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War & Peace
Sanders Slams 'War Criminal' Netanyahu Ahead of New Meeting With Trump to Plan Gaza Ethnic Cleansing
The progressive senator underscored that the Israeli leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court "for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza."
Jul 08, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday as the fugitive from the International Criminal Court met with lawmakers ahead of a second White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the embattled Gaza Strip.
"As President Trump and members of Congress roll out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let's remember that Netanyahu has been indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement.
"This is the man Trump and Congress are welcoming this week: a war criminal who will be remembered as one of modern history's monsters," the senator continued. "His extremist government has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians and wounded almost 135,000, 60% of whom are women, children, or elderly people. The United Nations reports that at least 17,000 children have been killed and more than 25,000 wounded. More than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated."
"At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people are starving after Israel prevented any aid from entering Gaza for nearly three months," Sanders noted. "In the last six weeks, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get in, but has tried to replace the established United Nations distribution system with a private foundation backed by security contractors. This has been a catastrophe, with near-daily massacres at the new aid distribution sites. In its first five weeks in operation, 640 people have been killed and at least 4,488 injured while trying to access food through this mechanism."
Trump and Netanyahu—who said Monday that he nominated the U.S. president for the Nobel Peace Prize—are expected to discuss ongoing efforts to reach a new deal to secure the release of the 22 remaining Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as plans for giving Gazans what the prime minister described as a "better future" by finding third countries willing to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Critics said such euphemistic language is an attempt to give cover to Israel's plan to ethnically cleanse and indefinitely occupy Gaza. Observers expressed alarm over Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz' Tuesday affirmation of a plan to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp at the southern tip of the strip.
"There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid," Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International and a former senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters.
Most Palestinians are vehemently opposed to what they say would amount to a second Nakba, the forced displacement of more than 750,000 people from Palestine during and after the 1948 establishment of the modern state of Israel.
"This is our land," one Palestinian man, Mansour Abu Al-Khaier, told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. "Who would we leave it to, where would we go?"
Another Gazan, Abu Samir el-Fakaawi, told the newspaper: "I will not leave Gaza. This is my country. Our children who were martyred in the war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our cousins. We are all buried here. Whether Trump or Netanyahu or anyone else likes it or not, we are staying on this land."
Officials at the United Nations—whose judicial body, the International Court of Justice, is weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by around two dozen countries—condemned any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
"This raises concerns with regards to forcible transfer—the concept of voluntary transfers in the context that we are seeing in Gaza right now [is] very questionable," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday.
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'An Arsenal of Profiteering': Military Contractors Have Gotten Over Half of Pentagon Spending Since 2020
"These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing," said the project's director.
Jul 08, 2025
Less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a budget package that pushes annual military spending past $1 trillion, researchers on Tuesday published a report detailing how much major Pentagon contractors have raked in since 2020.
Sharing The Guardian's exclusive coverage of the paper on social media, U.K.-based climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote: "Are you a U.S. taxpayer? I am sure you will be delighted to know where $2.4 TRILLION of your money has gone."
The report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft shows that from 2020-24 private firms received $2.4 trillion in Department of Defense contracts, or roughly 54% of DOD's $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending for that five-year period.
The publication highlights that "during those five years, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion)."
In a statement about the findings, Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project, said that "these figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing."
"This is not an arsenal of democracy—it's an arsenal of profiteering," Savell added. "We should keep the enormous and growing power of the arms industry in mind as we assess the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and globally."
Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. By comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. [5/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
The paper points out that "by comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. In other words, the U.S. government invested over twice as much money in five weapons companies as in diplomacy and international assistance."
"Record arms transfers have further boosted the bottom lines of weapons firms," the document details. "These companies have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and Ukraine, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. military aid to Israel was over $18 billion in just the first year following October 2023; military aid to Ukraine totals $65 billion since the Russian invasion in 2022 through 2025."
"Additionally, a surge in foreign-funded arms sales to European allies, paid for by the recipient nations—over $170 billion in 2023 and 2024 alone—have provided additional revenue to arms contractors over and above the funds they receive directly from the Pentagon," the paper adds.
The 23-page report stresses that "annual U.S. military spending has grown significantly this century," as presidents from both major parties have waged a so-called Global War on Terror and the DOD has continuously failed to pass an audit.
Specifically, according to the paper, "the Pentagon's discretionary budget—the annual funding approved by Congress and the large majority of its overall budget—rose from $507 billion in 2000 to $843 billion in 2025 (in constant 2025 dollars), a 66% increase. Including military spending outside the Pentagon—primarily nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy, counterterrorism operations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other military activities officially classified under 'Budget Function 050'— total military spending grew from $531 billion in 2000 to $899 billion in 2025, a 69% increase."
Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this month "adds $156 billion to this year's total, pushing the 2025 military budget to $1.06 trillion," the document notes. "After taking into account this supplemental funding, the U.S. military budget has nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000."
Noting that "taxpayers are expected to fund a $1 trillion Pentagon budget," Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler said the paper, which he co-authored, "illustrates what they'll be paying for: a historic redistribution of wealth from the public to private industry.”
Semler produced the report with William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Hartung said that "high Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops.'"
"But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning," he continued. "Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages."
The arms industry has used an array of tools of influence to create an atmosphere where a Pentagon budget that is $1 trillion per year is deemed “not enough” by some members of Congress. [9/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
In addition to spotlighting how U.S. military budgets funnel billions of dollars to contractors each year, the report shines a light on the various ways the industry influences politics.
"The ongoing influence of the arms industry over Congress operates through tens of millions in campaign contributions and the employment of 950 lobbyists, as of 2024," the publication explains. "Military contractors also shape military policy and lobby to increase military spending by funding think tanks and serving on government commissions."
"Senior officials in government often go easy on major weapons companies so as not to ruin their chances of getting lucrative positions with them upon leaving government service," the report notes. "For its part, the emerging military tech sector has opened a new version of the revolving door—the movement of ex-military officers and senior Pentagon officials, not to arms companies per se, but to the venture capital firms that invest in Silicon Valley arms industry startups."
The paper concludes by arguing that "the U.S. needs stronger congressional and public scrutiny of both current and emerging weapons contractors to avoid wasteful spending and reckless decision-making on issues of war and peace. Profits should not drive policy."
"In particular," it adds, "the role of Silicon Valley startups and the venture capital firms that support them needs to be better understood and debated as the U.S. crafts a new foreign policy strategy that avoids unnecessary wars and prioritizes cooperation over confrontation."
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Democrats Warn Against 'Massively Corrupt' Trump Golden Dome Plans
"We are concerned that Golden Dome will be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than countering missile attacks," the lawmakers wrote.
Jul 08, 2025
A quartet of Democratic lawmakers are warning that U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to build a "Golden Dome" missile defense system could open the door to a corrupt boondoggle.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Reps. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) made the case that the proposed missile defense system goes well beyond what is actually needed to defend the nation against foreign missile attacks.
"The Trump administration's plans for Golden Dome could make it prohibitively expensive, operationally ineffective, massively corrupt, and detrimental to U.S. and global security by igniting a nuclear arms race with Russia and China," the Democrats wrote. "We are concerned that Golden Dome will be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than countering missile attacks. We urge you to rein in this dangerous plan."
The Democrats then pointed to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that the system could cost up to $542 billion to complete, which is more than three times the cost that the Trump administration projected to have the system "fully operational" within the next four years.
They also warned about conflicts of interest posed by SpaceX, which is owned by estranged Trump ally Elon Musk, being awarded contracts to handle the project.
"In addition, U.S. Department of Defense recently announced plans to significantly scale back the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, which in the past conducted essential testing of missile defense systems to ensure their military effectiveness," the lawmakers added. "As a result, the administration could rush ahead to award multibillion-dollar Golden Dome contracts with little ability to assess whether the money is being well-spent."
Trump has said that he was inspired to develop such a missile system for the United States after being impressed by Israel's "Iron Dome" system, despite the fact that Israel has a vastly smaller landmass to defend compared to the U.S. and has historically faced far more danger from missile and rocket attacks than the U.S.
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'Guilty of Genocide': Protesters Condemn Trump-Netanyahu Meeting and Ethnic Cleansing Push
At the White House, Trump and Netanyahu once again discussed plans to forcibly remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Jul 08, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he'd nominated U.S. President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize during an Oval Office meeting on Monday. He did so shortly after the two reiterated their goal of forcibly removing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a policy that humanitarian groups have described as "ethnic cleansing."
The meeting went on with protesters assembled outside the White House from both Muslim and Jewish groups and other anti-war organizations who called on Trump to end military support for the Israeli government led by Netanyahu, who has been charged, along with his former defense minister, for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
One demonstrator held a banner that read, "U.S. + Israel Guilty of Genocide."
"This is not a diplomatic visit. This is a disgrace," said Robert McCaw, Director of Government Affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "Every handshake, every deal, every photo op [of Netanyahu] with American leaders stains the hands of all Americans with the blood of children from Gaza."
According to official estimates, more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza since 2023, including over 17,000 children. The total casualty number does not include the more than 11,000 estimated to be buried beneath rubble.
Other estimates suggest that the death toll is potentially much higher when factoring in the indirect effects of Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid, which have caused widespread hunger and disease.
"Netanyahu doesn't belong in D.C. He belongs in The Hague," wrote Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink on X.
Anti-war Jewish groups and figures were among some of the loudest voices.
Another protester, Yehuda Cohen, the father of an Israeli hostage who has been trapped in Gaza since October 7, 2023, called on Trump to "force Netanyahu to end the war and go for a hostage deal," which would allow his 21-year-old son Nimrod to return home.
He echoed the accusation that the families of many other hostages still in Gaza have leveled at Netanyahu, that he has sabotaged efforts at a cease-fire to maintain his tenuous hold on power.
"He's got right-wing extremists in his coalition who want the total occupation of the Gaza Strip," Cohen said. "They want to rebuild settlements there, and that's why they are threatening that they will withdraw from the coalition if we go for a cease-fire."
Cohen was part of a separate rally organized by the group New Jewish Narrative, which brought dozens of protesters to the White House in anticipation of Netanyahu's visit.
"When Trump sits across from Netanyahu on Monday, I hope he doesn't just nod along," said Hadar Susskind, the group's president. "I hope he demands an end to the war. I hope he uses all of the leverage he has to bring an end to this war, to rush humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to bring all of the hostages home."
Those calls not only fell on deaf ears, they were thoroughly doused once the meeting began. Trump and Netanyahu seemed to be moving in lockstep, with both reiterating their desire to carry out a plan to permanently expel Palestinians from Gaza, which Trump first proposed publicly in February.
Netanyahu told reporters that he and Trump were working on negotiations with other countries that could take in the people of Gaza who'd been relocated.
"We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future. I think we're getting close to finding several countries."
Netanyahu framed this as a humanitarian effort to allow Palestinians to leave the "prison" in Gaza and suggested that those who want to stay "can stay." However, the prime minister's recent comments to the Israeli Knesset have shown that making Gaza uninhabitable so its residents will be forced to move is his explicit goal.
In leaked comments obtained by the Israeli magazine +972 in June, Netanyahu assured legislators: "We’re destroying more and more homes—they have nowhere to return to. The only natural outcome will be that Gazans will want to emigrate out of the Strip. Our main problem is with receiving countries."
In comments to NBC News Tuesday, Mustafa Barghouti, a politician with the Palestinian National Initiative Party, described Netanyahu's claim that migration from Gaza would be "voluntary" as a farce.
"When they say it would be voluntary, that is so misleading," Barghouti said. "When you bomb people every day, when you starve people for 126 days, who can call that a voluntary decision?"
[Update: This article has been edited to clarify that the rally hosted by New Jewish Narrative, at which Yehuda Cohen spoke, was a separate event from the one organized by the group American Muslims forPalestine.]
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