The UAE’s reverse trajectory: From riches to rags
By Dr Zakir Hussain | MEMO | December 18, 2025
One of the most enduring and widely quoted dialogues in Indian cinema is: “Do not throw stones at others’ houses when your own house is made of glass.” Unfortunately, this wisdom appears to be lost on the United Arab Emirates. Instead of exercising restraint and responsibility, the UAE has increasingly been accused of conspiring with, financing, and backing a wide range of actors and armed groups that have contributed to chaos, instability, and even genocidal violence in several countries.
Over the years, the UAE has steadily expanded the scope of its controversial activities—from Libya and Sudan in North Africa to other mineral-rich Muslim-majority African countries, and further eastward to Afghanistan and Yemen. Its involvement in the Palestinian context also raises serious concerns, as there appears to be no clear moral or political limit to its actions. These interventions have not promoted peace or stability; rather, they have intensified conflicts, deepened humanitarian crises, and prolonged wars.
What makes this approach particularly perplexing is that the UAE itself lacks a credible and robust defensive shield to protect its own territory. It does not possess the capability to fully defend its iconic skyscrapers and critical infrastructure even against relatively unsophisticated, low-cost drones. A coordinated volley of such drone strikes would be sufficient to cause panic among the millionaires and billionaires who have invested heavily in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Capital, after all, is highly sensitive to risk, and fear alone can trigger massive capital flight.
Against this backdrop, it is difficult to comprehend why Mohammed bin Zayed has chosen to indulge in a strategy of regional destabilisation and proxy warfare. History clearly demonstrates that mercenaries neither win wars nor sustain long, decisive military campaigns. They fight only as long as their financial incentives are met, avoid heavy casualties, and withdraw the moment the cost-benefit equation turns unfavourable.
The UAE has already experienced the consequences of such adventurism in Yemen, where its involvement against the Houthis proved costly and ultimately unproductive. The episode exposed the limits of Emirati military power and underscored its lack of preparedness for prolonged, brutal conflicts. The Emiratis have shown remarkable efficiency in event management, diplomacy branding, and global image-building, but they are ill-suited for sustained warfare or managing the complex realities of civil wars and insurgencies.
Despite these lessons, the UAE continues to deploy mercenaries, supply arms, and push destabilising agendas that risk mass civilian suffering. Such actions not only tarnish its international standing but also make the future of the UAE increasingly uncertain. More importantly, they significantly raise the vulnerability of those who have invested billions and billions of dollars in the country—particularly in real estate and financial assets that depend heavily on perceptions of safety and stability. The UAE has attracted the largest number of high net worth people since the Ukraine war started.
According to one estimate, in 2025 alone, approximately 9,800 high-net-worth individuals moved to the UAE. In 2024, the total number of millionaires who moved to the UAE from Russia, Africa, and the UK is around 130,000, thus fuelling its status as a premier global wealth hub. The reasons are zero tax, stability, and safety, lifestyle.
However, the overindulgence of MBZ and misuse of the sovereign wealth fund is likely to negate all the toil and troubles endured by the forefathers of the Emirates since 1972.
As an Indian, my concern is both professional and moral. A large number of Indians have invested substantial sums in the UAE, especially in real estate. It is therefore necessary to issue a timely warning and provide a realistic assessment of emerging risks, so that Indian interests can be protected before irreversible damage occurs.
I remain open to offering constructive suggestions and responsible assessments, with the sole objective of safeguarding long-term stability and protecting the legitimate interests of investors and the expatriate community.
The Folly of Establishing a U.S. Military Base in Damascus
By José Niño | The Libertarian Institute | December 16, 2025
Recent reports indicate the United States is preparing to establish a military presence at an airbase in Damascus, allegedly to facilitate a security agreement between Syria and Israel. This development represents yet another misguided expansion of American military overreach in a region where Washington has already caused tremendous damage through decades of failed interventionist policies.
The United States currently operates approximately 750 to 877 military installations across roughly eighty countries worldwide. This staggering number represents about 70 to 85% of all foreign military bases globally. To put this in perspective, the next eighteen countries with foreign bases combined maintain only 370 installations total. Russia has just twenty-nine foreign bases, and China operates merely six. The American empire of bases already dwarfs every other nation combined, and the financial burden is crushing. Washington spends approximately $65 billion annually just to build and maintain these overseas installations, with total spending on foreign bases and personnel reaching over $94 billion per year.
These figures are not abstract accounting entries. They translate directly into American lives placed in volatile environments, as demonstrated by the recent insider attack in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, where a purported ISIS infiltrator embedded in local security forces turned his weapon on a joint U.S. Syrian patrol, killing two U.S. soldiers and one U.S. civilian during what was described as a routine field tour. The incident underscores how the sprawling U.S. basing network increasingly exposes American personnel to unpredictable and lethal blowback in unstable theaters far from home.
Syria itself already hosts between 1,500 and 2,000 American troops, primarily concentrated in the northeastern Hasakah province and at the Al Tanf base in the Syrian Desert. The Pentagon recently announced plans to reduce this presence to fewer than 1,000 personnel and consolidated operations from eight installations to just three. Yet now, despite this supposed drawdown, Washington reportedly plans to establish a new presence in Damascus itself, either at Mezzeh Air Base or Al Seen Military Airport. This contradictory expansion reveals the hollow nature of promises to reduce American military commitments abroad.
Since the fall of Bashar al Assad in December 2024, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military and civilian infrastructure while occupying parts of southern Syria including Quneitra and Daraa. Israel has systematically violated the 1974 disengagement agreement and expanded control over buffer zones. These actions align disturbingly well with the Yinon Plan, a 1982 Israeli strategic document by Israeli foreign policy official Oded Yinon that envisions the dissolution of surrounding Arab states into smaller ethnic and religious entities. The plan explicitly calls for fragmenting Syria along its ethnic and religious lines to prevent a strong centralized government that could challenge Israeli interests.
A permanent American military presence in Damascus would effectively serve as a tripwire guaranteeing continued U.S. involvement in securing Israeli strategic objectives in the Levant. Rather than protecting American interests or enhancing national security, such a base would entrench Washington deeper into regional conflicts that have consistently proven disastrous for both American taxpayers and Middle Eastern populations.
The human cost of American intervention in Syria should give any policymaker pause. The Syrian Civil War has resulted in between 617,000 and 656,000 deaths, including civilians, rebels, and government forces. More than 7.4 million people remain internally displaced within Syria, while approximately 6.3 million Syrian refugees live abroad. This catastrophic toll stems partly from Operation Timber Sycamore, the CIA covert program that ran from 2012 to 2017 to train and equip Syrian rebel forces.
Timber Sycamore represented a joint effort involving American intelligence services along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The CIA ran secret training camps in Jordan and Turkey, providing rebels with small arms, ammunition, trucks, and eventually advanced weaponry like BGM 71 TOW anti-tank missiles. Saudi Arabia provided significant funding while the United States supplied training and logistical support.
The program proved to be counterproductive. Jordanian intelligence officers stole and sold millions of dollars worth of weapons intended for rebels on the black market. Even worse, U.S.-supplied weapons regularly fell into the hands of the al Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, and ISIS itself. The program inadvertently strengthened the very extremists Washington was ostensibly fighting.
The failure of Timber Sycamore illustrates a fundamental problem with American interventionism in Syria. Washington has pursued regime change in Damascus in various forms for decades, yet these efforts have consistently backfired, creating power vacuums filled by jihadist groups and prolonging devastating conflicts. The current enthusiasm for establishing a military presence in Damascus suggests American policymakers have learned absolutely nothing from these failures.
The figure now leading Syria exemplifies the moral bankruptcy of this entire enterprise. Ahmed al Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al Julani, currently serves as president of Syria’s interim government. This represents a stunning rehabilitation for a man who founded al Nusra Front in 2012 as an al-Qaeda affiliate and later formed Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) by merging various rebel factions. Under the name Abu Mohammad al Julani, he was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States on July 24, 2013, with a $10 million bounty maintained on his head.
Al Sharaa’s terrorist designation stemmed from his leadership of al Nusra Front, which perpetrated numerous war crimes including suicide bombings, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, and sectarian massacres against Christian, Alawite, Shia, and Druze minorities. He fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq, spent time imprisoned at Camp Bucca between 2006 and 2010, and was dispatched to Syria by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2011 with $50,000 to establish al Nusra. His close associates have faced accusations from the United States of overseeing torture, kidnappings, trafficking, ransom schemes, and displacing residents to seize property. The New York Times reported that his group was accused of initially operating under al-Qaeda’s umbrella.
Yet in November 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 2799, removing al Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab from the ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions list. The U.S. Treasury Department followed suit, delisting him from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist registry. This reversal came after the State Department revoked HTS’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation in July 2025. Washington essentially decided that a former al-Qaeda commander who oversaw sectarian massacres was now a legitimate partner worthy of American military support. This absurd rehabilitation demonstrates how completely untethered American foreign policy has become from any coherent moral framework or strategic logic.
Critics rightly question whether al Sharaa has truly broken from his extremist roots or merely engaged in calculated political rebranding. The speed with which Washington embraced him as a legitimate leader suggests American policymakers care far more about advancing Israeli interests and maintaining regional influence than about genuine counterterrorism or protecting religious minorities.
The United States needs to pursue a fundamentally different approach to foreign policy. Rather than establishing yet another military base to advance Israeli strategic objectives in Syria, Washington should implement a comprehensive drawdown of overseas military commitments. The hundreds of foreign bases it maintains abroad represent an unsustainable burden that diverts resources from genuine national security priorities like border security and stability in the Western Hemisphere. American taxpayers deserve better than footing the bill for an empire that consistently fails to advance their interests while enriching defense contractors and serving foreign powers.
Syria offers a perfect case study in the futility of American interventionism. Decades of attempts at regime change through covert programs like Timber Sycamore and direct military presence have produced nothing but chaos, empowered jihadist groups, created millions of refugees, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The rehabilitation of a former al-Qaeda commander into Syria’s president illustrates how divorced American policy has become from any coherent strategy or values.
Rather than doubling down on failed policies, the United States should pursue strategic restraint, scale back its sprawling network of foreign bases, and allow regional powers to sort out their own affairs without American military involvement. That represents the path toward a more sustainable, affordable, and morally defensible foreign policy. The Damascus base proposal deserves to be rejected outright as yet another wasteful expansion of an already overextended military empire.
For Israel, The Terrorist Attack At Bondi Is An Opportunity To Push For War With Iran
The Dissident | December 14, 2025
Today, a horrific terrorist attack was committed against Jewish Australians who were celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 16 people and sending 40 to the hospital.
But for Israel, the terrorist attack is an opportunity to manufacture consent for a war with Iran.
There is no evidence that Iran has anything to do with the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, and all evidence so far that has emerged shows that it almost certainly was not.
The Iranian foreign ministry condemned the attack, saying, “We condemn the violent attack in Sydney, Australia. Terror and killing of human beings, wherever committed, is rejected and condemned”, and evidence released so far suggests the attacker identified so far, Naveed Akram, was a follower of Wahhabi Salafist ideology, which is openly hostile to Shia Islam and Iran.
Despite the lack of evidence and evidence showing it was not Iran behind the attack, Israel is using the horrific terrorist attack to manufacture consent for war with Iran.
Israel Hayom, the mouthpiece of Israel lobbyist and pro-Iran war hawk Miriam Adelson, published an article quoting an anonymous “Israeli security official” who claimed -without evidence- that “there is no doubt that the direction and infrastructure for the attack originated in Tehran”.
The Israeli newspaper Times of Israel, reported that Australia is “investigating if Sydney attack was part of larger Iranian plot” at the behest of the Israeli Mossad.
Previously, Israel pressured Australia to repeat baseless claims from the Mossad that Iran was behind anti-Semitic attacks in Australia.
As veteran journalist Joe Lauria reported, in August “Australian intelligence said the Iranian government was behind the firebombing of a Jewish temple in Melbourne last year as well as other ‘anti-semitic’ attacks in the country”, “days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly humiliated Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X for being ‘a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’ after Albanese said Australia would follow several European nations and recognize the state of Palestine.”
As Lauria noted, “The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) did not provide any evidence to prove Iran’s involvement last December in the Adass synagogue attack, which caused millions of dollars of damage but injured no one. It simply said it was their assessment based on secret evidence that Iran was involved”.
Australia’s ABC News reported that, “The Israeli government is claiming credit for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and intelligence agencies publicising Iranian involvement in antisemitic attacks on Australian soil,” adding that “in a press briefing overnight, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer effectively accused Australia of being shamed into acting”.
Mencer boasted that “Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has made a very forthright intervention when it comes to Australia, a country in which we have a long history of friendly relations”, implying that Israel pressured the Australian government to repeat their baseless claim about Iran being behind the attacks.
ABC reported that the move came days after, “Netanyahu labelled Mr Albanese a ‘weak’ leader who had ‘betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’” and “Israel announced it would tear up the visas of Australian diplomats working in the West Bank in protest against the Albanese government’s moves to recognise a Palestinian state”.
Israel’s evidence-free claims are already being used by the Trump administration to manufacture consent for war with Iran.
The Jerusalem Post reported that, “A senior US official told Fox News that if the Islamic Republic ordered the attack, then the US would fully recognize Israel’s right to strike Iran in response.”
Israel’s weaponisation of the terrorist attack in Bondi is reminiscent of how Benjamin Netanyahu weaponised the 9/11 attacks to draw America into Middle Eastern wars for Israel.
After the 9/11 attacks, Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that they were “very good” for Israel, because they would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror”.
This, in effect, meant using 9/11 to draw the U.S. into endless regime change wars in the Middle East against countries that had no ties to Al Qaeda but were in the way of Israel’s geopolitical goals.
The top U.S. general, Wesley Clark, said that after 9/11, the U.S. came up with a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.
Years later, on Piers Morgan’s show, Wesley Clark said that the hit list of countries came from a study that was “paid for by the Israelis”, which “said that if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding” adding that, “this led to all that followed” (i.e. regime change wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.)
Yet again, Israel is weaponising a terrorist attack to manufacture consent for the final regime change war on their hit list.
Trump’s National Security Strategy: Rethinking US Policy on Europe and Russia-Ukraine
By Abbas Hashemite – New Eastern Outlook – December 12, 2025
The new 33-page National Security Strategy document issued by the US government endorses Russia’s stance on Ukraine, rejecting aggressive European policies.
Trump’s Divergence from European Policies on Russia-Ukraine
Since assuming the presidency for a second non-consecutive term, US President Donald Trump has diverged from the European view on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. President Trump has been highly critical of the European Union and NATO allies of the United States over their controversial policies. The new 33-page National Security Strategy (NSS) announced by the incumbent US government has once again validated the Russian stance over this conflict and has unambiguously rebuffed the European aggressive and violent designs regarding the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
This latest security strategy document acknowledged that the European Union is responsible for prolonging the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The document also condemned the unrealistic expectations of the European officials from this violent conflict, costing hosts of lives on both sides. The US government blamed the EU for blocking several US efforts to end this conflict, stating that the United States has a “core interest” in ending the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Furthermore, the document also accuses the European governments of “subversion of democratic processes” as they remain unresponsive to the desires of their people for establishing peace between Russia and Ukraine. As per the NSS document, it is one of the top priorities of the United States to “re-establish strategic stability with Russia,” which would help stabilize European economies. This new security strategy document is widely seen as the re-evaluation of the US policy towards its European allies.
The Alaska Summit and Peace Negotiations
President Trump has long been critical of European policies. During his election campaigns, he repeatedly claimed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine conflict within a day. After assuming the presidential office in January 2025, he engaged with the Russian President Vladimir Putin to establish peace between Russia and Ukraine. The positive engagement between the two leaders led to a summit between them in Alaska in August 2025. After the summit, US President Donald Trump praised President Putin’s positive attitude towards peace negotiations. He also described President Putin’s observations about the conflict as “profound.”
After the summit between the two leaders in Alaska, President Trump stated, “Many points were agreed to. There are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there.” He further stated that he would talk to Zelenskyy and NATO regarding the discussions in the summit, adding that “It’s ultimately up to them.” However, after consulting with the NATO allies, President Trump realised that the European Union has ulterior motives behind procrastinating this violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The European and Ukrainian demand to deploy a NATO-like combined EU force in Ukraine to ensure the latter’s security derailed these peace negotiations. In the past, the European leaders repeatedly thwarted all the peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine to achieve their covert regional strategic interests and to undermine Russian security and sovereignty. The NSS also criticised Europe over “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition.” It further claimed that Europe is confronting the “prospect of civilizational erasure” due to “failed focus on regulatory suffocation” and migration policies. The document also claimed that Europe will be “unrecognisable in 20 years or less” due to its economic issues. The NSS further read, “It is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”
Implications of the New National Security Strategy
Indeed, the European powers, particularly NATO countries, are heavily reliant on US military power for their survival and security. For years, President Trump has been urging the European nations to pay their fair share in the alliance. However, the European leaders are unable to address US concerns due to the economic issues of their countries. In this new NSS document, the United States has threatened to withdraw its security umbrella from the European nations. It states that the US would prioritise “enabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including by taking primary responsibility for its own defence, without being dominated by any adversarial power.”
This re-evaluation of the US policies towards Europe and the Russia-Ukraine conflict has astonished many European leaders. Nonetheless, the United States’ new security policy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been widely regarded as commendable. European nations and the broader Western world must address Russia’s security concerns to ensure peace and stability between Russia and Ukraine. Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Kremlin, expressed support for the Trump administration’s newly unveiled security strategy. He stated, “The adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision.” He also encouraged the US to pledge to end “the perception, and prevent the reality, of the NATO military alliance as a perpetually expanding alliance.”
However, he also cautioned that the US ‘deep state’ views the world differently from President Trump. Indeed, the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy document is based on realistic assumptions. However, the mighty US deep state would never allow him to undermine or challenge the long-established status quo in the country. The European Union and Israel have significant influence over the US deep state. Therefore, it would be hard for the Trump administration to diverge from the prior US stance over its alignment with Europe and Israel over the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the Middle East.
Аbbas Hashemite is a political observer and research analyst for regional and global geopolitical issues. He is currently working as an independent researcher and journalist
Hillary Clinton Says Pro-Palestine Protestors Don’t Know History, While She Distorts The Actual History.
The Dissident | December 3, 2025
Former Secretary of State and failed 2016 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, recently emerged from the shadows to give a condescending lecture to pro-Palestine protestors at the “Israel Hayom” conference.
At the Zionist conference, Clinton said, “Students, smart, well-educated young people from our own country, where were they getting their information? they were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok,” adding, “That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7, what happened in the days, weeks, and months to follow. That’s a serious problem. It’s a serious problem for democracy, whether it’s Israel or the United States, and it’s a serious problem for our young people”.
She claimed that pro-Palestine protestors “did not know history, had very little context, and what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda”.
She added, “It’s not just the usual suspects. It’s a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.”
Previously, when Hillary Clinton made similar statements, she elaborated on the “history” she claims pro-Palestine protestors don’t understand, namely the claim that her husband, Bill Clinton, when president, gave Palestinians a chance to “have a state of their own” and Palestinians rejected it- a blatant distortion of the actual history.
The Actual History.
In reality, Bill Clinton began negotiating his Oslo agreement between Israel and Palestine in 1993, but as Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada noted:
In 1993, Israel was compelled to accept the Oslo Accords by its failure to violently crush the First Intifada and its inability to cope with international isolation, pressure, and the economic, diplomatic, and political damage resulting from its “breaking the bones”strategy against unarmed civilian protesters and children.
The world hailed Oslo as a new era of peace, but Israel put enough loopholes in the agreement to avoid allowing an end to the occupation. Prime Minister (Yitzhak) Rabin, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for Oslo, made it abundantly clear that it was merely about separation, not Palestinian statehood.
“We do not accept the Palestinian goal of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan. We believe there is a separate Palestinian entity short of a state,” he said.
Apartheid means ‘separateness’, and this is what transpired on the ground. Israeli settlements grew exponentially, and more settlers moved into the occupied territory during the “peace process” than before Oslo. Palestinians, meanwhile, were forced to police Israel’s occupation and thwart armed resistance, making apartheid cost-free for Tel Aviv.
Furthermore, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Israeli Prime Minister from 1996-1999, is on video boasting that while Prime Minister, he sabotaged the Oslo agreements and manipulated Bill Clinton into doing so.
In the leaked video, Benjamin Netanyahu boasts that “They (Clinton administration) asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords] I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ‘67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue” adding, “from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords”.
Netanyahu went on to say, “I know what America is, America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way”.
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy noted at the time the video came out, “No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he’s even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse’s mouth.”
The following year, in 2000, when Netanyahu was out of office, Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and the newly elected Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak met with Bill Clinton at Camp David in an attempt to resurrect the peace process that Benjamin Netanyahu had sabotaged. Hillary Clinton claims that Israel conceded every Palestinian demand for a Palestinian state, but Arafat rejected it.
This, too, is a complete distortion of history. As Muhammad Shehada noted:
In 2000, Israel made clear at Camp David that the maximum it would offer Palestinians was not a sovereign independent state, but rather three discontiguous Bantustans separated by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints without any right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Israel would retain control over Palestine’s airspace, radio, cellphone coverage, and borders with Jordan, and maintain its military bases in 13.3% of the West Bank while annexing 9% and even keeping three settlement blocks in Gaza that cut the enclave into separate pieces.
Robert Malley, Bill Clinton’s special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs, who led the negotiations at Camp David, calls the claim that Yasser Arafat rejected a good deal a “myth,” adding that “the deal nevertheless didn’t meet the minimum requirements of any Palestinian leader”.
Robert Malley in the New York Times wrote that it is a myth that “Israel’s offer met most if not all of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations,” adding that under the offer at Camp David, “Israel was to annex 9 percent of the West Bank”, “While it (Palestine) would enjoy custody over the Haram al Sharif, the location of the third-holiest Muslim shrine, Israel would exercise overall sovereignty over this area” and “As for the future of refugees — for many Palestinians, the heart of the matter — the ideas put forward at Camp David spoke vaguely of a ‘satisfactory solution,’ leading Mr. Arafat to fear that he would be asked to swallow an unacceptable last-minute proposal.”
As Journalist Seth Ackerman reported under the Camp David agreement,
-(Israel) would annex strategically important and highly valuable sections of the West Bank—while retaining “security control” over other parts—that would have made it impossible for the Palestinians to travel or trade freely within their own state without the permission of the Israeli government
-The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region’s scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert—about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex—including a former toxic waste dump.
-Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new ‘independent state’ would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called “bypass roads” that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.
-Israel was also to have kept ‘security control’ for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt—putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.
-Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an ‘end-of-conflict’ agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over, and waiving all further claims against Israel.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, who was a key part of the Camp David negotiations, admitted “Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David, as well”.
Following the meeting at Camp David, as journalist Jon Schwarz noted, “Clinton had promised Arafat that he would not blame him if the talks failed. He then reneged after the summit ended. Nonetheless, the Israelis and Palestinians continued to negotiate through the fall and narrowed their differences.”
As Schwarz noted, “Clinton came up with what he called parameters for a two-state solution in December 2000,” and “the Israelis and the Palestinians kept talking in late January 2001 in Taba, Egypt,” but “it was not the Palestinians but (Ehud) Barak who terminated the discussions on January 27, a few weeks before Israeli elections.”
Following the election, as Schwarz notes, “Barak was defeated by Ariel Sharon, who did not want a Palestinian state and did not restart the talks. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that the Clinton parameters ‘are not binding on the new government to be formed in Israel.’”
Pro- Palestinian Protestors Do Understand History, Including The History of Hillary Clinton’s War Crimes.
In reality, Hillary Clinton- being the narcissist that she is-has an issue with pro-Palestinian protestors, not because they don’t understand history, but because they understand the history of her war crimes she had committed.
At Columbia University, where Clinton teaches a class on international relations, she has been called out directly by pro-Palestine protestors for her war crimes in the Middle East.
When Hillary Clinton hosted an event at the University with Sheryl Sandberg, laundering the claims from Sandberg’s atrocity propaganda film “Screams Before Silence”, which used misinformation to launder the false claim that Hamas committed mass rape on Ocotber 7th, one student protestor correctly pointed out she was pushing atrocity propaganda, and that she had used the same propaganda to justify the 2011 regime change war in Libya, saying, “You’ve done this before…You exploited sexual violence in Libya so you could justify US militarization. If you were enraged about sexual violence, you’d be talking about the sexual violence in Palestine and the sexual violence that they endure daily”.
Indeed, in 2011, Hillary Clinton pushed debunked claims that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered mass rape against civilians, which was used to justify the U.S.-led NATO regime change bombing in the country, which turned it into a failed state rife with ISIS bases and open slave markets.
While the once-prosperous country was turned into a failed state, Netanyahu cheered the regime change bombing, hoping it would lead to similar regime change in Iran.
Similarly, Sheryl Sandberg’s film that Hillary Clinton laundered has been completely discredited.
The film used supposed confessions from Palestinians as evidence that mass rape happened, but the UN later documented that the “confession” videos were extracted using torture and put out for propaganda purposes, noting, “The Commission reviewed several videos where detainees were interrogated by members of the ISF, while placed in an extremely vulnerable position, completely subjugated, when confessing to witnessing or committing rape and other serious crimes. The names and faces of the detainees were also exposed. The Commission considers the distribution of such videos, purely for propaganda purposes, to be a violation of due process and fair trial guarantees. In view of the apparent coercive circumstances of the confessions appearing in the videos, the Commission does not accept such confessions as proof of the crimes confessed.”
Furthermore, the film’s central “witness”, Rami Davidian, has been discredited even by Israeli media.
Israeli investigative journalist Raviv Drucker uncovered that Rami Davidian- who is featured heavily in the propaganda film claiming to have witnessed “mass rape”- was telling, “stories made up from beginning to end. Hair-raising stories that never, ever occurred”.
In other words, student protestors were correct that Hillary Clinton previously used false stories of mass rape to justify war in Libya and was continuing to use false stories of mass rape to justify genocide- and real mass rape by IDF soldiers- in Gaza.
As the United Nations documented, the fabricated stories of Palestinians committing mass rape on Ocotber 7th were used to justify the continuation of the genocide in Gaza, and “the sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men … seemingly fueled by similar desire to retaliate.”
Furthermore, at another Colombia University event, a pro-Palestine protestor called out Hillary Clinton’s support for America’s criminal wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen and for continuing to cheer on war crimes and genocide in Gaza, saying, “Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, you are a war criminal, the people of Libya, the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Yemen, the people of Palestine as well as the people of America will never forgive you”.
In reality, Hillary Clinton knows that pro-Palestine protestors are well aware of her past war crimes in the Middle East, well aware of her and her husband’s distortion and lies about the Oslo Accords and Camp David, and well aware of the fact that she is manufacturing consent for genocide- and so in turn smears them.
US defence bill legally binds Washington to counter arms embargoes on Israel
MEMO | December 10, 2025
A newly passed United States defence bill contains extraordinary provisions that would commit Washington to systematically identify, assess and ultimately compensate for any Israeli weapons shortfalls caused by international embargoes. The legislation effectively shields Israel from global attempts to restrict arms transfers, even in the face of genocide.
Buried deep within the 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act is Section 1706, titled: “Continual Assessment of Impact of International State Arms Embargoes on Israel and Actions to Address Defense Capability Gaps.” It mandates a permanent US obligation to mitigate the effects of foreign arms restrictions imposed on Israel.
Under this provision, the Secretary of Defense is required to conduct a continual assessment of current and emerging embargoes, sanctions, or restrictions on arms transfers to Israel. This includes evaluating how such measures might create vulnerabilities in Israel’s security capabilities or undermine its so-called “qualitative military edge.”
In practical terms, if states or international bodies move to restrict Israel’s access to weapons due to its conduct in Gaza or the occupied West Bank, the US government is now legally bound to examine how these limitations weaken Israel militarily—and to act.
Section 1706 does not stop at analysis. It obligates Washington to identify specific weapons systems or technologies that Israel can no longer acquire, sustain or modernise due to such embargoes, and then to devise practical ways of filling the gap.
The legislation tasks the Pentagon and the State Department with leading this effort, which may include removing bureaucratic barriers to foreign military sales, expanding the US industrial base to supply alternative systems, increasing joint research and production of defence technologies, and enhancing military training and logistics cooperation.
In effect, if Israel is prohibited from acquiring a weapons system from another supplier, the United States will manufacture a replacement, expedite sales or adapt its military-industrial output to meet Israeli needs.
The section mandates that these assessments must be updated “not less than once every 180 days,” establishing a biannual review cycle that guarantees Israel uninterrupted military capacity regardless of international opposition.
At a moment when global scrutiny is intensifying over Israel’s military operations in Gaza—including allegations of mass civilian casualties, enforced starvation and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure—Section 1706 functions as a form of political and logistical insurance, effectively insulating Israel from global accountability.
Such embargoes are typically employed to pressure governments engaged in serious human rights violations. In Israel’s case, they would be rendered largely symbolic. Washington would be legally required to compensate for any capacity lost due to international censure.
This provision comes on top of billions of dollars in ongoing US funding for Israel’s missile defence systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow 3, all of which are supported by direct appropriations and technology-sharing agreements within the same legislation.
Critics argue that Section 1706 represents a structural guarantee of Israeli military dominance, regardless of Israel’s conduct or global condemnation. By obligating the US to counteract embargoes, the bill does more than offer aid—it effectively integrates Israel’s military needs into US strategic planning and shields it from international accountability mechanisms used against other states.
The Deep State Targets Thomas Massie
By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | December 9, 2025
With the retirement next month of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the face of vociferous attacks from President Donald Trump, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is the only member of any of the three branches of our government who consistently and on principle opposes American empire—and who also opposes the taxes, debt, and interventions that come with it. In a little over a year, he may not be.
For the first time in his seven-term congressional career, Massie is being challenged by a formidable primary opponent. That opponent is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy Seal who during his thirty years of meritorious service earned four Bronze Stars and whose extended family of small business owners is a multi-generational staple of Kentucky’s 4th District. As the last line in Gallrein’s X bio has it, he is “Trump-endorsed to defeat Thomas Massie and Deliver America First for Kentucky”—and, given the popularity Trump still enjoys among Republican voters as well as Gallrein’s sterling military reputation, and despite Massie’s strong endurability, Gallrein may succeed in realizing his goal.
Whether Gallrein’s election would actually mean delivering America first is a very different question. Putting America first presumably means putting the soldiers sworn to protect Americans, those individuals with whom Gallrein so valorously served, first as well. But a closer examination of the agenda Gallrein is running on makes clear that, unlike Massie’s prudent America first constitutionalism, it does not accomplish that goal. Instead it is the latest iteration, this time under Donald Trump, of a long-running play where small networks of ideologues ensconced in Washington’s military-corporate complex use America’s armed forces to run imperial plays for profit and power. The people running this version—connected Zionists tied to Trump’s re-election bid and now to his White House—are using Gallrein’s military service, which one might think would end up aiding our men and women in uniform, as an excuse to do the opposite. They are funding a decorated veteran to act as a front for imperial plays that mis-serve our armed forces and the Americans they’re sworn to protect.
Understanding the conditions that allowed this operation to happen and their consequences means going back to the creation of the current armed forces at the hands of the military-corporate complex after 1945—and tracing its abuses and misuses at the hands of a small number of players whose inheritors are now backing Trump and targeting Massie.
Americans’ rightful and deep respect for the men and women of our armed forces obscures an essential fact about the organization they serve: in its current form, it was never intended to exist. From Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Dwight Eisenhower, people concerned for our liberties saw a large and expanding standing army and its support systems as inherent threats to our constitutional republic. These men were not unrealistic about the need for an armed forces—Jefferson founded West Point, and Eisenhower commanded D-Day—but they knew that an essentially defensive army equipped for a republic was very different than an aggressive army serving empire. In their view, this latter type of army would become a version of the British Army which Jefferson’s revolutionaries had fought against: an aggressive tool of imperial operators to use for power and profit.
With the start of the Cold War and the beginning of an arms race with the Soviet Union, Jefferson’s and Madison’s and Eisenhower’s fears came true, giving an enormous opportunity to a network that did not share them. Namely, old Northeastern WASPs and their allies who by 1945 had spent 150 years eschewing America’s constitutional politics in favor of building institutions and corporations in and around Washington DC. The Henry Cabot Lodges and the Brothers Harriman, the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and the Bushes, John Foster and Allen Dulles and John Jesus Angleton—these were the financial and corporate and military players who used the Cold War as an opportunity to make themselves into runners of American empire, for their own power and profit.
At their hands, the American Army became the British Army of a later age, with its own public-debt-fueled corporate outgrowths which purport to be serving our soldiers. In reality, as Dwight Eisenhower said publicly in his presidential farewell address of 1961, the new weapons-for-profit system made its minders into what Eisenhower called in his notes for the speech “merchants of death”: “flag and general officers retiring at an early age take positions in war based industrial complex shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust.” And these civilians running the weapons contractors were rotating not just through Pentagon and CIA consultancies and administrative agencies but through America’s new civilian intelligence service, the CIA. There, the profit motive—combined with a high level of ideological zeal—also distorted policy.
By 1961, Allen Dulles, John Jesus Angleton, and the lineup of other old-line WASPs running the CIA outside of meaningful oversight had put America into the Congo, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, and the beginnings of Vietnam. After these came interventions in El Salvador, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Palestine, and (again, this year) Iran. These were plays executed with input from McKinsey and Raytheon to Langley and the Pentagon via the Situation Room. They were increasingly run by new networks: once disproportionally WASP, these new networks were disproportionally made up of Jewish Zionists bent on using American empire to protect Israel. Among these were early operators like Henry Morgenthau and Theodore Kollek; and their later inheritors like Martin Peretz and William Kristol, Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen and Thomas Pritzker, people who in many ways shaped the policies of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations. At their hands, accelerated military corporate cronyism has been the order of the day starting in 1993, when the Clinton administration, which assumed power thanks in part to Zionist backing, pressured the fifty major weapons contractors active during the Cold War to consolidate in the nominal name of cutting costs. The ensuing distortion of our military has occurred via multiple forms, which I reported on for the Libertarian Institute in July.
One distortion has been cost overruns on weapons systems, which contractors feel free to allow or even encourage since no competition exists for their product. This has also allowed errors in construction which diminishes the equipment that’s supposed to serve our troops. Then, as I have reported elsewhere, in response to the overruns came budget cuts and the “fix” of “sequestration,” which reduced these cost overruns by cutting expenditures on the troops, further under-equipping and overstretching personnel. Exacerbating the problem, as I have also reported, were Pentagon-and-contractor funded think tanks, which covered the problem with “social initiatives” via mental health, climate, and DEI, further distracting the Pentagon from the imperatives of readiness and training. All the while, interventions urged by the same financial-military-intelligence networks attenuating the capacity of our armed forces also overstretched them: in Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and (in an “advisory” capacity) Syria and Israel and Ukraine.
The result has not just been surging deficit spending that mortgages the future of Americans; nor backlash from affected populations to our imperial arrangements abroad. It has also, even more dramatically, been a spate of military embarrassments since 2018, most notably crashes of planes at the hands of overcommitted and demoralized troops and their commanders. These have racked up losses to the tune of nearly $500 million per crash and cost the lives of servicepeople. As I reported in January of this year, in an investigation of these crashes and their causes:
“For the Army, [the shrinking of budgets and personnel since the 2010s] meant “cut[ting] 40,000 active-duty soldiers, shrinking [the Armed Forces] to 450,000 by 2017.” For the Air Force, this meant a reduction of active-duty airmen from 333,370 to 310,000.”
“An Air Force report to Congress in 2018 said that, thanks to sequestration, the Air Force was ‘the smallest… it has ever been.’ Active-duty aircrew flying hours had been slashed from 17.7 to 13.2 hours per month. 31 squadrons, including 13 coded for combat, had stood down because of funding pressures. Plans had been announced to eliminate 500 planes, and, according to a Military.com report cited by The American Legion, the Air Force was ‘making do with ‘half-size squadrons.’’ The common refrain today is that hours in the air are even shorter—4.1 hours a month, by one estimate—and that efforts to replace real flying with “on-the-ground simulators” are dismal failures.”
“These shortages of manpower and training had immediate effects that took time to tally… 2018, the year after the sequester was complete, saw a spate of plane crashes. In late 2020, Congress found that, in just six years since the sequester began, ‘‘mishaps’ in training flights or routine missions killed 198 service members and civilians, destroyed 157 aircraft, and cost taxpayers $9.41 billion.’ Two weeks alone in 2022 saw three crashes on routine training missions in Alabama and California, costing at least five lives and two injuries. The last few months of 2023 saw four crashes. On December 22, 2024, a navy jet was shot down by friendly fire, and another narrowly avoided being shot down by the same barrage, in the Mediterranean.”
A year ago, given the stakes Donald Trump himself articulated for his re-election (a run against the “deep state”), it seemed unthinkable that Trump would adopt military corporatist priorities wholesale almost immediately on assuming office. But, influenced in part by Zionist operators who swung to support his re-election campaign in the summer of 2024 after pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, he has done exactly that. As I reported for the Libertarian Institute in July, Trump has forgone actually reforming aspects of the military corporate complex to aid our soldiers. Instead he has committed to a “Big Beautiful Bill” that inflates ICE’s budget but does not direct military funding away from corporate cronyism; a surface-level crusade against “wokeness” and “DEI”; a military parade; superficial demonstrations of force in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela; the militarization of law enforcement via ICE recruiting; and the placement of American troops in American cities. He claims to be standing above all for our troops—but in reality he is standing for the military corporate complex that mis-serves them, to the demonstrable detriment of our men and women in uniform.
The most recent example of Trump’s demonstrably detrimental effect on our troops comes from The Washington Post, in a story published December 4, 2025. The subject was a deployment to the Middle East for the benefit of Israel and its Saudi and Emirati allies against Yemen; a campaign prosecuted in the Biden administration and before with the encouragement of Zionists but decisively and unprecedentedly accelerated by Trump in his second term:
“The U.S. Navy on Thursday released its findings from four investigations scrutinizing the significant challenges encountered by one of its aircraft carrier groups over nine months in the Middle East, where several major accidents occurred as the ships battled Yemeni militants.”
“The Truman carrier group departed its home port in Norfolk in September 2024 — and by the time it returned in May, the carrier itself had collided with a merchant vessel; its cruiser had shot down one of its fighter jets, another warplane was lost when it slid overboard as the carrier performed an evasive maneuver to dodge an incoming missile; and a third jet was lost when an arresting cable failed as the pilot attempted to land.”
“In three of the four incidents, investigators determined, either poor training, improper procedures or crew fatigue played significant roles. And while no service members died, those incidents could have led to multiple fatalities, the Navy found.”
All of which raises with some immediacy the question of Ed Gallrein, who was selected to run against Massie after the congressman repeatedly voted, along Jeffersonian constitutionalist lines, against using taxpayer money and deficit spending to benefit Israel. Gallrein’s selector was Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager in 2024 and Trump’s pick to spearhead the anti-Massie campaign, who is working with at least $2 million from an anti-Massie PAC funded by the Jewish Zionist billionaires Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Miriam Adelson. These three operators owe their easy entrée into Washington in part to the military-intelligence Zionist operators linked to the money and power at the origins of the CIA and of the host systems for the merchants of death 80 years ago—just as the decisive momentum was building for the creation of Israel.
And the $2 million they have committed so far on behalf of Israel’s interests has had its effect. At a recent gathering of campaign donors, Massie informed the group that before this primary campaign his approval/disapproval rating in polls was 62-12 (adding together very approved, somewhat approved, etc.) But, he went on to say, after $2 million in negative ads spent in his district, it’s now 51-37. He said hthat he personally expects $20 million to be spent against him, but will feel comfortable in his odds if he raises $5 million.
Gallrein was endorsed preemptively by Trump, which is to say before he entered the race, and he is by any measure a shrewd choice for Trump and Trump’s Zionist allies to back. He is not just a decorated veteran with thirty years of valorous service, he is also a fifth generation farmer and the scion of a Kentucky family with deep roots in the 4th District. The Gallrein Family Farm, founded in 1929, became the largest dairy producer in the state; expanded aggressively into tobacco and vegetables and grain along with a subset of trucking; and has now expanded into “agritourism” with weddings and a farmers market, along with a store and lunch counter which sells the farm’s “produce and product lines.” According to his LinkedIn CV, Gallrein worked at the farm from 1962, when he was four, to 1982, when he was 24, rising to vice president; then in 1984 he joined the U.S. Army, where “he served for 30 years and became a Navy SEAL officer… rose to the rank of captain and served in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq.” Since retiring in 2014, Gallrein has experimented with careers: opening a farm and stables as well as two “leadership” and “startup” consultancy businesses, and running in the Republican primary for the District 7 state senate seat, going on to lose the race by 118 votes. He speaks, repeatedly, of his intention to bring the skills he learned during his military service to serve the 4th District.
Gallrein, having never served in office, has no voting record, and his policy platform amounts to loyalty to President Trump’s agenda, which now includes supporting interventions or operations abroad in Yemen, Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Nigeria. In public statements this year, Gallrein has doubled down on interventionism, specifically defended our engagements in the Middle East, especially against Iran, as “leveraging” our “power” there and (echoing a favorite line from Trump-supporting media) “playing chess” against our enemies. He uses the authority of his service to help make the case—even to the extent of arguing that what may seem to be the Trump administration’s irresponsible ventures abroad and at home with authoritarian surveillance regimes like the Saudis and Emiratis via the ministrations of Israel are in fact necessary complements to our national security. (“Economic is the centerpiece of national power. [That concept is] called ‘Dime’ as we studied it in the War College.”)
What Gallrein doesn’t emphasize in his interviews is as telling as what he does. What he under-emphasizes is not just questions of taxes and debt and cost of living, which is not a surprise considering that he has said publicly that he “believes it’s his stance on foreign policy that put him on Trump’s radar.” What he under-emphasizes also relates to crucial questions when it comes to his nominal area of expertise, our military. He does not speak about meaningfully reforming our weapons contracting systems or their think tank outgrowths; or about the influence of money on the interventions we make in other sovereign nations. In other words, he does not speak about any actual structural problem in the military corporate complex that hurts the men and women with whom he once valorously served—or about any actual structural reform that would help them. And why would he? His financial and political backers are tied, directly, to those very structures—the military corporate systems and their financial supporters and their think tanks and advocacy groups and the state, Israel, that is their main priority and beneficiary and the beneficiary of our endless interventions.
Not just our sovereignty, but the safety of the people pledged to protect us, are under clear threat when they’re presided over by politicos like Gallrein run by networks, and operators, like these.
Russia’s Return to Syria Changes Everything
TMJ News Network | December 8, 2025
A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s rise to power, Syria remains a politically volatile state. West Asian geopolitical analyst and Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani joins TMJ News to reveal the power plays unfolding behind the scenes: Russia’s sudden return near the Golan, Israel expanding its reach in the south, Gulf and Turkish maneuvering, U.S. calculations, and the IMF positioning itself for influence. What does the future of Syria look like as foreign powers get involved?
The Myth of Total Victory and the Reality on the Ground: Is Israel Winning Its Seven-Front War?
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | December 2, 2025
From the Gaza genocide to the assassination of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, Israel has carried out unprecedented destruction across the region. Yet, despite everything that has happened since October 7, 2023, has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu truly delivered the “total victory” he promised over his regime’s adversaries?
The current state of play across West Asia has left many in despair. Undoubtedly, the genocide in the Gaza Strip has inflicted a generational psychological wound, not only on the people of the region, but concerned citizens throughout the world.
When the genocide began in October of 2023, many assumptions were made regarding who or what was going to come to the aid of the Palestinian people.
Some trusted in international institutions, others believed that the Arab masses would mobilize or assumed that the rulers of Muslim Majority countries would utilize their trade leverage, resources, and even militaries to rescue the people of Gaza. Then there were those who depended upon the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance.
On the question of the international institutions, the Israelis were brought before the UN’s top judicial organ, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found Tel Aviv plausibly guilty of committing genocide. However, when it issued its provisional measures, the court was simply ignored.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) even passed resolution 2728 on March 25, 2024, which called for a ceasefire until the end of the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, which was supposed to be binding and was again ignored by Israel.
Then came along the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Tel Aviv and Washington decided to go after the court and its prosecutor, undermining its authority.
The Arab Nations, with the exception of Yemen’s Ansarallah government in Sana’a, refused to lift a finger, as did the rulers of most Muslim Majority nations. The populations of Jordan and Egypt that were expected to act, didn’t even live up to the popular actions taken by European populations. The people in the major cities of the West Bank and in occupied Jerusalem didn’t even stage notable protests.
The only ones who acted were the Axis of Resistance. Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansarallah waged support fronts in solidarity with Gaza, while some Iraqi factions occasionally sent suicide drones and rocket fire from Syria would occur periodically.
Yet the way that the Axis of Resistance dealt with the genocide appeared to be the execution of a strategy to ultimately de-escalate hostilities and bring the assault on Gaza’s people to an end. The Israelis, however, were not interested in a cessation of hostilities and were instead hell bent on destroying the entire Iranian-led Axis once and for all.
Israel broke every tenet of international law and violated all diplomatic norms. They would go on to carry out countless assassinations eventually stretching across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, with a failed attempt on the lives of Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. The consular segment of Iran’s embassy in Syria was even bombed.
Israel carried out the pager terrorist attacks across Lebanon, which wounded thousands and killed dozens, including countless women and children. This not only shook Lebanese society to the core, but also proved a major security and communications blow to Hezbollah itself. The infiltration of Hezbollah allowed Israel to murder the majority of the organization’s senior leadership. Perhaps the biggest psychological blow was the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Shortly after thousands had been murdered by Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon between September and late November, the next major blow to the Axis of Resistance came in the form of regime change in Syria. Suddenly, a US-backed government had been ushered into power and instantly opened up lines of communication with Israel.
What occurred in Syria was significant for a number of reasons, the most important of which was the collapse of the Syrian military and occupation of vast portions of territory in southern Syria, including the strategic high-ground of Jabal Al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon). It also meant that weapons transfers to Lebanon, to supply Hezbollah and the Palestinian armed factions, were instantly made much more difficult.
The resistance in the West Bank that had been growing in the north of the occupied territory since 2021 was significantly cut down through aggressive Israeli and Palestinian Authority military campaigns. In the Gaza Strip, the resistance forces were also degraded and had no supply lines. Meanwhile, the only consistent front that never buckled and only accelerated their attacks was the Yemeni Armed Forces, but due to their geographical constraints were limited in what impact they could have.
For all of the above-noted reasons, the Israelis have appeared to have gained the upper hand, and this has left many fearing what they have in store next. It is assumed that further attacks on Lebanon and Iran will be aimed at achieving regime change in Tehran, which, if successful, would indeed declare Israel the undisputed ruler of the region.
A Reality Check
Despite the gains that the Israelis have made, they have also suffered enormous blows themselves, which are often left out of many analyses offered on the current situation the region finds itself in. Before delving into this, to avoid accusations of “cope”, it is important to make note of a few different points.
Many refutations offered to the pessimistic view commonly adopted of the region engage in exaggeration, speculation, and refuse to even acknowledge the obvious losses their side has suffered. This is often the practice of those who remain die-hard supporters of resistance against the Israelis and their regional project.
When such positive and romanticized depictions are used to describe the current situation and are heard by those who are convinced that their side has already lost, they often experience a visceral opposition to that sense of optimism. Supporters of the resistance to Israel’s tyranny attempt to rescue morale through slogans and dogmatic rhetoric, which falls on deaf ears, as such explanations lack logical consistency.
This all being said, things are not exactly as doom-and-gloom as the popularized pessimism that prevails across the region suggests.
At this current moment, Israel has not won on any front; the caveat is obviously that the Axis of Resistance has not won either. Every front is a de facto stalemate. This being said, the Israelis have undoubtedly inflicted much greater damage on their adversaries in the short run.
Yes, the Palestinian factions in Gaza have been weakened, and the human cost of the war has been enormous, beyond anyone’s imagination, but they have not been defeated. Instead, they have waged a guerrilla war against the occupying army that has targeted the civilian population as a means of attempting to defeat them by proxy. Are they capable of defeating the Israeli military? No, not by themselves, but this has always been the case.
In Lebanon, the Israelis certainly dealt a massive blow to Hezbollah; there can be no doubt about it. Although they were incapable of collapsing the group and it is clear that they still retained an abundance of arms, something demonstrated throughout the course of the war in late 2024. Today, Hezbollah is rapidly rebuilding its capabilities and preparing for the inevitability of the next round.
One key takeaway from the Israel-Lebanon war was that, beyond assassinations and intelligence operations, the Israelis proved incapable on the ground and were even deterred from conquering villages like Khiam along with the Lebanese border area. Their greatest tactical achievements came at the beginning of the war, while the remainder of the battle proved that Israel’s only edge came through its air force.
The reason why the Lebanon war was a loss for Hezbollah was down to the collapse of Hezbollah’s image. Previously, the propaganda of the organization and the trust commanded by its leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, had convinced the world that the group was powerful enough to destroy Israel by itself. In his last speech, before he was murdered alongside 300 civilians, Nasrallah had publicly admitted that there is, in fact, no parity between Hezbollah and Israel militarily.
In 2006, just as occurred in 2024, the result of the war was a stalemate. No side decisively beat the other. Instead, it was the combined fact that Hezbollah’s performance was militarily stunning, from a planning and execution point of view, in addition to the fact that nobody expected the group to even survive, let alone force the Israelis to abandon their war plans. If you look at the difference in Lebanese to Israeli casualties in 2006, there is no comparison; in fact, it was even a major achievement for Hezbollah to have hit Haifa with rockets back then.
The 2006 war proved that Hezbollah was a force to be reckoned with, that it would inflict serious blows on Israel if it sought to re-invade and re-occupy southern Lebanon, so Tel Aviv made the calculation that it was best to leave it alone. This is why there were 17 years of deterrence, where Israel would not dare bomb Lebanon.
Fast forward to 2023, Hezbollah was a group capable of striking any target across occupied Palestine, and in 2024 hit Tel Aviv for the very first time. Compared to a force of an estimated 14,000 men in 2006, Hezbollah’s current armed forces consist of over 100,000 men, making them a larger armed group than many of the militaries of various countries.
The difference is that Hezbollah is fighting Israel, which is equipped with an endless supply of the world’s most technologically advanced weapons and equipment that enables it to pinpoint target leaders.
It suffices to say, the two sides are not equal, but by no means is Hezbollah finished or weak; it is simply that the group must suffer immense sacrifices in order to prove victorious in any confrontation with Israel. This is because the equation has changed since October 7, 2023; it is no longer the case that the Israelis can be deterred. It is a long war that will lead to the total defeat of one side or the other. What happens from here is largely down to leadership and the willingness to commit to total war.
Syria is itself a totally different issue. First, we must keep in mind that the government of Bashar al-Assad was not actively engaged in the war against Israel; instead, it allowed for the Axis of Resistance to operate inside its territory and establish a defensive front in southern Syria.
Again, being realistic, the new government in Syria has weakened the entire State and divided it even more than was already the case. Ahmed al-Shara’a is joined at the hip with his US allies and pursues policies that explicitly favor his backers in Western governments. All of the denialism in the world does not change this fact, nor does it change Damascus’s establishing direct communications and even coordination with the Israelis.
To avoid going through what is already well known and beating a dead horse, there are a number of key considerations to make when looking at the situation in Syria, which could lead in various different directions.
I will preface everything below by saying that it is plausible that for the foreseeable future, the Israelis are going to succeed at every turn in Syria, as they have done since the pro-US government took power.
Unfortunately, the Syrian conflict is the top cause of sectarian division in the region. These divisions work on two pillars: tribalism and propaganda. Round-the-clock propaganda is churned out to cause fitnah and you will still hear baseless claims, including totally fabricated statistics, spread to achieve this division. Some would blame these conflicts on religion, yet it is more about blood feuds, corruption, and tribalistic tendencies.
Putting this aside, the Syrian front is now open and various possibilities exist. There is a competition between Turkiye and Israel inside the country, meaning that a proxy conflict is not off the table. It is also very possible that Ahmed al-Shara’a, who has managed to create problems with even his once staunch allies, will be assassinated or ousted from power, creating a bloody power struggle that could pour into the streets of Damascus.
For now, the weapons flow into Lebanon to supply Hezbollah is ongoing and there are also indications that during the final days of the former regime, many advanced weapons fell into various hands. The US is now working alongside the government in Damascus to ensure that these weapons transfers are stopped or at least rendered much more difficult. In addition to this, in the event of a war between Hezbollah and Israel, it is safe to assume that weapons transfers will be put to a halt.
As Israel advances further into southern Syrian territory, more villages will likely choose to resist them, as occurred in Beit Jinn recently; this will happen independent of the government in Damascus. As Ahmed al-Shara’a does not enjoy full control over his country, this also provides opportunities for armed groups to pop up and begin resisting the occupying force, something that the Syrian President will not be able to control, especially if Israel makes mistakes and gets itself embroiled in a crisis.
This story is not over and Syria is a hostile environment for Israeli forces due to the rejection of the people there. Ultimately, just as occurred in southern Lebanon, when the government abandons its duties, the people end up taking matters into their own hands to resist occupation. Does this mean we can expect a robust fighting force there soon? Probably not for now, but various possibilities exist in the foreseeable future.
Then we look to Iran and Yemen, whose capabilities remain and only grow; neither has been defeated. Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi have not been mobilized until now, and it is unclear what role they could play in a broader regional war, but it is of note that they exist.
What has happened is that Israel has proven time and time again that it is willing to be daring with the one tactic that they can actually excel in, assassinations and intelligence operations. However, these operations do not win wars; they are undoubtedly blows, but they do not inflict a knockout punch.
When two sides engage in such a war, it is expected that losses will occur on both sides. The Israelis have suffered a battered economy, a divided society, their settlements in the north are still in ruins, they haven’t repaired the damage inflicted on their infrastructure, and they have lost public support across the world, including in the United States. They are a global pariah sustained only by their Western backers, incapable of defeating what was viewed as the weakest link of the Axis of Resistance in Gaza.
In their favor, they have eliminated most of Iran’s influence in Syria, committed one of the worst crimes in modern history against Gaza and weakened the armed resistance there as a result of it. They also took out Hezbollah’s senior leadership, while degrading it and its political standing. In addition to this, many leaders and generals in the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC)’s chain of command were killed.
In Iran’s case, the so-called 12 Day War, back in June, had resulted in failure for the Israelis. Instead of achieving regime change and/or the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, it is clear now that it has only succeeded in driving out international monitors and even united the population in a way previously unimaginable. Tehran has leaned into the growing trend of Iranian nationalism among its people and is preparing for another round. That battle also ended with Iran landing the last real blows.
The Israeli military must be viewed for what it is; it has the military edge in the air, possesses the most advanced weapons in the world [outside of Russia], enjoys full US support and is backed by one of the best intelligence agencies in the world. It also has something else on its side, which is that it does not care for morality or international law at all; it will break any rule to achieve an objective.
At the same time, its ground force is largely incapable, and it is also massively fatigued. The Israeli army was only really prepared to fight very brief battles and is an occupation force, which is why it now struggles to mobilize the soldiers necessary to carry out various offensive actions. It also needs to pay some of its soldiers’ danger money salaries. It has also recruited the private sector and civilians, paid as much as 800 dollars per day, to carry out their demolition missions in Gaza.
There is a reason why, on October 7, 2023, a few thousand Palestinian fighters armed with light weapons managed to collapse the Israeli southern command in a matter of hours and temporarily took control of the Israeli settlements surrounding Gaza. In other words, they are far from invincible.
Is this all to say that “Israel has lost”? No, clearly no side has won yet. There are various conspiracies in the works. In the Gaza Strip, the US is working alongside its allies to find a way to defeat the armed resistance groups. The Israelis clearly have their sights set on new wars against Lebanon and Iran; they will also likely strike Yemen hard again. However, they now find themselves in a much more vulnerable situation and could easily overextend themselves on one front, leading to significant losses.
So, can we say that Benjamin Netanyahu is closer to his “total victory”? The answer to this question is no. Is it possible that the “Greater Israel Project” will be implemented and that Iran will be toppled? This always has to be considered as a threat, because this is clearly Israel’s goal, but it is also just as likely that Tel Aviv will suffer a strategic defeat. It is especially the case because they are fighting an opposition that is more likely to commit to an all-out war, given what they have suffered up until this point.
US tech giants to expand role in post-war Gaza strategy: Report
Press TV – December 2, 2025
A new report has revealed that US-based artificial intelligence firms Palantir and Dataminr are positioning themselves to take on a pivotal role in shaping the post-war security framework proposed for the Gaza Strip.
According to a report by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine on Tuesday, the companies have been integrated into the newly established Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), a US-run operational hub in the southern part of the occupied territories where Washington and Israeli officials are coordinating the implementation of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
An official seating chart reviewed by +972 indicates that a “Maven Field Service Representative” from Palantir, referencing their battlefield analytics platform Project Maven, is assigned to the CMCC.
The hub, situated approximately 20 kilometers from the northern Gaza boundary, was opened in mid-October and currently accommodates around 200 US military personnel.
Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract to upgrade, gathers intelligence from various sources such as satellites, drones, spy planes, intercepted communications, and online platforms, reorganizing it into an “AI-powered battlefield platform” aimed at expediting military decision-making, including lethal airstrikes.
Palantir executives have described the system as “optimizing the kill chain,” and it has been previously utilized in US operations in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
Palantir has also strengthened its partnerships with Israeli forces during the current war, following a strategic agreement signed in January 2024 to support “war-related missions,” and has expanded its recruiting in Tel Aviv, doubling the size of its office over the past two years.
CEO Alex Karp has defended the collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying that the company was the first to be “completely anti-woke.”
Documents reviewed by +972 also reveal the involvement of Dataminr, a US surveillance company, in internal CMCC presentations.
Dataminr, which utilizes AI to scan and analyze global social-media streams in real time, promotes its platform as providing “event, threat, and risk intelligence,” and has established partnerships with X to provide governments and law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, with extensive access to public social-media data.
Both companies are expected to shape the “Alternative Safe Communities” model proposed under the Trump plan, which suggests relocating Palestinian civilians into fenced, heavily monitored compounds controlled by US and Israeli forces.
Within these zones, systems enabled by Palantir and Dataminr would be used to track mobile phones, monitor online activity, analyze movement, and flag individuals classified by AI as security risks.
Critics and analysts argue that this arrangement mirrors the predictive surveillance already deployed in Gaza over the past two years, including the AI-driven Lavender system used by Israel to create kill lists of suspected Hamas affiliates, which included public-sector employees such as police and medical workers.
Human-rights observers caution that such technologies have contributed to the extensive targeting of Palestinian families during an ongoing genocide.
The integration of US tech companies into the CMCC underscores a privatized model of occupation, one that sidelines Palestinian participation while expanding the role of AI-enabled policing, according to analysts.
For technology firms, the war presents an opportunity to access vast datasets and conduct real-world testing for new military systems.
Additionally, for Israel, it offers a way to outsource parts of the occupation while maintaining extensive control over Gaza’s population.
Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia’s uneasy détente
By Tamjid Kobaissy | The Cradle | December 2, 2025
In West Asia, where sectarian politics and external meddling collide with local power struggles, few rivalries have been as entrenched or as symbolically loaded as that between Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia.
For decades, it embodied the broader confrontation between Iran and the Persian Gulf kingdoms – a proxy war defined by ideology, oil, and shifting battlefronts. But today, under the weight of new regional calculations, rising Israeli belligerence, and the cracks in American hegemony, that once-intractable hostility is giving way to a more ambiguous and tactical coexistence.
What is developing is neither an alliance nor even reconciliation. But for the first time, Hezbollah and Riyadh are probing the edges of a relationship long defined by zero-sum enmity. A pragmatic detente is emerging, shaped less by goodwill than by the shared urgency to contain spiraling instability across the region.
Tehran, Riyadh, and the long shadow of history
The long arc of the Hezbollah–Saudi confrontation is impossible to separate from Iran’s post-revolutionary clash with Riyadh. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the Shah in 1979 and declared the House of Saud a reactionary tool of western imperialism, the rupture was both ideological and strategic.
The Saudis responded by bankrolling Saddam Hussein’s devastating war against Tehran, and in 1987, relations cratered after Saudi security forces massacred Iranian pilgrims in Mecca. Khomeini’s message was scathing:
“Let the Saudi government be certain that America has branded it with an eternal stain of shame that will not be erased or cleansed until the Day of Judgment, not even with the waters of Zamzam or the River of Paradise.”
Decades later, the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 reopened the wound. While Tehran stood by its state allies in Damascus and Baghdad, Riyadh threw its weight behind opposition movements and fanned the flames of sectarian conflict.
In Yemen, the kingdom launched a military campaign against the Ansarallah movement and allied forces, which Tehran backed politically and diplomatically. After Saudi Arabia executed outspoken Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in 2016, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, prompting Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties. The two regional powers would only resume relations as part of Chinese-backed mediation in 2023.
From Hariri’s abduction to assassination plots
Within this regional maelstrom, Hezbollah became a prime Saudi target. When the Lebanese resistance captured two Israeli soldiers on 12 July 2006, to secure the release of prisoners, Riyadh dismissed it as “uncalculated adventures” and held Hezbollah responsible for the fallout.
In Syria, Hezbollah’s deployment alongside former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s army placed it in direct opposition to Saudi-backed militants. In Yemen, the movement’s vocal support for the Ansarallah–led government in Sanaa triggered Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sanctions and terrorist designations.
Matters escalated in 2017 when Saudi Arabia detained then-Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri and coerced him into announcing his resignation on television from Riyadh. Late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah slammed the move as an act of war against Lebanon. The situation de-escalated only after French mediation.
In a 2022 TV interview, Nasrallah revealed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) was ready to authorize an Israeli plot to assassinate him, pending US approval.
Quiet channels, Iranian cover
The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh changed the regional tone but did not yield immediate dividends for Hezbollah. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia intensified its efforts to roll back Hezbollah’s influence in Beirut, especially following Israel’s October assault on Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Riyadh pressured Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to implement the so-called “Barrack Paper,” aimed at politically sidelining Hezbollah and stripping its arms. Speaking to The Cradle, a well-informed political source reveals that the kingdom informed the former Lebanese army commander – now the country’s president – Joseph Aoun, that it would proceed with its plans even if they triggered civil war or fractured the military. The source describes this as emblematic of Riyadh’s short-term crisis management, mirroring Washington’s reactive regional strategy.
Despite this, signs of a tactical shift began to emerge. In September, Nasrallah’s successor, Sheikh Naim Qassem, publicly called for opening a “new chapter” in ties with Riyadh – an unprecedented gesture from the movement’s leadership. According to the same source, this was not a spontaneous statement.
During a visit to Beirut, Iranian national security official Ali Larijani reportedly recieved a message from Hezbollah to Riyadh expressing its openness to reconciliation. In a subsequent trip to the kingdom, Larijani presented the message to MbS.
While initially dismissed, it was later revisited, leading to discreet backchannel coordination directly overseen by Larijani himself.
Tehran talks and guarded understandings
The Cradle’s source adds that since then, three indirect rounds of Hezbollah–Saudi talks have reportedly taken place in Tehran, each under Iranian facilitation. The first focused on political de-escalation, while the latter two addressed sensitive security files, signaling a mutual willingness to test limited cooperation.
One provisional understanding emerged: Saudi Arabia would ease pressure on Hezbollah in Lebanon and drop immediate demands to disarm the movement. In exchange, Riyadh asked Hezbollah to keep its weapons out of Syria – echoing a broader Gulf consensus – and assist Lebanese authorities in curbing drug smuggling networks.
In private, Riyadh reportedly acknowledges Hezbollah’s military resilience as a strategic buffer against Israel’s regional belligerence. The Persian Gulf states no longer trust Washington to shield them from Tel Aviv’s increasingly unilateral provocations – as was seen in the Israeli strikes on Doha in September. But Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon remains a challenge to Riyadh’s political influence.
Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian umbrella
The Hezbollah–Saudi contacts are just one strand in a broader strategic dance between Riyadh and Tehran. According to The Cradle’s source, Saudi Arabia has assured Iran it will not join any Israeli or US-led war, nor allow its airspace to be used in such a scenario. In return, Tehran pledged not to target Saudi territory. These commitments are fragile, but significant.
The source also reveals that US President Donald Trump had authorized MbS to explore a direct channel with Iran, tasking him with brokering understandings on Yemen and beyond. Larijani conveyed Iran’s openness to dialogue, though not to nuclear concessions. MbS reportedly stressed to Trump that a working accord with Tehran was essential to regional stability.
In parallel, Lebanese MP Ali Hassan Khalil, a close advisor to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is expected to visit Saudi Arabia soon following meetings in Tehran. This suggests continued shuttle diplomacy across resistance, Iranian, and Saudi nodes.
Strategic divergence, tactical convergence
Still, no one should confuse these developments with a realignment. Rather than a reset, this is merely a tactical repositioning. For Riyadh, the old boycott model – applied to Lebanon between 2019 and 2021 – failed to dislodge Hezbollah or bolster pro-Saudi factions. Now, the kingdom is shifting to flexible engagement, partly to enable economic investments in Lebanon that require minimal cooperation with the dominant political force.
The pivot also serves Saudi Arabia’s desire to project itself as a capable mediator rather than a crude enforcer. The 7 October 2023 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has tilted regional equations, while Israeli expansionism has become a destabilizing liability. A Hezbollah–Israel war would not stay confined to the Blue Line. Gulf cities, energy infrastructure, and fragile normalization deals would all be at risk.
From Hezbollah’s side, the outreach reflects both constraint and calculation. The resistance faces growing pressure: an intensified Israeli campaign, a stagnating Lebanese economy, and the need to preserve internal cohesion. A tactical truce with Riyadh offers breathing space, and possibly, a check against Gulf-backed meddling in Syria.
When Sheikh Naim Qassem declared that Hezbollah’s arms are pointed solely at Israel, it was also a signal to the Gulf: we are not your enemy.
The real enemy, for both sides, is the unpredictable nature of Israeli escalation. Riyadh fears being dragged into an Israeli-led regional war that it cannot control. Hezbollah fears encirclement through economic, political, and military pressure. Their interests may never align, but for now, they are no longer mutually exclusive.
Will Saudi Arabia fund Israel’s grip over Lebanon?
By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | Novmber 27, 2025
In the wake of Israel’s November 2024 apparent ceasefire with Lebanon, Tel Aviv has moved to reshape the post-war order in its favor. Treating Lebanon as a weakened and fragmented state, Israel seeks to impose a long-term, unilateral security and economic regime in the south, bolstered by US backing.
Simultaneously, Saudi Arabia has thrust itself into the reconstruction process as the main Arab financier. But the kingdom risks becoming a junior partner in an Israeli-American project that sidelines it from real decision-making. The question facing Riyadh is clear: Will it bankroll its own marginalization?
Tel Aviv’s vision: Disarmament, deterrence, domination
Israel’s strategy for Lebanon extends far beyond the oft-repeated demand to disarm Hezbollah. It envisions a sweeping transformation of Lebanon into a demilitarized satellite state governed under a US-Israeli security framework. Nowhere is this clearer than in Tel Aviv’s insistence on remaining inside Lebanese territory until Hezbollah is stripped of its deterrent capabilities, not just south of the Litani River, but across the country.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and former Northern Command chief Uri Gordin have both publicly outlined this goal. Gordin even suggested establishing a permanent buffer zone inside Lebanon to serve as a “bargaining chip” for future negotiations, while Katz confirmed that Israeli forces would remain indefinitely in the south. Tel Aviv no longer seeks temporary deterrence, favoring permanent subordination.
Katz, for his part, has stated “Hezbollah is playing with fire,” and called on Beirut to “fulfill its obligations to disarm the party and remove it from southern Lebanon.”
Most recently, while addressing the Knesset, he warned that “We will not allow any threats against the inhabitants of the north, and maximum enforcement will continue and even intensify.”
“If Hezbollah does not give up its weapons by the year’s end, we will work forcefully again in Lebanon,” Katz reiterated. “We will disarm them.”
According to this blueprint, Lebanon is not considered a sovereign neighbor, but a security appendage to Israel’s northern frontier. State institutions are expected to serve as administrative fronts for a de facto Israeli-American command center. International aid, including funding from Arab states of the Persian Gulf, is being weaponized to enforce this new security-economic order.
From the perspective of Israel, the goals in Lebanon are not limited to the disarmament of Hezbollah. They go beyond that toward a deeper project of transforming Lebanon – especially the south – into a kind of security-economic colony.
This includes consolidating a long-term military presence, imposing new border arrangements, and paving the way for settlement projects or institutionalized buffer zones, as evidenced by current maps showing the presence of Israeli forces at several points inside Lebanese territory.
Saudi Arabia’s options: Pressure or partnership
Enter Riyadh. The Saudi Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called for Lebanese arms to be confined to the state and endorsed the implementation of the 1989 Taif Agreement.
In September, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, stressed that:
“Saudi Arabia stands with Lebanon, supports everything that strengthens its security and stability, and welcomes the efforts of the Lebanese state to implement the Taif Agreement (1989), affirm its sovereignty, and place weapons in the hands of the state and its legitimate institutions.”
The Saudi envoy to Lebanon, Yazid bin Farhan, reiterated Riyadh’s position: the exclusive right to possess arms must lie with the Lebanese state. In private information, during a meeting between Bin Farhan and Sunni leaders in Lebanon, the diplomat stressed that pressure must be put on disarming the party, even if that requires reaching a civil war.
On the surface, Saudi and Israeli objectives appear aligned. Tel Aviv applies military pressure. Riyadh applies economic and political pressure. Both demand the end of Hezbollah’s armed presence. But while Israel’s aim is absolute control over Lebanon’s security order, Saudi Arabia still seeks a political system that reflects its influence. In this, Tel Aviv’s ambitions collide with Riyadh’s.
However, Israel has no intention of sharing influence with any Arab state – nor even Turkiye. Its model is exclusionary. It views Riyadh not as a partner, but as a bankrolling mechanism to finance the dismantling of Lebanon’s axis of resistance under Israeli terms. As former deputy director of the National Security Council, Eran Lerman put it, Saudi Arabia is merely a pressure tool to bring Lebanon to heel.
Thus, the crux of the matter is this: Riyadh may envision itself as a key stakeholder in post-war Lebanon, but Israel sees it as a disposable auxiliary.
The 17 May redux: Recolonizing south Lebanon
To grasp the depth of Israel’s project, one need only look to its precedents. In 1983, Israel, alongside the US and under Syrian oversight, tried to enshrine a similar model via the 17 May Agreement. That deal called for an end to hostilities, gradual Israeli withdrawal, a “security zone” in the south, and joint military arrangements. In practice, it turned Lebanon into a protectorate tasked with safeguarding Israeli security interests.
Today, after the 2024 war, Tel Aviv is resurrecting that same formula. Israeli forces have remained stationed at multiple points inside Lebanon despite the ceasefire terms mandating full withdrawal. Airspace violations and near-daily raids persist under the pretext of preventing Hezbollah from “repositioning.” Think tanks in Tel Aviv, alongside joint French-US proposals, are now pushing phased disarmament: first the south, then the Bekaa, then the Syrian border, ultimately ending all resistance capabilities.
International support is being dangled as a carrot. Aid from the US, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others is contingent on Lebanon executing a disarmament plan under International Monetary Fund (IMF) oversight and within a strict timeline. This is the economic arm of the Israeli security project.
More dangerously, Israeli studies suggest that reconstruction of southern villages should be explicitly tied to the removal of resistance forces, while preserving “full freedom of action” for the Israeli army in Lebanese air and land space.
Can Riyadh afford Tel Aviv’s trap?
In parallel with this vision, western analyses close to decision-making circles in Washington and Riyadh show that Saudi Arabia itself sees Lebanon as a pivotal arena in its conflict with Iran. Any serious return to the Lebanese file is linked to the weakening of Hezbollah’s influence.
But the key divergence between the Saudi and Israeli approaches lies in a critical question: Who ultimately holds the keys to decision-making in Lebanon?
Riyadh aims to use its financial and political capital to recalibrate the Lebanese political order in its favor, minimizing Iranian sway while reinforcing its own influence. But Israel’s plan is more radical: to redefine Lebanese sovereignty altogether, placing it under perpetual Israeli security oversight.
In this model, Saudi Arabia – and any other Arab state – is reduced to the role of financier, tasked with implementing terms written in Tel Aviv and Washington rather than contributing an independent Arab vision for the region.
From this angle, Tel Aviv’s persistent invocation of the “military option” in Lebanon works against Gulf interests. It positions Riyadh and its allies as the paymasters for reconstruction, forced to foot the bill for a post-war settlement they had no role in shaping.
If Saudi Arabia concedes to this logic – and fails to leverage its influence in Washington, in Arab diplomatic circles, and in donor mechanisms – it risks forfeiting Lebanon to a joint Israeli-American order.
That order would mirror the defunct 17 May Agreement, only more deeply entrenched. Lebanon would not only be demilitarized. It would become a living model of “security-economic conjugation,” designed to recalibrate regional influence away from the Arab world and toward an Israeli-dominated Levant.
Featured Video
Israelis SUDDENLY Mass Deported From Many Countries
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Elite Western universities are a corrupt, parasitic empire
Instead of high-quality education, these institutions are fostering a global neo-feudal system reminiscent of the British Raj
By Dr. Mathew Maavak | RT | May 30, 2025
In a move that has ignited a global uproar, US President Donald Trump banned international students from Harvard University, citing “national security” and ideological infiltration. The decision, which has been widely condemned by academics and foreign governments alike, apparently threatens to undermine America’s “intellectual leadership and soft power.” At stake is not just Harvard’s global appeal, but the very premise of open academic exchange that has long defined elite higher education in the US.
But exactly how ‘open’ is Harvard’s admissions process? Every year, highly qualified students – many with top-tier SAT or GMAT test scores – are rejected, often with little explanation. Critics argue that behind the prestigious Ivy League brand lies an opaque system shaped by legacy preferences, DEI imperatives, geopolitical interests, and outright bribes. George Soros, for instance, once pledged $1 billion to open up elite university admissions to drones who would read from his Open Society script.
China’s swift condemnation of Trump’s policy added a layer of geopolitical irony to the debate. Why would Beijing feign concern for “America’s international standing” amid a bitter trade war? The international standing of US universities has long been tarnished by a woke psychosis which spread like cancer to all branches of the government.
So, what was behind China’s latest gripe? ... continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
loongtip on Report warns that ‘Jewish terr… Craig Nelms on New study shows that toxic gas… loongtip on A Funny Thing Happened on the… loongtip on EU free trade pact on hold as… John Edward Kendrick on Regime Change In Iran Is The F… Bill Francis on Australia Passes New Hate Spee… seversonebcfb985d9 on Australia Passes New Hate Spee… Bill Francis on Britain’s AI Policing Plan Tur… loongtip on Miami Beach Resident Questione… loongtip on Israeli agricultural export co… loongtip on The War On Free Speech In Aust… seversonebcfb985d9 on Scott Ritter Hiding the Domina…
Aletho News- Jordan using Israeli software to monitor journalists, rights defenders: Report
- Israelis SUDDENLY Mass Deported From Many Countries
- Peace Plan Phase 2 Without Phase 1: Can the US Really Bring Peace to Gaza?
- Hamas: Netanyahu’s inclusion in ‘peace council’ threatens justice
- Report warns that ‘Jewish terrorism is out of control’ and could lead to major security escalation
- Lebanese Resistance will inevitably triumph: Former President Lahoud
- Iran: The Eurasian Lock
- Russian gas exports to China soar – data
- France seizes tanker ‘coming from Russia’
- European leaders’ shift in their Davos addresses exposes Europe’s strategic anxiety
- If Americans Knew
- War criminal Netanyahu kills 11 in Gaza, joins Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 104
- Another baby dies of cold in Gaza, as Rafah crossing remains locked down – Not a ceasefire Day 103
- Brutal Beatings, Arson, and Impunity: A Palestinian Plant Nursery Becomes a Target for Settler Pogroms
- On Iran’s protests, Israeli hypocrisy knows no limits
- A Cease-fire for Israelis and a War for Palestinians
- ‘When will Baba come back?’ Gaza’s widows and orphans struggle to survive
- Genocide research institute levels accusations against Germany for denying Israel’s genocide against Palestinians
- Over 1,200 Israeli truce violations in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 102
- Trump has created a monster: Gaza Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 101
- As world leaders squabble over controlling Gaza, another baby freezes to death – Not a ceasefire Day 100
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
Aletho News 