Al-Jazeera demands punishment for Israeli officials following latest assassination of cameraman
The Cradle | June 21, 2026
Al-Jazeera Media Network condemned on 20 June Israel’s “deliberate killing” of one of its journalists in Gaza, Ahmad Washah, while calling on the international community to punish Israeli officials for this and other crimes against its media workers.
Ahmad Washah, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera Mubasher, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on a house in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday.
He is the 12th Al-Jazeera media worker to be killed in Gaza since Israel began its genocide of Palestinians in October 2023.
The network called on “the international community and legal institutions to take urgent, practical measures to hold the Israeli officials involved in these appalling crimes accountable,” the statement added.
Washah’s brother, Mohammad, was killed in an Israeli strike just two months earlier, in April, also while working as a correspondent for Al-Jazeera Mubasher. Before Mohammed’s death, the brothers worked together as a team, with Ahmad filming for Mohammad.
“Together, they formed a media duo that documented the suffering of the Palestinian people and the unfolding events of the war,” Al-Jazeera stated.
After Mohammad’s death, Ahmad also took care of his late brother’s children.
On Saturday, the network denounced “the continuation of the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against its correspondents and staff in Gaza.”
Al-Jazeera said it was determined to take all legal measures to prosecute the killers of its journalists. The Qatar-based channel stressed it will continue to cover Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in Gaza despite the Israeli army’s attempts to silence the voices of its correspondents in the enclave.
Israel has killed at least 262 journalists and media workers since the start of Israel’s genocide, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.
In August 2025, Israel killed Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and four of his colleagues in an airstrike in Gaza. Before his killing, Sharif became one of the most recognizable media voices from the front lines of northern Gaza.
In December 2023, his 90-year-old father was killed when an Israeli airstrike struck their family home in Jabalia. Sharif said the killing of his father came after Israeli officials threatened him by phone to cease his coverage.
Since October 2023, the ongoing war in Gaza has claimed the lives of countless other Palestinian journalists, including Al Jazeera staff members such as correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, and correspondent Hossam Shabat, who were killed while reporting on the ground.
In May 2022, Israeli occupation forces shot dead another Al-Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, a US-Palestinian citizen, while she was covering an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Israel claimed she was killed by unintentional fire by its forces. However, multiple independent probes concluded that an Israeli military sniper killed her.
Israel has detained another 50 journalists since October 2023, holding them in detention facilities and prisons where torture and rape is common. Another three Palestinian journalists remain missing.
More than 420 journalists have been injured covering the genocide, which has killed 73,000 Palestinians by the most conservative estimates. Independent estimates reach into the hundreds of thousands of dead, in large part due to the direct effects of war.
Some of the wounded journalists have suffered serious injuries, leading to amputations and permanent disabilities.
Israel is waging the war in a bid to destroy Gaza and forcibly expel its roughly 2 million Palestinians. Israeli political and religious leaders wish to annex the strip to build Jewish settlements on the ruins of Palestinian cities and villages.
Israel’s censor silenced 5,700 reports in 2025
Israeli forces detain a photojournalist in Hebron, West Bank on October 3, 2024. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | June 18, 2026
Israel’s military censor blocked or altered more than 5,700 news reports in 2025, an average of 15 items per day, making it the second-highest year for media censorship in Israel since records began 15 years ago, according to new data published by +972 Magazine.
The figures, obtained through a freedom of information request submitted by +972 and the Movement for Freedom of Information, show that the censor demanded redactions in 4,974 news items in 2025, while completely barring 753 further items from publication. Both totals remain far above the previous annual average of around 2,300 redactions and 320 full bans recorded between 2011 and 2023. The year 2024, the height of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, still holds the record for the highest number of interventions.
The censor, a unit embedded within Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, received 17,176 article submissions from media outlets in 2025, compared to a pre-2024 annual average of just under 12,000. Israeli law requires media organisations to submit material touching on “security” issues for censor approval before publication, under emergency regulations enacted at the time of Israel’s founding that remain in force today.
According to +972, censorship was most intensive during Israel’s war with Iran. Police, municipal inspectors, and at times civilians enforced severe restrictions on reporting the locations of Iranian missile strikes on Israeli cities, with Arab and foreign journalists disproportionately subjected to obstruction in the field. Television studios regularly hosted a representative of the censorship authority to monitor live broadcasts in real time.
Media outlets are legally barred from informing their audiences that the censor interfered in a published article. The censor is also authorised to intervene retroactively, ordering the removal of articles published without prior approval as it did last year when it demanded the deletion of a column in Haaretz that disclosed the locations of Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv.
The censor holds sweeping powers of enforcement, including the authority to indict journalists and to fine, suspend, shut down, or file criminal charges against media organisations that fail to comply with its orders.
The data raises questions about the political direction of the censorship apparatus. The two men who led the censor over the past two years — Kobi Mandelblit, who served as chief censor until April 2025, and Netanel Kula, who replaced him — are both relatives of senior legal figures from Israel’s religious-Zionist movement.
Three months after Kula assumed the role, reports emerged that he had suppressed coverage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son purchasing an undisclosed property abroad. The story eventually reached the public through other channels.
The data also points to a striking double standard in enforcement. The far-right Channel 14, a broadcaster aligned with Israel’s ultranationalist camp, repeatedly published sensitive combat plans and military intelligence tools that security officials determined had caused “actual harm” to national security. Despite this, the channel was not penalised on any occasion.
“It is particularly important during times of emergency to receive reliable information about changes regarding the censor’s activities,” said Or Sadan, an attorney from the Movement for Freedom of Information. “Although there has been a slight decrease from last year, it is hard not to notice the alarming rise in the number of news reports being hidden from the public. Democracy is based on the transfer of information from the government to the public, and any infringement upon this is a direct infringement upon democracy.”
+972 notes that military censorship, while severe, is not the most acute form of press freedom violation committed by the Israeli military. Since 7 October 2023, more than 250 journalists have been killed across Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran — some of them in strikes that investigators have concluded were direct and deliberate, including so-called “double-tap” attacks targeting rescue workers who arrived at the scene of a first strike.
Historic blow to South Korea’s military intelligence agency
“Military Intervention in Politics Will No Longer Be Possible”
By Erkin Oncan | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 15, 2026
The aftermath of the December 2024 coup attempt in South Korea, led by former President Yoon Suk-yeol, continues to reverberate.
It was revealed that Yoon had ordered drone deployments to North Korea in an effort to escalate tensions and create conditions conducive to a coup. The ongoing trials related to these events have now concluded with prison sentences handed down to Yoon and other senior officials of the era.
The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon guilty of “acts benefiting the enemy” and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. Among those convicted was then–Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who also received a 30-year sentence.
Yeo In-hyung, head of the Armed Forces Counterintelligence Command – one of the most powerful units within the South Korean military – was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The lightest sentence was given to Kim Yong-dae, then commander of Drone Operations, who was closest to the “obedience within the chain of command” principle. He received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for five years.
These prison sentences represent far more than the punishment of a criminal act. Since the suppression of the coup attempt, Seoul has been undergoing a profound transformation in both military and civilian bureaucracy.
One of the most significant steps in this transformation was taken two days ago.
The South Korean government announced the dissolution of a military intelligence unit under the Ministry of National Defense.
The disbanded institution was the Defense Counterintelligence Command, known by the abbreviation DCC.
The primary justification for the decision was the command’s “role during the martial law process.” However, details of the restructuring also provide important clues about the broader transformation underway within the military.
What was the DCC?
The DCC has a history spanning more than 70 years. Since its establishment in 1950, it has also been known as the “Special Service Unit,” “Security Command,” and “Military Security Command.”
It acquired its current structure in October 1977, when the Army Security Command, Naval Security Unit, and Air Force Special Investigation Office were merged.
Not only the DCC but all of Korea’s intelligence services have played central roles in nearly every dark chapter of the country’s modern history.
One of the most notable examples is the assassination of former President Park Chung-hee in 1979, known as the “October 26 Incident.”
Park, one of Korea’s longest-ruling dictators, was assassinated by Kim Jae-gyu, the then-head of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA).
This assassination – rooted largely in inter-agency rivalry – demonstrates how state institutions, particularly intelligence bodies, have historically been capable of reshaping political power dynamics in pursuit of institutional dominance.
At the time, the DCC (then known as the Military Security Command) was a powerful centralized military intelligence organization.
The figure who significantly strengthened the DCC and made it capable of intervening in politics was Chun Doo-hwan, who was appointed head of the organization six months before the assassination.
Chun used investigations under his control to purge rivals and seized power through a military coup in 1979. The subsequent wave of martial law culminated in the bloody suppression of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980.
The Gwangju uprising
The Gwangju Uprising (May 18–20, 1980) began with student protests and rapidly expanded into a broader civilian resistance against military dictatorship.
It was brutally suppressed by military forces, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians at the hands of their own army.
Today, it is commemorated every May 18 as one of the most tragic events in Korean history.
During this period, the DCC played a central, if not decisive, role. It is known that its members infiltrated civilian crowds in plain clothes, spread misinformation and rumors, and engaged in various provocations to escalate violence.
Scandals and reorganizations
By the 1990s, the DCC once again came under scrutiny, this time due to illegal surveillance scandals.
Investigations revealed that the organization had built a nationwide illegal monitoring network targeting civilians and politicians alike. These revelations led to another name change in 1991.
In more recent history, the agency was implicated in political interference in 2018. According to reports by Yonhap News Agency at the time, the DCC played a role in disseminating online content supporting the ruling party and targeting opposition figures.
During the latest coup attempt, it was also revealed that the DCC had planned operations to surround key institutions such as parliament, formed arrest teams targeting political opponents, and prepared detention lists.
In short, for a significant portion of the public in South Korea, this quasi–counterintelligence structure – often described as a politicized “dirty security apparatus” – had long been seen as an institution that should have been dismantled years ago.
The dissolution process
This historic development in South Korean politics was announced by Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back during a press briefing at the ministry.
According to the minister, the new restructuring ensures that “military intervention in politics will no longer be possible.”
Emphasizing that the decision is “not merely an administrative reorganization,” he stated:
“This step is a fundamental restructuring of the structure and mission of military intelligence agencies to ensure they can never again interfere in politics. It marks a historic turning point toward building a military that belongs to the people.”
What is changing?
Under the new arrangement, the DCC will be dismantled and divided.
Its functions – including counterintelligence, defense industry intelligence, security investigations, and security inspections – will be transferred to different institutions.
A newly established Defense Counterintelligence Center will take over counterintelligence operations, defense industry intelligence, defense industrial security, and cybersecurity.
Authorities related to security investigations and joint investigations conducted during martial law periods will be transferred to the Ministry of National Defense’s existing Investigation Headquarters.
Security inspections at corps-level and above units, along with investigations into security violations, will be assigned to a newly created Defense Security Support Group.
At the same time, several key powers that previously enabled the command’s influence within the military are being completely abolished.
From now on, South Korea’s military intelligence agency will no longer be able to monitor military personnel’s activities, collect intelligence on service members, prepare reputation assessments of officers and soldiers, or gather information on corruption and other misconduct outside the scope of counterintelligence.
Strengthening civilian oversight
As the DCC is dismantled, civilian oversight over the newly established Counterintelligence Center is being guaranteed.
The inspector general of the new structure will be a senior civilian auditor. A newly created intelligence and counterintelligence oversight committee within the Ministry of National Defense will operate directly under the defense minister and be composed entirely of civilians.
The government is also working on new legislation that clearly defines the operational limits of military counterintelligence personnel and establishes penalties for illegal activities.
A turning point
The dissolution of the DCC represents more than a simple institutional reorganization. It can also be interpreted as South Korea’s long-delayed confrontation with its history of military coups and military political influence.
Ultimately, however, the extent to which these plans and decisions are successfully implemented will depend once again on the balance of power within both the military and the political establishment.
Israeli government plans to fund extremist occupier group in occupied West Bank with $1.89M: Report
MEMO | June 15, 2026
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to allocate 5.5 million shekels ($1.89 million) in state funding to the extremist occupier group known as the “Hilltop Youth,” the Yedioth Ahronoth daily said Monday.
The newspaper said the budget was outlined in a document issued by the Settlement and National Missions Ministry, headed by Minister Orit Strock, which will oversee the transfer of funds through regional settlement councils in the occupied West Bank.
The funding plan is scheduled to run from June through the end of the year and totals 5.5 million shekels, it added.
According to the newspaper, each member of the Hilltop Youth movement would receive the equivalent of approximately $550 per month to help cover food, clothing and living expenses for more than 650 youths living in hilltop outposts and pastoral settlement sites across the occupied West Bank.
The Hilltop Youth is an occupier movement whose members primarily live in unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank and are known for opposing efforts to evacuate them.
The group has frequently been linked to attacks against Palestinians and is considered the ideological nucleus of the extremist “Price Tag” movement, which has carried out retaliatory attacks against Palestinians and their property.
Founded in 1998, the movement is largely composed of Israeli occupiers aged between 16 and 26, who left their homes and schools to live in illegal settlement outposts built on hilltops overlooking Palestinian communities.
The group is considered an offshoot of the extremist movement Gush Emunim, which advocates expanded Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories.
According to Israeli and Palestinian rights groups, violence by Israeli occupiers in the occupied West Bank has increased significantly in recent years, including attacks on Palestinian communities, farmland and property.
Since Oct. 8, 2023, at least 1,169 Palestinians have been killed, 12,666 injured, around 23,000 arrested and approximately 33,000 displaced in the occupied West Bank amid intensified Israeli military operations and occupier attacks, according to Palestinian figures.
DHS docs: Govt bracing for nationwide anti-AI riots, preparing to crack down on dissent
By Alan MACLEOD | MintPress News | June 11, 2026
New documents from government agencies such as the FBI and Department of Homeland Security show that Washington is preparing for widespread anti-A.I. riots, as the technology destroys communities and industries across the country. Ironically, the Trump administration is already using invasive A.I. technology to identify and suppress what it calls anti-A.I. “extremists,” in the process, sweeping the entire nation into its massive surveillance dragnet.
More than 1,000 pages of leaked documents reviewed by WIRED Magazine show that government agencies are anticipating a huge wave of domestic unrest in the coming years, as artificial intelligence upends American society. Automation-related job losses could shatter entire industries, while the building of gigantic data centers will remove water and electricity from public use, ramping up the price of what little remains.
As one report from the New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau notes:
“The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent A.I. technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City.”
An Environmental and Health Catastrophe
Last year, the tech industry collectively spent around half a trillion dollars on the construction of new data centers. These buildings consume near insatiable amounts of energy and water. By 2030, they are expected to represent around 12% of total U.S. electricity consumption. One large data center consumes up to five million gallons of water per day – as much as a small city. It has been calculated that a single 100-word A.I. prompt to a chatbot like Claude or ChatGPT uses over half a liter of water, equivalent to one bottle.
When a data center moves into town, utility prices skyrocket. In this situation, wholesale electricity, for example, jumps by up to 267%. Ordinary Americans cannot compete with the likes of Amazon or Microsoft, and can be priced out of even the most basic necessities of life, causing widespread resentment.
Living near a data center can also be hazardous to human health. Thanks to the low-frequency noises they produce, residents often report chronic symptoms such as insomnia, vertigo, and nausea. Worse still, to meet their enormous energy demands, data centers often rely on gas or diesel generators, which emit high levels of nitrogen oxides, fine particular matter, and so-called “forever chemicals” into the air, further complicating the situation.
A.I. will also have a profound effect on employment. Goldman Sachs predicts that, over the next decade, 300 million jobs could be lost to A.I.-based automation. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, has suggested that whole industries may be replaced by his product. “Entire classes of jobs will go away and not come back,” he confidently stated in 2019. Facing growing public anger, last month, he walked those statements back, assuring the public that there would be no “jobs apocalypse.”
But if these predictions are anything close to correct, it will cause massive economic disruption across America, and send towns and entire cities dependent on certain types of work into potentially permanent depressions. The latest news that Washington is preparing to treat this unrest as akin to terrorism should be of great concern to all Americans.
The Dark Side of A.I.
The public, as a whole, is highly skeptical of artificial intelligence. A recent poll found that only 5% trust A.I. a great deal, while 77% think it could pose a fundamental threat to humanity.
The U.S. national security state, however, has fully committed to A.I., and is using it to mass surveil the public and to identify those not sufficiently supportive of the new technology. In March, FBI director Kash Patel confirmed that the bureau is buying Americans’ personal online user data from brokers in order to track the public. The Department of Homeland Security has spent millions purchasing A.I. software that detects the sentiment and emotions of Americans’ online posts, and is using it to identify activists and other potential “threats.” It has also sent subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of the Trump administration. Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.
A.I. giant Anthropic publicly pulled out of a deal with the U.S. Department of War to develop A.I. systems in “classified environments,” stating that they feared the technology would immediately be used to carry out mass domestic surveillance in the United States. “We cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” they said, explaining their decision. The company was immediately labeled a national security “supply chain risk” by the Trump administration, and the contract was fulfilled by OpenAI.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman is one of Trump’s most generous donors, having channeled $25 million to the president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. He has also poured $50 million into Leading the Future, a bipartisan super PAC aimed at promoting pro-A.I. legislation in Washington, D.C., and defeating and silencing lawmakers who wish to curb the influence and power of the new industry.
It remains to be seen to what extent A.I. will actually become a revolutionary technology, but what is clear is that the U.S. government is preparing for major economic and social disruption in its wake. Instead of creating economic bailout plans and social welfare programs to help those negatively affected, however, it is preparing an authoritarian response, looking to crush dissent. What makes this future even more ironically dystopian is that, to do so, it is using the very A.I. that is triggering the problem in the first place.
Trump State Department Moves to Deport Trita Parsi
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | June 12, 2026
President Trump’s State Department has reportedly opened an investigation into Trita Parsi, an Iranian-Swedish international relations writer, political analyst, vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and critic of the administration’s war against Iran.
A Trump official informed the Free Press that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been “extremely clear” about his intention to focus on individuals who “support adversaries of the United States” and whose actions allegedly compromise the country’s security. “Anyone who seeks to undermine the US, we’re taking a hard look at,” the official said, while not explaining how Parsi’s analysis of foreign policy constitutes a threat. News reports suggest that US officials are initiating deportation proceedings against several US green-card holders who they believe have expressed sympathy for Iran.
Parsi serves as the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a foreign-policy think tank that promotes realism and restraint in foreign policy. “As a research institution we expose the dangerous consequences of an overly militarized American foreign policy,” states an overview of the organization. Personnel include the journalist Jim Lobe, political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt, a political scientist and professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, among others.
“The report said that Parsi and his colleagues appear to view the investigation as a ‘serious threat,’” according to the Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency headquartered in Ankara, Turkey.
In April, Quincy Institute CEO Lora Lumpe informed staff and donors that the organization’s chairman had agreed to fund legal preparations to defend Trita Parsi in the event of a deportation effort, according to a memo. The memo also noted that the institute was in the process of hiring an immigration attorney who had “advised that we immediately prepare a writ of habeas corpus to have at the ready” if Parsi were unexpectedly taken into custody by immigration authorities.
Zionist-centric Free Press Broke Parsi Story
The Trita Parsi investigation was first reported by the Free Press, a media company founded by the iconoclastic Zionist Bari Weiss, a former book review editor at The Wall Street Journal and and an op-ed staff editor and writer on culture and politics at The New York Times. In 2025, Paramount Skydance acquired The Free Press. David Ellison, the CEO of CBS News, installed Weiss as as editor-in-chief of the broadcast news network. Weiss has never managed a television newsroom, never operated foreign bureaus, and is not known to have produced broadcast news content. Paramount has broadcast a number of documentaries and series covering the October 7, 2023 al-Aqsa Flood Gaza breakout.
Paramount Skydance was founded by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, formerly the richest man in the world and a top donor to Israel’s IDF. The elder Ellison is a confidant of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the journalist Alan Macleod, Ellison’s tech corporation, Oracle, “sees itself as an activist organization, one whose goal is the advancement of the Israeli colonization project.” Oracle began as project of the CIA, “named after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation on which Ellison worked.”
Iranians Targeted for Deportation
Beginning with the illegal and unconstitutional sneak attack on Iran, the Trump administration has increasingly targeted figures of Iranian descent in the US. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar was abducted along with her daughter by masked ICE agents in April. Afshar is the niece of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was murdered by Trump prior to a meeting with Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in 2020. ICE abducted Afshar and her daughter in California after Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked their lawful permanent resident status. The State Department said Afshar supported the Iranian government and what it described as its propaganda. It also said Afshar’s husband was barred from entering the United States, according to Reuters.
Rubio and the State Department also terminated the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, the daughter of Iranian politician Ali Larijani, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in March along with his son Morteza and the head of his office, Alireza Bayat, in Tehran. Iran retaliated by launching a missile barrage at Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv.
In January, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) warned that the Trump administration planned to deport Iranians on a flight from the United States to Iran, the third of such flights. “These deportations come amid mounting evidence of systemic ICE abuses, including wrongful deaths in custody, deplorable conditions in ICE facilities, shootings and arrests of citizens, and the forcible removal of vulnerable individuals with credible fears of reprisal from Iranian authorities,” NIAC said in a press release.
Parsi was the first president and founder of NIAC. The organization has engaged in lobbying efforts in opposition to military conflicts by the United States and has advocated for the cessation of sanctions imposed on Iran. NIAC supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement between Iran and the United States in 2015. Critics argue the organization is a front for the Iranian government.
The Hoover Institution, a neocon think tank at Stanford University, contends NIAC is a lobby “in all but name” for the Iranian government. “NIAC is alleged to have been created, directly or indirectly, by the Iranian regime’s foreign minister Javad Zarif,” argues Kaveh Shahrooz. In early 2020, Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Mike Braun sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging an investigation into NIAC and its sister organization, NIAC Action. The lawmakers alleged that the groups violated FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) by lobbying on behalf of and amplifying propaganda for the Iranian government in the US, according to Cotton’s Senate webpage. Violations of FARA may result in severe criminal penalties, including up to 5 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000, along with civil enforcement actions. Failing to register with FARA, making false statements, or omitting material facts is a felony.
FARA requirements, however, do not apply to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Prior to losing the primary in Kentucky, Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the “Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity Act” or “AIPAC Act,” that would have significantly expanded the scope of FARA, forcing AIPAC to register as a foreign principal under federal law. The Israel lobby spent more than $15.8 million to defeat Massie.
McCarthyism and the Trump Administration
It remains to be seen if Trita Parsi will be abducted by ICE and deported. However, news of Rubio and the Trump State Department’s interest in the vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and a related story put out by a Zionist-controlled propaganda outlet, should serve as a warning to others in opposition to Trump’s Iran quagmire.
Beginning in June of 2025, ICE arrested hundreds of Iranian nationals and has deported dozens. In addition to the Iranians previously mentioned, government data reveals that ICE “conducted a major surge of arrests of Iranians” during the June 2025 war on Iran, with 220 arrests in June, and 80 in July of 2025. 577 Iranians were imprisoned in ICE detention facilities across the United Sates as of May. The oldest of the Iranians in detention as of December was 77 years old, and the youngest was 5 years old, imprisoned in South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
The crackdown on opposition to Trump’s war, especially in regard to Iranians, many who are permanent residents, is reminiscent of the McCarthy Era, or the Red Scare, in the late 1940s and 1950s. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican, destroyed many careers with blacklists and unsubstantiated investigations. Being accused of leftist sympathies or questioning the political status quo was frequently enough to result in termination. Federal employees, teachers, and university professors were subjected to interrogations, compelled to take loyalty oaths, and subsequently blacklisted. The government used the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter Act) and previous ideological exclusion laws to target and deport left-wing individuals, labor organizers, and suspected Communists.
President Trump, due to his narcissism and desire for revenge against political adversaries, may further increase the targeting of Iranians, abducting them while violating their constitutionally guaranteed right to due process. “The administration has sidestepped the courts and the ability of people to defend their rights wherever it can,” notes the Vera Institute of Justice. “The right to due process and fair treatment under the law is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to all people in the United States, regardless of where they were born.”
88 attacks against Palestinian Christians recorded since start of year
MEMO | June 11, 2026
The Religious Freedom Data Centre said on Wednesday that attacks and harassment targeting Palestinian Christians and their religious sites have increased.
The centre documented more than 88 incidents against Christians since the beginning of this year, including 63 cases during the second quarter alone. It said the figures suggest that 2026 could set a new record, surpassing the 181 incidents recorded last year.
According to a report presented in Jerusalem, the violations included spitting incidents, verbal abuse, vandalism of cemeteries, gravestones, statues and crosses, as well as racist graffiti and the desecration of Christian religious sites.
Most of the incidents were concentrated in Jerusalem’s Old City, Mount Zion and the area surrounding the Armenian Patriarchate.
During a conference in Occupied Jerusalem where the report was presented, human rights activists and lawyers criticised the performance of Israeli police in handling complaints submitted by Christians.
Uri Narov, head of the legal department at the Israeli Religious Action Centre, said most cases are closed without results. He noted that 19 out of 25 complaints filed by the centre between 2012 and 2021 were closed for various reasons, including failure to identify suspects or no offense had occurred.
Representatives of Catholic churches also presented a series of attacks targeting religious institutions and church-owned property. These included the toppling of stone crosses, damage to vehicles, and the throwing of stones, eggs and rubbish into monasteries and Christian guesthouses.
Secretary of War Crimes
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | June 11, 2026
United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth likes to be referred to by the title secretary of war. Given his answer to a question at a Wednesday press conference at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, it may make sense for Hegseth to add a word to his preferred title so that he can be referred to instead by the title secretary of war crimes.
Asked at the press conference how the US military “hitting bridges, electrical infrastructure” in Iran “would not be a war crime potentially targeting civilian infrastructure,” Hegseth did not answer the query. Instead, he complained that the query was “precisely the kind of disingenuous question that I’m used to from the media, impugning the motives of folks on our side who are incredibly professional and incredibly effective.” Continuing, stated Hegseth, “We will hit them hard on our terms on the targets that improve the environment for us to operate in and undermine the capabilities that Iran wants to have.”
This answer suggests that the US secretary of defense does not think that avoiding war crimes is a significant part of deciding how to engage in military actions. Instead of explaining how war crimes would be avoided or how the questioner is misinterpreting what would constitute war crimes in the situation, Hegseth just declared that everyone involved in the US government’s war effort is beyond reproach and that any actions they take that advance the US position in the war relative to the position of Iran is fine.
Settlers, sanctions and impunity
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 10, 2026
From 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2025, Israeli settlers killed 61 Palestinians and injured 3,778. The findings of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, which partly discusses settler violence, note that “Israeli authorities have consistently acknowledged settler violence as a problem, while promoting structural conditions that enable it.”
The recently published report details the overt nature of Israeli settler violence – the claiming of responsibility for settler attacks on Palestinians as part of the process to ‘Greater Israel’, the unequivocal assertion that attacks are unprovoked, and the indoctrination of settler children by family members and settler organisations. Supporting the entire spectrum of settler-colonial violence is the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplaying the attacks against Palestinians as attributed to “a small group of unruly youth”. The report notes how government settlement expansion policy contributes to settler violence, and provides the framework for settler impunity. Mentioning prominent Israeli ministers and settler leaders, the report states, “They [the officials] have explicitly permitted or condoned settler violence as an instrument to achieve a broader agenda.”
As the UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway imposed sanctions on networks that collaborate with settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the Commission of Inquiry’s report details the structure that supports settler violence against Palestinians. Reacting to the sanctions, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Oren Marmorstein declared, “The real essence of these steps is the attempt to impose a political stance regarding the right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – camouflaged as measures against violence.”
Of course the decision is political. However, as the report shows, the six countries’ decision to impose sanctions does not even scratch the surface of the politics and policies that support Israel’s settler-colonial expansion. Israel and its institutions have created a protective structure for settler violence, and Marmorstein’s statement illustrates how central settler violence is to completing the process of Greater Israel.
Without settler violence contributing to the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, Israel would have a difficult time maintaining its structure.
The discrepancy, however lies in world leaders’ decision to target entities and individuals rather than Israel itself. For example, the report highlights that the line between settlers and soldiers has blurred since regional brigades were formed and gun licenses were handed out by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Settlers are being given power by Israel’s colonial structure, therefore sanctioning settlers is unlikely to make a difference in halting colonial expansion.
International diplomacy is still viewing Israeli settler-colonialism in manageable sections, and detached from Israel’s expansionist policies.
Targeting settlers with sanctions simply encourages Israel to provide more impunity for those doing its work on the ground, while the Israeli government continues with settlement construction.
As the Commission of Inquiry’s report shows, Israel cannot be discussed separately from settler violence. Sanctions, therefore, need to appropriately target the colonial framework itself, which would then have an impact on the settler-colonial society in its entirety.
Christian village in occupied West Bank goes up in flames after large-scale attack by Israeli settlers
The Cradle | June 10, 2026
On June 9, extremist Israeli settler groups launched a coordinated arson attack on the historic Christian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, torching agricultural fields east of Ramallah as part of a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The violence against the 3,000-year-old village intensified following the establishment of an illegal settlement outpost in the immediate vicinity, as local residents of Taybeh face persistent encroachment and assaults by Israeli settlers whose stated objective is to seize the area’s rich pastoral lands.
This ongoing attempted annexation has placed the community under significant pressure as it attempts to maintain its agricultural and pastoral way of life under constant violent harassment.
This latest assault follows previous instances of settler-led violence specifically targeting the historic Church of Saint George, a landmark of significant religious and cultural importance within the village.
Despite international attention and the historical status of the site, the campaign of intimidation has continued.
The torching of the fields on Tuesday is a direct hit on the economic and territorial integrity of the village, with the proximity of the illegal Israeli settlement outpost serving as a primary launch point for these repeated incursions.
The Christian Palestinian community now finds itself at the center of an escalating cycle of land seizures and property destruction in the occupied West Bank.
The attack comes as part of a systematic, state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and gradual annexation of occupied Palestinian territories.
It represents a microcosm of the broader settler campaign to render Palestinian territory uninhabitable, marked by the systematic displacement of residents and the destruction and seizure of agricultural resources.
A UN Commission of Inquiry published on Tuesday has concluded that Israeli authorities are directly involved in facilitating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, providing financial and military support within a climate of impunity.
Attacks on Palestinian villages have surged by 130 percent since 2023, according to the report, and frequently involve masked assailants directly shielded by Israeli military forces.
These documented assaults include the abduction and abuse of children and the use of sexual violence to instill fear, and are identified as tools for advancing state policies of territorial annexation and unlawful displacement.
The inquiry describes a “de facto collapse” of the distinction between soldiers and settlers, noting that at least seven Palestinians were killed and 832 injured last year amid near-daily attacks.
On 3 June, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a major illegal settlement project involving the construction of approximately 2,000 houses on seized Palestinian land.
This plan includes 1,006 units near Jerusalem, 920 near Nablus, and 234 near Hebron.
Smotrich, who has held substantial authority over the West Bank Civil Administration since 2023, plainly states that these developments are intended to “establish clear facts on the ground” to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
Smotrich’s administrative powers effectively granted him free rein to use the military body governing the occupied territory to accelerate the de facto annexation of the West Bank through calculated land seizures.
US strikes cut drinking water to 20,000 in Iran’s Hormozgan province
Press TV – June 10, 2026
The managing director of the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company says pre-dawn US strikes have completely destroyed critical water infrastructure in the eastern part of the province, leaving more than 20,000 residents without access to drinking water as summer temperatures soar.
Abdolhamid Hamzehpour told local media Wednesday that American terrorist attacks hit the water supply facilities in Sirik county, targeting the distribution network for the town of Kuhestak and 10 villages in the Bemani district.
Hamzehpour detailed that two concrete reservoirs, with capacities of 500 and 2,000 cubic meters, along with their associated mechanical equipment, were demolished in the strikes. The destruction of the facilities has led to a complete halt in water distribution for the affected areas.
“The enemy has precisely targeted the infrastructure linked to the daily livelihood and health of the people,” Hamzehpour said, describing the act as “flagrant terrorism.”
The outage comes as the region endures peak summer temperatures, with reports that local weather hovers between 45 and 50 degrees Celsius. Officials stated that the area lacks sufficient groundwater reserves to compensate for the loss of the reservoirs, creating a critical situation for the population.
Hamzehpour condemned the loss of water access as a “clear instance of a crime against humanity,” noting that operational teams are on-site but face significant challenges due to the scale of the destruction.
The strikes on Sirik, as well as on the cities of Jask and Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, occurred in the early hours of Wednesday. They followed Washington’s accusation that Iran downed a US Army Apache helicopter over Persian Gulf waters.
While the United States has stated its strikes targeted military infrastructure, including air defense systems and radar installations near the Strait of Hormuz, provincial Iranian officials maintain that civilian water facilities in Sirik were directly hit.
Hamzehpour confirmed that mobile water tankers have been deployed to the region as an emergency measure. However, he warned that fully restoring the destroyed pumping and storage systems will require “time and extensive technical actions.”
“The deprivation of a large population of people from water in these weather conditions is carried out under the shadow of false claims of humanitarian aid,” Hamzehpour added, according to IRNA.
In response to the acts of aggression, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) launched a series of drone and missile strikes against US military assets across the region.
In one instance, the IRGC targeted the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet with missile and drone attacks, as part of its broader retaliatory campaign.
Iranian armed forces also carried out strikes against US military facilities in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait during the early hours of Wednesday.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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