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Douglas Macgregor: NATO Attacked Russia; U.S. Being Pushed Out of the Middle East

Glenn Diesen | May 21, 2026
Douglas Macgregor is a retired Colonel, combat veteran and former senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Col. Macgregor argues that the US peace negotiations are as fraudulent as the previous negotiations, and the US is preparing for total war with Iran. Please like, subscribe & share!
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May 21, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Douglas Macgregor: NATO Attacked Russia; U.S. Being Pushed Out of the Middle East

Merkel Urges EU to Keep Regulating Social Media Speech

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 21, 2026

Angela Merkel used her first major European platform since leaving office to tell the EU exactly what it wanted to hear: keep regulating speech online, and don’t worry too much about getting it wrong.

The former German chancellor, speaking Tuesday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, urged the bloc to “continue regulating the social media” and artificial intelligence. “To believe that responsibility for spreading information is no longer necessary, that accountability – there should be no accountability for lies, then that would undermine democracy,” she told the chamber.

Lies. Who decides what counts as a lie? In the EU’s model, that question gets answered by the European Commission, by government-appointed regulators, by “trusted flaggers” that platforms are legally required to obey. Not by courts. Not through anything resembling due process.

Merkel knows this system well. Her government built the prototype. Germany’s NetzDG law, passed under her chancellorship in 2017, required platforms to delete “clearly illegal” content within 24 hours or face fines up to €50 million.

The people whose speech got censored under it included a satirical magazine, a political street artist, and an opposition party leader. NetzDG became an export product, copied by governments in Russia, Turkey, and across Southeast Asia, each adapting it to their own definition of “illegal.”

The EU took the concept continent-wide with the Digital Services Act, which requires major platforms to assess and reduce “systemic risks,” a category broad enough to cover “civic discourse,” “electoral processes,” and “public security.”

The Commission writes the rules, decides whether platforms comply, and levies fines of up to 6% of global revenue when they don’t. No independent prosecutor. X is currently challenging the first DSA fine ever imposed, a €120 million penalty from December 2025, arguing the process involved “grave procedural errors” and “systematic breaches of rights of defence and basic due process.”

More than 50 European NGOs have warned that the DSA’s vague terms could violate the EU Charter’s own free expression protections. The Commission’s response was to declare the law “content-agnostic” and move on.

Merkel acknowledged none of this. She told parliamentarians that “perhaps mistakes will be made, but we learn through mistakes.” That’s cold comfort when the mistakes involve censoring legal speech and silencing political opposition through systems with no judicial oversight and no meaningful appeal.

Her remarks came at the inaugural ceremony for the European Order of Merit, where she was honored alongside 19 other laureates, including Lech Wałęsa, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She framed regulation as essential to democracy. “We’ve had 75 years of European thought,” she said. “Peace, prosperity, and democracy.”

Democracy requires that citizens can speak, argue, and be wrong without a regulator deciding which claims are permissible. The EU’s apparatus does the opposite. Merkel said mistakes would be made. She didn’t say who would pay for them. The answer, as always, is the people who get silenced.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Comments Off on Merkel Urges EU to Keep Regulating Social Media Speech

The Rank Hypocrisy of the Trump Indictment of Raúl Castro

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | May 21, 2026

Now that Trump is snared by the “escalation trap” in Iran, he has turned his attention to overthrowing the government of Cuba. In addition to a new round of crippling sanctions on trade, travel, and oil shipments, the latter responsible for shortages and blackouts, the Trump administration unsealed an indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 shoot-down of Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. Castro, now 94, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that Castro and other former senior members of Cuban leadership and the military are facing charges of conspiracy to kill US nationals, destruction of aircraft, and four individual counts of murder.

“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” Blanche said during a ceremony in Miami to remember those who were killed in the incident. “They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida straits.”

CIA Operative José Basulto and Brothers to the Rescue

Brothers to the Rescue (Hermanos al Rescate ) is an activist group based in Miami headed by José Basulto. The organization claims to be a humanitarian group that assists and rescues raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and to “support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active non-violence,” according to an archived Hermanos web page.

News reports generally avoid background on Hermanos and its leader, Basulto, a CIA operative and an admitted terrorist. During testimony in the trial of Gerardo Hernández, a Cuban intelligence agent (a member of the Cuban Five, or Miami Five), Basulto “shared with jurors his history as a 1960s anti-Castro CIA operative and his admitted cannon assault on a Cuban hotel nearly 40 year ago,” the Miami Herald reported in early 2001.

A native of Santiago de Cuba, Basulto testified that he was a young Boston College student when he joined the CIA-led war against Castro. Basulto trained in Panama, Guatemala and the United States and was infiltrated back into Cuba—posing as a physics student at the University of Santiago—to help prepare the ground for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

During an interview with Gonzalo Porcel in 1999, Basulto admitted he trained with the CIA in Virginia “in different things like demolitions, foreign armaments, and intelligence, propaganda, and a few other things that were pertinent to the type of work we were doing, like psychological operations and so forth.”

Brothers to the Rescue was founded in 1991 and conducted over 2,400 aerial missions, reportedly rescuing more than 4,200 individuals during the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis. However, saving Cuban rafters at sea was not the organization’s only mission.

The Brothers “started to redefine their mission as one of not helping innocent people at risks for their lives but to carry out a political agenda of harassing and threatening the Cuban government by over flights, dropping leaflets (from the air into Cuba),” said former White House advisor Richard Nuccio, the top advisor on Cuba to President Bill Clinton. “It made the Cubans angry.”

The commander of the Cuban air force and air defenses “was instructed that violations . . . should no longer be tolerated and that he was authorized, if such a situation arose again, to decide personally on military interception and shooting down, if so required.”

Cuba Warned It Would Shoot Down Aircraft Violating its Airspace

On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue Cessna Skymasters, which were engaged in the act of dropping leaflets on Cuba, were shot down by a Cuban Air Force MiG-29UB, killing four people.

A year prior to the shoot-down, the Cuban government filed multiple protests on repeated violations of its airspace by Brothers to the Rescue aircraft overflying populated areas and dropping thousands of leaflets and other materials calling for popular insurrection against the government, according to documentation at the National Security Archive. The FAA opened a protracted investigation and warned Basulto numerous times not to continue his “taunting” provocations.

Nuccio and State Department undersecretary Peter Tarnoff, along with Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña, repeatedly voiced their concerns to the FAA. They emphasized the need for Brothers to the Rescue flights to be permanently grounded and cautioned that Cuba’s redlines, which are meant to safeguard its security, should be taken seriously.

After the shoot-down, the FAA issued a clear and unambiguous “cease and desist” order to Basulto. This order was issued in response to Basulto’s “careless or reckless” operations, which posed a significant risk to the lives and property of others, according to documents released through the Freedom of Information Act.

On the day before the shoot-down, according to the 2014 book Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana, by American University Cuba specialist William LeoGrande and Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh, Nuccio

sent an email to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger alerting him that Basulto intended to fly the next day. “Previous overflights by Jose Basulto of the Brothers have been met with restraint by Cuban authorities,” he reported. “Tensions are sufficiently high within Cuba, however, that we fear this may finally tip the Cubans toward an attempt to shoot down or force down the plane,” he warned.

Nuccio contacted the FAA and instructed them to block the flights. The FAA, however, refused and only promised to warn Basulto about the overflights. While no explanation for the refusal was given, it was likely at the behest of the CIA, although there is no documentation of that.

“Cuban officials used every means of communication available: diplomatic notes, military briefings, intermediaries, and back-channel contacts to make clear their patience had run out,” notes Nicholas Greven for Jacobin.

History of Terror Attacks Against Cuba

In the 1990s, the US government, CIA, and the Cuban exile community in Miami were busy attempting to subvert the Cuban government. The following is taken from Summary of Terrorist Actions against Cuba (1990-2000):

  • “Cuban Liberation Army” terrorists, led by Higinio Diaz Anne, entered Cuba at Santa Cruz del Norte to engage in sabotage.
  • Counter-revolutionaries from Miami infiltrated Cuba to sabotage tourist shops.
  • A group of terrorists set out from the United States in order to attack economic targets along the Havana coastline.
  • Brothers to the Rescue assisted a terrorist operation sabotaging an economic target in Villa Clara province.
  • In 1992, the Melia Varadero Hotel was attacked by Miami-based terrorists.
  • The following year, Tony Bryant, leader of the terrorist group “Commandos L” announced plans to carry out attacks against hotels in Cuba.
  • Brothers to the Rescue planned to blow up a high-tension pylon near San Nicolas de Bari in Havana province in 1993.
  • Brothers to the Rescue encouraged attempts on the life of Fidel Castro, while Andres Nazario Sargen, head of terrorist group ALPHA 66, publicly announced that his organization had carried out five illegal operations against Cuba.
  • Humberto Perez, spokesperson for ALPHA 66, threatened to murder tourists visiting the island. In 1994, the Guitart Cayo Coco Hotel was attacked a second time. Three years later, an explosive device was detonated in the Melia Cohiba Hotel in Havana. Additionally, bombs exploded in the Triton, Chateau Miramar, and Copacabana Hotels.
  • Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and five of his accomplices attempted a failed assassination of Castro in late 1994.
  • In 1996, the FBI arrested and then released five armed terrorists intercepted at Marathon Key and headed for Cuba.
  • An unidentified person was arrested when he was caught sneaking into Cuba through Punta Alegre, Ciego de Avila, on a boat carrying weapons and a large cache of military equipment.
  • The Cuban government arrested Raul Cruz Leon, responsible for placing six bombs that exploded in various hotels in the Cuban capital, including one that killed Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo.

Double Standards

The decades-long illegal effort by the US to destabilize and terrorize the Cuban people is not part of the argument in regard to the arrest Raúl Castro and his involvement in the downing of Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. There would be little argument if the US had shot down Cuban aircraft assisting anti-American terrorists in Miami.

Finally, consider that not a single person was arrested and charged in the downing of Iran Air Flight 655, a routine commercial flight from Bandar Abbas, Iran, to Dubai. The civilian aircraft was blown out of the sky by a missile launched from the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988. Then Vice President George H. W. Bush represented the United States at the Security Council and defended the action as appropriate for the circumstances.

“After this unforgivable crime, the American authorities tried to justify this hostile act as a mistake,” reported the Iran Press. “However, due to the fact that the Vincennes was equipped with the most advanced radar and computer systems, as well as the specificity of the type of aircraft, it became clear that there was no possibility of mistake, and this action was completely deliberate and hostile.”

For the United States, there are two versions of justice—one for designated enemies, and another for crimes perpetuated by the US and its allies and co-conspirators, including anti-Castro terrorists plotting to murder civilians at tourist hotels in Cuba.

The poster child for this hypocrisy is Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban terrorist responsible for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada was acquitted on all charges against him in 2011 and lived out the remainder of his life in Miami.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Comments Off on The Rank Hypocrisy of the Trump Indictment of Raúl Castro

Trump’s Gaza ‘peace’ board in turmoil as funding pledges fail to materialise

MEMO | May 21, 2026

Donald Trump’s controversial “Board of Peace” for Gaza has warned that a gap between pledged funds and money actually disbursed must be closed urgently, raising fresh doubts over the US-led scheme already widely viewed as the president’s vanity project rather than a serious plan to rebuild the besieged Palestinian enclave.

A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council said: “The gap between commitment and disbursement must be closed with urgency.” It warned that funds pledged but not transferred mark “the difference between a framework that exists on paper and one that delivers on the ground for the people of Gaza.”

Trump established the Board of Peace to oversee his plan to end Israel’s genocide on Gaza and rebuild the territory, large parts of which have been reduced to rubble after more than two years of bombing. The reconstruction effort is estimated to cost around $70 billion, while $17 billion has reportedly been pledged to the board so far.

The board had previously denied that it faced funding constraints, insisting that it was an “execution-focused organisation that calls capital as needed.” However, its own report to the Security Council now urges countries that have made pledges to accelerate disbursement and calls on non-member states and international organisations to contribute without delay.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are among the states said to have pledged funds, alongside Kuwait, Morocco and Uzbekistan. Yet the future of Gulf commitments now appears more uncertain following Trump’s war on Iran, which has deepened regional instability and exposed the fragility of US-led security arrangements in the Middle East. The Iran war has widened rifts between Washington and its allies, with European leaders saying they were not consulted before US-Israeli strikes on Iranian leadership and infrastructure.

The funding concerns add to longstanding criticism that the Board of Peace is less a credible reconstruction mechanism than an exercise in Trumpian self-promotion. The initiative is widely seen as “aggrandising theatre” and warned that it erases Palestinian political rights while recasting Gaza as a development site rather than an occupied territory whose people are entitled to freedom, dignity and self-determination.

The board was created after Trump’s broader Gaza plan, which placed the US president at the centre of the transitional initiative. It is chaired by Trump and tasked with supervising a still-to-be-formed Palestinian technocratic government and reconstruction under the second phase of the ceasefire deal.

Critics say the plan fails to confront the root causes of Gaza’s destruction: Israel’s occupation, siege and military assault. Analysts have pointed out that Gaza does not need a branding exercise or a donor board dominated by Washington and its allies, but a political settlement rooted in Palestinian sovereignty and international law.

The board’s report says 85 per cent of Gaza’s buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed and that around 70 million tonnes of rubble must be cleared. Despite an October ceasefire, Israel has kept troops in a large part of Gaza and continued air strikes, while the second phase of Trump’s plan — including broader Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction and the disarmament of Palestinian factions — has not been implemented.

Many states remain reluctant to channel reconstruction funds through Trump’s board because of concerns over transparency, oversight and political control. Under the board’s charter, member states reportedly hold three-year terms unless they pay $1 billion to fund its activities and secure permanent membership, raising further questions over whether Gaza’s reconstruction is being treated as a humanitarian obligation or a pay-to-play diplomatic platform.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s Gaza ‘peace’ board in turmoil as funding pledges fail to materialise

Palestinian Prisoners Club says Israel uses detention of solidarity activists to intimidate global supporters

MEMO | May 21, 2026

The Palestinian Prisoners Club said on Wednesday that Israel has turned the detention and abduction of international solidarity activists into a systematic policy aimed at intimidating supporters of the Palestinian cause worldwide.

In a statement, the organisation said Israeli authorities seek to send a message that anyone showing solidarity with the Palestinian people could face detention, abuse, arrest and torture.

The statement followed the circulation of videos released by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir showing the mistreatment of activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the “Global Solidarity Flotilla,” who were detained by Israeli forces while attempting to reach the Gaza Strip.

According to the Prisoners Club, Israeli authorities intercepted the activists in international waters and forcibly transferred them to the Port of Ashdod.

The organisation described the scenes shown in the videos as involving humiliation, mistreatment and abuse, arguing that they reflect treatment routinely experienced by Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons.

The group further stated that the involvement of Ben-Gvir in the filmed incidents highlighted what it characterised as the broader policy of intimidation directed against international solidarity movements supporting Palestinians.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Comments Off on Palestinian Prisoners Club says Israel uses detention of solidarity activists to intimidate global supporters

US Provided Most of Israel’s Missile Defense During Iran War

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | May 21, 2026

The US fired hundreds of its most advanced interceptors to protect Israel from Iranian missiles during the first five weeks of the war.

According to a Department of War assessment described to The Washington Post, the US used 200 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors and over 100 SM-3 and SM-6 missiles in defense of Israel. Israel only used 100 Arrow interceptors and 90 David’s Sling missiles.

Speaking about the imbalance, an administration official told The Post, “In total, the U.S. shot around 120 more interceptors and engaged twice as many Iranian missiles.” The official added that “The imbalance will likely be exacerbated if fighting restarts.”

The imbalance occurs because Washington and Tel Aviv developed a strategy for the defense of Israel, where the US advanced interceptors handled the bulk of the Iranian missiles. The official said that the policy resulted in a significant “drawdown” of the US interceptor stockpile.

During the conflict, the US used about half of its stockpile of advanced interceptors, including Patriots, SM-3, SM-6, and THAAD interceptors. The US intelligence community says Iran has over 70% of its pre-war launchers and missiles. Additionally, Tehran has resumed drone production, and it’s rebuilding its military production at a surprising rate.

A US official also told The Post that Israel’s offensive capabilities were slowing down. They explained that by the end of March, Israel was conducting 50% fewer strikes against Iran because its air force was exhausted by operations against Lebanon and Yemen.

In recent days, President Donald Trump has threatened to restart the war against Iran if Tehran does not comply with his demands. However, the President had made similar threats throughout the six-week-long ceasefire and has always backed down.

The Post reports that the US has positioned additional naval assets near Israel to assist with missile defense if the war restarts.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on US Provided Most of Israel’s Missile Defense During Iran War

Ukrainian drone could have caused mass casualties – Greek defense minister

RT | May 21, 2026

A Ukrainian naval drone found off a Greek island earlier this month could have sunk a civilian ship and led to mass casualties, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias has said.

The unmanned surface vessel (USV) was reportedly a Ukrainian Magura V3 kamikaze drone, capable of carrying an explosive payload of up to 300kg. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and senior government officials were reportedly briefed on the matter last week, according to CNN.

Speaking at a conference on Wednesday, Dendias refused to divulge the details of the investigation, but stressed that the drone could have caused immense damage.

“It was obviously something extremely dangerous… there is not the slightest doubt – I repeat, the slightest doubt – that this is a Ukrainian sea drone,” he said, adding that if a cruise liner crossed paths with the USV, the ship would have been at “the bottom of the sea.”

How many dead would we have mourned? And how permissible is this thing in the Mediterranean?

Dendias stressed that Kiev owes Athens “a very big apology,” as well as “the absolute assurance that something like this will not happen again in the wider region.”

Ukraine has used such drones for months to attack ships in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, targeting vessels it sees as linked to Moscow. Russia has condemned the strikes, calling them “terrorism and maritime piracy.”

Ukrainian UAVs targeting Russian infrastructure have also increasingly flown through the territory of other countries, such as the Baltic states and Finland, according to Moscow. Several Ukrainian drones have crashed in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland in recent weeks.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu said in April that should these countries deliberately allow Ukrainian drones to pass through their airspace, they become “open accomplices in aggression against Russia.” In that case, Moscow has the right to self-defense against such an “armed attack,” he warned.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on Ukrainian drone could have caused mass casualties – Greek defense minister

Germany at the Crossroads: Revanchism Versus Diplomacy

Sputnik – 21.05.2026

Amid the conflict in Ukraine, voices in the German establishment increasingly call for strengthening the armed forces to counter the perceived Russian menace.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to make the German army the strongest in Europe, while Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warns of a new military threat from Russia, which Europe has “forgotten over the last 20 to 30 years.”

An art installation in Berlin’s Thomas Schulte Gallery displayed the Ukrainian phrase “The best gift — dead Russians”, sparking debate over the anti-Russian provocation when the exhibition claims to condemn violence.

But not all politicians support militarization or war:

Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alice Weidel said war, even in Ukraine, is “absolutely fatal” and a massive security threat for Germany.

Sarah Wagenknecht, leader of the left-wing BSW bloc, wrote on X that Merz’s policies serve the elite and make German taxpayers participants in an endless war.

Former BSW MP Sevim Dagdelen wrote for NachDenkSeiten that dialogue with Russia is slipping away as the German government tries to win a victory.

AfD MP Tino Chrupalla warned the Ukrainian dream of ‘final victory’ harms both Ukraine and Germany and the proxy war wastes tax money.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said the European Union must maintain normal dialogue with Russia and intermediaries like Schroeder could help.

Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha said only extremists deny the need for talks with Russia.

Former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski said post-war Europe will have to rebuild relations with Russia, which will it will not just disappear.

Former Italian prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement Giuseppe Conte said German rearmament won’t increase security but only it creates instability and enriches the elite.

Former Serbian vice-president Aleksandar Vulin said modern Germany dreams of revenge rather than learning from history, threatening peace.

The debate shows a growing rift between calls for war and those for diplomacy and caution.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Comments Off on Germany at the Crossroads: Revanchism Versus Diplomacy

‘Unprecedented act of savagery’: How Israel’s new law places Palestinians on death row by default

By Zeynep Conkar | TRT World | May 19, 2026

Israel has become the first Western-aligned “democracy” to legislate a mandatory death penalty targeting a single ethnic group under military occupation, and this week, it put that law into force.

The order was signed on Sunday by Major General Avi Bluth, commander of the Israeli army’s Central Command, at the request of Defence Minister Israel Katz, the same minister who once ordered the immediate cut-off of water supply to Gaza and has publicly threatened Gaza’s civilians with “total devastation” in what South African prosecutors and international legal experts cited as evidence of genocidal intent before the International Court of Justice.

Under the new law, military courts prosecuting Palestinians whose attacks resulted in the death of an Israeli must apply the death penalty as the sole available sentence, unless the court finds special circumstances allowing for life imprisonment instead.

Once a final ruling is handed down, the sentence must be carried out within 90 days.

Within Israeli courts, military orders always take precedence over Israeli and international law,  according to Nasir Qadri, an international law practitioner and a critical legal scholar at Koc University.

“The system was never designed to adjudicate guilt; it was designed to administer a colonised population through the form of law, and a 96 percent conviction rate is its proof,” Qadri tells TRT World.

“The 90-day execution deadline and the prohibition on pardon or commutation remove formal residues from a structure already characterised by arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, secret evidence that defendants cannot challenge, and confessions extracted under torture,” he adds.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose far-right Jewish Power party had long campaigned for the measure, hailed the signing as a political victory, declaring “we promised and we fulfilled.”

The law was passed by the Knesset on 30 March 2026, by a vote of 62 to 47, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu present in the chamber to support the bill.

Before the vote, it had already drawn wide condemnation, not only from Palestinian organisations and international human rights bodies, but from within Israel’s own legal establishment.

This is a discriminatory behaviour under international law, Qadri argues.

“This law converts the colonial administration of Palestinian life into the colonial administration of Palestinian death, and does so through the same legal instruments, military orders, security classifications, and jurisdictional exclusions,” says Qadri.

“The prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life under Article 6 of the ICCPR, as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee in General Comment 36, requires in capital cases the strictest observance of fair trial guarantees.”

“The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stated in May 2026 that the law is de facto applicable to Palestinians only, given that its threshold, intent to negate the existence of the state, structurally excludes Israeli Jewish defendants by definition,” says Qadri.

A dual discriminatory system

The legislation’s reach is defined by the dual legal system operating across the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians there live under military law, while Israeli settlers fall under civilian law, two parallel frameworks in the same territory.

The death penalty provision applies only through the military courts, which means it applies exclusively to Palestinians. In the civilian track, the law only covers those acting with the intent to deny the existence of the State of Israel, a definition designed to exclude Jewish defendants.

The law operates across two legal orders that share only a maximum penalty, according to Qadri.

“Palestinian defendants in the West Bank face military courts where judges are uniformed officers, confessions extracted under interrogation constitute primary evidence, and the conviction rate is 96 percent.”

“Israeli defendants face civilian courts with independent judges, full evidentiary standards, and a Supreme Court appellate structure. Placing the same capital sanction across both frameworks without equalising the procedural conditions that determine whether it is applied fairly is a structural guarantee of differential outcomes,” Qadri explains.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said the law rolls back Israel’s long-standing de facto moratorium on executions, in place since 1962, and noted with concern that it “prohibits mitigation, commutation or pardon of the death penalty” once a sentence is handed down.

UN experts have warned that the mandatory nature of the sentence violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991, under which mandatory death sentences are prohibited as inherently arbitrary.

What it means for Palestinians behind bars

The law comes into force against a backdrop of severe and worsening conditions for Palestinians in Israeli arbitrary detention.

As of March 2026, approximately 9,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, with about half under administrative detention or labelled “unlawful combatants,” held without charge and unable to defend themselves in court.

Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups have described the new law as an “unprecedented act of savagery,” accusing Israel of codifying violence against detainees amid mounting reports of torture and deaths in custody since the genocide in Gaza intensified.

“Administrative detention is a colonial relic, the bitter fruit of Britain’s 1945 Emergency Regulations, exported and perfected across an archipelago of twenty-five detention centres, prisons, and interrogation facilities, twenty-one of them inside Israel itself,” Qadri says.

“What the death penalty law changes is not the material conditions of detention; the torture, the medical neglect, the enforced disappearance of hundreds of families still unable to determine whether their loved ones are alive, detained, or dead; but the existential conditions, so that every unanswered question about a detained relative now carries the weight of an execution deadline,” he adds.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, alongside Adalah and several other rights organisations, has petitioned the High Court against the law, arguing it is racially discriminatory, unconstitutional, and that the Knesset has no authority to legislate directly for the occupied West Bank.

The court has yet to issue a final ruling. In the meantime, the law is in force, and for Palestinians facing military prosecution, the death penalty is the default sentence the law prescribes.

“This is the precise function of what international law has failed to name, not merely to kill, but to make an exposed population live in permanent, calibrated proximity to death as a technique of control over the living,” Qadri says.

“The law is not addressed to the defendant; it is addressed to the population,” he adds.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Comments Off on ‘Unprecedented act of savagery’: How Israel’s new law places Palestinians on death row by default

Naftali Bennett Is Running A Campaign To ‘Fix Israel’s Hasbara’

The Dissident | May 21, 2026

Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Israeli opposition challenging Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, shares the exact same genocidal, expansionist vision of greater Israel as Netanyahu, arguably in an even more extreme way.

Bennett, who has described himself as “more right-wing than Bibi”, has called to annex the majority of the West Bank, celebrated the genocide in Gaza, justified the IDF shooting Palestinian children, supports the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, and supports the war on Iran.

As the Times of Israel noted, Bennett and his coalition partner, Yair Lapid, “broadly accept Netanyahu’s security assumptions — hardline on Iran, hawkish on Gaza and Lebanon, opposed to Palestinian sovereignty under current conditions”.

One of the major ways Bennett is differentiating himself from Benjamin Netanyahu is by campaigning on improving Israel’s propaganda machine, effectively supporting the same Greater Israel policies of the Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, but doing a better job in hiding them from the world.

Israel recently suffered another PR crisis after its national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, released a video showing his forces abusing detained activists who were attempting to bring food aid to Gaza.

In repose, Naftali Bennett did not oppose the torture of international activists, but criticized the damage Ben-Gvir did to Israel’s propaganda machine by publishing the video of it, saying, “The Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Deri coalition has weakened Israel’s international standing to an unprecedented low, endangering IDF soldiers abroad and arming our antisemitic enemies around the world.”

He then announced one of the key planks of his campaign platform, “how we will fix Israel’s hasbara”.

Announcing his plan, Bennett laid out an organized attempt to run social media troll farms and to plant Israeli propagandists in media in order to silence criticism and factual reporting on Israel’s war crimes.

He said that he will “establish a powerful national hasbara authority:
The authority will set Israel’s messaging strategy, coordinate between bodies, and ensure that the Israeli response is swift, unified, and professional. It will have an independent budget, a professional director, and its own power”.

This “powerful national hasbara authority,” according to Bennett’s plan, “will recruit experts in international media, social networks, public opinion research, crisis management, creativity, data, and technology”.

Bennet called to create a pool of Israeli propagandists in the media to be activated to do damage control for Israel.

As part of his plan, he called to “create a pool of spokespeople in major languages who will appear in global media, podcasts, universities, and social networks.
We will initiate a presence—in every language, in every arena, at every hour.”

He also called to establish a social media troll farm to silence criticism of Israel, calling to “establish a consciousness and technology war room” which “will operate an advanced war room that will monitor the discourse in real time, identify disinformation before it takes hold, and distribute sharp, accurate, and fast content.”

He called to coordinate this campaign with existing Israeli troll farms, writing, “Today, there are many excellent private hasbara efforts operating out of a sense of mission around the world, but they operate alone. We will connect them to a coordinated campaign, one fist for Israel.”

Finally, he called to work with Western government backing Israel in this major propaganda operation, writing, “Israel is not alone. There are other democracies grappling with disinformation attacks and attempts at influence by foreign actors. We will work together with technological, legal, and media tools to fight the lie machines that poison young people around the world.”

Naftali Bennett will be at least as genocidal and expansionist as the Netanyahu coalition government, but he will do a better job at hiding Israel’s crimes from the world by running an even more sophisticated propaganda operation, as he has openly admitted.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Naftali Bennett Is Running A Campaign To ‘Fix Israel’s Hasbara’

Boxed into a Corner: Iran Has Outsmarted Trump Every Step of The Way

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | May 21, 2026

US President Donald Trump has boxed himself into a corner that his ego will not allow him to get out of. Instead of Tehran surrendering, it is Washington that has to accept defeat, or risk dragging this regional conflict into a much wider and bloody war. The bottom line– Iran is better at wars of attrition.

From the first moments of the US-Israeli attack in February 2024, up until the temporary cessation of hostilities came into effect, the Iranians were in the driver’s seat. Iran’s former leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, had remained in his publicly known office and was killed almost immediately, almost too easily, it should be noted.

Unlike at the beginning of the 12-Day War, last June, the Iranians didn’t take 15 hours to respond to the aggression against them. Instead, it took only a few hours until missiles were raining down across the Persian Gulf and on Israeli targets.

The message that has been sent to both the Israelis and the US appears to be one that they are incapable of comprehending: assassinations don’t win wars against the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. Despite its overwhelming technical and military advantages, the US-Israeli alliance watched on as the Iranians absorbed hit after hit, maintaining the capability to continue firing every single day and inflicting significant retaliatory blows.

Around 16 US bases and hundreds of American military assets were crushed, while the military casualties numbered at least into the hundreds; that we know about. Iran, however, flipped the tables completely and decided to make what could be construed as a territorial gain– they now control the Strait of Hormuz.

The only answers the Trump administration has been able to come up with, in response to the Strait of Hormuz closure and Iran’s proven ability to continue fighting, are that he directs enormous strikes on civilian infrastructure or puts boots on the ground. Both these options will result in severe consequences, regionally and domestically, for the United States.

All of this could be solved if the US government were capable of making its own decisions, independent of Israel. However, we live in the real world, where President Trump openly says he isn’t thinking of his own citizens’ financial position, but instead about what Israel cares about (“Iran can’t have nuclear weapons”).

It is also apparent that Trump doesn’t actually care about Iran potentially building nuclear weapons, because if he did, the path to preventing this outcome is a deal that replicates the 2015 Nuclear Deal. The US’s problems with Iran have never been about nuclear weapons; they seek regime change in Tehran for two reasons: Iran is an independent nation, and Israel wants to see it fall.

Evidently, the Trump administration is in the back pocket of the US-based Israel Lobby and is incapable of saying no, which has gotten them into this current mess. A leader like Trump, whose shallow ego makes him incapable of admitting defeat, has been led into a disaster that he can’t get out of.

Instead of weakening the Islamic Republic, if the war were to end on the simple terms that Iran has set out – namely, a ceasefire on all fronts, a new system governing the Strait of Hormuz, and the lifting of sanctions, in addition to handing over frozen assets and compensation – then Tehran will be transformed into a major regional power. If it were militarily battered and had no leadership, as President Trump consistently claims, this would not even be on the table.

The Trump administration fell for the bait of attacking Iran and launching a decapitation strike; now it is being made to pay a price. The Iranians are not about to throw away their leverage for nothing; they want to use this opportunity to free their nation economically and to achieve victory across the region.

Then came the “Uno reverse card” strategy, Washington imposing a blockade on top of Iran’s blockade. If you were to believe the White House, the Iranians are already begging on their knees due to this strategy. If you instead trust your own perceptions, then the reality couldn’t be further from this fictional and egotistical depiction.

Iran can easily outlast its opponents when it comes to surviving an economic war, because it has suffered through this for 47 years. Which means that Trump is running out of time.

On the Lebanon front, Hezbollah is grinding down the Israeli ground forces who are currently attempting to impose an occupation in the south of the country. Washington’s solution has been to try to use the deeply unpopular Lebanese government in an attempt to stir civil unrest inside Lebanon, but also to drag it into a normalization agreement with Tel Aviv, one that will present the Israelis with a propaganda victory.

Hezbollah, both Washington and Tel Aviv told the world, was supposed to have been defeated in 2024. Instead, it is now using asymmetric warfare to batter the Israelis and impose a new equation that will eventually force a retreat that will represent an even more consequential retreat than occurred as a result of the 2000 liberation of South Lebanon.

So the Trump administration is running out of time, the economic pressure on his Persian Gulf Arab allies is immense and the Israelis are feeling the heat of Hezbollah’s blows. There are two ways forward: to escalate again militarily or to bow to Iranian demands. The military option is a non-option, because there is simply nothing more that can be achieved without enormous consequences. Yet, Donald J Trump, the weakest President in American history, appears incapable of saying no to Israel.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.

May 21, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Boxed into a Corner: Iran Has Outsmarted Trump Every Step of The Way