Col Douglas Macgregor: War to the Last Missile in Iran
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive
The Zionist Plan for a Concentration Camp in Gaza
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | July 9, 2026
Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno. These should be destinations Israeli Jews remember and abhor, and yet we are told, by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (PDF), that a concentration camp in the works on the ethnic cleansed ruin of Rafah is somehow not only moral, but the most moral concentration camp in the world.
The support given by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the criminal plan being promoted by Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, involving the construction of a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, which would incarcerate all the enclave’s residents, is a moral and historic nadir for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. No matter how they try in Israel to wrap this move with laundered epithets, they are talking about a concentration camp.
The Zionist state, according to Katz, plans to herd 600,000 Palestinians currently forced to shelter in tents and makeshift homes within the coastal al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza to an area in the ruins of Rafah city. “Eventually, the entire civilian population of over two million in Gaza would be confined to this small ‘city,’” the Middle East Eye reports.
Katz said that once concentrated in the new city, Palestinians would be encouraged to “voluntarily” leave the Gaza Strip for other countries, as part of an “emigration plan” he said “will happen”.
In July, 2025 the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) proposed a “Humanitarian Transit Area” where Gaza residents would “temporarily reside, deradicalise, re-integrate and prepare to relocate if they wish to do so,” Al Jazeera reported. GHF operated food distribution sites outside the United Nations system.
Humanitarian aid organizations and UN-affiliated experts say GHF previously violated humanitarian principles by directing civilians to hazardous militarized aid sites instead of establishing a neutral network. The BBC reported that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF began operating in May, 2025. Oxfam and Save the Children report Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” fired on Palestinians seeking aid. GHF ended its operation in late 2025.
In March, the RAND Corporation published Pursuing Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration in Gaza: A Critical Pathway to a Durable Peace. The white paper follows a Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) three-stage strategy used by UN Peacekeeping to transition war-torn societies to peace.
The RAND report does not take into account Israeli policies of settlement expansion, collective punishment, arbitrary imprisonment, and periodically “mowing the grass,” that to say conducting violent raids into Gaza. Decades of Zionist mistreatment of Palestinians naturally perpetuates radicalization and determined resistance.
The Strategic Hamlet Program
In 1962, the administration of Ngo Dinh Diem, in collaboration with the Kennedy administration, initiated the counterinsurgency Strategic Hamlet Program in South Vietnam. This rural pacification initiative involved relocating South Vietnamese villagers into barbed-wired “protected hamlets,” distancing them from their ancestral lands and inhibiting any support for the National Liberation Front (NLF), commonly referred to as the Viet Cong. US advisors forcefully put them to work building the internment “villages.” The concept of fortifying villages and hamlets originated from the British Army. They had effectively implemented it in Malaysia. Sir Robert Thompson, the head of the British advisory team to Ngo Dinh Diem, recommended it.
The French constructed “protective villages” in Tonkin, later known as agrovilles, under commander François de Linares in 1952. The effort was underwritten by the United States and eventually interned three million Vietnamese. Vietnam War correspondent Bernard Fall said, “the French strategic hamlets resembled British [Malayan] prototypes line for line.”
The Malaysian strategic villages were established in the 1950s under the Briggs Plan, a British counterinsurgency population-control and resettlement program devised by Lt‑Gen. Sir Harold Briggs during the Malayan Emergency of 1948–1960. The villages were designed to break the link between the Min Yuen, a civilian support network, Malayan Communist Party (MCP) guerrillas.
The Briggs Plan villages led to extensive forced resettlement, identity registration, curfews, supervised relocations, coordinated civil-military administration, and the recruitment of home guards among settlers. This initiative played a significant role in the ultimate defeat of the MCP insurgency.
The exploitation experienced in Malaysia during the colonial era was closely associated with the economic extraction methods employed by the British, particularly in the rubber and tin industries. This system was characterized by oppressive labor practices, land dispossession, and legal arrangements that benefited colonial corporations and administrators.
The Strategic Hamlet Program in Vietnam failed due to its rapid implementation, inadequate defense, corruption, poor execution, and alienation of the rural population it aimed to win over. The fundamental strategic mistake was that the program prioritized physically separating people from the Viet Cong without first making the government more appealing than the communists.
British Concentration Camps in South Africa
During the Second Boer War in South Africa (1900-1902), the British implemented concentration camps to eliminate support for Boer guerrillas and to suppress resistance during the conflict. “While civilian internment in South Africa was not intended to be genocidal, it resulted in a significant loss of life and enduring resentment among Boer descendants,” writes Garth Benneyworth from the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
A minimum of 40 concentration camps were established, interning approximately 150,000 Boer refugees, predominantly women and children. Estimates suggest that Boer fatalities ranged from about 18,000 to 28,000, with children constituting the majority of the casualties. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions resulted in outbreaks of diseases, including typhoid, malaria, measles, and dysentery.
The camps were created following the British failure to subdue the Boer South African Republic and the Orange Free State, as well as to gain control over the profitable Witwatersrand gold mines. In reaction to the Boers’ resistance, the British implemented a scorched earth strategy that methodically destroyed crops, contaminated water sources, burned homesteads and farms, and interned Boer and African men, women, and children.
Violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s “New Rafah” plan is a high-tech version of previous concentration camps. In a similar fashion to the Strategic Hamlet Program and the Boer camps in South Africa, “New Rafah” is primarily intended to separate Palestinian civilians from Hamas and prepare for the forced migration of two million people (despite the fact few if any countries are willing to take ethnically cleansed Palestinians). The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reports the Israeli plan
constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the absolute prohibition on the forced transfer and mass detention of protected populations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. It falls within the scope of forced displacement, persecution, and apartheid, which are patterns of policies and practices that individually amount to crimes against humanity under international law.
Zionist Israel, however, has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for international law in regard to the protection of civilians. “Rather than abide by these rules, Israel has openly defied international law time and again, inflicting maximum suffering on civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond,” notes the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.
The “humanitarian city” proposed by Katz follows previous violations, including illegal settlements, annexations, military watchtowers and barbed-wire fences on Palestinian land, refusal to allow the right of return for refugees, numerous deadly sieges in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and the breach of over 30 UN Security Council resolutions.
Congress Aims to Give Israel Leverage Over America
By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | July 5, 2026
Amid record-high public hostility toward Israel and the wars taxpayers are financing on its behalf, the Israel lobby has mobilized to pass a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 which includes language designed to sustain the years long wealth transfer from Americans to Israelis and cement that relationship in ways that would be less transparent and more difficult to challenge through democratic processes.
At the same time, a coalition led by outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has launched a counteroffensive to block a separate track of funding for Israel’s wars, targeting the transfer of $3.3 billion to Israel embedded within the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027, which is also up for vote this summer.
The first bill—the NDAA—was highlighted by The American Conservative earlier this month. It includes language within its Section 224 (since renumbered Section 219 in the House) that would direct the Pentagon to identify Israeli-origin technologies “for potential integration into United States systems and programs of record” and to build “United States-based co-production or manufacturing partnerships with Israeli industry.” Section 219, if enacted, “would be unprecedented,” Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute told TAC. “No other foreign country has an executive agent in the Pentagon to integrate our military industrial complex with theirs.”
Along with merging Israeli and American weapons technology and data, Section 219 would shift funding for Israeli weaponry from Congress to the Pentagon’s murky procurement system.
“This so clearly seems to be an attempt to shield money from cratering public opinion,” Sheline said. She noted that “Americans do not want to fund a country engaged in genocide and which led us into the Iran War,” adding that, rather than representing public opinion and cutting off Israel’s funding, Congress has moved to conceal it.
Such a merger carries inherent national security risks. The presence of foreign components in U.S. systems raises the threat those systems’ integrity will be compromised, a danger heightened in this case by Israel’s demonstrated capability and willingness to weaponize supply chains, as exhibited in their 2024 attack that involved the detonation of thousands of pagers which had been engineered into remote-controlled bombs. Joe Kent, the former director of the National Center for Counterterrorism, argues similarly that “the dangers of allowing any other nation to access our sensitive military technologies are obvious, including the fact that back doors and spyware can be installed that will most certainly be used by the Israelis to influence U.S. policy.”
But Section 219 of the NDAA would hinder American national security in much more immediate ways, principally by reducing the leverage Washington currently maintains to influence Israeli behavior in the region. “At present,” Sheline explains, “Israel is dependent on U.S. weapons and components, particularly their air force.” That U.S. support has enabled the Israelis to perpetrate a genocide in Gaza, ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon, and launch two wars against Iran, with Israel’s defense minister recently threatening a third.
“The U.S. could at present use leverage to change that Israeli behavior,” Sheline says. But by merging U.S. and Israeli weapons development, “this legislation would reverse it so that the [Israelis] could do that to us.”
Despite the various threats to American national security posed by the provision, section 219 this week moved closer to its expected final passage, with the House Rules Committee on Monday rejecting a bipartisan amendment introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) that would have stripped the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” from the NDAA.
Massie’s efforts to stop a separate track for Israel funding attached to the State Department’s spending bill may be more successful. His other amendment—which seeks to eliminate $3.3 billion in annual funding for Israel tied to a 10-year, $38 billion MoU—has reportedly provoked panic among House Democrats, who face pressure from constituents with record-low views of Israel.
Punchbowl News reported that House Democrats “expressed alarm” in a closed meeting and were “begging for leadership guidance” on how to vote while Axios reported on Wednesday that Democrats “fear intense backlash from their base if they oppose” Massie’s amendment to halt Israel funding. Democrats who continue to support wealth transfers from the American tax base to Israelis are aware that doing so comes with the heightened risk of being unseated for it, with the recent ouster of Israel First Democrats Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) serving as a warning to any Democrats who continue to defy the will of the Democratic Party base.
The Massie amendment to cut off funds for Israeli offensive weaponry “may end up being the last time these sorts of votes are meaningful,” says Sheline. “If we proceed with defense industrial integration (Section 219), congress won’t be able to vote on it again.”
Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).
Trump Declares MoU With Iran is Dead
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | July 9, 2026
The drama over the Strait of Hormuz escalated on Wednesday with Donald Trump declaring the MoU with Iran is dead and vowed more attacks on Iran. Trump continues to insist that Iran has no right to interfere with any ship trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz, but the fact is that Iran is acting within its rights under the terms spelled out in paragraph five of the MoU (which I discussed in my previous post). The US attack on Iranian outposts along the shore of the Persian Gulf on Tuesday was a set up — i.e., the US coordinated with Qatar and Saudi Arabia to have their ships defy the Iranian protocol to register the voyage with the IRGC, which precipitated the Iranian attack on those vessels. While falsely claiming this was a violation of the MoU, Donald Trump hit Iran with bombs starting late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning Iranian time.
Unlike the previous incidents on June 25 and June 26, where Iran hit non-compliant ships and the US did a one-off airstrike on Iranian positions on the shore of the Strait of Hormuz following each incident, Trump launched a new series of attacks on Iran on July 8 (Wednesday) even though Iran had not attacked another ship. Why did Trump do this? Was it retaliation for some anti-ship missiles fired at the US Carrier Strike Group operating 200 miles off the coast of Iran? That’s my hypothesis… One or more missiles hit one or more US vessels, causing some damage that has not been reported publicly.
Trump’s Wednesday strikes doubled the size of the ones he ordered on Tuesday. Iran, in response, launched ballistic missiles and drones at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Muwaffaq al Salti airbase in Jordan. I have no reports regarding physical battle damage. However, the Trump attack prompted an ominous warning from the spokesman for Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee, who stated that a renewed US attack will be answered with a change in nuclear doctrine. He also said:
➡ In any future confrontation, the enemy will face a comprehensive, all-out surprise offensive from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
➡ We have many options available that were not even used during the 40-day war.
➡ Options such as withdrawal from the NPT, changing nuclear doctrine, and closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait alongside the Strait of Hormuz are on the table for review.
➡ A bill for NPT withdrawal is also ready for review in parliament — and if Iran faces an existential threat, a change in nuclear doctrine could also be put on the agenda
Pressure is growing in Iran to withdraw from the MoU. The US has violated almost every section of the MoU while Iran has assiduously adhered to it — including keeping Hezbollah from going on the offensive against the Israelis. Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury announced on July 7 that the US would reinstate oil sanctions on Iran, which marks another clear violation of the MoU.
According to vesselfinder.com, the activity in the Strait of Hormuz as I write this article is scant, but the ships transiting the straight are abiding by Iran’s PGSA protocols. If Trump opts to continue attacking Iran on Thursday then I believe that Iran will expand the scope and severity of its retaliatory strikes. Without some immediate concessions from the US, I believe that Iran will agree with Trump — i.e., “The MoU is dead.”
Israeli forces demolish Jerusalem residential building as al-Rifa’iya school faces demolition in al-Khalil
Palestinian Information Center – July 8, 2026
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israeli occupation forces demolished a residential building in Sur Baher, southeast of occupied Jerusalem, on Wednesday, while carrying out demolition operations west of al-Khalil.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center said Israeli forces, accompanied by bulldozers, stormed Sur Baher and demolished a residential building made up of four apartments belonging to Fuad Awadallah.
In al-Khalil, Israeli forces raided the Al-Ras area in the town of Idhna to carry out demolition operations.
The demolitions came as Israeli authorities gave Al-Rifa’iya School near Yatta, south of al-Khalil, 14 days before implementing a demolition order after an Israeli court rejected the final appeal against the decision.
Local and official sources said the school, located south of Al-Deirat village east of Yatta and affiliated with Khallet Al-Maiya municipality, serves 150 students from first to seventh grade. It was established in 2016.
The sources said the demolition could be carried out at any time during the 14-day period.
They stressed that education would continue even if the school is demolished, whether on the rubble, in caves, in tents or in the open air, to ensure students continue receiving their education.
Ten schools in the area, serving around 1,000 students, face the threat of demolition or could receive demolition notices at any time, according to the sources.
Al-Rifa’iya School is part of the “challenge schools” supervised by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and supported by international institutions in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control.
Israeli authorities justify such demolitions by citing construction without permits, a policy rights groups say is nearly impossible for Palestinians to overcome because Israel almost entirely refuses to grant building permits in these areas, serving settlement expansion.
Rights advocates say the demolition of schools in Masafer Yatta and southern al-Khalil is part of a policy aimed at undermining the right to education and pushing Palestinians to leave their land by depriving them of basic living conditions, in what they describe as a policy of silent displacement.
Iran to close Strait of Hormuz, strike twice as many targets in response to any US attack: Source
Press TV – July 8, 2026
Iran has issued a firm warning that it will not back down from its management of the Strait of Hormuz and is prepared to fight to maintain control over the strategic waterway, an informed security source told Press TV on Wednesday.
The source revealed that developments over the past 48 hours have solidified Tehran’s resolve, with a new military and strategic doctrine now in place.
According to the source, Iran’s updated strategy dictates that in the event of any fresh attack on Iranian soil or interests, the Islamic Republic will respond with overwhelming force.
The source elaborated on Iran’s new retaliatory framework, stating that following any strike against Iran, two immediate actions will be taken: first, the Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed to all maritime traffic; and second, Iran will strike enemy targets at a ratio of at least two to one, meaning that for every Iranian target hit, at least two enemy targets will be struck in return.
“The memorandum of understanding signed on this matter clearly states that Iran will reopen the Strait in accordance with its own arrangements. Therefore, Iran will not permit the establishment of any new route outside the framework of its own arrangements,” the source said.
The source also addressed recent threats made by US President Donald Trump, delivering a blunt message to Washington.
“Any threat will receive a powerful response. Iran does not distinguish between the United States and its partners in the region,” the source told Press TV.
“Trump will gain nothing from these recent threats, but he will certainly lose both the Strait of Hormuz and the negotiations over a final agreement. The choice is now his.”
The warning comes amid rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region, after the US military carried out a fresh round of illegal and unprovoked strikes against Iran’s coastal areas early on Wednesday.
US launched military strikes on a number of coastal bases and non-military stations in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province and Mahshahr, which openly violates the ceasefire.
In response, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) struck 85 US military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait with missiles and drones in an initial response to the American aggression.
The IRGC said the strikes hit facilities at Port Salman, the US Fifth Fleet’s area in Bahrain, and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. It also announced the downing of an MQ-9 drone, saying the aircraft attempted to interfere with the operation before it was shot down.
In a statement earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said any source of support for the “aggressor US army” will be considered a legitimate target for Iranian armed forces.
“The source of any support for the aggressor US army to violate the sovereignty and territory of Islamic Iran will be a legitimate target for the armed forces,” the top military command center warned.
It said that the only safe route for commercial ships and oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz is the path designated by Iran, and that Tehran will not allow any interference in the management of the Strait.
Iranian parliament speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf also slammed the US for committing major violations of the Iran-US memorandum of understanding (MoU), stressing that Washington’s “era of bullying and extortion” is over.
“Major MoU violations by the US: [1.] Violating Iranian adjustments in the Strait, [2.] Reinstating oil sanctions, [3.] Attacks on southern Iran, [4.] Continued Zionist aggression on Lebanon,” he said.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”
Jewish Neocon Warhawks Want the United States to Resume its War with Iran
By Jose Nino | Occidental Review | July 7, 2026
The hawks who pushed the United States into its most expensive military operation in decades are already planning the next one. Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, two of the most listened-to Jewish voices in conservative media, have made clear in the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding that they view the current peace not as a resolution but as an intermission, one they intend to use to rebuild the political and military conditions for a return to war.
Ben Shapiro published a Daily Wire piece titled “Why Trump Signed The Agreement With Iran,” explaining the MOU while making clear his deep reservations. In the same Fox News appearance hours after the text was released, he simultaneously called the war “the signal act of political bravery, perhaps, of my lifetime” and labeled the Memorandum of Understanding “a disaster that does not achieve any of the actual signal goals that were set by the administration at the beginning.” Shapiro laid out five specific objectives he said the administration had named —ending all nuclear enrichment, dismantling ballistic missiles, ending support for so-called terrorist proxies, permanently reopening the Strait of Hormuz toll-free, and conditioning sanctions relief on Iranian compliance—and argued the MOU met none of them. Despite his public condemnation of the deal, he nonetheless stopped short of urging Trump to reject it, thus revealing something more significant than mere disagreement. It exposed a proposed recalibration among hawkish commentators who now appear to be laying the groundwork for a resumption of hostilities after the November midterm elections.
While commentators debated the terms of the deal, the war itself had already delivered its verdict in blood. The war they championed exacted a staggering price. Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28, 2026, killed between 7,144 and 9,676 people across multiple countries while wounding approximately 46,965 more. Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs confirmed 3,468 Iranian deaths while independent monitors documented higher figures. Among the dead were 240 women and 212 children. One American strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, Hormozgan province on February 28 killed approximately 175 to 180 people—the majority of them schoolchildren—a strike investigated by the New York Times, BBC Verify, Reuters, NPR, and CBC all of which concluded the United States was likely responsible. Over 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon according to its Health Ministry.
The economic devastation proved equally severe. The Pentagon reported spending $29 billion by May 12, though this figure excluded damage to American military bases from Iranian retaliation and the costs of munitions expended. By June, the Pentagon sought an additional $87.6 billion supplemental from Congress to cover the full costs of the campaign. Harvard economist Linda Bilmes projected that total costs could reach $1 trillion when accounting for long-term ripple effects including veteran care, replenishment of depleted weapons stockpiles, and regional economic disruption. Iran estimated its losses at $270 billion and demanded compensation as a condition of broader peace negotiations. CSIS independently assessed the total U.S. military campaign cost at approximately $34 to $42 billion—a figure that excluded base damage, munitions replacement costs, and long-term obligations.
This catastrophic toll apparently failed to satisfy those who pushed hardest for the conflict. Mark Levin emerged as the most explicit voice calling for a strategic pause followed by renewed military action. On June 18, the same day CNN reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was actively using pro-Israel media figures to influence the deal, Levin posted on X/Twitter his prescription for the path forward. “Time for a change in strategy. We should consider slow walking the enemy, building up our munitions, our oil reserves, get the price of gasoline down, get through the midterms, then knock them out. Instead of rushing to a deal, building up their oil industry, transferring billions to them, etc.”
Levin had advocated for military action against Iran long before the war began. He reportedly lobbied Trump directly at a private White House lunch in early June, falsely warning that Iran was “days away from a nuclear weapon”—a claim the U.S. intelligence community did not support. On his show in May he had argued that “The mass-murdering death cult that is the Iranian regime is not going to commit suicide” and that “they cannot” abide by any deal “because as a matter of religious and political ideology and doctrine, they will not in the end bend to the demands of the great Satan.”
Shapiro adopted a position less explicit but functionally identical. After the MOU was signed at Versailles on June 18, he declared the agreement a disaster and hoped that Trump would return to bombing Iran after November’s midterms. He had previously called the war “the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime,” telling Lara Trump on Fox News that what Trump was doing in Iran “has the potential to be a true game changer for America’s role in the world,
The broader hawk faction echoed the same framework for restarting the conflict. Hugh Hewitt called the MOU “halftime” and predicted a return to war after the election. Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade added that “After the midterms, the gloves come off.” Media Matters described this as the hawks’ new “cope” strategy—a way to avoid criticizing Trump directly while keeping the door open for future military escalation.
These commentators built their case for war over several years. Shapiro praised Trump’s 2020 killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani as “utterly righteous,” calling Soleimani “one of the worst human beings on the planet,” and he consistently argued that Iran required direct confrontation rather than the appeasement he accused the Obama administration of pursuing. When Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025, Shapiro published a syndicated column declaring that “two lies die: the lie that only negotiations can end the threat of a rogue state seeking nuclear weapons, and the lie that every conflict must necessarily become Iraq.” Levin appeared on Hannity right before the 2026 conflict to argue that “If this Islamic Nazi terrorist mass killing regime gets a nuclear weapon, will they use it? The answer is yes” and that “We don’t need to put up with their crap. It’s time to put it to an end.”
Despite the memorandum of understanding being signed on June 17, the conflict remains far from resolved. The deal lifted the U.S. naval blockade, reopened the Strait of Hormuz, created a 60-day window to negotiate permanent terms, and proposed a $300 billion reconstruction fund. Critics noted that despite the war’s enormous costs, Iran’s government remained intact, its ballistic missile program is still functional, and its support for regional resistance organizations like Hezbollah is still unwavering. The statements from Shapiro and Levin give the game away. They have already begun conditioning their audiences for a second round of bellicosity against the Islamic Republic.
For the likes of Shapiro and Levin, conservatism is merely a skinsuit they don, carefully tailored to win trust and influence within the American Right. But the substance beneath it has nothing to do with American national interests. Every war they cheer, every deal they oppose, every argument they make is calibrated toward using American blood and treasure as a battering ram for the interests of World Jewry. The consequences for the United States, the American people, and the families who bear the cost of their wars are simply not part of their calculation. It is time to stop mistaking their fluency in conservative language for loyalty to this country.
Seyed Marandi: Iran strikes ships as the US tests Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz
Glenn Diesen | July 7, 2026
Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a former advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team. Prof. Marandi discusses the continued attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, the US efforts to renegotiate the MoU, the possibility of improved ties between Iran, the Arab States, and Turkey.
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Netanyahu Says He Will “Fix” Social Media
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | July 7, 2026
If there is anything positive about the war criminal Bibi Netanyahu, it is that his propaganda is remarkably transparent and easily debunked. For instance:
I’m sure Bibi is aware of Team Jorge, even if many Americans are not. Netanyahu hopes you’re unaware of the Team Jorge units of Israeli contractors engaged in malicious cyber activities, such as hacking, sabotage, and bot farm-run social media disinformation campaigns, with the intent of manipulating election outcomes.
It was outed in 2023 following an operation by journalists from France and Israel coordinated by Forbidden Stories. “The Israeli disinformation company ‘Team Jorge’ claims to control 39 000 ‘avatars’ online, without the platforms being able to detect them,” Le Monde reported.
“A team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media has been exposed in a new investigation,” The Guardian reported in 2023.
The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades.
Hanan, who was covertly recorded, told journalists his black op service was available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns, and private companies “that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion.” A software package, Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims,
controls a vast army of thousands of fake social media profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. Some avatars even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb accounts.
Hasbara, Israel’s “public diplomacy,” is well known. The term was created in the early days of Zionism and translates as “explanation” in Hebrew. It is described as a multifaceted effort to explain actions, “whether or not they are justified,” by the Zionist state. “Hasbara links information warfare to the strategic efforts of the state to bolster the unity of the home front,” according to Middle East Policy.
[and] ensure the support of allies; disrupt efforts to organize hostile coalitions; determine the way issues are defined by the media, the intelligentsia, and social networks; establish the parameters of politically correct discourse; delegitimize both critics and their arguments; and shape the common understanding and interpretation of the results of international negotiations.
Bibi is worried about the public relations fallout from his genocide campaign in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, and psychotic behavior ordering the murder of religious leaders, negotiators, and children from explosives hidden in pagers, to name but a few. In response to Israel’s manifest crimes against humanity, countries are denouncing and beginning to sanction the Zionist state and its ministers.
Team Jorge and the wider Hasbara network is doing all it can, short of murdering critics of Israel, to undermine and cancel the outrage and activism growing against Zionism and the settler state. Social media is rife with Zionist “avatars” and fake accounts, many no doubt generated by AI, to counter arguments that Israel is a genocidal monster that needs to be tamed.
UN expert blasts BBC over coverage of detained Gaza doctor
Al Mayadeen | July 7, 2026
The United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has sharply denounced the BBC after the broadcaster aired Israeli regime claims against detained Palestinian paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya without challenge.
Reacting to a Monday segment in which BBC News relayed Israeli allegations that Abu Safiya was held over “suspected involvement in Hamas activities,” Albanese called the coverage “scandalous”, pointing to 18 months of arbitrary detention without charge, evidence, or trial and to torture documented by his lawyer, with injuries visible on his body.
She accused the network of amplifying unsubstantiated Israeli accusations against a detained doctor rather than reporting on his condition, describing it as characteristic of BBC journalism “in the time of genocide.”
Karishma Patel, who resigned from the BBC last October over its Gaza coverage, echoed the criticism, saying the broadcaster must stop repeating Israeli claims without flagging the absence of supporting evidence given how precarious Abu Safiya’s life remains.
Edinburgh University’s Nicola Perugini went further, arguing that the segment presented the Israeli military’s framing that razing hospitals and abusing doctors is justified because medical facilities supposedly shielded fighters, without any pushback from the reporter reading it.
Abu Safiya’s deteriorating condition
Abu Safiya, former director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, has been detained since Israeli occupation forces stormed the facility on December 27, 2024, forcing it out of operation despite it being the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time, a raid that came after his son Ibrahim was killed in a strike on the hospital grounds.
More than 555 days into his detention, rights groups confirm that his situation is critical. Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal on July 5, warning that his life is in grave danger and noting that he has been held in solitary confinement since June 3 and denied adequate care for chronic conditions.
Detention upheld despite no charges
“Israel’s” Supreme Court upheld his latest detention order on June 16, extending his imprisonment under the “unlawful combatant” designation until at least October.
A July 2 visit by his lawyer, Nasser Odeh, documented fresh bruising around his head, eyes, and neck, difficulty breathing, and episodes of lost consciousness; Abu Safiya reportedly told Odeh he believes prison authorities intend to kill him.
His son Elyas said in a video message that his father can barely speak and that his face has been disfigured.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel called it among the most disturbing testimonies it has received since the war began.
Abu Safiya is one of at least 737 Palestinian medical workers detained since October 2023, a period in which more than 1,722 health workers have been martyred and nearly all of Gaza’s hospitals damaged or destroyed.
A pattern of bias
The episode fits a broader record of scrutiny facing the BBC over its coverage of the genocide in Gaza. A Centre for Media Monitoring study reviewing over 35,000 pieces of BBC content found Israeli deaths received 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths, with the word “massacre” applied 18 times more often to Israeli casualties and “murder” used 220 times for Israelis against a single instance for Palestinians.
More than 100 BBC staff signed a letter last year accusing the corporation of functioning as a government “mouthpiece”, citing insufficient scrutiny of Israeli statements and content they said resembled military public relations.
The broadcaster also shelved the documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” after initially approving it, a decision critics called emblematic of editorial self-censorship under political pressure, part of what commentators have termed the BBC’s deepening credibility crisis over its Gaza coverage.
Hamas is leaving government, not the resistance
A view of the destruction caused by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, as seen from Israel on June 02, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | July 7, 2026
Hamas’s decision to dissolve the Government Emergency Committee in the Gaza Strip and transfer civilian administration to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza marks a significant strategic shift. To interpret it as capitulation or defeat is to misunderstand the current stage of the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
The movement has reaffirmed its commitment to implementing the ceasefire agreement and fulfilling its responsibilities until Gaza’s civilian administration is fully transferred.
The decision should be understood as a tactical repositioning aimed at preserving three strategic objectives: Hamas’s political survival, the reconstruction of Palestinian national unity and the continuation of resistance.
The first is to preserve Hamas as a political, social and military force deeply rooted in Palestinian society.
For almost two decades, the movement has carried the dual burden of governing and resisting, administering a population subjected to blockade, repeated wars and the systematic destruction of the material conditions necessary for life.
After the most devastating war in contemporary Palestinian history, the occupation failed to achieve one of its principal declared objectives: eliminating Hamas.
Leaving Gaza’s day-to-day administration allows the movement to reduce its institutional exposure, reorganise its structures and concentrate on its historical reason for existence: the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
The second objective is to contribute to rebuilding Palestinian national unity.
The political and geographical fragmentation between Gaza and the West Bank, together with internal Palestinian divisions, has long constituted one of the occupation’s greatest strategic advantages.
By transferring civilian administration to a Palestinian national body, Hamas signals that governmental control over Gaza is subordinate to the broader objective of rebuilding national unity.
Gaza does not belong to Hamas. It belongs to the Palestinian people.
The new administration, however, cannot become an instrument of foreign tutelage or a mechanism for excluding political forces with genuine roots in Palestinian society.
The central challenge remains rebuilding a representative Palestinian leadership capable of speaking for Palestinians in the occupied territories, refugee camps and the diaspora.
The third objective is to preserve the continuity of resistance.
Governing and resisting are different political functions. A national liberation movement may participate in elections, administer territories, negotiate ceasefires and accept transitional governments. It may also withdraw from administrative structures when remaining within them threatens higher strategic objectives.
To confuse tactical flexibility with strategic abandonment is to misunderstand the history of anti-colonial struggles.
For years, “Israel” claimed that Hamas’s presence in government justified the blockade, military aggression and collective punishment imposed on Gaza.
Now that the movement has completed the procedures necessary to transfer civilian administration, the occupation is seeking to obstruct the implementation of the agreement, prevent the National Committee from assuming its responsibilities and create an administrative vacuum capable of prolonging Palestinian suffering.
The contradiction is revealing. The objective was never simply to remove Hamas from government, but to deprive the Palestinian people of their capacity to resist.
By demanding that mediators and guarantor states pressure “Israel” to comply with the agreement and allow the National Committee to begin its work, Hamas is also confronting these actors with their responsibilities.
The establishment of the new administration could restore essential public services, strengthen Palestinian resilience and begin confronting the humanitarian catastrophe produced by the war.
Hamas’s decision therefore puts the occupation’s own narrative to the test.
If the war was necessary because Hamas governed Gaza, then the movement’s departure from government should pave the way for the withdrawal of occupying forces, the opening of border crossings, reconstruction and an end to military aggression.
If new conditions continue to be imposed, the political reality will become impossible to conceal: the problem was never simply who governed Gaza, but the existence of a people who refuse submission, displacement and disappearance.
Hamas may leave ministries, dissolve committees and transfer civilian administration. But leaving government does not mean abandoning resistance.
Governing Gaza was a historical circumstance. The liberation of Palestine remains the strategic objective.
Red Sea tensions rise as French report claims military base is being built in Somaliland
MEMO | July 7, 2026
A report published by the French newspaper Le Monde says satellite image analysis indicates the gradual construction of a military base in the city of Berbera in the self-declared region of Somaliland.
According to the report, the project is being supported by the United Arab Emirates and is intended to serve the interests of the United States and Israel.
Le Monde said satellite images reviewed by the newspaper showed continued expansion of Berbera Airport since October 2025, including infrastructure development. The newspaper said the work suggests a new military facility is being built at a strategically important location near the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
The report said Berbera has attracted growing interest from regional and international powers because of its location on the Gulf of Aden, close to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important maritime routes.
It linked the reported developments to increasing competition for influence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, amid regional security tensions and efforts to protect international shipping lanes.
According to the newspaper, the report included no official comment from the UAE, the United States or Israel. There has also been no official response from the authorities in Somaliland or the Somali federal government to the claims.
Berbera occupies a strategic position on the Gulf of Aden near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which a significant share of global trade and energy supplies passes between Asia and Europe. Its location has made the area a focus of military and economic competition among regional and international powers.
The UAE has invested in Berbera Port for several years through DP World, which is responsible for developing and operating the port. The UAE previously used facilities in Berbera for logistical and military purposes during its operations in Yemen before announcing a reduction in its military presence there.
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From the Archive
Zionism’s Violent Legacy
By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996
On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.
This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. … continue
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