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How an Israeli-backed firm spied on US churches to push propaganda

Al Mayadeen | October 15, 2025

A new firm called Show Faith by Works has launched a geofencing campaign targeting Christian churches and colleges across the American Southwest with pro-“Israel” advertisements, a covert operation exposed in a striking investigation by Nick Cleveland-Stout, a Research Associate in the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, and published by Responsible Statecraft.

The operation appears to be conducted without the awareness or consent of many pastors and congregations, some of whom have expressed alarm over the use of such invasive digital targeting by “Israel”.

According to the company’s filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the project aims to “geofence the actual boundaries of every Major (sic) church in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Coloardo (sic) and all Christian Colleges during worship times,” allowing the firm to “track attendees and continue to target [them] with ads” on behalf of “Israel”.

The geofencing component forms part of a broader $3.2 million contract, which also involves recruiting celebrity endorsers and compensating pastors to create pro-Israel content.

No knowledge of campaign

Responsible Statecraft contacted hundreds of churches listed as potential targets in the campaign; none reported prior knowledge of it. “We were not aware of that, no—you are the first to bring that to our attention,” said the press office of Bethel Church in Redding, California.

Project manager Chad Schnitger told RS via email that the advertisements may include “invitations for Christians to visit one of our upcoming Mobile Museum exhibits, or to go to our website to learn more about the program, or to visit Israel with your church.” The firm’s pitch deck reportedly described the ads as “pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian.”

The Mobile Museum referenced by Schnitger is a traveling exhibit housed in a trailer that visits churches and Christian colleges. It displays footage of Israeli occupation forces describing the “difficulty of fighting bad guys in hostile territory with civilians.” Schnitger said the first exhibit will begin touring within a month.

Privacy nightmare

Geofencing, the technology underpinning the campaign, allows marketers to identify and target mobile devices within a defined geographic area. When users enter or leave a specific boundary, they can receive targeted advertisements, texts, or in-app notifications, a tactic long used by commercial brands to reach nearby customers.

Megan Iorio, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, described geofencing as a “privacy nightmare”. In an interview for RS, she explained that data brokers collect location data from apps and sell it to marketing firms or use it to deliver hyper-targeted ads. “For example,” she said, “a user might see an H&M ad simply by walking within a certain distance of one of its stores.”

While Schnitger defended the campaign as a “one-way ad push” and said media coverage had been “sensationalized”, Iorio emphasized that the practice remains “incredibly invasive”. She added, “The fact it has become so common and that foreign governments are now using it for targeted, precise influence campaigns shows how much we need regulation to stamp down on the practice. It is so invasive and has national security implications.”

‘Warfare language’

Community members listed as potential targets share those concerns. Micah, a mechanical engineer from Colorado Springs, said he has been warning local pastors and news outlets after discovering that seven area churches appeared in the firm’s geofencing documents. “What jumps out immediately is how the entire document talks about Christians as targets to be manipulated. This isn’t respectful outreach, it’s warfare language,” he wrote in a memo obtained by RS.

Micah also raised concerns about the firm’s plan to pay pastors for producing content. The firm’s proposal includes stipends for “individual guest pastors, bilingual pastors, or pastors who match target demographics to record messages based on content creation targets.” According to Micah, this “creates financial conflicts of interest where religious leaders become financially dependent on foreign government messaging, compromising their independence and integrity.”

His brother Asa, who attends Scottsdale Bible Church in Arizona, one of the listed churches, agreed, saying the initiative reflects “Israel’s” waning influence among young Americans. “This entire project is an attempt to regain the attention and hearts/support of Gen Z through the use of religious manipulation,” he said. Both brothers requested anonymity for security reasons.

Schnitger, however, expressed confidence that the campaign would help sway public opinion. “For those who dislike Israel, maybe some of these exhibits and materials will change your mind,” he said, adding that the firm’s messaging highlights how “[P]alestinian and Iranian goals are not land-focused, but genocidal.”

‘Project 545’

Not all responses were positive. Timothy Feldman, a software engineer from Plano, Texas, said he was “disgusted” to learn his church was listed among “Israel’s” potential targets. “I am disgusted that a genocidal apartheid state is attempting to whitewash its atrocities by propagandizing the good people of Christ United Methodist Church,” Feldman told RS in an email.

Although churches in Texas were included in the pitch deck, Schnitger clarified that the firm “is not doing anything in Texas at this time.” A church worker in Prescott, Arizona, whose church was also listed, told RS that community reaction is uncertain. “The demographics in Prescott tend to be pro-Israel, so it’s hard to know how the church leadership will react to this. All we can do is make people aware of it,” he said, requesting anonymity.

Oversight of the campaign reportedly falls to Eran Shayovich, Chief of Staff at “Israel’s” Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Shayovich is leading “Project 545”, described as a campaign to “amplify Israel’s strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts.” He also serves as a contact for Brad Parscale, former campaign manager for Donald Trump, who is said to be coordinating efforts to train ChatGPT and integrate pro-“Israel” messaging into conservative media.

Some US states have begun restricting geofencing and the trade of location data. Oregon passed a law in June banning the sale of precise geolocation information, following Maryland’s earlier legislation. At the federal level, former FTC Chair Lina Khan prohibited several major data brokers from collecting or selling location data from sensitive sites, such as churches and military bases, without explicit consent. However, thousands of smaller firms still operate freely, leaving places of worship vulnerable to digital tracking and manipulation.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Jacques Baud: Borderless Israel & Gaza Pause

Glenn Diesen | October 14, 2025

Colonel Jacques Baud is a former military intelligence analyst in the Swiss Army and the author of many books. Baud discusses the temporary pause in the Gaza conflict and the absence of a new status quo and clear Israeli borders.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Once Again, Jeremy Bowen Is Misleading the British Public About Gaza

By Jonathan Cook | October 15, 2025

Yet again the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen is misrepresenting a key issue in Gaza – and as always, he is doing so in a way that places Israel in the most flattering light possible.

The BBC’s international editor notes two reasons why Hamas will not wish to disarm, as stipulated by Israeli and US officials:

a) Because having weapons is “deep in their ideological DNA”.

b) Because Hamas are worried that, if they are not armed, “there are plenty of people out there in Gaza who would like to take revenge on them and will come after them”.

Notice two things here:

First, both of these claims are rooted in Israeli rationales for why Hamas needs disarming. Inadvertently or not, Bowen is subtly suggesting that the group is inherently bloodthirsty, and that it does not properly represent the people of Gaza (more on that in a moment).

Second, Bowen ignores the main reason why Hamas wants to keep its weapons, one so obvious that it is simply astounding that he forgot to mention it.

Hamas believes that, if it is not armed, Israel will have an even freer hand to carry out its genocidal policies in Gaza, to continue its decades-long, illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, and to intensify its siege of the enclave. Hamas believes Israel’s violence against the Palestinian people should not be cost-free.

Whether or not one approves of Hamas’ approach – and to do so would be a violation of the UK’s Terrorism Act and could lead to a 14-year jail sentence – Bowen is required to report what the group actually thinks. Otherwise he is not a journalist, he is just another western propagandist.

Instead, he is actively misleading the British public both about Hamas’ worldview and about a core issue – Hamas’ disarmament – that could soon give Israel the excuse it seeks to trash the ceasefire agreement.

Like the rest of the BBC’s coverage, Bowen’s reporting refuses to address the elephant in the room: that Palestinians are caught in a trap crafted for them by the West. If they try to resist their illegal occupation by Israel, they are slaughtered and damned as terrorists. But if they don’t, they must live as permanent prisoners of an illegal, dehumanising occupation.

A further point: Bowen says Hamas are using their weapons to take on “armed clans who have weapons themselves – to reassert their power, to send a message to Gazans, ‘Don’t mess with us’.”

Bowen, of course, carefully ignores the part Israel has played in arming these criminal clans and letting them steal food aid. The clans sold that aid at inflated prices to a small section of Gaza’s population who could still afford to pay, while everyone else starved.

One doesn’t need to be a genius, or Hamas sympathiser, to imagine – contrary to Bowen’s implication that Hamas is widely feared by the population – that most people there may be relieved to see Hamas back and taking on the criminal gangs that extorted them and were central to the implementation of Israel’s genocidal starvation campaign.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel delivers Palestinian bodies shackled, showing signs of execution

The Cradle | October 15, 2025

The bodies of dozens of Palestinians were handed over to health authorities in Gaza on 15 October, arriving in shackles and bearing signs of execution.

The handover came as part of a swap which saw several deceased Israeli captives released earlier on Wednesday, and coincided with continued Israeli ceasefire violations.

“Some are blindfolded, and there are signs of gunshot wounds in some cases, while others have been run over by tanks,” officials at Khan Yunis’s Nasser Hospital told CNN, adding that the bodies arrived “with their hands and legs cuffed.”

Three out of the four deceased Israeli captives handed over earlier in the day were identified. Tel Aviv said forensic testing showed one of them is not an Israeli captive.

Israel is accusing Hamas of violating the deal by delaying the release of around 20 bodies of captives that remain in Gaza. However, the Red Cross has confirmed that the amount of rubble caused by strikes has made it extremely difficult to find them, and has warned that some may never be recovered.

Tel Aviv is reportedly planning to reduce the amount of aid it will allow into Gaza as part of the deal until all the bodies are released.

The agreement states that six hundred aid trucks are meant to enter the strip. Despite this, not enough trucks have been given entry.

Dozens of Israeli ceasefire violations have been recorded since the truce took effect.

The Gaza Center for Human Rights reported that the Israeli military committed 36 violations of the ceasefire since it took effect on 10 October, resulting in the killing of at least seven Palestinian civilians and the injury of others. Other reports say nine have been killed.

The violations included aerial and artillery bombardments as well as live fire, concentrated in the eastern and northern areas of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli drones targeted residents inspecting their homes in the Shujaiya neighborhood, killing five people, while additional strikes in Khan Yunis, Jabalia, and Rafah caused further casualties.

The center stressed that these attacks were carried out without any military justification, aiming to maintain an atmosphere of fear and terror in the strip.

It also noted Israel’s continued control over aid entry, allowing only 173 aid trucks in out of 1,800 expected in recent days.

The organization warned that restricting essential supplies constitutes an extension of genocidal policies through starvation, in violation of international humanitarian law, and called on the international community to pressure Israel to fully implement the ceasefire and investigate war crimes and acts of genocide.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Tied and beaten: Freed Gaza detainees say abuse ended as it began

Al Mayadeen | October 15, 2025

Gaza resident Naseem al-Radee was released from Israeli prisons, partially blind and physically broken, only to learn that his wife and children had been killed during “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza.

Before his release, Israeli prison guards decided to send Naseem al-Radee off with what they called a “farewell”. They tied his hands, forced him to the ground, and beat him brutally, ending his 22-month imprisonment the same way it began: with brutality.

When al-Radee finally caught sight of Gaza again after nearly two years, his vision was blurred from a boot to the eye, leaving him partially blind for days. The 33-year-old government worker from Beit Lahia said his eyesight problems were just one of many injuries he sustained during his detention.

Israeli occupation forces had arrested al-Radee on December 9, 2023, from a school-turned-shelter in Gaza. Over the next 22 months, he was shuffled between several Israeli detention centers, spending 100 days in an underground cell, before being released with 1,700 other Palestinian detainees on Monday.

‘Beating us mercilessly’

Like the others released, al-Radee had never been charged with a crime. His account, marked by physical torture, starvation, and medical neglect, mirrors the testimonies of many others released under similar conditions.

Al-Radee’s ordeal, he said, reflected what the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has described as a systemic policy of abuse targeting Palestinian detainees.

“The conditions in the prison were extremely harsh, from having our hands and feet bound to being subjected to the cruelest forms of torture,” al-Radee told The Guardian, describing his time in Nafha prison in al-Naqab desert, his final place of detention.

He explained that the beatings were not random but a daily routine enforced with military precision. “They used teargas and rubber bullets to intimidate us, in addition to constant verbal abuse and insults,” he said.

“They had a strict system of repression; the electronic gate of the section would open when the soldiers entered, and they would come in with their dogs, shouting ‘on your stomach, on your stomach,’ and start beating us mercilessly.”

Tortured, starved, and caged in conditions unfit for human life

According to al-Radee, up to 14 Palestinian detainees were packed into cells meant for five. The unhygienic conditions caused widespread skin and fungal infections, which went untreated. Another recently released detainee, 22-year-old university student Mohammed al-Asaliya, said he contracted scabies while imprisoned in Nafha.

“There was no medical care. We tried to treat ourselves by using floor disinfectant on our wounds, but it only made them worse,” Asaliya said. “The mattresses were filthy, the environment unhealthy, our immunity weak, and the food contaminated.”

He described a notorious section of the prison known as “the disco”, where guards blasted loud music for two days straight as a form of psychological torture. “They also hung us on walls, sprayed us with cold air and water, and sometimes threw chili powder on detainees,” Asaliya added.

Weight loss; a common result

Both men lost significant weight during their detention. Radee said his weight dropped from 93 kilograms to 60, while Asaliya fell from 75 to 42 kilograms at one point.

Palestinian health officials confirmed that many detainees released on Monday arrived in critical condition.

“The signs of beating and torture were clearly visible on the prisoners’ bodies, such as bruises, fractures, wounds, marks from being dragged on the ground, and the marks of restraints that had bound their hands tightly,” said Eyad Qaddih, the public relations director at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, which received several of the released detainees.

He added that many had to be rushed to the emergency room and appeared to have been deprived of food for extended periods.

‘Israel’ transformed abuse into official policy 

According to the Public Committee Against Torture in “Israel” (PCATI), around 2,800 Palestinians from Gaza remain in Israeli detention without charge. The practice of mass incarceration, rights groups say, has been enabled by legislative changes introduced after 7 October 2023.

An amendment passed in December 2023 to “Israel’s” Unlawful Combatants Law allows for indefinite administrative detention based solely on “reasonable grounds” that a detainee is an “unlawful combatant.”

Israeli human rights advocates argue that the surge in arrests has coincided with a steep deterioration in detention conditions, transforming abuse into an official policy.

“Generally, the amount and scale of torture and abuse in Israeli prisons and military camps has skyrocketed since 7 October. We see that as part of the policy led by Israeli decision-makers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and others,” said Tal Steiner, executive director of PCATI.

Ben-Gvir, “Israel’s” far-right police minister, has openly boasted of providing detainees with “the minimum amount of food.” In July, he wrote on social media, “I am here to ensure that the ‘terrorists’ receive the minimum of the minimum.”

‘My joy went with her’

For many of the released detainees, however, the greatest pain awaited them at home. Upon returning to Gaza, al-Radee tried to call his wife, only to discover that her phone was disconnected. He later learned that his wife and all but one of his children had been killed during his imprisonment.

“I was very happy to be released because the date coincided with my youngest daughter Saba’s third birthday on 13 October,” he said. “I had planned to make her the best gift to make up for her first birthday, which we could not celebrate because the war had started.”

“I tried to find some joy in being released on this day,” al-Radee added softly, “but sadly, Saba went with my family, and my joy went with her.”

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to resume Gaza onslaught once all captives repatriated, threatens war minister

Press TV – October 15, 2025

Israeli minister of military affairs Israel Katz has declared that the occupation army will resume its military onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip once the remaining captives are returned, marking an open defiance of the newly agreed ceasefire agreement between the Hamas resistance movement and the Tel Aviv regime.

In a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday, Katz said that once the first phase of the deal is ended with the release of all captives, the Israeli military will resume its offensives to destroy Hamas.

“Israel’s great challenge after the phase of returning the captives will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza, directly by the army and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States,” he added.

“This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons.

“I have instructed the Israeli army to prepare for carrying out the mission,” Katz said.

The remarks came less than a day after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire framework brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, and intended to end Israel’s two-year-long genocide in Gaza.

Katz’s statement made it clear that Israel views the truce not as a step towards ending the military assault on the Gaza Strip, but rather as a temporary pause before re-launching its military offensive.

Israel killed at least nine Palestinians on Wednesday as the regime’s military warned Gaza residents to stay away from the areas it still occupies.

Additionally, Israeli tanks fired at Palestinians in the town of Bani Suheila and the Sheikh Nasser neighborhood, east of Khan Younis. There were no immediate reports of possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.

At least 67,913 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 170,134 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry of Gaza.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Kamala Harris: We Should Ask If Israel Committed Genocide in Gaza

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 15, 2025

Former Vice President Kamala Harris said we should all ask if Israel committed genocide in Gaza. She made the remarks after serving in the administration that funded and armed the Israeli military to slaughter civilians.

On MSNBC’s The Weekend, Harris was asked by Eugene Daniels, “A lot of folks in your party have called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. Do you agree with that?” She said we should all ask the question, but refused to answer, saying it was for the courts to decide.

She said, “Listen, it is a term of law that a court will decide. But I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed, the number of innocent civilians that have been killed, the refusal to give aid and support, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah.”

While Harris presented herself as unqualified to make a determination on genocide, she is a lawyer who served as a district attorney and Attorney General of California.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 67,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli onslaught. The likely death toll is significantly higher, as it does not count access deaths and Palestinians who were killed by Israelis but whose bodies were not recovered.

Data from the Israeli military shows that at least 83% of the dead are innocent civilians. Israel has prevented enough food from entering Gaza, creating a famine. Hundreds of Palestinians have starved to death.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza began while Harris was serving as Joe Biden’s Vice President. While Biden and Harris were criticized by their base over their support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the White House refused to pressure Tel Aviv to end the assault.

Biden was dubbed “genocide Joe,” and Kamala “Holocaust Harris.” While running for president in 2024, the two were often heckled by left-wing activists over their support of the Israeli genocide.

A poll released earlier this year found that Harris’ refusal to diverge from Biden’s Israel policy was the most common reason why Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 but did not vote for Harris in 2024.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Hamas, democracy, and the right to resist: A case for Palestinian self-determination

By Ranjan Solomon | MEMO | October 15, 2025

In debates about Palestine, one recurrent Western refrain is that “terrorism” and “militant violence” automatically disqualify any actor from legitimacy. Such a position is intellectually dishonest and legally unsound. It erases the foundational principles of international law, sovereignty, and democracy that apply equally to all peoples. The case of Hamas, in this light, is not an aberration but a reflection of the Palestinian right to resist occupation and assert self-determination. No foreign power has the moral or legal right to veto the will of Palestinians—least of all those whose governments have sustained and armed the very occupation that necessitates resistance.

At the heart of the Palestinian claim lies the principle of self-determination. Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights affirms that “all peoples have the right of self-determination,” entitling them to freely determine their political status and pursue their development. This is not a privilege conferred by the West, but a right recognised by the United Nations as a cornerstone of international order. UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 of 1974 formally recognized the Palestinian people’s entitlement to self-determination, national independence, and sovereignty. Later resolutions, such as A/RES/79/163, reiterated the same truth: that the Palestinian people have an inalienable right to determine their destiny, including the establishment of their independent state. Resolution 58/292 of 2004 went further, reaffirming that the occupied Palestinian territories remain under belligerent occupation and that sovereignty belongs to the Palestinian people alone. These are not moral pleas; they are binding declarations that impose obligations on the occupier and responsibilities on the international community to refrain from interference.

If the right of self-determination is to mean anything, it necessarily entails a right of resistance when that right is denied. The Declaration on Friendly Relations adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1970 affirms that peoples are entitled to resist “alien subjugation, domination and exploitation.” During the decolonisation era, a series of UN resolutions explicitly recognised the legitimacy of liberation movements “by all available means, including armed struggle.” Resolution 37/43 of 1982 was unambiguous in its affirmation of this principle. Legal scholars have since argued that the right to resist is a remedial one, invoked when peaceful means have been exhausted and when a people face systemic subjugation.

Resistance, however, is bound by legal and moral limits. International humanitarian law requires that any use of force observe the principles of distinction, proportionality, and necessity. Civilians can never be legitimate targets. Yet the existence of these limits does not invalidate the right itself. Just as international law holds states accountable for unlawful acts without erasing their right to self-defence, so too can a people’s right to resist coexist with obligations to uphold humanitarian norms. The Palestinian struggle is therefore not illegitimate because it has been armed; rather, the legitimacy of its methods must be judged according to the same standards that govern all conflicts. It is here that Western governments reveal their duplicity—condemning Palestinian violence in isolation while sanitising or excusing the vastly greater violence of occupation.

In democratic terms, Hamas’s legitimacy rests on the 2006 elections, which were universally acknowledged as free and fair. The West welcomed those elections—until it disliked the result. The outcome was not a distortion of democracy but its realisation: a popular mandate granted by Palestinians through ballots, not bullets. When Western powers refused to recognise that verdict and instead imposed sanctions, they exposed the hypocrisy of their professed belief in democratic choice. For Palestinians, democracy is not conditional upon Western approval. It is an expression of sovereignty, and to deny that sovereignty is to deny democracy itself.

Hamas’s identity as both a social and political movement further complicates the caricature of it as merely a “terrorist” entity. It runs schools, hospitals, welfare networks, and charities that fill the void left by an economy strangled by siege and occupation. These are the social arteries through which Palestinian civil life continues to breathe. To call for the annihilation of Hamas is not to target a few militants—it is to assault the fabric of Palestinian society and to insist that only a subservient, pacified population deserves international legitimacy. That notion violates every principle of self-determination enshrined in international law.

Critics contend that non-state actors cannot claim a right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is reserved for states. Yet this misses the point. The Palestinian right of resistance does not stem from statehood but from the broader doctrine of self-determination and anti-colonial struggle. The UN’s repeated recognition of liberation movements in Africa and Asia as legitimate representatives of colonised peoples demonstrates that this right extends beyond the Westphalian definition of the state. Under occupation, Palestinians are entitled to resist domination in pursuit of freedom, just as Algerians, Namibians, and South Africans once did.

Western governments, however, continue to infantilise the Palestinian body politic, deciding which parties are acceptable and which are not. They fund and arm Israel while criminalising Palestinian solidarity. They speak of peace but sustain the conditions that make peace impossible. Their interference in Palestinian democracy is itself a violation of international law, as the right to self-determination includes the freedom from external coercion. By refusing to recognise Hamas’s electoral mandate or to engage with it politically, they undermine the very democratic norms they claim to defend.

The path forward cannot lie in excluding Hamas or dictating who represents Palestine. True peace will emerge only when the entire spectrum of Palestinian voices—Fatah, Hamas, and civil society alike—participate freely in shaping their future. The West’s role, if any, must be to support the principles of sovereignty and equality, not to manipulate them. To continue defining Palestinian resistance through the prism of Western moral superiority is to perpetuate the colonial logic that birthed the crisis.

Hamas’s right to remain both a social movement and a resistance organisation derives from the Palestinian people’s right to resist occupation and gain self-determination. It is not for “white nations,” as Frantz Fanon said, to decide the legitimacy of the colonised. Until that reality is acknowledged, the language of democracy and peace will remain empty. The moral imperative today is not to demand Palestinian surrender but end the occupation that gives rise to resistance. Law, history, and justice stand with those who struggle for freedom.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti suffers rib fractures after assault in Israeli prisons

MEMO | October 15, 2025

Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti sustained rib fractures after being beaten in Israeli prisons, the Prisoners’ Media Office said Wednesday, Anadolu reports.

The Hamas-run office said on Telegram that Barghouti was beaten by Israeli prison guards while being transferred from Ramon Prison in southern Israel to Megiddo Prison in the north in mid-September.

The imprisoned leader lost consciousness and suffered a fracture in four ribs, it added.

Barghouti, 66, a senior leader of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group, is one of the most prominent and popular figures in Palestinian politics.

He has been serving five life sentences in Israeli prisons since 2002 on charges related to the Second Intifada, which began in 2000.

Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of a plan he laid out on Sept. 29 to bring a ceasefire to Gaza, release all Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the entire Gaza Strip. The first phase of the deal came into force on Friday.

Phase two of the plan calls for the establishment of a new governing mechanism in Gaza, without Hamas’ participation, the formation of a multinational force, and the disarmament of Hamas.

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 68,000 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children, and rendered it largely uninhabitable.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO keeps massive forward military presence on Russia’s doorstep – defense minister

RT | October 15, 2025

NATO is keeping a large-scale military presence near Russia’s borders, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov has said, pointing to what he called the bloc’s increased training and reconnaissance activities.

Belousov made his remarks at a joint session of the Russian and Belarusian defense ministries on Wednesday. Cooperation between Moscow and Minsk remains a key factor in maintaining regional stability in light of the “openly hostile actions” of the West, he stated.

“The Alliance maintains a massive forward military presence on its eastern flank,” Belousov said. “The total strength of NATO troops involved in the exercises held on its eastern flank amounted to roughly 60,000.”

This year alone, the US-led military bloc held almost a dozen drills in Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Baltics and the Black Sea, which involved thousands of soldiers each.

Just one series of exercises, dubbed Defender 25, which was held throughout May and June, involved a total of 25,000 troops. The forces were deployed along the entire eastern border of the bloc, from Norway in the north to Bulgaria and Greece in the south, as part of the three-phase drill.

Other major NATO exercises included the 10,000-strong ‘Joint Viking 2025’ held in Norway in March, as well as the 16,000-strong ‘Hedgehog’ held in Estonia in May. The developments came amid increasingly belligerent statements from the European NATO members, which have repeatedly presented Russia as a threat since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.

Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no intention to attack any NATO nations, calling such accusations unfounded.

It nonetheless warned that the bloc’s active involvement in the Ukraine conflict through weapons supplies and other assistance to Kiev risks a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

Last month, Politico reported that EU officials were increasingly worried about tensions with Moscow potentially spilling into a major conflict akin to World War I. Russia, in turn, expressed its concerns over the fact that World War III was seriously being discussed in the West as a potential scenario.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The Strange Definition of “Free and Fair” Elections

By Jeffrey Silverman – New Eastern Outlook – October 15, 2025

Recent elections across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus—in Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Georgia—reveal deepening tensions between Western-backed elites and nationalist, often anti-Western movements challenging EU and US influence in the region.

It has been a full week of elections in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, with a highly contested election in Moldova on the 28th of September, the Czech parliamentary elections held on the 3rd and 4th of October, and the Georgian municipal elections on Sunday, 4th of October.

What is rather interesting is the rhetoric surrounding each of these election processes. In Moldova, western governments and media have lauded the “convincing win” of the incumbent President, Maia Sandu’s PAS party, which “won” 50.16% of the vote, with, contrary to the EU narrative, a severely reduced majority in Parliament.

Needless to say, Sandu and her EU backers blamed the party’s relatively poor performance on “Russian interference,” conveniently ignoring the massive expenditure of state resources and EU influence intended to ensure her party remained in power. It should be noted that the “pro-Russian” opposition block won 49.84%, so “convincing win” is a bit of a stretch.

On the other hand, the results in the Czech Republic and Georgia delivered quite different results from those desired by the EU and US, with former Prime Minister Andrej Babis set to return to power in the country. Babis, a long-time critic of military support for Ukraine, is set to join Hungary and Slovakia in refusing to allow the supply of military aid to Ukraine using EU funds, as well as by dismantling the current Czech initiative to provide artillery shells.

Needless to say, Babis has been widely smeared as a “populist,” “Trumpist,” “pro-Russian,” etc. Having won 37% of the vote against the 23% of his pro-Western rivals in the pro-Western coalition of the current prime minister, Petr Fiala, Mr. Babis is expected to be called upon to begin negotiations with the other minor parties amongst whom the remainder of the vote was split in order to form a coalition government.

Finally, in Georgia, the municipal elections delivered a resounding victory to the ruling Georgian Dream party, with Georgian Dream sweeping the board, winning in every municipal race, receiving just over 70% of the vote in a clear rejection of the pro-Western opposition by Georgian voters. Needless to say, before the election even took place, Western embassies, particularly the EU Mission to Georgia, were decrying the process, claiming Russian “interference” and encouraging street protests.

It is interesting to compare the EU and other Western claims of “election interference” by Russia in Moldova and Georgia with the facts of each case.

In Moldova, the election was clearly interfered with, but not by Russia. As with the recent presidential elections, Sandu’s PAS party actually lost the election INSIDE Moldova but was saved by the diaspora vote, which itself was rigged strongly in her favour. Again, there was a massive disparity in the number of polling stations for the diaspora.

The countries with the most polling stations were Italy (75), Germany (36), France (26), the United Kingdom (24), Romania (23), the United States (22), Spain (15) and Ireland (12), with only two being opened in Russia. It should be noted that there are an estimated 400,000 Moldovans in Russia, while Italy has 100,000, something hardly reflected by the number of polling stations in each.

In addition, Moldovan citizens in the separatist region of Transnistria were also disenfranchised, with polling stations shut by Moldovan officials, moved across the river, and the bridges “shut for maintenance” or by “mining threats,” severely limiting the ability of voters to reach them. The bridges were only opened 20 minutes before the polling stations closed. The same story is true for the Gaugaz autonomous region, where the population has seen its political leadership targeted by politicised arrests and sham court proceedings. In this case, however, Sandu’s repressions had the opposite result, with Gaugaz voters giving only 3.19% to Sandu’s PAS and 82.35% to the Patriotic Bloc.

Very “free and fair”

In Georgia, where most Western governments still refuse to recognize the results of the 2024 parliamentary elections, the EU, through its puppet NGOs and media, has even been going so far as to defend the throwing of Molotov cocktails as “peaceful protests.” The hypocrisy of the EU position regarding the Georgian police handling of violent protests, contrasted with the extreme violence meted out by, for example, French, German, and British police against actual peaceful demonstrators, where incredible brutality has become the norm.

As with the previous anti-government protests in Georgia, in stark contrast to their European counterparts, Georgian police do not use force unless the opposition protesters use violence first.

Furthermore, the violence used by the protesters appears to have the full support of European officials, including the EU ambassador to Georgia, Paweł Herczyński, with the Georgian prime minister directly accusing the EU ambassador, saying:

“You know that specific people from abroad have even expressed direct support for all this, for the announced attempt to overthrow the constitutional order,” Kobakhidze said. “In this context, the European Union ambassador to Georgia bears special responsibility. He should come out, distance himself, and strictly condemn everything that is happening on the streets of Tbilisi.”

Needless to say, the EU has remained silent.

What is obvious is that despite all the money poured into Georgia through NGOs, the EU attempt to destabilize Georgia has failed, with the EU doing little more than offending the majority of the population of this socially conservative Orthodox Christian country. The same thing can be seen in Moldova, where the pro-EU candidate was only able to win through blatant vote rigging and exclusionary actions that disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters.

Needless to say, the hypocrisy of Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, was on full display as she posted on X:

My thoughts are with the people of Georgia, who stand for freedom and their European future.

Democracy cannot be silenced. Moldova is by your side.

Which, given her arrest of opposition politicians, banning of rival parties, and suppression of voters, is chutzpa indeed.

More ominous is the revelation by the Georgian government that the State Security Service had intercepted a large number of weapons and explosives that had been purchased on the orders of the Georgian Legion, the mercenary unit fighting on the Banderist side in the ongoing fighting in the eastern part of Ukraine. The first deputy chief of Georgia’s State Security Service, Lasha Magradze said:

“On the basis of intel information, the State Security Service found a large quantity of firearms, munitions, explosives, and detonators. According to investigators, Georgian citizen B. Ch., acting on orders from a Georgian representative of an armed unit operating in Ukraine, purchased a great quantity of firearms, which is proved by a lot of evidence. According to intel information, acts of sabotage with the use of the above-mentioned weapons were supposed to be staged along with massive violence and the attempted seizure of the presidential residence in Tbilisi on October 4,” he said, adding that security officers “neutralized a number of individuals who presumably were to bring munitions and explosives to downtown Tbilisi.”

Given that the Georgian Legion is tightly bound to the Ukrainian intelligence service, which is controlled by Western intelligence agencies, particularly British MI6, the American CIA, and the French DSGE, it is almost certain that this attempted armed coup was planned in the West.

Luckily for the people of Georgia, it has failed, at least so far.

With the rapidly rising risk of war with Iran, not to mention the US and European desire to spread fires along Russia’s borders in the hope of stretching Russian resources thin, unfortunately I doubt this will be the last attempt, however.

What is certain is that the EU and US have a very strange definition of “free and fair” elections, in that if the Western-supported candidate wins, they are “free and fair,” but if, God forbid, Joe Public elects someone the globalists in Washington and Brussels can’t accept, they are “unfair” or “rigged” by “Russian interference.”

As Europe fractures over the proxy war in Ukraine and the rise of nationalist governments, understanding the manipulation of “democracy talk” is critical. These elections are not just local contests; they are proxy battles in a much larger fight over who controls the narrative of legitimacy in the 21st century.

Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | 1 Comment

Von der Leyen issues ultimatum to EU aspirant

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. © Getty Images / Amir Hamzagic; Anadolu
RT | October 15, 2025

Serbia will not be able to join the EU unless it aligns fully with the bloc’s foreign policy, including adopting all sanctions against Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.

Serbia, which applied to join the EU in 2009 and received candidate status in 2012, remains one of the few European states that has refused to impose any restrictions on Moscow. Belgrade has cited its historic ties with Russia and continues to rely on energy supplies from the country.

Speaking alongside Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at a press conference in Belgrade on Wednesday, von der Leyen stated that Belgrade must “take concrete steps” toward membership and demonstrate “a greater level of alignment” with EU positions, including on sanctions.

She added that Serbia’s current level of alignment with EU foreign policy stands at 61%, but that “more is needed,” insisting Brussels wants to see Belgrade act as a “reliable partner.”

Vucic has repeatedly said that Serbia will not impose sanctions on Russia under any circumstances, calling his country’s stance “independent and sovereign.” However, Belgrade’s refusal to comply has drawn increasing pressure from both Brussels and Washington.

Last week, the US activated sanctions against the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS), a major oil company partly owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft, prompting Croatia to suspend crude deliveries. Vucic has warned that the measures could force Serbia’s only oil refinery to shut down by November, threatening the country’s gasoline and jet fuel supply.

At the same time, Serbia has been shaken by a wave of violent anti-government protests over the past year, which Belgrade claims are being fueled by Western influence in an effort to destabilize the government.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has alleged that the EU is attempting to orchestrate a “Serbian Maidan” and install a pro-Brussels administration.

Budapest has voiced similar concerns, claiming that Brussels seeks to “overthrow” the governments of Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia for maintaining ties with Moscow and refusing to abandon Russian energy.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

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