As we mark the third anniversary of Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s death in Iran and the uprising that sparked the global Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the voices that courageously challenged authoritarianism at home find themselves navigating an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. In response to the June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, mainstream media outlets — both Persian-language and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel might claim that they were not attacking Qatar per se, but rather Hamas in Qatar, but that is neither a distinction nor a difference. Qatar is considered neutral territory in the region, a place where representatives of Hamas, the Israeli government, the US, Egypt, and other interlocutors could meet and negotiate safely. Qatari territory was, until now, tacitly inviolable.
Israel’s attack is clearly a sign of desperation. From Israel’s point of view, Hamas went too far in accepting Israel’s ceasefire terms. Those terms were designed to be unacceptable but to have the appearance of justification, so as to be able to condemn a Hamas rejection.
Apparently, Israel made an offer that was unintentionally reasonable enough for Hamas to accept. Israel doesn’t want a ceasefire, only another pretext to continue the Gaza genocide to its ultimate conclusion. Not that a pretext is needed, from Israel’s point of view, but a fig leaf is always preferable to cover the last bit of embarrassing exposure.
Nevertheless, the Israeli attack on Qatar reveals the depths of Israeli despair. Israel can no longer afford a ceasefire – not even to satisfy the demands for the release of Israeli captives. Its vaunted military consists of little more than an air force with unlimited US bombs and refueling facilities. The last ceasefire significantly reversed the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, and the infantry is so decimated by unaccustomed casualties, flight abroad, and refusal to serve, that it can barely muster the equivalent of a single division. A second ceasefire would be disastrous. Meanwhile, Hamas has more recruits than it can use, and an unlimited supply of unexploded Israeli ordnance to repurpose in workshops deep underground.
Increasingly, it appears that the outcome in Gaza may include no ceasefire or pause, much less a truce, dénouement, or agreement, but rather a fight to the finish, with only one side left standing. Alternatively, Israel could decide to withdraw strategically rather than see its population dwindle inside a fortress of die-hard fanatics unable to dominate the territory that it covets.
In fact, the uncertainties threaten to take us into unknown territory. Israel’s status as a pariah state is growing dramatically, while its dependence on a dwindling number of supporters makes the unthinkable increasingly plausible. Will the world finally defy or prevail upon the US to end the genocide? Will Israel use or threaten to use its nuclear arsenal on its neighbors to make them accept an unwilling Palestinian population into their territory? Will a joint Israeli-US attempt to destroy Iran unleash a global military conflict, with unpredictable consequences?
We can only hope that a receding supply of saner minds will be adequate to the daunting task ahead.
The post The desperation of Israel’s Qatar attack first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Global condemnation is mounting after Israel bombed Qatar’s capital Doha, attempting to take out senior Hamas leaders who had gathered to consider a U.S. proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. Hamas leadership survived the strike, which killed six. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, who has reported extensively on Gaza ceasefire negotiations and is one of the few Western…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Veterans For Peace unequivocally condemns President Trump’s unlawful deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC. This follows the outrageous deployment of National Guard and U.S. Marines to the streets and parks of Los Angeles in support of ICE terror tactics in a city where as many as one in ten residents are undocumented workers. Even U.S. military veterans have been targeted and deported.
The crime rate in Washington, DC, is at a 30-year low. The claim that an emergency exists requiring military policing is a blatant lie. The use of the U.S. military for domestic policing violates the Posse Comitatus Act, which reserves law enforcement for civilian authorities, not federal troops.
Is it a coincidence that the cities targeted for occupation by federal forces are Democratic-led and often with Black mayors? Furthermore, the deployment of National Guard units without the consent of state governors, as in California, is highly questionable and likely illegal.
Equally disturbing is the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in terrorizing entire communities. Wearing masks, without identification, often in plain clothes and unmarked vans, ICE personnel are becoming shock troops more reminiscent of fascist, totalitarian regimes. In recent days, at least one man was killed when he ran into traffic to avoid being detained by masked men. There are now reports of women being abducted and assaulted by violent criminals posing as ICE. How can anyone tell the difference?
The ICE budget in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is larger than that of any branch of the armed services and larger than the entire federal prison system. New prisons—such as “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, effectively concentration camps—are being built to imprison nonviolent immigrants with no criminal records whatsoever. Meanwhile, Trump brands undocumented workers as violent criminals and drug-dealing gang members—another blatant lie.
The deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers to the border with Mexico threatens border communities and Mexico itself, with Trump even claiming the right to invade with drones and the U.S. military in pursuit of “cartels.” U.S. leaders have leveled unsubstantiated claims, such as accusing Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro of running a drug cartel, while dangling multimillion-dollar bounties. These are the hallmarks of regime-change propaganda.
Veterans For Peace stands opposed to racist violence in our communities. Behind the masks and lies of the Trump administration, we see the face of White Supremacy—and a growing trend of domestic repression. As the old warning goes: First they came for the immigrants and communities of color…
The U.S. Supports Genocide in Gaza and Escalates Toward Global War
At the very same time, the U.S. government continues to provide bipartisan support for the genocide and starvation of Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. The U.S. supplies the bombs that fall on Palestinian neighborhoods and the political cover for the systematic destruction of an entire people.
The U.S. has bombed Yemen and Iran, both countries that sought to aid Palestinians. The Pentagon is openly planning war against China, simply because the Chinese economy challenges U.S. dominance. Military planners even discuss using tactical—or first-strike strategic—nuclear weapons. The U.S. is also fueling a devastating proxy war in Ukraine, where the priority should be to cease hostilities and pursue genuine negotiations. Meanwhile, escalating threats toward Iran risk plunging the region into another catastrophic war.
When Veterans For Peace and antiwar activists protest, will we find ourselves in ICE’s concentration camps?
Military Members: “This Is Not What We Signed Up For!”
As veterans of the U.S. military—and too many questionable wars—we stand with our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters in today’s armed forces. They did not enlist to chase immigrants around parking lots or into traffic. They did not sign up to invade Mexico or Venezuela. They do not want to stand on the front lines of a nuclear war. Increasingly, we are hearing from GIs questioning their deployments and seeking advice on their legal rights and alternatives.
Veterans For Peace will continue to support members of the military who are questioning whether their orders are morally or legally justified. We encourage military personnel and their families to call the GI Rights Hotline at 877-447-4487 to learn more about their rights and how to seek a discharge.
Peace at Home, Peace Abroad!
Veterans For Peace joins the majority of people in the U.S. who reject the deployment of National Guard, U.S. troops, and ICE to terrorize our communities and prepare the ground for fascist repression. We will work with civil society organizations resisting these illegal, authoritarian measures.
We call for peace at home and abroad: an end to U.S. support for genocide in Gaza, an end to provocative military actions against China, Iran, Venezuela, and Mexico, and a permanent peace agreement in Ukraine.
We invite like-minded people—especially fellow veterans—to join us in defending our communities and building a future of Peace at home and peace abroad.
The post Veterans For Peace Condemns the Deployment of National Guard in Washington, DC, and the Misuse of U.S. Troops and ICE to Create Terror in Our Cities first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
There is extremely alarming news about the situation around Iran.
In consultations with the Trump administration — rather, in deference to the command from Washington — the E3 countries (Britain, France and Germany) who are the remaining western signatories of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as JCPOA, have initiated the process of triggering the so-called snapback mechanism with the aim to reimpose all U.N. sanctions against Iran on the plea that it has breached the terms of the ten-year old agreement.
A joint statement issued in the three European capitals on Aug. 25 notified the U.N. Security Council that Tehran is “in significant non-performance of its commitments under the JCPOA” to give a 30-day notice “before the possible reestablishment of previously terminated United Nations Security Council resolutions.”
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Since resuming residence in the White House a few months ago, it has not been difficult to detect in President Trump’s behaviour traces of his background as a real estate deal maker. Indeed, it could be said that his statements and actions since becoming president demonstrate a clear predisposition to perceive geopolitics predominantly as an arena of opportunity for ‘property development’. ‘Property’ defined in a broad sense to include any high value natural resource, land, or other asset that can be turned into profit.
We argue that the acquisition of such assets by fair means or foul (mainly the latter) and/or the control of access (for example, waterways) to them are important features of the president’s megalomaniacal self-image as the world’s new colossus and that they have a determining influence on his view of geopolitics and hence on US foreign policy.
In some well-known cases, such as Palestine, President Trump has already expressed his interest explicitly in these terms.
Conveniently, and perhaps not coincidentally, the president’s predilections in these respects dovetail beautifully with the insatiable appetites of late-stage capitalism, which depends for its survival on the acquisition and consumption of ever-increasing quantities of ‘property’. You might say that it is a union made in oligarchic heaven.
Below, as plausible parody, we outline a Property Development Theory of Geopolitics (PDTG) as follows: first, we set out the criteria employed to identify target countries for property acquisition; and second, on the basis of those criteria, we draw up a property development country hit list, which reflects our best estimates of countries at risk of invasion or attack.
This list can be used to assess the predictive validity of our theory as measured by the vigour with which countries on the list are attacked militarily and in other ways by the US and/or its allies and proxies.
Country Assessment Criteria and Hit List
Countries that might be regarded as prime targets are identified in terms of the following criteria:
First, the richness of their natural resources (a sine qua non). Does the country have enough ‘property development’ potential to warrant and maintain the president’s attention?
Second, the ease with which the country can be demonised as a mortal threat to the ‘democratic way of life’ or as a terrorist haven, a source of refugees and/or drugs (etc.) and can therefore be made a ‘legitimate’ target for invasion or some other form of attack such as economic sanctions, targeted assassinations, and so on. This would enable the US to employ the tried and tested method of attacking the country concerned in order to save both its own people as well as the rest of the world, as was the case in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Third, the military strength of the country and whether proxy states or other agents such as mercenaries can be used to do the dirty work for the US.
Fourth, the degree to which the US government is subject to determining influences such as those exerted by Israel in relation to Palestine and Iran and/or strong pressure from major corporations and/or the target country has significant regional strategic significance.
We have excluded Russia and China from our list because they are military superpowers that would not be susceptible to conventional US imperial smash and grab methods involving direct military attack.
Neither have we included Ukraine. While undoubtedly asset rich, Ukraine’s notional status as a US ally and as the US/Nato proxy in the war with Russia largely exempts it from imperial smash and grab. It is conceivable also that the US will do an asset sharing deal with Russia and compel Ukraine and Nato to accept it.
The absence from our list of erstwhile US target favourites like North Korea and Cuba is explained by the paucity of their assets and their relatively high military strength and the absence of suitable proxies. Their political misbehaviour in the eyes of the US is punished by extensive economic sanctions.
We have included Palestine because we believe that the US will allow Israel to complete its occupation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the destruction of its infrastructure, and the expulsion of its inhabitants. Its asset richness stems from the high value and significance to Israel (and therefore the US) of the land it occupies and its reserves of natural gas.
As we have suggested elsewhere, Iran’s heretofore underestimated military strength makes it a high-risk target for the US and Israel, but this is heavily outweighed by its maximum scores on the other criteria, making further military attacks against it a certainty in the short term.
The first three countries in the high susceptibility category are all high value in terms of assets or ‘property’ and relatively low risk military targets.
In particular, the DRC and the CAR have long been subjected to various forms of foreign state-supported corporate predation (using mercenaries etc.), are weak militarily, and the governance circumstances of the two countries have been reduced to ‘failed state’ status.
By some calculations, the DRC is the world’s richest country in terms of natural resources.
Regarding Venezuela, whose oil reserves are the largest in the world, President Trump’s ambitions were made clear in late August 2025 when he despatched three US warships armed with cruise missiles to the Venezuelan coast. Venezuela’s high demonisation score is accounted for by its socialist government.
Panama and Greenland are less attractive for the reasons given in Table 1, but this does not preclude them from attack. Greenland’s inclusion as a semi-autonomous region within the Kingdom of Denmark and Denmark’s authority over its foreign and defence policies explain its score on military strength.
Conclusion
The serious purpose of this plausible parody is to identify in rank order a hit list of countries that according to our PDTG will become the next victims of US imperialism under President Trump or, where they are already subject to attack, US or US-supported aggression against them will be intensified.
The other purpose is to demonstrate the depths to which international relations has sunk under the current US administration, which, given their normal abysmal state, required a deep dive.
The implications for those countries that we deem to be either ‘certainties’ or ‘high risk’ are particularly sinister. Clearly, their interest in the predictive validity of our theory will be neither light-hearted nor academic.
The post Plausible Parody: A ‘Property Development’ Theory of Geopolitics first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
How do we commemorate it? The atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War on August 6 and 9, 1945 by the United States remain the only examples of the use of such a weapon in history. Rather than banishing any temptation to use them, the wholehearted killing of tens of thousands of civilians through experimental designs laid the grounds for an arms race that has never dissipated. Once found, the military use of the atom was never abolished or dissipated. As Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War, put it to President Harry Truman in April 1945, “if the problem of the proper use of this weapon can be solved, we would have the opportunity to bring the world into a pattern in which the peace of the world and our civilization can be saved.”
After eight decades, we have two diametrically opposed trends, babbling in separate halls. Non-nuclear weapons states, for the most part, are showing fortitude and resolve in stigmatising the nuclear bomb through such instruments as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Others, such as a neutered, heavily vassalized Australia, prefer the comfort of extended deterrence offered by the US nuclear deterrent. But the aristocrats and landed gentry of the nuclear club continue to retain their prized assets, seeking to modernise and refurbish them. Like prized livestock, these creatures need feeding and watering, not forced retirement. In 2024, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute documents, the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel “continued intensive nuclear modernization programmes […] upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.”
This whole process has been characterised by a certain snobbery, one encouraged by the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The document legitimised the sanctity of the nuclear club by means of bribery: non-nuclear weapon states could still avail themselves of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes while nuclear weapons states would abide by the promise of Article VI. “Each of the Parties to the Treaty,” states the article, “undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
The NPT, and in particular Article VI, is looking increasingly worn. Executive director of Project Ploughshares, Cesar Jaramillo, is merely stating the obvious by referring to two stresses at work on those arrangements: an internal one marked “by the persistent failure of nuclear-weapon states to meet disarmament obligations” and an external one characterised by “shifting geopolitical dynamics that threaten to dismantle longstanding norms.”
Unfortunately, the events of this year, particularly regarding the illegal attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and infrastructure by Israel and the United States, continues to demonstrate the appeal of such weapons. On the pretext of claiming how horrifying such arms are in terms of acquisition and potential use, the two countries demonstrated their quintessential value. The implications of Operations “Rising Lion” and “Midnight Hammer”, the respective names given to the Israeli and US bombing operations against the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities in June, bode ill. The absurdity of this action was laid bare by the fact that Iran had originally surrendered its quest for a nuclear weapon by joining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that the US decided to leave in 2018. That Tehran subsequently enriched uranium to the level of 60 per cent was something to draw the surly attention of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but it was still below the 90 per cent required for weapons-grade production.
As the bombs fell, the grand defenders of international law were nowhere to be found. When they bothered to make an appearance, they scolded Iran for nursing nuclear ambitions of its own, sparing any chastening words for Israel, an undeclared nuclear power that decided years ago to join the nuclear club as a prancing upstart sneering at international treaties, even as it decided to deny the entitlement of any power in the Middle East to do the same. The words of Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, were typical of this: “The world has long agreed Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, and we support action to prevent this. That is what this is.”
The tragic lesson of the June attacks on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure adds succour to the proposition that not having such a military capability, and more to the point, being told not to acquire one, endangers the state in question. The North Koreans, having witnessed the demise of the regimes of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya to foreign invasion and interventions despite both having abandoned their nuclear programs, studied that lesson with avid keenness. In Europe, countries concerned about a loss of interest from the Trump administration in extending its nuclear deterrent – an infantile notion given the presence of some 100,000 US soldiers and 100 tactical nuclear weapons on the continent – are mulling over a collective option that could involve a “Eurobomb”. The pollen of proliferation is in the air.
The nuclear club, to admit members, requires stupendously good references (is the candidate clubbable or not?), powerful patrons and shed loads of hypocrisy. Short of that, the country must acquire nuclear weapons clandestinely, a point Israel knows better than most. Once admitted to the inner sanctum, membership guarantees both security and an eternal reluctance that a sovereign option, once attained, should ever be relinquished.
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The Iranian legislature raised the alarm in a closed session on Tuesday as the lawmakers reviewed for one and a half hours the repercussions of the anti-Tehran move on the country’s economy and other fields.
Germany, France and Britain, the three European signatories — the European troika or E3 — to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), announced last week they would invoke the snapback procedure, a clause that reinstates pre-JCPOA era sanctions on Tehran over claims of the Islamic Republic’s “significant non-compliance” with the landmark pact.
The snapback mechanism, defined in UN Security Council Resolution 2231, opens 30 days before the restoration of previously terminated UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.
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France, Germany, and the UK (E3) have announced they will trigger snapback sanctions on Iran at the United Nations. This will launch a 30-day process that will likely culminate in the full reinstatement of all U.N. sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The move will carry four major consequences.
First, the U.N. Security Council will formally adopt the demand — pushed by Israel — that Iran cease all uranium enrichment. Israel designed this demand to sabotage nuclear diplomacy and edge the conflict toward war.
Next, a U.N. arms embargo on Iran will return, potentially curbing Tehran’s ability to rebuild deterrence against future Israeli or American strikes, provided Russia and China treat the snapback as legitimate and enforce it.
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France, Germany, and the UK (E3) have announced they will trigger snapback sanctions on Iran at the United Nations. This will launch a 30-day process that will likely culminate in the full reinstatement of all U.N. sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. The move will carry four major consequences. First, the U.N. Security Council will formally adopt the demand — pushed by Israel — that…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The rank odour of opportunity seems to have presented itself to Australia’s Albanese government. To balance its apparently principled promise to recognise Palestinian statehood come the 80th United Nations General Assembly next month, it seemed only fair that some firm measure be taken against another Islamic outfit to balance the ledger. The Israelis were watching closely, and a sense of concern had started to bubble along the diplomatic channel that Canberra was proving wobbly. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made his views felt: “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”
On August 26, it all came to the fore. Iran had become the latest, if only briefest, of bogeymen for political consumption in Australia. The Islamic Republic, charged the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, had “directed at least two” attacks of an “appalling” and “antisemitic” nature. Expecting revelations of gleeful massacres involving whole families including livestock and uprooted orchards, we are told that these outrageous incidents were ones of arson: an attack on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney in October last year, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne last December. “These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil. They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”
Mike Burgess, the domestic spy chief, confirmed the claim that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had identified “at least two and likely more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia.” These were linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and found through “painstaking investigation” (good to see that investigations at the spy agency are painstaking). The IRGC had been fiendish in concealing its role, using “a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement.” With shamanistic self-confidence, Burgess revealed that he had warned of this very thing earlier in the year. For a sense of restrained balance, he stated that Tehran may not necessarily be “responsible for every act of antisemitism in Australia.”
The action undertaken seemed outsized, involving the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi along with three other embassy officials. They have been given seven days to exit the country. The IRGC is also slated for proscription as a terrorist organisation.
The head scratching question in all of this is: Why bother? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have larger fish to skin, fry and broil. Tehran, for all its appetites in seeking power and influence in the Middle East, has tended to keep its targets beyond the region to Israeli embassies and property and, most notably of all, dissidents. To target the Australian Jewish community would seem to be a needless expenditure of effort and resources. Australia’s resident talking head on the wickedness of the mullahs, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, herself having spent time incarcerated in Iran on suspicions of espionage, is hardly illuminating in her explanation. “It’s difficult to say what Iran’s direct motivations are, other than to undermine Australia’s social cohesion.” She opts for the primary colour approach, streaked with syllogism: as the Iranian regime is antisemitic, and as Israel is the main enemy, it follows that all Jews, according to the dotty haters in Tehran, are “an extension of Israel.”
The expulsion’s salience would have been more significant if it had been done in response to activities undertaken against members of the Iranian Australian community, a far more widespread and evident problem. Yet on this point, the Albanese government proved tardy, despite ample evidence of harassment and surveillance orchestrated at Tehran’s behest. In February 2023, the then Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil stated in her Australian National University address that ASIO had “disrupted the activities of individuals who had conducted surveillance in the home of an Iranian-Australian, as well as conducted extensive research of this individual and their family.” The previous month, a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed deep concern at “reports of foreign interference, including the harassment and intimidation of Australians online and in-person.” These matters had been raised with Iran “in no uncertain terms.”
Iran had also proved to be a more convenient, if selective target. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, for instance, Indian intelligence operatives have been creating much mischief, snooping, harassing and leaving their warning signs, most notably when it comes to the global Sikh diaspora. Concerned about the pangs of longing for the independent state of Khalistan, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not been above resorting to assassination. Melbourne taxi driver Harjinder Singh is one who can attest to threats from the Indian authorities regarding his pro-Khalistan activities, notably to his family back in India.
To add to this, India was found to have engaged in such friendly activities as cultivating access to sensitive defence technology in Australia and securing airport security protocols. In 2020, Burgess announced that his agency had “confronted” the spies in question “and quietly and professionally removed them.” Despite this fuss, there were no diplomatic expulsions. A façade of excruciating politeness was maintained.
Least surprising of all was the hearty approval of the Australian move by Israel. With Netanyahu venomously spouting at the Australian Prime Minister that he was feeble and incapable of protecting Jews in Australia, the expulsion was automatically assumed to be a product of constructive Israeli interference. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer, after explaining the reasons for Netanyahu’s hectoring, thought it a “positive outcome” that Australia was “taking the threats against Israel and the Jewish people, Jewish Australians living in Australia […] seriously”.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke dismissed efforts on the part of the Israeli government to claim the lion’s share of credit as nonsense. “We’ve taken this action because Iran has attacked Australians. No other country is involved in terms of that conclusion.”
Short of WikiLeaks finding out the inner strangeness of this, we await further evidence why Iran would ever bother to expend any time on focusing on a country so far from its interests as to be satirically irrelevant. That said, the nature of much intelligence is that it is often short of being particularly intelligent.
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Abbas Araghchi, Iranian foreign minister, called for more concrete collective action against Israel, asserting that mere verbal condemnations are no longer enough to prevent its “insatiable” Zionist ambitions to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and expand their occupation in the region.
Araghchi reiterated that the Israeli war in Gaza “is not merely a fleeting military conflict or an ordinary humanitarian crisis: it is a systematic, full fledged genocide explicitly intended to achieve ethnic cleansing amid the complicit silence of the US and the West more broadly.”
Citing the daily killing of Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid, Araghchi said that Israel has “turned hunger and famine into a new tool of genocide” and “food distribution centers into death traps for hungry women and children”, claiming that the war and genocide in Gaza is amongst the “darkest human tragedies of the modern era”.
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The Aussies just trashed their relations with Iran based on nothing but obscure say-so.
Australia throws out Iran ambassador over alleged antisemitic attacks
Canberra expelled Tehran’s ambassador after accusing Iran of masterminding at least two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country’s intelligence services had linked Iran’s military to arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, throwing out an ambassador for the first time since World War II, a move The Sydney Morning Herald’s national affairs editor dubbed “the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option.”
Iran rejected the charge.
I have searched and read several news pieces on this issue and have found no mention of any fact that would connect two months ago arson incidents in Australia with Iran.
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This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, was dismissed from his post after his agency reported that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused only “limited damage,” contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim of “total destruction,” officials announced on 22 August.
Officials told Reuters and AP that no explanation was provided for Kruse’s removal, and he was not informed of the grounds for his dismissal.
The announcement later confirmed that two other officers, Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, who led Naval Special Warfare Command, were also fired.
The post Intel Chief Fired For Contradicting Trump’s Claim Of ‘Obliterating’ Iran’s Nuclear Program appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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ANALYSIS: By Gordon Campbell
The word “Gaza” is taking on similar connotations to what the word “Auschwitz” meant to a previous generation. It signifies a deliberate and systematic attempt to erase an entire people from history on the basis of their ethnic identity.
As a result, Israel is isolating itself as a pariah state on the world stage. This week alone has seen Israel target and kill four Al Jazeera journalists, just as it had executed eight Red Crescent medical staff and seven other first responders back in March, and then dumped their bodies in a mass grave.
Overall 186 journalists have died at the hands of the IDF since October 7, 2023, and at least 1400 medical staff as of May 2025.
On Monday night a five-year-old disabled child starved to death. Reportedly, he weighed only three kilograms when he died. Muhammad Zakaria Khudr was the 101st child among the 227 Palestinians now reported to have died from starvation.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters keep on saying that with regard to New Zealand recognising a Palestinian state, it is a matter of “Not if, but when.” Yet why is “ but not now” still their default position?
At this rate, a country that used to pride itself on its human rights record — New Zealand has never stopped bragging that this is where women won the right to vote, before they did anywhere else — will be among the last countries on earth to recognise Palestine’s right to exist.
What can we do? Some options:
Here’s a bare bones timeline of the main historical events.
This map showing (in white) the countries that are yet to recognise Palestinian statehood speaks volumes:
Those holdout nations in white tend to have been the chief enablers of Israel’s founding in 1948, a gesture of atonement driven by European guilt over the Holocaust.
This “homeland” for the Jews already had residents known to have had nothing to do with the Holocaust. Yet since 1948 the people of Palestine have been made to bear all of the bad consequences of the West’s purging of its collective guilt.
Conditional justice
The same indifference to the lives of Palestinians is evident in the belated steps towards supporting the right of Palestinians to self-determination. Even the recognition promised by the UK, Canada, France and Australia next month is decked out with further conditions that the Palestinians are being told they need to meet. No equivalent demands are being made of Israel, despite the atrocities it is committing in Gaza.
There’s nothing new about this. Historically, all of the concessions have been made by the Palestinians, starting with their original displacement. Some 30 years ago, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) formally recognised Israel’s right to exist. In response, Israel immediately expanded its settlements on Palestinian land, a flagrant breach of the commitments it made in the Oslo Accords, and in the Gaza-Jericho Agreement.
The West did nothing, said little. As the New York Times recently pointed out:
In a 1993 exchange of letters, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s chairman, Yasir Arafat, recognized the “right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security” and committed the PLO to peaceful negotiations, renouncing terrorism and amending the Palestinian charter to reflect these commitments. In return, Israel would merely recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people — and only “in light of” Mr Arafat’s commitments. Palestinian sovereignty remained remote; Israeli occupation continued apace.
This double standard persists:
This fundamental unfairness has informed every diplomatic effort since. The rump Palestinian government built the limited institutions it was permitted under the Oslo Accords, co-operated with Israeli security forces and voiced support for a peace process that had long been undermined by Israel. Led by then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority’s statehood campaign in the 2000s was entirely based on playing the game according to rules set by Israel and the Western-dominated international community. Yet recognition remained stalled, the United States blocked Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations — and still, no conditions were placed on the occupying power.
That’s where we’re still at. Luxon, Peters and David Seymour are demanding more concessions from the Palestinians. They keep strongly denouncing the Hamas October 7 atrocities — which is valid — while weakly urging Israel to abide by the international laws and conventions that Israel repeatedly breaches.
When a state deploys famine as a strategic weapon, doesn’t it deserve to be condemned, up front and personal?
Instead, the language that New Zealand uses to address Israel’s crimes is almost invariably, and selectively, passive. Terrible things are “happening” in Gaza and they must “stop.” Children, mysteriously, are “starving.” This is “intolerable.”
It is as if there is no human agent, and no state power responsible for these outcomes. Things are just somehow “happening” and they must somehow “cease.” Enough is enough, cries Peters, while carefully choosing not to name names, beyond Hamas.
Meanwhile, Israel has announced its plans to expand the war, even though 600 Israeli ex-officials (some of them from Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent to the SIS) have publicly said that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel.
As mentioned, Israel is publicly discussing its plans for Gaza’s “voluntary emigration” and for the permanent annexation of the West Bank. Even when urged to do so by Christopher Luxon, it seems that Israel is not actually complying with international law, and is not fulfilling its legal obligations as an occupying power. Has anyone told Luxon about this yet?
Two state fantasy, one state reality
At one level, continuing to call for a “two state” solution is absurd, given that the Knesset formally rejected the proposal a year ago. More than once, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly denounced it while also laying Israel’s claim to all of the land west of Jordan, which would include the West Bank and Gaza.
Evidently, the slogan “ from the river to sea” is only a terrorist slogan when Hamas uses it. Yet the phrase originated as a Likud slogan.Moreover, the West evidently thinks it is quite OK for Netanyahu to publicly call for Israeli hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Basic rule of diplomacy: bad is what they do, good is what we do, and we have always been on Team Israel.
Over the course of the three decades since the Oslo Accords were signed, the West has kept on advocating for a two state solution, while acting as if only one of those states has a right to exist. On what land do Luxon and Peters think that a viable Palestinian state can be built?
One pre-condition for Palestinian statehood that Luxon cited to RNZ last week required Israel to be “not undermining the territorial integrity that would then undermine the two state solution.” Really? Does Luxon not realise that this is exactly what Israel has been doing for the past 30 years?
Talking of which . . . are Luxon and Peters genuinely expecting Israel to retreat to the 1967 borders? That land was agreed at Oslo and mandated by the UN as the territory needed for a viable Palestinian state. Yet on the relatively small area of the West Bank alone, 3.4 million Palestinians currently subsist on disconnected patches of land under occupation amid extreme settler violence, while contending with 614 Israeli checkpoints and other administrative obstacles impeding their free movement.
Here’s what the land left to the Palestinians looks like today:
A brief backgrounder on Areas A, B and C and how they operate can be found here. Obviously, this situation cannot be the template for a viable Palestinian state.
What is the point?
You might well ask . . . in the light of the above, what is the point of recognising Palestine as a state? Given the realities on the ground, it can only be a symbolic gesture. The reversion to the 1967 borders (a necessary step towards a Palestinian state) can happen only if the US agreed to push Israel in that direction by withholding funds and weaponry.
That’s very hard to imagine. The hypocrisy of the Western nations on this issue is breath-taking. The US and Germany continue to be Israel’s main foreign suppliers of weapons and targeting systems. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership as well, the UK sales of military equipment to Israel have sharply increased.
New export licensing figures show that the UK approved licenses for £127.6 million worth of military equipment to Israel in single issue licenses between October to December 2024. This is a massive increase, with the figure in this three-month period totaling more than 2020-2023 combined.
Thanks to an explicitly enacted legal exemption, the UK also continues to supply parts for Israel’s F-35 jets.
UK industry makes 15% of every F-35 in contracts [estimated] to be worth at least £500 million since 2016, and [this] is the most significant part of the UK arms industry [relationship]with Israel . . . at least 79 companies [are] involved in manufacturing components.
These are the same F-35 war planes that the IDF has used to drop 2000 pound bombs on densely populated residential neighbourhoods in Gaza. Starmer cannot credibly pose as a man of peace.
So again . . . what exactly is the point of recognising Palestine as a state? No doubt, it would boost Palestinian morale if some major Western powers finally conceded that Palestine has a right to exist. In that narrow sense, recognition would correct a historical injustice.
There is also optimistic talk that formal Palestinian statehood would isolate the US on the Security Council (Trump would probably wear that as a badge of honour) and would make Israel more accountable under humanitarian law. As if.
Theoretically, a recognition of statehood would also enable people in New Zealand and elsewhere to apply pressure to their governments to forthrightly condemn and sanction Israel for its crimes against a fellow UN member state. None of this, however, is likely to change the reality on the ground, or prevent the calls for Israel’s “accountability” and for its “compliance with international law” from ringing hollow.
As the NYT also says:
After almost two years of severe access restrictions and the dismantling of the UN-led aid system in favour of a militarised food distribution that has left more than 1300 Palestinians dead, [now 1838 dead at these “aid centres” since late May, as of yesterday] . . . The 15 nations [at a UN meeting in late July that signed a declaration on Gaza] still would not collectively say “Israel is responsible for starvation in Gaza”. If they cannot name the problem, they can hardly hope to resolve it.
In sum . . . the world may talk the talk of Palestinian statehood being a matter of “not if, but when” and witter on about the “irreversible steps” being taken toward statehood, and finally — somewhere over the rainbow — towards a two state solution. Faint chance:
“For those who are starving today, the only irreversible step is death. Until statehood recognition brings action — arms embargoes, sanctions, enforcement of international law — it will remain a largely empty promise that serves primarily to distract from Western complicity in Gaza’s destruction.
Exactly. Behind the words of concern are the actions of complicity. The people of Gaza do not have time to wait for symbolic actions, or for sanctions to weaken Israel’s appetite for genocide. Consider this option: would New Zealand support an intervention in Gaza by a UN-led international force to save Gaza’s dwindling population, and to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected, however belatedly?
Would we be willing to commit troops to such a force if asked to do so by the UN Secretary-General? That is what is now needed.
Footnote One: On Gaza, the Luxon government has a high tolerance for double standards and Catch 22 conditions. We are insisting that the Palestinians must release the remaining hostages unconditionally, lay down their arms and de-militarise the occupied territories. Yet we are applying no similar pre-conditions on Israel to withdraw, de-militarise the same space, release all their Palestinian prisoners, allow the unrestricted distribution of food and medical supplies, and negotiate a sustainable peace.
Understandably, Hamas has tied the release of the remaining hostages to the Israeli cessation of their onslaught, to unfettered aid distribution, and to a long-term commitment to Palestinian self-rule. Otherwise, once the Israeli hostages are home, there would be nothing to stop Israel from renewing the genocide.
We are also demanding that Hamas be excluded from any future governing arrangement in Gaza, but – simultaneously – Peters told the House recently that this governing arrangement must also be “representative.” Catch 22. “Representative” democracy it seems, means voting for the people pre-selected by the West. Again, no matching demands have been made of Israel with respect to its role in the future governance of Gaza, or about its obligation to rebuild what it has criminally destroyed.
Footnote Two: There is only one rational explanation for why New Zealand is currently holding back from joining the UK, Canada, France and Australia in voting next month to recognise Palestine as a full UN member state. It seems we are cravenly hoping that Australia’s stance will be viewed with such disfavour by Donald Trump that he will punish Canberra by lifting its tariff rate from 10%, thereby erasing the 5% advantage that Australia currently enjoys oven us in the US market.
At least this tells us what the selling price is for our “independent” foreign policy. We’re prepared to sell it out to the Americans – and sell out the Palestinians in the process – if, by sitting on the fence for now, we can engineer parity for our exports with Australia in US markets. ANZAC mates, forever.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
The Secretary-General of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, arrived in Baghdad for two days of meetings with Iraqi officials regarding the future of the Axis of Resistance and the political stability of Iraq and the region, Shafaq News Agency reported on 11 August.
An informed source told Shafaq that, “Gathering the so-called Axis of Resistance in the region and rearranging its cards, along with Iraq’s political role in calming the situation in the region during the next phase, are among the most important files that Larijani brought with him to Baghdad.”
The secretary-general “stressed the need to employ tools and redistribute tasks after the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq according to the agreed-upon withdrawal schedule, and to find an official and protocol-based formula for this,” the source added.
The post Iran Security Chief In Baghdad For Talks On ‘Next Phase’ Of Resistance Axis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a uranium-core atomic bomb on Hiroshima, instantly incinerating most of the city. The nuclear blast, radiation, and resulting firestorms killed 90,000 people immediately, with the death toll surpassing 100,000 by the end of 1945.
Just three days later, on August 9, the U.S. struck again, obliterating Nagasaki with a plutonium bomb. The explosion killed 40,000 on impact, while another 70,000 perished by year’s end from burns, injuries, and radiation poisoning. Tens of thousands more later succumbed to radiation sickness, bringing the total death toll to nearly 200,000. Even 80 years later, survivors and their descendants continue to suffer from the bombings’ horrific aftereffects, cancers, birth defects, and generational trauma. Yet the Japanese and U.S. governments have denied them full state compensation and proper medical care, abandoning those who endured this imperialist atrocity.
The post How US Imperialism Blackmails The World With Nuclear Weapons appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
“You’re very much into God in this room and that’s very nice,” President Donald Trump told a group of business leaders at a July 14 luncheon hosted by the White House Faith Office. In attendance were dozens of corporate executives, including Hobby Lobby CEO David Green and oil billionaire Albert Huddleston, along with senior administration officials. “You’re more than just CEOs and business…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
We believe that war, wherever and by whomever it is initiated, leads to violence, poverty, displacement, and the destruction of vital resources. The people of Iran, who have lived for years under the weight of war, sanctions, restrictions, threats, impositions, corruption, and environmental and economic crises, do not want another war.
Continue now to read this new movement’s clear, short and informative homepage and share it wherever you can.
TFF fully supports this initiative at the particular level, but also at the general level because the world needs much-much more people-to-people synergy and building peace through critical mass.
We, the people — who governments arrogantly have called NON-governmentals (NGOs) — spend far too much time and energy responding to what governments and ‘leaders’ say and do. And they are, with few exceptions, nothing but NON-peoples’ organisations (NPOs).
Share, re-post and build critical mass with the Iranian peace movement. Thank you!
The post Iranian Civil Society Calls for “Life for All, War for No One.” first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview published on 31 July that Tehran is seeking financial compensation for Israel’s war, an explanation on why Iran was attacked during negotiations, and security guarantees for any resumption of nuclear talks with Washington.
Araghchi told the Financial Times (FT) that Iran will not accept going back to “business as usual” after Israel launched its unprovoked war on the country in mid-June.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks]. And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done,” Araghchi added.
The post Iran Sets Conditions For US Nuclear Talks appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), an influential Dutch polling group cited by the New York Times, U.S. State Department and U.K. government, claims to capture the true views of everyday Iranians through unconventional online surveys.
GAMAAN calls itself an “independent” research foundation, a label echoed by news outlets and think tanks covering the group’s headline-grabbing findings, which portray the Iranian public as far more secular and anti-government than data from organizations such as Gallup and Pew Research suggest.
The post Gamaan: The Polling Op That’s Gaslighting The West About Iran appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
On 22 July, Tehran hosted a high-level trilateral summit with senior officials from Russia and China to coordinate nuclear and sanctions strategies ahead of Iran’s scheduled negotiations with the European Troika in Istanbul today.
All three delegations reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining close coordination on the nuclear file and pledged to expand consultations aimed at countering western policies, particularly US-led sanctions.
The trilateral meeting followed a sharp escalation in nuclear tensions. Just last month, the US and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, prompting Tehran to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The post Iran Confronts Europe’s Trigger Mechanism With Eurasian Allies appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
We live in interesting but brutal times. It is evident that myths are biting the dust with long held narratives dissolving when exposed to the harsh and bloody reality. Nowhere is this more evident than with all the myths that propped up Israel for many decades. Israel was portrayed as a fragile yet resilient little country living in a “bad neighbourhood.” But now, given Israel’s incessant wars, much of this mythology is being jettisoned; it is no longer needed when arrogance, hubris and sadism drive the Israeli ethos. The image of the little David is giving way to a vengeful genocidal creature infused with a dash of the Old Testament….
Below is a discussion of some of the collapsing myths. Myths are built on narratives which in turn are built on descriptive words. Much of the discussion centres around clarifying the deceptive nature of words, which in turn will expose the false narratives.
The army is venerated in Israel, and a lot of effort is put into glorifying the military; there are festivals with singers, balloons, and blue and white pom-poms galore.1 American Jewish girls go giddy when meeting the tanned and smiling soldiers. Of course, if one glorifies the military, then all the units can only be “élite”; even the lowliest soldier is given a sergeant rank; and of course they must be “the most moral ” in the world. It is also known by its incongruous acronym: IDF.
Contrast the glamorous image of the Israeli military with its actions in Gaza, West Bank and beyond. Israeli snipers are targeting children – extra-points for pregnant women (you can even purchase a T-shirt with “one shot, two kills ” logo on it). Soldiers are cheering when blowing up hospitals, universities, mosques, schools,…. it is no secret, it is all visible in Telegram videos or on Al_Jazeera’s newscasts. To make matters worse, GHF, the so-called Israeli “humanitarian ” group, dispenses food and water in Gaza today in such a way as to concentrate refugees, and then target them.2 Soldiers are looting everywhere, and even one unit has been set up with the express intention of looting areas they’ve conquered. Looting is tolerated throughout, and even made part of its tactics on the ground.3
The Israeli military is engaged in genocide and doesn’t hide the fact. Groups of soldiers engaged in ecstatic dancing chanting “death to the Amalek ” – a biblical term for the one to be killed en masse; including women and children.4 Early in October 2023, the Israeli military put a 95-year-old veteran of the infamous 1948 massacres on tour to lecture the soldiers. Dressed in a military uniform, he engaged in some motivational speeches: “Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live.”5 The pronouncements made by the military official rabbis are even worse. And one cannot forget (former Minister of Defence) Yoav Gallant’s statement: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”6
The Israeli airforce regularly drops huge bombs in the middle of densely populated refugee camps. According to Euromed, the total number of bombs dropped on Gaza are equivalent to all the bombs dropped on several of the major cities during WWII. And in order not to waste bombs, Israeli warplanes which couldn’t drop their ordnance in Iran during the June 2025 attack were instructed to bomb Gaza. Israelis also never miss an opportunity to profit from such events; Israelis flock to the border area to sit on sofas to witness the bombing spectacle. These war tourists have to pay extra for a cappuccino.
Israeli sadism only escalates; everyday there must be a new turn of the screw – it is not satisfied with merely bombing or shooting civilians. The latest Israeli military order is that from now on Palestinians will not be allowed to bathe in the sea.7 Israeli snipers, warships… will target civilians entering the sea. One Telegram video shows a gleeful Israeli soldier using mortar bombs to target civilians sitting on a beach.
The Israeli military used to be well organised and soldiers operated on the basis of strict orders. Today, the ethical rot has set in at all levels. Officers and lower soldiers alike murder, steal, torture everywhere. Soldiers perpetrate heinous crimes in full camera view, yet the perpetrators expect full impunity.
Simply put: the Israeli military can no longer be referred to as an army, but it must be described for what it actually is: a criminal rabble.
Israelis like to say that they “live in a bad neighbourhood.” In fact, it is so bad that Israel has bombed most of its neighbouring countries numerous times and attempted to murder most of the leadership in those countries.8 “Decapitation strikes” are deemed a great success and yet another proof of the Israeli cunning and prowess. Another target are the potential or actual negotiators. The Israeli military has murdered several negotiators in Lebanon, Gaza, Tehran (Ismael Haniyeh), and during the June 2025 attack against Iran the lead negotiator with the Americans was also murdered. And then Israel declares “ceasefires ” that impose conditions on the victims, but Israel continues to murder and bomb – there have been over 1,000 violations of the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon. Drones and warplanes fly overhead without regard to any declared ceasefire. Maybe all this is not surprising given the official Israeli (especially Netanyahu’s) disdain for “peace” which is considered to be a dirty word; they prefer “conflict management.” Ceasefires are merely meant to provide time for the Israeli military to reorganise and then bomb and murder in their “business as usual” fashion.
The Israeli military’s brutality even gets pompous sounding names like the Dahiya Doctrine. This refers to the levelling of the Dahiya neighbourhood in Beirut 2006 – it is a disproportionate level of violence “in response” to Hezbollah daring to resist the Israeli attack. And of course, Israelis justify this by seeking to reestablish “deterrence” which is yet another fraudulent military concept.9 But then the Israeli military applies other fraudulent and morally reprehensible doctrines, e.g., the Hannibal directive. This directive orders the Israeli military to kill Israeli Jews who may have been captured by Palestinians or other enemies. Officials prefer to kill Israelis rather than to have them taken as hostages. In fact, about half of the Israeli civilians killed on 7 October 2023 were killed by the Israeli military.10
The Israeli military justifies its actions because it is “at war.” The resistance in Gaza has no tanks, airplanes, etc. Thus the best equipped army in the world is attacking a mostly defenceless population; maybe it is a bit of a stretch to call this a “war.” Norman Finkelstein, the great historian, once made the same point and suggested that the Israeli “mowing the lawn ” attacks should be referred to as “massacres.” That is a rather more accurate and succinct descriptor; in the current historical context “genocidal actions” is perhaps more accurate.
A mythology surrounding the early Israeli colonists became pervasive early on. The brave sun tanned pioneers were “making the desert bloom”11 conveying the notion that they were just taking over empty and unproductive land. The word that went along with this myth was that the Jewish interlopers were “settlers ” – another rather neutral word that has no association with the native population they came to displace. For some time while communal living had romantic appeal, settlers lived in kibbutzim. Young Europeans would flock to experience this only to find out a less glamorous picture often involving corruption and sexual abuse.12
After the 1940s, the program of ethnic cleansing saw hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages razed to the ground or simply taken over. Many Israelis took over houses and even helped themselves to furniture, carpets, etc. The takeover of houses is an on-going project with zealot usurpers using advanced mapping technology to target houses, especially in East Jerusalem. While a Palestinian family is out of a house doing normal daily chores, they find upon their return that their house has been taken over, and it is impossible to eject the squatters because the police sides with the latter.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a wave of land confiscation in the West Bank, and the building of “settlements ” on top of hills. The real zealots went to Al Khalil/Hebron to take over houses, hotels, and other buildings.13 They even set about closing off streets so they could go undisturbed to the Ibrahimi mosque which also had been usurped by the zealots. The zealots’ aim is to constantly steal houses, and to make the life of ordinary Palestinians intolerable.
Other settlements were built as suburbs of Jerusalem or as cities with all the amenities provided at subsidised rates. Purpose-built “apartheid” roads connected these developments to the main Israeli cities, but also were meant to sever the links between Palestinian communities. And although the residents of such places are portrayed as mere suburbanites, they often clash with Palestinians when they seek to annex more land. Although annexation is such a neutral word, it hides the violence dispensed by the suburbanites to achieve their aims. The Jews recently arrived from Venezuela sought to expand the borders of their development and requested the zealots to do the dirty violent work.14 The condition for this assistance was that new arrivals would also participate in the violent eviction and usurpation of the neighbouring Palestinian land. Even the “suburbanites ” participate in violence; the soldiers are on standby to protect the usurpers.
It is important to avoid propaganda-tainted language, and to use words that clearly describe a reality and associated power relationships. For this reason many words cry out for an alternative description. The word “settler” demands a more accurate substitution, and the word “squatter” would certainly be a more suitable and accurate descriptor. It is time to stop calling the armed violent young men who harass and brutalise Palestinians in the West Bank “settlers”!
Israel always has been a country with flexible and expanding borders. Yet, when it suited them, they would make a distinction between “Israel proper” and the occupied areas. The implication was that there could be negotiations regarding the occupied areas, there couldn’t possibly be negotiations about anything in Israel proper – this was conceded land, and there was nothing to talk about. And the “proper” areas expanded! After the wars of 1948, 1967, 2006… the borders of Israel “proper” expanded to incorporate newly stolen land.15 What the current batch of wars have revealed is that there is no more talk about “Israel proper”, and the reason for that is that Israel is expanding at present – stealing land in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. While the borders keep expanding, the “proper” hasn’t incorporated the newly usurped land.
A feature of the “Israel proper” concept is that Israel desires to have buffer zones or no-man’s land between its “recognised” borders and its neighbours. But the buffer zones have to be on Lebanese or Syrian soil; the buffer is never on the Israeli side. The Israeli military has created a no-man’s land on the border with Gaza, but all the bulldozed land and acreage sprayed with herbicide is on the Palestinian side of the military-imposed border. And if the UN feels that it needs to conduct some face-saving military patrols, then the UN can defend Israel by sitting in the Lebanese “buffer zone”; UNIFIL shouldn’t even dream of sitting right on the border or having its soldiers cross into Israel for some R&R.
All western societies have been indoctrinated with holocaust mythology; one constant refrain has been “never again”. Fair enough. But if any lessons were learnt then this slogan should apply to all; it should read Never again for Everybody. The Gazan population certainly should not be the victim of genocide today – yet there is no doubt that that is exactly what is going on. A brief perusal of the so-called “holocaust studies centres” around the world reveal that they have been silent during this period – they are immersed in studying the 1940s; there seem to be no lessons for the current situation. One such centre features a large “Find memory; Find humanity” slogan on its website, yet (July 2025) has absolutely nothing to say about the genocide in Gaza. It is all about selective memory and humanity.
Pogroms were violent attacks against a religious or ethnic group in the Russian Empire and usually depicted as criminal in nature. Yet today young armed Israeli Jews regularly invade Palestinian villages and towns and brutalise or murder the native population. If violence was deemed intolerable in the past, then why the silence about the ongoing pogroms in the West Bank today?
Several so-called influencers, the contemptible creatures appearing on TikTok/Instagram, etc., called for genocide in Gaza. One of the influencers went so far as to state that if there were a button to get rid of all the Palestinians, he would press the button.16The calls for genocide are also commonly found at the podium of the Knesset. The wife of an Israeli soldier, hysterically shouted from podium not to let the sacrifice of her husband’s effort (having to work overtime) be wasted, and thus “don’t stop before…” the Israeli army exterminates all Palestinians.17
Israeli society is rather warped, and it is constantly polled about all sorts of unusual issues. One of the recent questions was “are Palestinian children in Gaza innocent?” 75% of the respondents said “no.” In one motivational speech given to the soldiers about to invade Gaza, a high ranking officer also stated “the children are not innocent” – this follows Deuteronomy’s edict to kill the women and the children.
After the first hearing about Gaza was held at the ICJ (26 January 2024) at a demonstration in London, dozens of counter-demonstrators wearing Israeli flag capes were chanting “no ceasefire.” By this time several hospitals and universities had already been destroyed. Is this what the counter-demonstrators wished to continue?
Maybe a thought experiment will demonstrate the extreme hypocrisy of these influencers and counter-demonstrators. Imagine that a Palestinian influencer were to ask for a button get rid of all Israeli Jews, or that a Palestinian politician were to utter a similar statement. What do you think the reaction would be? The ultimate hypocrisy is for Jews who bow to the mere mention of the holocaust to call for genocide against Palestinians.
While the London police did nothing to suppress the counter-demonstrators yelling support for the genocide, they do actively suppress pro-Palestinian statements against the genocide! In a recent video, the police in Scotland are even tearing down Palestinian flags.18 And in the US, Trump is actually suppressing all protests and commentary against Israeli brutality by labelling it as antisemitism.
About one thousand mosques and several churches have been obliterated since 2023.19 Some of the mosques/churches were centuries old and could be deemed cultural heritage sites – of course, they didn’t receive a UNESCO label because Israel blocked such designations.20 The media tends to ignore the destruction of mosques or refers to Israeli justifications for their destruction. The few christian churches bombed in Gaza did elicit mention, and after the bombing of a Catholic church even Pope Leo XIV stated that “he was deeply saddened…” by the loss of life.21 What makes the Pope’s comment memorable is the fact that he didn’t mention that it was Israel that bombed the church. Anonymous bombs just seem to fall out of the sky.
While the intentional destruction of Palestinian holy sites or mosques doesn’t seem to merit any mention, when a synagogue is damaged this elicits a major outcry. But to highlight the double standard, the establishment of a synagogue, or purportedly finding a reference to a Tomb or mere place of sojourn by a well known rabbi, then Israeli Jews consider this to be a claim to the land. Thus an enterprising religious scholar found a reference to a Tomb of Rabbi Ashi in Lebanon, then this became a land claim.22 Israelis grab any justification to steal yet more land however flimsy the claim to the land may be.
The many wars that Israel has waged recently have outraged many around the world giving rise to demonstrations and the like. Yet, the frequent media concern is with the “comfort ” of Jews witnessing the demonstrations! Although Israel is conducting a genocide, Jews should feel comfortable and not reminded of sordid events. Even a bake sale meant to raise funds for Gaza was deemed to interfere with Jewish comfort.23 Did white South Africans living in Europe object to anti-apartheid demonstrations on the basis that it made them feel uncomfortable? Fat chance! However, in the current context several governments have appointed “anti-semitism ambassadors ” who will work to ban demonstrations or manifestations of support for the Palestinians. Maybe a case can be made that supporters of the Israeli genocide in Gaza or the unprovoked attack against Iran should be made to feel uncomfortable.
Much is made of “western values” purportedly freedom of speech, association, respect for the rule of law, and respecting immigrants. These values are what makes Europe a “garden” and everywhere else a “jungle.”24 These values have also been used to justify the continued EU assistance to Ukraine, and thus war. Russia has invariably been castigated for not observing “western norms.” But, when it comes to genocidal Israel and its violent tendencies, the same insufferable politicians are silent or connive to send weapons and assistance to Israel.
Europe is meant to absorb huge migrant flows, yet Israel imposes a discriminatory migrant policy – only Jews need to apply. Israel’s incessant wars are creating migrant flows that inevitably end in Europe, and no European official seems willing to point this out. What we witness instead is that European officials travel to Egypt to offer enticements for Egypt to absorb Palestinian refugees; a few years ago the same gang offered several billion Euros to Erdogan to reduce the Syrian and Iraqi migrant flows.
Reading the mainstream media one would get the impression that Palestinian history started on 7 October 2023. Everything before that doesn’t seem to merit mentioning. All the “mowing the lawn” military operations aren’t a thing of the past, they are in a memory hole. The Goldstone report documenting the mass crimes committed in 2009 is also in the memory hole. Of course, it is too much to expect the mainstream media to even mention relevant history that goes back a few more years. The media don’t report on the caged nature of Gaza, surrounded by razor wire and watchtowers. And as Dov Weissglas, the advisor to Ariel Sharon, stated the residents of Gaza would be kept “on a diet” – that is, Israeli bureaucrats would calculate the minimum caloric intake needed to survive, and they would allow just this amount of aid to trickle into Gaza.
While it is important to use accurate words to describe Israeli state policy, it is also important for pro-Palestinian activists to change the words they use to refer to the current reality. One finds that the word “occupation” is used often to describe the Israeli military, and even to the extent that it is used as a synonym. Similarly, the “apartheid” descriptor is used without much reflection, e.g., apartheid wall, apartheid roads, etc. Both occupation and apartheid indicate a co-existence with the native population. Apartheid meant coexisting economically, but living separately – there was an interaction between blacks and whites. The word occupation suggests that it is temporary, and that interaction is possible. But the genocide in Gaza indicates that Israel prefers erasing the Palestinians, and that way ending the occupation. The three strategists drawing up the path of the wall built in the West Bank were explicit about the temporary nature of the structure. It would remain in place to control the Palestinian population, but they foresaw that the wall will be removed once the Palestinian population has been expelled.
There is another problem with the word “apartheid.” While much effort was placed to declare that Israel was guilty of the “crime of apartheid,” it only referred to the “occupied territories.” The third class status of Palestinians living in Israel was unmentionable to those drawing up the legal case. Apartheid was deemed a crime on one side of the line, but just fine on the other side (in “Israel proper”).
The so-called West slowly adopted some sanctions and divestment of South Africa beginning in the 1970s; the public had engaged in some form of boycott of South African products before that. Ronnie Kasrils, the great anti-apartheid fighter and member of the African National Congress, stated that the situation now for the Palestinians is worse than that experienced by the black population at the height of the oppressive apartheid years. While Western countries grudgingly sanctioned and divested from South Africa, one wonders when will there be some official opposition to Israel’s genocidal actions.
The Israelis and their supporters spent much effort painting Israel as a valiant little country trying to become a success story surrounded by hostile neighbours. Israelis were portrayed as pioneers thriving despite the odds. The propagandists working for Israel had appropriated victimhood, and justified Israel’s actions as “self defence.” Alas, all this mythology has been ruined because Israeli officialdom chose to wage wars, expel the native population, commit genocide in Gaza, attack Iran, attack Yemen, and steal yet more land from its neighbours. It requires more than lipstick to doll up this pig. Today Israeli propaganda relies on threats, and strong armed techniques to censor and muzzle dissent. Much of this is done by control over the media which seems to work in tandem with Israeli propagandists. Student protestors are threatened and even imprisoned; conscientious journalists are fired….
For all moral world citizens, the task is to oppose all the ghastly things Israel does every day, to reject their sorry justifications ( “self defence”); reject the portrayal of Israel’s proclaimed enemies (demonising Hamas, and the Palestinians in general); reject the portrayal of the Israeli military (why should anyone want to be an “ally” of this country?), reject Israel as a ethnocracy where rights and status are determined by whether or not one is Jewish (reject “Jewish democracy” if it excludes or discriminates against segment of the population; it is not much different from “white democracy” during South Africa’s apartheid years). In many ways, if one appeals to “western values”, the mantra often repeated by western officialdom, then one must also be willing to judge Israeli’s actions and institutions by the same standard. Just because Israel holds a gay pride parade doesn’t make them a beacon of shared values. Our opposition can start with acts as simple as challenging the manager of our local supermarket why they stock Israeli avocados and oranges; indeed, the boycott against apartheid in South Africa started by boycotting their oranges. But these are small steps when bolder action is needed – it is long overdue.
Notes:
The post Debunking Israeli Propaganda in Times of Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A confidential memorandum obtained by Periodista Digital reveals a controversial agreement that would place Armenia’s Zangezur Corridor under US control for 99 years, effectively surrendering key national territory to US private military companies and facilitating unimpeded Azerbaijani access to Nakhchivan and Turkiye.
The document, titled “Memorandum of Understanding on the Creation of the ‘Trump Bridge’ Transport Corridor,” has reportedly been approved by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the US, according to the Spanish newspaper.
The post Armenia To Cede Control Of Zangezur Corridor To United States appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
In the four days of coverage after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran (6/21–24/25), the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post responded with 36 opinion pieces and editorials. Almost half of these, 17, explicitly supported the illegal bombing, while only 7 (19%) took an overall critical view of the strikes—none of them in the Journal or the Post.
Of the critical pieces, only three (one in the Times and two in USA Today) opposed the idea on legal or moral grounds, challenging the idea that the United States has a right to attack a country that had not attacked it.
This opposition rate of less than a fifth is in stark contrast to US public opinion on the matter, which showed that 56% of Americans opposed Trump’s bombing. Why wasn’t this reflected in the range of opinions presented by America’s top press outlets? These numbers highlight just how poorly represented the views of the public are in elite media.
Bret Stephens (New York Times, 6/22/25) argued that bombing Iran without any evidence the country intended to build a nuclear weapon was “the essence of statesmanship.”
FAIR looked at all opinion pieces in the four papers that addressed Trump’s strikes on Iran, from June 21 through June 24. Forty-seven percent (17) explicitly praised Trump’s unauthorized act of war.
Many of these cheered the aggressive assertion of US power. The New York Times’ Bret Stephens (6/22/25) lauded “Trump’s Courageous and Correct Decision,” which “deserves respect, no matter how one feels about this president and the rest of his policies.” At the Washington Post, David Ignatius (6/22/25) offered similar praise under the headline, “Trump’s Iran Strike Was Clear and Bold,” and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (6/22/25) declared, “Trump Meets the Moment on Iran.”
USA Today (6/22/25) published columnist Nicole Russell’s “Trump Warned Iran. Then He Acted Boldly to Protect America.” The headline was later changed to an even more laudatory: “Trump Was Right to Bomb Iran. Even Democrats Will Be Safer Because of It.” In a Wall Street Journal guest column (6/24/25), Karen Elliott House celebrated the “restor[ation] of US deterrence and credibility.”
Some directly attempted to defend the strikes’ legality. In a Post guest column (6/23/25), Geoffrey Corn, Claire Finkelstein and Orde Kittrie claimed to explain “Why Trump Didn’t Have to Ask Congress Before Striking Iran.” The piece relied extensively on the playground rhetorical tool of if they did it, why can’t I?, confidently listing earlier US presidents’ attacks that defied constitutional law, as if past violations justify the current one.
They asserted that “the operation also derives support from international law as an exercise of collective self-defense in defense of Israel,” ignoring the fact that international law does not allow you to “defend” yourself against a country that hasn’t attacked you—let alone the illogical formulation of the US engaging in “self-defense” on behalf of another country.
For the Wall Street Journal‘s art department (6/24/25), war is peace.
USA Today columnist Dace Potas (6/22/25), who called the attacks “strategically the right move and a just action,” also defended the constitutionality of Trump’s strikes, attacking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call to impeach Trump over the strikes:
If the president is not able to respond to a hostile regime building weapons that could destroy entire American cities, then I’m not sure what else, short of an actual invasion of the homeland, would allow for him to act.
That’s the thing about self-defense, though—it’s supposed to involve an attack.
Journal columnist Gerard Baker (6/23/25), who called the attack “judicious and pragmatic,” likewise pointed to Iran’s nuclear program, claiming that “no one seriously doubts the Iran nuclear threat”—despite both US intelligence and the International Agency for Atomic Energy concluding otherwise.
Yet another angle came from Times columnist Thomas Friedman (6/22/25), who argued that the “Attacks on Iran Are Part of a Much Bigger Global Struggle”—between the forces of “inclusion,” who believe in “more decent, if not democratic, governance,” and the forces of “resistance,” who “thrive on resisting those trends because conflict enables them to keep their people down.” Friedman called Trump’s strikes “necessary” for the right side to “triumph” in this good-vs-evil struggle.
The New York Times (6/22/25) figures you can’t go wrong by asserting total ignorance.
Of the remaining opinion pieces, ten accepted the strikes as a fait accompli and offered analysis that mostly speculated about the future and offered no anti-bombing pushback.
For instance, the Wall Street Journal published a commentary (6/23/25) asking “Can Iran Strike Back Effectively?” A New York Times op-ed (6/22/25) by security consultant Colin P. Clarke speculated about “How Iran Might Strike Back.”
The Times also published columnist W.J. Hennigan’s piece (6/22/25) that warned that “We Have No Idea Where This War Will Go.” Hennigan speculated: “It’s almost certain we haven’t seen the end of US military action in this war,” but he did not indicate whether this might be a good or bad thing.
Others were slightly more wary, such as a Times op-ed (6/23/25) headlined “What Bombs Can’t Do In Iran.” The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Karim Sadjadpour asked, “Will this extraordinary act of war strengthen Tehran’s authoritarians or hasten their demise?” Sadjadpour tells readers that “while military strikes may expose an authoritarian regime’s weaknesses, they rarely create the conditions necessary for lasting democratic change”—yet he offers support for both possible outcomes.
Similarly, the Washington Post (6/22/25) published a triple-bylined opinion piece debating the question: “Will the US/Iran Conflict Spin Out of Control?” Participant Jason Rezaian did not criticize the bombing itself, only the lack of strategy around it, judging that Trump’s idea of “decimating Iran’s defenses and then letting them stay in power to terrorize their citizens, dissidents and opponents around the world would be a massive failure” and concluding, “my concern is that there is no plan to speak of.”
Criticizing Donald Trump’s decision-making process, USA Today‘s Rex Huppke (6/22/25) assures readers that “of course” he hopes the bombing of Iran is “successful.”
Of the seven articles that criticized Trump’s actions, more were critical of Trump and his personality or disregard of procedure than were opposed to the illegal and aggressive actions of an empire. Three of these came from USA Today’s Rex Huppke. His first column (6/21/25) argued that “Trump may have just hurled America into war because he was mad nobody liked his recent military parade.”
His second piece (6/22/25) accused Trump of starting the war based on “vibes,” and rightly attacked the credibility of the administration, citing the numerous contradictory or false statements from US and Israeli officials. However, that column made it clear that Huppke hoped for a successful strike on Iran, even as he acknowledged it could end in “disaster”:
If Trump’s bombing of Iran proves successful—and I, of course, hope it does—it’ll be dumb luck. But if it leads to disaster, it’ll be exactly what anyone paying attention to these reckless hucksters predicted.
At the New York Times, former Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote a guest column (6/24/25) under the headline: “Trump’s Iran Strike Was a Mistake. I Hope It Succeeds.” Blinken’s primary issue with Trump’s attack was that Blinken deemed it ineffective; his secondary concern was that his own State Department achievements were being overlooked: “Mr. Trump’s actions were possible only because of the work of the Obama and Biden administrations.”
It’s telling that a piece (New York Times, 6/23/25) arguing that Trump’s airstrikes were illegal has to go on to explain why that’s bad.
Of the 36 editorials and opinion pieces published by the top papers on the Iran bombing, only three (8%) explicitly opposed the bombing on legal or moral grounds. The New York Times and USA Today ran opinions grounded in legal arguments. USA Today also published human rights attorney Yasmin Z. Vafa on the human toll of this war on the citizens of Iran.
In her Times op-ed (6/23/25), Yale Law School professor Oona A. Hathaway points out that the attacks were not only unconstitutional, but in violation of international law, as Trump did not seek approval from either Congress or the UN Security Council. Hathaway was the sole opinion writer to describe Trump’s illegal actions with the same diction usually reserved for America’s enemies:
The seeming rise of authoritarianism at home is precipitating a kind of international authoritarianism, in which the American president can unleash the most powerful military the world has ever known on a whim.
USA Today‘s Chris Brennan (6/24/25) also emphasized Trump’s lack of congressional approval under the headline: “There’s a Legal Way to Go to War. Trump Flouting the Constitution Isn’t It.”
The same day in USA Today (6/24/25), Vafa—an Iranian refugee herself—brought a human angle to this conflict that is unfortunately hard to come by in the top papers’ pages. She wrote: “This kind of violence doesn’t happen in theory. It happens in living rooms. In kitchens. In schoolyards and in hospitals.”
Vafa not only raised the US’s history of destabilization in the Middle East, she also contextualized these kinds of attacks’ role in creating the refugee crises that right-wingers then use to create moral panics. “We are here because you were there,” she wrote.
The New York Times letters page (6/22/25) once again demonstrated that the paper is well to the right of its readership.
The New York Times (6/22/25) did publish a series of letters to the editor from their readers on “The Consequences of US Strikes in Iran.” Unlike the professional columnists, many of these readers were explicitly against the bombing. One letter began: “Once again our government has launched a war against a nation that has not attacked the United States.”
Another writer wrote:
Whether President Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities has postponed one danger or not, it has surely destroyed the effort to limit nuclear proliferation. The damage is incalculable.
Another wrote: “By crossing the line and attacking Iran, the United States should not be under the misconception that it has made a step toward peace.”
In fact, the only pro-bombing letter the Times published in the package was not written by an average citizen, but by Aviva Klompas, identified by the Times as “a former speechwriter for Israel.”
Every big US aggression is sold by a Big Lie, told over and over again by policy makers and repeated ad nauseam in the press. US interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Ukraine have all been sold to the public based on Big Lies.
This time for US newspaper columnists, the Big Lie is twofold: firstly, that Iran was rejecting negotiations in favor of building a bomb; secondly, that Iran wants to build a bomb to destroy Israel. These lies rely not only on ignorance, but also on a media apparatus that repeats them until they’re accepted as an uncontested premise for all discussion.
As FAIR (10/17/17, 6/23/25) has described in the past, these claims have no basis in fact. Iran, which has long been in favor of a nuclear weapons–free Middle East, has attempted to negotiate a stable deal with the West for over a decade. Hindering this are Israel’s insistence on its undeclared nuclear arsenal, as well as both Trump and Biden’s rejection of the deal negotiated under Obama. Even if that weren’t the case, there’s no indication whatsoever that Iran, should it produce a nuclear bomb, would commit national suicide by attacking Israel with it.
These misrepresentations are made all the more egregious by the fact that there is a Mideastern country that has rejected the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which occupies neighboring lands under military dictatorship, regularly attacks and violates treaties with its neighbors, has proven repeatedly to be a bad-faith negotiator, is currently committing an internationally recognized genocide, and does all this in the name of rights given to them by God. That country is Israel. If the columnists at leading US newspapers had any consistency, they would be calling for Trump to launch a surprise attack on Israel’s nuclear facilities and stockpiles.
But they don’t do this, because they either don’t know or don’t care about the relevant history. They’re all willing to uncritically manufacture consent for the US empire.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Approximately 100 incarcerated Iranian trans people are missing, presumed dead, after an Israeli strike on the infamous Evin Prison. Authorities inside Iran, and political prisoners from inside the prison, are saying these missing individuals were killed in the bombardment. Israeli officials and media have framed the attack on Evin as “symbolic”: Israel wanted to show Iranians that it…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.