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Category: israel

  • Even Laura Kuenssberg can’t stomach vile Israeli crybully

    On 13 June, Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran to distract from its ongoing genocide in Gaza. Claiming that it launched the assault because Iran was developing weapons of mass destruction (which Israel already has many of itself), the apartheid state’s justification mirrored that which the US and UK used to pardon their illegal invasion of Iraq. The difference between now and 2003 is that no one is buying it anymore, and this means that even the usually compliant BBC has to question the narrative:

    A history of dehumanisation

    Tzipi Hotovely is Israel’s ambassador to the UK. As The Canary reported in December 2023:

    The Labour Muslim Network has written to leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer outlining an expectation “that no further engagements be made or platforms shared by Labour Party representatives with the current Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely”. …

    Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom Hotovely made clear in a Sky News interview last week that Israel will never accept a Palestinian state. When pressed on the question of an independent Palestinian state in the future, Hotovely answered without equivocation “the answer is absolutely no.” A two-state solution has been the policy of the Labour Party, the UK, and has had international consensus, for decades.

    Moreover, Hotovely is considered to be far-right politically by many people. She has repeatedly denied Israel is causing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hotovely also repeated the lie that Hamas had beheaded 40 babies on 7 October.

    When Israel made Hotovely the ambassador in 2020, the Guardian described “outrage as hardliner is chosen as next Israeli ambassador to UK”, writing:

    The appointment of a hardline supporter of the annexation of Palestinian land as the next Israeli ambassador to the UK has dismayed sections of the British Jewish community, with some calling on the UK government to refuse to accept the nomination.

    Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s settlements minister, has been named by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the successor to Mark Regev, who stepped down as ambassador to the UK last week.

    She has described herself as “a religious rightwinger” and rejects Palestinian claims to any part of the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem. In a speech in 2015, she said Israel had tried too hard to appease the world. “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.”

    The Canary also covered Hotovely attending the Labour conference in 2024, with Hannah Sharland writing:

    If the new Labour government signalled one thing indisputably at its party conference this year, is that it’s an unrepentant apologist for genocidal war criminals. This was particularly apparent at a Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) official fringe event. There, cabinet members – half themselves funded by the pro-Israel lobby group – welcomed Israel’s hard right genocide-mongering ambassador with open arms. Obviously, this was in sharp contrast to its violent repressive reception towards activists protesting for Palestine at conference.

    Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely’s disgusting genocidal rap-sheet has been hard to miss. But it didn’t stop Labour’s top-dogs hobnobbing will Hotovely anyway

    ‘There was no imminent threat’

    Speaking to the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg, Hotovely explained Israel’s convoluted reasoning for why its unprovoked assault was actually “an act of self-defence”, explaining:

    Now, we are in a point where president Trump gave sixty days of negotiation to the Iranians to give a diplomatic solution, and the Iranians didn’t really [want] to have any diplomatic solution. They were actually – when the IAEA published this report that was clearly showing that Iran was misleading the international community, enriching uranium – and we saw with our intelligence abilities, that they were racing fast to get nuclear bombs with the combination of enrichment and weaponization. When all this happened, we had to move fast to operate against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

    We criticise Kuenssberg most weeks, but in this instance she did clearly point out the following:

    But let me tell people… what the director of intelligence of the United States said very clearly – recently – [was] ‘we continue to assess that Iran is not yet building a nuclear weapon’.

    Israel has faced ongoing threats from Iran for many years. There was no imminent threat.

    While Kuenssberg is simply stating the obvious, those of you who are old enough to have lived through the invasion of Iraq (or are aware of the BBC‘s clear pro-Israel bias) know that we can’t always trust our media to do the absolute bare minimum.

    The ‘crybully’ technique

    The term ‘crybully’ is defined as follows:

    A person who intimidates, harasses, or abuses others yet, esp. following resistance or disagreement, claims to be a victim of ill-treatment

    The Israeli government is the greatest crybully on the planet, and its representatives like Hotovely are masters of the technique. This is how the crybully tactic manifested in the interview, with Hotovely saying:

    Actually, what we are seeing is targeting communities in the centre of Israel. My parents live in the city that was hurt yesterday. Now, I was talking to my father and to my mother – 3 o’clock in the morning Israel time – and their whole house was shaking. And – and they had to go to to their shelter. They’re in their seventies.

    Once again, Kuenssberg didn’t let her get away with it, cutting Hotovely off to say:

    That is retaliation to strikes by Israel. That is retaliation from Iran.

    Hotovely has been the ambassador to the UK since 2020, which is more than long enough for her to have heard the phrase ‘chat shit, get banged’, and in this instance Israel did far more than just chat.

    Dragging us all into hell

    What Israel has done to the Palestinians – with Western support and participation – is one of the greatest atrocities of this or any other century. Now, in what seems to be an attempt to draw its supposed allies into a much larger war, Israel is purposefully starting a conflict with Iran.

    We all need to be very clear about this.

    We will not support any involvement in this war, and we should immediately stop providing Israel with the weapons and other assistance it’s using to commit these atrocities.

    As grim as things seem, though, we are at least optimistic that the tide is turning. After all, when even Laura Kuenssberg can’t help but challenge the bullshit, it’s obvious that no one can.

    Featured image via BBC 

    By John Shafthauer

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Damning new analysis of BBC bias shows consistent pro-Israel propaganda during Gaza genocide

    The Centre For Media Monitoring (CfMM) has released a rigorous new report about BBC bias during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And it’s headline statistic is stark, revealing the public broadcaster’s decision to place significantly more value on Israeli lives than on Palestinian lives. Because although Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 34 times more Palestinians, Israelis who died got 33 times more coverage. The BBC also interviewed more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians.

    The BBC‘s bias towards Israel has perhaps been clearer than ever before since October 2023. But the CfMM has put together what even a former Conservative Party chair has called:

    a comprehensive, evidence-based indictment that cannot be ignored

    Overwhelming evidence of BBC bias in favour of Israel

    Despite the global scholarly consensus that the apartheid state has been committing genocide since October 2023, meanwhile, the BBC opted to make Israelis’ suffering sound worse than Palestinians’. As the CfMM pointed out:

    Emotive language like “slaughter” & “massacre” was used 4x more often for Israelis.

    But while actively using such words when prioritising Israeli lives, the BBC consistently sought to shut down any mention of the word genocide to talk about the mass murder in Gaza.

    The BBC also regularly tried to push guests to condemn the resistance of Hamas, while never asking any to condemn Israel’s genocidal war crimes. This is despite Israel not having the right to “self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies” and international law protecting the right of Palestinian people to resist Israeli occupation.

    At the same time, the public broadcaster seemed to do its best to ignore the decades-long historical context of illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the apartheid system Israel has set up, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing via illegal settlements. It managed to mention the word ‘occupation’ a small handful of times, but the other issues were “all missing from the story”.

    The apparent assumption of Israeli innocence and Palestinian guilt, meanwhile, was visible in the unequal coverage of hostages in Israel and hostages in Gaza.

    And the CfMM also made a telling comparison between the war between Russia and Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Faithfully toeing the British state’s policy line of demonising Russia and defending Israel, the BBC spoke about Russia a lot more harshly than Israel, and treated Ukrainians a lot more sympathetically than Palestinians.

    The CfMM has called for “an independent public review of the BBC’s Gaza reporting”.

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Illegal Attack On Iran

    Israel’s consistent attacks on Iran since 2023 have all been illegal, violations of the United Nations Charter (1945). Iran is a member state of the United Nations and is therefore a sovereign state in the international order. If Israel had a problem with Iran, there are many mechanisms mandated by international law that permit Israel to bring complaints against Iran.

    Thus far, Israel has avoided these international forums because it is clear that it has no case against Iran. Allegations that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, which are constantly raised by the United States, the European Union, and Israel, have been fully investigated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and found to be unfounded.

    The post The Illegal Attack On Iran appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Folly Of A War With Iran

    The neoconservatives who orchestrated the disastrous wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya — and who were never held accountable for the profligate waste of $8 trillion taxpayer dollars, as well as $69 billion squandered in Ukraine — look set to lure us into yet another military fiasco with Iran.

    Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Yemen. Iran is the seventeenth largest country in the world, with a land mass equivalent to the size of Western Europe. It has a population of almost 90 million — 10 times greater than Israel — and its military resources, as well as alliances with China and Russia, make it a formidable opponent.

    The post The Folly Of A War With Iran appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • ‘Satanic acts’: Iran’s Dr. Foad Izadi on Israel’s New Regime Change War

    The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal interviews Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of world politics at the University of Tehran, amid Israeli airstrikes on Iran which assassinated nuclear scientists and military officials while killing many civilians. As one of his country’s most prolific political commentators, Izadi critiques the Iranian president’s diplomacy with the US, Trump’s perfidious actions, and the mood of Iranian society.

    The post ‘Satanic acts’: Iran’s Dr. Foad Izadi on Israel’s New Regime Change War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Iran Will Not Stop Strikes Until US-Backed Israeli War Ends

    Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on 15 June that Iran will not end its strikes against Israel until the US-backed Israeli war against the country is halted.

    “We are defending ourselves; our defense is entirely legitimate,” the foreign minister said.

    “This defense is our response to aggression. If the aggression stops, naturally our responses will also stop,” he added.

    Araghchi condemned the Israeli attack on Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field on Saturday night, warning that “dragging the conflict to the Persian Gulf is a strategic mistake, and its aim is to drag the war beyond Iranian territory.”

    The post Iran Will Not Stop Strikes Until US-Backed Israeli War Ends appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel Opens New Front With Iran, But Gaza Still Bleeds

    In the hours after Israel attacked Iran, international pressure over Israel’s starvation and civilian killings in Gaza had apparently dissipated.

    Since Israel launched attacks on Iran, it has killed more than 140 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including over 40 aid seekers near the distribution sites run by the controversial US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

    Internet and fixed-line communications were down across Gaza after Israeli forces bombed the territory’s last remaining fiber optic cable on Thursday. Israel prevented repairs to the internet and telecommunications infrastructure until Saturday evening, when service was finally restored.

    The post Israel Opens New Front With Iran, But Gaza Still Bleeds appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • European Dockworkers Are Refusing to Load Weapons for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

    On June 4, in response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza, France’s CGT dockworkers refused to load arms components bound for Israel at the country’s largest port in Fos-Marseille. Their action forced the ship to leave port without its deadly cargo. Across Europe, dockers carried on the fight. In Genoa, Italian dockworkers pledged to inspect the same vessel and block it if weapons were found.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel And Iran Trade Deadly Strikes For Third Day


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Why Israel’s shock and awe has proven its power but lost the war

    COMMENTARY: By Antony Loewenstein

    War is good for business and geopolitical posturing.

    Before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington in early February for his first visit to the US following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, he issued a bold statement on the strategic position of Israel.

    “The decisions we made in the war [since 7 October 2023] have already changed the face of the Middle East,” he said.

    “Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further.”

    How should this redrawn map be assessed?

    Hamas is bloodied but undefeated in Gaza. The territory lies in ruins, leaving its remaining population with barely any resources to rebuild. Death and starvation stalk everyone.

    Hezbollah in Lebanon has suffered military defeats, been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence, and now faces few viable options for projecting power in the near future. Political elites speak of disarming Hezbollah, though whether this is realistic is another question.

    Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE accounted for 12 percent of Israel’s record $14.8bn in arms sales in 2024 — up from just 3 percent the year before

    In Yemen, the Houthis continue to attack Israel, but pose no existential threat.

    Meanwhile, since the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, Israel has attacked and threatened Syria, while the new government in Damascus is flirting with Israel in a possible bid for “normalisation“.

    The Gulf states remain friendly with Israel, and little has changed in the last 20 months to alter this relationship.

    According to Israel’s newly released arms sales figures for 2024, which reached a record $14.8bn, Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates accounted for 12 percent of total weapons sales — up from just 3 percent in 2023.

    It is conceivable that Saudi Arabia will be coerced into signing a deal with Israel in the coming years, in exchange for arms and nuclear technology for the dictatorial kingdom.

    An Israeli and US-assisted war against Iran began on Friday.

    In the West Bank, Israel’s annexation plans are surging ahead with little more than weak European statements of concern. Israel’s plans for Greater Israel — vastly expanding its territorial reach — are well underway in Syria, Lebanon and beyond.

    Shifting alliances
    On paper, Israel appears to be riding high, boasting military victories and vanquished enemies. And yet, many Israelis and pro-war Jews in the diaspora do not feel confident or buoyed by success.

    Instead, there is an air of defeatism and insecurity, stemming from the belief that the war for Western public opinion has been lost — a sentiment reinforced by daily images of Israel’s campaign of deliberate mass destruction across the Gaza Strip.

    What Israel craves and desperately needs is not simply military prowess, but legitimacy in the public domain. And this is sorely lacking across virtually every demographic worldwide.

    It is why Israel is spending at least $150 million this year alone on “public diplomacy”.

    Get ready for an army of influencers, wined and dined in Tel Aviv’s restaurants and bars, to sell the virtues of Israeli democracy. Even pro-Israel journalists are beginning to question how this money is being spent, wishing Israeli PR were more responsive and effective.

    Today, Israeli Jews proudly back ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza in astoundingly high numbers. This reflects a Jewish supremacist mindset that is being fed a daily diet of extremist rhetoric in mainstream media.

    There is arguably no other Western country with such a high proportion of racist, genocidal mania permeating public discourse.

    According to a recent poll of Western European populations, Israel is viewed unfavourably in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy and Spain.

    Very few in these countries support Israeli actions. Only between 13 and 21 percent hold a positive view of Israel, compared to 63-70 percent who do not.

    The US-backed Pew Research Centre also released a global survey asking people in 24 countries about their views on Israel and Palestine. In 20 of the 24 nations, at least half of adults expressed a negative opinion of the Jewish state.

    A deeper reckoning
    Beyond Israel’s image problems lies a deeper question: can it ever expect full acceptance in the Middle East?

    Apart from kings, monarchs and elites from Dubai to Riyadh and Manama to Rabat, Israel’s vicious and genocidal actions since 7 October 2023 have rendered “normalisation” impossible with a state intent on building a Jewish theocracy that subjugates millions of Arabs indefinitely.

    While it is true that most states in the region are undemocratic, with gross human rights abuses a daily reality, Israel has long claimed to be different — “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

    But Israel’s entire political system, built with massive Western support and grounded in an unsustainable racial hierarchy, precludes it from ever being fully and formally integrated into the region.

    The American journalist Murtaza Hussain, writing for the US outlet Drop Site News, recently published a perceptive essay on this very subject.

    He argues that Israeli actions have been so vile and historically grave — comparable to other modern holocausts — that they cannot be forgotten or excused, especially as they are publicly carried out with the explicit goal of ethnically cleansing Palestine:

    “This genocide has been a political and cultural turning point beyond which we cannot continue as before. I express that with resignation rather than satisfaction, as it means that many generations of suffering are ahead on all sides.

    “Ultimately, the goal of Israel’s opponents must not be to replicate its crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, nor to indulge in nihilistic hatred for its own sake.

    “People in the region and beyond should work to build connections with those Israelis who are committed opponents of their regime, and who are ready to cooperate in the generational task of building a new political architecture.”

    The issue is not just Netanyahu and his government. All his likely successors hold similarly hardline views on Palestinian rights and self-determination.

    The monumental task ahead lies in crafting an alternative to today’s toxic Jewish theocracy.

    But this rebuilding must also take place in the West. Far too many Jews, conservatives and evangelical Christians continue to cling to the fantasy of eradicating, silencing or expelling Arabs from their land entirely.

    Pushing back against this fascism is one of the most urgent generational tasks of our time.

    Antony Loewenstein is an Australian/German independent, freelance, award-winning, investigative journalist, best-selling author and film-maker. In 2025, he released an award-winning documentary series on Al Jazeera English, The Palestine Laboratory, adapted from his global best-selling book of the same name. It won a major prize at the prestigious Telly Awards. This article is republished from Middle East Eye with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Is genocide the new normal? Could Israel and the US destroy Iran?

    COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

    “Just do it, before it is too late,” US President Donald Trump said.

    The Western media described Trump’s and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threats after the first wave of attacks on Iran as “warnings”. They were, in fact, expressions of genocidal intent.

    “The United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come.

    “And they know how to use it. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire … JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

    As Pascal Lottaz and a number of other analysts pointed out on Friday, preemptive war or just war theory requires imminent threats not conceptual ones. As I also pointed out on Friday, the United States’ own intelligence agencies have consistently determined that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons programme and there has been no change to the regime’s position since the Grand Ayatollah issued a fatwa against such weapons in 2003.

    Israel and the US may now have forced a change in that theology or calculus.

    What we are witnessing is a war of aggression designed to trigger regime change and destroy Iran — to reduce it to the kind of chaos that Israel and the US have inflicted on Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and many other countries.

    This is only possible because of the collusion of the Collective West. At the core of this project of endless violence towards non-white people is racism: contempt for people who are not like us.

    Nearly half of Israelis support army killing all Palestinians in Gaza, poll finds.
    Today an overwhelming majority of Israelis want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians — one of the very definitions of genocide — not just from Gaza but from Israel itself. Nearly half of Israelis support the army killing all Palestinians in Gaza, a recent US Penn State University poll finds.

    Genocide has been normalised in Israel. Yet our political leaders and much of our media tell us we share values with these people.

    One of the sickest, most profoundly tragic ironies of history is that the long suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of Western racism has culminated in a triumphalist Jewish State doing to the Palestinians what the Plantagenets and the Popes, the Medicis and the Russian boyars, the Italian Fascists and the Nazis did to the Jews.

    Europeans perpetrated the Holocaust not the Palestinians or the Iranians. Israel, dominated as it is by Ashkenazi Jews, has now been incorporated into the Western project to maintain global hegemony.

    They are today’s uber Aryans lording it over the untermenschen. It is the grim fulfillment of what the Israeli scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned back in the 1980s was Israel’s incipient slide into what he termed “Judeo Nazism”.

    ‘We, the Israelis, are the victims’
    Isn’t it time we woke from our deep slumber? Generations of people in Western countries were lied to for generations about the Zionist project. We were bombarded with propaganda that the Israelis were the victims, the plucky battlers; the Palestinians were somehow a nation of terrorists in their own land.

    So too, the propaganda goes, are pretty much all of Israel’s neighbours, particularly Iran.

    The propaganda shredded our minds, particularly people of my generation. It made most of our populations and all of our governments totally indifferent to the constant killing, repression and land thieving by generations of Israelis.

    “We, the Israelis, are the victims.” They weep for themselves as they rape Palestinian prisoners — and call themselves heroes for doing so. In researching stories like this I had the unpleasant experience of watching videos of both the rape of Palestinians prisoners at Sde Temein (gloatingly shared by the perpetrators) and the repellent sight of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rabbi blessing one of these rapists and praising him for his work.

    We are repeatedly told we share values with these people. I believe our governments really do share those values. I do not.

    ‘Hath not a Palestinian eyes? If you prick an Iranian do they not bleed?’
    I’m a student of Shakespeare and have spent hours every month reading, watching and studying his plays. The Merchant of Venice, a complex play with highly contested interpretations, can be viewed as a masterful exploration of a dominant society enforcing its own double standards on a Hated Other.

    The last time I watched it was a Royal Shakespeare Company performance with Palestinian actor Makram Khoury in the role of Shylock (the Jew).

    Over the centuries Shylock had morphed from a pantomime villain, to an arch-villain to, in the 19th Century, a figure of pathos, dignity and loss, through to 20th Century interpretations of him as a powerful, albeit highly flawed, figure of resistance in the face of a supremacist society.

    Palestinian Makram Khoury’s performance capped this transition and was an eloquent plea to see our common humanity whether we be Jewish, Muslim, Christian or any other slice of humanity.

    “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

    How would our reading of this passage change if we changed “Jew” to “Palestinian” or “Iranian”?

    Only an utterly incoherent and damaged mind can continue to believe the propaganda coming out of the White House, the Pentagon, and out of the mouths of psychotic madmen like Netanyahu, Smotrich and the rest of Team Genocide.

    It’s time to wake up. If not, we ourselves become victims. Only a hollowed-out heart and mind could content themselves with turning a blind eye to genocide, to turn a blind eye to the war of aggression just launched against Iran.

    How will this end?

    Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz.

  • Israel’s War On Iran Was Made In USA

    Israel has launched a major attack on Iran, which could escalate into a larger war.

    The United States is not just sitting on the sidelines, watching what is happening; the Donald Trump administration is directly involved.

    The US government oversaw the attack. Washington provided Tel Aviv with crucial intelligence, to help it kill top Iranian officials, with US weapons.

    Trump provided Israel with cover, by overseeing fake peace talks with Iran, which in reality were a cynical ruse.

    As US officials met with their Iranian counterparts to discuss a new nuclear deal (after Trump unilaterally tore up the previous one), Washington and Tel Aviv were secretly planning the operation.

    The post Israel’s War On Iran Was Made In USA appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Iran Announces Imminent Retaliation To Israeli Aggression

    Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei issued a statement on Friday morning calling Israeli aggression against the country a crime which will invite severe punishment from the Islamic Republic.

    “With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared for itself a bitter, painful fate, which it will definitely see,” Khamenei said in a brief statement hours after the early morning strikes by Israel on several Iranian cities including the capital Tehran.

    Large scale protests were reported in different parts of Iran on Friday demanding Iranian retaliation against Israeli aggression.

    The post Iran Announces Imminent Retaliation To Israeli Aggression appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Watch: United Nations Security Council On Israel’s War

    Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities mark a dangerous new escalation in the Middle East, a top U.N. official told the Security Council during an emergency session convened on Friday.

    The Council cleared its original schedule to address the rapidly evolving crisis, also hearing from the head of the U.N.-backed international nuclear watchdog, who warned of the grave risks to regional stability and nuclear safety.

    Overnight from Thursday into Friday, Israeli military strikes targeted nuclear facilities across Iran, including the Natanz enrichment site. Media reports indicate that Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as several prominent nuclear scientists, were among those killed.

    The post Watch: United Nations Security Council On Israel’s War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Iran And Israel At War

    Iran commenced its retaliation against Israel late on 13 June, unleashing a massive barrage of missiles aimed at the city of Tel Aviv, which resulted in multiple direct hits, including strikes on the Israeli army headquarters. Tehran targeted “dozens of targets, military centers and air bases” across Israel, according to a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It said the operation was named “True Promise 3.”

    The US-Israeli war that was launched overnight on Friday killed several nuclear scientists and high-ranking members of the IRGC.

    Air defenses remained active in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and near strategic nuclear sites as Israeli warplanes bombed the country throughout most of the day.

    The post Iran And Israel At War appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel Started A War With Iran, But It Doesn’t Know How It Ends

    The war between Israel and Iran marks the culmination of decades of shadow-boxing between Tehran and Tel Aviv. This is a war that has long worn the mask of deniability, played out in assassinations, cyber operations, and various forms of entanglements from Damascus to the Red Sea. Its rules were unwritten but widely understood: escalation without full rupture. But now it’s unfolding in a surprise Israeli intelligence and military attack, which was met with a subsequent Iranian retaliation against Israeli military installations and strategic infrastructure.

    While Israel’s capacity for precise targeting — its assassinations of nuclear scientists, the killing of Iranian commanders, and its strikes on enrichment sites — has rarely been in doubt, its broader strategic horizon remains conspicuously blurred.

    The post Israel Started A War With Iran, But It Doesn’t Know How It Ends appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Video of missile attack on Sevastopol, Crimea, in 2024 viral as recent Iranian offensive on Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel

    A video showing two massive explosions is being widely circulated on social media amid rising tensions between Iran and Israel. Tensions between the two countries have escalated since Friday, June 13, following Israel’s military strike against its long-standing rival. Soon, Iran launched retaliatory airstrikes against Israel, with explosions heard in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the largest cities there.

    Amid this, several images and videos are viral on social media, allegedly showing destruction on both sides.

    An X user who shared the video of the two explosions suggested that this was happening in Jaffa, Israel. The caption, in Arabic, said “Breaking – Hebrew media: “Iran has gone mad on us, they are bombing us mercilessly. — Video: Jaffa is burning”. (Archive)

    Several other X users shared the same video with the same claim. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4)

    Fact Check

    Upon a reverse image search of the keyframes of the viral video, we found several instances of the same video online, going as far back as March 2024.

    A March 24, 2024, report by Daily Mail featured the same video titled “Major alert as Putin fires Russian cruise missile over NATO territory for 39 seconds sparking growing concern over escalation of the Ukraine war”. The report also used a screenshot from the viral video with the caption, “Meanwhile Ukraine subjected Russian-annexed Sevastopol in Crimea to one of the heaviest bombardments of the 25-month war (pictured above: Sevastopol under  missile attack)”

    Click to view slideshow.

    The attack on Sevastopol in Crimea was also reported by The Telegraph on March 24, 2024. The publication used the same video in its report, stating that the Ukranian military struck two Russian warships and other facilities in Sevastopol. The attack reportedly involved Storm Shadow missiles, which were supplied to Ukraine by the United Kingdom. Ukraine further claimed that Russian landing ships Yamal and Azov were hit during the mission.

    Thus, the viral video being shared with claims that it shows Iran’s attack on Jaffa near Tel Aviv, Israel, is from last year and unrelated. Alt News was able to trace the purported visuals back to March 24, 2024, and found that it showed Ukraine’s attack on Sevastopol, Crimea.

    The post Video of missile attack on Sevastopol, Crimea, in 2024 viral as recent Iranian offensive on Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, Israel appeared first on Alt News.


    This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel’s Military Theatrics May Be a Trap for the US

    The war between Israel and Iran marks the culmination of decades of shadow-boxing between Tehran and Tel Aviv. This is a war that has long worn the mask of deniability, played out in assassinations, cyber operations, and various forms of entanglements from Damascus to the Red Sea. Its rules were unwritten but widely understood: escalation without full rupture. But now it’s unfolding in a surprise…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Fear and Pain in Israel After Iran’s Retaliatory Missile Strikes


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The ghost of Morrison, Fascism USA, and political football in Tasmania

    In this episode, we report on one of the most baffling political decisions in recent memory: the awarding of Australia’s highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia, to former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

    The award for Morrison has ignited criticism over his deeply flawed COVID-19 response, vaccine rollout failures, economic mismanagement, secrecy, Robodebt scandal, and his politically disastrous blame game with China. This award highlights the erosion of public trust in Australia’s honours system, and it’s a left-over of the partisan culture wars, and we reflect on other contentious recipients like Margaret Court, Bettina Arndt, and Ben Roberts-Smith. If a Prime Minister infamous for incompetence is being celebrated with the nation’s top award, what does that say about the credibility of our honours system?

    We also look at the increasingly authoritarian chaos unfolding in the United States under Donald Trump’s second presidency. From the military clampdown on Los Angeles protests to the shooting of Australian journalist Lauren Tomasi by the US National Guard, this escalating repression reflects a country in crisis. We discuss the implications of these events and question why Australian media and political leaders remain reluctant to speak out against clear violations of press freedom and civil liberties. Is it time for Australia to reassess its loyalty to a dangerously unstable ally?

    Back home, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new productivity and economic growth summit, aiming to address pressing issues around automation, artificial intelligence, tax reform, and workplace change. With Labor securing one of the most comprehensive election victories in Australian political history, the pressure is on to deliver real progressive reform – not reheated neoliberalism in red packaging. Can this summit mark a turning point, or will it fall into the usual trap of political tokenism?

    In foreign policy, we examine Australia’s targeted sanctions against Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinians. While it’s a welcome first step, the sanctions are mild and overdue. We discuss the international implications, growing support for Palestine, and why the Liberal Party’s opposition to these measures reinforces its complicity in supporting human rights abuses. And finally, we head to Tasmania, where the state’s political instability has reached a new low. With a $1 billion stadium proposal derailing Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s minority government and a snap state election called for July 19, we assess why Tasmanian politics has become a political joke. Will voters reject a government obsessed with AFL vanity projects over real public needs, or is this just another act in Tasmania’s ongoing democratic dysfunction?

    #auspol

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    The post The ghost of Morrison, Fascism USA, and political football in Tasmania appeared first on New Politics.

    This post was originally published on New Politics.

  • Political, Military Iranian Figures Vow Revenge, Slam US Complicity

    Senior Iranian political figures have pledged a decisive response following the Israeli aggression on Iranian territory. Officials also directly blamed the United States for enabling the aggression, warning that accountability will extend beyond the battlefield. On his part, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf issued a stark warning, declaring that the Islamic Republic will respond forcefully to the Israeli aggression.

    “The time has come for decisive retaliation, through any means and by every available tool,” Ghalibaf declared in a televised address. “The Zionist regime will not escape the consequences. What they have begun, we will bring to an end.”

    The post Political, Military Iranian Figures Vow Revenge, Slam US Complicity appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel Renews Attacks; Iran Replaces Assassinated Leaders

    New Israeli airstrikes hit the Iranian cities of Tabriz and Shiraz on the afternoon of 13 June, several hours after the start of Tel Aviv’s large-scale campaign against the country.

    Circulating footage showed massive plumes of black smoke rising over the two cities. According to Iranian media reports, the new strikes on Tabriz targeted the city’s international airport.

    Israel’s Channel 12 reported that warplanes bombed a missile production plant in Shiraz.

    Earlier, Iran appointed replacements for the top military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials that were assassinated during the largescale Israeli bombing campaign against the country.

    The post Israel Renews Attacks; Iran Replaces Assassinated Leaders appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Condemning Repression Of Sumoud Convoy, Global March To Gaza

    La Via Campesina, representing millions of peasants, landless workers, rural women, and grassroots movements in over 80 countries, declares a state of political and moral alert in response to the catastrophic regional escalation triggered by Israel’s war on Gaza and the broader Palestinian people.

    In the early hours of today, the Israeli occupation launched large-scale airstrikes on Iran — a dangerous development that transforms what was already a genocidal campaign in Palestine into a regional war with unforeseeable consequences. This marks a new phase in a long-standing colonial project, now fueled by imperialist impunity, aimed not only at crushing Palestinian resistance but also at destabilizing the entire region through military aggression, collective punishment, and political domination.

    The post Condemning Repression Of Sumoud Convoy, Global March To Gaza appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Maersk Faces Growing Pressure For Supporting Israel’s Genocide In Gaza

    On June 11, hundreds of activists from Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) occupied the lobby of shipping giant Maersk’s headquarters in New York to protest the company’s ongoing involvement in, and support for, Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The action followed the release of a new PYM report documenting Maersk’s deep involvement in the global supply chain of F-35 fighter jets, which are routinely used to bomb schools, hospitals, and refugee camps in Palestine.

    “Maersk has shipped the wings for every Israeli F-35 delivered since at least March 2022, including those for five additional Israeli F-35s scheduled for delivery by 2028,” the report states.

    The post Maersk Faces Growing Pressure For Supporting Israel’s Genocide In Gaza appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • European Dockworkers Refuse To Load Weapons Aimed At Palestine

    On June 4, in response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza, France’s CGT dockworkers refused to load arms components bound for Israel at the country’s largest port in Fos-Marseille. Their action forced the ship to leave port without its deadly cargo.

    Across Europe, dockers carried on the fight. In Genoa, Italian dockworkers pledged to inspect the same vessel and block it if weapons were found. At the Italian ports of Salerno and Scilla, the ship sparked protests. Sophie Binet, the CGT’s national secretary-general, called on the French government to immediately halt arms deliveries to Israel.

    The post European Dockworkers Refuse To Load Weapons Aimed At Palestine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Tlaib Warns Trump Against Violating Constitution to Join Israel’s War on Iran

    Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) is warning President Donald Trump that acting on his threats to take up arms with Israel in its war with Iran would be an unconstitutional circumventing of Congress to start a war that the American public overwhelmingly doesn’t want. Shortly after Israel launched unprompted strikes on numerous sites in Tehran on Friday, President Donald Trump said in an…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • In France, a Rail Worker Is Going on Trial for Tweeting in Support of Palestine

    On June 18, Anasse Kazib, a French railway worker, trade unionist and socialist leader will stand trial for the charge of “apologia for terrorism.” His supposed crime? Tweets posted to the social media platform X in support of the Palestinian people in rejection of Israel’s campaign of genocide. France concedes that Kazib has no ties to terrorist organizations nor has he engaged in terror-related…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US Lawmakers Cheer Israeli Attack on Iran UN Expert Says Is Likely War Crime

    United States lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have lauded Israel’s strikes on Iran and are stoking more violence, even as a UN expert has warned that the attack was likely a war crime in which U.S. politicians may be complicit. Numerous members of Congress took to social media to condemn Iran after Israel’s strikes on residential buildings and nuclear sites on Friday…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel aid distribution in Gaza turns from relief to extermination

    In the Gaza Strip, which has been suffering from Israel’s suffocating and tight blockade for years, the lives of civilians are at stake on a daily basis, with the deterioration of economic and social conditions and the shortage of basic materials such as food, medicine and fuel. Thousands of residents, including women, children and the elderly, are forced to go to humanitarian aid distribution centres every day, seeking food to stave off hunger and medicine to treat their illnesses, in the desperate belief that aid is their last hope for survival.

    However, in a tragic turn of events, these centres are no longer just relief points for civilians, but have become targets for Israeli occupation forces to fire on, in a deliberate crime confirmed by dozens of testimonies and documents showing that targeting civilians as they arrive at or return from distribution centres has become a systematic policy aimed at exterminating Palestinians under the eyes of the world.

    Motives for seeking aid: suffering with no options

    The people of Gaza live under the weight of a blockade that restricts the movement of goods and people, a fuel shortage that has led to long hours of power cuts, and the almost complete destruction of health and education infrastructure. In this bitter reality, civilians have no choice but to turn to aid distribution centres that provide them with some basic foodstuffs and essential medicines to treat chronic diseases that worsen in the absence of adequate medical care.

    One resident told the Canary:

    When you can’t find enough food for your children or medicine for their illnesses, you have no choice but to stand in line for hours, no matter the risks.

    Israel: systematic targeting: from aid to death

    Official reports issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza document more than 120 deaths near aid distribution centres in the last three months alone, including 45 children and 30 women. These tragic figures are not just statistics, but real stories of families who lost loved ones while waiting for a better life.

    Independent human rights organisations confirm that Israel targeting civilians going to or returning from distribution centres is not an accident, but a deliberate policy based on creating a state of terror and intimidation among the population in order to maintain a suffocating siege aimed at weakening the capacity for resistance and achieving slow genocide.

    Umm Muhammad, who lost her young son in the aid queue, says: ‘My son was just a child looking for food, but he came back to me as a lifeless body, and my tears never dry.’

    Repeated tragedies and ongoing fears

    Israel’s crimes did not stop at direct shooting. Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid make the arrival of basic supplies a rare event that is insufficient to meet growing needs, increasing the number of people queuing in front of distribution centres and doubling the risk of them being bombed.

    Gaza residents live in a state of constant fear as tragic incidents near aid distribution centres continue to occur. Every day, civilians go out in search of the basic necessities of life, not knowing whether they will return safely or as lifeless corpses. The situation is exacerbated by random explosions and occupation shells that do not distinguish between children, women or the elderly.

    In this atmosphere of terror, tension among the residents is increasing, who are now living on the brink of psychological and physical collapse, while infrastructure continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate, compounding the suffering of the sick and wounded who cannot find adequate treatment or proper medical care.

    In a scene where hope mixes with terror, aid distribution centres in Gaza have turned into death zones, where the dream of survival has become a daily nightmare for civilians, amid suspicious international silence. In the face of this ongoing tragedy, urgent action is needed to save innocent lives and force the occupation to stop its policy of systematic killing of those who are only seeking their daily bread.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alaa Shamali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel launches unprecedented attack on Iran days before U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations

    This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on June 13, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

    After days of mutual threats, Israel launched an unprecedented series of strikes on Iranian soil early on Friday, targeting Iranian nuclear sites, airports, top military leaders, and nuclear scientists in several locations, including the Iranian capital, Tehran.

    At around 3:00 a.m. local time, Iranian news agencies reported several explosions in Tehran, while the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, declared that Israel had “conducted a preemptive strike against Iran.” Later, Iranian news agency Irna reported that the Israeli strikes had targeted and killed the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hussein Salami, as well as the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, the head of the revolutionary guard’s Khatem al-Anbiya military complex, and six Iranian nuclear scientists.

    The attack also targeted the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility in the center of the country, as well as other nuclear and military facilities in the west. Later in the morning, new Israeli strikes targeted the Tibriz Airport in the north.

    Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, stated on Friday, following the Israeli attack, that Israel will receive a “hard punishment.” Khamenei also announced the appointment of replacements for the slain military leaders. 

    Meanwhile, the Jamqaran mosque in the Islamic holy city of Qom raised the red flag, a Shiite tradition symbolizing coming vengeance. The red flag has been previously raised at Jamqaran before the Iranian response to the assassinations of Quds force general Qasem Suleimani in 2020 and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2024. 

    Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to condemn the Israeli attack.

    Israeli military sources later reported that Iran had launched around 100 attack drones toward Israel and that its air defense systems intercepted them above neighboring countries. However, the spokesperson of the Israeli army said in a press statement that Israel was expecting a larger Iranian retaliation, and that the escalation would last for several days, urging Israelis to remain indoors pending further instructions.

    The lead-up: U.S.-Iran nuclear talks

    The Israeli attack came after five rounds of Iranian negotiations with the U.S. over Iran’s nuclear program in Oman, and two days away from a sixth round scheduled for Sunday. In recent days, the rhetoric between Iran, the U.S., and Israel has escalated as U.S. President Trump repeated that his confidence in reaching a deal with Iran was diminishing. 

    The crucial point of difference in the nuclear talks has been U.S. insistence that Iran should not enrich uranium on its soil for its civil nuclear purposes, which Iran considers a non-starter, insisting on maintaining its enrichment capacity.

    Earlier in May, CNN announced that the U.S. had gathered intelligence about Israeli preparations for a strike against Iran, while nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. were ongoing. This came several days after Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, announced that the U.S. “will not allow Iran to enrich uranium.” 

    Last Monday, Iran announced that its intelligence services had obtained thousands of secret Israeli nuclear documents and threatened to reveal their contents.

    The lead-up to the attack also saw the repatriation of several U.S. diplomats from the Middle East last Wednesday, including the U.S. embassy in Iraq. The following day, the IAEA announced that Iran was in breach of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. 

    Internally, Israel’s decision to attack Iran came in a delicate political moment, following the voting by the Israeli Knesset on a bill to dissolve itself, supported by the Israeli opposition and Orthodox Haredi parties. The motion passed in its first reading and had two more readings to go before taking effect. Had it been passed, the adopted bill would have forced early elections and put an end to the current government coalition led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Although internal pressure on Netanyahu is unprecedented, it comes at a time when the Knesset is due to go into summer recess in the coming weeks, and will be back in session only in autumn. The state of emergency created by attacking Iran will therefore delay the legal process to dissolve the Knesset, possibly saving Netanyahu’s coalition. 

    Already on Friday, several Knesset members who voted in favor of the motion to dissolve the Knesset voiced their support for Netanyahu’s decision to attack Iran.

    The Knesset vote came after voices have multiplied in calling for the cessation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, with some ministers within Netanyahu’s government joining the calls.

    Internationally, pressure also continues to mount on Israel to end its onslaught on Gaza, especially after its interception of the Madleen aid boat in international waters last week and its ongoing detainment of several of its passengers, including French European parliament member Rima Hassan. 

    Pressure also mounted last week after five European countries, including the UK, imposed sanctions on Israeli far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

    What the attack on Iran means for Palestinians

    In Gaza, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated even further after two weeks of food rations being distributed through the Israeli-backed and U.S.-controlled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the controversial organization tasked with distributing aid to Palestinians instead of the UN. Israeli forces have committed several aid massacres against starving Gazans at the GHF’s distribution points in southern and central Gaza. The massacres have seen the killing of dozens of civilians at GHF sites on a near-daily basis, often after the Israeli army has opened fire on desperate crowds of civilians.

    On Thursday, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to end the war in Gaza by an overwhelming majority. The vote came almost ten days after the U.S. vetoed a similar resolution at the UN Security Council, sparking widespread criticism.

    The international sense of alarm created by the Israeli-made humanitarian crisis in Gaza could only be topped by the new alarming situation created by the Israeli attack on Iran. The expectations of an Iranian response and the risk of an all-out regional war in the Middle East have raised global alarm among world leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, who called for “de-escalation” on Friday.

    Meanwhile, Israel’s ongoing offensive on Palestinians in the West Bank, which has already been shaded by regional developments, continues to move further away from the spotlight. Immediately following its attack on Iran, Israel imposed a total closure on the West Bank, closing a number of checkpoints and restricting the circulation of Palestinians. Israel also closed the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan, the only way out of the country for West Bank Palestinians.

    In recent weeks, Israel ramped up its offensive on the West Bank, adopting new decisions that allowed it to confiscate more Palestinian land and announcing the building of 22 new settlements. This has come amid a widening military crackdown on West Bank towns and cities, most recently when Israeli forces killed two Palestinian brothers and wounded thirty Palestinians in Nablus during a 28-hour raid last Tuesday. Meanwhile, its forces continue to occupy the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps, demolishing more homes in the camps and preventing the return of its over 40,000 expelled residents.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.