SUN VALLEY, IDAHO – JULY 10: Private jets parked at the Friedman Memorial Airport during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 10, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho. Every year, some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful figures from the media, finance, technology, and political spheres converge at the Sun Valley Resort for the exclusive week-long conference hosted by boutique investment bank Allen & Co. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
“While working families struggle to afford groceries, housing, and gas,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Trump administration “focuses on tax breaks for billionaires—including tax breaks for private jets.”
A group of Democratic Caucus members in the US Senate on Thursday denounced the US Treasury Department under President Donald Trump over its refusal to close a gaping loophole in the federal tax code that allows some of the wealthiest people in the country to reap tax benefits from their ownership and use of private jets—even as working people and the middle class families struggle to make ends meet in Trump’s economy.
In response to a previous request made in July by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to close a rule that allows the wealthy “to substantially undervalue the taxable cost of personal travel on a corporate private jet,” a letter from a top Treasury official on Thursday said such an effort would be too “burdensome,” including for the uber-rich taxpayers subject to it.
Known as the Standard Industry Fare Level (SIFL) loophole, the lawmakers have argued that it has been exploited by the extremely wealthy to lower their tax burden even as they travel the country—and the world—in the least energy efficient and most polluting way possible.
“President Trump’s 2017 tax law and Big, Beautiful-for-Billionaires bill handed billionaires and big corporations massive tax breaks on private jets,” said Sen. Whitehouse in a statement. “The Trump administration now says it would be ‘burdensome’ to close the private jet tax loophole because this is an administration hell-bent on using the powers of government to make the ultra-rich even richer, and they don’t care if middle-class taxpayers get stuck with the tab.”’
Alongside their July letter, the lawmakers shared analyses detailing the loss of the revenue made possible by the SIFL loophole. According to the Whitehouse’s office,
analyses by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation detailing the boom in private jet sales after passage of Republicans’ tax cut for corporate jets and highlighting the extent of the tax revenue lost by the abuse of the SIFL loophole. One analysis responds to an inquiry from the senators on the tax consequences of the SIFL loophole, finding that a wealthy executive would pay roughly between $1,577 and $1,804 less in taxes for a flight from JFK airport in New York City to DCA airport in Washington, D.C. under the SIFL method. The fair market value of that flight could range from $4,500 to $5,112, but under SIFL, that executive would only have to report a value of $235.77.
Van Hollen on Thursday denounced the shamefulness of yet another Trump administration position that rewards the wealthy and powerful at the expense of working people.
“Trump’s priorities revolve around enriching himself and his billionaire friends. While working families struggle to afford groceries, housing, and gas, this Administration focuses on tax breaks for billionaires—including tax breaks for private jets,” said Van Hollen.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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The Israeli and German flags are shown in front of the German parliament building in Berlin. [Photo via Getty Images]
Germany approved nearly €800 million ($930 million) worth of military equipment exports to Israel in the first half of this year amid its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, local media reported Wednesday.
The Economy and Energy Ministry disclosed the figure in its response to a parliamentary inquiry by the opposition Left Party, according to German news magazine Der Spiegel.
Export licenses issued between January and June exceeded four times the total value approved for Israel throughout 2025, the report said.
The surge came after Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government lifted partial restrictions on arms exports to Israel on Nov. 24, 2025.
Merz had suspended exports of weapons that could be used in Gaza on Aug. 8 after Israel decided to expand its military operations in the enclave. The restrictions remained in force for only about three and a half months.
Large-scale defense projects accounted for most of the sharp increase in approvals.
Of the €735.8 million in export permits approved during the second quarter, about 67% was linked to a naval project.
The report highlighted the INS Drakon, an air-independent propulsion submarine built by German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), which recently left a shipyard in Kiel for Israel.
A further 21% of the licenses covered joint projects involving German and Israeli companies that were deemed to serve the strategic interests of the German armed forces, or Bundeswehr.
The remaining approvals covered military equipment including small arms, ammunition, explosives and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed at least 73,470 Palestinians and injured 174,540 others since October 2023, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. Most of the victims have been women and children, while around 90% of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been destroyed.
Lea Reisner, the Left Party’s spokesperson for international affairs, accused the German government of applying “unlimited double standards.”
She criticized Berlin for condemning statements targeting Gaza’s civilian population by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir while continuing to expand military support for the country.
The Left Party renewed its call for an immediate and comprehensive halt to German arms exports to Israel.
Germany approved €327 million in arms and military equipment exports to Israel in 2023, €161.1 million in 2024 and €260 million in 2025. Its arms sales to Israel had increased tenfold in 2023 from the previous year.
Berlin has long been one of Israel’s strongest supporters, with German leaders frequently defending that support as a historical responsibility arising from Germany’s Nazi past and the Holocaust.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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U.S. President Donald Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at White House in Washington DC, United States on July 28, 2026. [Ma’ayan Toaf (GPO)/Handout – Anadolu Agency]
Israel is seeking backing from President Donald Trump to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, as Israeli ministers speak openly about expelling the indigenous, non-Jewish communities from the territories occupied by the apartheid state. Defence Minister Israel Katz said yesterday that the “migration” of more than two million Palestinians out of the territory remains Israel’s preferred outcome.
Katz made the comments at a conference hosted by the Israeli news site Ynet and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
At the conference, Katz insisted, “There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” and said Israel was “organised and prepared to get them out – by sea, by air, by every way possible.” He argued that Washington’s backing was essential, since “every country willing to take them in wants American backing.”
According to Katz, Trump has “not cancelled” the proposal but has “frozen” it while his administration searches for countries willing to accept Palestinian refugees. Katz also claimed, without offering evidence, that 80 per cent of Gaza’s population wants to leave the territory and is being prevented from doing so by Hamas.
The ceasefire agreement he later sponsored, which took effect in October 2025, states explicitly that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so.” Egypt, which borders Gaza, has continued to reject any plan involving the removal of the territory’s population.
Katz’s remarks, made at a conference days before Israel’s general election, drew criticism in Washington. US Senator Chris Van Hollen said the admission confirmed what critics had long suspected: that Israel’s underlying objective in Gaza is the removal of its population rather than its security.
Forcibly transferring a civilian population out of occupied territory is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which has already issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz’s predecessor, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have each concluded in recent years that Israel’s rule over Palestinians, from Gaza to the occupied West Bank, amounts to apartheid, a designation successive Israeli governments have rejected.
Many view Katz’s comments less as a new position than a public confirmation of Israel’s ultimate goal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a settler conference on 26 November 2024 that it was “possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population will be reduced to half its current size in two years” through what he called encouraging “voluntary emigration”, and suggested the same approach could later be applied to the three million Palestinians of the occupied West Bank.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has repeatedly called for Palestinians to be “encouraged” to leave Gaza so that Israelis can resettle it, telling a Jerusalem conference on 28 January 2024, “We must encourage them to leave.”
The rhetoric coincides with Israeli public opinion on the question. A survey published by Haaretz found that 82 per cent of Jewish Israeli respondents supported expelling Gaza’s population. The poll surveyed Jewish Israelis specifically and did not include Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who make up around a fifth of the population.
Writing in her regular Haaretz column, “Otherwise Occupied”, veteran journalist Amira Hass argued this week that the renewed talk in Washington and Jerusalem of a “two-state solution” functions, in practice, as a smokescreen. While officials and commentators debate Palestinian statehood, she wrote, the Israeli state is doing the practical and political groundwork for expelling Palestinians rather than for negotiating with them. Katz’s comments, made in the days after her column was published, appeared to bear that argument out.
Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and B’Tselem, have for more than a year described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide, and have warned that any plan to depopulate the Strip would compound, rather than resolve, the suffering of its population. With Katz now confirming that removal remains official policy pending a green light from Washington, the question facing Palestinians in Gaza is no longer whether such a plan exists, but whether the US president will let it proceed.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz in Tel Aviv, Israel, on April 23, 2026. [Israeli Ministry of Defense – Anadolu Agency]
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said there could be no lasting solution for the Gaza Strip without what he described as the “genuine emigration” of Palestinians from the territory, while accusing Egypt of preventing such departures.
Speaking at the “Time for Decision” conference, organized by Yediot Aharonot and the Israel Democracy Institute, Katz said: “There is no real solution without a genuine emigration from there.”
Katz claimed that 80 percent of Gaza’s population wants to leave, but did not provide evidence for the figure.
“Everything is ready for emigration by air, sea and land, but Egypt is not prepared for it,” Katz said. He added that departures were currently being delayed because potential receiving countries were unwilling to accept Palestinians without US support.
Egypt has repeatedly rejected the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egyptian territory and has warned against measures that could lead to their permanent removal from the enclave.
Katz also addressed violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, rejecting the term “Jewish terrorism” to describe such attacks.
“I have abolished this concept. Terrorism is defined as acts committed against the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Asked by journalist Moran Azulay about attacks by settlers on Palestinian villages, Katz instead characterized them as “violence” and said those responsible should be punished. “They are now in prison,” he added.
Turning to Iran, Katz said he believed the likelihood of an Iranian attack on Israel could increase as economic and political pressure on Tehran intensifies.
He said Israel remained prepared both defensively and offensively and was coordinating with the United States over the potential threat from Iran.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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The head of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. [dr.hussam73/Instagram]
Dr Hussam Abu Safieh, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital who has been held by Israel since December 2024, has said that Israeli prison guards continue to physically assault him, deprive him of sleep and threaten him against speaking about his detention conditions, according to testimony relayed through his lawyer.
Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI) said Abu Safieh provided the account during a meeting with his lawyer on Sunday, August 30.
According to a written statement submitted by the lawyer, Abu Safieh said guards had beaten him on different parts of his body, including sensitive areas, using their hands, feet and batons.
He also reported that prison staff deliberately disrupted his sleep by making noise and using loudspeakers during the night.
Abu Safieh told his lawyer that he was assaulted following an earlier legal visit and subsequently threatened and warned against providing information about the conditions in which he was being held, according to PHRI.
The organisation is seeking permission for an independent physician to examine Abu Safieh. It submitted a request on 7th July for internist Dr Amit Tirosh to conduct the examination, but said the request was denied.
Abu Safieh, through the organisation, subsequently petitioned an Israeli administrative court seeking access to an independent medical examination. According to PHRI, the Israeli Prison Service recently requested additional time to respond to the petition.
PHRI said an independent examination had become increasingly urgent because of concerns about Abu Safieh’s health. According to information provided by Abu Safieh, he was transferred on 10th August from the underground Rakefet detention facility, where he had been held in solitary confinement, to the Israeli Prison Service Medical Center at Ramla Prison for medical examinations.
Abu Safieh was detained by Israeli forces in December 2024, during an Israeli military operation at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. His detention has continued without a criminal trial.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
