How Zionists Control Australia’s Media
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | July 20, 2025
On July 15th, The New York Times published an unprecedented “guest essay” by Brown University’s professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, Omer Bartov. In it, he formally accused Israel of perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and “literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence.” Bartov, a Zionist and Occupation Force veteran, previously emphatically denied this was the case in a November 2023 op-ed for the outlet. More generally, America’s newspaper of record has hitherto whitewashed, distorted, and obscured Tel Aviv’s horrific crimes on an industrial scale.
Its editors previously explicitly ordered reporters to avoid “inflammatory terms” such as “ethnic cleansing”, “occupied territory”, “genocide”, and even “Palestine”. Wholly fabricated stories about Hamas atrocities and mass rape fed to the outlet by Israeli government, military and intelligence sources have been exposed as tissues of lies by the newspaper’s own staff, but not retracted. As such, for Bartov to acknowledge the Zionist entity is committing genocide, and The New York Times to provide him with a platform to say so, is no small thing.
It speaks volumes about the state of the Western media that admission of this inarguable fact by any source can be considered remotely noteworthy. Since the beginning of Israel’s unconscionable assault on Gaza in October 2023, it has been unambiguously evident the ZOF’s indiscriminate rampage is concertedly genocidal in nature. In April too, the UN formally accused Tel Aviv of committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza, consciously and intentionally “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.”
Palestinians traverse ZOF-inflicted ruins in northern Gaza
This finding, along with identical conclusions drawn by Western rights groups and legal scholars, mysteriously escaped the attention of major news outlets. The obvious question arises as to how the mainstream media remained silent so long – to the point of active complicity – not merely about the Zionist entity’s 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, but Israel’s historic abuse, persecution and slaughter of the Palestinian people. An answer is provided in veteran Australian journalist John Lyons’ 2017 biography, Balcony Over Jerusalem.
Buried in the book is a comprehensive account of how Australia’s Israeli lobby systematically plunges its poisonous hooks into influential editors and reporters Down Under, ensuring they act as dependable propagandists for Tel Aviv. The details are of enormous wider relevance, for as this journalist has previously documented, foreign media outreach is a dedicated, devastatingly effective means by which occupation, land theft, and ethnic cleansing hardwired into Zionism has been successfully concealed from Western audiences for decades. Identical operations are undoubtedly in force across the globe.
‘Hardline Side’
Lyons’ disclosures about the Zionist lobby’s mephitic influence in Australia are all the more remarkable given the author evidently does not perceive Palestinians to be wholly innocent victims. His book’s blurb perversely frames them and Zionists as equal parties in a “devastating war”, and boasts how he has “confronted Hamas officials about why they fire rockets” into Tel Aviv. There is zero insinuation in its contents Lyons denies or even vaguely questions Israel’s ultimate right to exist in some form or other.
Moreover, Balcony Over Jerusalem is rife with sentimental passages recalling trips to the Zionist entity to interview senior officials old and new, his long-running personal friendships with Australian Jews, and work on a major project investigating Jewish identity. This renders Lyons’ critical insights particularly valuable. The vicious backlash that erupted against the author from the Israel lobby within and without Australia in response to his book, which has raged ever since, is also instructive. Those same elements initially sought to foster a warm bond with the veteran journalist.
Lyons explains how once appointed deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald in the early 1990s, his “phone began ringing with requests for meetings” with local Jewish groups. Only later did he learn, “once you have ‘deputy’ in your title or are perceived as being on the rise within your media organisation you become a target for cultivation” by Australia’s “fiercely efficient pro-Israel lobby.” Public affairs apparatchiks at local Zionist organisations pestered him for a “year or so” to accept an all-expenses-paid tour of Israel.
Lyons eventually accepted, and in 1996 made his first visit to Tel Aviv, funded by the Melbourne-based Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He recorded how “it has become almost a rite of passage for deputy editors of any major Australian news outlet to be offered a ‘study trip’ to Israel.” A senior AIJAC official boasted to Lyons the organisation had “sent at least 600 Australian politicians, journalists, political advisers, senior public servants and student leaders on these trips over the last 15 years.”
Lyons’ “assessment” was, “by ‘educating’ rising media executives, the Israeli lobby has in place editors” across Australia “who ‘understand’ the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” exclusively from the Zionist entity’s warped perspective, and report on local events accordingly. “I barely know an Australian newspaper executive who has not been on one of these trips,” he noted. Lyons and other senior staffers at major local media outlets were flown to Tel Aviv “for five days of wining, dining and briefings (including a stay in a kibbutz).”
Once inside the Zionist entity, he “quickly realised how narrow a range of opinions we were receiving” on the reality on-the-ground there. The trip’s organisers “set us up for an hour or so… to hear the point of view of the Palestinian Authority, but apart from that we were getting only one side of the story – and a hardline side at that.” It rapidly became clear to Lyons “the whole point of the trip was to defend Israel’s settlements in the Palestinian territories.”
‘Like Dresden’
In search of a “broader perspective”, Lyons asked his hosts to visit Hebron, Israel’s illegally occupied portion of the West Bank. The trip was spurred by his understanding that “in Hebron you can see the raw conflict,” as “it’s the only Palestinian city where there is an Israeli settlement in the middle of the Palestinian population; normally, the settlements are separated.” At that time, “several hundred settlers” lived “in the middle of 200,000 Palestinians.”
These settlers were and remain protected by the ZOF, and “the same rules of engagement for the army apply” as in other areas illegally annexed and occupied by Tel Aviv. Immediately upon arrival in Hebron, “the cruelty” of Zionist occupation was “there for all to see.” Lyons saw “how the conflict between the settlers and Palestinians played out at the most basic level.” It is a stomach-churning, life-threatening daily reality hidden from the outside world.
Hebron’s streets are typically empty, as “Palestinians are not able to drive on some roads or walk on others.” Years later, he took his editor on a trip there – they remarked, “it’s like Dresden after the bombing.” Arriving late at night, the pair encountered a “heavy Israeli Army presence” and a “certain eeriness” in the silent, deserted city. His stunned editor asked a ZOF soldier at a “closed checkpoint” into Jerusalem, “where are the Palestinians?” The militant smirkingly replied, “they’re all tucked up in bed!”
A street in Hebron where Palestinians are forbidden to tread
In Hebron, Lyons saw how Palestinians placed “wire over their market stalls to stop them being hit when Jewish settlers living above them throw bricks, chairs, dirty nappies and rotting chickens onto them.” He also witnessed Israeli soldiers “decide, without notice, to lock the Palestinians into the old part of the city at night, behind big security gates that look like cages.” The situation has only worsened subsequently, with illegal settlements – and concomitant ZOF repression – expanding exponentially. Lyons’ appraisal of the West Bank under Zionist rule is stark:
“If the whole world could see the occupation up close, it would demand that it end tomorrow. Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians would not pass muster in the West if the full details were known. The only reason Israel is getting away with this is because it has one of the most formidable public-relations machines ever seen, and enormous support from its diaspora communities… Military occupations look ugly because they are ugly. Israel’s reputation will bleed as long as its control over another people continues.”
Such perspectives are vanishingly rare among the countless Australian opinion-formers who have been treated to Zionist lobby-financed tours of Israel. As Lyons records, “wave after wave of journalists, editors, academics, student leaders and trade union officials” have been whisked to Tel Aviv “to hear the same spin from the same small group of people used to defend Israel’s policies in the West Bank” over the years. Few have followed Lyons’ example in actually visiting the area, to see the horror with their own eyes.
Nonetheless, Lyons’ outlook wasn’t fully fatalistic. He noted that while the Zionist entity’s Hasbara tactics “worked for the first few decades of the occupation, now virtually every incident between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian is filmed by a mobile phone,” exposing the ZOF’s routine savagery to overseas audiences. Fast forward to today, and the Gaza genocide has been televised globally in real-time not merely by fearless Palestinian journalists, who have often paid for their courage with their lives, but Israeli militants who sickly film their own hideous crimes.
The impact of these horrendous images on global public perceptions of the Zionist entity has been catastrophic, and irreversible. Polls consistently show across the West, even in the few countries that harboured some sympathy for Tel Aviv following October 7th, the overwhelming majority of citizens hold deeply unfavourable views of Israel. Support for the entity and its genocidal actions is becoming increasingly indefensible, as the monstrous truth becomes writ ever-larger. It can only be considered an unspeakable tragedy so many innocent Palestinians had to die for us to reach this point.
13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed after being shot in the back and left to bleed
Defense for Children Palestine | July 19, 2025
Israeli forces killed a 13-year-old Palestinian boy in Ya’bad village yesterday.
Amr Ali Ahmad Qabha, 13, was shot and killed around 6:30 p.m. on July 18 in the Palestinian village of Ya’bad, south of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Two military vehicles came from the Mevo Dotan settlement and military base, entered the village and took up positions in its northern area, where several soldiers exited their vehicles near the Patient’s Friends Society.
Amr was walking around a road near the Association, he unknowingly approached the group of Israeli soldiers stationed at the site. Due to the circular bend in the road, the soldiers did not initially see him, nor was he aware of their presence. As Amr turned back and attempted to take cover, the soldiers opened fire on him with live ammunition from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet) away, and he was struck with around seven bullets: three bullets in the back, one in the neck, one in the abdomen, one in the upper right thigh, and one in the groin.
“Systemic impunity creates an ultra permissive context where Israeli forces know no bounds and routinely shoot to kill Palestinian children in circumstances where there is no imminent threat to life,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Unlawful killings of Palestinian children have become the norm as Israeli forces become increasingly empowered to use intentional lethal force in situations that are not justified. In short, these are war crimes with no consequence.”
Amr fell to the ground as Israeli soldiers advanced toward him, preventing anyone from reaching him, including medical staff and ambulance teams. As news of Amr’s injury quickly spread in the village, his father rushed directly to the scene. Despite the soldiers’ shouting and warning shots, he managed to reach and embrace Amr.
According to the father, Amr was still alive at that time, using hand gestures to plead for medical help, as he was unable to speak. Israeli soldiers handcuffed the father behind his back, severely beaten and forced to sit beside his bleeding child.
The soldiers continued to detain both father and son, blocking ambulance access for approximately 40 minutes. Only after the soldiers were certain Amr had died, they allowed the ambulance to approach and transport him to the Ya’bad Government Emergency Center and then transferred to Jenin Government Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Israeli forces have killed 33 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2025, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
207 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Israeli forces deliberately and systematically blocked paramedics and ambulances from reaching injured Palestinian children, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces order Palestinian paramedics and ambulance drivers to leave the scene at gunpoint, fire live ammunition toward individuals to offer aid, and block roads and detain ambulance crews. In some cases, Israeli forces surround a bleeding child, preventing any medical care.
These acts of cruelty leave Palestinian children, injured by Israeli live fire, bleeding out on the ground, alone and in pain, with the intent to ensure death.
By preventing medical aid and ambulances to reach an injured child, Israel violates Article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as enshrined within it is every child’s inherent right to life. State parties to this treaty, such as Israel, must ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of a child. The decisive act of preventing medical assistance to reach a child shot with live ammunition seems to indicate an intent to ensure to the maximum extent possible the death of that child.
We reject ‘Israeli protection’: Druze spiritual leader
Press TV – July 18, 2025
The spiritual leader of the Druze ethnic minority in Lebanon says the community rejects the Israeli regime’s request to supposedly “protect” the minority.
Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna made the remarks at a gathering of Druze officials in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday.
He was referring to the regime’s repeated deadly and destructive violations of the Syrian territory, which it has undertaken under the supposed pretext of “protecting” the Druze, who also form a minority in Syria.
The request on the part of Tel Aviv “is harmful to our history and identity,” al-Muna added.
Observers rated the remarks as a warning to the regime against its trying to associate itself with the minority in order to advance its expansionist regional goals.
‘Don’t provide Israel with an excuse’
The spiritual leader, meanwhile, addressed the recent clashes in southern Syria between members of the Druze community and Bedouin tribes that had so far claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
He cautioned that the sectarian clashes “give an excuse for Israeli intervention and for blowing up the situation in the region.”
The regime has intensified its assaults on Syria since last year, claiming it seeks to prevent an outpouring of violence from the Arab country into the occupied territories.
On Wednesday, the escalation took a significantly more violent turn, when the regime hit various parts of Syria, including the capital Damascus, with intense airstrikes.
The attacks came amid the deadly fighting between the Druze and the Bedouins, fueling fears that the Israeli involvement under the pretext of supporting the Druze was aimed at intensifying the confrontations and further destabilizing Syria.
Amid the situation, al-Muna called for all parties to rather resort to national dialogue to address the issues among different communities in Syria.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Joumblatt addressed the same gathering, calling for formation of an investigative committee to probe violations against both Druze and Bedouins in the Arab country.
A day earlier, he had also warned in remarks to France’s RFI radio station that “Israel is using the Druze to tear Syria apart.”
He said “Israel’s intent to divide the country” was visible from the clashes that had erupted between the dual communities in Syria.
Seyed M. Marandi: Israel Attacks Syria – Prelude to Balkanization
Glenn Diesen | July 18, 2025
Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Team. Prof. Marandi discusses Israel’s efforts to Balkanise Syria. Follow Prof. Glenn Diesen: Substack: https://glenndiesen.substack.com/
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World rallies behind Syria as Israel tears away at it
Press TV – July 18, 2025
International organizations and a whole host of countries have expressed outright condemnation of the Israeli regime’s escalating deadly and destructive attacks against Syria under the pretext of protecting the country’s Druze minority.
A torrent of statements followed the regime’s attack on various areas in the country on Wednesday, including areas lying in its south, in reported support for the Druze.
The attacks came as fighting between members of the minority and Bedouin tribes has killed hundreds of people, with the Israeli involvement being feared to be aimed at intensifying the confrontations and further destabilizing Syria.
UNSC calls for end to Israel’s ‘impunity’
Addressing the situation, Pakistan, which holds the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)’s rotating presidency, denounced the Israeli aggression.
Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad noted that the attacks resembled Tel Aviv’s atrocities against the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, all of which violated the international law. The envoy also called for an end to the regime’s impunity.
Mohamed Khaled Khiari, UN assistant secretary-general, denounced the Israeli escalation on the part of the world body’s chief, Antonio Guterres.
He said the attacks amounted toa violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and further destabilized the country amid the already sensitive situation.
The official also advised that Tel Aviv respect the 1974 agreement that has mandated its refusal to conduct violations against the Arab nation.
China calls for Israeli withdrawal
Geng Shuang, China’s deputy UN ambassador, said Beijing called on “Israel to immediately cease its military strikes on Syria and withdraw from Syrian territory without delay.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian also said the attacks amounted to a flagrant violation of international law and Syria’s sovereignty, saying the Arab country had to be spared of whatever measure that could lead to further crisis and tension.
Turkey: ‘Terror state’ Israel using Druze as excuse
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Israeli regime a “terror state.”
“Israel, using the Druze as an excuse, has been expanding its banditry into neighboring Syria over the past two days,” he said in a televised speech.
Erdogan said Turkey would not allow Syria’s partition, saying Tel Aviv’s actions showed it was not after peace.
PGCC: Israel after irresponsible escalation
The Persian Gulf Cooperation Council’s Secretary-General, Jasem Mohammed Albudaiw,i also said the Israeli regime’s atrocities indicated its efforts at irresponsible intensification of standing tensions.
The Israeli aggression, he added, also showed the regime’s disregard for the international community’s efforts at realizing stability and ensuring security in Syria.
Hamas: Israeli aggression ‘systematic terrorism’
The Palestinian resistance movements, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, called the atrocities “organized terrorism.”
The latter also said Tel Aviv was trying to fragment the region through violence, reaffirming solidarity with Syria and supporting its right to resist by all means.
Ansarullah: Israeli attacks part of ‘imperialist scheme’
Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement denounced the Israeli strikes as part of a larger “imperialist scheme” to dominate the Arab and Muslim world.
It called for a unified Arab-Islamic response and an end to silence in the face of the aggression.
Muslim states hold intensive talks
Foreign ministers from various regional Muslim countries have, meanwhile, held intensive talks concerning the state of affairs.
The talks were held among top diplomats from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Egypt.
The discussions that were held with the aim of helping the countries in question adopt a unified stance in the face of the situation saw the officials reiterate support for Syria’s security, unity, stability, and sovereignty.
They called on the UNSC to assume its legal and moral duties towards guaranteeing the withdrawal of the Israeli regime from Syria, and bringing about an end to its aggression by obliging it to abide by the 1974 agreement.
Malaysia: Israel threatening international peace
Malaysia also called for the international community “not to tolerate the continued aggression by the Israeli Zionist regime against other countries, threatening regional and international peace and security.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said after decades of hardship, the Syrian people deserved peace, not further violence and external interference.
Norway’s foreign minister has also said he was “deeply concerned about recent Israeli airstrikes and rising domestic tensions.”
Iran rejects Argentina’s ‘baseless’ accusations in 1994 AMIA case, urges fair probe
Press TV – July 18, 2025
Tehran has dismissed “baseless” accusations leveled by Argentina at Iranian nationals in connection with the deadly 1994 AMIA bombing, urging the country’s judiciary to handle the case fairly without third-party influence.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday, marking the 31th anniversary of the bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, that killed 85 people and injured over 300 others.
It said that elements and currents linked to Israel exploited the “suspicious” explosion from the very beginning and diverted the case into a misleading and incorrect path, disrupting the longstanding Iran-Argentine relations.
It also noted that over the past three decades, Iran has repeatedly declared its position in condemnation of any act of terrorism and stressed the need for a transparent and fair trial into the incident.
“Completely rejecting the accusations against its citizens, the Islamic Republic has condemned the insistence of certain domestic circles in Argentine to pressure the country’s judicial system into issuing baseless charges and seemingly judicial rulings against Iranian citizens,” it said. “Iran has called for the real masterminds and perpetrators of the explosion to be identified.”
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry added that in the past years, clear and undeniable evidence has emerged indicating that the Zionist regime and its affiliated currents are exerting influence and pressure on the Argentinean judicial system to make accusations against Iranians.
It further highlighted frequent changes in the judicial team investigating the AMIA case, the revelation of corruption among some judicial elements, the resignation of judges and even attempts on their lives, as an evidence of a “purposeful will to divert the Argentinean judicial system from a transparent and fair probe into the case.”
With the sole aim of protecting bilateral ties and restoring the dignity of Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic entered into talks with Argentina, which resulted in the signing of a memorandum of understanding in 2013, the ministry said. Less than two years later, however, Buenos Aires unilaterally canceled the deal and prevented the formation of a transparent process aimed at revealing the truth and identifying those behind the blast.
“The Islamic Republic strongly emphasizes the baseless nature of claims against Iranian citizens, insists on the restoration of the accused citizens’ dignity and demands an end to the show trial, while expecting the Argentinean judicial authorities to handle the case in a transparent and fair manner free from politicization and undue influence by third parties,” it asserted.
“In accordance with international law, the Islamic Republic reserves its legal and legitimate rights to respond to any inappropriate and unreasonable action against itself and its citizens.”
Bogota Summit launches Global South’s legal intifada against Israel and US impunity
By José Niño | The Cradle | July 17, 2025
From 15–16 July, Bogota became the unlikely capital of a global insurrection against western legal impunity. Over 30 countries – including key powers from the Global South and even some European states – gathered in the Colombian capital for the Hague Group Emergency Summit.
This was the most ambitious multilateral initiative yet to directly confront what participants unflinchingly termed Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the broader culture of impunity that has shielded the occupation state since 1948.
From steadfast client to anti-imperial spearhead
That the summit was held in Colombia – a long-standing US vassal in Latin America – was not incidental. Once regarded as Washington’s most loyal client in the hemisphere, Colombia’s dramatic pivot under President Gustavo Petro represents the boldest regional defiance of US authority in decades.
Petro, who severed diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv in 2024, has placed Bogota on a collision course with the US over his unwavering opposition to the occupation state’s onslaught in Gaza.
Washington reacted predictably by issuing warnings to allies against the “weaponization of international law,” and sanctioning UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her “illegitimate and shameful efforts” to advance the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutions of Israeli and US officials. Bogota responded with direct defiance. In the run-up to the summit, Petro publicly backed Albanese, declaring that “the multilateral system of states cannot be destroyed,” in a thinly veiled rejection of US diktats.
Over 30 nations participated, including the eight founding members of the Hague Group – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa. They were joined by more than 20 additional states spanning Latin America, Africa, Asia, and even Europe.
The participation of European countries such as Portugal and Spain was noteworthy. Both states only established full diplomatic relations with Israel in the latter part of the 20th century: Portugal in 1977 and Spain in 1986, emblematic of their historic caution over Israel’s contested legitimacy.
But since Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza began in late 2023, Madrid has adopted a string of punitive diplomatic moves.
Spain canceled a €6.6 million (around $7.2 million) ammunition purchase from an Israeli firm, scrapped a €285 million (around $310.7 million) anti-tank missile deal with the Spanish subsidiary of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, banned Israeli weapons from port entry, formally recognized Palestinian statehood, and pushed to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement.
Though neither European state fully endorsed all of Bogota’s proposals, their participation and scathing denunciations of Israeli policy reflect a deeper fracture within Europe over Tel Aviv’s legitimacy and the cost of complicity.
Laying the legal gauntlet
Central to the summit was a blistering legal and moral condemnation of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The Hague Group issued a detailed catalog of war crimes: the mass killing of over 57,000 civilians, the targeting of hospitals and schools, the weaponization of starvation and siege, and the deliberate use of forced displacement.
The apartheid state in the occupied West Bank, enforced through racial segregation, parallel legal systems, and land confiscations for settlements, was cited as a textbook violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and, per the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2024 advisory opinion, a breach of international prohibitions against forced territorial acquisition and apartheid.
Francesca Albanese delivered the summit’s keynote, setting the tone with an uncompromising indictment:
“For too long, international law has been treated as optional – applied selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the powerful … That era must end.”
The ICC arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – citing crimes such as starvation as a weapon, indiscriminate civilian targeting, and the murder of Palestinian non-combatants – were repeatedly invoked as a historic turning point.
The Resistance Axis of lawfare
The summit’s ethos was clearly to rupture the impunity enabled by the UN Security Council’s paralysis. The Hague Group, founded in January 2025, framed itself as the Global South’s corrective to a postwar order that protects violators so long as they are shielded by US power.
That paralysis, most attendees argued, was not accidental but structural: The P5 veto system ensures impunity for those, such as Israel and its allies.
Meeting in the San Carlos Palace, delegates from 12 states – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa – announced six binding measures. These included a full arms embargo on the occupation state, port bans for Israeli military vessels, contract reviews to terminate commercial complicity with the occupation, and firm support for domestic and international prosecution of Israeli officials.
These policies were anchored in the ICJ’s 2024 opinion declaring Israel’s occupation illegal and the UN General Assembly’s September 2024 resolution urging decisive global action within 12 months.
A global rift – but still an uphill battle
Despite the breakthrough, significant limitations remain. Only 12 states adopted the measures outright. Others were given until the UN General Assembly in September to sign on. Key powers, including China, withheld endorsement – despite supporting the initiative’s aims – likely due to economic entanglements with Israel, including port infrastructure investments.
Organizers acknowledged the uphill road ahead: absent broader UN uptake and stronger alignment from economic powers, Washington’s veto and European hesitation could neuter the Hague Group’s legal insurgency. But the coalition remains adamant that justice is no longer negotiable.
Colombian Vice Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir captured the summit’s urgency:
“The Palestinian genocide threatens the entire international system … The participating states will not only reaffirm their commitment to opposing genocide, but also formulate concrete steps to move from words to collective action.”
A warning – and a promise
The Bogota summit was not just another international conference. It openly challenged the post-1945 legal fiction of a “rules-based order” – a system long exposed as a euphemism for western prerogative.
As South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Roland Lamola, asserted
“No country is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered.”
Yet the struggle remains unfinished. The Hague Group’s bold confrontation with Israeli impunity marks a decisive break, but the future of this legal uprising hinges on whether its momentum can breach the fortified walls of New York and The Hague, and whether powers like China, India, and Brazil shift from quiet endorsement to active alignment.
On 16 July, as thousands gathered in Plaza Bolivar in support, the message was unambiguous: either the era of impunity ends, or the legitimacy of the global order collapses with it.
China Ready to Work With SCO Countries to Restore Peace in Middle East
Sputnik – 17.07.2025
China is ready to cooperate with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member countries and the international community to promote a political settlement and the speedy restoration of peace in the Middle East, the Chinese Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asked the SCO to promptly consider the situation with Israel’s aggression against the Islamic Republic, as well as to provide Tehran with political support in light of the June conflict with the Jewish state.
“The peoples of China and Iran are bound by traditional friendship. China is committed to maintaining friendly cooperation with Iran in order to benefit the peoples of both countries and bring positive factors to maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East,” the ministry said when asked to comment on Iran’s request to the SCO.
The ministry noted that “the situation in the region currently remains complex and sensitive.”
“China is ready to cooperate with members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the international community to uphold peace, promote a political settlement and quickly restore peace and stability in the Middle East, which meets the common interests of the countries in the region and the international community,” the ministry added.
Iran: World bodies giving up legitimacy, ‘sense of mission’ to bullying, unilateralism
Press TV – July 17, 2025
Iran says the imposition of US sanctions targeting a UN-appointed human rights expert and the mass resignation of members of the UN Palestine inquiry show that the world bodies are no longer allowed to even record the truth.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei made the remarks in a post on his X account on Thursday after the US on July 9 announced punitive measures against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, while all three members of the UN commission investigating crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories submitted their resignations on Monday.
In his post, Baghaei said the sanctions and the resignations should not be taken lightly as they are an “alarming sign of the erosion of the global legal and normative order.”
“International institutions are giving up their legitimacy, effectiveness, authority and ‘sense of mission’ to militant bullying & radical unilateralism,” the Iranian spokesperson wrote.
He said future generations would affirm that silence, indifference, and double standards in the face of grave injustices and wars led to the collapse of the world normative order.
Albanese, independent from the UN bureaucracy, operates under a UN Human Rights Council mandate. She has faced repeated smears and threats from Israeli officials and lobby groups for her accurate, evidence-based reporting on the situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Despite growing political backlash, human rights defenders continue to raise the alarm over the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
Since October 2023, the Israeli regime has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians—most of them civilians, women, and children—amid widespread destruction and blockade-induced starvation.
Colombia must sever ties with NATO – president
RT | July 17, 2025
Colombia must cut ties with NATO as the leaders of the military bloc support “genocide” of Palestinians, President Gustavo Petro has declared.
Colombia, a traditional US ally in South America, became the first country in the region to obtain the status of NATO global partner in 2017. Petro, who took office in 2022 as Colombia’s first leftist president, severed diplomatic relations with Israel last year over what he describes as a genocide being carried out by the Israeli government against Palestinians.
”What do we do in NATO? If NATO’s top brass are for genocide, what are we doing there?” Petro said at a pro-Palestinian international conference in Bogota on Wednesday.
”Hasn’t the time come for another military alliance? Because how can we be with armies that drop bombs on children?” he added. “Those armies aren’t armies of freedom, they’re armies of darkness. We must have armies of light.”
Petro argued that NATO is a Cold War relic and asserted that nations like Colombia are treated as “half-members” within the US-led military bloc, granted symbolic partnerships but not full accession.
The two-day conference in Bogota hosted representatives from a dozen countries in the Global South. Attendees signed a joint declaration calling for economic sanctions and legal actions against Israel, including an arms embargo, restrictions on dual-use goods, port denials for vessels carrying cargo for Israeli forces, and support for international accountability for crimes allegedly committed in occupied territories.
Petro’s criticism reflects a break from Colombia’s historically warm relationship with Israel. The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez once dubbed Colombia the “Israel of Latin America,” arguing it served a similar geopolitical role in the region.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following a deadly raid led by the militant group Hamas in October 2023. The first independent study of casualties in Gaza, published last month, estimated the number of fatalities in the enclave at almost 84,000 by January 2025. Israel is currently pushing Palestinians to move to a “humanitarian city” that would purportedly be free of Hamas influence – which critics say is just a euphemism for a concentration camp.
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Lies are Unbekoming | January 25, 2026
The waiting room is clean. The receptionist is polite. The forms ask reasonable questions. Nothing in the physical environment suggests danger. The magazines are current. The hand sanitizer dispenser works. Someone has chosen calming colors for the walls.
A pregnant woman sits in a chair designed for her comfort. She has been told to be here. Not ordered—no one orders. Recommended. Strongly recommended. Everyone does this. Her mother did this. Her friends did this. The women in her prenatal group compare notes about their appointments the way they compare notes about nursery furniture. Which provider did you choose? What tests have you had? The questions assume the answers. The answers assume the questions.
She will be offered things today. Offered is the word used. The offers will come with information sheets that list risks and benefits in tabular form. She will sign consent documents. Everything will be voluntary in the legal sense. No one will hold her down. No one will threaten her. She will choose, and her choices will feel like choices, and she will leave feeling she has done the responsible thing.
What she will not feel is the weight of what has been arranged before she arrived. … continue
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