‘Biased censorship’: Iran deputy FM slams X for stripping him of blue tick
Press TV – June 19, 2026
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has decried a recent “biased” move by the social media platform X to remove the blue checkmark from his account.
In an X post on Friday, Gharibabadi said that the online social network has removed the blue tick from his account after doing the same with the accounts of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Abbas Araghchi, and spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.
“This biased and politically-motivated measure is the continuation of the pattern of censorship aimed at silencing the truth and the official voice of governments, as well as instrumentalizing digital credibility,” he added.
Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, the platform has faced criticism for arbitrarily removing verification badges and deleting accounts perceived as politically inconvenient.
Since February, X has stripped many Iranian officials of their blue checkmarks and deleted without explanation hundreds of accounts supportive of Iran’s brave resistance against the US-Israeli war of aggression.
Hezbollah lawmaker says Israel has 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon
MEMO | June 19, 2026
Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said Israel has 60 days to complete its withdrawal from Lebanese territory, urging Lebanese authorities to study the understanding signed between the United States and Iran “carefully and objectively”.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Raad made the remarks as Israel continues its military actions and maintains its presence in areas it occupies in southern Lebanon.
He noted that the first clause of the agreement signed between Tehran and Washington calls, in part, for the “immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon”.
The agreement also includes a commitment to “guarantee Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty” and confirms a “permanent end to the war on all fronts” in its final form.
On Wednesday evening, US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian electronically signed the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding”, which aims to end the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on 28th February.
A Pakistani mediator later announced that the memorandum had entered into force. Under the arrangement, Iran is expected to begin reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, while the United States starts lifting its naval blockade on Tehran.
Raad called on Lebanese authorities to “read the text of the memorandum carefully and objectively and draw conclusions about the realities and prospects that will have a significant impact on the region and the world, including Lebanon”.
He also warned against “underestimating Iran’s ability to fulfil its commitment to deter the Zionist enemy should it insist on violating the terms of the memorandum”, according to the statement.
Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites
Press TV – June 19, 2026
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has dismissed reports claiming that the Islamic Republic will invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear sites damaged in two rounds of US-Israeli aggression.
Referring to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US with the aim of ending the war on Thursday, Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters on Friday that the document’s clause 8 stipulates that negotiations on the nuclear issue will be held within a period of 60 days.
“Of course, this will require the fulfillment of the prerequisites for starting negotiations in accordance with clause 13,” he emphasized.
Baghaei stressed that, according to clause 9 of the MoU, the current status of Iran’s nuclear program will be maintained during the 60-day period, and accordingly, inspections of facilities such as Bushehr, which have been conducted so far, will continue.
He added that inspections of facilities to which the IAEA’s access was suspended due to the US-Israeli aggression hinge on the process of negotiations and their outcome.
His remarks come as US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, claimed that Iran will invite the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities and begin work on identifying and disclosing the locations of enriched materials possessed by Tehran.
This came during a special briefing by Witkoff to congressional leaders and members of the committees concerned with national security.
The MoU, signed remotely by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, calls for a permanent end to hostilities across all fronts, the removal of the US naval blockade, the restoration of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, a reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion, and the lifting of US sanctions.
Under the MoU, the two sides have entered a 60-day negotiation period, with the goal of reaching a comprehensive final agreement.
The agreement followed an unprovoked US-Israeli war of terrorism against Iran that began in late February.
Israeli regime’s only interest is ‘permanent war,’ Iran’s FM Araghchi says
Press TV – June 19, 2026
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has condemned provocative statements by senior Israeli ministers advocating intensified attacks on Lebanon, warning that the only interest of the genocidal Israeli regime is permanent war.
In a post on X on Friday, Araghchi denounced comments made by Israel’s far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir following the deaths of four Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.
Ben-Gvir wrote on X that “all of Lebanon must burn,” and that “for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”
“This is not a rant by a random genocidal lunatic,” Araghchi wrote. “It’s a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime.”
“The genocidal death cult headquartered in Tel Aviv is a threat to all of humanity. It threatens all humans,” he added.
Araghchi said that Tel Aviv’s “only interest is permanent war.”
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for a harsher military aggression against Lebanon, writing on the social media platform that it was “time to speak with fire” and “open the gates of hell.”
Iranian officials have repeatedly warned that halting Israeli attacks in Lebanon is a key component of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the presidents of Iran and the United States on Thursday.
Israeli warplanes bombed residential areas in southern and eastern Lebanon before dawn Friday.
At least 31 Lebanese have been killed as Israel keeps attacking the country despite the US-Iran deal coming into force.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that strikes targeted inhabited homes in the towns of al-Sharqiyah, Harouf and Kfar Sir in the Nabatieh district.
In an earlier statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei underscored Washington’s direct responsibility under the current circumstances.
He said the Islamic Republic of Iran “will take all necessary measures to safeguard its interests, security and rights, as well as those of its allies.”
According to official Lebanese figures, the death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Lebanon has risen to 3,912.
More than 11,870 people have been wounded and over one million displaced, according to official figures.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that a ceasefire has taken effect between Hezbollah and the Israeli regime as of 4 PM local time. However, Lebanese media outlet Al Mayadeen has reported Israeli strikes following the start of the reported ceasefire.
How Multipolarity Forced Trump to Capitulate… For Now
By Eric Striker • Unz Review • June 19, 2026
When describing Donald Trump’s new Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, Foreign Policy magazine summarized the seeming end to the war as a “bigger defeat than Vietnam.”
This negation of American militarism has been felt strongest in Israel, where the Jewish state’s executors in Jerusalem and Washington/New York are throwing a fit. JD Vance, thrown in front of the cameras to own the administration’s retreat before their masters, is now openly telling the furious Jewish-American press “Trump is your [Israel] only ally left in the world.”
Has the White House had enough of Jewish domination of its policies? Is the pause in fighting Iran, which through Persian and Shia tenacity has significantly risen the bar for any continuation of hostilities, permanent?
Not so fast.
Passengers pulling the emergency break on the runaway train should not be seen as a change of guard, but rather a hard check placed on the Jewish domination of Washington DC by the combined forces of several major regional actors the American empire relies on to project power on behalf of Israel.
Forcing America to halt a war it was clearly losing and go to the negotiating table took Turkey (NATO’s second largest army), Pakistan (a nuclear power), the Gulf States (hosts of US CENTCOM with $2 trillion dollars parked in American foreign direct investment) and Egypt to pool their immense lobbying and diplomatic resources together. They offered an ultimatum: America must pause to reconsider its pursuit of Israel’s maximalist objective of conquering Iran and breaking it up into multiple rump states or they will form a new power bloc of their own to deal with this problem. As the American empire declines, multipolarity — which is bringing about the genesis of regional power blocs beyond the familiar Chinese, Iranian and Russian alliance — flexed its bicep.
Even as the administration realized it had no choice but to cave under the pressure exerted by the united front of its growing list of disgruntled associates, Trump audaciously demanded they first sign the Abraham Accords embracing Israel before any Iran negotiations began. The exasperated Muslim states responded with a resounding “No!”
This reaction, equal parts panicked and assertive, is a consequence of Iran’s unorthodox decision to focus its strategy on taxing the collaborationist Gulf regimes. The war has so far cost Gulf Cooperation Council states $200 billion dollars worth of economic damage, prompting public threats from Arab monarchs being pummeled to pull their trillions of dollars currently helping keep American tech, real estate, and bonds afloat.
In other words, the Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis pay the American empire to protect them, in addition to offering their soil for US bases and playing nice with Israel.
Yet at the height of the conflict, Iran and its allies quickly destroyed the expensive and difficult to replace THAAD network integral to the air defenses of both the Gulf and Israel. During the commotion, America’s Middle East protectorates endured blow after blow from Iranian missiles and drones, and Washington’s response was to anger another one of its client states — South Korea — by hastily moving its THAAD defense systems from East Asia to Jordan in order to better protect Israel, an act of brazen Jewish favoritism.
Working with America used to make one untouchable, but today it paints a bullseye on your country. The United Arab Emirates thought it could hedge against potential Iranian retaliation by allowing Russian billionaires to use Dubai to skirt sanctions, only to be taken aback by the revelation that Putin doesn’t care what the oligarchs think, preferring to help the IRGC in acquiring Gulf targets, including hotels in its fragile and decadent cities where US soldiers thought they were hiding.
The US’ catastrophic failure to keep up its end of the bargain is forcing Gulf planners to begin considering concessions to Iran, such as paying Tehran not to spare them. The GCC has hitched itself to the US-Israeli wagon as a realist acknowledgement that neither Israel or America can be militarily or economically defeated. The Iranians, who have limitless ability to sustain damage and are constantly innovating in the realm of warfare, have now demonstrated that this assumption is false, which will inevitably force a change in calculation from cowardly and cynical regional actors down the road.
With now a year and a half worth of Barak Ravid’s fairy tales alleging that Trump has had enough of Israel and Netanyahu indexed at Axios, nobody believes it anymore. For this reason, the administration is now forced to make a public spectacle of condemning Israel. This is geared at making America’s Muslim friends and foes — who currently have all the leverage — think Washington has the whip hand, when the reality is that Israel and the Jewish-American elite do. This was proven for the umpteenth time when Trump’s recent command for Netanyahu to “stop!” was immediately met by Israeli strikes on Iran and Lebanon.
As expected, Iran has already made good on its side of the bargain. The Strait of Hormuz has been reopened and a global economic depression has been averted. On the other hand, the major concessions from America to Iran highlighted by commentators in the MOU have stipulations deferring them pending further negotiations, like a hundred-dollar bill being pulled by a fishing line. One of the MOU’s major promises, that Israel’s war in South Lebanon is to immediately cease, continues to be flagrantly violated even at the expense of enormous IDF casualties in recent days.
As for planned talks in Switzerland to actualize the terms of the agreement, they are already failing.
It is unclear whether Benjamin Netanyahu, whose post October 7th wars have largely failed to achieve any strategic objectives, will survive electorally, but favorites to replace him like former IDF chief Eisenkot are just as bloodthirsty.
As for Trump, Witkoff and Kushner’s latest “time out” on Iran, they have so far been lulls to recalibrate with the intent of continuing. There’s no reason to believe this time is any different.
Switzerland confirms US-Iran talks planned for Friday are cancelled
Al Mayadeen | June 19, 2026
Talks that had been planned for Friday between the United States and Iran at the Burgenstock mountaintop resort in Switzerland will not take place, according to a Swiss foreign ministry statement.
The announcement came after a White House spokesperson said overnight that US Vice President JD Vance had pulled out of a planned trip to meet Iranian negotiators in Switzerland on Friday to begin talks to implement an agreement struck between Tehran and Washington to end the war.
Vance had been expected to travel to Geneva on Friday to begin technical negotiations on implementing the 14-point agreement reached between Tehran and Washington. However, a White House spokesperson said the visit was called off because arrangements for the talks had not been finalized.
A White House statement detailed that Vance and the US delegation were prepared to depart once arrangements had been finalized. “But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement added.
Iran seeks implementation before new negotiations
The Iranian negotiating delegation had earlier postponed its trip to Switzerland due to the ongoing Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon, an informed source told Al Mayadeen on Thursday.
According to the source, the delegation had already been preparing to depart Iran and launch the first round of negotiations, scheduled to span 60 days, before the decision to suspend the trip was made.
Tehran had previously informed both Washington and the mediators that the Lebanon file remains a central component of the negotiations and will directly influence whether the talks proceed, the source stated, citing Iranian warnings that continued Israeli aggression extending up to 10 kilometers deep inside Lebanese territory constitutes a clear violation of the first clause of the Memorandum of Understanding and the framework agreement.
What does the MoU include?
Iran revealed on Thursday the full text of the Memorandum of Understanding, which declares the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, with a final deal to be concluded within 60 days following continued talks.
The US agreed to remove its naval blockade within 30 days, end all sanctions on an agreed schedule, and issue waivers for Iranian oil exports and associated services.
The US also undertakes to release frozen Iranian funds and work with regional partners on a reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion for Iran.
Iran reaffirmed it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons, with stockpiled enriched material to be resolved via a mutually agreed mechanism under IAEA supervision, while enrichment and other nuclear issues were expected to be discussed in final negotiations.
Israeli aggression continues against Lebanon despite MoU
Despite the agreement, the Israeli occupation has continued its aggression against southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah resistance fighters continue to engage Israeli forces in the town of Kfar Tibnit.
Today at dawn, Israeli bombing on residential areas in southern Lebanon killed and wounded civilians, with casualties reported across several villages in the Nabatieh district.
According to preliminary reports, Israeli airstrikes targeted inhabited homes in the towns of Harouf, Kfar Sir, and al-Sharqiyeh, resulting in several martyrs, injuries, and several missing persons trapped beneath the rubble.
In a separate attack, two civilians were martyred and two others wounded after an Israeli strike targeted the southern town of Qatrani.
The latest attacks come as Israeli occupation forces continue targeting civilians, medical crews, and residential areas across southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire agreement and ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at ending hostilities on all fronts.
Resistance confronts Israeli advance toward Kfar Tibnit
For its part, the Lebanese Resistance confronted an attempted advance by Israeli occupation forces toward the town of Kfar Tibnit overnight Thursday.
Resistance fighters targeted Israeli military vehicles attempting to move toward the town using anti-tank guided missiles and previously prepared ambushes. Several Israeli vehicles were struck during the confrontation, with flames seen rising from some of the targeted vehicles on the outskirts of Kfar Tibnit.
The Resistance affirmed that the Kfar Tibnit–Ali al-Taher area would remain impervious to Israeli incursions and vowed to continue defending Lebanon and its people.
Iran Beat Back The Greater Israel Project
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | June 18, 2026
Donald Trump has officially signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran in the Palace of Versailles in France, and Israel and its American lobbyists are having a meltdown.
This is because the war with Iran, according to Israel and its neoconservative allies in the U.S., was indeed to be the linchpin for the Greater Israel Project, and the final phase of the Clean Break plan drawn up by Israel and the Bush administration.
For context, professor Jeffery Sachs explained :
In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors devised a “Clean Break” strategy. They advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian lands captured in the 1967 war in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would reshape the Middle East to its liking. Crucially, the strategy envisioned the US as the main force to achieve these aims—waging wars in the region to dismantle governments opposed to Israel’s dominance over Palestine. The US was called upon to fight wars on Israel’s behalf.
The Clean Break strategy was effectively carried out by the US and Israel after 9/11. As NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark revealed, soon after 9/11, the US planned to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years—starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.”
The first of the wars, in early 2003, was to topple the Iraqi government. Plans for further wars were delayed as the US became mired in Iraq. Still, the US supported Sudan’s split in 2005, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia that same year. In 2011, the Obama administration launched CIA operation Timber Sycamore against Syria and, with the UK and France, overthrew Libya’s government through a 2011 bombing campaign. Today, these countries lie in ruins, and many are now embroiled in civil wars.
Netanyahu was a cheerleader of these wars of choice–either in public or behind the scenes–together with his neocon allies in the U.S. Government including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and others.
As he explained, war with Iran was intended to be the final phase of this roadmap to Greater Israel. “In September 2023, Netanyahu presented at the UN General Assembly a map of the ‘New Middle East’ completely erasing a Palestinian state. In September 2024, he elaborated on this plan by showing two maps: one part of the Middle East a ‘blessing,’ and the other–including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran–a curse, as he advocated regime change in the latter countries. Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of extremist Zionist manipulation of US foreign policy.”
The Zionists and Neo-Cons believed that by destroying Iran, it would cut off support to resistance groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, destroy the axis of resistance and create an American/Israeli dominated Middle East, and Israeli expansion into Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.
Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator explaining why Benjamin Netanyahu so desperately wanted a U.S. war with Iran, explained, “Israel sees us in an era of what I would call a Pax Greater Israel. This is about how far Israel can extend its dominion, how much of a hard-power, dominant hegemon it can be in the region, seizing parts of Syria or of Lebanon, trying to finish an eradicationist approach to the Palestinians. And crucially, to do that, you have to weaken Iran militarily, to remove some kind of deterrent. You can only do that with the U.S., so you need to pull the U.S. into this war. If that means further accelerating American decline and even accelerating Israel’s loss of support in America, then it’s a price to pay. It’s kind of ‘use it or lose it,’ because those things are happening anyway.”
He added, “that’s what Netanyahu is trying to achieve, to achieve Greater Israel, domination in the region, including the weakening of the Gulf, which is intentional, at the expense of America bleeding further reputational, political, economic assets in this war”.
This was outright admitted by Lindsay Graham, the neoconservative South Carolina senator who was a key architect of the war, who reportedly “spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action” in Iran.
The real goal of the Iran war was laid out by Graham at the Zionist Tzedek conference, who said referring to war with Iran, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Mid East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, the Zionists and Neo-cons believed that if Iran was destroyed, it would therefore destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (Houthis) and pave the way for Arab states to normalise with Israel, isolating the Palestinians and paving the way for unopposed Israeli expansion.
But contrary to the hopes of Israel and its allies in the U.S. like Lindsay Graham, the U.S. did not “pull this off”, failing to destroy Iran or do regime change, eventually being forced to sign a deal after Iranian victory.
But for Israel and its American lobbyists, this is a nightmare; the lynchpin of their Greater Israel Project has now become a fantasy.
Along with pushing back the Greater Israel Project, Iran has successfully created a rift between Israel and its main patron, the United States.
Responding to reports that Israel was , angry with the Trump administration over signing the deal, Vice President JD Vance said, Trump was, “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time” adding, “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that the country is in”.
Trump similarly lashed out at Israel before signing the deal, saying, “If it weren’t for the United States of America, with me… Israel would not exist right now. Israel would have been blown off the face of the earth, one hundred percent — and every smart person in Israel knows that.”
Iran has forced the Trump administration to acknowledge that Israel’s plans are delusional, that it is despised by the world and that the only entity in the world propping it up is the Trump administration.
By forcing the U.S. to agree to the MOU, Iran not only defeated the plan to destroy Iran for Greater Israel, but for the first time, created an actual rift between a Trump administration desperate to end the losing war, and Israel, desperate to have their Greater Israel Project plan completed.
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.
When the Iran War is over: Why the West Bank may be Netanyahu’s next front
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 17, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the most precarious moment of his political career. He knows it. His allies know it. And his rivals—both within his coalition and across Israel’s political spectrum—are preparing to capitalize on his growing weakness.
Former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who also served as deputy prime minister between 2007 and 2009, is among the latest Israeli political figures to join a growing chorus of criticism directed at Netanyahu.
“In the final result,” Ramon said in an interview with Radio Galey, cited by the Israeli outlet Srugim, “we did not win.” He then broke down that failure in blunt terms: “We did not win in Lebanon, we did not win in Iran, and we did not win against Hamas.”
Another prominent critic is former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot, who joined Netanyahu’s emergency war government following the events of October 7, 2023, before resigning with Benny Gantz in June 2024.
Beyond accusing Netanyahu of failing to protect Israel on October 7, Eisenkot argues that the prime minister has effectively surrendered Israel’s political decision-making to US President Donald Trump, thereby strategically weakening Israel.
Ironically, Netanyahu’s coalition partners have often been even more opportunistic than the opposition.
Since the formation of the current coalition government on December 29, 2022—widely regarded as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history—figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have repeatedly used Netanyahu’s political vulnerability to expand their own influence. Whenever Netanyahu needed political support to remain in power, they demanded concessions in return.
For Israel’s far-right extremists, Netanyahu’s inability to secure decisive strategic victories has often translated into opportunities to advance their own agendas. Every setback on the battlefield became an opening for greater settlement expansion, harsher measures against Palestinians, and deeper entrenchment of extremist policies.
Unable to deliver ‘victory’, Netanyahu turned perpetual war into a political strategy in its own right. The result has been a genocidal war in Gaza, widespread devastation in Lebanon, and a dangerous confrontation with Iran that has repeatedly brought the region to the brink of a wider catastrophe.
For a time, this formula proved politically sustainable. Netanyahu successfully enlisted unwavering US support to keep the fires of war burning.
At the same time, the failure of Europe and much of the international community to hold a wanted war criminal accountable provided him with the political space necessary to continue his bloody calculations.
Yet that formula may be nearing its limits. While this possibility may appear encouraging, it comes with a serious warning. If Netanyahu can no longer sustain the wars that have prolonged his political life for nearly three years, he may escalate where resistance is weakest: the occupied West Bank.
Regarding Iran, there is growing recognition that the current confrontation is unsustainable indefinitely and that some form of arrangement will eventually emerge. Likewise, regardless of whether Lebanon is formally included in any future agreement, Israel’s ambition of permanently occupying parts of Lebanese territory remains untenable.
Historically, when Israel fails to secure a strategic breakthrough on one front, it seeks compensation on another—typically where Palestinians are most vulnerable and where international scrutiny is weakest.
As Israeli elections approach, it is therefore reasonable to fear a further escalation of the genocide in Gaza, pushing both the death toll and the level of destruction to new heights. According to Gaza health authorities, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire agreement was announced in October, bringing the overall death toll of Israel’s genocide in Gaza to 73,000 Palestinians.
Though Israel’s war has already failed to break Palestinian steadfastness, the broader objective remains unchanged: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the transformation of the Strip into a space that can no longer sustain Palestinian life.
The West Bank, however, presents a different challenge.
There, Israel faces a fragmented political landscape and a Palestinian Authority that refuses to develop an effective strategy for confronting accelerating Israeli violence, ethnic cleansing, home demolitions, land confiscation, and the relentless expansion of illegal settlements.
This vulnerability has enabled Israel to move from discussing annexation to implementing it in practice. The strategy rests on two interconnected pillars: extreme violence and displacement on the one hand, and rapid settlement expansion on the other.
According to an Oxfam International study published on June 12, Israel has killed 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, in the occupied West Bank since 2023—more than the total number killed during the previous seventeen years combined.
This bloodshed has been accompanied by large-scale displacement that has already uprooted nearly 46,000 Palestinians, many of them from refugee camps and vulnerable communities across the northern West Bank.
An Amnesty International report published on June 10 documented the full or partial displacement of at least 117 Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities between January 2023 and April 2026.
Expectedly, the violence, displacement, settlement expansion, and land seizures are not isolated developments but components of a coherent political project. In September 2025, Smotrich openly proposed the annexation of 82 percent of the occupied West Bank. What was once presented as a political vision is now steadily being translated into facts on the ground.
The era of Netanyahu may be nearing its end, but before this bloody political chapter closes, countless more Palestinians may be forced to bear the cost.
Arab and Muslim countries, along with their allies in the international community, must not wait for Israel to launch a much larger assault on the West Bank before responding.
The matter demands urgent attention and immediate action.
Israeli forces launch fresh ground incursions into Syria’s Quneitra, interrogate locals
Press TV – June 18, 2026
While Israeli military incursions and activities in southern Syria, along with harassment of local citizens under the inaction of the ruling Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) regime, have become recurrent over the past year, Syrian sources have detailed a recent ground incursion.
The sources stated that Israeli forces, onboard nine military vehicles, raided the village of al-Asbah on the outskirts of Syria’s southwestern province of Quneitra near the occupied strategic Golan Heights early on Thursday.
Israeli forces on Wednesday carried out a series of raids on residential homes in the southern countryside of Quneitra, including the interrogation of a local journalist.
Local sources said the incursion targeted ten homes in the town of Saida in southern Quneitra countryside.
Among the properties searched was the home of Sanad al-Hindawi, a journalist and employee of the Quneitra Media Directorate. Sources said Israeli soldiers questioned Hindawi inside his residence during the raid.
No arrests were reported during the incursion.
The raids came two days after Israeli forces broke into the village of Saida al-Golan in southern Quneitra countryside, and established a temporary checkpoint at the village junction, where pedestrians and passing vehicles were subjected to inspections.
Following the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in early December 2024, the Israeli military has been conducting airstrikes targeting military installations, facilities, and arsenals previously operated by the Syrian army.
Israel has faced widespread criticism for ending the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria and taking advantage of the chaos in the war-torn nation to seize territory.
The UN, along with several Arab nations, condemned Israel’s actions as breaches of international law and violations of Syria’s sovereignty.
Despite the HTS’s pledges of cooperation with Tel Aviv, Israel has remained unwilling to withdraw from Syria.
The two sides have been engaged in on-and-off talks to reach a “security agreement”, but no deal or concrete progress has been announced.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his forces to push deeper into Syrian territory beyond the 1967-occupied Golan Heights and seize several strategic locations.
The bulk of the Israeli attacks have been concentrated in the southern Syrian governorates of Quneitra, Dara’a, and Damascus, which account for nearly 80 percent of all recorded Israeli attacks.
Syria ‘unwilling, unprepared’ to attack Lebanon despite US pressure: Report
Damascus is reportedly prepared to reconsider its position if Tel Aviv were to withdraw its occupation troops from Syria
The Cradle | June 17, 2026
Syrian President and former Al-Qaeda chief Ahmad al-Sharaa is “unprepared and unwilling” to launch a military offensive against Lebanon despite growing US pressure, Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported on 16 June.
KAN cited an informed Syrian source who said that Sharaa is “concerned” that an attack by Damascus against Hezbollah will be seen across the region as “serving” Israel’s interests.
This could negatively impact Damascus’s “legitimacy.”
For now, the self-appointed Syrian president is ruling out an attack against Lebanon and its resistance forces unless Israel decides to pull its forces out of Syria, the report states.
Israel has rejected withdrawal from both Syria and Lebanon.
KAN also said that Turkiye – a longtime backer of Sharaa since his days as Abu Muhammad al-Julani, founder and leader of Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front – has urged Damascus against such an incursion.
Ankara is reportedly concerned that a Syrian assault on Lebanon would “embolden” Tel Aviv and “strengthen” its position.
“Trump proposed a framework in which the Syrian military would play a central role in a future effort to disarm Hezbollah,” i24 reported on Wednesday.
Lebanese authorities reportedly felt uneasy about the idea during recent US-backed direct talks with Israeli officials, which have taken place despite Lebanon’s legal restrictions.
Additionally, Israeli authorities are reportedly concerned about the effectiveness of a Syrian attack on Hezbollah.
“Some of the arrangements currently under discussion could ultimately strengthen Hezbollah politically and militarily rather than diminish its influence,” i24 reported.
Sharaa said earlier this week that talk of a Syrian incursion into Lebanon was a “rumor.” “Syria’s approach aims to end the war in Lebanon, not to expand it or get involved,” he stressed.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on Syria to attack Hezbollah.
Iraqi resistance groups allied with Hezbollah have cautioned the Syrian government and its forces that they will act if Damascus initiates an attack on Lebanon.
Syria experienced a significant geopolitical change following the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, as Sharaa’s government aligned with Washington and engaged in discussions with Israel.
The US has largely lifted sanctions on Syria and called Damascus a “partner” in the global fight against ISIS — overlooking Sharaa’s past as an Al-Qaeda leader and earlier as deputy to ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Hezbollah fought in Syria for years with the former government, helping recapture areas from extremist groups like Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and others considered by the west as the “Syrian opposition.”
The Nusra Front, led by Sharaa, was rebranded into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and ended up toppling Assad’s government in 2024.
HTS and other extremist factions with links to ISIS currently dominate what has become the new Syrian Defense Ministry and military.
Tom Barrack, US special envoy to Syria and Iraq, threatened Lebanon last year with a Syrian incursion, and said Damascus would “actively assist us in confronting and dismantling … Hezbollah.”
He also said Syria viewed Lebanon as its “beach resort” and would carry out an assault against the country unless Hezbollah is disarmed.
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Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist. … continue
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