Raging Bull: Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

18 October 2025

Since 7 October 2023 Biden and Trump administrations have provided Israel with $21.7 billion to carry out the genocidal assault against a defenseless population in Gaza, mostly from the air.[1] Israel’s genocide followed a qualitative resistance operation from occupied, besieged, and sadistically mistreated Gaza by the Israeli government and society, including the medical profession. Israeli soldiers and Shin Bet officials were killed, and others were taken as captives.  At least most of the Israeli civilians who died on 7 October 2023 perished as a result of intentional shooting by their own security forces in accordance with existing military procedures. The Israeli military and government continue to conceal this fact to this day and impose strict censorship on its revelation. Subsequently, Israeli captives died due to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza.

The diplomatic intention of the Biden administration was to unleash Israel’s military pressure, hoping to realize a military victory in clearly precarious hostilities between an incompetent and cowardly Israeli military and a vastly unequipped but heroic resistance. Current and former Israeli officials, including Ehud Barak who epitomizes Israel’s militarism and apartheid, have stated in more than one context that the purpose in fighting such conflicts would be to target the civilian population hoping that the adversary would turn through mediators to the Americans who would finalized the desired outcome given the severely unbalanced American political structure because of the presence of the Israel lobby and the ordinary concern of the average American official and employee for his tenure.

Biden and his team, namely Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Adviser Sullivan, and Secretary of Defense Austin are complicit in Israel’s genocide considering:  (1) military assistance sent to Israel in the form of weapons and operational involvement through CENTCOM’s Michael Kurilla; (2) diplomatic shielding at the U.N. Security Council and U.N. general assembly; (3) subverting attempts to hold Israel accountable in accordance with international law at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and other internal forums; (4) ideological identification with Israel’s goals; and (5) adhering to the dictates of the Israel lobby in the United States.[2] 

Trump regained power as president with the mindset of a raging bull against his domestic adversaries. On the international stage, he followed a unilateral diplomatic and economic policy that, in the case of Israel, became dual. Like any other politician, he attempts to appease his various constituencies, but in Trump’s case, there is also his unbearable character as a veteran quasi-mobster connected mostly to his spoiled family and business. Internationally, Starmer’s Britain, inspired by Israel lobby Blair, was the main international force to willfully succumb to Trump without achieving any genuine consequence against Russia in Ukraine or any other location. The G7 and the European Union are traditional followers of the United States.  

A showman and a serial abuser of power, Trump’s first term was characterized by total obedience to the whims of Israel through the donations of the Adelson family that excelled in Trump’s favorite profession, the casino craft. The ‘Abraham Accords’, peace deals between four Arab countries and a rejectionist Israel, demonstrated America’s will to use its economic and diplomatic leverage in Israel’s favor, except in the case of the United Arab Emirates. A bizarre polity of practically nothingness that has cultivated secretive security ties with Israel before the diplomatic agreement centered around ancient ideological animosity towards Iran and the dispute regarding three contested islands in the Persian Gulf controlled by Iran’s Shah few days before the establishment of UAE in 1971 in the aftermath of the British departure. They are staggeringly small in geography and population, but could be used by present hostile foreign powers, particularly the United States Army. CENTCOM and British engagement in illegal hostilities against Yemen’s humanitarian intervention at the Red Sea to end Israel’s genocide crystallized the conversion between the dynamics of the Israel lobby and imperial pursuits.   

Trump, Pompeo, and Jared Kushner launched the ‘Abraham Accords’ scheme, which makes the unlawful British 1917 Balfour Declaration that produced a colonial and apartheid state in Palestine blush in embarrassment in the wake of failing to curb Palestinians’ claims for their rights, not even after withholding various forms of aid. It is a consistent effort by various American administrations, including Biden’s, that enthusiastically adopted the ‘Abraham Accord’ approach to protect Israel despite its unconvincing military performance since 1973 and its public as well as covert local and regional malevolence by pushing the normalization of its unjustified existence in the region at the expense of the Palestinians. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have let Israel’s slaughter in Gaza go on undisturbed, threatening any possible outside military humanitarian intervention. In the words of Blinken in Cairo (which has conflicting relations with itself and its public opinion) and elsewhere, “we don’t want this conflict to spill over to other fronts”. No wonder Netanyahu described Trump during the gathering at the Israeli Knesset on 13 October 2025 in the presence of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Cain as the best American President friend of Israel ever.

The same elements that define Biden and his officials’ complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza apply to the Trump administration with a grotesque flavor. Trump’s narcissist and opportunist political character led him into the White House with the purpose of letting Israel ‘finish the job’ in Gaza, meaning to continue its blundering butchery until achieving surrender. It was supposed to be Netanyahu’s Churchill moment. It was Mr. Bean’s dragging Trump into utter deficiency and legal entanglement.

In December 2024, Trump declared that the Palestinians could face “All Hell to Pay”.[3] In February 2025, the leader of the world’s sole superpower met with Netanyahu, announcing that his administration will take over Gaza and other ludicrous ideas[4] while sanctioning the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor and potentially any other involved person because of their purported “illegitimate and baseless targeting of the United States and its close ally Israel”.[5] Trump and his fellows were no less blunt in circumventing holding Israel accountable than the Biden administration. They also sanctioned two judges and two deputy prosecutors of the ICC in August 2025,[6] the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the 1967 Occupied Territories, Ms. Francesca Albanese, in July 2025,[7]and withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council and other international forums in February 2025.[8] In September 2025, the Trump administration's frustration with the law reached a new level of desperation by sanctioning three prominent Palestinian human rights organizations that have been documenting Israel’s atrocities under unbearable circumstances.[9]  

Trump indeed took over Gaza in one sense. He authorized Israel to move from significant limitation of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population to total prevention, ousting the remaining limited operations of international humanitarian agencies, which were substituted by their parody, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).[10] The incompetence of the Israeli army reached a new perverted stage. If mass carnage and starvation did not work, then more killing and starvation[11] might succeed. GHF’s operation generated mass killings that can only be understood as part of Israel’s genocidal lunacy.[12]

Despite some recent public resentment within the Republican Party against the undemocratic influence of the Israel lobby, it remains persistent and decisive. The United States' strategic interests in the natural resources of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the security cooperation between the CIA and the Saudis[13] do not alter America’s commitment to Israel’s vision and conduct appeasing the influence of Israel’s supporters. On the contrary, the Saudis have often adapted to the domestic American political scene, undermining Palestinians’ quest for freedom lest its own population demand the same and develop the existing animosity towards the country’s subordination to CENTCOM and by extension to Israel.

In his 2016 AIPAC address, Republican Senator Ted Cruz not only explicitly denied the existence of Palestine but also emphasized that there should not be a Palestinian national unity in the face of Israel’s occupation and apartheid, a traditional American dictate that the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas has followed wholeheartedly. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been on the Adelson payroll for years[14], incited the destruction of Gaza. Senator Tom Cotton cheerleads Israel’s genocide. American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s dangerous ideology makes David Ben Gurion a pioneering intellectual and Baruch Goldstein a charity activist. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a recipient of Larry Ellison's contributions, the current main Israel-backing billionaire in the White House, competing with another version of him, Elon Musk.[15]

In January 2025 few days before Biden left office, a ceasefire in Gaza was announced[16] only to be breached in March 2025 with Trump’s blessing.[17]Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza killed more than 6000 persons, overwhelmingly civilians[18], and still did not realize any of its declared objectives, yet further demonstrated its genocidal intent and Trump’s shared culpability.

Faced with mounting international fury at Israel’s genocide, the Trump administration announced a plan or a roadmap to end Israel’s unpopular genocide in Gaza. Instead of generating a mechanism for accountability for Israel’s barbarity, as was the case in other parts of the world, and focusing on realizing accountability and the rights of Palestinians deprived violently for decades by Israel, Trump’s plan is premised on wishful thinking anchored in the hollow ‘Abraham Accords’ process.[19] Introducing Tony Blair as interim governor of Gaza, a puppet of Israel’s interests, and in particular Allison’s, is an insult to the traditional colonial civilizing mission.  

The path ahead for Palestinians, given Israel’s longstanding insistence on apartheid, coloniality in its Zionist version, is not complicated. True, the odds of international powers are not in their favor. But when were they? They must overcome the Mahmoud Abbas phase, organize internally, and insist on not surrendering their entitlements (accountability, return, complete sovereignty, and reparations) to the Israel lobby, which is fueled by intellectual and cultural representations and productions that capture the imagination of large parts of the American Jewish community. The road to dismantling colonial and apartheid Zionism and Israel is not short, but it's worth taking.

From center to right: Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth. Source: Time Magazine, 23 June 2025.

Trump and Netanyahu reconcile in Florida. Source: Axios, 26 July 2024.

Trump and Sara Netanyahu meet in Florida. Source: Times of Israel, 2 December 2024.

Trump and Netanyahu at the White House. Source: NBC News, 4 February 2025.

Larry Allison at the White House, January 2025. Source: Truthout, 11 October 2025.

Trump – Saudi Business connections. Source: The Independent, 29 September 2025.

Jared Kushner and the Saudi Crown Prince. Source: The Guardian, 24 September 2020.

Tony Blair and Larry Allison. Source: Daily Mail, 23 February 2025.

[1] William Hartung, “$21.7 billion in US military aid has fueled Israel’s war in Gaza”, Responsible Statecraft, 7 October 2025.

[2] See John Hudson, “US floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct”, Washington Post, 6 March 2024; Jacob Kornbluh, “AIPAC attacks Democrats who voted to stop arms sales to Israel”, The Forward, 8 April 2025.

[3] James FitzGerald, “Trump appears to threaten Hamas with ‘all hell to pay’ over hostages”, BBC, 3 December 2024.

[4] Eli Stokols, “Trump says US will ‘take over the Gaza Strip’”, Politico, 4 February 2025.

[5] The White House, Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court, 6 February 2025.

[6] U.S. Department of State, Imposing Further Sanctions in Response to the ICC’s Ongoing Threat to Americans and Israelis, 20 August 2025.

[7] U.S. Department of State, Sanctioning Lawfare that Targets U.S. and Israeli Persons, 9 July 2025.

[8] The White House, Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support for All International Organizations, 4 February 2025.

[9] U.S. Department of State, Sanctioning Foreign NGOs Directly Engaged in ICC’s Illegitimate Targeting of Israel, 4 September 2025.

[10] Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – Operational Update, 11 June 2025; Ephrat Livni, “U.S. Approves $30 Million for Contentious New Gaza Aid Group”, New York Times, 26 June 2025.  

[11] Emma Graham–Harrison, “The mathematics of starvation: how Israel caused a famine in Gaza”, The Guardian, 31 July 2025.

[12] OHCHR, UN experts call for immediate dismantling of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, 5 August 2025.

[13] Mark Mazzetti & Matt Apuzzo, “U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels”, New York Times, 23 January 2016. U.S. motives in the Middle East can hardly be described as advancing democratic reforms. This is concluded not only from its illegal invasion of Iraq, but also due to its aiding and abetting of atrocities committed by the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen. See Annelle Sheline, “The Yemen War in Numbers: Saudi Escalation and U.S. Complicity”, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 21 March 2022.

[14] Anna Palmer et al, “Graham does Adelson a solid”, Politico, 19 March 2014.

[15] Kenneth Vogel, “Larry Ellison gives another $1 million to boost Marco Rubio”, Politico, 20 February 2016; Ryan Grim & Murtaza Hussein, “Larry Ellison Vetted Marco Rubio for Fealty to Israel, Hacked E-mails Reveal”, 2 October 2025.

[16] Mathew Cullen, “Israel and Hamas Reached a Ceasefire Deal”, New York Times, 15 January 2025.

[17] Kanishkah Sing, “Israel consulted US on strikes n Gaza, White House told Fox News”, Reuters, 18 March 2025.

[18] Ben van der Merwe et al, “A Pattern of Deadly Attacks on Gaza Families”, Sky News, 9 October 2025.

[19] See Peter Geoghegan et al, “Inside the Tony Blair Institute”, The New Statesman, 24 September 2025.