Report warns that ‘Jewish terrorism is out of control’ and could lead to major security escalation
MEMO | January 22, 2026
An Israeli report warns of a rapid rise in Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank, saying it has become a widespread phenomenon with serious security and strategic implications. The report cautions that this trend aims to undermine the Palestinian presence and could trigger large waves of violence, while also causing growing damage to Israel’s international standing.
The report, issued on Tuesday by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University (INSS), says recent years—especially since 7 October 2023—have seen a sharp increase in both the scale and severity of attacks carried out by Jews against Palestinians. It describes these acts as part of a “struggle over control of land” and “growing attempts to weaken the Palestinian presence”, particularly in areas classified as Area C.
According to the report, data from Israeli military and international sources point to a steep rise in such attacks. Figures from the Israeli army’s Central Command show that in 2025 there was an increase of about 27 per cent in incidents classified by the security establishment as “nationalist crime”. Around 870 offences were recorded, including 120 described as serious, compared with 83 serious offences in 2024.
United Nations data, however, present an even darker picture. In 2024, about 1,420 attacks against Palestinians were documented, a 16 per cent rise compared with 2023 and the highest level since systematic monitoring began in 2006. The report says these attacks led to the killing of five Palestinians and injuries to around 350 others. More than 300 Palestinian families — nearly 1,700 people — were also displaced from their homes.
The report adds that the upward trend has continued, noting that the number of attacks in 2025 has “exceeded 1,770 incidents”, surpassing the peak recorded the previous year.
Lebanese Resistance will inevitably triumph: Former President Lahoud
Al Mayadeen | January 22, 2026
Former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud affirmed that Lebanon remains committed to the current ceasefire, while “not a day goes by without the Israeli occupation violating it.”
Speaking amid ongoing tensions, Lahoud condemned on Thursday the continued aggression by “Israel”, accusing it of operating under a long-standing strategy of deception backed by US support. “For 80 years, this enemy has relied solely on deception, using unwavering American support as its cover,” he said.
Lahoud emphasized that Lebanon has two options: either accept the reality imposed by “Israel” or stand in solidarity with those under attack, particularly in the South and the Bekaa.
He reminded the Lebanese people of the country’s historic milestones, namely the liberation of South Lebanon in 2000 and the Resistance’s victory in 2006. “Our capabilities were also limited at that time, but internal unity around a single national position made those victories possible,” he said.
Addressing those he described as “playing the role of instigators from within, against their own people,” Lahoud warned that their actions would ultimately backfire. “This internal agitation will return to harm them first,” he said, accusing them of aligning, willingly or not, with the interests of the enemy.
Lahoud urged all Lebanese factions to take note of what even their adversaries have come to recognize. “Look at your undeclared Israeli ally,” he said, “who admitted that the Resistance’s greatest weapon is its unwavering spirit of defiance and steadfastness.”
He urged them to abandon any illusions about weakening the Resistance, asserting that such hopes are futile. “Stop betting on breaking the resistance… stop dreaming of its surrender,” he said, adding with confidence: “The resistance will inevitably triumph.”
IOF aggression on South Lebanon continues
His statements come after Israeli occupation forces launched a series of violent airstrikes across southern Lebanon on Wednesday, targeting several towns, according to Al Mayadeen’s correspondents.
The attacks began in the town of Kfour in the Nabatieh district, where an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building. Subsequent raids struck multiple buildings in Qennarit, also in southern Lebanon. In Jarjou’, another airstrike destroyed a targeted building, while drones maintained heavy patrols over the area.
Al Mayadeen correspondent revealed that several reporters were injured following the airstrikes on Qennarit, as “there were 10 journalist colleagues near the site of the strike.”
The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that Israeli enemy raids on the town of Qennarit resulted in injuries to 19 people, including journalists. Later, our correspondent reported Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on al-Kharayeb in the Saida district and Ansar in the Nabatieh district.
In response, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun denounced the ongoing Israeli assaults on Wednesday evening, describing them as a clear violation of international humanitarian law and a blatant breach of the most basic protections for civilians. He stressed that “Israel’s” repeated aggressive actions confirm its refusal to honor commitments under the ceasefire agreement, holding Tel Aviv fully accountable for the consequences of these violations.
Why Trump’s ‘Board Of Peace’ Is Destined To Crash And Burn
By Robert Inlakesh – The Palestine Chronicle – January 21, 2026
The recent announcement of US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” (BoP) has stirred intense debate over what Phase 2 of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like. In reality, figuring this out is rather simple: it is a mission destined to crash and burn, similar to how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and the Floating Aid Pier did.
Proponents of the Trump administration’s BoP have little to show other than fancy rhetoric, churned out unironically, due to their lack of any basic understanding of Gaza’s predicament.
The Board Of Zionist Failure
As of the White House press briefing issued on January 16, the so-called Board of Peace was initiated with seven appointed members to its “Executive Board.” None of them is Palestinian, let alone from Gaza, and none possesses even the slightest credibility in dealing with such a sensitive and arduous task.
They include Trump administration officials Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Robert Gabriel, and the demonstrably incompetent son-in-law of the US President, Jared Kushner. Then there is former British Prime Minister—the butcher of Baghdad himself—Tony Blair. That leaves pro-Israel billionaire Marc Rowan and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.
However, the individual granted the most consequential role, the High Representative for Gaza, is none other than Nickolay Mladenov. While serving as a United Nations envoy to the Middle East, he developed a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also earned the favour of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and was awarded the ‘Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem’ by its President, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mladenov is presented as a man who maintains relations with all sides, yet those citing his ties to the PA as evidence of this are doing so disingenuously. Setting aside questions of the PA’s legitimacy, it has not ruled Gaza since 2006. As such, his relationship is not with the governing authorities of the besieged territory.
In addition, Mladenov left his UN post to become director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. He not only resides in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but also serves as a Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).
His affiliation with WINEP should raise major red flags. The institute is often referred to as the think-tank wing of the Israel Lobby in Washington and, according to the Quincy Institute’s ‘Think Tank Funding Tracker,’ is funded by dark money. Mladenov is also a passionate supporter of the Trump administration’s so-called “Abraham Accords,” an initiative aimed at pushing Arab states to abandon the demand for a Palestinian state before normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.
While there is much more to be said about the so-called BoP, it suffices to note that it is a pro-Israel endeavour—one that reportedly demands a $1 billion sign-up fee for participating nations, as though it were a subscription service, a kind of Netflix for states.
The mere existence of the BoP constitutes a clear violation of international law and even contradicts the US’s own newly adopted National Security Strategy doctrine. None of this would have been possible, however, without the utter cowardice of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members back in November.
UNSC Resolution 2803 authorized this colonial throwback board—an unelected, illegitimate authority imposed upon Gaza—while effectively rewarding Israel for committing genocide. Every state that voted in favor is complicit, with no exceptions. The resolution erased decades of UNSC and UN General Assembly resolutions, undermined the Geneva Conventions, and authorized a plan that violates rulings issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s own legal body.
Why It Will Fail
As for what the BoP is actually meant to do, meaningful analysis is nearly impossible at this stage. It has no clear vision—only a pro-Israeli orientation. The BoP is a cash grab, trafficking in vague concepts such as “peace,” “accountability,” and “reconstruction,” while offering no substance. Its continued existence rests largely on the unwillingness of states to challenge it, out of fear of the occupant of the White House.
What is clear is that this project has no viable options. Already, the Israeli government has begun objecting to it, as members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet openly call for the permanent occupation of the Gaza Strip to facilitate illegal settlement construction. Netanyahu himself is demanding the return of the body of Israel’s last captive and the disarmament of Hamas—both demands that remain unresolved.
Under only one condition are Israeli leaders prepared to consider extending the ceasefire into Phase 2: the violent overthrow of Hamas through “disarmament.” In a Monday address to the Knesset, Netanyahu echoed Trump’s threat—“we do it the easy way or the hard way”—in reference to demilitarisation.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Israel has killed nearly 500 Palestinians since the so-called ceasefire began. It has also refused to halt attacks on civilian infrastructure and violated the “Yellow Line” meant to separate the 53 percent of Gaza under occupation, instead seizing roughly 60 percent of the territory.
These ceasefire violations—including the restriction of agreed-upon aid flows—have been monitored by the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), led by the United States and involving more than 20 national militaries.
The CMCC does not engage in combat; it merely monitors violations—a mission it has clearly failed. It has made little to no tangible difference, aside from rendering the US military directly complicit in facilitating Israeli war crimes.
For the BoP to coordinate an “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) tasked with disarming Hamas, it would require not tens of thousands of troops, but hundreds of thousands. Alternatively, as suggested by Israeli and American officials and private military contractor UG Solutions, private mercenary forces could be deployed to compensate for an incoherent and vastly outnumbered ISF.
Compounding this is the existence of five Israeli-created ISIS-linked militias operating in Gaza, reportedly backed by the UAE, which may be used as cannon fodder in such a conflict.
Israeli officials themselves previously estimated that occupying Gaza City alone would require approximately 200,000 soldiers and could take up to a decade, simply to replicate a West Bank-style occupation. How, then, are tens of thousands expected to succeed where Israel could not?
If the ISF, under the direction of the BoP’s Zionist loyalists, truly wages war on Hamas, it would likely collapse—and in doing so, confirm that the so-called international community has chosen to resume Israel’s genocidal campaign. The proposition borders on madness.
Either Trump’s “peace plan” will be subordinated entirely to Israeli dictates, or it will be blocked altogether—leaving regime change in Gaza and foreign occupation as its core objectives. Phase 2 was supposed to begin months ago, yet it remains stalled because no one is willing to confront the current ultra-Zionist American administration.
On October 8, even before the ceasefire was announced, I wrote in The Palestine Chronicle that what lay ahead was a prolonged limbo between Phases 1 and 2. I warned it would amount to little more than a glorified pause—one Israel would violate whenever it suited its interests. Thus far, that prediction has proven accurate.
A BoP may well be assembled, and an ISF may even be deployed, but it will neither deliver sustainability nor realize the fantastical visions being proposed. Eventually, something will break—and this prolonged stalling, misleadingly labelled a “ceasefire,” is likely to backfire catastrophically.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
‘Board of Peace’ resembles a club that turns the world into the ‘law of the jungle’
By Li Zixin | Global Times | January 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on French wines and champagne after French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to be unwilling to join his “Board of Peace” on Gaza, according to media reports.
The so-called Board of Peace is part of a “20-point peace plan” proposed by the US to end the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. According to the draft charter of this board, it will be chaired by Trump. Membership would be by invitation from the chairman, who would hold key authority over terms, renewals and removals. What shocked the international community even more was that the US plan openly priced the board’s “permanent seats” at $1 billion each. This act of “privatizing” international affairs and “commodifying” regional peace not only disregards the will of the Palestinian people but also poses a huge challenge to the existing international governance system and norms of conduct.
The current Israel-Palestine conflict has lasted nearly 30 months, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen. The White House’s push to form a “Board of Peace” is primarily aimed at demonstrating US influence over the situation in Gaza. However, this institution, which should be responsible for peace in Gaza, is a typical product of “transactional diplomacy.” The nomination list is filled with US politicians and their cronies, but conspicuously absent is the most critical stakeholder – the Palestinians. This “absence” has drawn widespread criticism from the international community, with some even suggesting it reveals the institution’s “colonial” nature – attempting to privately outline Gaza’s future without the consent of the Palestinian people.
Even more shocking is the White House’s explicit offer of a “permanent seat” for $1 billion. This move reduces the solemn cause of international peace to a game of money. Gaza’s future should not be a commodity to be bought; under the influence of capital and hegemonic will, it will find it difficult to achieve true peace.
Judging from the proposed charter of the “Board of Peace,” this mechanism is unlikely to resolve the current crisis and may even poison the political landscape of the Middle East. First, it has not prioritized the imminent humanitarian crisis in Gaza, instead focusing more on the capital operations of postwar reconstruction.
Second, this board seriously hinders a comprehensive and just solution to the Palestine-Israel issue. The US-led Gaza peace plan not only eliminates the political role of the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza but also establishes a so-called Board of Peace controlled by external forces above the Palestinian technocratic committee. In essence, this replaces sovereign governance with external intervention, undermining the political foundation of the “two-state solution.” The US thereby deprives Palestinians of their fundamental right as a state to handle their own affairs, effectively further dividing the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and making a just and lasting peace even more unattainable.
Third, this move has severely impacted the global governance system. The current Gaza crisis is a brutal illustration of the disorderly state where “might makes right.” If peace seats can be bought and major powers can arbitrarily establish their own systems outside the existing international order, the fairness of the postwar international order will be undermined. This “club governance” model reduces international law to a private contract among major powers, forcing the world back into the law of the jungle.
To truly resolve the Israel-Palestine issue, we must return to the international order of fairness and justice. Any arrangements regarding the postwar governance of Gaza must be discussed within the framework of the UN and must fully respect the fundamental principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine.” Genuine peace should be built on the basis of the “two-state solution” and the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, not on a “small group” privately established by a hegemonic power. The international community should be wary of the dangerous tendency to place geopolitical games above international law and ensure that the reconstruction of Gaza is the reconstruction of justice, not an expansion of hegemony.
The author is a research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
After the headlines fade: Gaza, abandoned while the genocide persists
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 21, 2026
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On 15th January alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitating Israel’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
Silence now is not neutrality; it is complicity.
Introducing Mossad Farsi, the Motto and the Methods
By Ilana Mercer • Unz Review • January 21, 2026
I’ll stifle the impulse not to say the obvious, and say it: An Israeli-American regime-change operation is underway in Iran.
It’s “right out of the US-Israel playbook” for such operations, notes Professor John Merisheimer, a scrupulous scholar of “great-power politics,” or, more precisely, of naked imperial power.
First, the US “wrecked the country’s economy through crippling sanctions, making the populace profoundly unhappy, poor, desperate, hungry.” Next, cheek-by-jowl with Israel, massive protests were fomented, confirmation for which came in a December 29, Jerusalem Post article, the headline to which read as follows:
“Mossad spurs Iran protests, say agents with [the] demonstrators, in [a] Farsi message: As protests grow across Iran, the Mossad posted an unusual Farsi message urging demonstrators to act, saying it is with them in the streets, amid rising economic pressure and public unrest.”
To Israel, the United States of America offers service and subservience.
Thus, comments from Trump on Truth Social and Mike Pompeo, more openly, backed the fact of an orchestrated, malevolent intervention, in what were initially organic, peaceful protests that stemmed from ruthless economic warfare (American) against the Islamic Republic.
Duly, on January 2, 2026, Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of state and CIA director, wrote: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”
As reported by the Times of Israel, on January 16, “Channel 14, seen as close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” initially said that “‘foreign actors’ are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.” A little later, a typically oleaginous Israeli source quipped: “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.”
We’ve sensed as much. The Iranian January 2026 protesters are acting out-of-character. More like Israelis than ordinary Iranians. These protesters appear thoroughly Israelized—it is certainly unusual historically for the generally demure, respectful Iranians to burn down and desecrate their own holy sites; acts that conform, however, to the rules and customs of Israeli “transnational terrorism.”
Historically, Iranians in protest have targeted government symbols, but not national and religious symbols.
And, Lo: These Iranian protesters had enjoyed access to 40,000 StarLink terminals, a news tidbit confirmed by the Times of Israel and Fox News, in bursts of good cheer and cheerleading. The “live” firearms provided were in keeping with Israel’s terror-state tactics. Recall that, in June of 2025, in connivance with the CIA, Mossad, MI5 and Trump—Israelis had smuggled needed materiel into Iran for their war of aggression. Trump had done his part in the subterfuge by pursuing “diplomacy-as-deception” with his trusting Iranian interlocutors, thus distracting and deceiving them.
The third stage in the “US-Israel Axis’” “four-part regime change playbook,” avers Mearsheimer, is the disinformation campaign.
Before their respective, well-coordinated air forces and armies alight on their Iranian victims in targeted attacks and assassinations—the “transnational terrorists” of the “US-Israel Axis” have a trifling task: Convince the most-propagandized minds in the world, Westerners, that this grotesque burlesque of a regime-change farce is a naturally occurring thing.
In other words, that America’s color-coded, plant-based “democratic” revolutions, you know the kind—“Purple” in Iraq, “Blue” in Kuwait, “Cotton” in Uzbekistan, “Grape” in Moldova, “Orange” in the Ukraine, “Rose” in Georgia, “Tulip” in Kyrgyzstan, “Cedar” in Lebanon, “Jasmine” in Tunisia, “Green” in Iran, still un-christened in Russia and Syria—these are but natural uprisings, led by noble patriots, who just happen, all-too frequently, to be aligned with and sponsored by Foreign Policy Inc., the clubby DC foreign-policy establishment and its Israeli offshoots and operatives.
Mearsheimer appears to imply that the stages of regime change are consecutive, or sequential. I would argue that, as in all formulaic stage theories—the stages of regime change overlap, run into each other, reoccur and repeat. To wit, Iran has and will continue to endure this devilry for decades.
Over and above regime change, Israel, by Mearsheimer’s careful estimation, has a “deep-seated interest” in “wrecking Iran,” in breaking the Islamic Republic apart, and fracturing the surrounding nations.
“At bottom,” I posited during the 12-day war on Iran, “If Israel wanted to enjoy its neighborhood; it would not perennially reduce it to a primordial, pre-civilization stage, as in Gaza, by wiping out knowledge, experience, strength; smarts, beauty and goodness. … These Israeli atavists—who during the 2025 offensive in Iran murdered nearly 900 Palestinians in Gaza—don’t want educated, erudite neighbors; equals with whom to make magic in the region; they want subjects they can sanction and slaughter into submission.”(“IRAN: Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid Of The Israel Lobby To Ask,” July 1, 2025.”)
I should revise that: According to the twinned belief-systems of Jewish supremacy and American exceptionalism; all ‘good,’ ‘happy’ human beings are either those who are like Americans or like Israelis, or en route to becoming clones of the one or the other.
Those involved in these foreign-policy drives honestly believe that to be American or Israeli is the existential Gold Standard. Lowly humanity is a pilgrim en route to the Promised Land, whether they know it or not —sometimes by hook or crook. Ultimately, the lives of all the Others being roused to revolt are just not worth much until they “arrive.”
As to their deep involvement in inciting regime-change riots in Iran: News tidbits to that effect have come to us directly via the Israelis themselves.
By now you know that Israel is “amoral,” it acts outside the laws of both man and God. By now you know that bursts of pride accompany Israeli barbarity. As is often the case, Israelis and their media openly report their crimes. And they are especially proud to be inciting regime-change in Iran. On the ground.
Take the X account titled “Mossad Farsi.” So nauseatingly audacious in content is it, that I doubted its authenticity.
In sickeningly sugared tweets, “Official Mossad in Farsi” and its bots (the programmed, online Artificial Intelligence responders or Israel’s paid lickspittles) profess the love Israelis have for the largely pro-Palestinian Iranians.
These are the same Israelis, still mid-murder in Gaza and the West bank, who were posting and celebrating imagery of murdered Palestinians with the flesh hanging on their bones in ribbons. That amoral Israel is now “loving on” the Iranians, a people who have generally resisted for Palestine.
Filled with love, “Mossad Farsi” has been loud and proud about its role in attempting to break the Islamic Republic. Here is the Mossad Farsi tweet that got world attention. Dated December 29, it reads as follows: “Let’s come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally, we are with you in the field as well.”
Speaking in unison, Israeli media—Channel 14, i24, Israel Hayom, and others, no doubt—confirmed the authenticity and impetus of this account. In identically scripted messages, all outlets announced that a “Mossad X account in Farsi urges Iranians to protest as unrest sweeps the country.”
The criminal Svengali Bibi tips the nose toward Iran (allegedly), in a December 29 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump runs. “Fetch,” says Netanyahu to a pack of dreadful American curs, and they fetch. (Apologies, again, to animals for using them as the source of metaphor for things stupid and evil. It’s a regrettable feature of the English language.)
What might I add to the information provided by Mearsheimer (and reported by Max Blumenthal) in hashing out the finer points of the Israeli scheme? I can provide a translation from the Hebrew of the motto embedded by Mossad Farsi in its X account’s graphic. It reads as follows:
“Without connivance [as in scheming], a nation will fall”:
באין תחבולות יפול עם
Mossad Farsi’s motto is The Message. Israel’s message.
How Syria’s Kurds were erased from the US-led endgame
Paris marked the moment Washington quietly aligned with Ankara and Tel Aviv to close the Kurdish chapter in Syria’s war
By Musa Ozugurlu | The Cradle | January 21, 2026
For nearly 15 years, US flags flew over Syrian territory with near-total impunity – from Kurdish towns to oil-rich outposts. In the northeast, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) manned checkpoints, American convoys moved freely, and local councils governed as if the arrangement was permanent.
The occupation was not formal, but it did not need to be. So long as Washington stayed, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) had a state in everything but name.
Then, in the first week of January, that illusion was broken. What had passed for a military partnership was quietly dismantled in a Paris backroom – without Kurdish participation, without warning, and without resistance. Within days, Washington’s most loyal proxy in Syria no longer had its protection.
A collapse that looked sudden only from the outside
Since late last year, Syria’s political and military terrain shifted with startling speed. Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s rule came to an end, and shortly afterward, the SDF – long portrayed as the most disciplined and organized force in the country – followed the same trajectory.
To outside or casual observers, the SDF collapse appeared abrupt, even shocking. For many Syrians, particularly Syrian Kurds, the psychology of victory that had defined the past 14 years evaporated in days. What replaced it was confusion, fear, and a growing realization that the guarantees they had relied on were never guarantees at all.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – an extremist militant group stemming from the Nusra Front – advanced with unexpected momentum, achieving gains few analysts had predicted. But the real story was the absence of resistance from forces that, until recently, had been told they were indispensable.
The question, then, is not how this happened so quickly, but why the ground had already been cleared.
The illusion of fixed positions
To understand the outcome, it is necessary to revisit the assumptions each actor carried into this phase of the war.
The SDF emerged in the immediate aftermath of the US-led intervention against Damascus. It was never intended to be a purely Kurdish formation. From the outset, its leadership understood that ethnic exclusivity would doom its international standing. Arab tribes and other non-Kurdish components were incorporated to project the image of a multi-ethnic, representative force.
Ironically, those same tribal elements would later become one of the fault lines that accelerated the SDF’s disintegration.
Militarily, the group benefited enormously from circumstance. As the Syrian Arab Army fought on multiple fronts and redeployed forces toward strategic battles – particularly around Aleppo – the SDF expanded with minimal resistance. Territory was acquired less through confrontation than through absence.
Washington’s decision to enter Syria under the banner of fighting Assad and later ISIS provided the SDF with its most valuable asset: international legitimacy. Under US protection, the Kurdish movement translated decades of regional political experience into a functioning de facto autonomous administration.
It looked like history was bending in their favor.
Turkiye’s red line never moved
From Ankara’s perspective, Syria was always about two objectives. The first was the removal of Assad, a goal for which Turkiye was willing to cooperate with almost anyone, including Kurdish actors. Channels opened, and messages were exchanged. At times, the possibility of accommodation seemed real.
But the Kurdish leadership made a strategic choice. Believing their US alliance gave them leverage, they closed the door and insisted on pursuing their own agenda.
Turkiye’s second objective never wavered: preventing the emergence of any Kurdish political status in Syria. A recognized Kurdish entity next door threatened to shift regional balances and, more importantly, embolden Kurdish aspirations inside Turkiye itself.
That concern would eventually align Turkiye’s interests with actors it had previously opposed.
Washington’s priorities were never ambiguous
The US did not hide its hierarchy of interests in West Asia. Preserving strategic footholds mattered. But above all else stood Israel’s security.
Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023 handed Washington and Tel Aviv a rare opportunity. As the Gaza genocidal war unfolded and the Axis of Resistance absorbed sustained pressure, the US gained a new and more flexible partner in Syria alongside the Kurds: HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani when he was an Al-Qaeda chief.
Sharaa’s profile checked every box. His positions on Israel and Palestine posed no challenge. His sectarian background reassured regional capitals. His political outlook promised stability without resistance. Where the Assads had generated five decades of friction, Sharaa offered predictability.
For Washington and Tel Aviv, he represented a cleaner solution.
Designing a Syria without resistance
With Sharaa in place, Israel found itself operating in Syrian territory with unprecedented ease. Airstrikes intensified. Targets that once risked escalation now passed without response. Israeli soldiers skied on Mount Hermon and posted selfies from positions that had been inaccessible for decades.
Damascus, for the first time in modern history, posed no strategic discomfort.
More importantly, Syria under Sharaa became fully accessible to global capital. Sanctions narratives softened while reconstruction frameworks emerged. The war’s political economy entered a new phase.
In this equation, a Syria without the SDF suited everyone who mattered. For Turkiye, it meant eliminating the Kurdish question. For Israel, it meant a northern border stripped of resistance. For Washington, it meant a redesigned Syrian state aligned with its regional architecture.
The name they all converged on was the same.
Paris: Where the decision was formalized
On 6 January, Syrian and Israeli delegations met in Paris under US mediation. It was the first such encounter in the history of bilateral relations. Publicly, the meeting was framed around familiar issues: Israeli withdrawal, border security, and demilitarized zones. But those headlines were cosmetic.
Instead, the joint statement spoke of permanent arrangements, intelligence sharing, and continuous coordination mechanisms.
Yet these points were also clearly peripheral. The real content of the talks is evident in the outcomes now unfolding. Consider the following excerpt from the statement:
“The Sides reaffirm their commitment to strive toward achieving lasting security and stability arrangements for both countries. Both Sides have decided to establish a joint fusion mechanism – a dedicated communication cell – to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.”
Following this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office “stressed … the need to advance economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries.”
Journalist Sterk Gulo was among the first to note the implications, writing that “An alliance was formed against the Autonomous Administration at the meeting held in Paris.”
From that moment, the SDF’s fate was sealed.
Ankara’s pressure campaign
Turkiye had spent years working toward this outcome. Reports suggest that a late-2025 agreement to integrate SDF units into the Syrian army at the division level was blocked at the last minute due to Ankara’s objections. Even Sharaa’s temporary disappearance from the public eye – which sparked rumors of an assassination attempt – was linked by some to internal confrontations over this issue.
According to multiple accounts, Turkiye’s Ambassador Tom Barrack was present at meetings in Damascus where pro-SDF clauses were rejected outright. Physical confrontations followed. Sharaa vanished until he could reappear without explaining the dispute.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was present in Paris and played an active role in the negotiations. Its demands were clear: US support for the SDF must end, and the so-called “David Corridor” must be blocked. In exchange, Turkiye would not obstruct Israeli operations in southern Syria.
It was a transactional alignment – and it worked.
Removing the last obstacle
With the SDF sidelined, Sharaa’s consolidation of power became possible. Control over northeastern Syria allowed Damascus to focus on unresolved files elsewhere, including the Druze question.
What followed was predictable. Clashes in Aleppo before the new year were test runs. The pattern had been seen before.
In 2018, during Turkiye’s Olive Branch operation, the SDF announced it would defend Afrin. Damascus offered to take control of the area and organize its defense. The offer was refused – likely under US pressure. On the night resistance was expected, the SDF withdrew.
The same script replayed in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh. Resistance lasted days. Supplies from east of the Euphrates never arrived. Withdrawal followed.
The American exit, again
Many assumed that the Euphrates line still mattered. That HTS advances west of the river would not be repeated in the east. That Washington would intervene when its Kurdish partner was directly threatened.
The shock came when HTS moved toward Deir Ezzor, and Arab tribes defected en masse. These tribes had been on the US payroll. The message was unmistakable: salaries would now come from elsewhere.
Meanwhile, meetings between Sharaa and the Kurds, which were expected to formalize agreements, were delayed twice, and clashes broke out immediately after.
Washington had already decided.
US officials attempted to sell a new vision to Kurdish leaders: participation in a unified Syrian state without distinct political status. The SDF rejected this, and demanded constitutional guarantees. It also refused to dissolve its forces, citing security concerns.
The Kurdish group’s mistake was believing history would not repeat itself.
Afghanistan should have been enough of a warning.
What remains
Syria has entered a new phase. Power is now organized around a Turkiye–Israel–US triangle, with Damascus as the administrative center of a project designed elsewhere.
The Druze are next. If Israel’s security is guaranteed under the Paris framework, HTS forces will eventually push toward Suwayda.
The Alawites remain – isolated and exposed.
The fallout is ongoing. On 20 January, the SDF announced its withdrawal from Al-Hawl Camp – a detention center for thousands of ISIS prisoners and their families – citing the international community’s failure to assist.
Damascus accused the Kurds of deliberately releasing detainees. The US, whose base sits just two kilometers from the site of a major prison break, declined to intervene.
Washington’s silence in the face of chaos near its own installations only confirmed what the Kurds are now forced to accept: the alliance is over.
Ultimately, it was not just a force that collapsed. It was a whole strategy of survival built on the hope that imperial interests might someday align with Kurdish aspirations.
Trump presses aides to draw up ‘decisive options’ for strikes on Iran: Report
The Cradle | January 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump is pressing his team to draw up “decisive” options for an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran, after canceling a planned strike earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 20 January.
Officials told the outlet that Trump repeatedly used the word “decisive” when telling his aides what desired outcome he wanted from striking Iran.
As a result, the Pentagon has devised several scenarios including attacks that aim to overthrow the Iranian government, the report said.
One of the options is described as more limited, however, and includes strikes on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facilities.
The officials added that Trump has not yet authorized an attack and that his final decision is still unclear at this point.
Washington is moving the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier toward West Asia after redeploying it from the South China Sea.
Aerial refueling tankers and additional squadrons of fighter jets are also being moved to the region.
The report coincides with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s most stern warning yet, which was conveyed in his own op-ed for the WSJ.
“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack. This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war,” Araghchi said.
He also commented on the recent unrest in Iran. “The White House ought to be impervious to the wave of demonstrably false stories in western media about recent events in Iran, but it may be necessary to clarify some points. The protests began peacefully and were recognized as legitimate by the Iranian government.”
“They suddenly turned violent when foreign and domestic terrorist actors entered the scene, so blocking communication among organizers of the rioters and terrorists was an imperative. As those cells are being wrapped up by our intelligence and security agencies, the internet and all communications are slowly being restored,” the foreign minister added.
Over the past few weeks, Iran faced widespread riots after protests turned violent following the collapse of the Iranian currency, caused by years of brutal US sanctions.
Western-based rights groups claim thousands of peaceful protesters have been killed. Iran has detained hundreds of armed rioters, many of whom have been found with links to the Mossad, and are behind the killing of scores of civilians.
A former CIA director recently admitted that Mossad agents were on the ground in the protests.
Multiple reports confirmed Iran’s use of military-grade GPS jammers to shut off Starlink, which had been deployed to Iran in a US-backed effort to ‘aid’ protesters amid an internet shutdown.
As a result, Iran was able to significantly reduce riots and foreign-backed sabotage operations – which included the killing of over 100 security forces and police officers. Tens of thousands of Starlink devices were seized or shut off.
“The Americans and Israelis are shocked,” former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke, previously a British diplomat as well, told The Cradle in an interview.
Trump called off his planned attack on Iran earlier this month, after vowing to hit the country “hard” and “rescue” protesters. The president claimed he changed his mind after Iran decided against executing hundreds of detained rioters.
Abd al-Bary Atwan, a Palestinian-British journalist and editor of Rai al-Youm newspaper, said Trump “was forced to call off his attack” after US-Israeli destabilization efforts failed to weaken the government.
According to the WSJ, Israel requested that Trump call off the strike because Tel Aviv was not prepared for an Iranian retaliation.
Regime Change In Iran Is The Final Phase Of The ‘Clean Break’ Strategy
The Dissident | January 21, 2026
Lindsey Graham, the Neo-con Republican Senator, at the Zionist Tzedek conference, gave the real reason for America’s policy of regime change in Iran, namely to isolate the Palestinians in the Middle East and pave the way for Israeli domination.
Graham, referring to regime change in Iran said, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, Lindsey Graham and the U.S. believe that regime change in Iran would lead to the collapse of Palestinian resistance and allied groups Hezbollah and Ansar Allah and lead Middle Eastern powers to normalize with Israel without any concessions to Palestinians, thus paving the way for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, and further expansion into Syria and Lebanon in service of the Greater Israel project.
This motive is not only driving the desire for regime change in Iran, but has been the main motive for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11, not fighting a “war on terror”.
In 1996, key figures who ended up in high level positions in the Bush administration, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, who were at the time advising the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu, sent him a letter titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, which called on him to make a “clean break” from peace talks with Palestinians and instead focus on isolating them in the region, first a for-most by, “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
Netanyahu kept to his word and made his “Clean Break” from the Oslo Accords during his first term as Prime Minister, later boasting:
how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. ‘They didn’t want to give me that letter,’ Netanyahu said, ‘so I didn’t give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”
Soon after, the authors of the clean break document became key advisors on the Middle East in the George W. Bush administration.
After 9/11, they used the attack to carry out the “important Israeli strategic objective” of “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”, who was seen as too sympathetic to Palestinians.
As David Wurmser, one of the authors of the clean break document and the Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, later admitted , “In terms of Israel, we wanted Yasser Arafat not to have the cavalry over the horizon in terms of Saddam”.
George W. Bush aide, Philip Zelikow said , “the real threat (from Iraq) (is) the threat against Israel”, “this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat”, “the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell”.
But for Israel and the Bush administration, the war in Iraq was just the first phase of the “clean break strategy”, to take out all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.
As the U.S. General Wesley Clark revealed the clean break went from a plan to take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq to a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”. (Emphasis added)
As Clark later explained on the Piers Morgan show, the list came from a study which was “paid for by the Israelis” and said, “if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding”.
With every other country on the hit list either weakened (Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan) or taken out (Iraq, Libya, Syria) from the ensuing years of U.S. and Israeli intervention, Neo-cons and Zionists see Iran as the last bulwark in the way of carrying out the Clean Break plan.
How many regime change wars before we wake up?
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | January 21, 2026
It was truly astonishing, the speed with which online influencers, including many self-styled anti-war leftists, took to social media in order to espouse regime change propaganda against Iran over the past few weeks. This then begs the question as to how many times this has to happen before people finally wake up?
For each regime change war waged by the West in the MENA region, it is almost as if the collective memory of the Western anti-war movement somehow dissipates. As a result, some principled activists and honest journalists, who retain their memories, are forced to go around in circles, arguing that the latest war is wrong, just like the last one and that lies are being pushed to justify a moral outrage.
The US and “Israel” pick a new target. The same decades old propaganda is pulled out of the draw, and then serious people have to argue endlessly, as they are attacked as “regime defenders”, simply for establishing basic truths. What is perhaps the saddest part of this is that over two years of genocide in Gaza, which the Western Left has collectively come together to oppose, has seemingly failed to impress upon them that their government never cares about human rights or so-called “international law”.
When it comes to the recent series of allegations made against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is nearly impossible to even engage in rational dialogue, as the pro-regime change crowd appear to be living in a parallel universe. This time, just like the last, they buy that the West is genuinely concerned by the alleged suffering of a foreign civilian population. However, in order to demonstrate just how ridiculous the latest round of propaganda has been, it is necessary to preface that with a little bit of history.
The same old pro-war lies again
If you are to listen to the mainstream corporate media and Western politicians, their portrayal of the Islamic Republic of Iran is of a “malevolent regime” that is negative in every conceivable way. That’s why none of them can ever mention something about Iran that is positive, or address the political climate of the country in any considerable kind of depth.
The primary excuses you’ll hear for why Iran needs a US-led regime change are that it will bring about “women’s rights”, “democracy”, “stop them developing weapons of mass destruction” and that the Iranian government is “killing its own people”.
Remember when we were told that Afghanistan had to be invaded and that the US had to kill innocent people as “collateral damage” in order to “free the women of Afghanistan”? The US invaded and remained there for 20 years, spent over 2 trillion dollars, and the government it built immediately fled the moment the Americans withdrew their forces.
These Colonial Feminist arguments aren’t even worth considering when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran, because they are disingenuous to begin with. The Israelis and elements of the Trump administration argue for re-installing the son of the deposed Shah of Iran. The Shah and his views on women were outright repulsive, yet the US government didn’t care about the repression of women’s rights when the Shah was in power, just like it didn’t care while Saudi Arabia prevented its women from driving cars.
Often, you may see people share old footage from Iran, in which women are seen in swimsuits on the beach, advertised as a magical time when the country was “free”. What you are watching is the former Iranian elite, a small segment of the economically advantaged who benefited from a repressive system.
But this all aside, just like was the case with the invasion of Afghanistan, it never had anything to do with women’s rights. Equally, you will see that the US’s soft power institutions use the issue of women’s rights as a means of social control and coercion. It’s not about empowering women, it’s about imperialism.
Iran is also accused of developing weapons of mass destruction. It is a well-established fact that when the US and UK claimed that former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, possessed such weapons, it was a lie.
Some may then come along and cite human rights groups for various statistics they provide regarding the death toll amongst protesters and rioters in Iran. Amnesty International even labelled the protests as “largely peaceful”. Bear in mind here that Amnesty also helped spread and give credibility to the claim that the Iraqi military had thrown 300 babies out of incubators, one of the key lies used to justify the First Gulf War.
While this isn’t to simply discredit all human rights reports, it suffices to say that we must still check their sources and accept the reality that they are not beyond political pressure and the power of their donors. Recently, the major human rights groups have proven extremely diligent on the question of Palestine in particular, but one should note that this hasn’t always been the case, it is instead a newer phenomenon that the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have taken such brave stances, particularly beginning in 2021.
Therefore, we should always be critical of everything we see when it comes to claims without any credible sources behind them, especially surrounding the buildup and justifications provided for regime change wars. In Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and even in Gaza, these human rights organizations and UN human rights reports have aided in justifying the arguments for interventionism and the alleged Israeli “right to self defense”.
Then we come to the next popular argument, which is Identity Politics at its core. This is the “listen to Iranians”. By this, of course, what is implied is that you only listen to a select group of Iranians who are in favour of bombing and destroying their own country.
Simply put, this is no different to the “ex-Muslims” who are paid to talk about how bad Muslims are, it is an argument devoid of any logic and relies purely upon emotion. This time it is “listen to Iranians”, in the past we were told to listen to members of the Iraqi, Afghan, Syrian and Libyan diaspora who would be paraded across all major broadcast media platforms to tell their extremely biased and personalised stories in order to argue in favour of regime change.
There is no difference between Iranians going on the BBC or CNN to argue for more sanctions and intervention, and Iraqis doing the exact same thing in the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many Palestinians are also given jobs by pro-war think tanks and invited to tell their stories in the corporate media, if they simply choose to side with Israel over Hamas.
‘It’s a monstrous regime, but…’
Another popular argument you will see made, is one that automatically accepts all the propaganda used to justify illegal wars of aggression, before going on to make the counter point that “we still shouldn’t support this war”. In essence, this is a coward’s way out of being criticized and labelled.
This tactic is something we saw on display when it came to addressing the Israeli genocide against the people of Gaza. The entire Western media establishment demanded the condemnation of Hamas by any journalist or activist arguing in favour of the Palestinians. Many simply went along with this, blindly accepting much of the propaganda about Hamas without actually knowing anything about the group. Very few dared to go into the details of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and point out the lies about it.
By starting with a condemnation of Iran, or the Palestinian Resistance, you immediately cede to the US-Israeli propaganda framing. These Western media ghouls do not actually care about the details, or the loss of human life on any side, they simply seek to frame the situation in a very specific way. They work to manufacture a controlled media environment, one in which anyone who refuses to utter condemnation is deemed an “extremist” and lacking in credibility.
If you don’t understand the accusations, the best course of action is to refrain from discussing something out of your depth. Alternatively, if you do understand the issue in depth, then explain it in its proper context.
The lies against Iran
There is no need to beat around the bush here, the riots that we saw on January 8-10 were part of an Israeli backed war on Iran. On December 28, legitimate protests began against the government’s mismanagement of the financial crisis, resulting in no violence and no arrests. One day later, suddenly, the former Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, Naftali Bennett, releases a video encouraging a nation-wide Iranian uprising to overthrow the government, something that would not begin until January.
What also occurred at the end of December was that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had just arrived in the US, where according to sources cited by Axios News, he was urging the US President to strike Iran. All of a sudden, violent rioters just so happened to hijack the totally peaceful protests and ignite a campaign of utter chaos.
The Western corporate media claims that the rioters, whom they refer to as “protesters”, were overwhelmingly peaceful and were subjected to massacres. They also acknowledge that over 160 Iranian security force members were killed over only a matter of days. Which begs the question, during which peaceful protest movements in history have there been so many members of the security forces killed over such a short period of time?
It’s not only police officers, as many civilians were brutally beaten to death by the rioters, as others were burned alive, and there were even cases of beheadings; women and children were also murdered by these rioters.
Peaceful protesters don’t attack 250 mosques, 20 religious centers, thousands of private vehicles, 364 large stores, 419 small shops, 182 ambulances, 4,700 bank branches, 1,400 ATM’s, 265 schools, 3 major libraries, 8 cultural heritage and tourism sites and 4 cinemas. They also don’t burn the Quran in the streets, destroy bus stops, the metro stations, burn down buses, or carry firearms and explosive devices. Although the exact statistics are difficult to ascertain and cannot yet be confirmed, these are the ones provided from sources inside Iran. At the very least, there is video evidence to confirm attacks on these targets.
The evidence about what just happened is there for the world to see. The statistics for the overall death toll range so dramatically that determining it at this moment has been rendered impossible. From the videos and photos of the bodies in morgues, it would appear as if hundreds are dead at the least.
There was no anti-government protest that numbered more than into the tens of thousands, at most, it was more likely only thousands, according to the footage available. Most of these riots and gatherings were small, not more than a few hundred, and in some cases, there were only small teams of men who showed up to cause chaos and then quickly ran away.
On the other hand, the pro-government protests numbered in the millions across the country. Initially, some tried to deny the footage and make up all kinds of lies about it. Everything from “that’s old” to “that’s AI” was claimed. Finally, when these excuses wore out, the pro-regime change media pivoted to “they were coerced”.
Days after the anti-government riots and protests had ended, the Western corporate media and Zionist social media influencers were still sharing old footage to claim that their imaginary “revolution” was still ongoing.
Without going into every minute detail, it suffices to say that the pro-regime change media and social media influencers are simply living in a parallel universe when it comes to this topic. It is impossible to even argue with them, they make up anything they choose and care not for objective realities.
As in any country, there are legitimate grievances from the people against their government in Iran, but these riots had nothing to do with the popular will and beliefs of the masses, this was an Israeli Mossad backed attempt to destabilize the country, then used to justify military intervention.
For saying this, you will be labelled, just as we were labelled before. But the truth is the truth: regime change in Iran serves the Israelis. Iran is the only country, along with the Ansar Allah government in Yemen, that has backed the Palestinians and retaliated against “Israel”. Tehran backs the Palestinian Resistance, which is why it is being targeted for regime change. If it were to abandon its values and the Palestinian cause tomorrow, the regime change threats against it would cease outright.
Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’: The illusion of transition and the reality of control
Washington claims the war has entered a ‘second phase,’ but conditions in Gaza show no power shift, no end to violence, and no real sovereignty
By Mohammad al-Ayoubi | The Cradle | January 20, 2026
The announcement arrived wrapped in the familiar choreography of diplomacy. Carefully chosen language, optimistic briefings, and reassurances that the war on Gaza had reached a new stage, one that would ease suffering and open the door to political reordering.
According to Washington, “phase two” of the ceasefire agreement had begun, signaling a move away from annihilation toward stability, governance, and transition.
In Gaza, the reality was less abstract. Israeli drones continued to hover above neighborhoods already reduced to rubble, Rafah remained sealed, bodies still arrived at hospitals, and Israeli forces showed no sign of withdrawal.
Aid trickled in sporadically, reconstruction remained a distant promise, and the daily mechanics of siege carried on uninterrupted. Nothing that defines a genuine shift in conditions or authority had materially changed, except the vocabulary used to describe it.
The question raised by the US announcement is therefore not whether ‘phase two’ has begun, but whether it was ever intended to exist as anything more than a political abstraction.
Is this a real transition in the trajectory of the war, or another exercise in linguistic repackaging meant to stabilize Israel’s position without addressing the foundations of the conflict itself?
The historical record leaves little room for doubt. US involvement in Palestine has consistently revolved around managing the scale and visibility of violence, calibrating its intensity in ways that safeguard Israel’s strategic dominance while containing diplomatic fallout.
Read in this context, ‘phase two’ emerges as a political device rather than a substantive shift. It is a framework meant to absorb the aftermath of mass destruction, shield Israel from international isolation, and reorder Palestinian life under post-war conditions, all while leaving untouched the structures that made the war inevitable.
A declaration without enforcement
Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a Palestinian writer and political analyst close to Hamas, tells The Cradle that Washington’s announcement amounts to nothing more than “a political position rather than a genuine transition on the ground,” especially given Israel’s failure to comply even with the terms of the first phase.
Israeli forces continue to expand what Palestinians refer to as the ‘Yellow Line,’ a militarized buffer zone that now consumes much of Gaza’s territory. Rafah remains closed, essential goods are blocked, targeted killings continue, and no meaningful reconstruction effort has begun. The conditions that defined the war before the ceasefire remain largely intact beneath a layer of diplomatic messaging.
Hazem Qassem, Hamas’s official spokesperson, echoes this assessment, acknowledging that while the announcement appears positive in form, “what has happened so far is a media declaration that requires concrete steps on the ground.” He emphasizes that Israel has failed to meet even the benchmarks of phase one, making any talk of a second phase more aspirational than real.
In the logic of international relations, a political declaration without enforcement mechanisms is no declaration at all. The US, which possesses full capacity to pressure Israel, has once again chosen the role of “biased mediator” – or more accurately, a partner in re-engineering the war through less crude means.
Netanyahu’s moment of clarity
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement describing the move to the second phase of the Gaza agreement as “largely symbolic” cannot be read as a marginal opinion or personal estimate.
It is an official Israeli definition of the function of this phase. When Netanyahu makes such a statement immediately after Washington’s announcement, and in front of the families of captives, he makes it clear that Tel Aviv does not treat ‘phase two’ as a binding executive path, but as political and media cover, allowing it to manage time and pressure without offering substantive concessions.
More revealing still was Netanyahu’s dismissal of the proposed Palestinian governing committee as symbolic as well. The implication was unmistakable. Israel does not recognize any Palestinian administration, even one stripped of factional power and framed as technocratic, as a sovereign actor. At best, such bodies are temporary facades. At worst, they are obstacles to be bypassed or neutralized.
This position directly undermines Washington’s narrative of “phased transition.” Israel is not preparing to withdraw, hand over authority, or allow meaningful Palestinian governance to take root.
Instead, it is preserving the outer shell of an agreement while hollowing out its content, a strategy refined through decades of negotiations that maintained form while denying substance.
Seen in this light, the US announcement functions as crisis management rather than conflict resolution, while the Israeli response amounts to an admission that there is no intention to leave Gaza, empower Palestinians, or commit to a political timetable.
‘Phase two’ is designed to freeze escalation and manage fallout, not to dismantle the structures that made the war inevitable.
A first phase that never materialized
From the perspective of Palestinian factions, the premise of phase two is flawed because phase one never truly existed in practice.
Israel did not withdraw from the ‘Yellow Line,’ which now covers roughly 60 percent of Gaza’s land. It did not open the crossings, halt its killing campaign, or allow unrestricted aid. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 460 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was announced, alongside over 1,100 violations, according to Hamas, including assassinations and incursions that continued even as the agreement was being celebrated diplomatically.
These figures alone dismantle the notion of transition.
Speaking to The Cradle, Mahfouz Manwar, a senior figure in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), argues “talk of a second phase is premature so long as Israel has not been compelled to implement the first phase.”
What exists, he says, is an agreement that survives on paper but has collapsed on the ground, with the concept of ‘phases’ repurposed as a mechanism to legitimize continued occupation at a reduced political cost.
What a real transition would require
If ‘phase two’ had genuinely begun, its indicators would be unmistakable. Israeli forces would withdraw from occupied areas, Rafah would open fully and without political conditions, targeted killings would cease, and reconstruction materials would begin entering Gaza at scale.
None of this has occurred.
Instead, Israel continues to use Rafah as a tool of pressure, blocking any Palestinian sovereign presence, even in its most symbolic form. Authority remains firmly in Israeli hands, reshaped through security arrangements that leave the underlying power balance intact. ‘Phase two,’ as it currently stands, operates as a managed delay rather than a move toward implementation.
At the center of the ‘phase two’ narrative lies the proposal for a transitional Palestinian administration in Gaza, a question that should not be treated as a bureaucratic detail but as a core indicator of whether any real shift is underway.
According to Madhoun and Qassem, Hamas approached the administrative committee as a Palestinian necessity rather than a concession to external pressure. The movement facilitated its formation, they argue, in order to ease humanitarian suffering and remove the pretexts used to justify continued war.
The principle of such a committee was agreed upon more than a year ago with Egyptian mediation, and clear criteria were established, including local representation from Gaza, independence from the occupation, and professional rather than factional qualifications. Disagreements over specific names did arise, as Madhoun acknowledges, but some were resolved through revisions while others remain under discussion, a dynamic that Manwar describes as natural within a fragmented national context.
What is striking, however, is the absence of Fatah from the Cairo talks, reflecting a deeper structural crisis in the Palestinian political system, where authority is fragmented and accountability diffuse. The more pressing question is not whether consensus exists, but whether Israel will permit any Palestinian body to function with real authority. Thus far, the answer has been unequivocally negative.
Administration without sovereignty
The proposed committee, reportedly headed by a former deputy planning minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), Ali Shaath, and composed of roughly 14 professionals from Gaza, has been presented as a step toward Palestinian self-administration. In reality, the environment in which it is expected to operate exposes the limits of that claim.
The backgrounds of its members have reportedly been vetted by the US, Israel, and Egypt, while its authority is tied to international oversight structures, and its freedom of movement remains subject to Israeli approval. This produces a familiar paradox: a Palestinian body tasked with administering a territory over which it exercises no control.
There is no authority over borders, airspace, or crossings, and not even autonomy over the movement of its own personnel. What emerges is not governance in any meaningful sense, but service provision under occupation, a structure designed to manage humanitarian fallout without possessing the political tools to address its causes.
Decision-making power remains external, particularly through international mechanisms overseeing reconstruction funding, reproducing a well-worn model in which local administrators operate beneath an internationalized center of control.
Hamas and the politics of withdrawal
One of the most consequential developments in this phase is Hamas’s declaration that it is prepared to relinquish administrative control of Gaza without exiting the national struggle. According to the movement’s leadership, this reflects a genuine effort to facilitate relief rather than a tactical maneuver.
By stepping back from civil governance, Hamas removes the primary Israeli-American justification for continued war. If the movement is no longer administering Gaza, the argument that military operations are necessary to dismantle its rule loses coherence. Yet history suggests that governance was never the real issue, and that Palestinian existence itself has always been treated as the fundamental problem.
Weapons and coercion
The attempt to link reconstruction to disarmament is widely viewed by Palestinian factions as a form of political blackmail. Both Hamas and PIJ reject the premise outright, arguing that it seeks to impose politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily.
Qassem states that Hamas is open to regulating weapons within a national framework, but not to surrendering them. Manwar highlights the contradiction at the heart of Israeli claims: if Israel insists it has already destroyed the resistance’s military capabilities, why does disarmament remain a central demand?
The answer lies not in security, but in symbolism. Weapons in Gaza are not merely arms, but markers of agency, and stripping them away would transform the territory from a space of resistance into one managed externally through security arrangements.
A ceasefire without an endpoint
There is little evidence that ‘phase two’ leads toward a permanent end to the war. What exists instead is a fragile pause, vulnerable to collapse, in which phases are used to reposition rather than resolve.
In its current form, ‘phase two’ risks becoming a form of undeclared trusteeship, a humanitarian administration without sovereignty, or a gradual erosion of resistance under sustained pressure.
None of these outcomes constitutes peace.
Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, and the US are presented as guarantors of the agreement, yet even American officials concede that there has been no progress on an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and that reopening Rafah ultimately remains an Israeli decision.
This admission captures the essence of the crisis. A second phase cannot succeed so long as Israel retains veto power over every operational detail. Only sustained pressure, not diplomatic optimism, can convert an agreement from text into lived reality.
What is unfolding in Gaza points away from any genuine transition toward peace and toward a reshaping of control under new terms. ‘Phase two’ has evolved into a test of Palestinian factions, regional mediators, and the credibility of international guarantees alike.
It will either open the way to an unconditional end to the war and meaningful reconstruction, or take its place among the many agreements reduced to form without substance.
Gaza, which endured annihilation without surrender, will not be subdued by administrative committees or phased rhetoric. The struggle has expanded beyond territory and military confrontation. It is now a battle over who defines politics, who controls humanitarianism, and who ultimately holds the right to decide.
UNRWA under attack: Ben-Gvir directs demolition in al-Quds
Al Mayadeen | January 20, 2026
Israeli occupation authorities bulldozed buildings inside the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in eastern occupied al-Quds, as “Israel” intensifies restrictions on humanitarian organizations providing aid to Palestinians.
Local sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli troops, accompanied by bulldozers, stormed the UNRWA compound after sealing off surrounding streets and increasing their military presence. The forces then demolished structures inside the compound.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas at a Palestinian trade school, marking a second incident targeting a UN facility in the same area.
Israeli officials present during the demolition
“Israel” has repeatedly accused UNRWA of pro-Palestine bias and alleged links to Hamas, without providing evidence, claims the agency has strongly denied.
“Israel’s” Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demolition was carried out under a new “law” banning the organization.
Extremist Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he accompanied crews to the headquarters, calling the demolition a “historic day”.
On his part, Israeli-imposed deputy mayor of occupied al-Quds Aryeh King referred to UNRWA as “Nazi” in a post on X.
“I promised that we would kick the Nazi enemy out of Jerusalem,” he wrote. “Now it’s happening: UNRWA is being kicked out of Jerusalem!”
UNRWA denounces ‘open defiance of international law’
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described the demolition as an “unprecedented attack” and “a new level of open & deliberate defiance of international law.”
“Like all UN Member States & countries committed to the international rule-based order, Israel is obliged to protect & respect the inviolability of UN premises,” he wrote in a post on X.
He added that similar measures could soon target other international organizations.
“There can be no exceptions. This must be a wake-up call,” Lazzarini stressed. “What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission.”
UN demands immediate cessation of demolitions
On his part, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned “in the strongest terms” the Israeli occupation forces’ demolition of the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah compound, spokesperson Farhan Haq said during a news conference.
Citing the inviolability and immunity of UN premises, Haq said, “The Secretary-General views as wholly unacceptable the continued escalatory actions against UNRWA, which are inconsistent with Israel’s clear obligations under international law, including under the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.”
“The Secretary-General urges the Government of Israel to immediately cease the demolition of the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah compound, and to return and restore the compound and other UNRWA premises to the United Nations without delay,” he added.
Aid groups face widespread restrictions
The move comes amid international condemnation following “Israel’s” ban on dozens of international aid organizations providing life-saving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
“Israel” has lately revoked the operating licences of 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council, citing non-compliance with new government regulations.
Under the new rules, international NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank must provide detailed information on staff members, funding sources, and operational activities.
Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel” could face proceedings at the International Court of Justice if it does not repeal laws targeting UNRWA and return seized assets.
In a January 8 letter, Guterres said the UN could not remain indifferent to “actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”
Laws targeting UNRWA expanded
“Israel’s” parliament passed legislation in October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating in “Israel” and prohibiting Israeli officials from engaging with the agency. The law was amended last month to ban electricity and water supplies to UNRWA facilities.
Israeli authorities also occupied UNRWA’s offices in eastern occupied al-Quds last month.
UNRWA was established more than 70 years ago by the UN General Assembly to provide assistance to Palestinians forcibly displaced from their land.
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From the Archives
Fact File : Civilian Internment 1939 – 1945
BBC – Compiled in 2003
Internment of civilian nationals belonging to opposing sides was carried out in varying degrees by all belligerent powers in World War Two. It was also the fate of those servicemen who found themselves in a neutral country.
At the outbreak of war there were around 80,000 potential enemy aliens in Britain who, it was feared, could be spies, or willing to assist Britain’s enemies in the event of an invasion. All Germans and Austrians over the age of 16 were called before special tribunals and were divided into one of three groups… continue
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