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November 12, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Gaza’s Board of Pieces Morphs into War on Iran

**Pulitzer prize-winning photo by Palestinian** Saher Alghorra. The family, pictured amidst the rubble of Beit Lahia, shares a meal to break the Ramadan fast in the devastated remains of their home. Israel violates agreements with daily violence, starvation, eviction, and killing of Palestinians. Prizes such as the Pulitzer magnify the hypocrisy that the world will honor recording such suffering but refuse to take real action to end it.

By Chris Hedges

Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is a mirage, a conjuring trick in which peace is unilaterally declared as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and brings the genocide to its grim conclusion.

There is no ceasefire in Gaza. There is no functioning “Board of Peace.” There is no roadmap to ending the genocide or mechanism to creation of a Palestinian state. Israel has refused to implement or abide by any of the conditions of Trump’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” since its inception. It won’t begin to honor them now.

There is only genocide. It changes shape and intensity. But it does not change its essence.

Trump’s plan is a mirage, a conjuring trick, a fleeting vanity project. In October 2025, Trump gathered world leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to announce his peace deal, which he said “took 3,000 years” to achieve, before disappearing offstage. The peace plan, like the smoke-and-mirrors act that defines the Trump era, has been relegated to a dark memory hole, as our P. T. Barnum commander-in-chief trots out another bloody spectacle: war on Iran.

Trump announced an “historic” agreement on July 30 that entailed “the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.” He called the 15-point plan, credited to the Board of Peace, which has no Palestinian representatives and installed Trump as its chair for life, “a monumental step toward lasting peace and security.”

But Hamas swiftly qualified the demand by saying that handing over its heavy weapons was only contingent on Israel ending “all forms of” its “aggression” and withdrawing its occupying forces from Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu blithely dismissed Trump’s proposal. Israel, he said, will not withdraw its forces until Hamas is “genuinely” disarmed. Read this to mean never.

The peace plan — which was endorsed by the United Nations in a stunning disregard for Palestinian sovereignty and international law — was never more than a publicity stunt. It exists to provide Israel with the diplomatic cover to bring the genocide to its intended conclusion — the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

Since the “ceasefire” went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, two months before the Trump “peace plan” was formalized, Israel has killed 1,258 Palestinians in Gaza.

Ceasefires with these body counts are not ceasefires. Once Gaza is emptied, the West Bank will be next. Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, [this] one is the least serious.

Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire began — which took place — it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. That is the point.

“It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand,” I wrote when the plan was announced. “Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only ‘rhetoric.’”

Israel, I noted, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

“Who decides if Hamas has ‘fully implemented’ the agreement?” I asked. “Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?”

“How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the [United Nations] International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?” I continued. “How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?”

“Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an ‘International Stabilization Force,’ a polite term for foreign occupation?” I wrote. “Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?”

Ninety-two percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged, according to UN estimates. The Strip has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble, including nine million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, and heavy metals, in addition to unexploded ordnance, and an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses. Israel has demolished some 1,500 buildings since the ceasefire went into effect.

How can anyone believe that Israel, intent on leveling Gaza, will reverse itself to allow Palestinians to rebuild what it spent so much time, money and blood to destroy?

Retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former head of Israel’s National Security Council, echoed this sentiment [August 9] on Israel’s 103FM radio station. “Israel has no interest in Gaza being rebuilt, it is better for us that it be destroyed for generations to come,” Eiland said.

“The greater the despair in Gaza and the greater the destruction, and the greater the monument to what they did on October 7, years to come, that is good,” he added.

Israel will never permit reconstruction in Gaza. It will never restore health facilities or water treatment systems. It will never turn over authority to an International Stabilization Force (ISF), one which only exists on paper. It will never permit the creation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza or agree to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.
Trump promises a Gaza Riviera that will function as a “special economic zone” — a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Thiel-backed charter city in Honduras. But Trump’s Gaza Riviera is nothing more than a pathetic temporary camp along the ceasefire line near Rafah. It consists of “portable cabins” under Palestinian administration and a tiny international security force, according to The Guardian. It is touted, in desperation, as a pilot scheme.

Despite some $17 billion in pledges to the Board of Peace, as of late May 2026 not a single dollar had reached its official World Bank-administered Gaza reconstruction fund. Only about $23 million had been received through alternative channels for operating costs, with a further $100 million pledged by the United Arab Emirates that was earmarked for a future Palestinian police force, though it remains “frozen,” according to The Financial Times.

This amounts to about $0.72 for every $100 pledged.

Given the heavy economic costs incurred by Gulf and regional donor countries because of the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran — including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the UAE — it is very unlikely the pledged funds will be paid.

The European Union, the U.N. and the World Bank, in an assessment published in April, estimated that $71.4 billion is needed for recovery in Gaza.

The Board of Peace, for which Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov is the principal official, is desperate for funds. The U.S. attempted to pilfer $11 billion in Palestinian tax revenues and frozen bank funds withheld by Israel, which was rejected by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli withholding of tax revenues has deepened the ⁠financial crisis in the West Bank, with the PA slashing salaries in half of thousands of Palestinian civil servants. The ISF, a multinational peacekeeping force that is supposed to be composed of troops from Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Uganda and Indonesia — the latter of which has since suspended its commitment, is also nonexistent.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements and National Missions Minister Orit Strook have demanded that Netanyahu reconvene the Security Cabinet so that its July 26 vote authorizing the entry of ISF troops can be reversed.

The entire Trump project is an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy.

Anyone in Gaza who strays close to the Yellow Line — which is constantly shifting and poorly marked — is shot. Police are shot. Hamas leaders, along with their families — including Azzam Khalil al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya who was the head of Hamas’ political bureau and the faction’s lead negotiator — are assassinated. Palestinians lining up at food kitchens and those handing out aid to them are obliterated by Israeli bombs. Israel restricts food and humanitarian aid to half of the trucks stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Palestinians, 90 percent of whom have been displaced, continue to live in tent cities amid rubble and open pools of raw sewage. They lack toilets or electricity. There is an 80 percent unemployment rate. Tens of thousands of children suffer acute malnutrition in Gaza. A child, on average, is killed every day.

Tacitus understood. They made a desert and call it peace.

Trump’s plan was not designed to end the conflict. It was not designed to provide an equitable settlement for the Palestinians. It was not designed to halt the ongoing mass slaughter. It was designed to allow Israel to complete its genocide and drive surviving Palestinians from their homeland — the culmination
of the Zionist dream.

Trump, however obtuse, has at least figured this out.

— Hedges wrote this piece for his Chris Hedges Report, Aug. 10, 2026

August 1, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Unavailable, Unethical, Unhinged: U.S. H-bomb Unit in Germany Should be First to Go

Anti-nuclear activists placed sunflowers, a symbol of nuclear disarmament, in the fence at Germany’s Büchel air base Thur., July 24, marking the 30th anniversary of protests at the base. Photo by Luthar Lange.

For the last four years, the U.S. hydrogen bombs stationed in Germany have been stranded at Büchel Air Force Base, southeast of Cologne, unavailable to the fighter jets and pilots that are rehearsed and ready to detonate them against Russia. These WMD have been unusable for nuclear attacks or threats — i.e. ‘deterrence’ — since 2022 because the base is getting a makeover.

The deterrence that the U.S. and Germany say the nuclear weapons provide disappeared in 2022 when massive remodeling of the base began. A total rebuild of its runway and more forced the base’s 46 Tornado fighter jets to be moved to Nörvenich Air Base, 28 miles away, to practice their take-offs, attacks, and landings.

Because the base’s reconstruction has left the ‘nuclear deterrent’ unavailable for years, the unoccupied and redundant U.S. Air Force’s 702d Munitions Support Squadron (or MUNSS) should be the first unit withdrawn from Germany under Trump’s recent orders.

The Department of War says the 702d MUNSS is needed because it ‘receives, stores, maintains, controls, and employs war reserve munitions in support of [Büchel’s] 33rd Tactical Air Wing’s role in NATO’s strike mission.’ This, of course, has been mission impossible for at least four years, a pause that means relief from the self-destructive threat of nuclear strike missions aimed at Russia.

The ‘Commander’s Welcome Letter’ for new arrivals, on Büchel’s website, explains: ‘The 702d consists of approximately 170 personnel across 26 different Air Force Specialties, responsible for maintaining, operating, and securing $6B [billion] in Protection Level-1 assets….’ And according to a Shaw Air Force Base manual, ‘Protection Level 1’ resources ‘include nuclear weapons and … systems critical to the success of active nuclear missions….’

Büchel’s nuclear mission involves twenty U.S. B61 H-bombs — the only remaining nuclear weapons in Germany — which are polished on base by the 702d MUNSS. This arsenal is the crux of a so-called ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangement between the United States and Germany (and four other NATO countries). But neither ‘active nuclear missions’ nor any other kind have flown out of Büchel since 2022, leaving the 702d on holiday.

Declaring he would reduce Germany’s U.S. military presence, Trump said May 2, “We are going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” Liana Fix reported for the Council on Foreign Relations that 5,000 troops were about one-seventh of the roughly 38,000 GIs currently stationed in Deutschland. Secretary Hegseth promptly had the Pentagon claim that the decision on withdrawals had followed a ‘thorough review of the force posture in Europe.’

The actual fatuous reason for the potential drawdown was a Trump tantrum over German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s derisive public assessment that the U.S. was being ‘humiliated’ by Iran. Merz said to students last April, ‘[T]he Iranians are … letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result. An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership’, The Guardian reported. Trump’s reactionary fit opens a door to the long-sought-after removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany, something that the Parliament/Bundestag — moved by mass public pressure — formally instructed the government to pursue in March 2010.

For decades, Tactical Air Force Wing 33 has reportedly been operating 46 Tornado jet fighters. The Tornados are flown by German pilots who train to carry the U.S. H-bombs and to detonate them against Russia if a U.S. president so orders. While the Tornados returned to Büchel this year, the first F-35s are set to replace them starting in 2027.

Indeed, the two billion Euros being spent on the Büchel rebuild (widening taxiways and airfield intersections; new runway; new cargo apron; and a new so-called fighter jet ‘campus’), is in preparation for the delivery of new U.S. ‘B61-model 12’ thermonuclear bombs, and the arrival of new F-35A fighter-jets to carry them.

The F-35s from Lockheed Martin cost Germany over ten billion euros, or $11.4 billion, according to Aero.de, Dec. 12, 2022. And Aero reported June 24, 2025, that the F-35s are ‘intended to support Germany’s so-called “nuclear sharing” program — a NATO deterrence strategy under which allies have access to U.S. nuclear weapons in the event of war.’

If there is any seriousness to Trump’s erratic outburst about troop withdrawals from Germany, nothing could be more reassuring, more stabilizing, and more de-escalatory than throwing out the 702d MUNSS along with its nuclear suicide mission.

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, a peace and environmental justice group in Wisconsin, and edits its newsletter.

June 5, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Radiation Exposure Rule Changes to Increase Cancer Rates

PLEASE SEND COMMENTS TO THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

John LaForge

Image by Dan Meyers.

Among the hundreds of Trump White House executive orders (EO), No. 14300 directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to weaken its long-standing radiation exposure rule, “Standards for Protection Against Radiation.

Based on the EO, an upcoming NRC rule change calls for setting a radiation exposure “threshold” or level below which your exposure to ionizing radiation “would not count” or would be considered “never to have occurred.”

The proposed NRC exposure rules will be 5-100 times less protective than current law, and will likely be based on the archaic “Reference Man” standard, the grossly outdated radiation risk model. “Reference Man” represents a young adult male, and so the standard both ignores and denies the greater harm exposure to the fetus, to infants, to children, and to women, done by a given radiation exposure.

The EO would impact people in thousands of communities surrounding the 94 operating nuclear reactors in the United States by increasing exposure to radiation from routine offsite emissions: from reactors, nuclear weapons facilities, nuclear material transport systems, and nuclear waste sites.

Forty citizen organizations, including the national nonprofit Physicians for Social Responsibility, wrote to federal officials warning of public health consequences of Trump’s EO. The joint letter points out sharply disproportionate impacts on women and children from weakening existing radiation exposure standards and calls for strengthening them.

But vested interests in the nuclear industry want to save money by attacking the basis of NRC regulation, the “Linear No Threshold” or LNT risk model.

Decades of published peer-reviewed research support the LNT model, including the authoritative National Academy of Sciences report “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, VII Phase 2” (BEIR VII), as well as many studies of nuclear industry and nuclear weapons production workers.

One industry-sponsored “Petition for Rule-making” appealed to the NRC in 2015 and it triggered a formal review of the ‘no threshold” model. The NRC then soundly rejected the petition in a 2021 decision. In fact, the NRC reaffirmed the scientific basis and global consensus that no radiation exposure is so small as to carry no risk of harmful effects. Well-documented findings show that even exposures so small that they cannot be measured may, sometimes, result in fatal cancer. Reducing the risk to zero requires zero radiation exposure.

A detailed analysis of the proposed rule change and its dire consequences was published by Princeton’s Frank von Hippel in the May 27 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. For more about sending comments to the NRC, see: www.nirs.org/radiation or www.radiationproject.org/online .

NRC rule changes, and its abandonment of the no-threshold model, are scheduled to be issued as a proposal on June 8, 2026, marking the start of a 30-day public comment period. We must oppose this dangerous deregulation and demand more, not less, protection against radiation. ###

— A version of this article appeared at Counterpunch, June 5-7, 2026

February 24, 2026 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Illegal Orders and the Criminals Who Give Them

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly with John Stewart on The Daily Show Jan. 6, 2026

by John LaForge

The president and secretary of defense have failed in their effort to see to the execution of six members of Congress after the lawmakers urged members of the U.S. military to obey the law.

The six Democrats — Representatives Jason Crow of Colo., Maggie Goodlander and Chris Deluzio of New Hampshire, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, as well as Senators Mark Kelly of Ariz. and Elissa Slotkin of Mich. — aired a 90-second video last year reminding military personnel that they “must refuse illegal orders.”

When the video aired, President Trump called for the execution of all six. Then, Washington, DC prosecutors sought to charge all six with federal crimes, including treason, sedition, and subversive activities – some of which can carry the death penalty.

Of course, urging the rank and file to obey military law and the laws of war is not a criminal act or a violation of any law, so [on February 10] a grand jury refused to indict the lawmakers.

Senator Kelly is a former astronaut and commander of the Space Shuttle, and a retired Navy Captain with 25 years in the Marine Corps. Sen. Kelly spoke to John Stewart on The Daily Show about the video and reported, “We said, ‘don’t follow illegal orders.’ We stated the law. Donald Trump didn’t like that,” and he “called for me to be hanged.”

The president’s berserker reaction speaks volumes about the administration’s hair-raising criminality and its pursuit of police state impunity. (As when VP Vance claimed falsely that ICE agent Jonathan Ross, who murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis, is “protected by absolute immunity.”) Because the lawmakers’ video message directly implied that certain orders from today’s chain of command (headed by Hegseth and Trump) could be illegal — orders, say, to kill civilians in the open sea, in Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, in Nigeria, Minneapolis, or elsewhere — the two TV stars lost their heads.

At the time of the video’s airing, Hegseth hurried to the press and lied outright about the lawmakers’ message. He said Sen. Kelly had told military personnel “not to follow lawful orders” — knowing full well that his blistering falsehood would go viral and be reported as fact. The Pentagon’s formal Jan. 5 memo attacking Sen. Kelly corrected Hegseth’s lying and noted that the senator had said, “You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders.” To John Stewart, Sen. Kelly confirmed, “It’s what we said, and that’s the law.”

Leave it to the twice-impeached, convicted felon and sex predator Trump — and to Hegseth, who once doled out $50,000 to quash a sexual assault accusation — to be politically apoplectic by the video’s insinuation that the administration’s unconstitutional and undeclared acts of war around the world and across the United States might be criminal and require lawful military insubordination.

The gruesome irony of Mr. Trump’s “they should be hanged” outburst is that, after WWII, Nazi war criminals were hanged for following illegal orders. The defendants claimed “superior orders” as justification, but prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunals, led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, thundered in response: “Following orders” is no defense.

Legally, the same goes for U.S. military attacks on civilians in Iraq or Caracas, civilians in fast boats, or attacks on sovereign independent states, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria that have not attacked the U.S. In opening the military tribunals in Germany, Justice Jackson spoke partly to the victorious Allied powers who presided, warning: “While this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and, if it is to serve a useful purpose, it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. … [T]he record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.”

Recent U.S. military aggression in Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, and on the High Seas seems to violate the laws of armed conflict and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is partly based on the Nuremberg Judgment. And at least Admiral Alvin Holsey, who was Commander of the U.S. Southern Command and in charge of missile attacks on civilian fast boats, seems to have seen the writing on the wall. Adm. Holsey offered to resign and left last December after reportedly questioning Pete “kill them all” Hegseth about the legality of the attacks. ###

John LaForge is a Co-director of Nukewatch, and edits its newsletter. This comment was first published at Counterpunch (https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/13/illegal-orders-and-the-criminals-who-give-them/)

December 6, 2025 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Venezuela, wars of aggression, and Nuremberg law

By John LaForge, for Nukewatch

“To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

These words, spoken by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the opening of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal of Nazi war criminals, might give pause to White House and Pentagon strategists who appear anxious to launch a U.S. war on Venezuela, if only they had a fear of violating international law.

With a U.S. President who self-enriches and hurls insults like a gangland mob boss, it’s become routine to watch the White House orchestrate criminal acts in broad daylight: kidnapping college students using masked agents and unmarked vans; ordering mass arrests and detention of Spanish speakers without charges; flying kidnapped persons in chains to foreign countries and foreign prisons without due process or appeal rights; blowing up dozens of unknown persons in Caribbean fast boats and broadcasting the murders like a bloody video arcade.

The Trump Administration’s vicious crime spree in the Caribbean, and its videotaped made-for-TV propaganda, appears to be the conditioning of public opinion regarding state-sponsored killing of nameless suspects. At the same time, the yahoo murders may be a new version of the Pentagon’s endless “war on terrorism.” The civilian fast boat victims being killed are of course labeled “terrorists”” the broad-brush painting of all targeted persons or groups which is precisely where George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four begins at page one. “Terrorist” is the universally applicable smear and epithet that justifies any and all manner of political and military murder.

Last weekend the gangster prez hinted at possible U.S. military strikes inside Venezuelan territory, and last week the White House declared Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to be the “head of a foreign terrorist organization.”

This patent absurdity is an echo of the State Department’s February decision to return Cuba to the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, and is reminiscent of drug trafficking charges leveled against President Manuel Noriega of Panama as a pretext for the 1990 U.S. military invasion of his country. Demonizing the state and heads of state to be attacked is historically a necessary precursor to all such U.S. invasions, be it Vietnam, Panama, Somalia, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or Syria.

Outlawing not only aggression but preparing aggression

Significantly, Justice Jackson and the Nuremberg Tribunal went far beyond condemning wars of aggression as the “supreme international crime.” The Nuremberg Charter, Tribunal and Judgment explicitly set out to criminalize the inchoate crimes of planning and preparing illegal wars.

In his opening statement at trial, Justice Jackson said: “A fundamental provision of the Charter is that to plan, prepare, initiate, or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances, or to conspire or participate in a common plan to do so, is a crime.” (This then-new binding preventative language may have moved the U.S. War Department in 1947 to change its name to the Department of Defense.)

Nuremberg’s U.S.-sponsored and binding international prohibition of military “plans and preparations” for wars of aggression is being blown to bits like the boats in the Caribbean, shredded by the Navy’s string of high-tech multiple murders.

President Trump said on Sept. 5, “I sort of made up my mind” about initiating U.S. war on Venezuela. While Venezuela has not attacked or threatened the United States, the Pentagon has 15,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors, an aircraft carrier battle group with its 75 fighter jets, seven Navy warships including missile-firing destroyers, and a Special Forces Operations “mother ship” positioned in the Caribbean. And the naval armada has even been dubbed “Operation Southern Spear” rather than “Southern Shield” by a Secretary of Defense who’d prefer being titled the far uglier and more menacing Secretary of War.

The White House claims to justify its massive tinder box of war machinery with obvious lies about fighting U.S. fentanyl deaths which are being caused by “narco-terrorists” and “unlawful combatants” from Venezuela. That country’s 300 billion barrels in oil reserves are never spoken of publicly by President Drill Baby, but U.S. corporate control of this gargantuan prize is the only reason the White House promotes the fiction that U.S. drug problems come from anywhere other than Mexico, Columbia, and Afghanistan.

Mohandas Gandhi reminded us of the very least that we should expect of ourselves when inside a tyrannical political environment powered by a firehose of lies. “The first principle of valid political action in such a society then becomes non-cooperation with its disorder, its injustices, and more particularly with its deep commitment to untruth.” ###

— this commentary was syndicated by PeaceVoice, December 4, 2025.

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