If there is anyone out there who seriously doubts that it is Israel that is in the driver’s seat when it comes to its relationship with the United States, last week’s filing of criminal charges directed against Hamas’s leadership should be a wake-up call. The seven-count criminal complaint was filed in a federal court in New York City on September 2nd. It includes charges such as conspiracy to bomb a public space, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in deaths, use of weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to and also murdering US nationals and conspiracy to finance terrorism. The document also claims that Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been providing financial support, weapons, to include rockets, as well as military supplies to Hamas for use in their attacks on Israel. The document’s legitimacy, though one hesitates to use the word, is based on the assumption that the US has a mandate to go after terrorists and their supporters, even to kill them, anywhere in the world when and if it considers it appropriate to do so.

To spread the good news of the new development, the malignant dwarf United States Attorney General Merrick Garland even emerged from his closet where he has been hiding since he traveled to Ukraine to threaten Russia in September 2023. He produced a video statement that revealed his thinking re the latest attempt to regulate the behavior of the rest of the world using American courts. Garland said, without presenting any evidence, that Hamas had been guilty of “financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States… [while also seeking] to destroy the state of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim.” Garland also described the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas, in which 43 American-Israelis allegedly died, in graphic terms that have since been exposed as nearly all Israeli propaganda lies. He claimed, the group had “murdered entire families” as “the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. They murdered the elderly and they murdered young children. They weaponized sexual violence against women, including rape and genital mutilation. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.” In reality, of course, many if not most of those who died were killed by friendly fire when Israel staged its counter-attack, using helicopter gunships and tanks to kill anyone on the ground indiscriminately. Nevertheless, the mainstream media continues to repeat the false narrative surrounding October 7th, that Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis. And the tales of torture and rape apply mostly to the activity of Israeli soldiers vis-à-vis Palestinian prisoners. Many released hostages have actually confirmed that they were treated well by Hamas.

To please Israel, the US originally declared Hamas to be a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997. The going after Hamas at this time is undoubtedly a gift to Israel as well as to American Jewish political megadonors, who provide a majority of Democratic Party political funding as well as an increasing share of what will go to Donald Trump’s Republicans. Filing charges is nevertheless largely theatrical in nature as Garland’s FBI would have a hard time finding and arresting six men identified as the group’s leadership, three of whom are dead. It includes its current leader Yahya Sinwar, whose whereabouts are unknown as he is hiding in a tunnel somewhere. Other Hamas leaders charged include former leader Ismail Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of the organization’s armed wing; Khaled Mashaal, who leads the group outside Gaza and the West Bank; along with Mohammed Deif and Ali Baraka. Haniyeh, Issa and Deif have all been reported killed in the past few months in attacks by Israel. As the men named who still are alive are unlikely to be arrested by the US, one has to wonder if the filing at this time is quite possibly intended to set the stage for a federal government bid to seek, arrest and punish Americans who support the group and its activities to free its land from the Zionist invaders as “terrorism supporters.” It could also be used to attack supporters of the Palestinian cause more generically.

If terror is what it is all about and the US is enforcing its “rules based international order” to encompass all terrorists anywhere, it is ironic, of course, that Israel is not being targeted as well as Hamas. It is Israel that assassinates foreign officials, bombs countries that it is not at war with, and is openly carrying out a series of war crimes that amount to a genocide in Gaza that may already have killed nearly 200,000 Palestinians. Meanwhile, Hamas is acting legally under international law in using force to overturn the completely illegal Jewish occupation of what was once Palestine. The United States clearly has no interest in doing what it takes, i.e. stopping the flow of money and weapons to Israel, to prevent the completion of an openly embraced Israeli government plan to deport or kill all or nearly all Palestinians remaining in a huge “cleansing operation” in what was once their country. As Caitlin Johnstone has observed the United States government and those of many Europeans appear unwilling to react and seem in practice to believe the Talmudic assertion that Palestinians and non-Jews in general are not quite human.

The media reporting the new development is, inevitably, taking pains to support the government initiative by describing how the US action is in response to the brutal attack on Israel engineered by Hamas on October 7th. Curiously, the US government and media keep using the same tired rhetoric to demonize the Palestinians while only rarely mentioning or condemning what preceded that event or expressing any sympathy for the oppressed and largely unarmed men, women, and children trapped in a constantly tightening ring of death in Gaza.

The reason for the timing of the US charges is not immediately clear but it might be considered a move to obtain for Kamala Harris more support from the powerful and wealthy Israel Lobby. Certainly however, the recent discovery in Gaza of the body of an Israeli-American hostage and five others might have called for an “extra step” against evil Hamas, indicating that the US does not forgive or forget. One might suggest that the deaths of the six hostages might itself be a contrived event in that the claim that the victims were killed by pistol shots from Hamas was made through an Israeli army autopsy. Bear in mind that the Israelis lie about everything, so that might be a cover story or a form of false flag. Hamas has indeed claimed that if bullets were involved they were “made in Israel.” It is perhaps more likely that the six were killed in an Israeli bombing and their deaths are being manipulated by the Benjamin Netanyahu government for political reasons. Certainly, Israel has itself killed more than its share of the Jewish hostages, witness the three escaped hostages some months ago who were waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew but were nevertheless shot dead by the Israeli army.

Garland did indeed comment on the Israeli-American killed in the incident, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, saying “We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’ brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism.” President Joe Biden also condemned Goldberg-Polin’s killing, too, saying it was “as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.”

Assuming that the criminal case against Hamas is a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris contrivance to bring in votes and money, what will Donald Trump do to match it? Indications are that the Republican Jewish Caucus which is meeting in Las Vegas will declare the GOP to be the only “true” pro-Israel party, which will be combined with an endorsement of Netanyahu’s “total victory” policies and blaming the Democrats for the death of Israeli hostages. And there have already been reports circulating that Miriam Adelson, widow of ex-casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has dangled $100 million in front of Trump to secure his promise to guarantee US support for Israel to annex all of Palestine, which would also include expelling most or maybe even all the Palestinians. So, that given, who should suddenly pop-up but ex-Trump personal lawyer David Friedman, who served as Ambassador to Israel under the Trumpster from 2017-2021. He has called for the US to fund the Israeli annexation of the West Bank in a book entitled One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that was released on September 2nd.

Friedman, who was a total yes-man for Israel while Ambassador, explains that Israel needs financial assistance “to assert and maintain its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the illegally Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank. He suggests that the next Republican administration could redirect to Jerusalem $1 billion already budgeted and intended to provide aid to Palestinians. “The easiest bucket to tap into and reposition is that of the United States.” Friedman said the US should support the Israeli annexation “based first and foremost on biblical prophecies and values.” He added that he intends to discuss the proposal with Donald Trump.

So, there we go folks. There is only one political party in the United States and that is the party that takes direction from Israel. End of story for the Republic that we once upon a time lived in.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.