The Zionist blueprint.

The Israeli military has spent the past year committing nearly every war crime imaginable against the people of Gaza. Now, as these ongoing atrocities fall from the headlines, Israel’s ultra-right-wing government is only expanding its radius of destruction.

In the first few months of the genocide, mainstream media outlets worked overtime to manufacture consent for the Israeli government’s mass slaughter of Palestinians. Now, these same outlets have seemingly wiped their hands of the responsibility to report on the U.S.-funded horrors being carried out across Gaza. As international attention fades, the Israeli military is taking the opportunity to expand its campaign of terror and destruction to the wider region.

Zionism has always used the same blueprint. First, decimate the land and ethnically cleanse the people who live there. Then, colonize it. The goal remains the same: To gain as much territory for the Israeli state, with as few Palestinians or Arabs on it, as possible.

Now, we’re watching as this blueprint is brought to bear throughout the region. The ambitions of the ultra-right-wing extremists who control the Israeli government extend even beyond genocide and land theft in Palestine. Leaving the south of Lebanon decimated, Israeli forces are now looking to solidify their illegal claim to the Syrian Golan Heights through, of course, yet another massive bombing campaign.

If Trump’s first term in office is any indication, he’s likely to hand the extremist Israeli government a blank check to accelerate its policy of destruction and colonization at any cost. This comes as no surprise: The right-wing in the U.S. and Israel see their interests as intertwined, and the lives of Palestinians and other peoples throughout the region as entirely expendable. 

With all this in mind, it’s crucial that we keep our eyes on Palestine — and on Syria, Lebanon, and the entire region. At a glance, here’s the latest news on the ground:

Gaza

• In Gaza, Israel’s genocide continues, despite the lack of U.S. media coverage. This weekend, the Israeli military once again bombed hundreds of Palestinians living in so-called “safe zones” in Gaza, destroying two schools and a post belonging to rescue workers. Survivors described seeing “decapitated and shredded bodies” in the aftermath of the Israeli strike. 
• The official death toll in Gaza has now topped 45,000, but realistic estimates of how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel are orders of magnitudes greater, including both bombings and gunfire as well as injuries, lack of medical care, preventable diseases, and starvation.
• Meanwhile, the Israeli military targeted and killed another beloved community member in Gaza, leading to an outpouring of grief and fears that, in the absence of international pressure, Israel will only escalate such targeted killings. Khaled Nabhan was the subject of a CNN report last year as he mourned his 3-year-old granddaughter, Neem, whom he called “the soul of his soul.” Neem was killed in an Israeli airstrike, and in the year since, Israeli forces bombed the homes of Khaled’s other family members, before murdering Khaled in a strike on Monday. 
• This is ethnic cleansing in action: Devastating images shared this week on social media showed Rafah — once President Biden’s “red line” for supporting Israel’s operations — before and after Israel’s genocide flattened the city.

Rafah pic.twitter.com/9xGm0W2gOF

— Jehad Abusalim جهاد أبو سليم (@JehadAbusalim) December 15, 2024

West Bank

• In the Occupied West Bank, Israeli ethnic cleansing continues as armed settlers and the Israeli military collude to steal Palestinian land at gunpoint. Last week, Israeli settlers attacked the home of Palestinian elder Abu Ashraf, occupying his home while he was detained by Israeli police. This is exactly how settlers and the Israeli state work hand-in-glove to brutalize Palestinians and steal their homes and land.
• Earlier this month, Israeli forces bombed and killed four Palestinians in the village of Sir. The Israeli military and settlers have killed at least 790 Palestinians since October 2023: an enormous spike in Israeli  violence in the West Bank that the U.S. media has barely acknowledged.

Syria

• Following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the Israeli government has jumped at the opportunity to further exploit its neighbors’ instability, carrying out more than 800 strikes in the last week alone. On Sunday night, Israeli forces dropped an “earthquake bomb” in the Syrian Tartus coastal region, a weapon so destructive it registered on the Richter scale. 
• Israel’s bombardment “has rendered Syria completely defenseless.” It’s through this illegal invasion that Israel hopes to solidify its control over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights — and ensure a future Syria too weak to resist its settler-colonial plans for the entire region.

Lebanon

• The Israeli military is touting its decimation of villages in Lebanon’s south in an attempt to convince Israelis who have fled from the northern border of Israel to return home. Meanwhile, the Israeli military is still in Lebanon, and refuses to allow Lebanese from the south to return to rebuild their destroyed villages.

Defend students from state repression.

The University of Rochester arrested four of its students for fighting to divest their tuition dollars from the Israeli war machine — and is now charging them with felonies.

Our movements are facing increasing repression, and students are among the most vulnerable.

Email the University now and demand that the charges against these four students be dropped.

Join JVP as we orient for the fight to come.

This Thursday, December 19, JVP organizers are holding a Virtual Mass Meeting, where we’ll come together and orient towards the next phase of our fight.

During the meeting, we’ll discuss how we can understand the shifting terrain on the ground and under the incoming Trump administration, get clear on our strategy, and get organized for what’s to come. If you’re feeling uncertain, disorganized, or discouraged, you’re not alone. Join us as we prepare together.

What is Zionism?

The Israeli state was founded on the dispossession of Palestinians, and has always maintained an oppressive structure of Jewish supremacy. To justify these crimes, the Israeli government and its backers claim that Zionism is what keeps Jews safe, and that it’s inextricable from Judaism. 

This can get confusing. To learn more, check out these JVP resources on Zionism and how we’ve come as an organization to a politics of anti-Zionism and collective liberation.

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