Trump embraces Netanyahu in the Knesset (Photo via the White House)
Trump stirred controversy in several off-script moments in his address to the Israeli Knesset, including spotlighting a top pro-Israel donor
US President Donald Trump spoke in the Israeli parliament on October 13 amid the implementation of the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal he helped broker – labeling the deal as a “historic dawn for the Middle East.”
Trump attempted to position himself not only as a behind-the-scenes mediator, but as a central actor in shaping post-war Gaza and the region as a whole. “Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms,” Trump proclaimed. “Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”
Several unscripted moments of US President Donald Trump’s speech at the Israeli Knesset have become the subject of controversy, highlighting the unconventional diplomatic relationship between Israel and the US.
In an extraordinary intrusion into Israeli domestic politics, Trump went off script and urged Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges.
“Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about this?” Trump proclaimed, referring to Netanyahu’s charges of fraud and breach of trust.
Trump claimed that Netanyahu is “a very popular man” because he knows “how to win.” A Maariv poll from last month revealed that a majority – 52% – of Israelis do not trust Netanyahu as Prime Minister. However, polling by the Israeli Democracy Institute reveals that a majority of Israelis also support a hostage deal with Hamas that leads to a full withdrawal of forces, indicating that the recent ceasefire deal may boost support for Netanyahu.
Trump’s speech at the Knesset comes the same day that Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of the Israeli-Hamas hostage exchange. Before the ceasefire deal, there were about 10,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer.
Trump shines spotlight on pro-Israel lobby
In a separate controversial moment, Trump singled out one of his major donors, Israeli-American Miriam Adelson, who was in the audience at the Knesset. Adelson donated USD 106 million to Trump’s super PAC, which helped fundraise for his reelection last year.
“Look at her, sitting there so innocently,” Trump said, pointing Adelson out. “She’s got 60 billion in the bank.”
Trump continued: “I’m gonna get her in trouble with this, but I actually asked her once, I said, ‘So, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer.”
“That might mean Israel,” Trump said, before laughing.
Trump’s commentary on Adelson, who was awarded a Presidential of Medal of Honor by Trump during his first term, has inadvertently shined a spotlight on the ultra-powerful pro-Israel lobby in US politics.
Some have noted the pattern of Trump saying “the quiet part out loud” throughout his political career. US law professor and public commentator Jody David Armour wrote on X that Trump “regularly just spills the beans on how US policy actually works,” in response to the president’s Adelson comments.
“He might have been a bit too frank for her tastes. She looked uncomfortable,” remarkedElectronic Intifada journalist Asa Winstanley on X.
Independent journalist Sam Husseini summarized Trump’s comments as “she bribed me and she loves Israel more than the US.”
A major part of the recent resurgence of the Palestine solidarity movement in the past two years has been shining a light on the pro-Israeli influence in US politics.
“By his own admission, the president of the United States is acting on the wishes of his top donors” like Adelson, wrote the account “AIPAC Out of US Politics” on social media. AIPAC Out of US Politics is a grassroots campaign recently launched by pro-Palestine activists in the United States, aiming to spotlight the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the US.
Quinnipiac University polling from September revealed that the share of registered US voters who believe that backing Israel aligns with their country’s national interests has dropped sharply over the 21 months of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Less than half of voters say they believe support for Israel aligns with US national interests, a sharp drop from 67% in December.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAVote Labour for Genocide.
Donald Trump enters the stage on the last day of the Republican National Convention (Screenshot via CBS News)
Former president Trump’s first speech following the attempted assassination against him was an appeal to workers from a pro-boss candidate
Former President Donald Trump, now officially the nominee from the Republican Party for the 2024 Presidential elections, gave an address to the Republican National Convention on its last night, on July 18.
His address was riddled with appeals to workers in the US, who are experiencing deep economic despair under the Biden administration (as they were during previous administrations). According to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, the vast majority (67%) of the over 220 million survey respondents claim to have difficulty paying for usual household expenses within the last seven days—no surprise, as grocery prices have risen nearly 27% since 2020.
Eugene Puryear, journalist with BreakThrough News and political analyst, said that the Republican appeal to workers is telling of the overall political climate in the country. “We see Biden and the Democratic Party talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ Trump, JD Vance, and the Republicans also talking about ‘working class, working class, working class,’ when clearly neither of these parties cares at all about the working class,” he stated. “If these two capitalist parties, who have access to the most extensive polling data, think that they have to appeal to the working class, as a class, in their campaign, even if it’s a fraudulent appeal, it confirms class consciousness is growing in the United States. As can be seen from the growing popularity of trade unions and socialism.”
However, the appeal to working people by the Republicans, is one that recognizes their hardship but does not present solutions that would in any way threaten their class interests. As showcased by Donald Trump at the convention, their approach is to misinform, misrepresent, look for scapegoats, and beat the drums of nationalist chauvinism.
Made in the USA
“We will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation. They come and do that. They plunder our nation,” Trump said. “The way they will sell their product in America is to build it in America, very simple. Build it in America and only in America… If you go back 20, 25 years they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68% of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them.”
Trump promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US through tariffs and reversing government regulations.
In swearing his commitment to “bringing manufacturing back to the US”, Trump targeted prominent union leader Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers. Trump essentially blames Fain for having “allowing” auto manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico.
“And right now as we speak, large factories, just started, are being built across the border in Mexico,” said Trump. “So, with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country, no tax, no anything. The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast.”
This attack on Fain may be based on his left-leaning political position rather than a supposed “defense of workers”.
The reason why manufacturing plants have largely moved to the Global South is clearly not because of strong union leaders, but because of corporate greed, and the increase in surplus value that capitalists can extract from cheaper labor in the Global South, ie globalization, a process which has been the driving force in the global economy for the last several decades. A central demand of the successful UAW strike last year in the “Big Three” auto manufacturers, Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, was in fact to reopen factories that had been closed down due to offshoring and globalization.
Wealth transfers to the rich
During his speech, Trump proudly touted his legacy of tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing pro-worker regulations. “The biggest tax cuts ever. The biggest regulation cuts ever… We did so much. We do so much,” he said.
Trump has already been president once, and as he proudly articulated, his record proves that his true loyalty lies with the ultra-rich, not with the working class. In 2017, Trump launched tax cuts for the rich that initiated one of the largest transfers of wealth from workers to the wealthy in US history—effectively a wealth transfer of USD 2 trillion. How did he manage this? Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 36% to 21%, and lowered the income tax rate from those in the highest bracket from 39.6% to 37%, and exempted people with up to USD 12 million from paying any taxes on the inheritance left to loved ones.
He indicated that he would go even further during his second term. “We’ll start paying off debt and start lowering taxes even further. We gave you the largest tax cut. We’ll do it more,” he promised.
Sacrificing workers and the planet, for profit
During his speech, Trump declared that he would address the cost of living crisis and soaring cost of energy by encouraging exploitation of the natural resources in the United States. “We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said to the convention hall.
“By slashing energy costs, we will in turn reduce the cost of transportation, manufacturing and all household goods. So much starts with energy. And remember, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy. We have it and China doesn’t.”
It is not new for Republican candidates to promise jobs and benefits for workers in exchange for striking down environmental regulations and violating Indigenous land rights, over uninhibited extraction of gas and oil in the United States. Trump in his 2016 campaign had triumphantly declared, “We’re preparing bold action to lift the restrictions on American energy…and we’re going to put our miners back to work.”
The Republican Party platform for 2024 states: “Under President Trump, the US became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.”
But is the drive to extract the earth’s resources necessarily compatible with protecting workers and jobs?
Already Congressional Republicans moved to block the enforcement of life-saving health regulations for coal miners.
If Trump and the Republican Party implement their drastic program, not only will the planet suffer—so will workers, who conservatives have historically left with the least protections possible. Trump implemented a variety of policies that undermined federal safety regulations, including slashing the amount of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) inspectors.
Trump enables tip stealing
Trump also made a big deal about the Republican Party’s proposal of eliminating taxes on tips, telling a confusing anecdote about a waitress he spoke to about the need for this policy. Trump seemed in disbelief that he had a meaningful political conversation with his waitress. “You know, most people who go out, they hire consultants. They pay them [millions] of dollars… I got my information from a very smart waitress. That’s better than spending millions of dollars.”
The Republican Party’s platform states regarding “no tax on tips”, “we will eliminate Taxes on Tips for millions of Restaurant and Hospitality Workers, and pursue additional Tax Cuts.”
How much good can “no tax on tips” do in an administration (Trump’s) which implemented a “tip stealing rule,” which made it easier for employers to pocket up to USD 5.8 billion worth of workers’ tips? Or which opposed any increase to the federal minimum wage?
So-called border “invasion” rhetoric divides working class
Trump spent most of his speech harping on policies that divide workers from one another, including a very fine line between recent immigrants, specifically from Venezuela and El Salvador, versus the rest of the working class. Trump and the Republicans have promised to carry out the largest mass deportation the country has ever seen. “We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
In an economy ruled by the corporate elite, are migrant workers the true enemies of US-born workers? Economists cite migrant workers as a key reason for job growth despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive raising of interest rates.
“There’s been something of a mystery—how are we continuing to get such extraordinary strong job growth with inflation still continuing to come down?’’ Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute and a former chief economist at the Labor Department, told PBS. “The immigration numbers being higher than what we had thought—that really does pretty much solve that puzzle.’’
The policies that are set to come from a second Trump term can only hurt working people. As labor journalist Alexandra Bradbury writes in Labor Notes, “In case there’s any doubt: billionaire Trump, who as an employer has fought unions and stiffed workers, and as a TV personality made ‘You’re fired’ his catchphrase, is not for the little guy.”
While workers in the US are increasingly feeling discouraged by what both the Republican and Democratic parties have to offer, many people are instead turning to alternative options. Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia, are running on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation on an explicitly socialist platform, and Dr. Jill Stein, running with the Green Party and Dr. Cornel West, running as an independent, are running on progressive platforms. Either way, most working class formations are gearing up for a strong fight back to the next presidential administration and their plans to shred the rights of the people.
Arundhati Roy has stood out as one of the most high-profile critics of Modi’s government, which has been accused of suppressing free speech. Photograph: TT News Agency/Alamy
Official from ruling BJP party allows action against Booker winner under controversial anti-terrorism law
Indian authorities have granted permission for the prosecution of the Booker prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy over comments she made about Kashmir at an event in 2010.
The top official in the Delhi administration, VK Saxena, gave the go-ahead for legal action against Roy, whose novel The God of Small Things won the Booker prize in 1997, under anti-terrorism legislation, alongside a former university professor, Sheikh Showkat Hussain.
The action against Roy and Hussain, a former professor at the Central University of Kashmir, is over allegedly making provocative speeches, the Press Trust of India reports, citing officials from Saxena’s office.
Saxena, who is serving as the lieutenant governor, is a politician from prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP.
While Roy, 62, is one of India’s most famous living authors, her activism and outspoken criticism of Modi’s government, including over laws targeting minorities, have made her a polarising figure in India.
“As Jewish New Yorkers committed to racial justice, we believe apartheid is indefensible,” said one protester. “Palestinians deserve to live with dignity and freedom.”
A pair of democratic socialist New York state lawmakers joined more than 250 Jewish demonstrators and allies on Friday afternoon outside United Nations headquarters in Midtown Manhattan to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s General Assembly speech defending his far-right government’s apartheid policies.
New York state Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-25) and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-36) joined activists from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Adalah Justice Project, and other human rights defenders as Netanyahu—whose government is widely considered the most extreme in Israeli history—addressed world leaders inside the U.N. building.
During his speech, Netanyahu displayed a map of the Middle East without Palestine, while claiming he has “long sought to make peace with the Palestinians.”
The protesters said there can be no peace under apartheid.
“As Jewish New Yorkers committed to racial justice, we believe apartheid is indefensible,” asserted JVP’s Jay Saper. “Palestinians deserve to live with dignity and freedom.”
Brisport—who in May introduced the Not On Our Dime! Act, which would prevent state-registered charities from funding violations of the Geneva Convention by Israeli settlers—said: “In Brooklyn we have a saying, ‘Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.’ Netanyahu has spread hate and displacement. And that has no place in our city.”
The senator has previously drawn attention to the more than 700,000 Israelis living in over 250 illegal settlements built on Palestinian land in the unlawfully occupied West Bank, with the backing of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Many of the illegal colonies are funded by New York-based organizations.
Last year, the Israeli government forcibly displaced more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in what many critics have called acts of ethnic cleansing. Hundreds more Palestinians have been displaced this year to make way for Jewish settler-colonists.
There have also been multiple deadly settler rampages through Palestinian towns this year, revenge attacks that a wide range of critics—from Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to conservative U.S. Jewish groups and an IDF general—called “pogroms.”
Jews for Palestinian Freedom Say: Netanyahu Not Welcome Here, All Out to the U.N., Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, East 47th Street & 2nd Avenue, Manhattan, New York, NY, 4:38pm, Friday, September 22, 2023.#nyc nyc h/t: @protest_nyc
“We should refuse to host a man who has openly lauded the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, who gave the green light for bombing campaigns that left large parts of Gaza uninhabitable, a man who approved killing sprees that riddled streets with Palestinians wounded and killed,” Adalah Justice Project communications and strategy director Sumaya Awad told the demonstrators.
According to the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 200 Palestinians this year, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians since the final year of the second intifada, or general uprising, in 2005. The advocacy group Defense for Children International Palestine says 45 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis so far this year. At least 30 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian militant attacks in 2023.
Through it all, the U.S. continues to give Israel—the 13th-wealthiest nation in the world per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund—billions of dollars in nearly unconditional annual aid.
"Today, @jvpliveNY is taking to the streets to protest Netanyahu and Israel's apartheid government. It's time the US government ends the flow of $3.8 billion—every single year—to the Israeli military."
“Earlier today, someone asked me, ‘Why should New Yorkers care about what’s happening halfway across the world in Israel?'” said Mamdani, a co-sponsor of Brisport’s bill. “There are 3.8 billion reasons for us to care: Same as the number of dollars that go from the U.S. to Israel in military aid every year.”
“As Americans,” he added, “this is a fight that recognizes our complicity in this apartheid regime in Israel.”
