TV News LIES

While the world watched the pomp of Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing, the US was turning up the pressure thousands of miles away. Its oil blockade has plunged Cuba into a humanitarian crisis, sparking nationwide blackouts that have prompted rare protests, closing schools and universities and leaving hospitals battling to treat patients.

Surveillance flights are circling. US media reported this weekend that federal prosecutors are preparing an indictment for Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president and brother of Fidel. Mr Trump has casually observed, while bragging about the kidnapping of Venezuela’s then leader Nicolás Maduro in January, that “Cuba is next”.

A military assault on Havana would be vastly more fraught for the US – even without the war on Iran – and disastrous for Cubans. Washington hopes that threats and privation will be sufficient. UN experts warn that the blockade is unlawful, puts human rights at risk and may amount to collective punishment. The government admitted on Wednesday that fuel oil had run out.

Tourism has collapsed. The Canadian mining company Sherritt pulled out of a joint venture and countries have axed their contracts for Cuban doctors – a vital source of income for the island, and trained medical staff for others. Havana may hope that it can stagger on. But Mr Trump is not patient.

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The meaning of the term “ceasefire” should be self‑evident. Yet Israel’s strikes have killed scores of people in Lebanon since it agreed a truce with Hezbollah under pressure from the US, with the two sides trading fire. There was a strike on Beirut on Wednesday. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would be delighted to resume war with Iran. But it is wary of Donald Trump’s wrath as he seeks an exit from the conflict.

In Gaza, the Israeli military has killed more than 800 people since the truce there was declared in October, striking almost every day. This, too, is not a true ceasefire but a de-escalation, however necessary. Lethal Israeli attacks on an engineer and drivers transporting water have intensified the water crisis that is fuelling the spread of infectious diseases; Médecins Sans Frontières has called the weaponisation of water supplies a campaign of collective punishment.

Never mind the estimated $70bn cost of reconstruction; homes are still being flattened. Families in tents face a rat infestation. Essential medicines are unavailable. Hospitals and schools lie in ruins. An analysis of the war’s impact on education described children feeling “like the living dead”.

Israel agreed to end attacks, massively increase the aid allowed into the territory and withdraw its forces to within a “yellow line” – still accounting for 53% of the territory. Yet strikes have continued, aid flows yo-yo and essential items are blocked on the claim that they are “dual use”.

The military has expanded its zone of control substantially – and the unmarked surrounding area in which Palestinians are considered legitimate targets. Israel’s Army Radio has said that military leaders are pushing to resume the war.

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The president of the United States threatened this week to commit genocide against Iran. As Israel engages in continued bombing in Lebanon, killing more than 200 people in a single day, that fact must never be scrubbed away, not least because there is no guarantee the threat will not be revived. But as we descend towards the abyss, we need to understand where our fall began.

“A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Donald Trump wrote on Tuesday. Just over a year ago, he announced: “A civilisation has been wiped out in Gaza.” The connection is not hard to trace. Trump knew Gaza had been razed by Israel, insisting it was “not a place for people to be living”. When he joined forces with the perpetrator of that genocide in an illegal war on Iran, the apocalyptic rubble of Gaza became a template.

For two and a half years, western politicians and media outlets normalised Israel’s wholesale shredding of international law. Opponents of the genocide in Gaza warned this would unleash a boundless violence. They were right.

The US-Israeli war on Iran began with the mass killing of 175 people, most of them schoolgirls, in the city of Minab. When it happened, there were hardly any outraged front pages, nor nearly enough strong denunciations of the US from western leaders. But what did we expect? The west had already normalised the killing of more than 20,000 Palestinian children. Many were incinerated in their beds; others deliberately shot in the head, chest and genitals, according to western doctors who served in Gaza. Now 763 Iranian schools are reportedly damaged or destroyed – but did the west not facilitate the same fate for almost every single school in Gaza?

According to the Iranian Red Crescent, 316 medical centres have also been severely damaged or destroyed, but did the west not normalise the Israeli attack on every hospital in Gaza and the killing of at least 1,722 health workers?

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When Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the international condemnation from Europe and elsewhere was loud and clear. Leaders did not expect legal threats to shift Vladimir Putin or end war crimes by his troops. But they understood the importance of naming what had happened as an illegal act of aggression, and of seeking to hold those responsible accountable.

The same countries have been strikingly muted since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. This too was an act of aggression. Spain’s Pedro Sánchez has been lonely in his forthright condemnation, though Norway and others also pointed to the breach of international law. Meanwhile, Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, offered unreserved support and Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, declared that it was “not the moment to lecture our partners and allies”.

As in Ukraine, the original sin has quickly been compounded, with the deaths of over a thousand civilians reported in Iran alone – including in the strike on a girls’ school which killed at least 175 people, mostly children: evidence points to US responsibility. Serious violations of the laws of war, reckless as well as deliberate, constitute war crimes. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, declared on Friday that “no quarter will be given” to the enemy – a violation of international humanitarian law. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks defending Iran, are at a minimum disproportionate – as Katja Kallas, the EU foreign affairs chief, has implied – with vast civilian displacement and damage to infrastructure. That Iran is also committing war crimes does not lessen US or Israeli culpability.

The contrast between the west’s rhetoric about universal standards and its selective outrage is glaringly and increasingly evident to people around the world. They noted the bleak contrast between the passionate defence of Ukraine and the apparent indifference to genocide in Gaza. Some lives appear more important than others. When the Trump administration hit alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and kidnapped Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, allies said little. Each time, the belief in international law as an essential framework for conduct was further undermined. Each time, implicit licence was given for further breaches.

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Amid the immense confusion surrounding the US strikes on Venezuela, the seizure of the president, Nicolás Maduro, and Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will “run” the country and “take back the oil”, one thing is clear – they set a truly chilling precedent.

The US has a grim history of interference, invasion and occupation in the region, but the early hours of Saturday saw its first major military attack on South American land. “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Mr Trump declared. The decision to unilaterally attack another country and abduct its leader – days after he publicly sought an off-ramp – has still wider repercussions. It should alarm us all.

Venezuelans have endured a repressive, kleptocratic and incompetent regime under Mr Maduro, widely believed to have stolen the last election. They now face profound uncertainty at best. Mr Trump has suggested that Mr Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, would follow US instructions, and dismissed the rightwing opposition leader and Nobel prize-winner María Corina Machado as a plausible replacement. But Ms Rodríguez, now interim president, has so far struck a defiant tone – and other parts of the decapitated regime are more hardline.

A man who won power promising to abandon foreign wars now says he is “not afraid of boots on the ground”. Rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War was more than posturing. He does not see the world’s superpower as policeman; he is turning it into a rogue state. He believes the US’s might allows it to do as it wishes with minimal cost: witness the strikes on Nigeria, on Iran’s nuclear facilities and elsewhere. He promises that Venezuelan oil means this latest episode “won’t cost us a penny”.

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Later this month, on the holiday of Purim, Jewish people will dress in silly costumes, eat triangular pastries, and listen to an ancient story about attempted genocide. What we notice, and don’t notice, about that story says a lot about what we notice, and don’t notice, in Israel and Palestine.

The tale comes from the book of Esther. It begins with a dissolute Persian king. He hosts a banquet, gets drunk, orders his queen to “display her beauty” to the revelers, and, when she refuses, banishes her from the throne. As her replacement he chooses Esther, a beautiful young maiden who, unbeknownst to him, is a Jew. Then he makes a calamitous personnel decision: he selects Haman, a pathological Jew-hater, to be his right-hand man. The stage is now set for an epic clash.

Haman persuades the king to sign an edict exterminating the Jews. Esther’s uncle, Mordechai, hears the news and sends word that she must save her people. Although protesting puts her own life at risk, Esther appeals to the king and, through a series of daring maneuvers, turns him against Haman. Haman is hanged. Mordechai takes his job. Good triumphs over evil.

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