Exposing Hypocrisy: Palestine, the ICJ, and the Collapse of Liberal Legitimacy
By Taut Bataut – New Eastern Outlook – May 20, 2025
ICJ has recently postponed the hearing of South Africa’s case against Israeli war crimes to January 12, 2026, providing it more time to annihilate Gaza. This marks the collapse and failure of the international system.
The Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
Since October 7, 2023, the Palestinians have been facing one of the worst genocidal operations in the world. More than 50000 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, have been intentionally killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) under the pretense of eliminating Hamas. However, this war has exposed the self-proclaimed champions of human rights and liberalism. The United States and the European Union have constantly been providing military, diplomatic, and financial aid to Israel.
The latter has emerged as the largest recipient of the US aid since its illegitimate inception. Moreover, the US government has vetoed multiple United Nations resolutions seeking to establish humanitarian peace in the region. U.S. President Donald Trump also reiterated his country’s support for Israel after his re-election. He also proposed a plan to relocate the native people of Gaza to the neighboring countries and occupy the region for the long term.
The Zionist state has intentionally targeted aid workers, mosques, churches, hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure in violation of international law. In an unprecedented move, the Netanyahu administration is using starvation and hunger as a weapon of war against the innocent civilians of the Gaza Strip. Several heart-wrenching images of starved children from Gaza have emerged on social media during all this time. Amnesty International and the different international humanitarian agencies have condemned these Israeli policies and declared them a war crime.
Global Legal Responses and the Case at the ICJ
While most of the Muslim nations hesitated even to utter a single sentence against the ongoing Israeli war crimes and genocide in Israel, South Africa filed a case against the Zionist state in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023 under the 1948 Genocide Convention. This Convention, established to halt the recurrence of Holocaust like events, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” More than 10 countries, including Turkey, Ireland, Egypt, the Maldives, Chile, Belgium, and Mexico, have joined the case against Israel.
The petition demanded urgent actions to prevent further Israeli war crimes in Gaza. However, despite the presence of numerous evidence and reports by international human rights organizations, the ICJ failed to halt the genocide of innocent civilians of the Gaza Strip. The court was also commissioned to determine whether the Israeli Defense Forces were committing genocide in Gaza. Since 2023, the court has made no considerable decision against the Israeli war crimes.
Exposing Hypocrisy and Seeking Alternatives to Western Hegemony
The world, especially the Gazans, is waiting for the international community to stand against the atrocities and the war crimes of the IDF and the Netanyahu government. However, the Western world and its puppet Arab nations are constantly ignoring the plight of the innocent Palestinians. This has exposed the international organizations, the OIC, and the Western liberal values. The ICJ’s recent decision to postpone the hearing till January 2026 demonstrates its apathy towards the citizens of Gaza in particular and towards the citizens of Third World countries in particular.
Israeli war crimes and apartheid in Palestine date back to the former’s inception in 1948. Since then, the Zionist groups in Palestine have been occupying the properties of the native peoples. Israel’s history is replete with rapes, torture, and killing of innocent children and women in Palestinian territory. The Zionist leaders have always supported sexual assault by the Israeli Defense Forces.
However, the international community remains indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians. The ICJ’s postponement of the hearing till next year demonstrates its commitment to justice and peace in the world. This move has once again revealed that the US-backed unipolar liberal world order has failed. It has also exposed the reality of the so-called champions of human rights. The United States and other Western nations have always echoed their concerns about the Ukrainian people. However, their nonchalance to the plight of the Palestinians exposes their hypocrisy.
Although the Palestinians and their supporters around the world were hopeful about the ICJ, this is the time to realize that all the international institutions were made merely to prolong the US hegemony and serve the Western interests. It is improbable that the ICJ would declare Israeli operations as genocide. However, even if it does so, it would be too late, as hundreds more Palestinians would have been killed by then. Nonetheless, South Africa’s case against the ICJ has further exposed the Western world order and its institutions. It is the right time for third-world countries to look for an inclusive and egalitarian world order. BRICS provides the best alternative to the developing countries pursuing their ambition of following independent foreign policies and mutual development.
MAGA influencers want an Iran deal and for hawks to shut up
Trump is unlikely to pay any political price if he disregards the old guard’s unrealistic demands
By Ben Armbruster | Responsible Statecraft | May 19, 2025
Neocons and their allies in Washington, Israel, and beyond are making unrealistic demands about the outcome of U.S. talks with Iran on limiting its nuclear program. But President Trump has absolutely no reason to listen to them and should not take them seriously.
The anti-Iran deal campaign kicked into overdrive last week when Republicans on Capitol Hill sent a letter to the White House calling on Trump to refuse any agreement that doesn’t include the complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.
“Every Republican senator except Rand Paul signed a letter to President Trump urging the administration to push for an end to Iran’s enrichment capacity,” Andrew Day, senior editor of the American Conservative, told RS. “They know that this demand is unacceptable to the Iranian regime and are clearly hoping to sabotage Trump’s diplomatic efforts.”
Center for International Policy senior non-resident fellow Sina Toossi called the letter’s demand “a poison pill.”
“Demanding zero enrichment, permanent restrictions, and total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — after the U.S. already broke the 2015 deal — is not a negotiating position,” he told RS.
Meanwhile, other deal opponents say that Iran can be allowed to keep its program for civilian energy production purposes with the caveat that it cannot enrich its own uranium.
The good news for Trump though — and those who see an opportunity to box in Iran’s nuclear program and avoid war — is that this anti-Iran deal coalition has no constituency outside Washington and Israel, and Trump will pay very little to no political price if he just ignores them.
Take for instance a recent poll conducted by the SSRS Opinion Panel Omnibus in conjunction with the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll program. That survey found that a large majority of Americans — 69% — favor “a negotiated agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful ends, with stringent monitoring” as opposed to military action. But perhaps more importantly for Trump’s political fortunes, 64% of Republicans surveyed — i.e. his base — agreed.
Opponents of diplomacy with Iran try to obfuscate this reality and muddy the waters. For example, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz — who’s been pushing for regime change in Iran for nearly two decades — promoted a poll last week finding that “76% of Americans say Iran’s nuclear-weapons facilities should be destroyed.”
Of course there is one problem: Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program, and thus no nuclear weapons facilities, a fact that the U.S. intelligence community routinely concludes.
But it’s not just the American people or the GOP base that support Trump making a deal with Iran. Some of the more high profile figures in the MAGA-America First world back him too.
“It’s called sanity,” Steve Bannon said last week, referring to the SSRS/UMaryland poll. Bannon, of course, served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and remains influential within his orbit and among his supporters.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who also has clout with Trump’s base, has been very vocal recently against going to war with Iran. “There is no wedge between the base and President Trump,” she said earlier this month. “The wedge is between Congress and the establishment Republicans that are undermining the president’s agenda.”
And conservative media star Tucker Carlson, who like Bannon, has close ties to Trump world and is influential with the president’s base, has been similarly calling out neocons and others who are trying to kill Trump’s diplomacy with Iran and push for war.
“Thousands of Americans would die. We’d lose the war that follows. Nothing would be more destructive to our country,” he said last month. “Anyone advocating for conflict with Iran is not an ally of the United States, but an enemy.”
Popular right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk has piled on as well. “[T]here are people in Washington inside the Pentagon and inside the administration who want to launch military strikes on Iran. Often, they say it’d be easy. Just one strike in and out,” he said recently. “Now pause. How often have they actually been correct about the one in and out thing? Has that ever actually been the case?”
“President Trump has consolidated his power over the Republican Party to a remarkable degree and could certainly sign a good deal with Iran without suffering politically,” Day said. “The base still loves him, and lawmakers and conservative media are afraid of him. The elites would fall in line for fear of MAGA turning on them.”
Ryan Costello, policy director at NIAC, agrees. “Trump wouldn’t have been elected president twice if his foreign policy echoed the discredited views of the Bush-Cheney wing of the Republican party,” he said. “Trump can have a deal with Iran or he can be pushed into war by adopting rigid and inflexible demands — the vast majority of Americans want him to lead with diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, it appears increasingly unlikely that Democrats — most of whom supported President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal back in 2015 — will try to make much political hay with any agreement Trump makes with Tehran.
“This is not a time for politics on Iran,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a leading Democratic foreign policy voice in the House, said last week. “I support [Trump] trying to get a deal with Iran. I supported the Obama nuclear deal. How about we put the interest of our nation and peace above scoring political points at every moment?”
And what’s perhaps overlooked but maybe equally important: major regional powers like Saudi Arabia, who campaigned hard against Obama’s Iran deal, have changed their tune with Trump.
“Gulf leaders have been broadly supportive of the talks between the Trump administration and Iran because they don’t want to be caught in the crossfire of a regional escalation if they fail,” Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group told Middle East Eye last week. “That support doesn’t necessarily translate into success at the negotiating table but it’s a shift from the 2015 talks.”
Perhaps most importantly, Trump can get a deal with Iran that places strict limits on its nuclear program with incredibly intrusive verification mechanisms that will satisfy his stated goal of preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, all without zero enrichment provisions or requiring Iran to dismantle its entire program.
“Not only will adopting a hardline ‘no enrichment’ position push Iran from the negotiating table entirely, it is not necessary for an effective agreement and would not fully address Iran’s proliferation risk,” the Arms Control Association’s Kelsey Davenport wrote recently, adding that “dismantling the infrastructure does not erase the knowledge Iran has gained about uranium enrichment.”
In short, she concluded, the U.S. “can find the right combination of limits and monitoring to block Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons while allowing Iran to retain a less risky level of uranium enrichment.”
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Are US-Israel ‘special relations’ about to end?
By Murad Sadygzade | RT | May 19, 2025
Last week, US President Donald Trump embarked on his first official overseas tour since taking office, choosing to visit three key Gulf nations – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
This itinerary was both unexpected and, in many ways, unprecedented. Unlike his predecessors, who traditionally began their foreign policy engagements with visits to long-standing Western allies, Trump opted to prioritize America’s Arab partners, deliberately bypassing Israel – Washington’s principal strategic ally in the region. This marked the first time in decades that a sitting US president visiting the Middle East consciously excluded it from the agenda.
This decision signaled a potential recalibration of Washington’s priorities in the region. Relations between the Trump administration and the Israeli leadership, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were already strained in the early stages – largely due to Israel’s growing intransigence on the Palestinian question and the increasing influence of far-right factions within the Israeli government. Faced with mounting frustration over Israel’s hardline policies, the White House appeared to pivot toward a more pragmatic, less confrontational, and economically advantageous partnership with the Gulf monarchies.
However, the rationale behind this shift extended beyond political calculation. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar have long played a pivotal role in sustaining American influence in the Middle East – not only because of their strategic geography but also due to their substantial investments in the US economy and multi-billion-dollar arms contracts. For a business-minded president eager to showcase the profitability of foreign policy through economic deals, these nations represented ideal counterparts.
The lavish receptions afforded to Trump during his Gulf tour might have been dismissed as mere pageantry were it not for their deeper symbolic resonance. The true significance of the visit lay in what it revealed about broader geopolitical currents: namely, the transformation of the Gulf monarchies from regional players into increasingly assertive global actors.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar are no longer content with being perceived as passive participants in American-led regional frameworks. Instead, they are positioning themselves as independent centers of power in an emerging multipolar world order. Their growing international stature stems from several interrelated factors.
First, these countries have embraced ambitious and forward-looking development strategies, investing heavily in infrastructure, clean energy transitions, technological innovation, and global finance. No longer simply hydrocarbon exporters, they are becoming hubs of digital transformation, international logistics, Islamic finance, and global policy discourse on issues ranging from security to sustainable development.
Second, the Gulf states have pioneered a distinctive model of governance that blends traditionalism with modernization. While maintaining deep-rooted commitments to Islamic and tribal values, they have achieved remarkable progress in building diversified and globally competitive economies. This synthesis has not only enabled them to thrive amid intensifying global competition but, in some respects, to outpace certain Western nations grappling with internal divisions and economic stagnation.
Equally noteworthy is the political resilience of these monarchies. Western narratives often portray them simplistically as ‘absolute monarchies,’ failing to appreciate the internal mechanisms of governance that underpin their stability. In reality, the political architecture of the Gulf is more accurately described as ‘sheikhism’ – a system rooted in consensus among tribal and familial elites, structured around a balance of obligations, reciprocal loyalties, and ongoing consultation. This model, which integrates Islamic principles such as shura (consultation) with practical statecraft, has proven remarkably adaptive and resilient.
In this context, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar can no longer be viewed merely as privileged US allies or energy suppliers. They are emerging as autonomous actors in global politics – capable of forging regional alliances, shaping international agendas across energy, media, and technology, and mediating in global conflicts. Their evolving role reflects not dependence on external security guarantees, but the outcome of deliberate, long-term strategies to consolidate sovereignty, enhance prestige, and assert influence in the 21st century.
Money above all: Trump’s deal-based diplomacy
President Donald Trump’s visit to the Gulf states was far more than his first foreign trip as head of state. It was a bold, highly symbolic debut of a new US foreign economic doctrine rooted in pragmatism, transactionalism, and strategic capitalism. Unlike previous administrations, which typically foregrounded diplomacy, security alliances, and value-based partnerships, Trump approached this tour as a high-stakes business deal. His mindset was that of a dealmaker, not a traditional statesman. The objective was clear: to restore America’s economic dominance by leveraging the vast wealth and strategic ambitions of the Middle East’s richest monarchies.
Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” found tangible expression in this tour. His mission was to bring back jobs, reindustrialize key sectors, boost the US high-tech ecosystem, and enhance national competitiveness – all fueled by a surge in foreign direct investment. In this pursuit, the oil-rich, capital-heavy Gulf monarchies – endowed with massive sovereign wealth funds and seeking greater global visibility – emerged as ideal partners.
In Saudi Arabia, Trump signed an unprecedented economic package worth over $600 billion, including the largest arms deal in US history – $142 billion covering missile defense systems, advanced aviation platforms, cybersecurity capabilities, and military-grade AI technologies. Equally significant was the launch of a new tech alliance: Saudi-based DataVolt committed $20 billion to build data centers and energy facilities in the US, while a consortium led by Nvidia, AMD, and Amazon Web Services will co-develop an AI innovation hub within the Kingdom. A $50 billion venture fund was also established to support US-based startups in renewable energy and cybersecurity.
In Qatar, the results were even more staggering: agreements totaling $1.2 trillion, the largest single-country deal package in US diplomatic history. Central to this was Qatar Airways’ order for 210 Boeing aircraft valued at $96 billion, making it the most lucrative deal ever for the American aerospace giant. Qatar also pledged tens of billions of dollars for joint ventures in quantum computing, smart energy networks, and STEM education programs for engineers and IT specialists in the US. In a provocative symbolic gesture, Qatar proposed gifting President Trump a custom-built Air Force One, sparking intense debate in the American media landscape.
In the United Arab Emirates, new agreements totaling $200 billion were signed – in addition to a previously negotiated $1.4 trillion package. Key components included the construction of an aluminum plant in Oklahoma, expansion of oil and gas infrastructure with US firms, and a landmark $100 billion commitment to American companies specializing in artificial intelligence over the next three years.
In total, Trump’s Gulf tour yielded over $2 trillion in contracts and investment pledges – an economic windfall of historic proportions. But beyond the numbers, the trip marked a fundamental redefinition of American foreign policy: from projecting power through military force and ideological alignment, to securing influence through economic penetration and transactional partnerships. Trump unveiled a new image of the US – not as a global policeman, but as a global entrepreneur. A nation that negotiates not with declarations, but with data, contracts, and employment metrics.
This new model resonated deeply with the Gulf monarchies themselves, which are undergoing profound transformations. Once reliant solely on oil exports, these states are rapidly evolving into tech-driven economies with ambitions to become global hubs of innovation, finance, and logistics. In Trump’s America, they found not just a security guarantor, but a strategic co-architect of a post-oil economic order – one where capital, innovation, and mutual profit outweigh traditional diplomatic protocol and ideological rhetoric.
Trump’s message was unambiguous: the era of foreign policy as charity is over. What now matters are mutual returns, strategic alignments, and economic gains. The Gulf states, driven by their own visions of modernization and diversification, eagerly embraced this shift. Together, they reimagined international relations not as a sphere of obligations, but as a marketplace of opportunities.
What about Israel?
One of the most significant – albeit unofficial – outcomes of Donald Trump’s Middle East tour could be discerned even before the journey began: the US President conspicuously bypassed Israel. This omission became all the more striking given that even Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who had initially planned a visit to Tel Aviv, abruptly cancelled his trip at the last moment. The message did not go unnoticed in either Washington or Jerusalem: nearly all observers interpreted the move as a clear sign of a cooling relationship between the US and Israel – more precisely, between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The rift between the two leaders appears less personal than strategic, rooted in diverging visions of the region’s future. Tensions had been mounting for months. The first major flashpoint came when Trump unilaterally announced the withdrawal of American forces from operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, citing the group’s supposed commitment to halt attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes. The decision, made without prior consultation with Israel – which continues to endure daily rocket fire from the Houthis – dealt a blow not only to diplomatic norms but also to the foundational trust between Israel and its closest ally.
An even more sensitive issue has been the quiet resumption of US contacts with Iran. With Oman acting as mediator, Washington has been exploring the outlines of a possible new nuclear agreement. Meanwhile, Israel remains steadfast in its conviction that no negotiations with Tehran should occur until decisive military action is taken against its nuclear and military facilities – a show of force intended to compel concessions. Netanyahu failed to persuade Trump of this hardline approach, and the US president has increasingly charted his own, more flexible course.
Tensions have also sharpened over the future of Syria. Israel refuses to recognize the country’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, branding him a former al-Qaeda affiliate and a dangerous actor. Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory continue, the buffer zone in the Golan Heights remains under Israeli control, and the Druze population has formally been placed under Israeli protection. While Israel promotes the vision of a weak, decentralized Syria, Washington is embracing the opposite: al-Sharaa was invited to meet with Trump in Saudi Arabia, and following those talks, the US signaled its intent to lift sanctions on Damascus. Even more striking was the revelation that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE – previously restrained by US pressure – are now prepared to invest in Syria’s reconstruction, viewing it as both a stabilizing opportunity and a chance to expand their regional influence.
Israeli frustration has been further stoked by Washington’s evolving stance on the Palestinian issue. Despite Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, Trump has increasingly expressed a desire – even a demand – for a resolution to the conflict. His Gaza reconstruction plan, unveiled in February, sent shockwaves through Washington: it proposed the complete depopulation of Palestinians from the enclave and the transformation of the territory into a luxury international resort zone under US control. Not only was this radical proposal never coordinated with Israel, but it also raised fundamental questions about the future of the US-Israel alliance.
To make matters more complex, credible reports have emerged that the US has been engaged in direct negotiations with Hamas, without informing Israel. The recent release of an American citizen, IDF soldier Idan Alexander, who was captured in October 2023, was reportedly achieved through these covert channels – of which the Israeli government only became aware through its own intelligence services.
Against this backdrop, speculation is growing that the White House is seriously considering formally recognizing an independent Palestinian state. Such a move would not be a mere diplomatic gesture – it would reshape the strategic architecture of the Middle East. Should Washington proceed down this path, Israel could find itself in strategic isolation, while the center of regional gravity shifts toward Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Türkiye – countries with which Trump is building pragmatic, mutually beneficial, and business-driven relations.
None of these states demand unconditional support from Washington, meddle in its internal politics, or leverage domestic crises for influence. More importantly, they offer Trump what he values most: investment, trade, strategic partnership based on reciprocal interest, and freedom from ideological constraints.
Thus, a new geopolitical reality is taking shape before our eyes. In this emerging landscape, Donald Trump appears less inclined to view Israel as an indispensable ally and more drawn to politically agile, economically potent, and regionally assertive actors across the Arab world – and Türkiye. If rumors of Palestinian state recognition prove true, it will mark the end of the long-standing era of “special relations” between the US and Israel and signal the dawn of a new chapter in American Middle East policy – one governed not by ideological loyalty, but by unambiguous political and economic rationality.
Murad Sadygzade is President of the Middle East Studies Center, Visiting Lecturer, HSE University (Moscow).
Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador dictatorship: Made in Israel
By Alan MACLOED | MintPress News | May 14, 2025
Nayib Bukele may be Palestinian, but the dictatorship he has built in El Salvador is very much made in Israel. From arming his security forces to supplying him with weapons and high-tech surveillance tools, MintPress explores the Israeli influence helping to prop up the man who calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator.”
Arming a Dictatorship
Since Bukele’s ascension to the presidency in 2019, Israeli exports to El Salvador have been rapidly advancing, growing at an annual rate of more than 21%. This increase consists primarily of weapons. Salvadoran forces are well supplied with Israeli hardware. The military and police use the Israeli-made Galil and ARAD 5 rifles, the Uzi submachine gun, numerous Israeli pistols, and ride in AIL Storm and Plasan Yagu armored vehicles.
Some equipment Salvadoran forces use comes free, courtesy of Israeli sources. In 2019, an Israeli NGO, the Jerusalem Foundation (a group that builds illegal settlements on Palestinian land), announced that it would donate $3 million worth of supplies to the Salvadoran police and military.
For others, however, the Bukele administration is paying top dollar, meaning that this relationship is extremely profitable for the high-tech Israeli defense sector.
In 2020, the Salvadoran police paid around $3.4 million for one year’s use of three Israeli spyware products. These tools include GEOLOC, a program that intercepts calls and texts from targeted phones, and Web Tangles, which uses individuals’ social media accounts to build up files on people, including using their photos for facial recognition. A third, Wave Guard Tracer (marketed in some regions as Guardian), tracks users’ movements through the GPS on their phone.
Perhaps the most notorious piece of spyware used, however, is Pegasus, developed by the NSO Group, an outgrowth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Unit 8200. The app hit the headlines in 2022, when it was revealed that repressive governments the world over had used it to surveil thousands of public figures, including kings, presidents, politicians, activists, and reporters. El Salvador was one of the most heavily penetrated nations. A report from Citizen Lab found that the Bukele administration was using it to secretly monitor dozens of public figures critical of the president, including 22 journalists from the independent outlet El Faro.
Incarceration Nation
Bukele has used these Israeli tools and weapons to crack down on dissent and opposition to his rule. Since 2022, when he declared a State of Exception, suspending rights and civil liberties, he has imprisoned at least 85,000 people, a staggering figure for such a small country. Today, around 2% of the adult population — along with over 3,000 children — languish behind bars in dangerously overcrowded jails.
The most well-known of these is the Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT), which is by far and away the largest prison in world history. Built to incarcerate over 40,000 people, it is to this center that the Trump administration has been sending migrants rounded up by ICE. In a meeting with Bukele in the Oval Office, President Trump stated that U.S. nationals would be sent there next.
El Salvador holds vastly more people in prisons per capita than any other country, and conditions are among the worst in the world. Food is sparse, lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and cells are frequently packed with more than 100 occupants. Those incarcerated at CECOT are allowed no contact with the outside world, not even with their families or lawyers.
Often, the first thing a Salvadoran family hears about their disappeared relative is news that he died while incarcerated. Torture is commonplace. Osiris Luna, the director of El Salvador’s prison system, has even been sanctioned by the U.S. government for his role in “gross human rights abuses.”
Bukele has justified the mass imprisonment of his countrymen as a necessary step to break the power of organized gangs and drug cartels. Yet a significant portion of those held are his political opponents. Among those detained are union leaders, politicians, and human rights defenders.
Facing the threat of imprisonment or other punishment, El Faro has moved its operations to neighboring Costa Rica.
A Palestinian Who Loves Israel
Amid the chaos, Bukele has fired tens of thousands of public service workers and reduced taxes on the business community. He has also reoriented El Salvador’s foreign policy from a progressive, anti-imperialist stance to allying itself with right-wing governments around the world, including Israel.
Despite coming from a prominent Palestinian family that emigrated from Jerusalem in the early 20th century, throughout his political career, he has made a point of vocally supporting Israel, its culture, and its foreign policy. As far back as 2015, when he was Mayor of San Salvador, the Israeli Embassy had identified him as a “partner for cooperation.”
Three years later, in February 2018, he visited Israel on a trip organized by Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Hotovely, and American Jewish Congress President, Jack Rosen. There, he participated in a security conference attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin, and made a public appearance at the Western Wall.
El Salvador is home to a large Palestinian population; some 100,000 live in the small country. And yet, the Central American nation is far from a stronghold of support for anti-colonial struggles. Palestinians in El Salvador have generally done very well and entered society’s upper echelons. Bukele is actually the third Palestinian to become president.
Historically, the Latin American business community has sided with conservative or reactionary forces, and the Palestinian diaspora has shied away from supporting resistance movements in the Middle East.
“Bukele’s culture is not so much Palestinian as it is neo-fascist. That’s his culture. So he is going to identify with repressive governments around the world,” Roberto Lovato, a Salvadoran-American writer and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told MintPress News.
The country is also home to a large and active evangelical Christian community, for whom Israel’s rise is a key issue. Despite being the son of the country’s most notable imam — one who claimed his son is a practicing Muslim — Bukele has positioned himself as a Christian conservative, and his evangelical supporters say he was chosen by God to rid the nation of gang violence. “I believe in God, in Jesus Christ. I believe in His word, I believe in His word revealed in the Holy Bible,” he said.
Dirty Wars and Dirty Politics
The connections between Israel and El Salvador, however, predate Bukele by decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, the country was a hotspot in the Cold War, and U.S.-backed death squads battled the leftist FMLN rebels. The military regime killed around 75,000 civilians in a dirty war that scars the region to this day. The violence was so extreme and so well-publicized that even the United States sought to distance itself from it. Into that void stepped Israel, providing 83% of El Salvador’s military needs from 1975 to 1979, including napalm. In return, El Salvador moved its embassy to Jerusalem, legitimizing Israel’s claim to the city.
Lovato, a former member of the FMLN, told MintPress that the country was turned into a “laboratory for repression.”
During the Civil War, the U.S. government aligned a whole panoply of different practitioners of torture and mass murder. You had trainers from Taiwan, Israel, and other countries going to El Salvador to train the Salvadoran government to do what they had learned how to do.”
One of the most notable individuals who received Israeli training was Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, leader of a far-right death squad. D’Aubuisson is known to have ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. Nicknamed “Blowtorch Bob” for his penchant for using the tool on his opponents’ genitals, his death squad is thought to have killed some 30,000 people, many of whom were tortured to death. Thus, it is no stretch to say that El Salvador’s repressive state apparatus has long been sustained by Israeli money, tech, and know-how.
But this is far from an isolated example. Indeed, Israel has supplied weapons and training to repressive governments around the world, honing the skills acquired suppressing the Palestinian population and taking them global.
In Guatemala, Israel sold planes, armored personnel carriers and rifles to the military, and even built them a domestic ammunition factory. General Efraín Ríos Montt thanked Israel for its participation in a coup that brought him to power in 1982, stating that it went so smoothly “because many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis.” Around 300 Israeli advisors worked to train Ríos Montt’s forces into genocidal death squads who systematically killed over 200,000 Mayans. A sign of the deep connections between the two groups is that Ríos Montt’s men began referring to the indigenous Mayans as “Palestinians” during their attacks.
It is a similar story in Colombia, where the country’s most notorious death squads were trained by Israeli operatives, such as General Rafael Eitan. To this day, Colombian police and military make extensive use of Israeli weaponry. So normalized has the Israeli influence become in Colombian society that, in 2011, sitting President Juan Manuel Santos appeared in an advertisement for Israeli mercenary firm Global CST. “They are people with a lot of experience. They have been helping us to work better,” he stated.
Israel also armed and supported the military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, even as the latter explicitly targeted over 1,000 Jews in the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
In Nicaragua, Israel supplied the Somoza dictatorship, helping it carry out a dirty war. In Rwanda, it sold weapons to the Hutu government as it was carrying out a genocide against the Tutsi population. Israeli weapons were used by Serbia during the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s. And successive administrations in Tel Aviv also helped sustain the Apartheid government of South Africa, sending it weapons and sharing intelligence with it.
Therefore, it should come as little surprise that Bukele’s administration has sought and established such close ties to the Israeli government. These weapons and techniques, honed on the Palestinian population, are going global, helping a government thousands of miles away crack down on civil liberties. While Bukele — a Palestinian — is very much in charge of El Salvador, it is clear that his dictatorship has a distinct Israeli flavor.
Did ‘Israel’, US fight a proxy war with China in South Asia during the India-Pakistan escalation?
By F.M. Shakil | Al Mayadeen | May 19, 2025
In the recent standoff between India and Pakistan, “Israel” and the US significantly influenced the escalation and resolution of a fierce conflict between the two nuclear South Asian nations that resembles a contest between US-Israeli military equipment and Chinese-made war kits.
The former ignited the fires of war with its advanced military technology and, recognizing the potential for nuclear chaos, swiftly intervened to bring the situation to a close. The display of weaponry unmistakably indicates that Chinese-made missiles and fighter jets exhibit greater precision, target focus, speed, and reliability compared to their competitors, raising alarms for the US and its allies.
The PL-15E missiles, an active radar-guided long-range beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile produced by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), have attracted interest following reports that Pakistan Air Force (PAF) J-10C fighters, equipped with PL-15E missiles, effectively downed three Indian Air Force (IAF) Rafale jets in a heated air confrontation. The engagement signifies a significant milestone, as it marks the inaugural instance of a Dassault Rafale, considered one of the top contenders among 4.5-generation fighters, being officially defeated in combat.
Israeli military supply to India
While the future implications of the fragile ceasefire are a perplexing issue for analysts in Pakistan, especially given the spontaneous violations of the truce that occurred within hours of its establishment, “Israel” has undoubtedly played a significant role in the recent military escalation by supplying arms, drones, and defense equipment to India.
“Israel” serves as a key supplier of military hardware to India, and its weaponry entered the battle as it transitioned to drone warfare. Israeli media openly acknowledged that India’s use of Israeli-made drones in its recent cross-border operations against Pakistan has captured international interest, not only for the tactical consequences but also for what it indicates was the strategic depth of India’s developing partnership with “Israel.”
Abdullah Khan, managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) in Islamabad, told Al Mayadeen English that “Israel” provided its drone as well as the military doctrine it applied in Gaza to India. What India did in Pakistan, he said, was precisely what “Israel” has been doing in Gaza, and the same modus operandi was seen applied while targeting the religious institutions. “India has even borrowed the narrative lines from Israel, which has become a long-term challenge for Pakistan’s nuclear program as well”, Khan stated, adding that assessments are being made to determine its role in the recent standoff.
Israeli media, citing Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and an expert in India-Middle East relations, revealed that India’s recent incursion involved the deployment of Harop and Heron Mark-2 drones, illustrating how “Israel” plays a significant and growing role in India’s current military strategy, especially considering the escalations with Pakistan and the broader counterterrorism context.
Pakistan’s military claimed last week that it had hit 25 Indian drones known as Harop loitering drones produced by “Israel” Aerospace Industries (IAI) after they allegedly violated its airspace. The Harop is believed to be a cutting-edge advanced drone that has significantly expanded high-altitude surveillance and strike capability.
The media, citing the IAI’s website, say that loitering munitions are made to quickly respond to different situations, from short missions to long-range attacks, while also gathering real-time information and allowing for precise strikes. These features make them particularly effective in unpredictable and complex combat environments, including densely populated urban areas like Karachi and Lahore.
The drones reportedly targeted sites across major cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Sargodha, following Indian missile strikes a day earlier on what New Delhi described as terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Punjab. India made these strikes following an April terror attack that killed 24 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
China-Pakistan defense collaboration
China has been enjoying close economic, defense, and geopolitical relations with Pakistan since long. Its stakes in Pakistan have been going deeper and deeper with the passage of time. On other hand, Beijing’s relations with India are marred by border disputes.
Zia Ul Haque Shamshi, a retired PAF Air Commodore, was quoted by the media as saying that the introduction of the J-35A fleet— a Chinese fifth-generation stealth fighter— signifies a pivotal shift in South Asia’s airpower landscape. This development was poised to provide Pakistan with a significant advantage, granting a 12- to 14-year lead in stealth fighter capabilities compared to India’s current air inventory.
He stated that Pakistan would acquire up to 40 units of the Chinese J-35A, which would place the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on a swift path to surpass its longstanding rival, India, for more than a decade.
Last year, the South China Morning Post generated ripples within the Indian military circles by publishing a report that asserted Pakistan’s intention to procure approximately 40 J-35 jets, which are said to feature advanced stealth technology and next-generation avionics, from China.
In reaction to Beijing’s choice to supply Pakistan with fifth-generation stealth jets, Washington extended an offer to New Delhi in February for its advanced fighter jets, the F-35s. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Donald Trump indicated that this agreement would represent a significant enhancement in the defense relationship between the two nations, involving “many billions of dollars.”
In a recent interview with AFI, Indian defense analyst Ranesh Rajan suggested that India may resort to “panic purchasing” to counter the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) advantage over the Indian Air Force (IAF). This action, the defense analyst believes, could have substantial strategic implications for the entire South Asia region. In a historical context, he observed that the IAF reacted with urgency by purchasing 40 Mirage-2000s and 80 MiG-29s after Pakistan acquired F-16s from Washington in the eighties.
In March this year, Pakistan launched its second Hangor-class submarine, the PNS/M Shushuk, in a ceremony in Wuhan, China. The submarine with enhanced concealment capabilities in the deep ocean, is equipped with advanced stealth features and minimal acoustic signatures. In 2015, during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Islamabad, an agreement for eight vessels was inked between Pakistan’s Defense Ministry and China’s Shipbuilding and Offshore International Company.
Did the US instigate the flare-up?
Although the background information does not indicate direct US involvement, considering the broader geopolitical context and India’s relationship with the US, it is plausible that the US could have an indirect impact on the situation.
Abdullah Khan disclosed to Al Mayadeen English that the US initially observed from afar without intervening; it may have been assessing the credibility of India’s military strength for a potential confrontation with China in the future.
“India significantly let down its Western allies and partners, experiencing humiliation during the military confrontation with Pakistan. Despite attempts to execute strikes that could have escalated to a nuclear confrontation, it seems that was the moment the US intervened, compelling India to retreat,” he told Al Mayadeen English.
Khan stated that Pakistan had no plans to escalate further after successfully targeting at least 26 sensitive locations within Indian territory.
Five more Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza; death toll rises to 222
Deceased Palestinian photojournalist Aziz al-Hajjar
Press TV | May 18, 2025
Five more Palestinian journalists have been killed in separate Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll to 222 since the start of the Israeli genocidal war against the besieged coastal territory in early October of 2023, according to local authorities.
Photojournalist Aziz al-Hajjar, his wife, and their children were killed on Sunday when Israeli warplanes bombed a house in the Saftawi neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip.
The family of Abdul Rahman Tawfiq al-Abadleh also confirmed that the Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli bombardment in the town of al-Qarara, located north of Khan Yunis. They said they had lost contact with Abadleh two days earlier.
Deceased Palestinian journalist Abdul Rahman Tawfiq al-Abadleh
Gaza’s government media office also said Palestinian journalists Nour Qandil and Khaled Abu Seif lost their lives alongside their young daughter in the Israeli strike that targeted their home in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Deceased Palestinian journalist Nour Qandil and her husband Khaled Abu Seif
Furthermore, Palestinian journalist Ahmad al-Zinati was killed alongside his wife, Nour al-Madhoun, and their children, Muhammad and Khaled, on Saturday night when their tent was bombed in Khan Yunis.
Deceased Palestinian journalist Ahmad al-Zinati alongside his family
The deaths came only two days after Ahmed al-Halou, a reporter for the local al-Quds News Network, was killed in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military resumed bombardment of Gaza on March 18, killing thousands of Palestinians, and injuring many others, after it shattered the 2-month ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian group Hamas and the deal on the exchange of Israeli captives with Palestinian abductees.
At least 53,272 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and another 120,673 individuals injured in the brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Netanyahu and former Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the besieged coastal territory.
Red Sea debacle: How Yemeni resistance brought American war machine to a halt
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | May 18, 2025
On May 12, the New York Times published a forensic autopsy of the failure of the Trump administration’s renewed hostilities against the Ansarullah-led Yemeni military in the Red Sea.
The probe teemed with extraordinary disclosures, spelling out in stark detail how the combined air and naval effort – launched with enormous fanfare and much bombastic rhetoric from US officials – was an even greater debacle, and devastating defeat, for the Empire than hitherto thought.
The scale of the cataclysm may explain Washington’s sudden determination to reach a negotiated settlement with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Perhaps the most striking revelation is that Trump’s blitzkrieg against Yemen was initially planned to be a long-term, large-scale engagement, culminating in a ground invasion using proxy forces.
General Michael Kurilla, Commander of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which covers Central, South and West Asia, had been in favor of all-out war with the Ansarullah resistance movement ever since its righteous anti-genocide Red Sea blockade began in late 2023.
Reportedly, though, Joe Biden was wary that a “forceful campaign” would elevate them “on the global stage.”
With Trump’s re-election, “Kurilla had a new commander in chief” and an opportunity to up the ante against Ansarullah significantly. He pitched an eight-to-10-month effort, starting with a saturation bombing of Yemen’s air defense systems, before a wave of targeted assassinations of movement leaders, directly inspired by Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah’s senior members in September 2024.
Kurilla’s grand operation was eagerly supported by elements of the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and then-National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Saudi officials were also on board, providing Washington with a target list of 12 Ansarullah leaders “whose deaths, they said, would cripple the movement.”
However, the UAE, which had in concert with Riyadh relentlessly bombed Yemen 2015 – 2023 to no tangible result, “was not so sure.” Several members of Trump’s administration were also skeptical of the plan’s prospects and worried a protracted attack on Sana’a would drain valuable, finite resources, including the president himself.
Yet, after concerted lobbying, Trump “signed off on part of General Kurilla’s plan – airstrikes against Houthi air defense systems and strikes against the group’s leaders.”
So it was on March 15, US fighter jets began battering Yemen anew, while a carrier force led by the USS Harry S. Truman thrust into the Red Sea.
White House officials boasted the onslaught would continue “indefinitely”, while Trump bragged that Ansarillah would be “decimated” via “overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”
Some degradation
In reality, The New York Times suggests Trump privately made clear he wanted Ansarullah bombed “into submission” within just 30 days, and failure in this objective would mean the operation’s termination.
By the 31st day of hostilities, the US president “demanded a progress report.” As the outlet records, “the results were not there,” which is quite an understatement. The US “had not even established air superiority” over Ansarullah, while the resistance group continued “shooting at vessels and drones, fortifying their bunkers and moving weapons stockpiles underground.”
Moreover, during those first 30 days, Yemeni military “shot down seven American MQ-9 drones” costing around $30 million each, “hampering Central Command’s ability to track and strike back. Meanwhile, several American F-16s and an F-35 stealth fighter jet “were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses, making real the possibility of American casualties.”
All along, too, the US burned through weapons and munitions at a rate of about $1 billion in the first month alone:
“The cost of the operation was staggering. The Pentagon had deployed two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses… So many precision munitions were being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners were growing increasingly concerned about overall stocks and the implications for any situation in which the US might have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.”
Concerned, “the White House began pressing Central Command for metrics of success in the campaign.”
In a bitter irony, Pentagon officials “responded by providing data showing the number of munitions dropped” to prove they were achieving their goals. They also claimed, without evidence, to have hit over 1,000 military targets, while killing “more than a dozen senior Houthi leaders.”
US intelligence was unconvinced, acknowledging there was “some degradation” of the Ansarullah-led military, but “the group could easily reconstitute” regardless.
As a result, “senior national security officials” began investigating “pathways” for either withdrawing from the theatre with minimal embarrassment or keeping the fiasco going using local proxy forces.
One option was to “ramp up operations for up to another month and then conduct ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises in the Red Sea using two carrier groups, the Carl Vinson and the Truman.” If AnsarAllah did not fire on the ships, “the Trump administration would declare victory.”
Another option was to extend the campaign, giving forces under the control of the Riyadh-based Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council “time to restart a drive to push the Houthis out of the capital and key ports” in a ground assault.
The plan was hatched despite prior Saudi-led invasions of Yemen invariably ending in total disaster. This may account for why talks between Hegseth and Saudi and UAE officials in late April “to come up with a sustainable way forward… they could present to the President” came to nothing.
Great ability
As luck would have it, right when Hegseth’s last-ditch efforts to breathe life into the collapsing effort were floundering, Trump’s West Asia envoy Steve Witkoff was in Oman, engaged in nuclear talks with Iran.
Officials there separately suggested a “perfect offramp” for Washington in its war with Ansarullah. The US “would halt the bombing campaign and the militia would no longer target American ships in the Red Sea, but without any agreement to stop disrupting shipping that the group deemed helpful to Israel.”
Well-publicised fiascoes around this time, such as the loss overboard of an F/A-18 Super Hornet, costing $67 million, due to the USS Harry S. Truman conducting evasive maneuvers to avoid an Ansarullah drone and missile attack, further depleted White House enthusiasm for the operation.
According to The New York Times, “Trump had had enough”. He duly accepted the Omani proposal, and on May 5th, CentCom “received a sudden order… to ‘pause’ offensive operations” in the Red Sea.
That a ballistic missile fired by the Yemeni military evaded the Zionist entity’s air defenses and struck Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport the previous day likely provided further incentive to halt hostilities.
So it was on May 6, Trump declared victory against Ansarullah, claiming the resistance group had “capitulated”, and “don’t want to fight any more”. Nonetheless, the president expressed clear admiration for God’s Partisans, indicating he placed a high degree of trust in Ansarullah’s assurances that US ships would no longer be in their redoubtable crosshairs:
“We hit them very hard and they had a great ability to withstand punishment. You could say there was a lot of bravery there. They gave us their word that they wouldn’t be shooting at ships anymore, and we honor that.”
Per The New York Times, Trump’s “sudden declaration of victory… demonstrates how some members of the president’s national security team underestimated a group known for its resilience.”
But more deeply, it surely reflects how the bruising, costly experience was a blunt-force education in the glaring deficiencies of US military power, and the Empire’s fatal vulnerability in the event of all-out war against an adversary actually able to defend itself. This could account for the Trump administration’s sudden determination to finalize a nuclear deal with Tehran.
It must not be forgotten that before even taking office, Trump and his cabinet openly planned for a significant escalation of belligerence against the Islamic Republic.
Among other things, they boasted of drawing up plans to “bankrupt Iran” via “maximum pressure”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long called for tightening already devastating sanctions on Tehran, was a key advocate for this approach, and eagerly supported by Mike Waltz, among others.
At an event convened by NATO adjunct the Atlantic Council in October 2024, Waltz bragged about how the president had previously almost destroyed the Islamic Republic’s currency, and looked ahead to inflicting even more severe damage on the country following Trump’s inauguration.
Fast forward to today, though, and such rhetoric has vanished from mainstream Western political discourse. It appears Trump and his team have not only jettisoned their previously stated ambitions towards Iran but are determined to avoid war.
Moreover, just as the Zionist entity was not consulted before Washington struck a ceasefire with Ansarullah, Tel Aviv has been completely frozen out of nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran, and if an agreement does result at last, it will not take into account Israel’s bellicose position towards the Islamic Republic.
Just as the Cuban Missile Crisis transformed Cold warrior John F. Kennedy into a dove, Trump’s experience in the Red Sea may well have precipitated a seismic shift in his administration’s foreign policy.
Another fictional ‘Iranian plot’ in London?
By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | May 18, 2025
The arrest of a group reportedly consisting of Iranian nationals, accused of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in London, has coincided with an aggressive lobbying campaign to classify Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization in the UK. While details of the case remain sparse, previous such allegations suggest that linking this plot to Tehran without substantiated evidence is politically motivated.
On 7 May, The Telegraph claimed that five individuals were detained in what the UK Home Secretary described as one of the “biggest counter-terrorism operations in recent years.” According to the report, four of those arrested were Iranian nationals, apprehended under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006, allegedly for plotting an assault on the Israeli embassy in London.
A confused arrest, a convenient campaign
Yet, contradictions in the report raised significant public skepticism. While The Telegraph asserted that “the suspected terror cell was hours from unleashing the attack when the men were arrested,” it also noted that the suspects were detained in cities across England – three of them located around a four-hour drive from London, and another an hour away. The disparity sparked a wave of theories and doubts among the British public.
As these logistical inconsistencies drew scrutiny, right-wing media outlets in Britain seized the moment to stir anti-immigrant sentiments. On Talk TV, Kevin O’Sullivan descended into hysteria, warning, “We are going to have a Southport 2 unless we are careful,” invoking a racially charged incident that had ignited riots. The immigration status of the suspects became the focal point for many conservative commentators.
Simultaneously, the pro-Israel lobby began exploiting the incident to reinvigorate its campaign for the IRGC’s designation as a terrorist organization. On 28 April, Progressive Britain—a group aligned with the Blairite wing of the Labour Party – published an article titled “Why the UK Should Proscribe the IRGC.” Its author, Jemima Shelley, is not only a non-resident fellow at Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) but also a senior analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI).
UANI has played a recurring role in previous efforts to influence British policy against the Islamic Republic. Masquerading as a neutral non-profit, the group is chaired by Jeb Bush and features an advisory board packed with pro-Israel operatives.
Former Mossad Director Meir Dagan was a member until his death, and the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth currently sits on its Veterans Advisory Council.
Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform UK Party, opportunistically called on the Labour government to proscribe the IRGC, bizarrely claiming that “friends of mine who live in the Middle East are astonished we haven’t done it.”
Terror claims as political leverage
On 8 October 2024, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum delivered a speech at London’s Counter Terrorism Operations Centre, stating:
“Since the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022 we’ve seen plot after plot here in the UK, at an unprecedented pace and scale. Since January 2022, with police partners, we have responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.”
Although McCallum insisted that the intelligence agency does not politicize terrorism cases, his speech disproportionately emphasized threats from Russia, China, and Iran – the UK’s designated strategic adversaries. Commentators quickly seized on his remarks to bolster narratives of Iranian culpability.
Despite referencing 20 “Iran-backed” plots, British authorities have failed to provide concrete evidence linking Tehran to any of them. Officials argue that such ambiguity is strategic, offering “plausible deniability.” But in most cases, their accusations rest on tenuous associations, such as Tehran’s political animosity toward the individuals in question.
Consider the highly publicized case of Austrian national Magomed Husejn Dovtaev, who was convicted in February 2023 after recording video footage of the offices of Iran International, a Saudi-funded Persian-language news outlet based in London.
Dovtaev claimed he had been defrauded of €20,000 and was seeking those responsible at the location. Despite denying any connection to Iran, he was convicted of collecting information likely to be useful for terrorism.
On 4 March, Britain’s Security Minister Dan Jarvis repeated the claim of 20 terror plots and that “the Iranian regime is targeting dissidents.” He also told parliament that “The Iranian Intelligence Services, which include the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, direct this damaging activity.”
However, Jarvis clarifies that “rather than working directly on UK shores, they use criminal proxies to do their bidding. This helps to obfuscate their involvement, while they sit safely ensconced in Tehran.”
While the existence of Iranian intelligence operations abroad cannot be ruled out, the recurring claims tying Tehran to every suspicious activity lack transparency and verification.
A precedent of manipulation
The current frenzy echoes the Israeli embassy bombing in London in 1994. Initially blamed on “pro-Iranian extremists” allegedly tied to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the attack resulted in the arrest of five Palestinians. Two of them, Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, were convicted of conspiracy despite no direct evidence or allegation that they planted the bomb.
At the time, human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement raising concerns that neither Botmeh nor Alami had been granted “their right to a fair trial because they have been denied full disclosure – both during and after the trial – of all information.”
“There was no direct evidence connecting either of them to the attacks and both had alibis. The appeal was based on the grounds that the convictions were unsafe, including due to the failure of the prosecution to disclose evidence to the defence, and on the length of the sentences.”
When the late veteran journalist and long-time West Asia correspondent Robert Fisk wrote on the case for the Independent in 1998, he described it as follows:
“The trial was, to put it mildly, a very puzzling affair. Even before it began, the case developed unusually. First of all, the police charged Nadia Zekra, a very middle-class Palestinian lady, with planting the bomb outside the embassy. Explosive traces had supposedly been found on a table in her home. Then, once the trial began, all charges against Zekra were dropped. Another Palestinian, Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh, was charged, but the jury acquitted him on all charges. And in the pre-trial period, the judge allowed both Alami and Botmeh to go free on bail.”
Fisk noted that Alami and Botmeh had expressed their belief that a shady figure known as Reda Moghrabi was an Israeli agent and had set them up. Yet, following the bombing, Moghrabi disappeared. The claim of responsibility for the attack was also strange, anonymously submitted by the “Jaffa Team” of the “Palestinian resistance,” a group that never existed prior to, nor since, the attack.
On top of this, the pair were released early. Botmeh was set free in August of 2008, and Alami was released in April 2009 and deported to Lebanon. Their early release, combined with the fact that the two were allowed to walk the streets of London on bail until their conviction, raised even more questions about the nature of the bombing incident.
Even more damning were later revelations by former MI5 agents. David Shayler disclosed that British intelligence “hid” documents related to the bombing. Annie Machon, another ex-MI5 officer, revealed that an internal assessment concluded that Mossad itself had staged the explosion to justify demands for increased security at its embassy. The sophisticated device caused no fatalities, and the real perpetrators were never apprehended.
Keeping all of this information in mind, there is currently not enough evidence to draw any conclusions regarding the arrests of Iranian nationals and the alleged plot to attack the Israeli embassy. However, British media outlets and several members of parliament were quick to seize on the incident, using it to push the agenda of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Politics trumps evidence
With all this context in mind, the latest arrests of Iranian nationals – and the unsubstantiated claim of a planned embassy attack – must be scrutinized. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has categorically denied involvement, asserting that “Iran stands ready to engage to shed light on what has truly transpired, and we reiterate that UK authorities should afford our citizens due process.”
Meanwhile, The Guardian has spun the case to highlight fears among Iranian dissidents in the UK, presenting the arrests as validation of threats from Tehran.
By rushing to implicate the IRGC, British media and officials are once again politicizing an unverified security incident. This tactic mirrors accusations they often level at Iran: weaponizing arrests for political ends. Regardless of who was truly behind the supposed plot, its timing conveniently serves those advocating for the IRGC’s proscription.
What is clear is that claims of Iranian-linked terrorism continue to surface whenever Tel Aviv or its allies seek to ramp up pressure on the Islamic Republic.
UK Labour approved more weapons to Israel in three months than Tories did in four years
MEMO | May 17, 2025
The UK’s Labour government is reported to have approved approximately $160 million worth of arms exports to Israel between October and December 2024, more than the total approved during the entire four-year term of Conservative leadership preceding it. The figure, drawn from newly released strategic export licensing data, reflects an unprecedented rise in UK military support to Israel as the occupation state continues its genocide in Gaza
By comparison, from 2020 to 2023, UK arms export licences to Israel totalled approximately $144 million, including $39 million in 2020, $30 million in 2021, $52 million in 2022 and $23 million in 2023.
The stark figures, compiled by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), come amid mounting criticism of the UK’s ongoing military support for Israel as the occupation state continues its devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
“This is the Labour government aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” said Emily Apple, CAAT’s media coordinator. “It is sickening that instead of imposing a full two-way arms embargo, Keir Starmer’s government has massively increased the amount of military equipment the UK is sending to Israel.”
The revelations coincide with a High Court case in which the UK government is defending its decision to continue supplying F-35 fighter jet components used by Israel in Gaza. Under international and domestic law, the UK is obliged to suspend arms exports where there is a clear risk they could be used to commit serious violations of international law.
However, government lawyers have argued that the available evidence does not support the conclusion that a genocide is occurring or has occurred in Gaza. This, despite the government’s own insistence that any determination of genocide is for the courts to decide.
In response, CAAT challenged the government’s claims, highlighting what it described as contradictions in the official narrative. “The UK government is arguing that ‘the impact of suspending F-35 components on operations in Gaza is likely to be minimal’ because the ‘IDF is one of the most significant and well-equipped militaries in the world’,” CAAT said. “However, the claim that the impact would be ‘minimal’ is contradicted by the facts.”
According to CAAT, Israel is operating its fleet of 39 F-35s at five times the usual rate, creating a surge in demand for spare parts. Freedom of Information disclosures show that the UK’s open licence for F-35 components was used 14 times more frequently in 2023 than in any previous year.
The arms export disclosures come as Israel continues its siege on Gaza, blocking food, medicine, and humanitarian supplies for over ten weeks, measures that have compounded an already catastrophic situation. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), nearly half a million Palestinians are enduring “catastrophic” levels of hunger, with another one million facing emergency conditions.
The crisis has escalated since Israel broke a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in March and announced its intention to occupy the entirety of the Gaza Strip. The UN has warned that these actions may amount to war crimes and has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access.
Despite these warnings, the UK continues to supply weapons to Israel, a move legal experts say could render British officials complicit in the atrocities being committed. Human rights groups have condemned the UK’s position as morally indefensible and legally precarious.
Call for international probe into the fate of forcibly disappeared Gazans
Palestinian Information Center – May 17, 2025
GAZA – The Palestinian Center for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons (PCMFD) said that Israel is practicing arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial killings against civilians in the Gaza Strip, calling for an international investigation.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the center condemned Israel for withholding information about the forcibly disappeared from their families and preventing them from knowing the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones, which compounds the suffering of thousands of families in Gaza.
The center called on the UN and the international community to open an independent investigation to reveal the fate and whereabouts of thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip and to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against them.
The statement stressed that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity under international law and cannot be tolerated or overlooked, calling for the activation of the mandate of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances and for Israel to be compelled to reveal the fate of those detained and disappeared during the military aggression in Gaza.
PCMFD also called for the inclusion of the issue of missing Palestinians in the work of the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly as an urgent humanitarian issue requiring immediate international action.
Thousands of families in Gaza continue to live in painful limbo, amid the absence of any effective international body tracking the fate of the disappeared and missing, it pointed out, stressing the need to break the silence and act before it is too late.
According to a report by the Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies, the Israeli occupation army carried out field executions of Gazan prisoners who were captured during the war. About 43 prisoners executed by the occupation army have been identified, while it continues to conceal the names of dozens of prisoners who were executed in various ways.
All estimates and testimonies from families and residents of Gaza indicate that the Israeli occupation army has arrested more than 11,000 citizens since the onset of the war on Gaza, subjecting them to all forms of abuse and torture and executing a large number of them.
The Palestine Center revealed that Israel opened new detention camps under army control to accommodate the large numbers of detainees after October 7, and practiced all forms of internationally prohibited torture inside them, in addition to immoral practices that reached the level of rape, depriving prisoners of the basic life essentials, amid an unprecedented policy of starvation. It warned of the continued martyrdom of prisoners in Israeli prisons as a result of such repressive and criminal practices.
The center called on the international community and human rights institutions to intervene immediately and form committees of inquiry to document the crimes of murder and torture against prisoners, to pressure Israel to stop these violations, and to demand that the International Criminal Court bring Israeli officials to trial as war criminals for their direct responsibility for these crimes and for providing cover for their perpetrators.
The High Human Cost of Syria Sanctions
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | May 17, 2025
On May 13, U.S. President Trump announced he is ordering the removal of sanctions on Syria.
Some of the U.S. sanctions can be quickly terminated because they were issued by Executive Order. Other sanctions, including the extremely damaging 2019 “Caesar” sanctions, were imposed by Congressional legislation and may require Congressional action to terminate.
The Syrian people are joyous at the prospect of the end of their country’s economic nightmare. In 2010, before the conflict began, Syria was a middle-income country with free education, free healthcare, and no national debt. It was largely self-sufficient in energy and food. After fourteen years of war, occupation, and strangulating Western sanctions, the U.N. reports that “nine out of ten Syrians live in poverty and face food insecurity”.
Why Syria Was Targeted
In 2007, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark, publicly revealed that Washington neo-cons had a hit list of seven countries to be overthrown in the wake of 9-11. The list included Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran.
The list is essentially the same as that identified by Benjamin Netanyahu in his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat the International Terrorist Network. The premise of this book is that Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements are “terrorist,” and any nation that supports them should be overthrown. He targets Iran, Libya, Syria, and Sudan for supporting Palestinian rights and says. “Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust.”
In 2007, Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi visited Syria and tried to persuade Assad to end Syria’s support of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements. When Assad would not comply with US and Israeli wishes, Syria was marked for regime change. The Netanyahu and neo-conservative hit list had somehow been adopted by the Western foreign policy establishment. This was confirmed by the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas. In a 2013 interview he says, “I went to England almost two years before the start of hostilities (2011). I met British officials, some of whom are friends of mine. They confessed, while trying to persuade me, that preparations for something were underway in Syria. This was in England, not the US. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria… This operation goes way back. It was prepared, conceived, and planned for the purpose of overthrowing the Syrian government because … this regime has an anti-Israeli stance.”
Hybrid Warfare against Syria
The overthrow of the Syrian government was not easy. It involved massive funding from seven countries (USA, UK, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE). In the early years, the CIA budget alone was $1 billion per year. The campaign included military, diplomatic, media/information and economic warfare.
The regime change operation began in March 2011. While part of the population was hostile to the Assad dynasty, the majority supported the government and a secular Syria. The opposition came largely from sectarian jihadist elements, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of factions and cells were supplied and funded by a host of countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the U.S., and the UK. Thousands of foreigners were recruited and provided access to Syria.
The political and media war on the Assad government was intense. Historian Stephen Kinzer wrote, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”
Accusations that the Assad government used chemical weapons against civilians were widely broadcast in the West. They were used to justify Western bombing attacks on Syria. Acclaimed U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered evidence that the chemical weapons attacks were by the opposition, aided by Turkey, NOT by the Assad government. He had to go abroad to have the explosive article published.
The dubious chemical weapons accusations and US driven political corruption of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are now exposed in a February 2025 book by one of the technical professionals from the OPCW. The book is titled The Syria Scam: An insider look into Chemical Weapons, Geopolitics and the Fog of War.
By the end of 2018, the Syrian army had largely defeated the diverse jihadists. However, instead of conquering or expelling the opposition, Syria allowed them to have a safe haven in Idlib province on the border with Turkey. With Turkey, Iran and Russia seeking to find a solution through the Astana Accords, the conflict was frozen, and the jihadists were allowed to regain strength. Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) became the de facto leader of the opposition factions and the government of Idlib.
The Frozen Conflict
In 2019, the U.S. turned the screws on Syria and escalated attacks on Lebanon. The extreme Caesar sanctions did what they were intended to do. They crushed the Syrian currency and economy, made it impossible to rebuild, and impoverished the vast majority of Syrians. The spreading poverty and inability to counteract it led to widespread demoralization and dissatisfaction. With consummate cynicism, the “Caesar” sanctions were named the “Caesar Civilian Protection Act”.
Meanwhile, in the HTS safe haven of Idlib province on the Turkish border to the north, conditions were very different. Although HTS was designated a terrorist organization in the U.S. and the West, they were helped economically. The HTS fighters were trained and supplied with modern military weaponry, including drones, sophisticated communications equipment, etc.. Very recently, when people from Damascus traveled to Idlib, they were shocked to find new highways, Wi-Fi widely available, and electricity 24 hours a day. Teacher salaries are ten times higher in Idlib than in Damascus.
The Fall of Damascus
With a demoralized population and Syrian army, the Assad government fell in a few weeks, and HTS, led by Ahmad Al Sharaa, took power on 8 December 2024. The new leader of Syria has been greeted and endorsed by the Gulf monarchies and Western countries that paid for and promoted the overthrow in Syria: the UK, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and of course, Turkey.
Since the change, there have been numerous sectarian massacres of Alawites and Christians along the coast.
There have been attacks on Druze in Damascus. To date, there have been no punishments for the massacres of civilians. A nun reports, “there is no security” in Damascus or elsewhere in Syria.
Meanwhile, Israel has invaded and occupied all of the Golan and parts of southern Syria. They have built military bases in Quneitra and other strategic locations. Israel has carried out a bombing blitzkrieg, destroying all known Syrian ammunition depots. Israel can now fly over any part of Syria at will.
Instead of condemning the Israeli violation of Syrian land and airspace, Ahmad al Sharaa has criticized Iran and Hezbollah. In recent weeks, the new Syrian regime has arrested Palestinian leaders and closed their offices in Damascus. The normalization of relations with the Zionist state has begun.
Lifting Sanctions on Syria
Of course, the sanctions on Syria should be lifted. They never should have been imposed.
U.S. sanctions, known officially as “unilateral coercive measures”, are condemned by the vast majority of world nations. Over 70% of the world’ nations say that US sanctions are “contrary to international law, international humanitarian law, the Charter of the UN and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States.”
Without exaggeration, the West and their allies sponsored terrorism in Syria through Al Qaeda and other fanatical violent terrorist groups. They destroyed a once prosperous and independent nation. With a diverse Syrian population ruled by a sectarian leadership prone to violence, there may be more dark days ahead. While Israel, Turkey and the Gulf monarchies are pleased with the removal of the Assad government, a very heavy price has been paid by the majority of Syrians. And the cost is ongoing.
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Inside Job? Inside What?
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | July 28, 2016
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Sixth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
In his chapter on “Left Gatekeepers” and the “Shame of Noam Chomsky,” Barrie Zwicker refers to the the “New World Order” as the “diaboligarchy’s” directing agency. Less compelling is Zwicker’s reference to the “New World Order” as the “diaboligarchy’s” directing agency. To me this unfortunate choice of words is much too closely associated with the often crude and chauvinistic populism of Alex Jones and his Infowars media network. Many have come to see Jones’ lucrative media operation as a limited hangout set in place by handlers trying to hold the activities of the 9/11 Truth Movement within manageable constraints.
Due to the important findings over fifteen years of the citizens’ investigation into 9/11, the culprits most deeply implicated in the crime can be identified with much more specificity than an entity vaguely described as a “New World Order.” As Kevin Barrett and many others insist, the time has come to name the names of the probable culprits, Noam Chomsky prominent among them.
While Alex Jones ultimately serves the same masters as Chomsky, the former’s media product is often much closer to the mark of what is really going on than the content of Noam Chomsky’s more magisterial pronouncements. Jones goes at least part of the way into realities of the deep state politics of the twenty-first century. Chomsky, however, sacrificed his capacity to contribute cogently to sensible discourse on contemporary geopolitics by making himself a primary instrument of the most consequential deep state deception of recent times. As a leading agent of disinformation in the psychological trenches of the ongoing Global War of False Flag Terrorism, Chomsky has reduced himself to the level of skeptic pretender Michael Shermer. In the style of Shermer, the elder Chomsky has become an establishment TV professor readily available on Netflix. … continue
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