regime attempting to navigate a fragile balance between Turkish, Saudi, and Western interests. 

The pressure on the Kurdish-led forces to abandon their revolutionary aspirations will only grow in this environment, reinforcing the lesson that global movements have to unavoidably contend with the tension between capitalist state democracy and radical change.

Negotiations between Damascus and SDF continues but it’s clear that any agreement is out of reach. With Trump in the White House and his calls for US forces to withdraw, Rojava’s autonomy is very uncertain. Other minorities in Syria are slowly being bent under the authority of the new centralised rule, as international states support and assist the new government to establish its power. Any revolutionary dreams of democratisation and federalisation of Syria fade away, as the new administration gets integrated into the ranks of capitalist nation-states.

The imperialist influence that Russia and Iran had over the Assad regime is being exchanged for the imperialist influence of Turkish Neo-Ottoman dreams, with support from Turkey’s NATO partners, which are western countries. The Islamic fundamentalist politics of the self-proclaimed president of Syria are now kept hidden, waiting to consolidate the power grip before starting any moves that could scare their newly acquired western partners. The promises of protection for ethnic minorities and women’s rights probably will only last until economic sanctions are lifted, but after that, nothing will remain between the new centralised state and any resistance against their authoritarian measures.

The revolution of Rojava is funnelled into a very difficult position, forced to accept the integration of SDF into a new Syrian state under the rule of an islamist force, or the annihilation under the bombs of the Turkish army. But after more than a decade of revolutionary developments in Syria, and more than four decades of efforts and struggle of the Kurdish Liberation Movement, a historic announcement by Abdullah Öcalan is expected on the 26th anniversary of his imprisonment. In the background, there have been diplomatic efforts to resolve the decades long Turkey-PKK conflict. A proposal for Öcalan’s release and a $14 billion development plan for Kurdish regions have been widely promoted in Turkey, in exchange for PKK disarmament. However, trust issues persist, especially with ongoing Turkish military strikes against PKK positions in Iraq and as Turkey views the U.S.-allied SDF as a PKK extension. 

The Kurds have historically faced oppression from all states within whose borders they have lived. Unlike other minorities such as Armenian and Assyrian Christians, which the Assad regime allowed to preserve their languages, Kurds were forced to run schools in Arabic. PKK has been designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US, the EU, and NATO allies. This includes the UK, which raided the Kurdish Community Centre in North London on November the 27th, the 46th anniversary of the PKK’s founding.

Turkey’s expansionism targeting the Kurds and other minorities echoes the atrocities of Ottoman-era ethnic cleansing. The Armenian genocide was carried out by the Ottoman Empire primarily between 1915 and 1916, and resulted in the systematic extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenians. The mass killings were carried out through death marches into the Syrian desert, resulting in widespread starvation, disease, executions, and the destruction of Armenian cultural and religious heritage. This played a key role in the ethnic and demographic changes that facilitated the emergence of modern Turkey in 1923.

In the autumn of 2023, following Azerbaijan’s military offensive supported by the Turkish government, nearly 120,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, exacerbating the region’s long-standing ethnic conflicts. Entire communities were displaced and Armenian cultural heritage sites were destroyed, while the international community turned a blind eye. Netanyahu’s government in Israel was no doubt paying attention, and Erdogan must also be tempted to “cleanse” Rojava of Kurds if he believes the entire world will empower him to do so.

Brief update on the situation in the Palestinian territories

The situation in Gaza and the West Bank remains highly volatile, marked by significant political developments and ongoing military actions. 

In early February 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed a controversial plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip, suggesting the relocation of its Palestinian inhabitants to neighbouring countries like Egypt and Jordan. He described Gaza as a “demolition site” and envisioned transforming it into a luxurious destination, akin to the “Riviera of the Middle East.” 

This proposal has been rejected by the Palestine leaders and was met with widespread condemnation from international organisations and various governments, with Amnesty International labelling the plan “appalling and unlawful”. In the West Bank, Israeli military operations have intensified, resulting in casualties among Palestinians. 

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, as international organisations continue to call for immediate ceasefires and the provision of essential aid to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.

A war waged on the bodies of the weak and the marginalised

The proxy wars devastating the Middle East are driven by patriarchal and nationalist power struggles that prioritise capital and domination over freedom, diversity, and communal life. These conflicts have systematically erased historical memory, destroyed communities, and deepened cycles of division and hopelessness.

Nations and cultures predating modern state borders—such as the Armenians, Palestinians, and Kurds—have been repeatedly targeted for elimination when asserting their right to autonomy. Women, children, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and ethnic and religious minorities are treated as expendable, facing extreme violence and exploitation. The global system, dominated by hegemonic states, presents the marginalised with two options: assimilation or destruction.

In just one year, the devastation in Palestine has been staggering: since Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis, Israel’s military onslaught has retaliated thirty-fold, with over 41,000 Palestinians killed, including 13,000 children and 115 infants born after October 7. More than 10,000 Gazans remain missing, buried under rubble. The entire population of Gaza—2.3 million people in an area smaller than 360 square kilometres—has been displaced, forced into extreme deprivation, and denied access to basic healthcare, food, and services.

83,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza, four times the explosive power used to obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 80% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed. It has systematically obliterated all universities, more than 70% of schools, 34 out of 36 hospitals, and countless other essential facilities: 165 health units, 137 ambulances, 611 mosques, all three churches, and 178 shelters in Gaza.

In Lebanon, over 2,000 people have died, and one million have been displaced. Another 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Israel has lost an additional 350 soldiers in Gaza, and 200,000 Israelis have been forced to abandon their homes near Gaza and along the northern borders with Lebanon. Hezbollah rocket fire has killed around 50 Israeli soldiers and civilians.

In Syria, According to the Jineolojî Academy thousands of women and children have been raped since the civil war began, with at least 353,900 people killed since 2018. Another 56,900 are missing or presumed dead. Women and children make up 40% of the victims. Many Syrian women fleeing to Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan have been forced into prostitution or sold into marriage under economic desperation. Non-binary and gender-nonconforming individuals face systematic violence due to rigid gender norms and the absence of legal protections.

Call for international solidarity

The developments in Syria highlight the broader consequences of US-led proxy wars, such as Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The current Middle East crisis unfolds within a global power shift, where key actors compete for influence amid economic strain, climate collapse, and growing instability. Warfare, which has been a persistent feature of the 21st century, has accelerated into a higher gear.

As financial crises and social unrest intensified in the last decades, ruling elites capitalised on rapid technological advancements and the lingering fear cultivated by the “War on Terror” to expand military budgets, surveillance, and repression. These resources were not deployed to ensure peace but to fuel ongoing conflicts, reinforcing a global restructuring process driven by militarisation and state violence.

In the meantime, the “Rojava Experiment” has reinvigorated the Kurdish movement across Kurdistan and in the exile communities of Europe, as well as inspired anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist movements across the world.

The fighting people of Northeastern Syria are calling on allies worldwide to rise in solidarity. Their revolutionary project stands for autonomy, direct-democracy, feminism, and social ecology, challenging authoritarian regimes across the region. As drone strikes intensify and an invasion looms, grassroots action and international solidarity may prove to be crucial to deter another state-led ethnic cleansing in this tormented region.

_________

READ ALSO

1. Zaher Baher, The experiment of West Kurdistan (Syrian Kurdistan) has proved that people can make changes (August 26, 2014, libcom.org) ︎

The post Rojava in the shadows of war and ethnic cleansing appeared first on Void Network.