US President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally at the Menard Memorial Sports Center on October 13, 2026 in Wasilla, Alaska. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Long Island residents who are considering choosing Republican candidates for Congress should consider what kind of country they are voting for.
On Long Island there are four contested races for the House of Representatives. Two are currently held by Democrats and two by Republicans. The outcome on Long Island could well determine which party has a majority in the House. If you vote Republican for the Senate and House of Representatives, you are voting against congressional roadblocks on Trump.
If you vote Republican this is the kind of country you are voting for.
In a campaign speech in Port Huron, Michigan, Donald Trump accused the Democratic nominee for Senate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed of being a terrorist and claimed that if El-Sayed and the Democrats win, “they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadis to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.” Trump also told American Jews that “any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves.”
Meanwhile the Trump crime family and its allies are using the United States government to enrich themselves, often betraying the interests of the country.
In Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech billionaire Republican candidate for governor, ran a campaign ad attacking Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling her a liar. Acton has had no contact with her mother since she was 12 years old and was raped by her stepfather who fled the state to avoid prosecution. Acton’s mother abandoned her children and left the state with him. Current Republican Gov. Mike DeWine described the ad as “deeply, deeply troubling” and called on Ramaswamy to take down the ad, but he refused. Donald Trump accused politicians who condemn the ad of whining, said he would run an ad like that, and advised Ramaswamy to stick with it. No Long Island Republican officeholders or candidates, including Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman who is running for governor, has publicly condemned Ramaswamy or the ad.
On the same day that Trump Justice Department Homeland Security agents invaded the Washington DC home of congressional Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), at a rally in Ohio, Trump insulted Somali immigrants, calling them “low-IQ people” and claiming they “don’t have pants to wear.” Trump also celebrated removing protected status from thousands of Haitians who sought refuge in the United States.
Meanwhile the Trump crime family and its allies are using the United States government to enrich themselves, often betraying the interests of the country. The website Center for American Progress has an update counter showing Trump and sons raking in almost $3 billion from shady deals, including almost $2.5 billion from cryptocurrency. The family has profited from new foreign luxury real estate and golf developments; Ivanka Trump’s husband’s investment firm negotiated a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia; Melania Trump received a $40 million payout from Amazon for a documentary project; the president secured an immunity deal from the Internal Revenue Service for past due taxes; and the president claims as his own a $400 million Boeing 747 jet “gifted” by Qatar to the United States
In 2022 Eric, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Donald Trump were sued by New York State for fraud.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth before speaking at Anduril Industries in Sparrows Point, Maryland, on October 6, 2026.(Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
The president’s comments and the official cost estimate came amid reports that the US military is preparing for a new onslaught against Iran after the midterm elections.
US President Donald Trump told a crowd of his supporters on Tuesday that his illegal war of choice in Iran will end “whenever I want it to” as the conflict’s official price tag reportedly jumped to $47 billion—a figure that independent analysts believe to be a dramatic underestimate.
“It can be over whenever I want it to be over,” Trump said of the historically unpopular war during a rally in Texas, a week before the midterm elections. “But we have to have it end properly, with… a total statement [that] they will never have a nuclear weapon.” (Iran has already said repeatedly that it would never develop nuclear weapons, including in the opening pages of the Obama-era agreement that Trump shredded during his first White House term.)
Trump’s remarks came as The Hill reported that the federal government’s official estimate of the Iran war’s cost has jumped $3 billion since last month, rising to $47 billion.
“The biggest chunk of the cost is munition replacement at $29 billion,” The Hill reported, citing a US Central Command estimate that the outlet obtained on Tuesday. “Nearly $12 billion is obligated for incremental costs of military action and another $6.1 billion to replace equipment losses, according to the estimate. Air Force’s support for deployed personnel, airlift, base, communication support, and transportation in theater costs $7.6 billion. The estimate does not include the cost to damaged US military bases in the Middle East.”
When such damage—which has been far more extensive than the Pentagon has acknowledged publicly—and other factors are included, the price tag balloons. Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated in July that the US spent more than $103 billion in the first four months of the war, which has killed thousands of people and sent gas prices soaring.
In the US, consumers have spent an extra $146 billion on gasoline and diesel since the war’s beginning in February, according to a running tracker maintained by the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
Trump said Tuesday that the unauthorized war’s end would come “very quick,” despite evidence that his administration is preparing for yet another round of heavy bombings in Iran after the midterm elections.
“The US has told several Gulf Arab countries to be prepared for a short, intense military campaign after the US midterm elections,” The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday, citing unnamed people briefed on the conversations. “The communications through diplomatic and military channels are among a growing number of indications that the US and Israel are readying to launch a new round of heavy combat operations against Iran, risking a major escalation in hopes of degrading Tehran’s strength and pushing it toward negotiations.”
“US forces in the region have been restocking their munitions, and bomber aircraft and jet fighters are preparing for strikes,” the Journal added. “An additional aircraft carrier strike group and Marine expeditionary unit are also poised to join an armada of roughly 20 other warships operating in the Middle East next month, although some ships could rotate out.”
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Likud Party leader and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech to supporters at the Likud campaign headquarters following the release of exit polls and initial results of the general election in Jerusalem on October 28, 2026. [Saeed Qaq – Anadolu Agency]
The prospect of seeing the architect of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from political office would be a small, albeit completely pyrrhic, ‘victory’. This is a politician who has spent the past three years justifying industrial-scale levels of civilian slaughter, the enforced starvation of an entire civilian population and the complete levelling of the Gaza Strip. He has been the public face of Israel on the global stage for the best part of 20 years, rubbing shoulders with world leaders and garnering support for the expansion of Israel’s settler colonial mission in historic Palestine.
As something of a political cockroach, he has managed to survive various high-profile scandals. These include criminal proceedings brought against him on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and a (largely symbolic) arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, one that he and leaders in the West have completely ignored. Nevertheless, it seems that Netanyahu has become increasingly awakened to the fact that his time may well be running out. He turned to his X account to post an AI-generated image of a nuclear bomb hitting downtown Tel Aviv in an ever so subtle effort to stir up feelings of existential dread amongst an Israeli public who have fully drunk the anti-Iranian Kool-Aid.
Waiting in the wings to take over could be former Israeli army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. He is a man said to be fervently against Palestinian statehood and fully committed to the destruction of Hamas. His ‘achievements’ include the creation of the ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, a policy born of the 2006 Lebanon war that promotes the use of extraordinary and excessive military force against civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Whilst there can be no doubt that the Zionist project of expansion and the associated erasure of Palestinians have been moving at warp speed since 2023, those who are watching the Israeli elections from afar (including many in the activist community) and hoping for change would do well to adopt a longer gaze.
It has never really mattered who is in charge in Israel. The policies that undergird decades of relentless genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians have, over the years, largely remained the same. Political commentators euphemistically throw around terms like ‘hawk’ and ‘dove’ to provide the illusion that there is even the slightest possibility an Israeli leader is remotely interested in ‘peace’. But the terms are meaningless, and as with everything in the region, Israeli leaders’ actions speak louder than hollow words.
Take, for example, the tenure of Yitzhak Rabin: winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, architect of the ‘break their bones’ policy (sounds peaceful, right?) and the person responsible for signing the Oslo Accords. Under his watch, Palestine continued to be subjected to the scourge of relentless settlement expansion and the house demolitions that went with it. ‘Peace’ for Rabin was far removed from ending the occupation. Instead, it meant managing and containing the Palestinian population and their legitimate demands for self-determination, whilst subscribing to a ‘peace’ plan that outsourced responsibility for the occupation to a subservient Palestinian Authority and willing accomplices in the West.
Then there is the chameleonic Shimon Peres, a man who enjoyed adulation amongst many in the West. They would do well to google the Qana massacre in southern Lebanon, an abhorrent act of barbarity that he once famously said he was at ‘peace’ with (no pun intended). See also Ehud Olmert, who, whilst being relatively outspoken against the ongoing genocide in Gaza (not using that language, of course), oversaw the targeted assassination of Palestinian leaders, the 2006 war in Lebanon and the continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was threatened with arrest whilst visiting the UK in 2009 over allegations of war crimes committed in Gaza while he was defence minister. Others, including Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, have made it very clear that they have little to no interest in making ‘peace’ with Palestinians, nor even in countenancing the notion that there would ever be a Palestinian state.
What should be abundantly clear, therefore, is that for Palestinians, as Elaine Bradley and I have previously argued, the passing of time can be mapped on to a series of failed ‘peace’ processes, from Madrid to Oslo to Wye River to Camp David. The consistent theme has been the creeping erasure of Palestine and a doubling down of the West’s support for Israel’s expansive settler colonial aims.
I don’t say any of this whimsically, but those who are advocating for Palestine must be far more critical in their analysis than simply hoping for change based on the possible downfall of Netanyahu.
If you are committed to Palestinian liberation, you must shun any false ‘hope’ that comes with the appointment of a new political leader in Israel. It is a mirage and an unhelpful distraction. No matter who is in charge, without a fundamental reckoning with the racist ideology that undergirds the Zionist state-building project and a full dismantling of the architectures of militarisation and apartheid, things will continue along the same path. Our role, therefore, is not to place any false hope in a change of leadership inside Israel, but to double down on our efforts to ensure we do all at our disposal to support inevitable Palestinian liberation.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The home of Ibrahim Muhammad Hamad, who was preparing to get married next month in Gaza, is reduced to rubble by an Israeli attack in Nuseritat camp, near Deir al Balah, Gaza, Palestine on October 23, 2026. [Moiz Salhi – Anadolu Agency]
A new report released yesterday by the UN Commission of Inquiry states that Israel is still committing genocide in Gaza after the ceasefire agreement which was reached on 10 October 2025. Referencing earlier reports concluding that Israel had committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza, the report goes on to state “The cases investigated for this report … show that the Israeli authorities and forces continue to commit genocidal acts with the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza.”
In the occupied West Bank, the report notes, there was an increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes: from six between 2008 and 6 October 2023, to 254 between 7 October 2023 and 30 September 2026.
Whose interests does the ceasefire serve, if Israel is still committing genocide against the Palestinian people?
Since the ceasefire, discourse has mostly centred on humanitarian aid, rebuilding Gaza, the Yellow Line and forced displacement. Taken together, including the farce of rebuilding Gaza when Israel has repeatedly said it will not withdraw from the territory it occupied, the report reflects the Commission of Inquiry’s statement regarding genocide. The only change has been the vocabulary – with the ceasefire, genocide is rarely spoken of by world leaders. Instead, the focus is once again on separate human rights violations, limiting the context of Israel’s genocide and completely obliterating colonialism from the equation.
Such rhetoric served Israel well throughout the decades. In his final UN General Assembly speech, Secretary General Antonio Guterres referred to the International Court of Justice’s reference to genocide but spoke of “raising the spectre of ethnic cleansing” in his UN role. “We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes,” Guterres said. What better way to ensure Israel’s impunity than to talk of saving the defunct two-state paradigm?
Under the diplomatic shelter provided by the ceasefire, world leaders can pretend to restore the status quo and use the same discredited framework to whitewash their conduct. There is no international opposition to this equation. There is Gaza, of course, which bears the full consequences of the genocide, including the impunity the international community has granted Israel and, by extension, itself.
Gaza also pays the price of the failed ceasefire, which the international community uses as cover to avoid confronting the evidence of genocide. That evidence is well documented, yet governments prefer to describe Israel’s actions as a series of separate violations of international law rather than as genocide.
Israel did not stop its genocide during the ceasefire; it scaled it back to a level the international community finds acceptable. The only ones who benefit are those complicit in it. Beyond periodic calls on Israel to respect the ceasefire, the international community has made no real move to hold it accountable. On the contrary, it is relieved to return to the language it used before, when diplomats did not have to confront an open genocide and ethnic cleansing could be dismissed as isolated cases of forced displacement. This is what the ceasefire has achieved. It will likely rescue the rhetoric of a two-state solution before it rescues Palestinians in Gaza.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
People set up ballot boxes and voting booths at Al-Aqwas School ahead of Israel’s parliamentary elections in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm, Israel, on October 27, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
Amnesty International UK slammed Israel’s Tuesday elections as “apartheid at the ballot box,” saying millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are being denied the right to vote while Israeli settlers living on Palestinian land can cast ballots, Anadolu reports.
“As polls opened, Palestinians in Hebron are locked down in their own (West Bank) city, with thousands forced from their homes. In Gaza, more than 1,500 people have been killed since the so-called ceasefire began,” Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager, said in a statement, referring to the ceasefire reached in October 2025.
Calling on the UK government to take action regardless of the election outcome, Benedict said: “No election result will change what the UK government must do.”
“It must end all arms transfers to Israel, sanction the Israeli officials most implicated in international crimes, and demand unfettered humanitarian access and an end to the unlawful blockade of Gaza,” he added.
Benedict further urged the UK to support international judicial institutions and end its involvement in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
“It must support the International Criminal Court, implement the International Court of Justice’s rulings in full, and cut every UK link to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid and genocide of Palestinians – whether through trade, investment, finance, cooperation or assistance,” he said.
Voting began Tuesday in Israel’s parliamentary elections, with more than 7.3 million people eligible to cast ballots to elect the 120-member Knesset.
Polling stations opened at 7 am local time and are scheduled to close at 10 pm, according to Israel’s Central Elections Committee.
The elections have been marked by intense competition between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and the opposition bloc led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister. He asks who could possibly object to the IDF starving people to death, conducting forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing all Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He says they’ve got a genocide to do for Israel and to stop objectingEd Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
