The election victory of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is one of the most stunning defeats for Israel’s foreign policy since the state came into existence. The country’s US lobbying arm spent a record $30 million to defeat one man who called out the country’s horrid human rights record. And it lost — largely because of the increasing disgust of US voters with how the Israeli government sucks up US tax dollars to finance human rights violations instead of using those funds for school and health care at home.

One of Israel’s strategies of course is to distract us from Gaza. We must refuse to take the bait — particularly because that issue is now driving a progressive political surge in the US that threatens to bring down Trump, AIPAC, and even Chuck Schumer’s leadership with the same blow.

Now this: the BBC World Service is reporting that 160 Palestinian children — yes children — have been shot by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza since the country’s military attacked the territory in 2023. Of these, 95 were shot in either the head or chest. Combined with widespread reports that Israel systematically uses dogs to rape and attack defenseless Palestinian prisoners — a report documented by Al Jazeera in the stunning documentary called “Bodies of Evidence”, it is clear the Israeli government might be one of the most venal and cruel on earth. Dogs in Israeli prisons are used not only as instruments of fear, but as part of ritualized sexual humiliation of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are held in indefinite “administrative detention” without being charged with a crime. It’s called torture.

This is part of what so infuriated voters in Michigan that they catapulted El-Sayed and other progressives into stunning electoral victories.

Yes, children shot and killed by Israeli snipers. Palestinians raped by dogs under orders from Israeli soldiers. Documented by credible independent news outlets.

It is clear the Israeli government’s strategy is to deliberately create conditions of life in the occupied territories so horrible that the Palestinian population will “voluntarily” leave their homeland. It’s called ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the crime of aggression all wrapped up into one monster criminal act. Note to Netanyahu: the Palestinian people will not flee. And the American people are getting sick and tired of financing your crimes of atrocity.