On 20 June, an official document was circulated to EU embassies in Brussels. This ‘note on Israel’s compliance with Article Two of the EU-Israel Association Agreement’ is a damning summary of the genocidal war currently being conducted in Gaza. The significance of this document is that it is now the official opinion of the EU’s own legal body that Israel is committing the gravest war crimes. And yet, the EU, in violation of its own legal requirements, continues to back Israel to the hilt.

“They shoot women because their hair is uncovered. They shoot students. They just suck the oxygen out from these brave and gifted people, the Iranian people. The decision to act, to rise up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people.” These were the words of Israeli PM Netanyahu in the midst of Israel’s war of aggression against Iran.

There was a time when international diplomacy was a relatively stable affair – undoubtedly complex, but at the same time fairly predictable. The great powers decided policy quite cynically, in line with their own national interests. 

As I write these lines, the attention of the entire world is focused on one man. His every word is studied, dissected and analysed in the most extraordinary detail, in the hope that one might derive some sense as to what it may, or may not, signify.

In the early hours of Friday, 13 June, Israel launched a massive attack on Iran, taking out part of its military leadership and hitting some of its nuclear facilities. A second wave of Israeli strikes is ongoing at time of writing, hitting targets in Tehran, Keraj and Qom, as well as the Natanz Nuclear Enrichment Facility for a second time. This brazen act of aggression threatens to unleash a deadly regional conflagration with far-reaching consequences.

On Monday, the sailboat Madleen – part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) – was stormed in a nighttime raid by the IDF. Surrounded by Israeli speedboats and drones, armed combat units boarded the ship as its 12 passengers, including Greta Thunberg and French MEP Rima Hassan, sat in the main cabin of the boat with their hands above their heads, fearing for their lives.

On 5 June, 14 tonnes of machine-gun parts were due to be loaded onto an Israeli cargo ship at the port of Fos-sur-Mer in southern France, bound for Haifa, Israel. The day before, however, the CGT general union of dockworkers and port handling personnel of the Gulf of Fos issued a press release announcing its categorical refusal to load the 19 pallets of military equipment.

The Red Line demonstration in The Hague on 18 May attracted more than 100,000 participants and was the largest demonstration in the Netherlands since the trade union demonstration on Museumplein in October 2004, more than 20 years ago. It is clear that the mood in the Netherlands is shifting.

Two months after Benjamin Netanyahu broke the short-lived ceasefire, the situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels. Aid, medicine, and essentials have dried up thanks to Israel’s complete blockade, and the IDF’s relentless bombing has resumed. Countless humanitarian organisations have warned that the blockade is on the precipice of killing tens of thousands of people in a widespread famine.

“This land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon should be cleansed of these camel riders.” This chilling speech, delivered by an ultranationalist rabbi at a meeting overlooking the war-torn Gaza Strip, is just one example of the genocidal fervour expressed freely and with impunity by Zionist settlers in Louis Theroux’s latest documentary.

A month has passed since the short-lived ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came to a violent end on 18 March. Since then, Benjamin Netanyahu has once again upped the ante in his genocidal war on Gaza.

Throughout Tuesday 18 March, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) launched barrages of bombs upon the people of Gaza, shattering the fragile ceasefire with a rain of death and destruction. Over 400 Palestinians were killed and more than 600 injured in the strikes, making it the single bloodiest day of Israel’s genocide since late 2023.

Late on 4 February, in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump proposed that the US should take over Gaza and force the whole of its population (2 million Palestinians) to relocate to other “plots of land” (in Jordan and Egypt) so that the area could be rebuilt as an international enclave, which he described would be “like the Riviera of the Middle East”.

The guns have fallen silent in Gaza, for now. After fifteen months, a ceasefire agreement has brought a pause to the relentless genocidal killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the near total destruction of the Palestinian enclave by the state of Israel.

85,000 students went on strike last week against Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza. This was the largest student strike over international solidarity that Canada has ever seen.