Caitlin Johnstone

Reading by Tim Foley:

Everyone hates Israel now, which is as it should be. But we all need to understand that Israel has never acted alone.

If Israel were acting alone, it would be an asshole with a pointy stick instead of an asshole with an attack helicopter. The west gave it the attack helicopter.

An asshole with a pointy stick is not much of a problem. The world is full of assholes with pointy sticks. Get yourself your own pointy stick and you can deter their aggressions without much difficulty.

An asshole with an attack helicopter can ruin everyone’s day. He can fuck everything up and kill whoever he wants — even people who have pointy sticks. He doesn’t need to negotiate with anyone. He doesn’t need to be polite or diplomatic. You just have to give him whatever he wants or he’ll fly over there and chain gun you and your family.

The US and its allies are responsible for ensuring that Israel remains an asshole with an attack helicopter instead of an asshole with a pointy stick. They’ve created this situation where Israel doesn’t have to get along with its neighbors like any other normal country on the planet, and can instead exist in a perpetual state of war.

It is right and good to despise Israel; Israel is a genocidal apartheid state which should not exist and should never have been created in the first place. But political maturity means carrying that disdain forward to the entire western power structure under which we all live.

Hating Israel without hating the western empire is nonsensical, because Israel would not exist without western weapons, military support, narrative control, and diplomatic cover. It’s like hating Bonnie without hating Clyde. Like hating Butch Cassidy but not the Sundance Kid. There are laws against being an accomplice to murder because we all understand that if you aid and abet a murderer then you necessarily share moral culpability for the killing.

And it’s not like the western power alliance has been a virtuous little cherub apart from its participation in Israeli violence; the US is terrorizing socialist states in Latin America as you read this. The right-wing narrative that the west would be a wholesome and beneficent society without Israeli interference is contradicted by the entire unbroken history of western civilization. We have always been a remarkably tyrannical and genocidal people. We have yet to mature beyond this as a society. That’s why Israel is our partner in crime.

Oppose Israel, and also oppose the entire murderous western power structure. The abusiveness of the former is not meaningfully separate or separable from the abusiveness of the latter.

________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Feature image via Adobe Stock.

Reading by Tim Foley:

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused Spain of an “anti-Israel obsession” for its criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and its refusal to allow its airspace to be used in the onslaught, a perceived slight to which Israel has responded by banning Madrid from participation in a coordination center for the oversight of the so-called “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

We’ve been hearing this “obsession” talking point from Israel and its apologists a lot lately. A recent article from the Jewish News Syndicate carries the headline “Why is the media obsessed with violent Israelis?”, bizarrely trying to argue that the western press likes to “smear Israelis” in order “to distract attention from Palestinian terror.” The other day right-wing pundit Meghan Murphy had a strange conversation with Tablet Magazine editor Jacob Siegel about our society’s “recent insane obsession with Israel,” speaking as though everyone just randomly began fixating on this genocidal apartheid state out of nowhere a short while ago, for no valid reason.

Why have so many people suddenly developed an unhinged obsession with Israel?

Listen to @MeghanEMurphy's full conversation with @Jacob__Siegel now on the podcast: https://t.co/eX0hhCbWnw pic.twitter.com/KRB4HiMZk4

— The Same Drugs (@thesamedrugs_) April 9, 2026

The argument, as I understand it, is that Israel is just a normal small country like any other small country, and any special focus on it suggests a sinister desire to single out Jews for discrimination.

But have you ever noticed how the same people who accuse Israel’s critics of “obsession” with a tiny insignificant country will also fall all over themselves to tell you that Israel is an indispensable ally whose interests are inextricably intertwined with the interests of western civilization?

When Israel is being criticized they try to frame it as unworthy of special attention; when alliances and military aid for Israel are being criticized they frame it as worthy of all our resources and energy. When Israel’s evil actions are making headlines, its apologists try to frame it as an itty bitty country the size of New Jersey trying to mind its own business while being victimized by obsessive hatred from the entire world because its inhabitants happen to be Jewish. When people question why their tax dollars and military resources need to support that small nation in west Asia, suddenly the argument pivots in the exact opposite direction: Israel is massively important, and is absolutely central to the wellbeing of the west.

You can claim Israel is a crucial ally in the middle east, OR you can claim it’s discriminatory to focus more on Israel’s crimes than the abuses of other countries. You can’t claim both are true, because they’re contradictory. Israel can’t be (A) immensely significant and intimately involved in the fate of our own society, and also (B) insignificant and unworthy of special attention. It’s either A or B. It can’t be simultaneously deserving AND undeserving of special treatment.

Israel bars Spanish officials from U.S.-backed Gaza coordination hub, citing 'anti-Israel obsession'https://t.co/UZc2d745MK

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) April 10, 2026

In reality, everyone in the world has every right to focus their attention on Israel — especially right now while its efforts to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran threaten to cause a global fuel crisis. You don’t get to cause a global fuel crisis and then act like you’re just an uwu smol bean who’s being singled out because of your religion.

But really Israel has always been worthy of critical attention in the west, exactly because it is so intimately intertwined with western power structures. Its genocide in Gaza is our genocide. Its abuses are our abuses. Its wars directly impact us. The aggressive push from its lobbyists to stomp out free speech throughout our society is taking away our rights.

Israel is our business, and it always has been. We are right to spotlight its criminality, and the complicity of our own western governments in those crimes.

Israel supporters will tell me “Oh yeah well how come you don’t criticize Egypt’s humanitarian abuses, huh? How come you’re not tweeting every day about the human rights violations of Iran? Something in particular about this one specific middle eastern country that draws your attention, is there? Perhaps you just HATE JEWS??”

The crank right and woke left have so much in common. They bash Churchill, hate Trump and are feverishly obsessed with Israel. Two cheeks of the same arse, says Brendan O’Neillhttps://t.co/dTgY2rUlmw

— spiked (@spikedonline) April 11, 2026

But the reason I criticize Israel more than Egypt or Iran has nothing to do with religion. Egyptian aggressions aren’t starting wars of immense consequence which directly affect me. Nobody’s trying to make it illegal to criticize Iran in my country. My government is providing material and diplomatic cover for wars and genocides for this one country in particular, and eroding my free speech rights in order to protect its information interests. This would be true regardless of what religion or ethnicity happens to be favored in this one particular nation.

I’m not “obsessed” with Israel. Does it look like I’m having a great time talking about this horrible apartheid state every day? Does it look fun having people call me a Nazi in my replies all the time?

I wish I could ignore Israel completely. If it were up to me, I would. But because my own society is so complicit in its abuses, and because its abuses affect my society directly, I have an obligation to call out its wrongdoing. And so does every other westerner.

______________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Feature image via IDF/Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).

And Other Notes

Reading by Tim Foley:

Israel is already aggressively sabotaging the Trump administration’s two-week ceasefire with Iran by slaughtering huge numbers of civilians in Lebanon, a nation which is explicitly off-limits for any attack under the ceasefire conditions agreed to by Tehran. 

The US and Israel are trying to claim that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire agreement, but Pakistan, whom the US appointed to mediate the agreement, says this is false. The New York Times reports that the White House took part in Pakistan’s public messaging which explicitly included Lebanon in the ceasefire conditions, before changing its tune after Israel attacked.

Iran has reportedly responded to these violations by again halting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

This serves as yet another reminder that the world can have peace or it can have Israel — but it cannot have both. Israel is a genocidal apartheid state whose entire existence is premised upon a strategy of unceasing violence and abuse in the middle east. As long as that state continues to exist in its present iteration, peace will never be attainable.

❖

If your job hired a guy who kept getting into fights with your coworkers and saying it’s because they are racist against him, for a week you might believe him.

After a month, you’d have doubts.

After two months, you’d realize he’s probably just an asshole.

Israel has been doing this for eighty years.

❖

Lmao they’re like “You guys it’s some crazy new kind of ceasefire where BOTH sides cease firing!” https://t.co/Fp9G6TvY7H

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 8, 2026

❖

Democrats in the House and Senate are finally moving on a War Powers Act to stop the US president from going to war with Iran, and I’d say better late than never but at this point that would barely even be true. 

Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Chris Murphy are currently slamming the president not for his horrifying mass atrocities in Iran but for losing the Strait of Hormuz and failing to achieve objectives like completely disarming their conventional missile program. 

As I have said here previously, it’s clear that the reason the Democratic Party failed to oppose Trump’s warmongering with Iran was because they supported it too.

The actual, official 2024 Democratic Party platform accused Trump of “fecklessness and weakness” for failing to go to war with Iran during his first term. Kamala Harris labeled Iran the #1 enemy of the United States. In their 2024 debate, Harris repeatedly slammed Trump for being too soft on America’s enemies and announced that she “will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, in particular as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people trying to argue that Trump’s depravity in Iran proves everyone should support Democrats, but it’s clear the Democratic Party is just the more polite-looking face on the same evil power structure.

❖

Humiliating. https://t.co/sqYa9uBiHP pic.twitter.com/Dox7EIheUD

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 7, 2026

The Grayzone’s Wyatt Reed has an article out about a freakish BBC article which cited an anonymous Iranian who allegedly told them he supports the US and Israel “hitting energy infrastructure, using an atomic bomb, or leveling Iran.” Following public outcry, the quote was removed and replaced with completely different words — initially without any editor’s note of any kind. 

Reed documents how the BBC reporter behind the story, Ghoncheh Habibiazad, is a London-based Iranian monarchist with an extensive history of agitating for regime change war against her home country, including with the US government propaganda operation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Last month The Times ran an article titled “Some Iranians say one thing’s worse than bombs: no bombs”. Western powers are always aggressively pushing this self-evidently false claim that people in empire-targeted countries want bombs dropped on them, in much the same way slavery proponents argued that Africans were happiest as slaves because God made it their nature to serve.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s impossible to have enough disdain for the western press.

_________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Feature image via Adobe Stock.

Reading by Tim Foley:

Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after previously threatening to exterminate their “entire civilization”, citing “a 10 point proposal from Iran” as the reason for the climb-down.

Trump and his cronies are spinning this as a colossal victory for the United States and framing Tehran’s 10-point plan as a major capitulation to the president’s threats. But some reporters are noting that Iran has had the same terms on the table for weeks — which would mean that it is in fact the White House who is backing down.

Hours before the president’s announcement, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim posted a TikTok video arguing that Trump could save face while walking back from his apocalyptic threats by simply accepting Iran’s 10-point peace plan and acting like it’s a new proposal the Iranians had only just put forward. Grim argued that Trump could get away with this because the western media have been completely ignoring Iran’s stated terms for a ceasefire this entire time. 

This is nuts, Trump really did do exactly what Ryan Grim suggested he do hours earlier: pretend Iran's ten-point plan is a new proposal, counting on the fact that the media hasn't been reporting on Iran's demands to make it look like a new offer Tehran put forward in desperation. https://t.co/ywm6f4e3PZ pic.twitter.com/5sTfJlrQGH

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 8, 2026

Interestingly, this appears to have been precisely what Trump wound up doing. After previously rejecting Iran’s proposals as “not good enough”, the president turned around and framed the Iranian offer as a brand new response to the pressures his administration was able to impose upon them.

All the way back on March 28, Drop Site News reported the following:

“Among Iran’s terms for permanently ending the war are a longterm guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again and that any ceasefire also apply to Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine; reparations for the damages done to Iran during the war; sanctions relief; and that Iran retain control over the Strait of Hormuz.”

These are the same terms Iran is claiming it pressured the US to accept today. Iranian state media outlet Press TV cited Iran’s supreme national security council as saying “Iran achieved historic victory by forcing criminal US to accept its 10-point plan. US has accepted Iran’s control over Strait of Hormuz, enrichment right, removal of all sanctions.”

The New York Times reports the following: 

“Two senior Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the proposal included a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions.

“In return, Iran would lift its de facto blockade of the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait. Iran would use its share of the proceeds to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks, rather than demand direct compensation, according to the plan.”

NY Times: "The Iranian 10-point proposal includes a lifting of all sanctions — placed on Iran by every American administration since the George W. Bush administration" pic.twitter.com/xRVPH4GvZq

— Steve Lookner (@lookner) April 7, 2026

So as things stand right now this certainly looks like a humiliating defeat for the empire. Iran gets a lot of things it didn’t have before the war, including tolling the Strait of Hormuz and relief from the US sanctions that have been crushing its economy for years, while the empire gets to resume its shipping for a hefty fee and pretend it just rescued the world from a nuclear Iran.

Quite the turnaround from a White House that just last month was saying “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, who always has great insights regarding western warmongering toward Iran, writes the following:

“I cannot emphasize this enough. A new dynamic will be at play when the US and Iran meet in Islamabad to negotiate a final deal based on Iran’s 10-point plan: Trump’s failed war has eliminated the potency of American military threats in US-Iran diplomacy. The US can still issue threats, but everyone will know that they no longer carry much weight. Essentially, war with Iran was tried and failed. As a result, negotiations will have to be based on genuine compromises from both sides, rather than coercion from either side.”

This shall age like a milk let that sink in https://t.co/PMIWl8jAO4

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) March 6, 2026

There are of course many, many reasons to be pessimistic. The US and Israel have demonstrated time and time again that they will attack Iran during negotiations, and even if the US holds up its end of the bargain we can always see Israel sabotage the deal with its own aggressions. By now Iran has to know that the only way to protect itself from Israel is to impose costs for Israeli aggression on the entire western world; Tehran will have us all heating our homes with trash fires and growing carrots in our backyards if the west can’t find a way to rein in Israel.

For what it’s worth, Zionist Twitter is in absolute meltdown right now, with notorious Israel apologists like Laura Loomer, Eve Barlow and Eli David rending their garments in outrage that the killing has ended with Iran positioned as it is. I’m as skeptical about this ceasefire as anyone, but the fact that the world’s worst people are in meltdown about it right now does provide a faint glimmer of hope.

We shall see.

______________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Reading by Tim Foley:

❖

The president of the United States has a bat shit crazy post on Truth Social once again threatening to blow up civilian infrastructure in Iran, saying, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

At this point if you’re in the US military you have a moral obligation to start refusing orders. Desert. Become a conscientious objector. Ideally, get everyone together and launch a full-scale military coup. We’re in “Mad King” territory. Someone’s gotta do what needs to be done.

Promoters of this war told the world it was about liberating the Iranian people from tyranny to bring them freedom and democracy. Now that they got their war it’s about bombing them “back to the Stone Age”, stealing their oil, and blowing up their bridges and power plants.

The only people dumber than Americans who bought into Trump’s “ending the wars” shtick are the Iranians who believed the United States was going to bring freedom to their country.

❖

The Jerusalem Post just ran an opinion piece on Zohran Mamdani which includes the sentence, “It is time for the mayor of New York City to stand in solidarity with Muslim leaders who eschew antisemitic tropes, such as ‘genocide’ and ‘occupation,’ and are committed to a new and broader regional alignment in the Middle East.”

It’s been fun watching Israel apologists invent “antisemitic tropes” in real time. The words “genocide” and “occupation” are antisemitic tropes now, apparently. According to pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai Brith, the phrases “Epstein class” and “Operation Epstein Fury” are also recent additions to the no-no list. 

In reality these so-called “antisemitic tropes” are just effective talking points used to highlight facts that are inconvenient to Israel and its allies. Every relevant human rights group on earth agrees that Israel is an occupying force in the Palestinian territories. Every relevant human rights group on earth has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. The phrase “Epstein class” makes the rich and powerful people who rule our society look as creepy and suspicious as they should look. “Operation Epstein Fury” highlights President Trump’s place in the Epstein Files, which a majority of Americans believe played a role in his decision to attack Iran.

We see this all the time. Effective pro-Palestine political slogans like “Globalize the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are labeled antisemitic not because they express hatred toward Jews but because they are effective.

That’s all it ever is. Israel apologists see a phrase or slogan hurting Israeli information interests and go “Uh, okay so you can’t say those words anymore. Those words make Jewish people feel unsafe.”

And then the phrases get banned. Here in Australia we just saw the state of Queensland ban the phrase “from the river to the sea” on penalty of two years in prison. For no other reason than because it’s something people chant at pro-Palestine protests.

Antisemitism isn’t the target of these laws; the protests themselves are the target. They’re designed to shut down pro-Palestine demonstrations by making so many speech suppression laws that nobody would attend one without a lawyer present to advise them on what they may and may not say.

The very first time someone told me “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” was a hateful genocidal chant I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, and to this day I still feel that way. It’s a completely counter-intuitive claim that makes no sense on first hearing it. It is only by the constant repetition of the assertion that it’s an antisemitic slogan that people began accepting this transparently absurd idea. They just said it over and over again in an authoritative tone until people started to buy it.

Nobody actually believes these words and phrases are hateful toward Jews, they’re just pretending to believe that to promote the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state. That’s all we’re ever looking at with this nonsense.

❖

This fuel crisis really looks like it’s going to hurt. From a big-picture perspective it’s probably a good thing for westerners to feel some sting from their empire’s wars, and for US allies to start re-evaluating their relationship with Washington. But from a selfish perspective, damn this is gonna suck.

❖

I’m done trying to convince people not to use generative AI. You want to kill your critical thinking faculties? You want to lose the ability to write and create art? You want to make people like me look special and amazing because we can create things with our minds? Be my guest.

_________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Reading by Tim Foley:

Ultimately what separates the anti-imperialist left from mainstream liberal “humanitarians” is whether you’re in it for humanity or for yourself.

For the liberal, wanting peace and justice is more of an abstraction than a desire to fight the concrete power structures responsible for the lack of peace and justice in our world.

If you’re a liberal you oppose the idea of children being killed and starved in the abstract, because thinking of yourself as a moral person allows you to feel nice feelings about yourself, but you have no interest in taking a well-defined stand against the empire which routinely kills and starves children via genocides, wars of aggression, and siege warfare.

You don’t want families living in poverty because it would make you feel like a bad person if you did, but you also don’t take a concrete stand against the capitalist system whose very existence depends on the perpetual creation of poverty and scarcity.

You kinda-sorta want everyone to have happy and plentiful lives free from fear and tyranny, but you don’t want to consider the possibility that your own country is responsible for abusing, terrorizing and exploiting the global south. Because that would make you feel uncomfortable feelings.

It’s not about wanting to actually help humanity and fix the world’s problems, it’s about you and your feelings.

Those who oppose the capitalist empire are actually interested in bringing health and harmony to our species. They do not shy away from uncomfortable truths about their own government’s abuses, the dystopian nature of western civilization, or the way their own creature comforts are built on the backs of workers in impoverished countries. Because for them it’s not about feeling nice feelings, it’s about creating a better world.

The western anti-imperialist has no problem recognizing that their own society is the main villain on the world stage, because they’re actually looking at the sources of the abuses and injustices in our world. The liberal “humanitarian” prefers to see evil only in foreign regimes, because being the bad guy doesn’t feel nice.

The western anti-imperialist recognizes that both mainstream political parties in their country promote the warmongering, militarism, capitalist exploitation and imperialist extraction which sustain the western empire, and they oppose the abuses of both parties whoever happens to be in office. The liberal “humanitarian” only recognizes wrongdoing in one mainstream political faction while proudly supporting and voting for the other, because this allows them to feel like they’re helping.

The western anti-imperialist accepts that standing on the morally correct side means eating loss after loss and receiving disappointment after disappointment, because the push for revolutionary change is swimming directly against the current imposed on every institution in our society. The liberal “humanitarian” feels nice feelings about their position because their side wins elections half the time, while smugly sneering at those to their left who never get their people into office.

The western anti-imperialist will stare unflinching into the carnage from Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, feeling all the anguish and rage from witnessing those atrocities supported by their own nation. The liberal “humanitarian” tries to avoid looking at those things, because their entire worldview is built upon psychologically compartmentalizing away from reality in order to prioritize their own feelings.

Basically it’s the difference between actually BEING a good person and just wanting to FEEL like you’re a good person. The former is hard, while the latter is easy.

Which one do you want to be?

_________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

❖

I don’t believe you can be a good Zionist anymore than I believe someone can be a decent Nazi. The ideology itself describes a major character flaw.

I cannot take seriously the idea that some ethnicities or religious groups are inherently prone to nefarious behavior; it goes against everything I’ve learned about the human condition over the course of my strange adventures on this planet. I absolutely do believe, however, that there are political ideologies whose adherents are universally dogshit people.

If you’ve been watching the incineration of the Gaza Strip and thinking it’s good, or thinking it’s complicated, or thinking it’s an unfortunate development that can be blamed on a few bad apples in the Israeli government but doesn’t reflect Israel’s nature as a whole, then you’re a piece of shit. You’re a horrible human being. It really is that simple.

If you can look at Israel starting all these wars, bombing the fuck out of Iran and Lebanon and Palestine, passing laws to execute Palestinians exclusively while sparing Jews from the same sentencing for the same crimes, and still fail to recognize that the Israel experiment must be aborted, then you have not developed a functioning conscience. You have wasted your time on this planet. You have not managed to mature into a morally healthy human in all these years you’ve been alive.

There are Zionists who are vegetarian, who are nice to their pets, who give money to charity — but there are no Zionists who are actually good people. John Wayne Gacy did charity clown shows for hospitalized children, but he was still a serial killer and a very bad man. His abusiveness eclipsed any other kindness he may have performed, and became his defining characteristic as an individual.

Being a supporter of the Israel project is exactly the same. It doesn’t matter what else you do with your life if you stand on the side of a man-made murder machine which is fueled by the blood of the innocent. You’re just plain awful.

❖

Israel’s Knesset has passed its notorious bill to execute Palestinians convicted of “terrorism” in bogus military court show trials. The law is explicitly crafted to exclude Jews and solely target Palestinians, which is about as strong a sign you’re looking at apartheid as you could possibly imagine.

As The Times of Israel explains, “The law effectively enshrines capital punishment for Palestinians alone, as it explicitly excludes Israeli citizens or residents, and Palestinians alone are tried in military courts. Israelis are tried in civilian courts.”

For years Israel apologists have been admonishing me for calling Israel an apartheid state. For years liberal “moderates” have been saying it’s extreme for me to call Zionism a fundamentally racist and murderous ideology. And yet, here we are. Can’t wait to hear the hasbarists try to spin this one.

❖

On Monday US Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed Iran for spending its money on weapons instead of investing it toward the benefit of the Iranian people, saying “Imagine if instead of spending billions of dollars supporting terrorists or weapons, Iran had spent that money helping the people of Iran. They would have a much different country.”

Again, this is an official from the United States of America saying this. Literally the funniest country that could possibly utter this criticism of another country’s military spending.

❖

Violence in the middle east spiraled into a hot war with Iran because the world didn’t have the sense to tell Israel it got what it deserved on October 7.

❖

As Trump threatens to blow up Iranian desalination plants and US-Israeli attacks on civilian targets get more and more egregious, an article from Middle East Eye titled “Iranian livelihoods are being blown apart by US and Israeli bombs” paints a picture of the way people’s lives are being ruined even among those who are fortunate enough to survive the onslaught.

“They [the US and Israel] said they were bringing us freedom. Is this what freedom looks like?” says a 40 year-old man in Tehran after his small optical store was obliterated despite no military targets being located in the area.

And yet the next time the US wants to bomb a country to topple its government we’re going to see its diaspora cheerleading the attack and telling everyone this time it really is about bringing freedom and democracy to the victims of a tyrannical regime. There are suckers in every country.

❖

It’s hilarious that there are billionaires poisoning every facet of our society and making everyone miserable and starting insane wars and incinerating the biosphere and there are people trying to tell me I should be angry at Muslims.

____________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

When we’re kids we play cops and robbers, and watch cartoons about evil criminals being stopped by virtuous crime fighters. Then when we mature we learn that all the most evil people are operating within the laws of our nation, and nobody ever sends them to jail.

Ask a child to draw a Bad Guy and they’ll probably draw a bank robber, a thief, a supervillain, or somebody breaking the law in some way, because that’s what young people are trained to believe wickedness looks like in their world.

They won’t usually draw a politician, a billionaire, a media mogul, a tech plutocrat, a warmonger, or any of the rich and powerful people who are causing the real suffering in our world. The ones who impose laws upon our society ensuring the continuation of poverty, inequality, war, oppression and tyranny. The ones destroying our ecosystem and poisoning our minds with empire propaganda.

We give kids an infantile view of the world where the villains look like bandits and the heroes look like superpowered crimefighters and GI Joe. Which in a sense is understandable — no parent wants their young child exposed to the real horrors which exist in this civilization. You wouldn’t tell a six year-old that we are ruled by psychopaths who make the most sadistic serial killers look like cuddly little Pikachus.

The problem is that far too many adults never grow out of this worldview. Post a video of police brutality online and they’ll come crawling out of the woodwork frantically defending whatever monstrous act it reveals, no matter how self-evidently damning the footage might be. Oppose the latest war propaganda narrative and they’ll come falling all over themselves in a mad scramble to tell you the government would never lie to us and the Evil Regime of the Day definitely needs to be overthrown via US airstrikes.

They never unlearned the cartoons they ingested as children. They still think the struggle of good versus evil is a struggle of lawbreakers versus law-upholders. They never learned that there are many kind and decent people in prison, and that all the most horrific abuses in history have been perfectly legal under the law of the land.

Genocides are legal under the governments who authorize them. Wars are legal under the governments who wage them. Capitalist exploitation, imperialist extraction, oligarchic corruption and ecocide for profit are all legal under the governments who pass laws making them possible.

The police never show up to arrest the men who do these things. The police show up to arrest anyone who tries to stop them.

The law doesn’t exist to protect ordinary people from the most malignant members of our society, the law exists to protect the most malignant members of society from ordinary people.

A mature understanding of the world clearly recognizes this. And it’s the exact inverse of the understanding of the world we are indoctrinated into as children.

The real villains of our world look like the powerful plutocrats and empire managers who are inflicting unfathomable suffering upon the innocent. The real heroes look like the brave revolutionaries and truth-tellers who work to dismantle the power structure that those tyrants wield against the rest of us.

Becoming a real grown up means recognizing that the monsters were never under your bed. They were standing in broad daylight wearing expensive suits and ruling the world.

_______________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

The US-Israel alliance exists to fix the problems created by its existence.

The US and Israel have sown death and destruction throughout the middle east for generations, creating generation after generation of survivors who hate them and want them gone, and then it cites the existence of people who hate them and want them gone as the reason why the US needs to keep supporting Israel.

The US needs to help Israel harm people or else the people who are mad about being harmed might harm Israelis. It’s circular reasoning all the way through.

Ask an American Israel supporter why it benefits the US to defend Israel, and they’ll tell you it advances American interests in the middle east.

Ask them what American interests it helps advance in the middle east and they’ll tell you it counters the malign influence of Iran and terrorist groups.

Ask them to describe exactly what Iran and the terrorist groups are doing which directly harms American interests, and they’ll tell you they threaten American troops in the region.

Ask them why American troops can’t just leave the region to remove the threat, and they’ll tell you they can’t because that would be abandoning Israel.

Ask them why the US can’t simply abandon Israel, and they’ll tell you it’s an important US ally.

Ask them to explain why Israel is an important US ally, and they’ll tell you it’s because it advances American interests in the middle east.

The official narrative about the importance of the US-Israel alliance is self-justifying circular logic the whole way through, no matter what point you start examining it from.

They’ll tell you the west needs to support the poor innocent nation of Israel because it gets attacked by evildoers who want to destroy it for no reason. In reality Israel is despised by middle eastern populations because the west dropped a brand new ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization and has forced it into being through continuous brute military force ever since, and that violence is all Israel’s opponents are ever responding to. The west created the violence it claims to be countering.

The only argument Israel’s defenders in America make which does not rely on circular reasoning and dishonest obfuscation is “The Bible says we gotta give JDAMs to Benjamin Netanyahu.” But the argument that permanent war is justified because you think that some book of made-up stories commands you to give military support to a nation that’s younger than Dolly Parton does not deserve to be taken seriously.

If they were honest they’d just admit that it benefits the US empire’s ambitions of total global domination to have a ton of military bases and sympathetic partners in the middle east, which is rich in fossil fuels and critical trade routes. If you knew absolutely nothing about the middle east but understood global military conquest you’d be able to tell that west Asia would be a critical point of geostrategic control just by looking at a globe, since it’s the only region on our planet which joins three continents.

But they can’t admit that, because it would be admitting that all this violence and suffering isn’t about promoting the interests of Americans or defending Jews or fighting terrorism or spreading freedom and democracy, and is instead about advancing the interests of a few oligarchs and empire managers with the facilitation of crazy religious beliefs held by Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists.

So they lie and make up stories about why it makes perfect sense for American soldiers to be headed to Iran right now, and why it was entirely reasonable for the US to send genocide weapons to Israel throughout the incineration of the Gaza Strip. It smells like bullshit because that’s what it is.

________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

LBC has a report titled “Republicans ‘storm out’ of Iran briefing as they claim US ‘war machine’ is trying to put boots on ground” about MAGA lawmakers whining that Trump’s war looks set to turn into a land invasion.

LBC reports:

A number of usually loyal MAGA Republicans left the Iran briefing early — including US congresswoman Nancy Mace, who told the waiting media “we were misled” about the war after walking out of a Pentagon briefing.

Mace, a widely controversial lawmaker, was seen to urge President Trump to remove Lindsey Graham from the Situation Room — the White House’s round-the-clock command centre — as tensions rose.

The lawmaker claims Graham “brags about” advising the president and his aggressive war strategy.

It comes as the US is reportedly considering a massive troop deployment that would include ‘infantry and armoured vehicles,’ according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tensions continue to rise from within Trump’s own party amid plans to put troops on the ground in Iran, as peace talks continue amid the constantly changing situation.

Republicans ‘storm out’ of Iran briefing as they claim US ‘war machine’ is trying to put boots on ground https://t.co/prAkaqr2Ro

— LBC (@LBC) March 27, 2026

I get so tired of all this American hand-wringing about “boots on the ground”. It’s a symptom of a wildly sick dystopia that these people are fine with raining military explosives on a densely populated city but draw the line at putting American troops in the line of fire.

Sure, killing kids is fine, just don’t put boots on the ground!

Sure you can rain hellfire on hospitals, homes and schools for weeks, just make sure you do all your massacring from the sky where nobody can return fire.

Killing is okie dokie, so long as our troops aren’t the ones getting killed.

These people have no compassion. No morality. No empathy. American conservatives are constantly wagging their fingers and bloviating puritanically about immorality and degeneracy, but they’re the least moral people in the country. Their positions aren’t driven by care for human life, no matter how hard they try to pretend otherwise. They are driven by blind loyalty to the empire and the groveling adoration of power.

If you only oppose mass military slaughter if it is carried out in a way that puts your own countrymen at risk, that makes you a piece of shit.

People should oppose the evil wars inflicted by their government and its allies because the wars are evil, not because they might impact someone you know. The people being murdered in Iran are no less human than Americans, and their lives don’t matter any less.

I want to live in a healthy world where self-evident statements like this don’t even need to be made. Instead I live in a world where the war on Iran is barely receiving any meaningful domestic opposition from the populations of the primary aggressor nations.

____________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

As soon as you accept that Israel must exist as a “Jewish state” no matter what, you are accepting that there will never be peace in the middle east. Because Israel cannot exist as it is without nonstop violence.

Show a Zionist a map where Israel does not exist as a Jewish state and a map where the entire middle east is on fire except for Israel, and then ask them to pick a future, and they’ll pick the second one every time.

That’s the worldview that’s baked into Zionism. The worldview you’re not supposed to bring up in mainstream discourse about the Zionist ideology. You’re not supposed to mention the demented murderousness inherent in the premise that Israel must exist as a Jewish ethnonationalist state no matter how many people need to be killed in order to make that happen.

But that’s the reality.

It’s a simple matter of historical record that Israel cannot exist without continuous violence and abuse. That’s not my opinion, that’s historical fact. There has never been a modern state of Israel which does not constantly kill and abuse its native population and the inhabitants of neighboring countries.

And of course the typical Zionist response to such criticisms is to blame everyone but themselves. It’s the fault of the Palestinians, the Arab nations, the Iranians etc, because they refused to tolerate the west’s imposition of a brand new ethnostate dropped on top of a pre-existing population who became victims of mass displacement and apartheid as soon as it was created.

But nobody has ever been able to provide me with a convincing argument why the original inhabitants of the region ever should have accepted this arrangement. They’ve never been able to put me in the shoes of a Palestinian in the 1940s and lay out a reason why I should have been fine with the things that were happening to me and my people. Nobody has ever been able to provide me with a convincing argument why the Muslims of west Asia should not have stood in solidarity with the Palestinians and their plight. The only solid argument they’ve ever given me is “They should have laid down and submitted, because that’s what was required in order for the Israelis to stop killing and abusing them.”

And that’s still the only argument they’ve got to this very day: that the Palestinians and their neighbors should lie down and submit to the existence of this genocidal apartheid state that was inserted into their homeland like a glass shard into a foot.

But the fact of the matter is that they did not lie down and submit. Many Arabs did out of sheer self-preservation, but many did not. You can tell me they should have given up and submitted, but that’s just arguing with reality. That’s not a solution, it’s just whining about the inevitable.

And this is where that leaves us today. Israel and its allies butchering human beings throughout the middle east, creating countless war orphans who are naturally going to grow up desiring violent retribution. Generation after generation Israel creates the violence it pretends to be defending itself from, all because it was decided that there must be a “Jewish state” in historic Palestine no matter what needs to be done in order to accomplish this.

And Zionists are fine with this. They don’t care if the entire middle east is turned into an ocean of fire so long as the Israelis are still dancing to their electronic music in the middle of it.

That’s what this slogan “Israel has a right to exist” really means. It means Israel and its allies have a right to keep the middle east in a nonstop state of war, and the strongest argument for why this must be the case is that some dead guys made some stuff up and put it in a book thousands of years ago.

At a certain point you need to admit that this is a psychopathic status quo which cannot be allowed to stand, and that anyone who supports it is complicit in the bloodshed.

The ethnonationalist apartheid state of Israel must be dismantled. People’s various religious objections to this statement must be disregarded as infantile tantrums made by adults who believe silly fairy tales. A wildly different status quo needs to be established from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Because the alternative is a middle east that exists in a permanent state of nonstop violence and chaos.

________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

There’s another giant “No Kings” protest scheduled for this weekend, and right now all I can think about is how disgusting it is that this is the closest thing to a mass-scale antiwar protest in the United States right now.

The problem with the “No Kings” protests is right there in the title. They’re saying “We don’t want a king, we want a president!” But Donald Trump is not a king. He is a president. And that’s the real problem: US presidents are extremely evil men who do extremely evil things.

Donald Trump is a US president who is doing US president things. US presidents consistently murder people with unforgivable acts of mass military violence, mistreat immigrants and marginalized communities, and promote tyranny for the benefit of corrupting special interests in defense of the US empire and the capitalist status quo. That’s what their job is. If they weren’t willing to do these things, they wouldn’t get the job.

Trump is not some freakish aberration; he is the product of the same American political status quo as his predecessors. He became president the same way they did, and the powers he now wields were given to his office via mundane executive, legislative and judicial decisions and precedents before he was ever elected.

But because the “No Kings” protests are organized by liberal defenders of that same political status quo, the demonstrations cannot address any of this. The whole thing is designed to be as large and inclusive as possible while also ensuring that it doesn’t disrupt the established order in any meaningful way. They make no real demands. They coordinate the demonstrations with police and government officials. Protesters show up for a few hours with their brunch signs and their orange guy shirts, and then they go home without inconveniencing anybody.

They are not protesting against the US empire. They just want a more polite, photogenic empire.

They are not protesting the corrupt oligarchic political system which gave rise to Donald Trump. They just want the corrupt oligarchic political system to give rise to presidents who make them feel less uncomfortable.

The problem is US presidents, not kings. The problem is the US empire, not Trump. The United States needs drastic, revolutionary change, not daytime protests designed to be as inoffensive as possible. As long as Americans are protesting against fictional monarchies and easily replaceable oligarchic puppets instead of resisting the actual imperial machine, the abuses are going to continue.

The war in Iran is the most obviously evil American war in generations. People should be flooding the streets in every major US city. Washington DC should be on fire. Soldiers should be deserting en masse. Instead we’re seeing these stupid fluffy lib theater conventions where people get together to do nothing.

Americans of conscience should be feeling deeply embarrassed right now.

_______________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

The only worthwhile “western culture” in modern times is culture which rejects and opposes the dystopian nature of western civilization and the abuses of the western empire.

Western civilization is what’s bombing Iran. It’s what’s strangling Cuba. It’s what’s torching Lebanon. It’s what’s exterminating Palestine. It’s what stole Venezuela. It’s what’s plundering the labor and resources of the global south. It’s what’s keeping the systems in place which are killing our ecosystem and driving us closer to nuclear armageddon.

There is no sane and truthful position to have toward all this but vehement rejection.

Westerners — particularly white westerners in nations with colonialist histories like the United States and Australia — often struggle to find their cultural moorings. It can be difficult to find an authentic position from which to express art and take your stand as a personality when you feel culturally rootless and historically ungrounded. It causes a kind of dissonance with our lives that can haunt us until we die.

The best way to resolve this dissonance is to take your stand in opposition to the perverse society into which you were born. Express from the standpoint of resistance to this horrifying nightmare civilization that is fueled by human blood. 

We live in a sick and intensely mind-controlled dystopia where everything is fake and stupid. Mainstream culture is a nonstop celebration of the vapid and inane. The movies glorify cops and soldiers. The music exalts capitalism, consumerism, egotism and frivolity. The products are made by wage slaves and the fuel is obtained by war. The food is designed to reap profits rather than to nourish. The news media is designed to propagandize rather than to inform.

It’s a disgusting civilization, to be honest. The more you learn about it, the more repulsive it becomes.

How could anyone relate to the human experience from inside this hellscape in a truth-based way, except by opposition? The only way to participate in “western culture” is to help create a new kind of culture which stands squarely in opposition to it.

As Terence McKenna once said, “We have to create culture. Don’t watch TV. Don’t read magazines. Don’t even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow… Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”

The only way to create culture with sincerity in this dystopia is by forcefully rejecting its fraudulence and abusiveness, and embracing revolution and resistance. To do anything else is to give tacit approval to the horrific nature of this civilization, and it will always ring a bit hollow and dissonant, because it is ignoring the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is the unacceptable depravity and deceit that’s going on all around us.

So if you want to make art, make revolutionary art. If you want to express yourself, express your defiance of the western empire. Oppose the wars. Oppose the militarism. Oppose the capitalism, the imperialism, the ecocide, the injustice, the tyranny.

That’s the only way to be authentic in an inauthentic society.

_________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

❖

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has posted a statement on Twitter which reads, “The Iranian regime devastated Arad and Dimona by deliberately striking civilians with missiles. Over 100 people were injured, including children. A blatant war crime. Pure terrorism.”

I don’t want to be one of those people who wastes their time criticizing “hypocrisy” in foreign policy, but holy fucking shit, dude. Jesus Christ. My God.

I will never, ever express sympathy for Israelis. Ever. Under any circumstances. To do so would be irresponsible, because Israel always weaponizes sympathy and then uses that weapon to commit mass atrocities. If the world gives Israel sympathy for civilians injured by an Iranian airstrike over the weekend in a war Israel started, by Friday they’ll be using that sympathy to justify nuking Tehran.

I don’t enjoy holding this position. It goes against every natural human impulse inside me. But Israel, by its nature, has made it the only responsible position to hold.

History has clearly established that the world was wrong to give Israel sympathy for October 7. The correct and moral thing to have done would have been for everyone to say “That’s what you get for being a murderous apartheid state,” and then sanction Israel into the Stone Age until they dismantled their abusive ethnonationalist regime. That would have been the right position for the world to take.

And that’s how we need to be with Israel going forward. No sympathy. No support. We’ve got to treat them the same way you’d treat a malignant narcissist who solicits sympathy and then weaponizes it at every opportunity. To do otherwise would be irresponsible. It’s just not safe.

❖

Trump is now tweeting that “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST…”

Iran has of course responded that if its power plants are attacked it will attack the energy infrastructure of US allies in the middle east, saying that “the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be destroyed irreversibly.”

It’s starting to look like it’s only a matter of time before the US and/or Israel does something in Iran that makes the world a much darker place than it already is. Someone’s got to rein these psychopaths in.

❖

MAGA was an eleven-year practical joke where at the end the cameras come out and the prankster goes “Haha joke’s on you, we’re not making America great again, we’re going to war with Iran!”

❖

It’s so silly how the propagandists are trying to convince us to be concerned about an Iranian attack on a British-American airbase in the Indian Ocean.

It’s the funniest thing happening in the world right now that the western political/media class is asking us to be shocked and outraged that Iran would attack US allies who are actively collaborating toward its destruction in an unprovoked war of aggression. It’s hilarious.

Think about how dehumanized the Muslim world would have to be in your perception in order for that kind of thinking to make sense. You’d have to see them as so unlike yourself that it would astonish and baffle you for them to be retaliating against unprovoked aggressions like any normal human being. Your view would essentially have to be, “Why are those Iranians hitting us back? Don’t they know their role is to be killed, and our role is to do the killing? They’ve got the natural order of things completely backward!”

Iran is fighting for its very existence as a state. Obviously it’s going to respond aggressively toward everyone who’s helping to destroy it. It’s a symptom of a profoundly sick and twisted civilization that this would seem abnormal or surprising to anyone.

❖

So, like, we’re going to start having mass protests at some point, right? Against this horrific US-Israeli war of unfathomable consequence? I mean, that’s on the agenda, right?

Because it would be really weird if it wasn’t.

__________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

❖

I saw a clip of Fox News war propagandist Sean Hannity solemnly reading a tweet by Atlantic Council fellow Jamie Metzl which said, “It is profoundly disturbing that a growing segment of the far left appears to be almost rooting for Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and other forces fundamentally opposed to the US and our allies. This seems to reflect a corrosive strain of anti-Americanism dressed up in post-colonial theory that risks blinding us to the moral realities of our world and the nature of our adversaries.”

These assholes really thought they could commit a genocide in full view of the entire world for years and then expect everyone cheer for them to win.

Of course we’re seeing more “anti-Americanism”. You don’t get to commit horrific atrocities year after year and then cry when the world starts to hate you.

Fox News is absolutely panicking. They are crying on air about how the American public is waking up and supporting the resistance. They call it 'anti-Americanism', but the truth is people are just sick of the US and Israel destroying the Middle East. pic.twitter.com/ndZIcsOvWV

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) March 20, 2026

❖

CBS News reports the Pentagon has made detailed preparations to send US ground forces to Iran, while conscientious objector nonprofit Center on Conscience & War reports that they’re getting numerous calls from US service members who say they’ve received surprise deployment orders.

Military experts for decades: Don’t go to war with Iran, they’ll close the Strait of Hormuz and kill US forces in the region, plus their terrain makes a ground invasion impossible.

USA: [bombs Iran]

Iran: [closes the Strait of Hormuz, kills US forces in the region]

USA:

USA: Let’s try a ground invasion.

❖

I can’t get over how many leftists bought into the “we support the Iran protests” schtick. Where the fuck did you idiots think this was headed? What did you think you were promoting when you assisted the US empire’s regime change sloganeering throughout the west? Fucking morons.

❖

Two great ways to make me permanently lose interest in your political perspective: 

1. Say negative things about the Iranian government during an active war propaganda campaign by the US empire. 

2. Babble about “antisemitism on the left” like it’s a real thing in the year 2026.

❖

I used to think it’s wrong to massacre civilians and carpet bomb large cities but then a clever and insightful right winger informed me that if I was Iranian I’d be wearing a hijab, so now I think it’s good.

❖

It’s so funny how Trump apologists have started claiming the United States has been at war with Iran for 47 years, because I had literally never once heard anyone utter that claim until this war began. It’s just a talking point they all began regurgitating at once in order to justify Trump’s warmongering. Pretty sure if there was an ongoing decades-long American war I would have heard about it before March 2026.

❖

I was told Israel was only killing Palestinians because it was trying to liberate Gaza from Hamas. https://t.co/klSFRMMZgi

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 15, 2026

❖

FYI if your main reason for caring about Trump raining military explosives on Iran is that it will help Democrats in the midterms, you’re a piece of shit.

❖

The American far right lives in a fantasy world where the United States would ordinarily be a beneficent, peaceful utopia if not for Israel, despite the fact that the US has been steeped in the blood of the innocent throughout its entire history since long before Israel existed.

❖

It’s just an unfortunate fact that historically the only way to get Americans to start forcefully opposing a US war is to give them some skin in the game. Last time it was the draft in Vietnam. Maybe this time it will be everything getting crazy expensive due to the war on Iran.

❖

The US would be as reluctant to go to war as Iran was if its leaders knew they’d be killed by the other side in the opening days of any conflict.

Iran has shown that it’s always had the ability to bloody America’s nose in a war, yet its leaders displayed remarkable restraint in their efforts to avoid it. There are surely a lot of reasons for this, but one self-evident reason is that they knew if they went to war with the US and Israel, their own necks would be on the chopping block. Khamenei, Larijani and other officials who’ve been killed each had a personal vested interest in de-escalation.

Imagine if that were the case for US and Israeli leadership? Their warmongering would stop immediately, and they’d pursue peace at every turn.

This is the kind of cowardice that is driving these wars. They’re not fighting for causes they’d be willing to die for, they’re sending other people’s sons and daughters to kill other people’s sons and daughters for extremely stupid and unworthy reasons. Because they’re never the ones to pay the price.

__________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

Westerners are about to start paying a lot more attention to the war in Iran as massive US-Israeli escalations point to a coming energy crisis set to impact the whole world.

Israel has bombed the world’s largest natural gas field in southwestern Iran, reportedly in coordination with the United States. Now that a major red line for Tehran has been crossed, retaliatory strikes have already begun pummeling the energy infrastructure of US allies in the region, with Qatar reporting that its primary gas facility has sustained “significant damage” from an attack after Iran issued evacuation warnings for energy facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Fuel prices are already surging. If middle eastern energy infrastructure starts taking extensive damage on top of the already hugely significant Iranian blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, this war could end up affecting virtually every corner of human civilization in one way or another.

Iran were holding back on destroying gas and oil wells at the source to avoid a global energy shock.

Israel crossed that unspoken red line today.

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) March 18, 2026

Westerners are largely apathetic about US military explosives landing on populations on other continents. But once it starts having a direct impact on their personal bank accounts, you can expect them to get a lot more interested in US foreign policy.

This war has been a bit odd for me because as an anti-imperialist peacemonger I’m not yet entirely sure what my role is in my commentary here.

Normally I’d be begging westerners to care about another horrific act by the US war machine, but as things stand it looks like westerners are going to be forced to care about this one whether they want to or not.

Normally I’d be writing furiously about how people should not support this war, but the war has exceptionally low public support already.

Normally I’d be trying to help everyone open their eyes and recognize the US warmongers for the psychopaths that they are, but the Trumpanyahu administration is openly waging an unprovoked war of aggression while constantly thumping its chest and boasting about how it’s showing the Iranians “no quarter, no mercy” and saying it can kill whoever it wants with impunity.

Normally I’d be writing about how the mass media are churning out war propaganda to manufacture consent for more US military butchery, but the mass media keep putting out stories about how the US government is lying about a war that should never have happened while Trump administration figures have public tantrums about how the media isn’t churning out war propaganda for them.

Trump Administration Goes After the Media for Negative Coverage of the Iran War#Iran #IranWar #Trump #media https://t.co/53G1E9mUaE

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) March 16, 2026

President Trump is on social media babbling about how news outlets “should be brought up on Charges for TREASON” for not reporting on an embarrassing story about a US aircraft carrier fire the way he wants, while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave one of his fire-and-brimstone podium sermons bitching about how “an actual patriotic press” would be framing this war in a more positive light.

Do you see what I mean? What am I supposed to do with this? Where does that leave dissident fringesters like myself? All I can do is clear my throat and sheepishly go “Uh, yeah, I uh… agree with CNN.”

With Ukraine the mass media fell all over themselves to hide the west’s role in provoking the conflict, framing Putin as an evil maniacal Hitler figure who just spontaneously flipped out and invaded a country on Russia’s border because he hates freedom. With Gaza the western press gave nonstop narrative cover to Israel’s genocidal atrocities, constantly dragging public attention into an endless conversation about antisemitism and Jewish feelings whenever opposition to the slaughter got too hot.

That’s just not happening with Iran. It’s the first US war I’ve ever seen where a big chunk of the imperial power structure just refuses to get on board. The media’s not playing along, US allies are telling Trump to get stuffed when he asks for military assistance with the Strait of Hormuz, and the public’s not buying the lies.

This is a frightening time to be alive — but you can’t say we’re in a period of stasis. Things are moving faster and faster. They might get a whole lot worse. They might get a whole lot better. They might get a whole lot worse and then get a whole lot better. But it seems a safe bet that the situation won’t remain the same.

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The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

This is what it looks like when you give Zionists everything they want. This is Zionism put into practice.

The wars.

The massacres.

The bombed-out schools and hospitals.

The millions of displaced individuals.

The invasion of Lebanon

The explosions carpeting Tehran.

The hollowed-out moonscape of Gaza.

The horrific pogroms in the West Bank.

The child amputees.

The smell of rotting corpses.

The assassinated doctors and journalists.

The blackened sky and the poisoned water.

The nonstop deluge of brain-melting propaganda.

The aggressive promotion of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.

The erosion of free speech rights throughout the western world.

The corrupt warmongering politicians.

The legions of online hasbara trolls.

The soaring fuel prices.

Money which could pay for social services buying bombs for Israel instead.

All the death, destruction, instability and suffering that’s being visited upon countless civilians throughout west Asia.

This is Zionism. This is what it looks like when you apply the political ideology of forcibly imposing the existence of a Jewish ethnonationalist apartheid state on historic Palestine. This is it. You’re looking at it.

There is no alternate-reality version of Zionism where all these nightmares are not happening. There is no other kind of Zionism out there waiting in the wings. The liberal Zionist fantasy of a peaceful, egalitarian Israel is just that: a fantasy. It has never existed in real life.

In real life Israel cannot exist without nonstop violence and abuse. It’s like a house that will fall down if it’s not in a constant state of construction. At some point you realize the house should never have been built where it was built, and that steps need to be taken to rectify this error.

Zionism is a failed experiment. How do we know? Look around you.

Time to pull the plug.

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The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

My enemies are not in Iran. My enemies are in Washington and Tel Aviv. In London and Canberra.

My enemies are the western oligarchs and empire managers who are poisoning my society and making everything awful while slaughtering human beings with the help of my tax dollars.

My enemies are the tyrants who are turning our civilization into a mind-controlled dystopia where it is increasingly illegal to criticize the abuses of my government and its allies, and increasingly difficult to find information which runs counter to the imperial narrative.

My enemies are the empire apologists and the hasbarists. The propagandists and spinmeisters. Those who side with Israel and the United States against basic human interests.

Imperial bootlickers always accuse me of writing “propaganda” for the “enemy”, with “enemy” meaning whoever the US-centralized empire happens to be attacking or preparing to attack on any given day. I always want to tell them “Motherfucker YOU are my enemy. YOU. You and the empire you simp for.”

The Iranians have never done anything to me. The Iranians pose no threat to me. They didn’t bring war to my country. The empire I live under brought war to theirs.

The Iranians haven’t robbed me and my fellow westerners of all democratic political agency to create an oligarchy run by megalomaniacal plutocrats and psychopathic government agencies.

The Iranians haven’t locked down all political systems throughout western society making it impossible to vote our way into peace, economic justice, and government transparency.

The Iranians aren’t working tirelessly to brainwash and manipulate everyone in my society to turn us all into apathetic flag-waving morons who care more about sports and celebrities than the fact that their government is committing horrifying war crimes.

The Iranians aren’t trying to make it illegal for me to criticize Israel and its abuses, or working to imprison my countrymen for uttering normal political slogans in opposition to a genocidal apartheid state.

The Iranians aren’t making my society crazy, stupid and evil while we hurtle toward ecological disaster, nuclear armageddon and AI tech dystopia.

I haven’t spent years watching a live-streamed genocide in Gaza being perpetrated by the Iranians.

I’m not frightened that the Iranians will try to draft my son to fight and die in a crazy, evil war.

The Iranians are not doing any of these things to me. These are things the western power structure is doing.

I have no loyalty to that power structure. I have loyalty to my species, to my family, and to the values I hold sacred in my heart of hearts.

The US empire can get fucked.

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The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Every month I publish a collection of my work called JOHNSTONE magazine. The new issue is now available to order in print or download as a pay-what-you-want e-book version. This one is titled “They’re Going To Keep Lying About This War The Entire Time,” and features a painting of Donald Trump.

They lied about the girls’ school being struck by an Iranian missile. They lied about nuclear weapons. They lied about tens of thousands of protesters being killed. They lied that this war is about women’s rights. They lied that this war is about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iranian people.

They’ve been lying since before this war started, and they’re going to keep lying every day until it’s over. Don’t believe anything they say. Don’t trust anyone who sides with these lying warmongers. Don’t trust any of them ever again.

Their murderousness is showing you the true nature of the US empire. Their lies are unmasking the true face of the people who rule our world. They are telling you who they are.

Believe them.

You can get a paperback copy of this issue by clicking here, or a pay-what-you-feel digital copy by clicking here.

Other paperback editions of JOHNSTONE can be purchased by clicking here. Other digital editions can be downloaded by clicking here.

You can also get a subscription to the digital versions which will be sent to your inbox every month by clicking here.

As with all my work, everything contained in this magazine is free to reuse, reproduce or republish in any way.

CONTENTS:

Political Maturity Is Realizing The Commies Were Correct … 3

The US Keeps Openly Admitting It Deliberately Caused The Iran Protests … 5

The Plutocrats Who Rule Our World Aren’t Even Enjoying Themselves … 8

If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait Til You See What They Do Out In The Open … 10

In Australia The Police Beat You Up For Opposing Genocide … 11

Our Leaders Couldn’t Fix Our Problems If They Wanted To (And They Don’t Want To) … 14

More Shockingly Honest Confessions From The Empire Managers … 16

The Ticking Time Bomb Looming Over Gaza, And Other Notes … 18

Democrats Aren’t Resisting Trump’s Iran War Because They Secretly Support It … 21

It’s Very Possible To Be Both Happy And Well-Informed … 23

Tell Iranian And Cuban Diaspora Warmongers To Shut The Fuck Up … 25

We Deserve Better War Propaganda … 26

If You Think The US Wants To Bring Democracy To Iran, Watch What They’re Currently Doing To Iraq … 27

No Bro This War Will Be Completely Different, Bro … 29

If Iran Kills US Troops, The Blame Rests Solely On The US And Israel … 30

Fuck Everyone Who Made This War Possible … 33

US Calls Iranian Retaliatory Strikes “Unprovoked”, And Other Notes … 35

If Westerners Could Wrap Their Minds Around What War Really Is … 38

Iran Is Morally Superior To The United States … 40

The US War Machine Is Run By Deranged Armageddon Cultists … 42

This Is Even Dumber And Crazier Than The Iraq War … 44

The US Soldiers Killed In This War Were Not Heroes, And Other Notes … 45

It Is Not Okay For Grown Adults To Believe Infantile Fairy Tales About Iran … 48

Opposing “Both Sides” In This War Is Crazy Imperialist Nonsense, And Other Notes … 49

We Are The Villains In This Story … 52

They Lied About The School Bombing In Iran, And They’re Going To Keep On Lying … 54

Israel And Its Supporters Are Causing Attacks On Jewish Institutions … 58

Again, you can get a paperback copy of this issue by clicking here, or click here for a digital pay-what-you-feel copy.

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The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Reading by Tim Foley:

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt gave a bizarre appearance on CNN in response to an attempted car bombing of a Michigan synagogue by a man whose Lebanese family members were killed by Israeli forces.

“We are seeing Jewish people, the Jewish state, blamed for the war in the Middle East,” Greenblatt said. “That is wrong. It is wrong to scapegoat, it is wrong to hold Jewish people accountable for something you don’t like on the other side of the planet. And we really need leaders on all sides in politics, running for office, podcasters, to stop with the conspiracies, to stop with the accusations, and then tell us ‘but we oppose antisemitism’. You don’t get to say you’re opposed to hate if you’re trafficking in hateful conspiracy theories.”

Now, at first glance it this might read like Greenblatt is taking the entirely reasonable position that it is wrong to blame Jewish Americans for the actions of the Israeli government. 

But take a closer look at his use of the phrase “the Jewish state”. 

What Greenblatt is actually doing here is claiming it’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory to blame the state of Israel for its war crimes, while simultaneously lumping all Jewish people in with the actions of that state. That’s what he’s doing when he says “Jewish people, the Jewish state” in the same breath while talking about Israeli acts of mass military violence.

Greenblatt: "We are seeing Jewish people, the Jewish state, blamed for the war in the Middle East. That is wrong. It is wrong to scapegoat, it is wrong to hold Jewish people accountable for something you don't like on the other side of the planet. We really need leaders on all… pic.twitter.com/fq8DyPz7Oq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2026

It’s so obnoxious how genocide apologists like Greenblatt make a living actively telling everyone that Jews and Judaism are inseparable from the acts of the Israeli government, but whenever there’s an extremist attack by someone who doesn’t distinguish between western Jews and the state of Israel it gets blamed on the pro-Palestine left.

Pro-Palestine leftists perform endless verbal gymnastics to avoid conflating Jewish people with the state of Israel, while Israel and its supporters conflate them constantly. Yet we’re always the ones who get blamed whenever there’s a terror attack on a Jewish institution by someone enraged by Israel’s actions.

Zionists are the ones doing everything they can to make sure people see the state of Israel as synonymous with Jews and Judaism. That is what they are doing every time they claim a criticism of Israel’s actions is hate speech against Jews. They are claiming that the nation and its government are one and the same as the entirety of the Jewish faith and its adherents.

Pro-Palestine leftists have been doing the exact opposite. We go to great pains to make sure all our arguments are carefully worded to avoid being interpreted as an attack on the Jewish faith, making it clear that our grievance is with the state of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism which supports that state’s abusive nature. And then Israel apologists come in and smear those meticulously crafted arguments as a hateful attack on all Jews everywhere.

Zionists are therefore responsible for the growing perception that our Jewish neighbors and countrymen are culpable for the abuses of the Israeli government. When more attacks on Jewish institutions occur (and they will), it is Israel and its supporters who will hold the blame for this, not the pro-Palestine left.

I am not saying attacks on Jewish institutions should happen. I am not saying it will be good when they do happen. I’m saying it will happen, and when it happens it will be a terrible thing. And it will be the fault of Israel and its supporters.

We’ve been running around like crazy trying to stop this, falling all over ourselves to thwart the Zionist efforts to conflate Jews with Israel, but our voices aren’t strong enough. We’re not the ones getting loudly amplified by every mass media outlet, they are. It’s not people like me getting invited to appear on CNN to talk to Wolf Blitzer, it’s people like Jonathan Greenblatt.

So when we lose the narrative war on this front and the next extremist attack occurs, it won’t be our fault. It will be theirs. It will be the fault of Israel and its apologists. We fought them as hard as we could to prevent this, but they won. And the consequences of this will therefore rest squarely on their shoulders.

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The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2