Trump may not follow through on Russian oil or Tomahawk
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 25, 2025
The US President Donald Trump has seemingly shifted gear in the US strategy to stop Russia on its tracks from creating new facts on the ground in Ukraine. Russian forces have the upper hand all along the 1250-km Ukrainian frontline stretching Kiev’s defences and resources, which no amount of western military help can hope to reverse in a foreseeable future. Trump is compelling Russia to seek a military victory in Ukraine.
Trump so far put on the air of a statesman in great anguish over the humanitarian aspects of the conflict. Moscow tolerated the theatrical show to pamper Trump’s egotistic personality — that is, until Putin shattered the myth last week to expose that Trump actually holds the record as the American president who sanctioned Russia the most number of times, exceeding even his predecessor Joe Biden’s tally.
Trump, in the new avatar as war monger has unveiled a strategy of climbing the escalation ladder in the war until Putin capitulates. To that end, he has expanded the sanctions regime to include Russia’s oil industry, and is toying with the idea to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles that can hit deep inside Russian territory.
The US Treasury Departments’ press release announcing the new sanctions against Russia reads as if its is custom made for targeting India. India and China account for some 80% of Russia’s oil exports, but the latter is the number one buyer with 60% of the imports transported through pipelines, whereas India depends on carriers arranged by the Russian side (“shadow fleet”) which are also now under western sanctions.
The press release claims that “The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behaviour.” It is a statement of fact because this is not really about oil, but about geopolitics. Whether Trump will actually press ahead with the oil sanctions remains unclear, since keeping Russian oil out of the world market risks high oil prices which could boomerang on the US economy and be damaging politically for Trump.
Putin’s initial reaction last Thursday was that the oil sanctions are an “unfriendly” act which “will have certain consequences, but they will not significantly affect our economic well-being.” Putin said that Russia’s energy sector feels confident. He added, “This is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia. But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure.”
Meanwhile, western hypocrisy broke through the ceiling, as the German chancellor Friedrich Merz who is one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the war is at Trump’s doorstep pleading for a sanctions waiver. Apparently, Germany has been quietly buying Russian oil even while portraying Russia in hostile terms, lest its GDP fell by another 3 percent!
Germany “temporarily” took control of three subsidiaries of the Russian oil company Rosneft (which the US has sanctioned) to secure its energy supply. Interestingly, the UK PM Keir Starmer, the charioteer of the so-called “coalition of the willing” raring to deploy troops in Ukraine to fight Russian forces, is travelling in the same boat as Merz seeking Trump’s waiver!
Such shady behaviour with racial overtones by the Western countries holds lessons for India. Clearly, the effectiveness of the new sanctions against the Russian oil giants will depend on just how zealous the US is in enforcing them through secondary sanctions on entities that deal in Russian oil. If past experience is anything to go by, Washington won’t be able to sustain a full-court press – if for no other reason than that markets will force its hand once oil prices shoot up.
That is to say, thanks to lax enforcement of sanctions, Russian oil will continue to reach the world market. Buyers like India who cut down oil supplies from Russia will end up paying higher prices. By meekly complying with Trump’s diktat, they compromised their interests. The sense of humiliation is such that Delhi shies away from engaging with Trump.
However, as regards long-rage Tomahawk missiles (range: 3000 km) Putin was polite but frank in his reaction, saying, “This is an attempt at escalation. But if such weapons are used to attack Russian territory, the response will be very serious, if not overwhelming. Let them think about it.”
The deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev was even blunt in conveying the Kremlin thinking:
“The US is our enemy, and their talkative ‘peacemaker’ has now fully embarked on the path of war with Russia… this is now his conflict, not the senile Biden’s!… the decisions made are an act of war against Russia. And now Trump has fully sided with the insane Europe.
“But there is also a clear plus in this latest swing of the Trump pendulum: we can strike all the Bandera hideouts with a wide variety of weapons without regard to unnecessary negotiations. And achieve victory precisely where it is only possible: on the ground, not at a desk. Destroying enemies, not concluding meaningless ‘deals’”.
Apparently, the message went home. Trump, before emplaning for Malaysia on his 3-nation Asian tour, made sure that his special envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff extended an invitation to his Russian interlocutor Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund, to go over to Miami for a quiet conversation to talk things over. The two erstwhile businessmen are meeting today.
Meanwhile, Trump has hinted in anticipation of his forthcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday that he may not after all carry out his threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and other trade curbs starting on November 1 in retaliation for China’s vastly expanded export controls on rare earth magnets and minerals. China’s tough stance is paying off.
Similarly, the Kremlin’s blunt threat of retaliation against Tomahawk will be heeded seriously. Putin has many options — Oreshnik capable of Mach 10 speed, for instance, is a hypersonic missile that is also nuclear capable, against which the West has no defence. The weapon has entered into serial production and been supplied to the armed forces.
Again, Russia’s new jet-powered glide bomb gives a significant boost in range and superior resistance to electronic countermeasures. It is capable of hitting Ukraine’s western border. It is also moving to mass production and the West is defenceless against it.
Iran, Russia, China send letter to IAEA chief declaring UNSC Resolution 2231 terminated
Press TV – October 24, 2025
Iran, China, and Russia have written a joint letter to the UN nuclear watchdog chief, affirming the termination of Security Council Resolution 2231 and the agency’s reporting concerning the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.
In a post on his X account on Friday, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said ambassadors and permanent representatives of China, Iran and Russia sent a letter to Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi.
It came after the three countries’ joint letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations and President of the Security Council declaring the termination of Resolution 2231 on October 18, he added.
In the letter to the IAEA chief, he noted, the three countries reaffirmed the “illegal” move by the European trio — Britain, France and Germany — to invoke the so-called snapback mechanism and the expiration of all provisions of Resolution 2231 on October 18, 2025.
“But there is another key point which relates to the end of the mandate of the IAEA Director General’s reporting on verification and monitoring under the Resolution 2231 and the implementation of the JCPOA,” Gharibabadi emphasized, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
According to the Iranian diplomat, the letter asserted that in the IAEA, “the implementation of the JCPOA, as well as verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of UNSCR 2231, were enacted by the resolution of the Board of Governors of 15 December 2015(GOV/2015/72).”
He said, “Operative paragraph 14 of this Resolution unequivocally stipulates that the Board ‘decides to remain seized of the matter until ten years after the JCPOA Adoption Day or until the date on which the Director General reports that the Agency has reached the broader conclusion for Iran, whichever is earlier’.”
“Consequently, as of 18 October 2025, the related agenda item has been automatically removed from the agenda of the Board of Governors, and no further action is required in this regard,” Gharibabadi pointed out.
Iran has rejected the legality of E3’s triggering the snapback of UN sanctions, calling the mechanism “null and void” and a “fabricated” term.
On October 18, Tehran declared an end to all UN restrictions on its nuclear program following the expiration of Security Council resolution 2231.
Iran has faced sustained economic pressure in recent years, particularly after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and re-imposed sweeping sanctions under the so-called “maximum pressure” policy.
Despite these pressures, Iran has sought to adapt through increased domestic production, non-dollar trade mechanisms, and expanding economic ties with partners in Asia and neighboring states.
Iran calls for end to Western impunity for ‘Israel’ after ICJ ruling
Al Mayadeen | October 25, 2025
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has called for an end to the “chronic impunity” granted to “Israel” and its supporters, following a new International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that sharply censures Tel Aviv for breaching international humanitarian law and obstructing UN aid operations in Gaza.
The ICJ opinion, issued on October 22, reaffirmed that as an occupying power, “Israel” is legally obliged to cooperate with UN agencies, including UNRWA, to facilitate humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip. The court stressed that “Israel” is “under a negative obligation not to impede the provision of these supplies,” and found that its restrictions on food, water, and medicine violate international law.
The judges further concluded that “Israel” failed to substantiate its allegations that UNRWA employees are affiliated with Hamas, and that the agency remains indispensable to humanitarian operations in Gaza. The opinion reiterated “Israel’s” obligations under the UN Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention to protect civilians and ensure the population’s basic survival needs.
Ending Impunity
In a post on X, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the ICJ’s ruling once again exposes “the undeniable truth that the Israeli regime continues to be the tremendous violator of each and every norm of international humanitarian law.” He noted that the court reaffirmed “Israel’s” duty to guarantee access to essential goods and services for Palestinians under occupation and “must not obstruct the provision of such supplies.”
Baghaei added that “Israel’s” persistent defiance of international rulings reflects a broader culture of impunity sustained by Western powers. “The chronic impunity granted by the powers that support and defend Israel must come to an end,” he said, calling for international accountability.
He also referred to the ICJ’s earlier opinions, including the July 2024 ruling that declared “Israel’s” occupation of Palestinian territories “unlawful” and demanded its immediate cessation. The court is currently reviewing South Africa’s case accusing “Israel” of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention through its conduct in Gaza.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, “Israel’s” war since October 7, 2023, has killed 68,519 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 170,000 others.
Tommy Robinson’s HUMILIATING Israel Propaganda Trip
Glenn Greenwald | October 23, 2025
This is a clip from our show SYSTEM UPDATE, now airing every weeknight at 7pm ET on Rumble. You can watch the full episode for FREE here: https://rumble.com/v70nbcm-tuckers-tp…
BIRTH CONTROL BACKLASH
The HighWire with Del Bigtree | October 23, 2025
Pfizer faces over a thousand lawsuits from women after its popular birth control drug, Depo-Provera, was linked to brain tumors. As the UN releases a report on the global fertility crisis, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is moving to allow pharmacists to dispense birth control without a doctor’s prescription.
‘Israel’s Digital Iron Dome: Weaponizing the web against Palestine

By Rasha Reslan | Al Mayadeen | October 24, 2025
“Israel” has long invested in shaping its image online, but its latest initiative, the Digital Iron Dome, represents a new level of sophistication in information warfare. Marketed as a “civilian defense initiative,” the platform (lp.digitalirondome.com) invites users worldwide to join a “digital army” tasked with countering what it describes as “disinformation” and “defending Israel online.”
A closer look, however, reveals a different reality. The initiative functions less as a neutral fact-checking tool and more as a coordinated influence operation. Users are encouraged to register and access pre-scripted posts, hashtags, and visual content optimized for viral sharing across X, Instagram, and TikTok. By centralizing narrative control in this way, the platform effectively outsources public diplomacy to civilians while framing entity-aligned messaging as grassroots activism.
The platform’s design mirrors modern marketing technology, with embedded tracking scripts and analytics monitoring engagement in real time. The Digital Iron Dome turns seemingly spontaneous online support into a highly engineered content amplification system aimed at shaping global perceptions of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and countering criticism through algorithmic dominance.
Claims vs. reality
The Digital Iron Dome markets itself as a “24/7 digital defense system” and “the world’s first pro-Israel influence engine,” claiming to monitor the web for anti-“Israel” narratives, produce “fact-based” countercontent, and place targeted ads alongside material it deems “biased” or “antisemitic”. Its landing page cites impressive metrics – “300M+ targeted ads delivered” and “200K+ websites reached” and solicits donations.
Independent inspection, however, raises questions about transparency and actual scope:
- Advocacy over journalism: The platform functions more like an advertising campaign than a newsroom, blending campaign branding and donation solicitation with AI-driven narrative detection claims.
- Unverified metrics: Reach and engagement numbers are presented without a third-party audit, leaving scale unconfirmed.
- Financial opacity: While donations are solicited via PayPal, there is no clear legal structure, charity registration, or financial reporting.
- Limited founder transparency: The founders’ professional backgrounds are only partially documented, and potential conflicts of interest remain unclear.
- Marketing masks technology claims: References to AI-driven monitoring and ad injection resemble product marketing rather than verifiable functionality.
- Coordinated outreach: Multiple domains and social media promotion suggest systematic campaign efforts, though claims of ad placement on mainstream sites require independent verification.
Digital Iron Dome exploits bias to silence Palestinian voices online
AI Engineer and the head of AI Department in a consultation company, Ali Hadi Zeineddine, speaking to Al Mayadeen English, warned that focusing solely on the technical mechanics of the Digital Iron Dome risks obscuring a much deeper issue.
“Discussing the technical aspects of the Digital Iron Dome,” he noted, “may lead to misleading conclusions, especially when filtered through Western slogans of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of speech.’”
“The real story lies not in its code, but in the unequal terrain of the digital battlefield where it operates,” he asserted.
In an age where frontlines are increasingly digital, Zeineddine argues that the Digital Iron Dome enters a space already distorted by entrenched inequalities, from algorithmic bias to economic exclusion and platform moderation practices that disproportionately silence Palestinian voices. “These imbalances don’t just create opportunities for such campaigns, they amplify them,” he explained.
Mounting evidence supports his concerns. Independent investigations have shown that major platforms, including those owned by Meta, Facebook, and Instagram, apply double standards to content relating to Palestine.
A report by the Middle East Institute revealed that Meta had quietly lowered the certainty threshold required to remove Arabic or Palestinian content from 80% to as low as 25%. In effect, Palestinian posts are far more likely to be taken down or shadow-banned with minimal justification. Human Rights Watch also documented over 1,050 incidents of peaceful pro-Palestine content being removed or suppressed on Meta platforms during October and November 2023, of which 1,049 were in support of Palestine, and only one favored “Israel.”
“In today’s conflicts, algorithms and ad policies have replaced tanks and trenches,” Zeineddine stressed. “When platform moderation already disfavors Palestinian voices, projects like the Digital Iron Dome don’t create imbalance; they exploit one.”
Weaponization of algorithmic asymmetry
Economic exclusion further compounds this digital marginalization. A Wired investigation spotlighted the case of Bilal Tamimi, a content creator from the occupied West Bank whose viral videos on YouTube have amassed millions of views. Yet, despite his reach, Tamimi remains barred from monetization through the YouTube Partner Program, not because of content violations, but because “the program is not available in [his] current location, Palestine.” This systemic restriction denies Palestinian creators not only potential income but also algorithmic reach, reducing the visibility of their narratives before they can even enter the global conversation.
Zeineddine stressed that what is unfolding is more than a clash of perspectives. “What we’re witnessing isn’t merely a battle of narratives,” he said. “It’s the weaponization of algorithmic asymmetry. The very systems designed to ensure fairness, moderation rules, monetization access, and ad transparency are reinforcing geopolitical hierarchies online.”
“When Palestinian creators are excluded from monetization programs or flagged for benign content,” he added, “they’re not just denied income, they’re denied visibility. You cannot challenge disinformation when you’re structurally silenced.”
In such a landscape, the Digital Iron Dome thrives not due to technological innovation, Zeineddine contended, but because it is designed to exploit an already tilted playing field. “The Digital Iron Dome does not succeed because it’s more advanced; it succeeds because the digital game is already rigged in its favor. Without meaningful transparency, parity, and accountability from the platforms themselves, this imbalance will remain the invisible architecture of modern information warfare.”
His conclusion is clear: the future of digital freedom and of global narrative equity hinges not only on dismantling influence operations, but also on confronting and reforming the systems that allow them to flourish in the first place.
Limits of the Digital Iron Dome
In a similar vein, Dr. Hassan Younes, a university professor and consultant, told Al Mayadeen English that after October 7, the digital space became more than a platform for news; it became a frontline.
In response, “Israel” and its allies deployed a highly organized narrative machine: coordinated talking points, PR campaigns, bot networks, sudden surges in “security justification” rhetoric, and attempts to flood timelines with distraction content.
Analysts dubbed this a digital “Iron Dome”, not designed to intercept rockets but to intercept sympathy, neutralize outrage, and sow doubt about what people were seeing.
“You cannot hide starvation. You cannot algorithmically blur the image of a mother holding her child under the rubble,” Dr. Younes explained.
“You cannot label every voice ‘extremist’ when millions say the same thing: this is not self-defense, it is mass punishment.” Influence engines, he warned, can distort timelines, amplify one narrative, and bury alternative perspectives. Yet, in this instance, they could not fully succeed.
These operations contributed to polarization and narrative suppression by design, seeking to isolate voices and make anger seem like a minority opinion. But the opposite occurred: millions aligned organically around a clear message, enough. Even those previously neutral began questioning why “context” is demanded from the oppressed but never from the occupier. “Israel” lost moral credibility online as well as on the ground.
Human voice refuses to be formatted
Attempts to control the narrative, shadow-banned posts, removed videos, and algorithmic friction triggered by words like “Gaza”, “occupation”, and “Palestine” were circumvented by users. People misspelled words to bypass AI filters, coordinated captions, and redistributed content through smaller accounts. What was meant to be silenced became a trending narrative, a form of digital civil disobedience driven by ordinary users, not institutions.
Do influence campaigns still matter? Absolutely. They can delay outrage, shape political responses, and sanitize the language of international discourse. They can reframe genocide as a “conflict” or forced famine as a “humanitarian logistics issue.”
Yet Dr. Younes highlighted a boundary: data manipulation cannot withstand stark reality. Live images of children under attack cannot be spun into comforting narratives.
This moment accentuates the need for transparency. When states or political actors provide talking points, monitor engagement, and mobilize users through dashboards and data, the process is no longer organic; it is manufactured consent. Citizens deserve to know who is speaking to them and why.
The events following October 7 proved a simple truth: distribution can be automated, but humanity cannot. The digital Iron Dome attempted to contain the story, and it failed because the people refused to look away. In an age dominated by AI, the most potent technology remains the human voice that refuses to be formatted.
Western journalists know they have a case to answer for their betrayal of Gaza, and it frightens them
By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | October 24, 2025
Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and former Middle East Bureau chief for The New York Times, Christopher Hedges, this week delivered the Edward Said memorial lecture in Australia. He had also been invited to address the country’s national “Press Club” in which he was to highlight the overwhelming moral failures of Western establishment media outlets, chiefly by amplifying Israeli propaganda and undermining the credibility of journalists in Gaza, most of whom “Israel” has subsequently killed in its decimation of the territory’s population.
It shouldn’t really have come as a surprise then, when the Press Club rescinded its invitation to Hedges on the grounds of “balancing out” its programming. Whether or not the withdrawal was directly influenced by Israeli pressure, the collective media aristocracy of the country would hardly have looked forward to the prospect of an actual, decorated reporter scathingly indicting them to their faces on their systematic malpractice and dereliction of duty that has contributed to perhaps the definitive atrocity of the 21st century.
Stalwart ABC journalist David Marr came out to defend “The Club” in a radio interview with a furious Chris Hedges. Rather than seek to engage with the content of what his speech would have been, Marr set about using his training as a barrister to ambush the real journalist in the room, smearing the sponsorship of his tour by a Palestine advocacy group as a “fundamental breaking of the rules,” according to his definition of journalism.
Beneath the sniveling pettiness and affected outrage of his attacks on Hedges, lurked a palpable sense of indignation that anyone, least of all a decorated journalist, would attack his “club” of establishment approved media personalities for having not done their job, to the point of betraying those Gazans practicing journalism in its purest form.
Marr, whose career is not particularly distinguished by international reporting, much less from a warzone, attempted to impugn Hedges’ authority on Gaza (where he lived for seven years) by pointing out that he hadn’t been in the territory since 2005 and hence his lack of recent experience there might not have measured up to the Club’s exacting standards.
The substance, to the degree there was any to Marr’s arguments, was that those organizations, Sky News, CNN and Reuters, by privileging Israeli talking points about the victims of their attacks, was merely standard due journalistic diligence of including “Israel’s” “perspective” in the interests of balance.
Hedges immediately and rightfully fired back that the job of a journalist is to tell the truth, not to balance it out with lies. “Israel’s” excuses and misdirection do, of course, merit being referred to, but not in a way that explicitly lends them credibility, by literally headlining the report.
What Marr evidently did not seem to understand was that Hedges is not saying that Western journalists manipulate or distort the truth. It is that they systematically amplify Israeli narratives which they know to be false, in a way that drowns out the truth of the story. This creates a false equivalence between Palestinian and Israeli “narratives.” It is precisely this mixing in of lies with truth that allowed “Israel” to get away with killing almost all professional reporters working in Gaza, along with untold numbers of other civilians.
While culpability is by no means exclusive to the Western mainstream press, it is unquestionably responsible for curating a global media discourse that manufactures the kind of doubt and hesitation that has permitted a livestreamed genocide to be perpetrated with full state complicity without consequence.
Perhaps the only valuable insight to be drawn from Marr’s affected and clearly unsuccessful attempt to pillory a journalist worth the title is that leading Western career journalists are, on some level, aware of their complicity. Like the endlessly weaponized accusations of anti-Semitism against opponents of the Israeli regime, it is not borne out of real anger but of a desperate attempt to intimidate those speaking the truth into silence.
There will inevitably come a point at which countless individuals and institutions in Western societies will be called to answer for their conduct during this genocide. That realization seems only now to be tentatively dawning on them.
Palestinian justice group seeks UK prosecution of British-Israeli citizen for serving in IDF
MEMO | October 24, 2025
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has formally applied for a court summons to prosecute a dual British-Israeli national for allegedly breaching UK law by voluntarily serving in the Israeli military. If successful, the case could set a legal precedent for accountability under Britain’s rarely used Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870.
The individual is accused of serving first on the Lebanese border and then in the illegally occupied West Bank as a member of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). ICJP alleges that the engagement constitutes an offence under Section 4 of the Foreign Enlistment Act (FEA), which prohibits British subjects from enlisting in the military of a foreign state that is at war with a state friendly to the UK.
In a statement released yesterday, the ICJP confirmed that its application for a court summons was submitted on 20 October. The preliminary hearing is expected to take place in the coming weeks.
“This is a significant step in holding suspected war criminals accountable within domestic jurisdictions for offences that they have committed outside of their home countries,” said Mutahir Ahmed, ICJP’s Head of Legal. “War criminals must be held accountable for their role in the genocide, from the most senior generals to the most junior foot soldier.”
The individual named in the filing, who remains unnamed for legal reasons, is not believed to have been conscripted. Israeli law does not compel dual nationals residing abroad to enlist, which ICJP argues makes the engagement a voluntary act and therefore subject to prosecution under UK law.
The legal submission, drafted by senior King’s Counsel, includes both expert testimony and supporting evidence of alleged FEA violations. ICJP says this is the first in a series of prosecutions it is pursuing as part of its broader Global 195 campaign, a reference to the number of UN-recognised states whose nationals may be subject to domestic accountability for war crimes committed abroad.
Palestine has been a State Party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court since April 2015. Its statehood was reaffirmed by a 2021 ICC ruling and more recently recognised by the UK government. As Palestine is considered a “friendly state” under the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act, ICJP argues that British citizens who engage in hostilities against it through service in the IDF are in breach of UK law.
The organisation says it has gathered evidence on more than 10 British citizens — including dual nationals — who may have either fought in the IDF or provided material support to its military activities. The current application marks what ICJP calls a first test case, with further prosecutions anticipated.
Israel Issues Demolition Orders to Clear Path for Colonial Road
IMEMC | October 24, 2025
Israeli occupation authorities issued demolition orders on Thursday targeting large industrial structures at the entrance of Anata, northeast of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank.
According to Jerusalem Governorate advisor Marouf Al-Refa’ey, Israeli forces stormed the town’s entrance and distributed demolition notices affecting metal workshops, furniture factories, and storage units.
He stated that the move is part of a long-standing plan to construct a road, traffic circle, and bridge connecting the Anata junction to the Hizma military roadblock.
This infrastructure is linked to the so-called “Greater Jerusalem” scheme and the colonial E1 plan.
Al-Refa’ey emphasized that Israeli authorities are systematically eliminating Palestinian presence along the path of this project. Demolitions in the area have been repeatedly carried out under various pretexts, including lack of permits or proximity to the illegal separation wall.
He warned that the developments at Anata’s entrance and along Az-Za’ayyem Road are part of a broader plan to establish a segregated road system. The goal is to bar Palestinians from using Abu George Road, which leads to the Jerusalem–Jericho highway and is reserved exclusively for illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
In contrast, the Anata/Az-Za’ayyem entrance would be restricted to Palestinian traffic only, connecting Anata, Az-Za’ayyem, and the Hizma checkpoint roundabout.
US as Israel’s indispensable partner and accomplice in Gaza genocide
By Elham Abedini | Press TV | October 24, 2025
In the aftermath of the Israeli carpet bombing of Gaza that began on October 7, 2023, mass demonstrations across the United States shattered any remaining illusions about Washington’s ironclad relationship with Israel.
Protesters openly condemned US economic and military assistance to the Israeli regime, the extensive trade between the two, and Washington’s all-encompassing and unconditional political support for Tel Aviv.
This is an issue the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has repeatedly highlighted in recent years.
In his most recent speech, he reminded the world that “without a doubt, the United States is the principal partner in the Gaza war.”
He has previously referred to the US and the Zionist regime as a “criminal gang,” describing Washington as a definitive accomplice to Israel’s genocidal crimes.
This statement reflects a broader historical pattern: Washington’s deep and evident complicity in Israel’s wars—military, financial, political, intelligence-based, and even in shaping the narratives.
It is important to examine the various aspects and layers of this partnership.
Military partnership
Since the launch of the genocidal war on Gaza over two years ago, Washington has acted not as a neutral mediator but as a direct military partner of Israel.
According to ABC News, the United States has provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel since October 2023.
In May 2025, Israel’s ministry of military affairs confirmed that 90,000 tons of weapons and equipment had been delivered from the US via 800 cargo flights and 140 ships, a supply line that sustained the bombardment of Gaza.
Israel remains one of the world’s largest aggregate recipients of American arms.
As of April 2025, it held 751 active Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases with a total value of about $39 billion, and it alone enjoys a special exemption allowing the use of US grant money to buy from Israeli rather than American contractors.
Before the latest war, American aid constituted roughly 20 percent of Israel’s military budget. Both sides also co‑finance $500 million annually in joint missile‑defense projects—Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow I‑III, Iron Beam—at every stage from research and development to production. Lockheed Martin’s participation in Iron Beam epitomizes this fusion.
Only days after the genocidal war began on October 7, 2023, American carriers Gerald R. Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower moved into the eastern Mediterranean.
During the twelve‑day war of aggression imposed on Iran, US naval and air‑defense assets even intercepted missiles aimed at the Zionist entity, expending 20 percent of America’s THAAD stockpile—nearly $800 million in cost.
Israel Hayom confirmed hundreds of aerial refueling missions performed by US tankers to sustain Israeli fighter jets attacking Iran, while over 30 additional KC‑135 and KC‑46 aircraft were redeployed from bases in Europe and the US to that theater.
At the same time, the Al‑Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the biggest American military base in West Asia, functioned as a command‑and‑control hub transferring early‑warning data from its AN/TPY‑2 radars directly to Israeli systems.
Economic reinforcement
Economically, Israel has long been the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid, surpassing $300 billion (inflation‑adjusted) in total assistance.
After the events of October 7, 2023, US Congress adopted three packages worth $16.3 billion in additional support. These included the April 2024 supplemental of $8.7 billion and annual $3.8 billion tranches under the 10‑year MOU framework, of which $6.7 billion funded missile systems.
US has also offered $9 billion in sovereign loan guarantees, facilitating Israel’s issuance of $5 billion in “war bonds”—purchased by US state and municipal investors—at below‑market rates to finance operations in Gaza.
Meanwhile, through USAID and the US Department of Energy, Washington intensified joint ventures in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and defense technology, effectively underwriting Israel’s economic and tech sustainability.
Political patronage
Politically and diplomatically, the US has provided a protective shield to the child-murdering regime, wielded its veto in the UN Security Council at least six times (most recently September 2025) to block calls for ceasefire, humanitarian access, or accountability. This ensured Israel’s strategic freedom of action.
When the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former military affairs minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, Washington imposed sanctions on five ICC judges and prosecutors (February 2025) and later warned member states against executing the warrants, threatening economic retaliation.
Trump administration simultaneously withdrew US funding from several UN bodies—including the Human Rights Council, UNESCO, and UNRWA—under the pretext of “anti‑Israeli bias,” while pressing Arab and Muslim governments to normalize ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords framework.
One of its first acts was rescinding sanctions on violent settler groups in the occupied West Bank.
Intelligence collaboration
Immediately afterthe events or October 7, Pentagon sent US Special Operations units and intelligence officers to the occupied territories to assist in missions to rescue captives and targeted killings of top Hamas leaders like Yahya Sinwar.
During the twelve‑day war on Iran, Israeli intelligence officers were reported inside the Pentagon command center itself, participating in classified briefings and, according to Tucker Carlson’s October 2 2025 broadcast, even issuing directions to American personnel—an extraordinary breach of protocol.
Throughout the war, US intelligence sharing intensified, providing Israel with real‑time surveillance, satellite imagery, and SIGINT.
The private sector also joined in: Microsoft confirmed delivering AI and cloud‑computing services to Israel’s ministry of military affairs as “limited emergency support.”
Media and narrative warfare
Despite the Israeli-American war resulting in nearly 60,000 fatalities in Gaza, and even the UN confirming it’s a genocide, American officials and media figures persist in exonerating Israel, whitewashing its horrendous war crimes.
On CBS 60 Minutes (October 2025), Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner denied that the Gaza bombing campaign constituted genocide—illustrating continued moral cover for Israel’s actions.
In the early days of the war, major US media outlets disseminated fabricated atrocity claims, including the infamous story of “40 beheaded babies.”
Then US-president Joe Biden himself echoed false allegations that Hamas rockets caused the Al‑Ahli Hospital explosion—statements later disproved.
Through repetition of such false narratives, Washington’s political and media elites built a moral firewall around Israel’s conduct, transforming deliberate mass violence into the rhetoric of “self‑defense.”
Across all dimensions—military, economic, political, intelligence, and media—the evidence is overwhelming. US is not a neutral actor but a principal architect and enabler of Israel’s genocidal aggression.
Its resources sustain the war machine, its vetoes erase accountability, its intelligence sharpens the targeting, and its narratives neutralize outrage.
The direct financial commitment in the past two years alone is quantified at over $21.7 billion in direct military aid, supplemented by sovereign guarantees of $9 billion and diplomatic insulation that has prevented any meaningful international intervention or sanctioning mechanism from taking hold.
The structural integration is so deep that the cessation of US support would necessitate an immediate and dramatic operational pause by the Israeli occupation forces due to supply chain dependency on American components.
In moral, political, and legal terms, Washington stands shoulder to shoulder with Tel Aviv, as an indispensable accomplice in war crimes.
Elham Abedini is a Tehran-based international relations analyst.
Why the Putin-Trump summit cancelation is terrible news for Ukraine
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | October 24, 2025
There was – or seemed to be – hope for peace for a brief moment. And how deceptive it turned out to be. I was among those cautiously optimistic when we were told just over a week ago that the presidents of Russia and the US, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, had a long and useful phone conversation and were planning to meet in person again.
The ‘Alaska 2.0 summit’, to take place in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, has been called off before it was even properly scheduled, and Russia-US relations have taken further severe hits. Washington has initiated unprecedented sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, which had not been sanctioned before, and dozens of their subsidiaries. All of this accompanied by what seems to be deliberately condescending and offensive rhetoric blaming Russia and its president – and them alone – for the persistent impasse in finding a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict – that is, the Western proxy war against Russia.
In reality, of course, it is Washington that can’t stop making U-turns that mess up what could have been a rational if difficult process of making peace. Witness the rather silly way in which Trump and his team have just oscillated between demanding that Ukraine surrender territory not yet taken by Russia and reverting to the pre-Alaska-summit dead-end position that a ceasefire must precede a full peace.
In addition, the Trump administration has been ambiguous at best about another escalation: Trump has denied it rather implausibly, but in reality, Washington seems to have permitted Kiev to carry out long-range strikes with European missiles – in particular, the British Storm Shadow – which include US parts and involve American targeting data: Another serious and provocative escalation.
The one piece of reasonable restraint still in place in Washington at this point is the refusal to transfer Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine (via an eagerly paying NATO-EU Europe, of course). Again, given the second Trump administration’s short but disappointing history, there is no reason to consider this refusal dependable and permanent. Ukraine’s dated leader, Vladimir Zelensky, has already boasted that he has “not yet” got his hands on the Tomahawks. It’s as if Trump enjoys being paraded as fickle and playable by the same man he regularly humiliates in public. What an odd relationship.
The NATO-EU Europeans, meanwhile, have stalled on their much-vaunted plan for an interest-free ‘loan’ – not really the right term for money that will never be paid back – of yet another €140 billion, using frozen Russian assets as pseudo-collateral.
‘Pseudo’, because the dirty little not-quite-secret of the scheme is that in the end, it will be EU taxpayers once again who will really foot the bill. Indeed, for those with eyes to see, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has long admitted as much, if in a venue most of his voters do not read and in terms clearly chosen to obfuscate: “budgetary guarantees from member states… [to] be replaced by collateralization under the EU’s long-term budget.” Translation: You, EU citizens, will pay, but in a way we make obscure enough for you to miss.
For now, the fortuitous inability of the EU to agree on how to spread the rather insane financial and political risks of this double-steal move – from Russia and from EU taxpayers – and ultra-corrupt Ukraine’s brazen demand to get this money in no-questions-asked-just-trust-us mode have delayed the realization of the scheme. That, too, like the US refusal to deliver Tomahawks to Kiev, is a tiny remnant of reason that may not last long. The new deadline set for a decision is December. If Eastern European hardliners and Russophobes, such as Poland’s Donald ‘I love terrorist attacks on vital infrastructure as long as they hit Germany’ Tusk, keep setting the tone, the loan operation to bury the euro’s credibility is likely to go ahead soon.
The EU has certainly not lost its appetite for measures that prolong a meat-grinder war for Ukrainians and damage the economy and general well-being of the inhabitants of NATO-EU-land. The 19th sanctions packet has been launched and hardball methods have been used to cajole resisters inside the EU – Hungary and Slovakia – to submit to a total cut-off of Russian gas and oil. These methods may very well already include more Nord Stream-style terrorist attacks, with refineries processing Russian oil blowing up at an astonishing pace now.
In sum, while official Kiev may celebrate, the news for ordinary Ukrainians is horrible: With the US fully reverting to a proxy-war course and the EU never even thinking about abandoning it, the war is now set to continue into next year. Unless there are further major reversals, Ukraine faces a terrible winter, and after that, a spring that will see renewed Russian ground offensives (at the latest).
Meanwhile, NATO figurehead and professional Trump sycophant Mark Rutte, comfortably seated next to his US boss, has said, in essence, that he does not give a damn about the fact that less than a quarter of Ukrainians want this war to continue. Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller recommends shipping young male Ukrainians who have fled to Poland off to the front. In short, the cannon fodder must flow.
The West started its systematic and reckless policy of exposing Ukraine at the Bucharest summit in 2008, almost 20 years ago. What we see now is that it will not change course even in the face of the horrendous fiasco that policy has already predictably incurred. The mad and vicious strategy of sacrificing Ukraine to damage Russia continues. Worse, the more it fails, the more it is being escalated, in the manner of compulsive gamblers who cannot stop until they have lost absolutely everything. Ukraine’s tragedy is that it is its land and its people they are betting.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.



