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How US-Israeli Regime Change in Iran Failed

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents |August 28, 2025

On July 29th, the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank that is enormously influential on Zionist entity ‘defence’ and security policy, published a document advocating for regime change in Iran, setting out potential methods by which Israel could achieve that malign end. In a bitter irony, much of the report’s contents not only attest to the implausibility of achieving such a goal, but lay bare how Benjamin Netanyahu’s calamitous ‘12 Day War’ has made this objective all the more unfeasible.

A flagrant deceit lies at the document’s core. Namely, “Israel did not set the overthrow of the regime in Iran as a goal in the war.” In reality, on June 15th Netanyahu menacingly declared the entity’s unprovoked attack on the Islamic Republic “could certainly” produce regime change. He claimed the government was “very weak”, and “80% of the people would throw these theological thugs out.” Such bold pronouncements were quickly silenced by an unprecedented and devastating missile barrage from Tehran, which Tel Aviv couldn’t repel.

Instead, INSS claims “some” military moves undertaken by the Zionist entity during the 12 Day War “were intended to undermine the foundations” of the Islamic Republic, and ignite mass public protests. However, the Institute admits “not only is there no evidence Israel’s actions advanced this goal, but at least some of them had the opposite effect.” The “clearest example” of this failure, per INSS, was Tel Aviv’s blitzkrieg of Evin prison on June 23rd – a “symbolic blow…intended to encourage public mobilization.”

As it was, scores of civilians, including prisoners and their family members, medical professionals, administrative staff, and lawyers were killed, which “aroused harsh criticism of Israel” even among “critics and opponents” of the Iranian government “inside and outside” the country, the Institute records. Western media and major rights groups condemned the action, with Amnesty International branding it a “serious violation of international humanitarian law” that “must be investigated as a war crime.”

Likewise, attacks on the headquarters of Iran’s internal security forces and IRGC branch Basij “had no noticeable effect and did not lead to eruption of public protests.” INSS suggests Israel’s reckless, indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure during the conflict also neutralised any prospect of citizens taking to streets even if they were at all inclined to do so, due to concerns they may be caught in crossfire. Moreover, Tel Aviv’s belligerence elicited an intense “anti-Israel wave” among the public.

The Institute observes how Iranians “exhibited a notable degree” of “rallying around the flag” during the 12 Day War – “a willingness to defend their homeland at a critical moment against an external enemy.” IINS laments how any and all traces of public dissent in the Islamic Republic “have almost completely disappeared”, in the conflict’s wake. Today, there is no “organized, structured opposition” within or without the country capable of mobilising protesters, let alone displacing the Islamic Republic’s popular government.

Instead, Tel Aviv’s wanton bellicosity has only increased fears among Iranians that foreign powers are seeking to incite and exploit “anarchy and civil war…to impose an alternative political order” on Tehran. It also represented “the most traumatic event for the Iranian public” since the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. Millions of citizens, particularly younger generations external actors typically look to as regime change footsoldiers, “have now been exposed to the horrors” of “imposed” conflict – and are resultantly more united than ever against external threats.

‘Inadvertent Effects’

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a “high level of internal cohesion”, and “ability to recover relatively quickly” from the Zionist entity’s initial onslaught. INSS bemoans how “there is no indication…of a significant and immediate threat to the stability” of Tehran. On top of the government enjoying “considerable support” among Iran’s “security and law enforcement apparatuses,” Mossad-controlled internal networks that initially wreaked havoc upon the 12 Day War’s eruption have been systematically hunted down, and liquidated. It will be difficult if not impossible to reconstruct them.

Iranian rescue workers sift through rubble inside Evin prison following Israel’s attack

Despite all this, the Institute inexplicably declares regime change in Tehran remains “a possible solution” and “worthy goal” – not just for the Zionist entity, but “the region, and the West.” The report sets out four “different strategies for overthrowing” Iran’s government, each more fantastical than the last. INSS advocates “beheading the ruling leadership” – assassinating “senior regime officials, including the Supreme Leader, his inner hive, and the heads of the political and military leadership,” arguing it might “create a reality that could develop into political change.”

The Institute alternatively suggests “a covert campaign to promote regime change, led by military, security, and political elements in Iran,” to foment a violent palace coup. Another option is “encouraging, organizing, and supporting opposition organizations in exile and training them for a quick return to Iran and taking over the centers of governmental power.” Finally, “providing aid and support to ethno-linguistic minorities while encouraging separatist tendencies and internal divisions within Iran” is mooted.

However, INSS contrarily concedes every proposed route “could lead to the opposite results of strengthening the government’s cohesion in Tehran and ‘rallying the public around the flag’,” and should thus be avoided. For example, the few Iranian diaspora who applauded the Zionist entity aggression’s against their home country, if not supported all-out insurrection in Tehran – most prominently monarchists – repulsed domestic audiences. “Large segments of the Iranian public” thus perceive them as “having betrayed Iran in its time of need”:

“Although aligning with pro-Western and pro-Israel diaspora groups that push for revolutionary change may seem natural, such associations may, in fact, undermine the credibility of internal opposition and ultimately obstruct the desired outcome.”

Similarly, the Institute warns assassinating Ali Khamenei – “raised as a possibility during the war” – “would not necessarily result in regime change,” and probably backfire spectacularly. The Islamic Republic “would likely have little difficulty selecting a successor, who could prove to be more extreme or more capable,” and the Supreme Leader’s murder “may also have inadvertent effects, such as elevating him into a martyr.” This would strengthen the government, solidify public opinion against Tel Aviv, and “complicate efforts to destabilize the regime through popular protest.”

Moreover, as a state that prides itself on religious and ethnic diversity and inclusion, “encouraging separatist tendencies” in Iran is likewise judged an ill-omened approach. INSS observes “heightened public sensitivity to any perceived foreign attempts to promote ethnic fragmentation” locally. Efforts to do so by Israel or its Anglo-American puppetmasters would inevitably “be viewed as trying to fracture the country” and rebound, “uniting large segments of the Iranian public against Israel.”

‘Capacity Problems’

No doubt disappointingly from Tel Aviv’s perspective, INSS concludes toppling the Islamic Republic “depends mainly on factors beyond Israel’s control, and on a catalyst whose prediction is elusive and may never materialize.” Despite purportedly “impressive operational successes” in the 12 Day War, the conflict amply demonstrated Zionist entity military action cannot “promote political change processes in Iran.” More generally, “historical experience shows regime change through foreign intervention brings highly questionable results at best” in West Asia:

“The US has failed to achieve the desired results in the vast majority of cases in which it has promoted moves for regime change, and Israel itself has problematic experience in intervening in another country for regime change – both in the First Lebanon War and in the considerable effort to topple Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

Elsewhere, it’s suggested Iran “could be dragged into a strategic arms race with Israel, further depleting its already strained economic resources and deepening civilian suffering.” However, INSS acknowledges an almost inevitable upshot would be Tehran seeking nuclear weapons capability, given such an arsenal “would serve as an existential insurance policy.” In any event, “Israel, too, faces limits on its military and economic capabilities” – which is quite an understatement. Yet again though, the Institute ultimately endorses “Israel’s decision to actively act toward regime change in Tehran.”

Evidently, from the perspective of Tel Aviv and its Western sponsors, the regime change coast isn’t clear in Tehran. It is therefore imperative Iranian authorities and the public alike remain ever-vigilant of foreign-borne threats, seen and unseen. Yet, the INSS report abundantly underlines how in the 12 Day War’s wake, the Zionist entity has no good options left available, only scope for triggering far worse consequences for itself. And the Institute considerably downplays the extent to which the conflict was a counterproductive catastrophe for Israel.

It’s been reported senior entity officials had been preparing for June 13th since March, seeking to strike before Iran “rebuilt its air defenses by the latter half of the year.” The underlying plan to militarily cripple Tehran and trigger a popular revolution was in turn purportedly “carefully laid months and years in advance,” having been specifically wargamed in conjunction with the Biden administration. Israel gave Tehran its best shot, failed in its each and every objective, and was left battered.

Tel Aviv’s grand scheme to crush the Islamic Republic employed an extraordinary amount of finite munitions, at astronomical cost. A former financial adviser to the ZOF’s chief of staff has estimated the abortive campaign’s first 48 hours alone cost $1.45 billion, with almost $1 billion spent on defensive measures alone. Government economists place the daily cost of military operations at $725 million. Haaretz calculates civilian and domestic financial damage could run to many billions. This, while the entity’s economy is already barely-functioning.

Furthermore, the entity was reportedly running hazardously low on missile interceptors within five days, despite the US being cognisant of “capacity problems” for months prior, and spending intervening months “augmenting Israel’s defenses with systems on the ground, at sea and in the air.” A July report from Zionist lobby group JINSA warned, “after burning through a large portion of their available interceptors,” Washington and Israel “both face an urgent need to replenish stockpiles and sharply increase production rates.”

Grave questions abound over the pair’s ability to do either. JINSA notes US THAAD interceptors provided 60% of the entity’s air defence, expending roughly 14% of Washington’s total THAAD stockpile in the process – which “at current production rates” will take three to eight years to replenish. Iran’s “large-scale missile campaign” moreover “revealed vulnerabilities in Israeli and US air defense systems, providing lessons that Iran or other US adversaries could exploit in the future.”

In sum, the Zionist entity is a beast encircled, reduced to lashing out through desperation, not strength. Its ability to flail against not merely Iran, but the wider Axis of Resistance, without further endangering its already precarious position is extremely limited, if not non-existent. Wholly dependent on foreign support at a time polls indicate it’s the most hated ‘country’ on Earth, Tel Aviv still presumes the capability to make the next move against its adversaries. INSS’ report strongly suggests this could be its very last.

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump revives Gaza ‘Riviera’ plan in White House meeting with Blair and Kushner

MEMO | August 28, 2025

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has participated in a White House meeting led by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner to discuss Gaza’s future, a gathering that has raised alarm due to its exclusion of Palestinians and ties to a plan that many describe as a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

The meeting, described as a “large gathering” by Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, reportedly focused on a post-war vision for Gaza that echoes Trump’s earlier calls to depopulate the besieged territory and transform it into a US-controlled “Riviera” on the Mediterranean. Witkoff framed the initiative as “well-meaning,” yet there is widespread concern over an initiative led by figures who back Gaza’s ethnic cleansing.

Blair’s presence at the meeting has drawn scrutiny given previous involvement of staff from his institute with a project widely linked to this so-called “Riviera Plan”. Earlier reporting by the Financial Times (FT) revealed that staff from Blair’s Institute for Global Change took part in discussions involving an economic development slide deck that envisioned a depopulated Gaza rebranded as a smart zone for luxury tourism and offshore development. Although the Blair Institute has stressed that it neither authored nor endorsed the plan, the participation of its staff has raised questions.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser, has long been an advocate of such proposals. In February 2024, he remarked on the “value” of Gaza’s waterfront and publicly suggested Israel should “move the people out” and redevelop the territory. That statement closely mirrors Trump’s suggestion that the US could oversee the reconstruction of Gaza once its population is expelled.

Trump’s White House has been consulting Kushner for months on the future of Gaza and is reported to have collaborated with economists like Joseph Pelzman, who openly advocated for razing Gaza entirely and relocating its residents. The academic, speaking on an Israeli podcast, outlined a plan to dig up all infrastructure and “move [the locals] around,” suggesting Egypt—described as “bankrupt”—could be pressured into accepting the displaced population.

No Palestinian officials or representatives were present at the meeting. Nor were any Arab states reportedly invited, despite the meeting’s sweeping implications for regional stability. Instead, the attendees included Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The absence of Palestinian voices and the involvement of figures like Kushner, who has dismissed Palestinian statehood and backed Israeli settlement expansion, has intensified criticism.

For Blair, a former Quartet envoy to the Middle East, participation in such a meeting, alongside proponents of Gaza’s ethnic cleansing, is especially controversial. A source close to Blair told the FT that his attendance was driven by a desire to restart a political process and secure a two-state solution, claiming “it is absolutely not and never was about forcible displacement.”

The “Riviera” vision for Gaza has been condemned by Palestinian civil society, international legal scholars and numerous human rights organisations as a dangerous fantasy rooted in colonial logic. Turning a traumatised, war-ravaged land into a playground for foreign investors, while its indigenous population is exiled, has been likened to historical settler projects where violence, displacement and economic opportunism went hand in hand.

The meeting took place just as Israel prepares a fresh ground assault on Gaza City, and after Hamas accepted a ceasefire plan that Israel then rejected. In parallel, Trump officials have worked to block Palestinian statehood initiatives at the UN, pressuring allies including the UK, France and Australia to fall in line.

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The price of genocide: How US funding sustains an unraveling Israeli economy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 28, 2025

In an important step toward the economic isolation of Israel due to its genocide in Gaza, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global has decided to divest from yet more Israeli companies.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is the world’s largest, with total investments in Israel once estimated at $1.9 billion. The decision to divest was taken gradually but is consistent with the Norwegian government’s growing solidarity with Palestine and rising criticism of Israel.

Taking a leading role along with Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia, Norway has been a vocal European critic of the Israeli genocide and man-made famine in Gaza, actively contributing to the International Court of Justice’s investigation into the genocide, and formally recognising the state of Palestine in May 2024. This diplomatic and legal stance, coupled with its financial divestment, represents a coherent and escalating effort to hold Israel accountable for the ongoing extermination of Palestinians.

The Israeli economy was already in a state of freefall even before the genocide. The initial collapse was related to the deep political instability in the country, a result of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government’s attempt to co-opt the judicial system, thus compromising any semblance of “democracy” remaining in that country. This resulted in a significant lowering of investor confidence.

The war and genocide, beginning on 7 October 2023, only accelerated the crisis, pushing an already fragile economy to the brink. According to reports from the Israel Ministry of Finance, foreign direct investments in Israel fell by an estimated 28 per cent in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Any supposed recovery in foreign investments, however, was deceptive. It was not the outcome of a global rallying to save Israel, but rather a consequence of a torrent of US funds pouring in to help Israel sustain both its economy and the genocide in Gaza, along with its other war fronts.

Israel’s Gross Domestic Product was estimated by the World Bank to be around $540 billion by the end of 2024. The war on Gaza has already taken a considerable bite out of Israel’s entire GDP. Estimates from Israel itself are complex, but all data points to the fact that the Israeli economy is suffering and will continue to suffer in the foreseeable future. Citing reports from the Bank of Israel and the Ministry of Finance, the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist reported in January 2025 that the cost of the Israeli war on Gaza had already reached more than $67.5 billion. That figure represented the costs of the war up to the end of 2024.

Keeping in mind that the ongoing war costs continue to rise exponentially, and with other consequences of the war—including divestments from the Israeli market by Norway and other countries—future projections for the Israeli economy look very grim. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that the Israeli economy, already in a constant state of contraction, shrunk by another 3.5 per cent in the period between April and June 2025.

This collapse is projected to continue, even with the unprecedented US financial backing of Tel Aviv. Indeed, without US help, the precarious Israeli economy would be in a much worse state. Though the US has always propped up Israel—with nearly $4 billion in aid annually—the US help for Israel in the last two years was the most generous and critical yet.

Israel is the recipient of $3.8 billion of US taxpayer money per year, according to the latest 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016. Equally, if not more valuable than this large sum are the loan guarantees, which allow Israel to borrow money at a much lower interest rate on the global market. The backing of the US has, therefore, enabled investors to view the Israeli market as a safe haven for their funds, often guaranteeing high returns. This applies to the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund as it did to numerous other entities and companies.

Now that Israel has become a bad brand, affiliated with unethical investments due to the genocide in Gaza and growing illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank, the US, as Israel’s main benefactor, has stepped in to fill the gaps.

The US emergency supplemental appropriations act of April 2024 allocated a total of $26.4 billion for Israel. While much of the money was earmarked for defense expenditures, in reality, most of it will percolate into the Israeli economy. This amount, in addition to the annual military aid, allows the Israeli government to minimize spending on defense and allocate more money to keep the economy from shrinking at an even faster rate.

Additionally, it will free the Israeli military industry to continue producing new, sophisticated military technology that will ensure Israel’s continued competitiveness in the arms market.  The military-industrial complex, a significant part of the Israeli economy, is thus not only sustained but given a fresh impetus by American aid, ensuring the war machine continues to function with minimal financial disruption.

All of this should not diminish the importance of divestment from the Israeli financial system. On the contrary, it means that divestment efforts must increase significantly to balance out the US push to keep the Israeli economy from imploding.

Moreover, this should also make US citizens, who object to their government’s role in the genocide in Gaza, more aware of the extent of Washington’s collaboration to save Israel, even at the price of exterminating the Palestinians. Indeed, the flow of funds from the US is not a passive action; it is an active collaboration that directly enables the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

August 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Compound Crime: Three wounded journalists being denied medical evacuation

Palestinian Information Center – August 27, 2025

GAZA – The Palestinian Journalists Protection Center (PJPC) issued an urgent appeal on Wednesday, demanding the immediate medical evacuation of several Palestinian journalists who sustained severe injuries in a direct Israeli strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip.

In a press statement, PJPC confirmed that three journalists suffered life-threatening injuries that also jeopardize their professional futures. The wounded journalists are Mohammed Fayeq, who is suffering from partial paralysis that could become total; Jamal Baddah, whose right leg was amputated; and Hatem Omar, who sustained shrapnel wounds to the head.

The center stressed that the ongoing refusal to allow medical evacuation for the wounded journalists constitutes a “compound crime,” adding to the long list of Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists, who have paid a steep price while covering the war in an effort to bring the truth to the world.

PJPC urged international media organizations and press freedom bodies to take immediate action and pressure for the urgent evacuation of the injured journalists so they can receive proper treatment outside Gaza, before it is too late.

On Monday, 20 Palestinians were killed, including journalists and civil defense workers, in a double Israeli airstrike that targeted the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza.

August 27, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Illusion of Israeli Self Sufficiency in Intelligence

By José Niño | The Libertarian Institute | August 26, 2025

Casual onlookers salivate at the supposed brilliance of Israel’s intelligence services. From Mossad’s assassinations abroad to daring sabotage campaigns in hostile territory, the Jewish state has been elevated in popular imagination as a scrappy David with unmatched cunning, capable of pulling off operations that leave even world powers like the United States in awe. Books, films, and mainstream pundits reinforce this myth, presenting Israel’s intelligence machine as self-sufficient and independent.

But when one peels back the layers, the narrative quickly unravels. Israel’s most celebrated operations—from targeted killings in Europe to sabotage inside Iran—were rarely the product of Israeli ingenuity alone. They relied on cooperation with the CIA, NSA cyberwarfare expertise, European intelligence networks, and even covert collaboration with Arab regimes that publicly denounce Israel while privately working with it. Much like its dependence on U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover, Israel’s intelligence empire survives not through independence but through reliance on Western logistics, intelligence sharing, and political approval. What is sold as the story of a bootstrapping nation is a case study in multinational complicity.

According to investigative reporting by Israeli journalists Melman and Ronen Bergman, Israel’s intelligence community relied heavily on intelligence partnerships with Western and allied nations to conduct clandestine activities in foreign territories.

The foundation of this intelligence cooperation traces back to the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. According to Dr. Aviva Guttmann’s research, which Melman has covered extensively, the Berne Club—a secret European intelligence alliance founded in 1969—provided crucial support for Israel’s subsequent assassination campaign against Palestinian operatives. This multinational intelligence network initially included Switzerland, West Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and later expanded to include the United States, Canada, Australia, and other nations. Through an encrypted communication system called “Kilowatt,” thousands of cables were exchanged among eighteen Western intelligence services after the system was established in 1971. The network functioned as a secret clearinghouse for raw intelligence. Shared reports contained the locations of safe houses, vehicle registrations, the movements of high-value targets, updates on Palestinian guerrilla tactics, and analytical assessments, all of which provided Israel with crucial operational support for its clandestine operations.

Direct American involvement in Israeli operations became particularly evident during the George W. Bush administration. The February 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus was reportedly approved by President Bush himself after being briefed by then-CIA Director Michael Hayden. This was not merely intelligence sharing but active operational participation. “The Mossad agent would ID Mughniyeh, and the CIA man would press the remote control,” a Newsweek report noted. The CIA designed and built the bomb that killed Mughniyeh, tested it at a secret facility in North Carolina, and smuggled it into Syria through Jordan, while Mossad provided intelligence and logistical support.

When it came to confronting Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel collaborated on the creation of the Stuxnet computer virus in a joint operation codenamed “Olympic Games.” The malware was designed to sabotage centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. According to Ronen Bergman, the virus was developed with input from Israeli cybersecurity experts alongside the U.S. National Security Agency. This operation represented a quadrilateral effort involving the CIA, NSA, Mossad, and Israel’s military intelligence agency, AMAN. It was conceived during the administrations of W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ultimately executed in 2010 under President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The scope of American involvement extended to Israel’s broader targeted killing policies. Ronen Bergman revealed that during Ariel Sharon’s tenure, a secret deal was struck with then-U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that committed Israel to “significantly reduce the construction of new settlements in exchange for American backing of the war with the Palestinians and of Israel’s targeted killing policy” of high-value Palestinian figures.

American intelligence cooperation facilitated Israel’s campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, with Melman documenting extensive Western knowledge of and potential involvement in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists between 2007-2012. The Obama administration was aware of the assassination campaign carried out by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) terrorist organization, which was being financed, armed, and trained by Mossad. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) reportedly trained MEK members starting in 2005, and U.S. intelligence was providing crucial information for these operations. As one former senior intelligence official told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, “the United States is now providing the intelligence” for assassinations carried out “primarily by MEK through liaison with the Israelis.”

Israeli dependency on foreign support went beyond Western allies to include collaborationist elements in the Arab world. Bergman revealed extensive details about Mossad’s regional cooperation during Meir Dagan’s tenure (2002-2010) as director of the Mossad, including secret partnerships with Arab intelligence services that publicly condemned Israel while privately cooperating with it. These arrangements involved joint operations with countries that “share more or less the same set of interests” despite public hostility, coordination in counter-terrorism operations across the Middle East, and partnerships that enabled many operations attributed solely to Mossad.

The pattern of foreign dependence continues in contemporary operations. An August 2025 ProPublica report by Yossi Melman and fellow journalist Dan Raviv showcased Israel’s enlistment of Iranian dissidents for executing missions inside Iran during “Operation Rising Lion.” They specifically outlined Mossad’s strategic shift from using Israeli personnel to cultivating a “foreign legion” of Iranian and regional operatives to carry out activities ranging from support functions to covert action.

This pattern of intelligence reporting by Melman and Bergman reveals that Israel’s reputation for independent intelligence capabilities obscures a reality of extensive foreign dependence, particularly on Western intelligence services, for conducting operations that extend Israeli influence and security interests globally.

Far from being a model of independence, Israel’s intelligence record underscores how deeply its operations are embedded in Western power structures. The myths of self-sufficiency and unmatched brilliance collapse under the weight of evidence: Mossad’s reach is extended only because Washington, European capitals, and even regional neighbors provide the pipelines of intelligence, technology, and manpower that make its operations possible.

The true scandal lies not in Israel’s dependency but in the willingness of other nations to abet its destabilizing campaigns by supplying the bombs, intelligence streams, and diplomatic cover that allow Tel Aviv to operate with impunity. To strip away the mythology is to confront the uncomfortable truth that Israel’s “miraculous” intelligence victories are collective endeavors, outsourced across continents, exposing not a triumph of independence but a parasitic reliance on collaborators who enable its shadow wars.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Photojournalist resigns from Reuters over its ‘betrayal of journalists’ in Gaza

MEMO | August 26, 2025

Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink has resigned after eight years with Reuters, criticizing the news agency’s stance on Gaza as a “betrayal of journalists” and accusing it of “justifying and enabling” the killing of 245 journalists in the Palestinian enclave, Anadolu reports.

“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza,” Zink said Tuesday through the US social media company X.

Zink said she worked as a Reuters stringer for eight years, with her photos published by many outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and others worldwide.

She criticized Reuters’ reporting after the killing of Anas Al-Sharif and an Al Jazeera crew in Gaza, accusing the agency of amplifying Israel’s “entirely baseless claim” that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, which was “one of countless lies that media outlets like Reuters have dutifully repeated and dignified,” she said.

“I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief,” Zink said.

Zink also emphasized that the agency’s willingness to “perpetuate Israel’s propaganda” has not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide.

“I don’t know what it means to begin to honour the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza, the bravest and best to ever live, but going forward I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that front of mind,” Zink highlighted, reflecting on the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

“I owe my colleagues in Palestine at least this much, and so much more,” she added.

Referring to the killing of six more journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hossam Al-Masri, in Israel’s Monday attack on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, Zink said: “It was what’s known as a “double tap” strike, in which Israel bombs a civilian target like a school or hospital; waits for medics, rescue teams, and journalists to arrive; and then strikes again.”

Zink underlined that Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions for these events, quoting Jeremy Scahill, who said major outlets—from the New York Times to Reuters—have served as “a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda,” sanitizing war crimes, dehumanizing victims, and abandoning both their colleagues and their commitment to true and ethical reporting.

She said Western media outlets, by “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” and abandoning basic journalistic responsibility, have enabled the killing of more journalists in Gaza in two years than in major global conflicts combined, while also contributing to the suffering of the population.

The new fatalities among the media personnel in Gaza brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 to 246.

Israel has killed more than 62,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

READ ALSO: China ‘shocked’ over Israeli killing of journalists in Gaza 

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Here is why the Israeli occupation of Gaza won’t work

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | August 26, 2025

At every key juncture of the Zionist regime’s “seven front war”, it has announced new plans that it will claim are going to defeat Hamas or that they will reach a ceasefire agreement. The truth is that they have no intention of reaching a negotiated settlement, nor do they have a plan to achieve “victory” in Gaza.

At the beginning of the Zionist entity’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, in late October of 2023, its military campaign had focused on northern Gaza. For those who remember, the major goal of their operation at the time was to take control of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, claiming it to be a “Hamas command and control center”.

Back then, the Western corporate media reported that US intelligence reports supported the notion that at the very least, there was a Hamas “command node” based there, as the Israeli army released CGI footage featuring an extensive tunnel network under the hospital.

After committing various massacres, in and around al-Shifa Medical Complex, it became clear that the claims were all lies and no Hamas infrastructure existed underneath the hospital. However, the Israelis and their Western allies did not admit that the entire military operation was based upon a pack of lies and that no Hamas targets were there; instead, they simply moved on to the next major set of lies, as the Zionist military finished off its genocidal missions in northern Gaza.

Failing to inflict any major blow, let alone a total defeat upon Hamas or any of the some dozen Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza, then came the claim that “the real Hamas headquarters” were in Khan Younis. In December of 2024, again with the full backing of their Western allies and their media machines, the Israelis launched the invasion of Khan Younis.

After besieging Khan Younis in January of 2024, they eventually made it their final mission to assault the Nasser Hospital, again claiming that it was used by Hamas as a major base. By this time, the Israelis had launched a campaign to systematically target every hospital their forces worked in the vicinity of, seizing medical workers and the injured as captives, inflicting massacres, setting up bases inside the hospitals, and always claiming that Hamas was there.

As the military campaign on the ground waged on, the Israeli public realised that they were not even one step closer to the “total defeat” of Hamas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised them. So then began the talk of invading Rafah.

Israeli political leaders vowed that without invading Rafah, they could not “win the war”. They claimed that tunnels were leading into Gaza from Egypt, despite knowing they were all sealed off around a decade ago.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, a massive deception campaign was launched with the full unquestioning complicity of the Western media. We heard about then US President Joe Biden’s alleged “red line” being Rafah. Up until that point, we had also heard about Biden hanging up the phone on Netanyahu, yelling at him and even swearing, for which there was never any evidence produced.

We had the propaganda of a “Christmas ceasefire” and a “Ramadan ceasefire”, with even the UN Security Council voting on the temporary Ramadan ceasefire that never materialised. The public was also informed about all of the alleged hard work that the US government was doing to achieve a ceasefire, which we would later learn never happened from Israeli media leaks; Biden never once asked his Israeli allies for a ceasefire.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, which would eventually happen on May 6 with full US support, we heard two main narratives. One warned of the impending humanitarian disaster after the Israelis had displaced the majority of the population to Rafah, the second was the idea that this would mean the defeat of Hamas and would rob the group of its financing networks.

Evidently, the Israelis launched their invasion, and unsurprisingly, it was more of the same; they continued mass murdering civilians and destroying Gaza’s infrastructure. Hamas still lived. There were even initiatives then like the failed US military aid pier, which only appeared to have been used one time, for a deadly military operation in Nuseirat that killed around 300 civilians to seize back Israeli captives.

Fast forward to October 2024, when we began to hear about the infamous “General’s Plan”, an operation that was again sold by the Israeli regime and its media as the final blow to end Hamas by besieging northern Gaza entirely and then starving out the remaining fighters. This went on for months, until there was a ceasefire declared in January.

On March 18, the Israelis violated the Gaza Ceasefire. Then came an escalation in its genocidal campaign against civilians in the territory, an uptick once again in the bombardment, coupled with the total blockade on all aid into the territory that would last over 80 days.

For some time after violating the ceasefire, the Israeli media and regime’s officials promoted the idea of a new operation that was going to be the most explosive yet and the final blow against Hamas. They spoke of potentially new weapons and strategies, hyping up the campaign to be a game changer.

The May offensive was then labelled “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, dubbed “Phase 2” of the Gaza war. First, the Israeli media hyped it up and put out reports that 20,000 reservists had been called up to duty, then we heard 60,000, the next day 50,000, some even claimed 100,000 soldiers would be used to invade Gaza.

The real result was a few small incursions into the outskirts of major cities and camps, which were met with deadly ambushes carried out by the Palestinian resistance. “Gideon’s Chariots” was a game changer, but repeated the exact same cowardly strategy as every Israeli operation before it.

So now we have the approval of plans to “occupy Gaza”. Originally, the idea communicated across Israeli media platforms was that all of Gaza would be occupied, which is what Netanyahu would go on to claim. Then it went back and forth between all of the territory and just Gaza City, which is not the established goal of the newly approved operation.

Logistically, this plan makes no sense for an already overburdened Zionist military force that does not want to fight in the Gaza Strip at all anymore. They’ll need an absolute minimum of 200,000 soldiers just to occupy Gaza City, a plan that, according to Israeli military analyst,s will take between 2 to 5 years to properly complete.

On top of this, the strategy runs contrary to the Israeli military’s doctrine and strategy that it has followed throughout the entire war. The reality on the ground is that with the exception of a limited number of special forces operations, the Israeli army never targeted Hamas. They invaded with the intention of making Gaza unlivable and have systematically dismantled the territory’s infrastructure, while inflicting a genocide.

The truth is that they have no military strategy to defeat Hamas. They don’t even have an answer as to how to end the fighting at all, even as their allied Arab regime attempts to give them solutions. A ceasefire would happen within a day if they wanted it to, but they clearly don’t, and no Israeli politician even accepts the notion of the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza because they believe it will lead to a so-called “Two-State solution”.

So here we are again, back to the same old tired Israeli script. They send negotiating delegations with no intention of reaching deals and launch new operations that will ultimately fail to achieve anything other than continuing the slaughter of civilians.

The Zionist Entity has done everything except actually target and try to fight the Palestinian Resistance on the ground, hiding in fortified areas and inside their military vehicles, occasionally getting picked off by ambushes. This is also why they have no battle footage despite having fought for 22 months, because they only engage in armed clashes on the ground when they are being attacked by the Palestinian armed groups. There is no real army, it’s a glorified police force that was built to bully teenagers, with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and air force behind it.

It appears very unlikely that we will see Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints in between tent cities in Gaza and managing everyday life like we see in the occupied West Bank. Simply put, they are too cowardly for this task, and unlike the case in the West Bank, it will be extremely dangerous for them to do this, costing them thousands of casualties over a long period of time.

More likely than not, this has all been psychological warfare, as the Israeli military prepares to attack on a different front. Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jerusalem churches say their staff will not leave Gaza City

Palestinian Information Center – August 26, 2025

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Latin Patriarchate in Occupied Jerusalem have said that their staff will not evacuate Gaza City, ahead of the Israeli occupation regime’s declared intent to take control of the city, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the patriarchates said that the Greek Orthodox compound of Saint Porphyrius and the Holy Family Church compound have been refuges for hundreds of civilians since the outbreak of war in October 2023, among them elderly people, women, and children.

“Among those who have sought shelter within the walls of the compounds, many are weakened and malnourished due to the hardships of the last months. Leaving Gaza City and trying to flee to the south would be nothing less than a death sentence. For this reason, the clergy and nuns have decided to remain and continue to care for all those who will be in the compounds,” they said.

They criticized Israel’s announced attack, saying “there can be no future based on captivity, displacement of Palestinians or revenge.”

The patriarchates called on the international community to act for an end of this deadly and destructive war.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Has Ukraine just declared war on Hungary?

By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | August 26, 2025

In the swirl of the Ukraine war, headlines rarely fail to shock. Yet the latest spat between Kiev and Budapest raises a question that would have been unthinkable two years ago: has Ukraine effectively opened a second front – albeit hybrid, rhetorical, and economic – against an EU state?

The immediate spark was the Druzhba (“Friendship”) oil pipeline that still delivers crude from Russia to Central Europe. Several Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the pipeline in recent weeks, halting supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. A Ukrainian commander, known by the call sign Madyar, publicly admitted involvement.

For Hungary and Slovakia, this was more than an economic disruption. Both countries rely heavily on the pipeline, and in response, their leaders called on the European Commission to guarantee supply security. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, a frequent critic of EU policy on Ukraine, accused Brussels of serving Kiуv’s interests over those of member states. His frustration boiled over further when he described Vladimir Zelensky’s quips about “friendship” as thinly veiled threats.

Zelensky’s gambit

Zelensky’s remark – “We have always supported friendship between Ukraine and Hungary, and now the existence of this ‘Friendship’ depends on Hungary” – was apparently meant as a pun on the pipeline’s name, but to Hungary it sounded like a mafia-style threat. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s reaction was uncompromising: “Zelensky openly threatened Hungary. He admitted that they hit the Druzhba pipeline because we don’t support their EU membership. This proves again that Hungarians made the right decision.”

The timing is telling. Strikes on the pipeline coincided with Zelensky’s Washington visit alongside EU leaders. Either Brussels tacitly encouraged him to punish Orbán, an ally of Donald Trump, or the EU simply looked away as Zelensky acted on his own. Both explanations sound outrageous, but there hardly seems to be a third option. What is clear is that Kiev, facing immense pressure on its eastern front, is choosing a dangerous rhetorical battle with Budapest.

Hungary’s lonely stance

Hungary has made abundantly clear its discomfort with the EU’s unquestioning support for Ukraine. Since the Russian military operation began in 2022, Budapest has resisted sanctions on Russian energy, insisted on continuing imports through the Druzhba pipeline, and refused to send weapons to Kiev. Orbán has shown himself to be a pragmatic outlier: defending Hungarian interests, pursuing cheap Russian energy, and maintaining cordial ties with Moscow.

For this, Hungary has faced isolation within the EU. While Poland, the Baltics, and most of Western Europe rallied behind Ukraine with military and financial aid, Budapest has been resisting this consensus. Orbán’s government was derided as Putin’s Trojan horse in Europe. Yet for Hungarians, this positioning has had a rationale: keep the economy stable, avoid direct confrontation, and retain flexibility in a deeply uncertain geopolitical landscape.

The forgotten refugees

Lost in the heated rhetoric is the fact that Hungary has also quietly carried a humanitarian burden. In 2022 alone, over 1.3 million Ukrainians crossed into Hungary – second only to Poland and Romania. Budapest accepted them with little fanfare, though later tightened its asylum rules to restrict new arrivals to those from active war zones. At the same time, Hungary supplies a significant share of Ukraine’s electricity, a fact Szijjártó reminded Kiev of when rebuffing Ukrainian accusations.

To respond with accusations and pipeline attacks against such a neighbor seems, at minimum, ungrateful. At worst, it risks alienating one of the few EU members that has provided crucial – if unheralded – humanitarian support in a time of war.

War, politics, and overreach

The broader context is sobering. On the battlefield, Ukraine faces mounting setbacks in the Donbass and along the eastern front. Against that backdrop, Zelensky’s rhetoric toward Hungary appears almost surreal – boastful, as if victory against Russia were imminent. The contrast between battlefield realities and diplomatic bravado risks undermining Kiev’s credibility.

In any sane timeline, here is where Brussels should stop and think again about continuing its support for Kiev. Should the EU stand behind Zelensky even when his actions harm member states, or acknowledge that Orbán – despite his many disagreements with Brussels – has a point? Recent history shows that we are not in a sane timeline, though. Open threats, pipeline sabotage (remember Nord Stream?), and insults from Ukrainian officials don’t seem to register with Brussels officials at all.

Kiev’s behavior towards Budapest may not amount to a declaration of war, but it is undeniable that Ukraine has chosen to ramp up its confrontation with Hungary. If the EU wants to sell its support for Kiev as “unity” – a word often used and abused by the likes of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – then letting Zelensky get away with this is a bizarre choice.

August 26, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel systematically targeting journalists in Gaza, says senior Hamas official

Press TV – August 25, 2025

A senior Hamas official has condemned in the strongest terms Israel’s killing of five journalists in an attack on Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, saying that the occupying regime is deliberately and systematically targeting members of press to cover up its atrocities in the besieged Palestinian territory.

“The crime of targeting Nasser Hospital could only be committed by a rogue terrorist entity, with the continued complicity of the United States and the helplessness of international law,” Basem Naim said on Monday.

He added, “The repeated targeting of Palestinian journalists and the prevention of foreign media from entering the Gaza Strip have become a constant goal for the Zionist enemy so that it can hide its crimes from the international public opinion.”

Five journalists were among 20 people killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza, according to the region’s Ministry of Health.

The ministry said that the victims were killed on the fourth floor of the hospital in a double-tap strike – one missile hitting first, then another moments later as rescue crews arrived.

Those killed included Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama; Hussam al-Masri, who worked as a photojournalist for the Reuters news agency; Mariam Abu Daqqa, who worked as a journalist with several media outlets, including The Independent Arabic and The Associated Press news agency; and journalist Moaz Abu Taha, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.

A fifth journalist Ahmed Abu Aziz, who worked for the Quds Feed Network and other media outlets, succumbed to his wounds, according to the media office statement.

“The journalist colleagues were martyred when the Israeli occupation committed a horrific crime by bombing a group of journalists who were on a press coverage mission at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis Governorate and many martyrs fell victim to this crime,” the statement read.

“We hold the Israeli occupation, the American administration, and the countries participating in the genocide crime such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France fully responsible for committing these heinous brutal crimes.” the media office noted.

As Israel persists in prohibiting foreign journalists from accessing the coastal territory, Palestinian reporters continue to be the exclusive source of firsthand reporting from within the war zone.

The Federation of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has expressed its deep concern over the continued assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli forces while carrying out their duties.

The federation emphasized that what is happening in Gaza constitutes a clear violation of international laws and norms, and comes in the context of Israeli violations of freedom of the press and media, and its policy of confiscating the truth, gagging, covering up its daily violations, and preventing them from reaching global public opinion.

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza: Southern displacement impossible as shelter shortage exceeds 96%

MEMO | August 25, 2025

The Government Media Office in Gaza has said that displacement to the southern governorates is almost impossible, as they cannot absorb 1.3 million people forcibly displaced from Gaza City.

In a statement, the office warned: “With the Israeli occupation threatening to invade Gaza City, we caution against the worsening humanitarian disaster experienced by more than 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The office added: “Since the occupation announced that it would allow the entry of tents and shelter supplies, only around 10,000 tents have actually entered Gaza. This represents just 4 per cent of the urgent need for 250,000 tents and caravans, highlighting the manipulation and deliberate delays in meeting essential humanitarian requirements.”

It pointed out that the deficit in providing shelter in Gaza has now exceeded 96 per cent, stressing that no tents or shelter materials are currently available at the crossings because of strict Israeli restrictions on the work of international organisations, which has further deepened the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria, the Druze, and the Greater Israel project

By Gavin O’Reilly | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 25, 2025

On the 12th of August, media outlet Axios revealed that the United States and Israel were in discussions to establish a land corridor between the occupied Golan Heights and the southern Syrian city of Suwayda, ostensibly to protect the country’s Druze minority. The following Saturday, protests broke out in Suwayda calling for Druze self-determination, with many in attendance waving Israeli flags.

Last December, following a lightning offensive by insurgents based in the northwestern city of Idlib, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad collapsed in dramatic fashion. This marked the culmination of a thirteen-year effort by various powers to impose regime-change on the Arab Republic. One such power was Israel, who had provided arms to Salafist militants opposed to Assad’s secular rule. Syria, having acted as a conduit between Iran and Hezbollah, had long been in Tel Aviv’s crosshairs.

Within hours of Assad’s fall, Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Syria. Tel Aviv declared that this was in order to establish a buffer zone between Israel and Syria’s new Islamist government, in spite of the fact Damascus’ new rulers had effectively acted in Israel’s interests over the past decade. Israel also later stated that it intended to defend Syria’s Druze minority.

Syria, like Iraq and Libya before it, had subsequently fallen into bloody sectarian strife following Assad’s removal from power. In early March, government pogroms along Syria’s coast resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 members of the Shi’a Alawite minority. Rather than any concern over sectarian bloodshed however, Israel’s interest in the Druze instead lies primarily in achieving a geostrategic goal that has been planned for decades.

In 1982, Oded Yinon, a senior official at the Israeli foreign ministry, penned a paper entitled A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. More commonly known as the Yinon Plan, the document was published by the World Zionist Organisation in the Hebrew journal KIVUNIM. In it, Yinon prioritised the dissolution of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines as a key long-term strategic goal for Israel.

Iraq, which subscribed to the pan-Arab Ba’athist ideology, had begun to emerge as Israel’s main regional rival following the Camp David Accords and the normalisation of ties between Egypt and Israel. In 1981, the Israeli Air Force had bombed the under-construction Osirak in eastern Iraq, after suspecting it would be used to develop nuclear weapons.

In early 1991, amidst the breakout of the Gulf War, Iraq launched dozens of scud missiles towards Israel. This was done in the hope that an Israeli response would galvanise Arabs across the region and undermine Gulf support for the U.S.-led coalition. Following pressure from the United States however, Israel would ultimately not respond to these strikes. By the end of February 1991, Iraqi forces had been defeated in Kuwait.

Though it subsequently emerged that the U.S. had gone to war on a fabricated account of Iraqi troops removing premature infants from incubators and leaving them to die on a hospital floor, Washington still maintained a belligerent stance towards Iraq. In April 1991, the U.S., Britain and France imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, ostensibly to protect the Kurdish minority. The following year, a similar no-fly zone was put in place over the south of the country, this time under the pretext of protecting Shi’ite Muslims. Like Israel’s current interest in the Druze, this too had a strategic purpose.

The Yinon Plan outlined how in order to Balkanise Iraq, the country would have to be divided into three distinct sections. In the north of the country, a Kurdish separatist state based around the city of Mosul, in central Iraq, a Sunni region tied to the capital Baghdad, and in the south, a Shi’ite region centred around Basra. The United States’ no-fly zones effectively polarised Iraq along these lines.

Following the 9/11 attacks, a radical new U.S. foreign policy was put into place, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Eighteen months after September 11th, a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, in spite of the fact no tangible evidence was ever produced to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks. Coalition forces quickly toppled the Iraqi government, and replaced it with a provisional authority. Its first executive order was to permanently ban all members of the Ba’ath Party from working in the public sector. Iraq subsequently plunged into sectarian bloodshed in the wake of the invasion.

Like Iraq, Ba’athist Syria was also identified by the Yinon Plan as a target for Balkanisation. The 1982 document envisaged a Sunni state in northern Syria centred on the city of Aleppo, an Alawite state along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and another Sunni state, based around the southern capital of Damascus and hostile to its northern counterpart. Amidst this division, Yinon predicted the establishment of a separatist Druze state in the occupied Golan Heights and the Hauran region of southern Syria and northern Jordan.

Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, such an arrangement has now effectively been put in place. Northwest Syria, where Aleppo is located, has become a stronghold of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which led the offensive that ended Assad’s rule, is based in the capital Damascus. Its recent pogroms against the coastal Alawites polarising Syria along the same sectarian divisions outlined in the Yinon Plan. The recent Israeli-backed calls for Druze self-determination serve to even further fragment the former Arab Republic in line with the 1982 paper.

On the same day that Axios outlined U.S.-Israeli negotiations to establish a land corridor to Suwayda, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed by journalist and former Knesset member Sharon Gal for the Israeli outlet i24. When presented by Gal with an amulet containing ‘a map of the Promised Land’, Netanyahu stated that he felt a connection to a vision of ‘Greater Israel’. This is a historical Zionist term referring to an expansionist Israeli state that would incorporate the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights at a minimum.

On Wednesday, Israel announced plans to construct 3,400 housing units in the West Bank between Jerusalem and the eastern settlement of Ma’ale Adumin. Such a move would effectively partition the territory between north and south. Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli minister who announced the plan, declared that it would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’.

Last year, Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, donated $100mn to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This was done on condition that the Republican candidate would endorse the formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank if elected. Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, had previously donated $20mn to Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. This too had a stipulation attached. That the U.S. Embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that Trump subsequently followed through with in December 2017.

24 hours after Trump’s inauguration in January of this year, Israel launched Operation Iron Wall. Intended to destroy the Jenin refugee camp, Iron Wall has resulted in the largest mass-expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank since 1967.

Since October 7th 2023, Israel has subjected the beleaguered Gaza Strip to a military onslaught in response to Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. This was the largest military incursion into Israel since the 1973 October War. Global media attention was drawn to the fact that the Supernova music festival was taking place on the Gaza border at the same time. However, less attention was paid to the revelation that the event had only been moved to that location two days beforehand. That there were no security or insurance concerns over holding a music festival in direct proximity to a location where clashes had taken place between Islamic Jihad and Israeli forces the previous summer, simply beggars belief.

Further questions arose when it emerged that Egypt, which acts as mediator between Hamas and Israel, had repeatedly warned Tel Aviv that ‘something big’ was coming in the run up to October 7th. This was corroborated by two media reports from The New York Times and CNN, which revealed that U.S. intelligence had also passed on similar warnings to Israel prior to Al-Aqsa Flood. By December 2023, it was revealed that Israel had known of Hamas’ attack plan over a year in advance.

Seven months prior to October 7th, Orit Strock, the Israeli minister responsible for the development of settlements in the West Bank, called Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza a ‘sin’. Strock was speaking upon the repeal of legislation that had ordered the dismantlement of four West Bank settlements. This was declared by Strock as a precursor to the eventual re-occupation of Gaza, a move that would ‘involve many casualties’.

Indeed, this sentiment was later echoed by Israeli security minister Yoav Gallant, who in the days following October 7th announced a blockade on Gaza, cutting off electricity and preventing food and fuel from entering the besieged strip. Gallant described Palestinians as ‘human animals’, language that couldn’t be described as anything less than genocidal.

In April 2024, a report by The Times of Israel revealed that an offer by Hamas to release all civilian captives in exchange for Israeli forces not entering the strip had been rejected by Tel Aviv. Three months later, a Haaretz report revealed that the Hannibal Directive had been applied on October 7th. This is an Israeli military directive in which a command is given to fire upon their own troops in order to prevent them being taken captive. Its use on October 7th was a significant contributory factor to the death toll on the day. Despite these damning revelations, the Israeli slaughter in Gaza has continued unabated for almost two years.

On Friday, the United Nations released a report officially acknowledging the presence of a man-made famine in Gaza. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk did not shy away from placing blame for the situation, and held Israel responsible for what is in reality, a genocide. Starvation is being used to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip in line with the Greater Israel project. A project that now also has designs on the Druze and southwestern Syria.

August 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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