Sunday, February 16, 2025, 3:00 PM
In an ongoing policy of ethnic cleansing, Israeli authorities uproot fruit trees, raze farmland, destroy rainwater reservoirs and irrigation systems, and demolish homes. Meanwhile increasingly emboldened Israeli settlers — protected by soldiers — taunt families and vandalize property. The ultimate goal is to force Palestinians off the land. With the world’s attention diverted by the war on Gaza, displacement of West Bank Palestinians has increased dramatically in the past year.

U.S. President Donald Trump is at it again. He made another bombastic Hamas last Monday threat to cancel the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal when he declared that if Hamas does not release all remaining hostages by noon on Saturday, the ceasefire should be canceled and the war in Gaza renewed.

To begin with, Trump has nothing to do with the ceasefire deal, even though he claimed credit for brokering the ceasefire. However, the deal was reached:

* Before Trump took office

* After more than year of negotiation. 

* Heroic resistance by Palestinian factions.

* Gazans instance to rather die from bombs and starvation than leaving. 

Netanyahu does not care about the hostages. He only cares about his coalition, staying in power, and not going to jail. He threatened war and his sidekick Trump irresponsibly followed suit. Trump was misled by Netanyahu that most of the hostages held in Gaza were dead. 

Neither before or after Trump has taken office did he express interest about the safety and welfare of the hostages, whether they were Palestinians or Israeli or even Americans to that effect. 

The news daily can be disheartening under this apartheid system: Raids on
bookshops and confiscating books, more ethnic cleansing, more
tortured Palestinian prisoners, more destruction of refugee camps (here in
West Bank), more lock-ups, more lies, .. We in Palestine remain struggling
to survive against all odds: An American empire run by a petty egomaniac
intent on making the rich richer, a Zionist movement and its followers who
commit worse atrocities than Nazis, collaborative Arab regimes that do not
really pay attention to their people, a web of lies from media, a
palestinian authority that remains trapped like a mouse on a glue trap
(Oslo) unable or unwilling to extricate itself, leaders who value their
position over their children's future, a populace that has been
domesticated and values merely watching and consuming (junk). And an apex
of absurdity a world leader (Trump) controlled by another leader
(Netanyahu) and both believing that the poor and weak are "losers" and
their oppressors/the rich are "winners".

By contrast there are millions of good people around the world who are

Here’s a strange question: Why is Elon Musk lying about Lutherans?

The richest man on earth recently forced good people across the country to interrupt their community work to respond to his lies and threats.

Lutheran social service agencies offer crucial assistance related to adoption, foster care, domestic violence, and more. They also support immigrants and refugees, helping new Americans learn English, find homes and jobs, and settle into their new communities.

Like many nonprofits, they often get federal support to offer this help.

But in early February, as Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” was forcing its way into government, right-wing activist Michael Flynn posted on social media that federal contracts with Lutheran social services organizations amounted to “money laundering.”

Musk responded that DOGE was “rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”