MEANWHILE…IN THE WEST BANK

Dr. Common Good

Bombing Iran, with no rationale or evidence of imminent threat. Assassinating its leader and his family. Kidnapping Venezuela’s president[1]. Kidnapping people from America’s streets, schools and homes and sending them off to detention camps or far-off prisons, even when they have no criminal record or are legal U.S. residents and citizens. Continuing to obstruct the release of promised Epstein files. Gutting environmental regulations while denying climate change. Threatening news and broadcast organizations that air views Trump doesn’t like. Trying in every way to restrict voting and disrupt the upcoming midterm elections. Destroying the U.S. and global economy. Destroying the network of alliances that have been essential to American security and prosperity since World War II. Letting Ukraine and its valiant fight for democracy flap in the wind as Russia continues its brutal attacks.

Trump and company (and in the case of Iran, his pal Netanyahu) continue to pile up the layers of folly, illegality, outrage, stupidity and corruption, so that anything that happened a few weeks ago, however serious, is buried like the proverbial pea for the princess.

Meanwhile, amidst the barrage of Trumpian destruction…

On the West Bank, which has barely been covered in the mainstream media, Israel, without a peep from The Trump administration and under the convenient cover of a war of choice in Iran, has ramped up its illegal theft of Palestinian land and property, its support for (or indifference to) settler violence ___________________________________________

The Oslo Accords of 1993-1995 divided the West Bank into three areas: A, B, and C:

Area A

• Under full Palestinian Authority (PNA) control.
• Contains major Palestinian cities like Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin, Jericho and others.

Area B

• Under Palestinian Authority administration but joint Palestinian-Israeli security.
• Primarily rural areas with Palestinian communities.

Area C

• Under full Israeli control, comprising about 60% of the West Bank.
• Home to Israeli settlements and military zones, as well as some Palestinian communities.

The Oslo Accords stipulated that most of Area C was to be transferred to Palestinian control by 1997, which did not happen.

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against Palestinians, and its nefarious plan to destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state and a free, dignified existence for Palestinians who have every bit as much right to be there as Israelis do. Here are just a few examples from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, documented in the annual report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR):

• Israeli authorities have intensified settlement activity, including the establishment and expansion of settlements, outposts and associated infrastructure on unlawfully confiscated Palestinian land. During the period of the UNHCHR report, the Israeli Security Cabinet approved 35 settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem. In May of 2025, the Ministry of Defense announced that the Security Cabinet had authorized an unprecedented 22 settlements, which included 9 new settlements, the legalization of 12 outposts and the recognition as an independent settlement of an area previously designated as a neighborhood of an existing settlement.

• As stated in a UNHCHR press release, “[T]he report points to the advancement or approval by Israeli authorities of 36,973 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and around 27,200 in the rest of the West Bank. An unprecedented 84 new outposts were also established during the reporting period. The report also notes the expansion of settlement activity into Area B of the occupied West Bank, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority according to the Oslo agreements.”

• According to the report, during the period covered, Israeli authorities demolished or ordered the demolition of 1,773 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied West Bank, including 97 in Area A, 46 in Area B, 1,390 in Area C and 240 in East Jerusalem. Of those, 1,607 structures were demolished due to a lack of building permits, which are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain, 42 were demolished as part of punitive measures against alleged Palestinian attackers and their families and 124 were demolished on alleged military or security grounds. These demolitions resulted in the displacement of at least 2,490 Palestinians.

• The expansion of settlements is clearly aimed at blocking the possibility of a Palestinian state. At a signing ceremony in September, 2025 for the expansion of the Ma‘ale Adumim settlement into an area east of Jerusalem (where there are numerous Bedouin communities), Prime Minister Netanyahu declared: “There will be no Palestinian state! This place is ours.” Minister of Defense Israel Katz openly stated that the establishment of more settlements in the occupied West Bank “prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state,” and announced a plan to annex 82 per cent of the occupied West Bank, excluding six major Palestinian cities, which would be left as isolated enclaves.

• Settler violence against Palestinians has significantly increased. As stated in the report, “Settler violence continued in a coordinated, strategic and largely unchallenged manner, with Israeli authorities playing the central role in directing, participating in or enabling this conduct.” A pattern of impunity is “facilitating and encouraging violence against and harassment of Palestinians.”

• The report notes that in October, 2025, around the time of the olive harvest, there were 42 settler attacks leading to the injury of 131 Palestinians, including 14 women and a boy, the highest number recorded in a single month since 2006. “Daily attacks by armed settlers, soldiers and “settler soldiers” – many of whom have been armed, equipped and trained by State authorities – along with the closure of more land to Palestinian landowners and harvesters made the 2025 season the worst in decades.”

What are we to make of this? Trump’s unconstrained, wrecking-ball modus operandi has unleashed a chaotic tempest of consequences, affecting the lives and livelihoods of so many people in the U.S. and around the world that it is hard to track in any meaningful way, and in any case hard for people to process even if they are aware. Yet it remains ever so crucial that these human consequences are documented and made public in every way possible. That is at least one thing we can do.   

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[1] The illegality of these actions against Venezuela and Iran stands, irrespective of the authoritarian character and repugnant actions of those regimes.  

HOW DO YOU DO IT, KAROLINE?

Dr. Common Good

Dr. Common Good has a question to ask of press secretary Karoline Leavitt: How do you do it? How do you get up, look at yourself in the mirror, and then stand up at the podium and lie like there will never again be an opportunity to lie?

Let’s just take your press conference on Wednesday March 4 as one of many examples. Among other things, you said:

President Trump didn’t start the war, Iran did: No, Iran did not. Trump claimed to be in negotiations with Iran about their nuclear program and, during these negotiations, launched the attack.

One reason for the attack was an imminent threat from ballistic missiles: The president, you said, “had a feeling” that an attack from Iran was imminent. But there was and is no intelligence supporting any claim of imminent threat from Iranian ballistic missiles, or any intelligence that demonstrates that they even have an intercontinental ballistic missile capability that could threaten the US.

Another reason for the attack was to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability: First of all, the Trump administration claimed that their June, 2025 attacks “completely eliminated and obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, and later claimed that the attack had significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program. If that is true, then what was the nuclear threat prompting this attack?

You claimed that President Barack “Hussein” Obama sent pallets of cash to the Iranians to finance their terrorist operations and signed “stupid and naïve deals that put Iran on the path of developing nuclear bombs”:  Aside from the intentional and repugnant “red meat” repetition of President Obama’s middle name, this is patently false. The 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, spearheaded by President Obama and more properly called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed by Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US. The deal imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program to ensure that it could only be used for peaceful purposes, not for nuclear weapons. Those restrictions were guaranteed via inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Only after the IAEA verified compliance with those terms were oil and financial sanctions lifted and Iranian assets unfrozen. Experts, including the Council on Foreign Relations, estimated at the time that the deal would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for more than a decade, and if they tried to build a weapon at that point the sanctions would go back in effect.

But Trump, in his first term, pulled out of the deal and reimposed sanctions, calling it “horrible.” What had been a successful deal then fell apart, and Trump has never been able to come up with anything better, or even close. So, what does he resort to? A military attack that will destabilize the region, cause untold harm, and virtually guarantee that whatever regime comes to power in Iran will never, ever again negotiate anything with the United States. Some deal, Trump.  

“The world knows this president’s preference is always peace and diplomacy first. Look no further than the eight additional global conflicts he has ended in the past year as proof”: I don’t know how Ms. Leavitt spews out such garbage, with an apparent straight face. Sorry to disabuse you of your ridiculous fantasy, Karoline, but what the world actually knows is that Trump is a mindless, ignorant and trigger-happy purveyor of military force to attain whatever goal he fancies, never mind the consequent destruction of long-term alliances and people’s lives, or the breach of international law. Let’s just recap some of his record, in just one year since re-election: Threatening Canada, and Greenland, with military force if his demands are not met. Attacking small boats in the Caribbean and killing their occupants with no proof that they are drug trafficking boats as claimed, and absolutely no proof that they are transporting illegal drugs to the United States. Without any authorization from Congress or legal basis, using the American military to depose a sitting head of government* by force in Venezuela. And now, without any authorization from Congress or legal basis, attacking Iran, and in the process assassinating its leader*. Please, Karoline, spare everyone the silly and unsubstantiated claim of stopping eight conflicts.  

It is obvious to anyone not incapacitated by a hallucinatory Trumpian fantasy that Trump is unstable, stunningly ignorant of world history or any history, not bound by his oath of office to protect and defend the US Constitution, and a dangerous narcissist whose only motivation is to assert power by any means, and to have that power acknowledged with either flattery or rank subservience. And it is a tragedy, for the American people and peoples of the world, that he has a willing team of sycophants like yourself and the puppet Defense Secretary Hegseth, along with a spineless, craven Republican party, to facilitate his destruction of peace and decency.      

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*Regardless of whether or not that leader/head of government is viewed negatively.