Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Villains of Judea: Abe Foxman

Foxman turned the ADL into a powerhouse but left behind a legacy of surveillance scandals, political vendettas, and selective outrage.

José Niño Unfiltered | May 24, 2026

When Abraham Foxman died on May 10, 2026, tributes poured in from presidents, prime ministers, and Jewish leaders worldwide, yet his legacy remains defined as much by controversy as by accomplishment.

Foxman described himself as “a passionate supporter of the State of Israel” and spent his career building the ADL into a roughly $60 million per year organization that defined mainstream American Jewish advocacy on antisemitism, civil rights, and the Jewish state.

Foxman was born Avraham Chanoch Hanach Fuksman on May 1, 1940, in Baranovichi, then under Soviet occupation, now Belarus. When German forces entered Vilnius in June 1941 and began subjecting the Jewish population to forced labor and deportation, his parents placed their 15-month-old son in the care of his Polish Catholic nanny Bronisława Kurpi. Kurpi baptized the child into the Catholic Church, gave him the Polish Christian name Henryk Stanisław Kurpi, and raised him as a Catholic in Vilnius for four years. He learned to pray the rosary, attended church every Sunday, and genuinely believed he was Catholic.

His parents survived the war. After bitter custody battles—Kurpi initially refused to release him, telling the Fuksmans, “I raised him, and he belongs to me, and he is Catholic”—the family escaped to a displaced persons’ camp in Vienna in 1947 and arrived in the United States in 1950.

Foxman settled in Brooklyn, attended the Yeshivah of Flatbush, earned a Bachelor of Arts from the City College of New York, and received his J.D. from New York University School of Law. He joined the ADL in 1965 as a legal assistant and rose quickly through the organization’s ranks. When longtime director Nathan Perlmutter died of cancer in July 1987, Foxman became National Director.

Under Foxman’s 28-year leadership, the ADL built a formidable research arm monitoring white advocacy groups, neo-Nazis, and other dissident groups. The ADL expanded its international reach with consultations across Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Foxman was appointed to the council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and was re-appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden—making him, as the USHMM confirmed, “the only member of the Museum’s governing Council to be appointed by four presidents from both parties.”

With Foxman at the helm, the ADL also advocated for LGBTQ rights, including protesting the Supreme Court’s 2000 ruling in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale—which held 5-4 that the Boy Scouts could exclude a gay scoutmaster on First Amendment associational grounds. The organization also developed diversity training for law enforcement agencies and advocated for policies promoting mass migration.

Foxman operated at the center of American Jewry. The ADL and AIPAC were close partners in White House meetings and lobbying coordination. Foxman was a key participant in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and worked closely with the American Jewish Committee on public advocacy.

Further, Foxman was one of the most internationally active American Jewish leaders of his era. In March 2012, releasing the ADL’s survey of ten European countries, Foxman warned that antisemitism in Europe remained a dangerous reality. “In Hungary, Spain and Poland the numbers for anti-Semitic attitudes are literally off-the-charts and demand a serious response from political, civic and religious leaders,” he stated—findings based on poll data showing 63% of Hungarians, 53% of Spaniards, and 48% of Poles holding antisemitic views.

Foxman held consultations in Russia on “problems of ethnic hatred, violence, terrorism and promoting democracy,” attended Limmud FSU conferences engaging Russian-speaking Jewish youth, and remained deeply concerned about antisemitism in post-Soviet states. He consistently condemned Arab and Palestinian resistance and Hamas’s liberation agenda. He insisted that much criticism of Israel crossed into antisemitism, arguing: “If the only nationalism that you find apartheid in is Jewish nationalism, then you’re an anti-Semite.”

Retiring in 2015, Foxman warned that antisemitism was “the worst that it has been since World War II, and it is global”—saying he “never thought anti-Semitism would still be a clear and present danger to Jews around the world.” In 2024, he delivered an address at the ADL’s “Never Is Now” conference stating that antisemitism is “a disease without an antidote and without a vaccine.”

Foxman viewed Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an existential threat. In a 2007 speech to the ADL National Commission, he declared: “The greatest threat to the Jewish people and closest thing to dangers of the 1930s and 1940s is a potent cocktail consisting of the ideology of hate from an Iran with a potential nuclear weapon. This is an existential threat to Israel from an irrational regime that must be taken with the utmost seriousness.” When Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted content questioning the Holocaust on Twitter in 2014, Foxman responded: “Once again, the injection of Holocaust denial by an Iranian leader shows the world how such deep-seated hatred exists at the helm in Iran. We have seen the Ayatollah spew his vehement animosity toward Jews before on other national occasions in Iran and these statements once again show the bigotry and hypocrisy of this regime.”

Weeks before his death, Foxman backed the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. On February 28, 2026—the day the war broke out—he posted on social media: “Thank you President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu for standing up to evil and jihadist extremism. The world hopefully will be a better and safer place in the future.”

Foxman’s willingness to take controversial public stands was no late development. He led or supported numerous high-profile campaigns throughout his career. When Nation of Islam spokesperson Khalid Abdul Muhammad delivered a speech at Kean College in November 1993 referring to Jews as “bloodsuckers” and calling for the genocide of white people, Foxman’s ADL ran a full-page ad in The New York Times reprinting Muhammad’s statements. This mobilization directly contributed to Congress issuing a bipartisan condemnation of the speech in February 1994.

Foxman regularly addressed antisemitic or borderline remarks by public figures. In September 2003, during pre-release controversy over The Passion of the Christ, he asserted that Gibson’s remarks were painting “the portrait of an anti-Semite”—though he walked back the characterization the following day, and by February 2004 told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that Gibson was not an anti-Semite and the film was not antisemitic. Foxman co-authored the 2013 book Viral Hate: Containing Its Spread on the Internet with attorney Christopher Wolf, who served as national chair of the ADL Civil Rights Committee, addressing how antisemites and racists exploited the internet.

Foxman produced several other books warning about the alleged scourge of antisemitism. Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism appeared in 2003. The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control came out in 2007 as a direct rebuttal to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which Publishers Weekly described as “a rebuttal of a pernicious theory about a mythically powerful Jewish lobby.”

Not all of Foxman’s tenure at the ADL would be remembered in such favorable terms. In April 1993, San Francisco police and the FBI executed searches at ADL offices in California and discovered that the organization had been running an extensive domestic intelligence operation for decades. The operation centered on Roy Bullock, an undercover operative and art dealer who had collected files on more than 12,000 individuals and 950 organizations for more than three decades. His targets included not just white advocates and neo-Nazis but also Arab American groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the African National Congress, Central America solidarity organizations, Greenpeace, the Earth Island Institute, approximately 20 San Francisco area labor unions, anti-apartheid activists, and Jewish peace groups. Bullock had also sold information to South African intelligence for $16,000.

Foxman denied any improper activity while testifying that the ADL had a right to do “whatever it must” to monitor antisemitism and threats to Jews. Critics across the political spectrum condemned the operation as a massive breach of civil liberties.

One of the most sustained controversies of Foxman’s career involved his refusal to unequivocally recognize the Armenian genocide. Critics, including the Armenian National Committee of America, accused Foxman of “genocide denial” motivated by the ADL’s desire to maintain good relations with the Turkish government. The backlash was severe. A dozen Massachusetts communities and the Massachusetts Municipal Association withdrew from the ADL’s “No Place for Hate” program. The ADL’s 2007 statement that the “consequences” of Ottoman actions were “tantamount to genocide” was widely rejected as insufficient because it circumvented the “intent” required under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Foxman also sent a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan expressing regret over the difficulty his position caused for the Turkish government. It was not until May 2014 that Foxman publicly and unambiguously used the word “genocide” in remarks at Suffolk University Law School’s commencement, after years of sustained pressure.

The Armenian Genocide controversy was not the only multi-decade fight to mark Foxman’s career. Foxman engaged in a 22-year campaign against paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan. After Buchanan’s 2011 book Suicide of a Superpower was published, Foxman called him “a racist and an anti-Semite.” Buchanan was suspended from MSNBC in January 2012 and fired in February, and he publicly credited Foxman with playing a role in his dismissal. The ADL published a formal report titled “Patrick Buchanan: Over the Line.” Buchanan described Foxman as leading efforts to “blacklist” him, working “behind closed doors, with phone calls, mailed threats, and off-the-record meetings.” In a similar vein, Justin Raimondo, founder of Antiwar.com, was one of the most sustained libertarian critics of the ADL and Foxman. Raimondo argued that the ADL used antisemitism accusations to suppress foreign policy debate.

Whatever his American critics made of him, Foxman moved comfortably among Israel’s top political leadership across multiple governments. Foxman met with multiple Israeli prime ministers, some of whom made direct appeals to President Bill Clinton for the Marc Rich pardon. Foxman cooperated with World Jewish Congress leader Edgar Bronfman on major campaigns including Holocaust-era Swiss bank restitution. While the primary negotiation was led by Bronfman and the World Jewish Congress, the ADL under Foxman was a coalition partner in pressing Swiss banks to settle Holocaust-era claims, which resulted in a $1.25 billion settlement in 1998.

Foxman made a well-documented intervention in favor of fugitive financier Marc Rich’s pardon from President Clinton. The ADL had received $250,000 from Rich over a period of 16 years, including a $100,000 pledge made just before Foxman traveled to Paris. In February 2000, Foxman met at a Paris restaurant with Avner Azulay, head of the Marc Rich Foundation, and Zvi Rafiah, an Israeli arms consultant, and it was Foxman himself who proposed the strategy of recruiting Denise Rich to approach Clinton for a pardon. “I told them maybe they should consider trying to get a pardon,” Foxman said. “I told them, ‘Why don’t you reach out to Denise Rich… and have her approach the president and see about a pardon.’”

He wrote Clinton on December 7, 2000, urging a pardon on the grounds that “we are a country that was founded on the belief in second chances.” New York Times columnist William Safire called for Foxman to resign, writing that Rich’s $250,000 to the ADL had “induced its national director to lobby President Bill Clinton for forgiveness and thereby bring glee to the hearts of anti-Semites.”

Abraham Foxman was the consummate architect of a specific brand of ethnic activism, relentlessly searching for every angle to advance Jewish institutional interests and cement a landscape where the concerns of world Jewry were elevated above all others. Yet, even as he built these formidable structures of influence, he unwittingly accelerated the very forces he claimed to fight.

His career served as a catalyst for a tide of grassroots resentment against World Jewry that has only surged since October 7, 2023. Like many of his kin who sought to reshape Western nations in their own image, Foxman dedicated his life to the systematic erosion of gentile civilization for the benefit of his tribe.

Now that he has exited the stage, he leaves behind a nation awakening to the nature of his subversion. May he face that eternal justice that human institutions could not provide, aware that the tide has finally turned against the Jewish supremacist agenda he spent his entire life promoting.

May 26, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Comments Off on Villains of Judea: Abe Foxman

A new regional logic? If Israel strikes Lebanon, Iran strikes back at the UAE

By Trita Parsi | May 25, 2026

Despite the ceasefire and tentative progress toward a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, the Persian Gulf has remained perilously volatile. In the past 24 hours alone, several rounds of fire have been exchanged between US and Iranian forces in the region. Though both sides appear to view the incidents — which may have killed as many as four IRGC naval personnel — as falling below the threshold that would shatter the ceasefire altogether, the clashes underscore the fragility of the current arrangement and the ever-present danger of renewed escalation.

Yet in recent days, it was not the Persian Gulf that emerged as the greatest threat to the agreement. It was Israel’s potential refusal to fully adhere to the regional ceasefire and halt its bombardment of Lebanon. That danger remains acute.

Iran has three principal reasons for insisting that any ceasefire be genuinely regional in scope — one that includes not only the United States and Iran, but also Israel and Lebanon.

First, solidarity with the peoples of Gaza and Lebanon is not merely rhetorical theater for Tehran; it lies at the heart of the Islamic Republic’s regional identity and strategic posture. Having already been perceived by some in the Arab world as abandoning these constituencies in 2024, Iran can scarcely afford another rupture that would further erode its credibility within the so-called “axis of resistance.”

Second, continued Israeli attacks risk reigniting direct confrontation between Israel and Iran — a dangerous cycle that has already erupted twice since October 7, 2023. The linkage between these theaters is neither imagined nor incidental. It is openly acknowledged in Western discourse, which routinely portrays Iran as the central node of resistance to Israeli and American policies, operating through allied groups in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen. From Tehran’s vantage point, a durable cessation of hostilities with Israel cannot be disentangled from ending Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. For Iran, this is not an aspirational addendum to diplomacy; it is a foundational condition.

But perhaps the most consequential issue is what Lebanon reveals about Washington itself. For Tehran, tying Israel to the ceasefire is ultimately a test of America’s willingness — and ability — to restrain its closest regional ally. If Trump either cannot or will not do so, then the value of any agreement with Washington comes sharply into question. A ceasefire that leaves Israel free to reignite hostilities at will — while the United States remains unable to prevent itself from being dragged back into conflict — offers little assurance of stability. Under such circumstances, the utility of a deal with Washington diminishes dramatically.

Trump could still choose to put American interests first and compel Israel to comply, much as Ronald Reagan did in 1982 when he pressured Prime Minister Menachem Begin to halt Israel’s devastating assault on Lebanon. Reagan reportedly expressed outrage at the bombardment of Beirut, warning Begin that America’s support could not be taken for granted. Within hours, the bombing stopped. Trump, by contrast, has thus far shown little ability to ensure sustained Israeli compliance with his demands.

A more plausible scenario may be a murkier and more dangerous one: Washington and Tehran reach an agreement, Israel initially abides by it, but over time gradually extricates itself from the arrangement and resumes strikes on Lebanon under the familiar banner of “self-defense.”

At that point, Iran would face a painful dilemma. Tehran would almost certainly pressure Trump to intervene and might even threaten to abandon the agreement altogether. But if Washington failed to act, would Iran truly sacrifice sanctions relief, economic recovery, and an end to open warfare merely to register its objections? Moreover, walking away from the deal might not compel Trump to restrain Israel. Iran could end up with neither an agreement nor a ceasefire in Lebanon. In fact, it would be an outcome Israel would welcome.

One option increasingly discussed within segments of Iran’s security establishment is more ominous still: remaining within the agreement while imposing costs elsewhere — namely on the United Arab Emirates, one of Israel’s closest regional partners. This argument has circulated quietly within segments of Iran’s security establishment, though the extent of its support remains unclear. Yet given the growing sentiment among Iranian decision-makers that Tehran showed excessive restraint toward the UAE during the war, the notion of a “UAE for Lebanon” strategy no longer appears far-fetched.

The logic is brutally simple. If the broader US-Iran arrangement tolerates Israel attacking an Iranian ally in Lebanon, then Tehran may conclude that the same arrangement can tolerate Iran targeting an Israeli ally in the Persian Gulf. Under such a scenario, Iran could retaliate against Emirati territory or Israeli operatives based there for every Israeli strike conducted in Lebanon. Rather than collapsing the agreement outright, Tehran would seek to exact a calibrated price for Israeli noncompliance.

Such a strategy would carry grave risks. Emirati retaliation could follow, potentially igniting a wider regional confrontation. Yet it remains unclear whether Washington would rush to the UAE’s defense if doing so meant destroying the very agreement it had negotiated with Tehran. In that sense, the strategy would place the burden back on the United States: either restrain Israel or watch the conflict metastasize across the Persian Gulf.

The implications for the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council would be profound. Few Gulf states harbor deep affection for the UAE’s increasingly muscular regional posture, but even fewer desire another destabilizing regional war. Moreover, forcefully condemning Iranian retaliation against the Emirates would only throw into sharper relief the broader Arab silence surrounding Israel’s ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon.

Hopefully, none of this comes to pass. A durable agreement between Washington and Tehran — backed by the overwhelming majority of regional states — remains possible. And Trump could yet decide that preserving regional stability requires compelling Israel to respect the terms of a broader ceasefire.

But the very fact that Tehran is contemplating escalation against the UAE if Israel escalates in Lebanon illustrates the degree to which the Emirates have made themselves needless targets in the larger Israeli-Iranian rivalry by signing the Abraham Accords.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on A new regional logic? If Israel strikes Lebanon, Iran strikes back at the UAE

May 25: South Lebanon continues to liberate the homeland

By Lea Akil | Al Mayadeen | May 25, 2026

Marking the 2000 Israeli withdrawal after 22 years of occupation, the Resistance today is still standing strong on the frontlines. Here is a look into the history of occupation and the deterrence written in blood.

Every year, the Resistance and Liberation Day in Lebanon is marked across the country, especially in the South, with ululations echoing through the streets, feet shaking the ground to liberation songs, and motorcades filling the roads of villages and towns. It is a day that recalls the moment southern Lebanon was liberated from 22 years of Israeli occupation on May 25, 2000, marking the defeat of what was once known as an “invincible army”.

But as I write these words today, southern Lebanon is bleeding again. This year, the memory is no longer only about ululations and celebrations; it is about the resilience of the South, the same resilience that made liberation possible in the first place.

Twenty-six years later, the Israeli occupation has not ended its efforts to occupy southern Lebanon, nor its attacks on civilians, nor its broader expansionist agenda. However, since May 25, a new equation of deterrence has been written across the border. And as the occupation escalates, the resistance continues to adapt; as military capabilities evolve on one side, the other continues to consistently work to deter and resist, even with a hefty price paid in blood.

The occupation came first

The Israeli occupation has always sold a false narrative about its occupation and aggression against southern Lebanon by justifying its attacks under the umbrella of so-called security measures, but history has proven otherwise.

Way before any well-established resistance movement was recorded in southern Lebanon, the Israeli occupation invaded the area on November 1, 1948, and occupied 15 villages, simultaneously with the occupation of Palestine. On October 24, the Israeli Carmeli Brigade invaded the town of Houla and committed a massacre, which resulted in at least 67 martyrs.

There were records of 14 massacres in one week during the so-called “Operation Hiram”, which was launched “in a bid to cleanse the area of its population,” according to records by MERIP. As mentioned in its records, Israeli soldiers violently and forcibly expelled the residents of at least seven Lebanese villages in areas near the northern border of Palestine during that period.

The IOF then withdrew from occupied Lebanese villages by mid-March 1949 (Houla, al-Mansoura, Suruh, Ghabbatiyya, Kafr ‘Inan, Marus, al-Ras al-Ahmar, Kafr Bir’im, Iqrit, Iribbin, Mi’ilya, Arab al-Samniyya, and Nabi Rubin), as under the negotiated armistice terms, “Israel” was compelled to withdraw from occupied villages. Seven villages (Ibl al-Qamh, Hounin, al-Nabi Yusha’, Qadas, al-Malikiyya, Salha, and Tarbikha) remained under occupation and were turned into illegal Israeli settlements.

The aggression, however, didn’t stop there. In 1967, the UN ISPAL recorded Israeli massacres in Houla and Hanin.

The second Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon began on March 14, 1978, killing approximately a thousand civilians, before the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) withdrew under the UNSC Resolution 425, which demanded an immediate withdrawal of the IOF and the transfer of control to the UNFIL. But “Israel” transferred control of border areas to Saad Haddad’s “Army of Free Lebanon” (AFL), an Israeli-backed splinter faction of the Lebanese Army, which emerged in 1976, before being renamed the “South Lebanon Army” (SLA) in May 1980.

“Israel” reinvaded Lebanon on June 6, 1982, advancing all the way to Beirut and killing at least 19,000 civilians, before it was forced to withdraw to the so-called “security zone” in southern Lebanon, a point at which a resistance nucleus began to take shape.

Israeli pressure tools in southern Lebanon

The occupation operated through two parallel chains of command: the Israeli Occupation Forces as the occupying power, and the so-called South Lebanon Army (SLA) as “Israel’s” collaborationist force and punching bag, also carrying out different tactics of aggression, targeting the people economically, physically, and psychologically.

One of the crimes carried out by the occupation was the SLA’s practice of forced conscription of Lebanese civilian men. All males over 18 living in the occupied area were required to serve one year as SLA military recruits, effectively fighting for a force occupying their own territory. Human Rights Watch documented that the SLA “filled its ranks through the involuntary conscription of residents of the ‘security zone,’ including children.” Men who refused faced harassment, detention, economic punishment, and their houses were demolished with their families inside.

Khiam Detention Center: Systematic torture

As part of the occupation’s torture tactics was the established Khiam Detention Center in al-Khiam, which was targeted in an Israeli airstrike during the 2006 war on Lebanon and completely razed during the ongoing war today, in an effort to erase the footprints of Israeli barbarism and the subsequent heroic resistance that forced its closure for good.

During the Israeli occupation, the established detention center replaced the Ansar detention camp (located in the southern town of Ansar) and housed more than 5,000 Lebanese citizens, resistance supporters, and fighters, who were held in harsh conditions and subjected to systematic torture by the SLA.

In the center, the Israeli-backed forces exercised extensive torture practices, including electric shocks, prolonged suspension from ceilings, sleep deprivation, deprivation of food and water, and extended solitary confinement, as well as the “red box”, a metal container where the detainee had to sit in a squatting position and the guards would bang on it with metal rods, with the sound reportedly reaching nearby villages.

Additionally, “Israel” denied Red Cross access to detainees despite the evidence of savage torture. The detention system was also reportedly used as a coercive leverage mechanism, with families of detainees pressured to provide information on resistance activities in exchange for updates about, or the release of, their relatives. Today, “Israel” isn’t preventing healthcare workers; it’s deliberately bombing them, alongside journalists, further exposing its savagery against civilians in southern Lebanon and its fear of the truth.

Economic strangulation of occupied South

The Israeli occupation also heavily relied on the economic strangulation of South Lebanon and its people by establishing chokepoints, setting the grounds for economic dependency, destroying the region’s agriculture, and completely isolating the region from the rest of Lebanon.

The IOF’s checkpoint system established economic control as a deliberate instrument of occupation. The occupation installed curfews, bans on night travel, motorcycles, and multiple passengers per vehicle, alongside extensive searches and unpredictable closures. The Awali River checkpoint, which was established in 1982 during the Israeli invasion, became the primary chokepoint for all goods moving between south and north Lebanon, causing delays, confiscations, and arbitrary shutdowns that made normal commerce structurally impossible. Supply chains collapsed, contracts could not be honoured, and agriculture and industry were effectively severed from national markets.

Economic dependency was simultaneously engineered from the other direction. Israeli goods flooded the occupied zone while southern producers were barred from Lebanese markets and forced to sell primarily to “Israel”.

The land itself was targeted. Crop destruction, contamination of farmland with mines, military deployment across cultivated areas, and later use of white phosphorus rendered large tracts unusable. Moreover, significant portions of agricultural land remain inaccessible to this day due to unexploded ordnance.

Approximately 180,000 residents lived outside effective Lebanese state administration for the duration of the occupation. Services, infrastructure, and governance were mediated through the SLA rather than Beirut. Movement restrictions severed access to national courts, healthcare, education, and family networks. Lebanese state investment halted at the occupation perimeter, triggering a long-term demographic displacement.

The cumulative economic disruption did not end with the 2000 withdrawal. The wars of 2006, 2024, and now 2026 have continued the same cycles of infrastructural and agricultural loss, attempting to fracture any attempt at a full economic reset by committing acts of agriecocide and ecocide.

Israeli massacres in southern Lebanon 

Beyond the structural violence of occupation, Israeli forces conducted periodic large-scale attacks that killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians, in an effort to carry out mass killings and trigger mass displacement. Some of the notable attacks are the Israeli massacre in 1993 and the April aggression (Udwan Nisan) in 1996.

Israeli massacre in July 1993

“Israel” launched the so-called “Operation Accountability” on July 25, 1993. For seven days, the IOF bombarded southern Lebanese villages with massed artillery and airstrikes. Approximately 118 to 120 Lebanese civilians were killed and close to 500 were wounded. The attack displaced an estimated 300,000 people northward toward Beirut, a displacement that was not incidental but declared as a strategic objective. The IOF’s logic, openly stated by Israeli officials, was to generate a humanitarian crisis.

April aggression in 1996

Known in Lebanon as Udwan Nisan, the April Aggression was carried out for seventeen days from April 11 to 27 in 1996, authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The IOF flew over 600 air sorties and fired approximately 25,000 artillery shells against Lebanese territory. Evacuation threats were issued to 86 villages, displacing approximately 400,000 people. Among the deliberate targets struck by a helicopter gunship was an ambulance carrying fleeing civilians near Tyre, killing two women and four children.

On April 18, 1996, at 2:07 in the afternoon, Israeli artillery fired 36 shells at the UNIFIL compound near Qana, which was sheltering between 800 and 845 civilians who had fled the bombardment of surrounding villages. One hundred and six people were killed, among them a disproportionate number of children.

Resistance born under occupation

As it has become clear, before any organized armed group existed in South Lebanon, the region was reeling under Israeli invasions and attacks. The resistance then emerged from the very ground Israeli boots were forced to leave, as the South saw the sprouting of small groups individually targeting the Israeli occupation.

Among the first Lebanese to take up arms were secular leftists. Following the 1978 invasion and “Israel’s” installation of Haddad’s AFL, cadres of the Lebanese Communist Party and the Organization of Communist Action began conducting small-scale armed operations in the South. Simultaneously, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, with deep roots in southern Lebanese villages, was running parallel operations against Israeli patrols and AFL positions.

These operations were scattered and uncoordinated, but they established something essential: an armed Lebanese refusal of the occupation, rooted in the land itself; a mission protected by international law that broadly acknowledges the right of people under foreign occupation to resist, including the use of armed struggle, to achieve self-determination.

The resistance that eventually drove “Israel” out was never the product of a single sect or ideology. It was communist, nationalist, and Islamic. It was Shia, Sunni, Druze, and Christian, unlike how some try to portray it under tight sectarian titles. What unified these currents was a common geography, the occupied South.

The same occupation planted in the land also saw the blossoming of the Movement of the Deprived, co-founded by Imam Musa al-Sadr and Greek Catholic Bishop Grégoire Haddad in 1974. On January 20, 1975, the military wing was established as the Lebanese Resistance Regiments to fight and repel the occupation. The regiments engaged in operations against the Israelis before evolving toward institutional politics in 1980 after the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr.

34 years after the first Israeli invasion, Hezbollah was formed in 1982 from the very seed that Sayyed al-Sadr had planted against the occupation.

Hezbollah: An imposed deterrent equation

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah did not emerge from a conference room; it emerged from under occupation.

The first phase of Hezbollah’s operational strategy was not guerrilla-like in the classical sense. The Resistance group adopted the methodology of strategic coercion through hard-scale operations, designed to make the cost of Israeli presence in Lebanon so high that continued presence became untenable. Hezbollah began engaging in jihadist operations using car bombs.

On November 11, 1982, an explosive-laden truck was driven by a resistance fighter into the Israeli military headquarters in Tyre, before exploding and killing 75 soldiers. A year later, on November 4, 1983, the IOF headquarters in Tyre was bombed again, killing 28 Israelis.

After “Israel’s” partial withdrawal to the so-called “security zone” in 1985, the nature of the campaign shifted. Hezbollah, at the time, fought a grinding occupation over a defined strip of territory rather than a sprawling invasion and carried out large-scale frontal raids on IOF and SLA outposts, which resulted in heavy losses.

Katyusha\Grad rockets: A new deterrent equation

In parallel, the Katyusha\Grad rocket was first used in the mid-1980s and was highly visible on the battlefield in the 1990s. What the Katyusha\Grad introduced was not a military victory but something more durable, a deterrence equation. Hezbollah did not fire the rockets indiscriminately. It fired them in calibrated, declared responses to Israeli strikes on Lebanese civilians, establishing through practice what eventually became an informal but understood rule: attacks on Lebanese civilian areas would be met with rockets into northern “Israel”.

This equation was visible during the aforementioned Israeli aggression in 1993 under “Operation Accountability”, and seventeen days in 1996 under the April aggression, “Israel” unleashed its full air and artillery power on southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah retaliated every single day with Katyusha\Grad rockets on northern occupied Palestine, emptiying Kiryat Shmona, paralyzed the economy in occupied al-Jalil, and placed the Israeli government under unbearable domestic political pressure, pushing it to turn to Washignton and Paris to broker the 1993 and 1996 understandings.

IED war, tactical adaptation

The 1990s were defined by a single tactical contest: Hezbollah’s roadside bombs against any IOF deployment. When the IOF used sniffer dogs to detect wire-triggered devices, Hezbollah concealed IEDs inside fiberglass rocks and switched to radio detonation.

When the IOF swept radio frequencies from Mount Hermon listening posts, Hezbollah switched to cell phone receivers. By the end of the war in 2000, IOF mine-clearing patrols were physically counting rocks along roads to identify which were fiberglass, an image that captured the dramatic shift in the military balance.

By 1998, the rate of operations had reached nearly four operations per day. The attack on the Ansariyye beach landing in September 1997, in which twelve Shayetet 13 commandos were killed in a single night, after Hezbollah obtained Israeli drone reconnaissance footage of the landing zone four days before the operation, demonstrated that Hezbollah had achieved not just tactical superiority but intelligence penetration of IOF operational planning.

On February 28, 1999, the IED campaign reached its peak, with the killing of Brigadier General Erez Gerstein, the senior IOF commander in Lebanon, in a roadside bomb disguised as a rock near Kfar Shouba.

The day of resistance and liberation

By 1995, a paratrooper unit had been disbanded after soldiers refused a Lebanon deployment, and by 2000, 200 IOF soldiers had been imprisoned for refusing to serve in the area, fearing the Resistance’s operations, thus weakening the Israeli occupation.

When “Israel” completed its withdrawal on May 24, 2000, no IOF officer could credibly claim the army had achieved anything in Lebanon. On the contrary, “Israel” had a designed exit scenario, but the Resistance shattered it before it could have been executed.

May 25, 2000, was announced as a national historic day, marking the IOF’s forced, unconditional withdrawal from southern Lebanon, ending an 18-year military occupation.

Martyred Hezbollah Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, during his famous Bint Jbeil speech on May 26, 2000, declared that the IOF intended to withdraw gradually over several weeks beyond May 25. When the UN Security Council issued a resolution and UNIFIL arrived to take charge, “Israel” intended to frame the departure as a sovereign, orderly transition and, crucially, could have claimed to be “liberating” the al-Khiam detainees as a gesture of goodwill, to sell the narrative of an Israeli choice rather than Israeli defeat.

But instead, civilians from the occupied villages, side by side with Resistance fighters, broke through to liberated areas in the towns of al-Qantara, Deir Seryan, al-Qusair, and al-Taybeh on May 22 and 23. SLA positions began collapsing one after another in a single night. The central sector of the so-called “security zone” collapsed within hours, and Israeli soldiers fled, leaving everything behind.

On the morning of May 23, 2000, residents of al-Khiam marched to the Khiam Detention Center, chanting Allahu Akbar (God is Great), tore the bars off the cells with their bare hands, and carried the detainees who had been unlawfully imprisoned for months and years, out into the sun. Some fainted, some wept, others kissed the ground; southern Lebanon was liberated.

The most notorious symbol of the occupation was liberated by its own people and fighters.

From IEDs to FPVs: The equation still holds

Today, the pattern has not changed. In the 1990s, Hezbollah defeated “Israel’s” wire-detection technology with fiberglass. In 2006, it defeated “Israel’s” air supremacy with Kornet rockets, and in 2026, it continues to defeat “Israel’s” electronic dominance with a fiber-optic cable, introducing the FPV drone, and more specifically, the Ababil FPV drones.

The occupation, indeed, has become more aggressive and bloodier, but the Resistance has proven to be more adaptable. The equation written on May 25, 2000, endures: that the people of this land, given will and time, can raise the cost of occupation beyond what it can bear. It is being rewritten, kilometer by kilometer, in the hills, forests, and valleys of southern Lebanon, with a spool of cable and a low-cost drone.

The equation Hezbollah established in 2000 was not a peace agreement, a ceasefire, or a diplomatic settlement. It was a demonstrated fact that an occupying army, regardless of its technological superiority, can be forced out through sustained, adaptive resistance that raises the cost of presence beyond what the occupying entity is willing to pay.

Twenty-six years later, that same demonstration is being performed again, and “Israel”, with five divisions on Lebanese soil and an “unlimited budget” allocated to counter $400 drones, is on the wrong side of the equation again. The organization that Israeli officials described as “significantly weakened” after the war in 2024 is conducting an average of 24 separate operations on Israeli soldiers, vehicles, and positions in a single day.

Liberation continues to be rewritten right now, in the hills around al-Khiam and in Bint Jbeil, al-Taybeh, Ayta al-Shaab, al-Naqoura, Maroun al-Ras, Ainata, and al-Ghandouriyeh. It is being rewritten across all of southern Lebanon. And the South, our South, remains steadfast and forever-present, holding steady under the boots of the very men that stand their ground on the frontlines, steadfast and resilient.

And “Israel”? as martyr Sayyed Nasrallah put it during his famous speech in Bint Jbeil, “By Allah, Israel, which owns nuclear weapons and the strongest air fleets in the region, is indeed frailer than a spider web.”

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on May 25: South Lebanon continues to liberate the homeland

The journey to the second liberation of South Lebanon

The spider’s web theory lives on

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | May 25, 2026

Twenty-six years on from the liberation of South Lebanon, the message has become clear: as long as the Israeli regime remains, peace will never be possible. This year’s Liberation Day anniversary will be observed by a population that is now fighting another struggle against occupation, one that will have implications beyond the freeing of Lebanese lands alone.

On May 25, 2000, the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from most of the Lebanese lands they had occupied illegally in 1982; a move that came following nearly two decades of brutal oppression and was triggered as a result of the fierce resistance waged by the local population. For the Arab World, and specifically for the Palestinian cause for national liberation, that day became a signal that resistance does work.

A day later, former Hezbollah Secretary General, martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, delivered his famous ‘Spider’s Web’ speech from a small football stadium in Bint Jbeil, arguing that the Lebanese model of armed resistance is a blueprint for the Palestinian people. This address has haunted the Israeli senior leadership ever since.

What Sayyed Nasrallah laid out was the theory that the Zionist regime was frailer than a spider’s web, meaning that despite its exterior, internally it was weak and could easily be cut down. He paid particular attention, when stating this metaphor, to ensuring the public knew precisely what he meant, which was that the Israeli society was incapable of enduring the repercussions of the regime’s policies. Today, this speech could not be more relevant.

The Israeli military doctrine, since the entity’s founding, has been based on the concept of always fighting short wars and avoiding wars of attrition. David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, was the first to ensure that his settler project implemented this doctrine, arguing that because his military was more advanced, they could manage to inflict defeats on the enemies, but that the wars it fought had to be limited due to the overwhelming numerical advantages on the Arab side.

If you look back through Israeli military history, you will also notice a pattern of short wars, especially those in which the Zionist entity achieved significant gains. Their most successful war was the “6-Day War” for example. Even last year, their attack on Iran became the “12-Day War”.

The Israelis withdrew from South Lebanon because they understood that the fight they were facing was going to bog them down and drain them, especially as the Lebanese Resistance was gradually growing in strength. In the Gaza Strip, the same concept applied in 2005. They ran cost-benefit analyses and decided it was best to leave.

Over the years, having only fought short wars against militarily inferior opponents, the Israeli society was able to live in its own bubble world. The consequences of their actions were a small price to pay, especially if these consequences were only felt during shorter periods of time. Other than this, they maintained belligerent occupations, meaning that their army was transformed into more of a riot police force than a proper standing army.

During the Second Intifada, which began in 2000, only months after the liberation of South Lebanon, the Israelis then transitioned into a method of warfare that depended more heavily on “targeted assassinations” and special forces raids. They implemented this strategy, alongside their counterinsurgency approach to warfare, and specialized in occupying civilian populations.

In 2006, they encountered a new obstacle, sustained rocket fire on their settlements, managing to blast as deep into occupied Palestine as Haifa. Later on, the Palestinian Resistance would develop its own rockets and eventually reach Tel Aviv and beyond. However, due to Gaza’s resistance being significantly weaker than Hezbollah, they settled for limited wars of aggression where they would implement the infamous “Dahieh Doctrine” – targeting the civilian population as a means of achieving future “deterrence”.

Lebanese Hezbollah managed to deter the Israelis for 17 years, even managing to force the Zionists to accept an agreement demarcating Lebanese maritime borders. However, the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood operation jolted the Israelis into a reactionary and accelerationist mindset; they were no longer willing to slowly achieve their goals; instead, they had to do things at a pace in their minds.

But they fell into a trap; they were dragged into a war of attrition. In Gaza, this was something they could survive because the rocket fire gradually dwindled, and their soldiers refused to actually fight the Palestinian Resistance head-on. Instead, they carried out a genocide from a distance, mainly, with their main goal being to destroy buildings.

Which brings us back to South Lebanon. As you read this, the second guerrilla war of liberation is being waged, aiming at achieving an even bigger goal than was achieved in 2000. Hezbollah is now facing a similar predicament to what occurred in 1982 when the Israelis declared a “security zone” in southern Lebanon, which they maintained until the formal occupation was declared in 1985.

The major difference is that the Lebanese Resistance was still in its infancy in the 1980s, and the Palestinian Resistance had left in 1982. This time, the Israelis have been drawn into a trap, one that they cannot easily get out of. It is the beginning of the spider’s web theory proving itself in real time.

Although the war is being fought at a somewhat lower intensity since the announcement of a temporary ceasefire, the invading Zionist militants are being dealt blows on an hourly basis in the south and northern occupied Palestine. You need only look at their media to realize that Israeli society is under pressure in the north already, and the war of attrition has just begun.

The people of Lebanon and Palestine, who form the backbone of their national liberation movements, have proven themselves hardy and capable of enduring the hardships of war, while standing behind their Resistance fighters who come from amongst them. In the case of the Zionists, their army is formed of their public, who are conscripted into it, meaning it is a settlers’ armed forces, but they are a fundamentally weak society.

For the Israelis, they are more interested in living a Western European style of life and aren’t willing to make the necessary sacrifices to win wars of attrition, despite the superiority of their military equipment and intelligence services. A few occasional rockets are enough for tens of thousands to flee their homes, while a Lebanese farmer will remain in his fields as the bombs drop on his village. Right after the so-called ceasefire of November 2024, the people of the South immediately returned home; the settlers did not.

The Israeli army is also suffering a manpower shortage, has drawn back its presence in South Lebanon already due to the FPV drone threat, and has to score fake symbolic victories, such as planting flags in Bint Jbeil, while failing to properly maintain control of the area where Hezbollah fighters continue to watch and target them.

While the initial period between 1982 and 1985 was simple for the Israelis in the way of securing their occupation of the South, this time they are already being battered and have not achieved one goal yet. Desperately, they cling to their targeted assassinations, believing this will transform the battlefield. Another mistake born out of arrogance.

South Lebanon’s liberation in May 2000 birthed the Spider’s Web Theory of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. In May 2026, that theory is being put to the test. So far, we see that the fighters on the ground are proving Sayyed Nasrallah correct.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Comments Off on The journey to the second liberation of South Lebanon

Iran lawmaker outlines five conditions for any understanding with US

Al Mayadeen | May 26, 2026

The head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi, said there is “no meaning” to any understanding or negotiations with the United States unless Washington takes five concrete confidence-building measures.

Speaking to Iranian state television, Azizi said the measures include ending the war on all fronts, particularly in Lebanon, lifting the maritime blockade, guaranteeing the passage of non-military vessels through the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian supervision, suspending oil sanctions for 30 to 60 days, and releasing frozen Iranian assets.

Azizi stressed that even if an agreement is reached, it would not signify the end of confrontation with the United States, adding that “Iran after the war is completely different from Iran before the war.”

His remarks come amid growing anticipation over indirect US-Iran contacts being conducted through regional mediators, including Pakistan and Qatar. In this context, Iranian Parliament Speaker and head of the negotiating delegation Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited the Qatari capital, Doha, on Monday.

For his part, US President Donald Trump said negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran were “going well,” describing the process as one that could either lead to “a great deal for everybody” or “no deal at all.” Trump also linked any potential agreement to the need for Arab and Islamic states backing the talks to sign normalization agreements.

On the Lebanese front, which Iran insists must be included in any prospective agreement aimed at halting the war, the Israeli occupation continues its large-scale attacks on towns in southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa.

Israeli media also reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the occupation’s security minister approved plans to expand the war and target civilian buildings in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after drone operations carried out by the Islamic Resistance that have inflicted losses on occupation forces.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Iran lawmaker outlines five conditions for any understanding with US

Iran uranium transfer reports ‘US psychological warfare’: Tasnim

Al Mayadeen | May 25, 2026

Iran’s Tasnim News Agency has dismissed Western media reports claiming that Tehran has agreed to transfer its enriched uranium stockpile out of the country as part of a proposed nuclear deal, describing the allegations as part of American “psychological warfare” against Iran.

Tasnim reported that what has been circulated in the media regarding Iran’s readiness to remove enriched uranium from the country is “untrue,” and falls within the framework of “American psychological warfare against Iran.” The agency added that the text of the memorandum of understanding does not contain any statement indicating Iran’s readiness to transfer nuclear materials out of the country, and that the memorandum “did not include any commitment regarding any nuclear action.”

Earlier, The New York Times had quoted US officials claiming that “Iran agreed to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium” as part of the proposed agreement announced by President Donald Trump. Tasnim also denied reports that “US officials said Iran will not receive any facilities for the release of frozen funds unless it begins transferring its enriched uranium reserves.”

Iran refuses to link frozen assets to nuclear file

Tasnim affirmed that “Iran is not prepared to link the release of its frozen assets to the nuclear file,” adding that there is a “possibility that no agreement will be reached.”

The agency stressed that Tehran has not made any commitment at this stage regarding the details of the nuclear file, and therefore the release of funds in the first step will have no connection to the nuclear file. The initial understanding, Tasnim emphasised, must be based on “ending the war.”

The denial comes as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues, with Washington maintaining an illegal naval blockade on Iranian ports while demanding nuclear concessions from Tehran. Iran has consistently maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and that it will not negotiate under pressure. Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that the priority is ending the war, not addressing the nuclear file at this stage.

Background: Iran has consistently denied nuclear concessions in ongoing talks

The denial from Tasnim is consistent with Iran’s stated negotiating position throughout the US-Israeli war on Iran. As reported yesterday, Tasnim had already rejected a previous Al Arabiya report claiming that Iran proposed suspending uranium enrichment above 3.6 percent for 10 years.

At that time, a source informed about the negotiation process told Tasnim that all issues touched upon in recent messages exchanged between Iran and the United States have been limited to points on the cessation of hostilities, while the nuclear issue has not been mentioned at all.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that negotiations at this stage do not address the nuclear file or the details of sanctions relief. He also reiterated that the United States has no role in the Strait of Hormuz, describing it as a matter exclusively between Iran and the waterway’s coastal states.

Three fundamental sticking points remain unresolved

Beyond the nuclear file, an informed source close to Iran’s negotiating team told Fars News Agency that three fundamental points of contention remain unresolved, warning that talks will not proceed unless they are addressed. These concern the nuclear file, the release of Iranian frozen assets abroad as a non‑negotiable prerequisite for entering negotiations, and Iranian management of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

The source noted that while US negotiators have retreated from their initial positions and accepted many of Iran’s stances, significant gaps persist. Iran has “prepared itself for all options,” the source stressed, with the Iranian armed forces remaining on high alert.

The repeated denial of media reports about nuclear concessions suggests that Washington may be attempting to shape public perception of the negotiations, while Tehran insists that no agreement on the nuclear file has been reached or even discussed in detail.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on Iran uranium transfer reports ‘US psychological warfare’: Tasnim

Trump Wants To Use A Deal With Iran To Further Isolate The Palestinians

Trump Wants Every Arab State To Abandon Palestine

The Dissident | May 25, 2026

Donald Trump on Truth Social, has announced his intention to pressure Qatar, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, and Jordan to normalize relations with Israel- without Israel agreeing to a Palestinian state-as part of the potential deal with Iran.

On TruthSocial, Trump wrote, “Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are proceeding nicely! It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!” adding, “after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords. Those Countries discussed are Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!). It may be possible that one or two have a reason for not doing so, and that will be accepted, but most should be ready, willing, and able to make this Settlement with Iran a far more Historic Event than it would, otherwise, be.”

He added, “I am mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords, and that, if Iran signs its Agreement with me, as President of the United States of America, it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition.”

For context, all members states of the Arab League and even Iran have long agreed to support the Arab peace initiative, which calls for all states who signed on to “Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region” and “Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace” in exchange for “The acceptance of the establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Israel has long rejected this major compromise and instead pursues the Greater Israel Project and endless regime change wars against states that are too supportive of the Palestinians.

In 2020 Benjamin Netanyahu, Jared Kushner, and the Trump administration came up with a way for Israel to get normalization with Arab states without any concessions for Palestinians, dubbed the Abraham Accords.

The phony “peace deal” allowed Israel to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, without anything for Palestinians.

The real purpose of the deal, as the New Yorker David Remnick puts it , was “sidelining the Palestinians yet again”.

The deal, as Mother Jones noted , “essentially kicked the Palestinians and their grievances (the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, its apartheid policies, and its blockade of Gaza, which turned the strip, according to Human Rights Watch, into an ‘open-air prison’) to the curb”.

Benjamin Netanyahu- who wanted to expand the Accords to countries like Saudi Arabia- made it no secret that the deal was intended to isolate the Palestinians, to pave the way for an Israeli annexation of Gaza and the West Bank.

As Journalist Jeremy Scahill noted , “The Abraham Accords, launched under President Donald Trump, effectively excised the issue of Palestinian self-determination as a condition for normalization, a major victory for Israel. Israeli provocations and attacks against worshippers at Al Aqsa were becoming a regular occurrence. Israel was aggressively moving forward with its annexation of Palestinian land and armed settlers were conducting deadly paramilitary actions, often with the support or facilitation of the government, against Palestinian farms and homes in the occupied territories.”

Scahill noted that:

In the years preceding the October 7 attacks, under presidents Trump and Biden, Hamas watched as Israel became more emboldened as prospects for Palestinian liberation receded to the footnotes of Washington-led initiatives aimed at normalizing relations between Israel and Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Netanyahu’s position was: “We must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states.”

Just two weeks before the October 7 attacks, the Israeli leader delivered a speech at the UN general assembly in New York, brandishing a map of what he promised could be the “New Middle East.” It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza and the West Bank, as Palestinian lands, were erased.

During that speech, Netanyahu portrayed the full normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia as the linchpin of his vision for this “new” reality, one which would open the door to a “visionary corridor that will stretch across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel. It will connect India to Europe with maritime links, rail links, energy pipelines, fiber-optic cables.”

Netanyahu’s open admission that Israel wanted to use the Abraham Accords to abandon the Palestinians and make way for an Israeli annexation of Gaza and the West Bank is a large part of what triggered the Al-Aqsa Flood operation from Hamas on October 7th.

But after the Israeli Holocaust in Gaza, most states that could have potentially signed onto the Abraham Accords refused to agree to full normalization with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

As the Times of Israel noted , “Riyadh has repeatedly said, however, that it will not join the accords before Israel commits to the establishment of a Palestinian state, an idea that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently refused to entertain,” adding, “Like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan has said it will not recognize Israel until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Qatar, too, has no formal ties with Israel”.

Türkiye has similarly said, “When Israel stops the pressure and cruelty targeting Palestinians, Türkiye will have no problem with normalizing relations. As long as its regional policies continue, as long as they bomb cities, kill children and women, it is impossible to normalize ties with them”.

Through demanding that all of these states join the Abraham Accords, Trump is attempting to force countries desperate to see an end to the war in Iran to normalize relations with Israel and abandon the Palestinians, in order to lead the way for the final phase of Israel’s annexation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump Wants To Use A Deal With Iran To Further Isolate The Palestinians

Trump demands Arab states normalize with Israel in exchange for Iran ceasefire: Report

Press TV – May 25, 2026

US President Donald Trump has told several Arab and Muslim leaders that he expects them to establish formal relations with Israel in exchange for a ceasefire deal with Iran to end the war, according to American officials.

Axios, citing the officials, said that Trump made the demand during a phone conversation on Saturday with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain.

According to the same sources, all eight leaders expressed support for the potential agreement with Tehran during the call.

“We are with you on this deal,” one official was quoted as telling Trump, according to the report.

Another official familiar with the conversation said the US president indicated that he would next speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hoped to bring him into a joint call with the same group of Arab and Muslim leaders in the future.

Trump also pushed those countries that have not yet joined the so-called Abraham Accords – a series of 2020 US-brokered normalization deals with Israel signed under the Trump administration – to do so and establish formal ties with the Tel Aviv regime, the officials added.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan currently maintain no official diplomatic relations with Israel.

One of the officials told Axios that there was “silence on the line” after Trump’s demand, prompting the president to joke and ask “if they are still there.”

The development comes as indirect talks between Tehran and Washington, mediated by Pakistan and facilitated by Qatar, continue based on the Islamic Republic’s 14-point proposal to reach a memorandum aimed at putting an end to the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Speaking in a televised interview on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran and the United States have edged closer to finalizing the 14-point memorandum to end the imposed war, halt American maritime aggression, and secure the release of Iran’s blocked assets.

He emphasized that Iran’s focus at this stage remains exclusively on ending the US-Israel war based on its proposal, which has been shuttled back and forth several times.

The criminal US-Israeli aggression against Iran began on February 28 with airstrikes that assassinated senior Iranian officials and commanders, including Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Iranian Armed Forces responded by launching daily missile and drone operations targeting locations in the Israeli-occupied territories as well as US military bases and assets across the region.

Furthermore, Iran retaliated against the strikes by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which resulted in a significant increase in oil prices and its by-products.

On April 8, forty days into the war, a Pakistan-brokered temporary ceasefire between Iran and the US took effect.

Negotiations ensued in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, but stopped short of an agreement amid Washington’s maximalist demands and insistence on unreasonable positions.

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump demands Arab states normalize with Israel in exchange for Iran ceasefire: Report

The True Story of Israel’s Creation: Debunking Israel’s Foundational Lies from Their Leaders’ Mouths

Muhammad Shehada | May 16, 2026

One of Israel’s biggest lies is that in 1948, it wanted peace and the Arabs refused. The True Story of the Creation of Israel exposes that lie not through Palestinian or international testimony, but through the words of Israeli leaders themselves: their personal diaries, the IDF archives and the testimonies of their own soldiers and commanders.

Run time: 23 mins
Written and Directed by: Muhammad Shehada
Produced by: Muhammad Shehada

May 25, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on The True Story of Israel’s Creation: Debunking Israel’s Foundational Lies from Their Leaders’ Mouths

Daily Mail lies: Oct 7 victim saved from rape by non-existent Muslim prohibition on violating scarred women

By Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | May 24, 2026

In one of its most brazen disinformation efforts in years, the British tabloid The Daily Mail has published a fake news story claiming that an Israeli woman who was permitted to leave by Hamas militants only avoided being sexually assaulted by showing her captors her scar.

According to the woman in question, May Hayat, she had been taken prisoner by “terrorists” at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, when she began to detect “an energy and look in their eyes that every woman knows what’s going to happen next.”

However, she insists the men declined to rape her because Muslims subscribe to a belief system under which “a scar like [hers] means a strong woman,” and “if something happened to her because of them, the 72 virgins they are promised will not come looking for them in heaven.”

This claim contradicts all known Islamic jurisprudence, including the mainstream Sunni doctrine espoused by Hamas – which forbids fighters (and men more generally) from carrying out sexual violence against women, and which does not in any way single out women with scars for special treatment.

But The Daily Mail article, entitled “October 7 survivor reveals how a childhood scar saved her from Hamas terrorists,” fully endorses Hayat’s extraordinarily suspicious claim. Hayat, the outlet states credulously, was later “told that such scars have a spiritual significance in the eyes of the terrorists.”

Hayat’s story, in which she now claims she narrowly avoided being raped, has changed significantly over the years. One month after the attack, Hayat alleged that she escaped her supposed Hamas captors, telling Reuters: “I could see how they were fighting over whether to kill me or not, and I ran away.”

Now, however, The Daily Mail writes that Hayat was actually freed when “the leader” of a Hamas cell acknowledged her scar, and “shook his head at his fellow terrorist before telling May she was free to go.”

It’s not The Daily Mail’s first attempt to launder Israeli rape hoax propaganda. In June 2024, The Grayzone revealed that what the tabloid billed as an “exclusive” story confirming Palestinians raped Israeli women on October 7 actually consisted of coerced confessions which were so full of contradictions about nonexistent victims that they are all but guaranteed to be false.

The author of that debunked report, Natalie Lisbona, has been photographed smiling with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in war crimes in Gaza.

The latest article comes amid ongoing efforts by Israeli propagandists to downplay media coverage of the country’s documented systematic rape of kidnapped Palestinians by reviving the false narrative that Hamas members engaged in widespread sexual violence on October 7.

May 24, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Comments Off on Daily Mail lies: Oct 7 victim saved from rape by non-existent Muslim prohibition on violating scarred women

The Ivanka Trump Assassination Plot Distraction

Last ditch effort to derail peace deal between the US and Iran

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | May 24, 2026

On May 22, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post floated a story claiming Iran attempted to murder Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. In the first paragraph of the Post story, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is blamed for the aborted attack. The sensationalist newspaper sources the claim to the Justice Department.

“Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi had ‘pledged’ to target Ivanka Trump in retaliation for the assassination of his mentor Qasem Soleimani,” the Post reported.

Al-Saadi is said to be a high-ranking figure in Iraq-Iran terror circles, arrested in Turkey on May 15 and extradited to the US where he is charged with 18 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States, per the Department of Justice.

Al-Saadi is apparently a very ambitious and active terrorist. He is accused of attacking US and Jewish targets, including the firebombing of the Bank of New York Mellon in Amsterdam, the stabbing of two Jews in London, taking potshots at the US consulate building in Toronto, the firebombing of a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, the arson of a temple in Rotterdam, and “various other foiled counter-attacks in the US in response to the current conflict in the Middle East,” according to the Justice Department.

Sources cited in the reports alleged that Al-Saadi possessed a blueprint of Ivanka Trump’s Florida residence and had shared threatening messages online referencing surveillance of the property. Former Iraqi military official Entifadh Qanbar claimed that Al-Saadi openly spoke about avenging [IRGC officer Qasem] Soleimani’s death by targeting Trump’s family. [Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on 3 January, 2020 in Baghdad by a drone strike ordered by President Trump.]

Prosecutors say Al-Saadi is a commander for the Iraqi Shia militia Kata’ib Hezbollah, a US designated terrorist group allegedly linked to a little known group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, a Qur’anic phrase), described as a “pop up” network that surfaced in March.

Details on the group came from Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, an organization that specializes in targeting and defaming supposed anti-Semites, including popular podcasters such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Ian Carroll, the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, and anti-Zionist political candidate Dan Bilzerian.

The Ministry cannot be trusted. It stands accused of launching a months-long campaign to covertly influence American lawmakers through AI-generated social media posts by fake users, according to The New York Times.

Critics argue Ministry programs like Voices of Israel, formerly known as Kela Shlomo and Concert, use bots and AI-generated content to attack opponents, influence public opinion, lobby for favorable legislation in the US and UK, and organize protests.

A central tactic involves deliberately amplifying anti-Muslim narratives, such as claims of “Islamic invasion,” “Sharia law,” and terrorism, in order to incite hostility between Christians and Muslims. This strategy aims to keep everyday Americans and Europeans divided and distracted with hate, encouraging them to view Muslims as the primary enemy rather than scrutinizing Israeli policies or lobbying efforts.

Therefore, it is not a stretch to assume Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism would either invent or exaggerate the claim Al-Saadi and Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAY) are behind antisemitic attacks, especially at a critical juncture in the US-Israel war against Iran. The alleged targeting of Ivanka provides Trump with an excuse to restart the war and fulfill Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to destroy Iran.

Netanyahu is afraid Trump will agree to a deal with Iran. Although Trump has stated on more than one occasion that he is not concerned about the financial burden his war has placed on the American people, he is, however, worried about the global economy as a depression would undoubtedly destroy the stock market and reduce valuations across the board. Israel, of course, is not concerned about this. It has a single objective—destroy Iran at all costs, even if billions of people suffer. Any deal Trump makes, any action short of bombing Iran, will short-circuit this objective.

A few hours after the story broke, Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly “highly concerned and ‘worried’ President Trump will make a deal with Iran” and the Israeli PM “urged US to launch another round of strikes,” according to Axios.

By the afternoon of May 23, Trump posted to Truth Social: “Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It was the first time the president called Iran the “Islamic Republic of Iran.” Netanyahu reacted predictably, convening an urgent meeting with coalition leaders and Israeli security chiefs over what Channel 12 described as a “very bad” interim Iran deal.

“Final aspects and details of the Deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly. In addition to many other elements of the Agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened,” Trump posted.

RT reported the deal includes: an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon; several billion dollars of frozen Iranian assets unlocked; when the US blockade is lifted, the Strait of Hormuz will open; US bases and forces in the vicinity of Iran withdrawn; and a 30 day period to seal the nuclear deal.

Iran said Trump’s claim about the Strait of Hormuz “returning to normal” was false. It insisted on full control of the strait, including routes, timing, permits, and passage rules. Iran emphasized that no nuclear commitments were discussed during the meeting. They also claimed that US officials informed them that Trump’s posts are primarily intended for domestic media and political purposes, according to the Fars News Agency. A source told Fars that Trump “has realized that Iran is not one to give concessions” and sends word through intermediaries that his statements “should not be paid attention to.”

In what has become a pattern, the United States and Israel are reportedly collaborating behind the scenes to destroy any peace deal by assassinating supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, while weighing “whether his survival provides manageable stability or whether his removal could weaken Iran’s ruling structure further, per Israel Hayom.” Iranian MP and member of the negotiation delegation Mahmoud Nabavian “states that if Iranian leaders are assassinated in any attack, all of the complicit despots in the Persian Gulf will be killed and their palaces destroyed,” according to Seyed Mohammad Marandi.

On May 24, Benny Gantz, the Zionist Minister of Defense, posted to X that he believes it is “absolutely forbidden under any circumstances to accept the ceasefire in Lebanon as part of a deal with Iran,” thus signaling that Israel will continue murdering people and stealing land in southern Lebanon regardless of any deal between the United States and Iran.

Meanwhile, the conveniently timed and supposedly foiled assassination of Ivanka Trump is fading into noise, having done little more than prompt MAGA to ventilate on social media and elicit calls to “finish the job” of slaughtering Iranians. Ivanka Trump was never in danger and the plot has all the earmarks of previous concocted plots for which Trevor Aaronson covered more than a decade ago in his book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism.

May 24, 2026 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on The Ivanka Trump Assassination Plot Distraction

Iran shoots down Israeli spy drone over Hormozgan province

Press TV – May 24, 2026

Iranian air defense forces have shot down an Israeli “Orbiter” reconnaissance drone over the southern province of Hormozgan, according to military sources from the country’s southeastern air defense command.

The drone, described as being used for espionage and surveillance, was intercepted and destroyed after entering the operational airspace under the protection of Iran’s southern air defense network on Sunday.

Officials said the UAV was targeted by a specialized defense system whose technical specifications have not yet been disclosed.

Military authorities based in Bandar Abbas stated that the system used in the operation is capable of detecting and engaging radar-evading drones and that no stealth UAV would be able to penetrate the airspace stretching from the Persian Gulf and its islands to southern and southeastern Iran.

The wreckage of the destroyed drone was later recovered with the assistance of maritime border police units operating in Hormozgan Province.

The interception comes at a time of increasing scrutiny over the vulnerability of advanced Western and American unmanned aerial systems in regional conflicts.

A recent Bloomberg report detailing the loss of multiple advanced US drones during the war against Iran has drawn attention to the growing challenges facing technology-driven aerial warfare.

Among the systems highlighted was the MQ-9 Reaper, long regarded as one of the symbols of American military and technological superiority due to its surveillance, tracking, and precision-strike capabilities in conflicts ranging from Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria.

Analysts say the significance of such incidents extends beyond financial losses. The downing of advanced drones increasingly carries political and strategic implications, raising broader questions about the effectiveness of modern airpower and the sustainability of prolonged military engagements.

In the United States, criticism has gradually intensified over the objectives and outcomes of US aggression against Iran.

Analysts say that if Washington, despite possessing some of the world’s most advanced military technologies, is unable to achieve its strategic goals, the justification for continuing this war becomes increasingly difficult to defend.

May 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Iran shoots down Israeli spy drone over Hormozgan province