Trump and The Cowboy Mentality

• CrossFireArabia
• January 6, 2026

By Rashad Abu Dawood

Our generation was always captivated by cowboy movies popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The hero always spoke with his gun and not with his mouth. He kicks the wooden bar door wide open with his foot, not his hand. The patrons tremble with fear as they watch the hero pull his hat down to half of his face and stretch out his legs in his high-heeled shining brass boots, placing them on the table in the face of whoever appears to be sitting across from him.

The terrified bar-tender approaches and asks what he wants to drink, and without even looking at him, he utters a single word. If the bra-tender pours him other than what he ordered, he pulls out his gun and fires a single shot at a bottle on the shelf. If he hears anyone utter a word that displeases him, he raises his gun and… silences them forever!

When he’s about to leave, he demands the baman hand over the dollars in the safe. If the owner refuses, he kills him and takes the money, then… struts out, basking in his power and glory. Of course, morals and values ​​have no value in the world of the cowboy. I don’t know why I remembered this as I watched what Donald Trump did to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on that dark night in world history.

Trump said he felt like he was watching a live television program as US forces arrested President Maduro. I and many others around the world, saw a totally different image of an American president that of the reckless, arrogant cowboy.

What happened wasn’t an arrest, but the ‘kidnapping’ of a head of state from his country’s capital, indeed, from his bedroom while he and his wife were in their pajamas.

The operation was meticulously planned, taking over four months. The soldiers that carried it out was part of the so-called Delta Force, the most powerful unit in the US Air Force. This is the same unit that took part with Israeli soldiers  in their failed attempts to free the hostages in the Gaza tunnels.

The US administration paved the way for the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president by claiming the objective was a war on drugs. However, Trump, true to form, exposed the truth and made statements clearly declaring that he wanted Venezuelan oil, which possesses the largest reserves in the world.

He called on American companies to prepare to return to Venezuela after they were expelled by former President Hugo Chávez, whom Washington had attempted but failed to capture as well.

This is not the first time the United States has been involved in assassinating or overthrowing heads of states in Latin America. It has previously carried out operations in Panama, Guatemala, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

This is in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, which considers South America a backyard for the United States, where no regime should be in power that is not loyal to Washington and its interests.

Trump was not content with seeing Maduro in handcuffs and under guard; he also threatened the leaders of other Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Colombia, under the grossly misleading pretext of fighting drugs.

The president, who is fond of taking “unprecedented” actions, such as officially recognizing occupied Jerusalem as the “capital of Israel” and annexing the Golan Heights, may well continue invading other countries in the “Latin American backyard,” and beyond, starting with Iran. In doing so, he is about to dismantle the international law and order that was born out of World War II and could well pave the way for World War III.

What if now Putin kidnapps Ukrainian President Zelensky, or the Chinese president kidnapped the president of Taiwan? Trump will surely be told: “We did the same as what you did to the Venezuelan president”.

The dealmaker is acting recklessly and is leading America and the world down to the jungle of abyss!

The writer is a columnist for Ad Dustour daily in Jordan and the above article is a translation from the Arabic version.

500,000 Palestinians Lose Jobs Due To Israeli Shutdown

• CrossFireArabia
• December 21, 2025

More than half a million Palestinians have lost their source of livelihood in the West Bank and Gaza since the start of the Israeli war in October 2023, a trade union said Saturday.

In a statement, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions said that workers face systematic blockade, closure, and daily raids by the Israeli army.

The Israeli policies “constitute a compounded crime” against Palestinian workers and undermine their natural right to work and live in dignity, it added.

“Israeli occupation policies over more than two years of continuous aggression have led to more than 500,000 Palestinian workers losing their livelihood, with unemployment rates rising to unprecedented levels exceeding 50% in the West Bank and more than 84% in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

It explained that Palestinian workers incurred losses of over $9 billion due to being prevented from reaching their workplaces, in addition to the destruction of local productive sectors, primarily agriculture, construction, and services according to Anadolu.

According to the statement, 44 workers have been killed, hundreds injured, and over 34,000 others detained by the Israeli army since October 2023.

The federation held the Israeli government “fully responsible for these massive financial losses and for the killing of dozens of Palestinian workers at military checkpoints or due to settler attacks while they were trying to secure a livelihood for their families, in a blatant violation of international labor conventions and the Geneva Conventions.”

The Israeli army has killed more than 70,700 Palestinians and injured over 170,000 others in Gaza since October 2023. Attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers have also killed at least 1,097 Palestinians and injured nearly 11,000 others in the occupied West Bank during the same period.

Women Stroll in Jerusalem

• CrossFireArabia
• December 11, 2025

Palestinian women strolling Jerusalem in 1900.

No Ceasefire: Israel Kills Photojournalist in Gaza

• CrossFireArabia
• December 2, 2025

A Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, despite a ceasefire agreement sponsored by US President Donald Trump.

Medical sources told Anadolu that photojournalist Mahmoud Wadi lost his life in an Israeli drone strike in central Khan Younis, an area that does not fall under the Israeli-controlled yellow zone.

Wadi’s father, Issam, described the Israeli strike as “an earthquake that struck the tent.”

“I never expected to lose Mahmoud, who was not just my son but a friend, as he grew up in a photography studio,” the grieved father told Anadolu.

“Mahmoud was photographing in a safe area (not under Israeli control according to the ceasefire agreement), but the Israelis respect no pledges or promises; their entire life is treachery and deceit,” he said.

Criminal act

The Palestinian father called his son’s killing “a criminal act carried out by the Israeli occupation.”

“They (Israelis) will continue until destroying the whole world,” he said.

A colleague of the slain journalist, Muhammad Abu Ubaid, a correspondent for Al-Alam TV in Gaza, said Wadi was “known for his humanitarian work and helping people.”

“He may not be known to everyone, but the poor and afflicted know him well, because he devoted his time to assisting them,” he told Anadolu.

“Wadi was a pure-hearted person. I sat with him last night, we talked a lot, and he told me about his plans to raise his young son, who is his whole world.”

“We had an appointment today at Nasser Hospital (in Khan Younis), but I found out he had been martyred,” Abu Ubaid said in tears.

“The world is silent and watching, and the (Israeli) occupation continues to kill us and kill journalists despite the agreement.”

Systematic killing

Gaza’s Government Media Office said Wadi’s death brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza to 257 since October 2023.

It decried Israel’s “systematic attacks and assassination of Palestinian journalists” and held Tel Aviv and the US administration, the UK, Germany, and France “fully responsible for committing these heinous and brutal crimes.”

The media office appealed to the international community and press organizations around the world to “condemn the Israeli occupation’s crimes.”

International media institutions have repeatedly called on Israel to stop fatal attacks on Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip, but Tel Aviv has ignored these appeals.

Palestinians see the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip as an attempt to cover up its atrocities in the territory.

The ceasefire deal took effect in Gaza on Oct. 10 under Trump’s Gaza plan, halting two years of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 171,000 others since October 2023.

Israel has repeatedly violated the agreement by opening fire on Palestinian civilians in areas it does not control under the deal, while the Palestinian group Hamas has announced its full commitment to the terms of the agreement and urged the US to pressure Israel to comply.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 356 Palestinians have been killed and more than 900 others injured in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire.

‘Our Miserable Life’

• CrossFireArabia
• October 13, 2025

As the winter months approach many people in Gaza will likely continue to sleep in the wilderness and under the freezing air. Most of the Gazans at 2 million were displaced countless of times in this Israeli genocide with nowhere to go as their homes have been bombed multiple times.

Every family, individual, man, woman and child, have been affected. Everyone has become disparate to find a place, or just sleep anywhere

One such family, without a husband have found a street pavement as its abode among the noise of the traffic. Others, sleep in makeshift sheets and plastic, hastily hoisted to to at least try and cover their skin and bones.

…On the roadside

“Don’t worry it won’t fall down, shut up and sleep”, a mother tells her little one who found a ramshackle place on the roadside. “And the same goes for you,” she tells her other child.

But how can that be! “We are living on the pavement next to the road, among speeding cars, where people are constantly going up and down during the day and at nighttime,” she tells the Al Jazeera cameraman. Its pitch dark here. Only the passing cars provide a flicker of light.

“Our home has become the pavement. In the night we literally sleep between passing people, there is nothing to protect us. I try not to close my eyes because of the fear around us as men constantly roam up and down with the the stray dogs and other wild beast making an attempt on our shelter. I have to be alert to shoo them away.”

The skidding of cars never shops, she tells the cameraman. “I stay awake also because my child may suddenly get up and run to the road, and if a car hits him, it really wouldn’t be the fault of the driver. I do all I can to protect them,” she concludes.

The war made Gaza a downtrodden, chaotic world with wrecked homes and debris, estimated at 200 million that would take years to clear out.

Living in Plastic

Next, the scene changes with many tents huddled one against each other, trying to do with the latest modern living the war has brought on. The Gaza Strip has become an amalgamation of tent cities, and with those labels, there are the underdogs – those who can’t offered the proper $1000-tent but have to sleep on the margins of rag-tag communities in derelict and tiny ‘holes” made of plastic sheets and/or light material that collapse at the sight of any gust of wind.

“It’s like living outside, you can’t call this a place of living,” another mother one says, referring to her small, plastic tent. Here there is no toilet, we have to ask other people’s living in proper tents to ‘do our business” and at times, forcing ourselves upon them but what can we do”, her voice can filter through the camera.

“At night we remain in fear because of the stray dogs who remain amongst us, howling between our tents. This is not to say anything about the snakes. At night I beg my neighbors to let my two grown up daughters sleep in their tent while I remain with my other small children here, but it’s a struggle.”

At night my children freeze because there are no blankets, we barely have thin sheets to use as cover, there are no clothes here, we simply don’t have anything, they have to go bare foot, there are no shoes, not even sandals or flip-flops for them to wear.

There is neither food, nor drinks, we stay hungry all day except for the one-day meal the kids bring from the food charities they queue for. After that one meal, we wait for the following day hoping to be fed.”

Dry bread Sprinkled With Salt

“How can I describe the place, it’s bad,” says a haggard old man with a beard that keeps getting longer. “We have no tent to sleep in, winter is setting in and the rain is likely to lead to our death, first it was the scorching sun, God only knows how we survived then, now the winter is upon us, we just wait for the worse, the drenching rains, life is a constant challenge,” he says amidst the dirt-soil.

Even the water is hard to come, and this is for everyone, the rugs you see here were given to us by people whose situation is really no better than us. In terms of food, as God is my witness, the bread I have here from my feed, I collected, it’s dry and hard that has been sprinkled with salt. When I am hungry, I wet it with the available water and eat.  This is how we try to survive in Gaza today.”

These are a few of the voices from Gaza. For them, life has long become miserable. Here, they speak out of their dreary lives that have become a constant struggle for survival.