Syria, the Druze, and the Greater Israel project
By Gavin O’Reilly | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 25, 2025
On the 12th of August, media outlet Axios revealed that the United States and Israel were in discussions to establish a land corridor between the occupied Golan Heights and the southern Syrian city of Suwayda, ostensibly to protect the country’s Druze minority. The following Saturday, protests broke out in Suwayda calling for Druze self-determination, with many in attendance waving Israeli flags.
Last December, following a lightning offensive by insurgents based in the northwestern city of Idlib, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad collapsed in dramatic fashion. This marked the culmination of a thirteen-year effort by various powers to impose regime-change on the Arab Republic. One such power was Israel, who had provided arms to Salafist militants opposed to Assad’s secular rule. Syria, having acted as a conduit between Iran and Hezbollah, had long been in Tel Aviv’s crosshairs.
Within hours of Assad’s fall, Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Syria. Tel Aviv declared that this was in order to establish a buffer zone between Israel and Syria’s new Islamist government, in spite of the fact Damascus’ new rulers had effectively acted in Israel’s interests over the past decade. Israel also later stated that it intended to defend Syria’s Druze minority.
Syria, like Iraq and Libya before it, had subsequently fallen into bloody sectarian strife following Assad’s removal from power. In early March, government pogroms along Syria’s coast resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 members of the Shi’a Alawite minority. Rather than any concern over sectarian bloodshed however, Israel’s interest in the Druze instead lies primarily in achieving a geostrategic goal that has been planned for decades.
In 1982, Oded Yinon, a senior official at the Israeli foreign ministry, penned a paper entitled A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties. More commonly known as the Yinon Plan, the document was published by the World Zionist Organisation in the Hebrew journal KIVUNIM. In it, Yinon prioritised the dissolution of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines as a key long-term strategic goal for Israel.
Iraq, which subscribed to the pan-Arab Ba’athist ideology, had begun to emerge as Israel’s main regional rival following the Camp David Accords and the normalisation of ties between Egypt and Israel. In 1981, the Israeli Air Force had bombed the under-construction Osirak in eastern Iraq, after suspecting it would be used to develop nuclear weapons.
In early 1991, amidst the breakout of the Gulf War, Iraq launched dozens of scud missiles towards Israel. This was done in the hope that an Israeli response would galvanise Arabs across the region and undermine Gulf support for the U.S.-led coalition. Following pressure from the United States however, Israel would ultimately not respond to these strikes. By the end of February 1991, Iraqi forces had been defeated in Kuwait.
Though it subsequently emerged that the U.S. had gone to war on a fabricated account of Iraqi troops removing premature infants from incubators and leaving them to die on a hospital floor, Washington still maintained a belligerent stance towards Iraq. In April 1991, the U.S., Britain and France imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, ostensibly to protect the Kurdish minority. The following year, a similar no-fly zone was put in place over the south of the country, this time under the pretext of protecting Shi’ite Muslims. Like Israel’s current interest in the Druze, this too had a strategic purpose.
The Yinon Plan outlined how in order to Balkanise Iraq, the country would have to be divided into three distinct sections. In the north of the country, a Kurdish separatist state based around the city of Mosul, in central Iraq, a Sunni region tied to the capital Baghdad, and in the south, a Shi’ite region centred around Basra. The United States’ no-fly zones effectively polarised Iraq along these lines.
Following the 9/11 attacks, a radical new U.S. foreign policy was put into place, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Eighteen months after September 11th, a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, in spite of the fact no tangible evidence was ever produced to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks. Coalition forces quickly toppled the Iraqi government, and replaced it with a provisional authority. Its first executive order was to permanently ban all members of the Ba’ath Party from working in the public sector. Iraq subsequently plunged into sectarian bloodshed in the wake of the invasion.
Like Iraq, Ba’athist Syria was also identified by the Yinon Plan as a target for Balkanisation. The 1982 document envisaged a Sunni state in northern Syria centred on the city of Aleppo, an Alawite state along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, and another Sunni state, based around the southern capital of Damascus and hostile to its northern counterpart. Amidst this division, Yinon predicted the establishment of a separatist Druze state in the occupied Golan Heights and the Hauran region of southern Syria and northern Jordan.
Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, such an arrangement has now effectively been put in place. Northwest Syria, where Aleppo is located, has become a stronghold of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which led the offensive that ended Assad’s rule, is based in the capital Damascus. Its recent pogroms against the coastal Alawites polarising Syria along the same sectarian divisions outlined in the Yinon Plan. The recent Israeli-backed calls for Druze self-determination serve to even further fragment the former Arab Republic in line with the 1982 paper.
On the same day that Axios outlined U.S.-Israeli negotiations to establish a land corridor to Suwayda, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed by journalist and former Knesset member Sharon Gal for the Israeli outlet i24. When presented by Gal with an amulet containing ‘a map of the Promised Land’, Netanyahu stated that he felt a connection to a vision of ‘Greater Israel’. This is a historical Zionist term referring to an expansionist Israeli state that would incorporate the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights at a minimum.
On Wednesday, Israel announced plans to construct 3,400 housing units in the West Bank between Jerusalem and the eastern settlement of Ma’ale Adumin. Such a move would effectively partition the territory between north and south. Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli minister who announced the plan, declared that it would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’.
Last year, Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, donated $100mn to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This was done on condition that the Republican candidate would endorse the formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank if elected. Sheldon Adelson, who died in 2021, had previously donated $20mn to Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. This too had a stipulation attached. That the U.S. Embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that Trump subsequently followed through with in December 2017.
24 hours after Trump’s inauguration in January of this year, Israel launched Operation Iron Wall. Intended to destroy the Jenin refugee camp, Iron Wall has resulted in the largest mass-expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank since 1967.
Since October 7th 2023, Israel has subjected the beleaguered Gaza Strip to a military onslaught in response to Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. This was the largest military incursion into Israel since the 1973 October War. Global media attention was drawn to the fact that the Supernova music festival was taking place on the Gaza border at the same time. However, less attention was paid to the revelation that the event had only been moved to that location two days beforehand. That there were no security or insurance concerns over holding a music festival in direct proximity to a location where clashes had taken place between Islamic Jihad and Israeli forces the previous summer, simply beggars belief.
Further questions arose when it emerged that Egypt, which acts as mediator between Hamas and Israel, had repeatedly warned Tel Aviv that ‘something big’ was coming in the run up to October 7th. This was corroborated by two media reports from The New York Times and CNN, which revealed that U.S. intelligence had also passed on similar warnings to Israel prior to Al-Aqsa Flood. By December 2023, it was revealed that Israel had known of Hamas’ attack plan over a year in advance.
Seven months prior to October 7th, Orit Strock, the Israeli minister responsible for the development of settlements in the West Bank, called Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza a ‘sin’. Strock was speaking upon the repeal of legislation that had ordered the dismantlement of four West Bank settlements. This was declared by Strock as a precursor to the eventual re-occupation of Gaza, a move that would ‘involve many casualties’.
Indeed, this sentiment was later echoed by Israeli security minister Yoav Gallant, who in the days following October 7th announced a blockade on Gaza, cutting off electricity and preventing food and fuel from entering the besieged strip. Gallant described Palestinians as ‘human animals’, language that couldn’t be described as anything less than genocidal.
In April 2024, a report by The Times of Israel revealed that an offer by Hamas to release all civilian captives in exchange for Israeli forces not entering the strip had been rejected by Tel Aviv. Three months later, a Haaretz report revealed that the Hannibal Directive had been applied on October 7th. This is an Israeli military directive in which a command is given to fire upon their own troops in order to prevent them being taken captive. Its use on October 7th was a significant contributory factor to the death toll on the day. Despite these damning revelations, the Israeli slaughter in Gaza has continued unabated for almost two years.
On Friday, the United Nations released a report officially acknowledging the presence of a man-made famine in Gaza. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk did not shy away from placing blame for the situation, and held Israel responsible for what is in reality, a genocide. Starvation is being used to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip in line with the Greater Israel project. A project that now also has designs on the Druze and southwestern Syria.
The CIA, Mossad, and Epstein: Unraveling the Intelligence Ties of the Maxwell Family
By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | August 22, 2025
With speculation mounting that Trump could pardon her, MintPress profiles the family of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. From her media baron father, who acted as a high-level spy for Israel, her sister, working to push Tel Aviv’s interests in Silicon Valley, her brothers, who founded a dubious but highly influential anti-Islamic extremism think tank, and nephews in influential roles at the State Department and White House, the Maxwell clan have wide-ranging ties to U.S. and Israeli state power. This is their story.
Releasing Ghislaine, Burying the Epstein Files
Speculation is growing that Ghislaine Maxwell could soon be freed. Despite campaigning on the promise to release the Epstein Files, there are increasing signs that the Trump administration is considering pardoning the world’s most notorious convicted sex trafficker.
Last month, Trump (who contemplated the idea in his first term in office) repeatedly refused to rule out a pardon, stating to journalists that “I’m allowed to do it.” Just days later, Maxwell was transferred across states to a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas—a highly unusual practice. Neither women convicted of sex crimes nor those with more than 10 years remaining on their sentences are generally permitted to be transferred to such facilities. The move sparked equal measures of speculation and outrage.
The decision to relocate Maxwell came after somebody—potentially a source within her team itself—began leaking incriminating and embarrassing evidence linking Trump to Epstein. This included a birthday card Trump sent Epstein, featuring a hand-drawn nude woman, accompanied by the text: “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
For years, Maxwell aided her partner Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking and raping girls and young women, creating a giant sex crime ring in the process. Epstein’s associates included billionaires, scientists, celebrities, and politicians, including President Trump, whom he considered his “closest friend.”
In 2021, two years after Epstein’s mysterious death in a Manhattan prison, Maxwell was found guilty of child sex trafficking offenses and was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The news that Trump may soon free such an infamous criminal sent shockwaves through his base and drew charges of blatant corruption from the media. “Is there any reason to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell except to buy her silence?” ran the headline of one article in The Hill. Meanwhile, Tim Hogan, senior Democratic National Committee adviser, denounced what he claimed was a “government cover-up in real time.” “Donald Trump’s FBI, run by loyalist Kash Patel, redacted Trump’s name from the Epstein files—which have still not been released,” he said.
Robert Maxwell: Media Tycoon and Israeli Operative
While many of Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes have come to light, less well-known are her family’s myriad connections to both the U.S. and Israeli national security states. Chief among these are those of her father, disgraced media baron and early tech entrepreneur, Robert Maxwell.
A Jewish refugee fleeing Hitler’s occupation of his native Czechoslovakia, Maxwell fought for Britain against Germany. After World War II, he used his Czech connections to help funnel arms to the nascent State of Israel, weapons that helped them win the 1948 war and carry out the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of nearly 800,000 Palestinians.
Maxwell’s biographers, Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, write that he was first recruited by Israeli intelligence in the 1960s and began buying up Israeli tech corporations. Israel used these companies and their software to carry out spying and other clandestine operations around the globe.
Maxwell amassed a vast business empire of 350 companies, employing 16,000 people. He owned an array of newspapers, including The New York Daily News, Britain’s Daily Mirror, and Maariv of Israel, in addition to some of the world’s most influential book and scientific publishing houses.
With business power came political power. He was elected to the U.K. parliament in 1964 and counted U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev among his closest friends.
He used this influence to advance Israeli interests, selling Israeli intelligence-gathering software to Russia, the U.S., the U.K., and many other countries. This software included a secret Israeli backdoor that allowed the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, to tap into classified information gathered by governments and intelligence agencies around the world.
At the same time, it was expanding its espionage capabilities, Israel was developing a secret nuclear weapons program. This project was exposed by Israeli peace activist Mordechai Vanunu, who, in 1986, leaked evidence to the British press. Maxwell—one of Britain’s most powerful press barons—spied on Vanunu, passing photographs and other information to the Israeli Embassy—intelligence that led to Vanunu’s international abduction by Mossad, and his subsequent imprisonment.
His death was also surrounded by controversy, similar to Epstein’s. In 1991, his lifeless body was found in the ocean, in what authorities ruled a bizarre accident whereby the tycoon had fallen from his luxury yacht. To this day, his children are split on whether they think he was murdered.
The rumors that Maxwell had, for decades, been acting as an Israeli “superspy” were all but confirmed by the lavish state funeral he received in Jerusalem. His body was interred at the Mount of Olives, one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the spot from which Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven.
Virtually the entirety of elite Israeli society–both government and opposition–attended the event, including no fewer than six living heads of Israeli intelligence organizations. President Chaim Herzog himself performed the eulogy. Also speaking at the event was Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who stated that “Robert Maxwell has done more for Israel than can today be said.”
In the United Kingdom, however, he is remembered less fondly. A man with a fearsome reputation, Maxwell ruled his media business with an iron fist, in a similar vein to Rupert Murdoch (another individual with extremely close links to Israel). After his death, it transpired that he had stolen more than $500 million from his employees’ pension fund to bail out other failing companies in his empire, leaving many of his workforce’s retirement plans in tatters. As the newspaper, The Scotsman, remarked ten years later in 2001:
If [Maxwell] was despised in life, he was hated in death when it emerged he had stolen 440 million [pounds] from the pension fund of Mirror Group Newspapers. He was, officially, the biggest thief in British criminal history.”
Isabel Maxwell: Israel’s Woman in Silicon Valley
Even before it had been published, Isabel Maxwell– Robert’s daughter and Ghislaine’s older sister– managed to obtain a copy of Thomas and Dillon’s biography. She immediately flew to Israel, The Times of London reported, where she showed it to a “family friend” and deputy director of Mossad, David Kimche. These actions did little to beat the book’s central allegation that her father was indeed a high-level Israeli “superspy.”
Isabel has enjoyed a long and successful career in the tech industry. In 1992, along with her twin sister, Christine, she founded a company that developed one of the internet’s first search engines.
After the pension scandal, however, she and her siblings shifted their focus to rebuilding every facet of their father’s collapsed business empire. The sisters sold the search engine, netting enormous profits.
As Israeli outlet Haaretz noted, in 2001, Isabel decided to dedicate her life to advancing the Jewish State’s interests, vowing to “work only on things involving Israel” as she “believes in Israel.” Described by former MintPress journalist and investigative reporter Whitney Webb as “Israel’s back door into Silicon Valley,” she has transformed herself into a key ambassador for the country in the tech world.
“Maxwell created a unique niche for herself in [tech] as a liaison between Israeli companies in the initial development stages and private angel investors in the U.S. At the same time, she helps U.S. companies interested in opening development centers in Israel,” wrote local business newspaper, Globes. “She lives intensively, including innumerable flights back and forth between Tel Aviv and San Francisco,” it added.
Israel is known to be the source of much of the world’s most controversial spyware and hacking tools, used by repressive governments the world over to surveil, harass, and even kill political opponents. This includes the notorious Pegasus software, used by the government of Saudi Arabia to track Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, before assassinating him in Türkiye.
Isabel built on her father’s political connections. “My father was most influential in my life. He was a very accomplished man and achieved many of his goals during his life. I learned very much from him and have made many of his ways my own,” she said. This included developing intimate ties to a myriad of Israeli leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s closest associates.
During the 2000s, she was a regular participant at the Herzliya Conference, an annual, closed-door gathering of the West’s most senior political, security and intelligence officials, in addition to being a “technology pioneer” at the World Economic Forum.
She was also placed on the board of the Israeli government-funded Shimon Peres Center for Peace and Innovation and the American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, two organizations closely associated with those former Israeli prime ministers.
In 2001, she became the CEO of iCognito, taking the job, in her words, “because it [the company] is in Israel, and because of its technology.” The technology in question was aimed at keeping children safe online—highly ironic, given that her sister was actively trafficking and abusing minors throughout that period.
Isabel was a much more serious and accomplished individual than Ghislaine. As Haaretz noted:
While her younger sister, Ghislaine, makes the gossip columns after breakfasting with Bill Clinton or because of her ties with another close friend, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Isabel wants to show photos taken of herself with the grand mufti of Egypt, or with Bedouin in a tent, or of visits to a Gaza refugee camp.”
In 1997, Isabel was appointed president of the Israeli tech security firm, Commtouch. Thanks to her connections, Commtouch was able to secure investment from many of the most prominent players in Silicon Valley, including Bill Gates, a close associate of both the Maxwell family and Jeffrey Epstein himself.
Christine Maxwell: Funded by Israel?
Isabel’s twin sister, Christine, is no less accomplished. A veteran of the publishing and tech industries, she co-founded data analytics firm Chiliad. As CEO, she helped oversee the production of a massive “counterterrorism” database that the company sold to the FBI during the height of the War on Terror. The software helped the Bush administration crack down on Muslim Americans and tear down domestic civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act. Today, she is the leader and co-founder of another big data corporation, Techtonic Insight.
Like her sister and father, Christine has a close relationship with the State of Israel. She is currently a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), where, her biography states,
She works to promote innovative academic research that leverages enabling technologies to empower proactive understanding and combatting the great dangers of contemporary antisemitism, and enhancing the ongoing relevance of the Holocaust for the 21st century and beyond.”
ISGAP’s board is a who’s who of Israeli national security state officials. This includes Natan Sharansky, former Minister of Internal Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, and Brigadier General Sima Vaknin-Gil, the former Chief Censor for the IDF and Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Diplomacy. Also on the board is Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.
The think tank was a key player in the U.S. government’s decision to repress the 2024 Gaza protests on university campuses nationwide. The group produced reports linking student leaders with foreign terrorist organizations and promoted dubious claims about a wave of anti-Semitism washing over American colleges. It met frequently with both Democratic and Republican leaders, and urged them to “investigate” (i.e., repress) the leaders of the demonstrations.
ISGAP has continually warned of foreign influence on American campuses, producing reports and holding seminars detailing Qatar’s supposed stranglehold over the U.S. higher education system, and linking that with growing anti-Israel sentiment among America’s youth.
Yet if ISGAP wished to investigate other foreign government influence operations, it would not have to look far, as its own funds overwhelmingly come from a single source: the Israeli state. In 2018, an investigation found that Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs (then headed by Brigadier General Vaknin-Gil herself) channeled $445,000 to ISGAP, a sum representing nearly 80% of its entire revenues for that year. ISGAP failed to disclose that information to either the public or the federal government.
At the height of the concern over foreign interference in American politics, the news barely registered. Since then, the Israeli government has continued to bankroll the group to the tune of millions. In 2019, for example, it approved a grant of over $1.3 million to ISGAP. Thus, in her role as a fellow at the organization, Christine Maxwell is the direct beneficiary of Israeli government cash.
Third Generation Maxwells: Working In the US Government
While Robert Maxwell’s daughters were close to state power, some of the family’s third generation have taken up positions within the U.S. government itself. Shortly after graduating from college, Alex Djerassi (Isabel Maxwell’s only son) was employed by Hillary Clinton on her 2007-2008 presidential campaign. Djerassi drafted memos, briefings, and policy papers for the Clinton team and helped prepare her for more than 20 debates.
The Clinton and Maxwell families are closely intertwined. Ghislaine vacationed with Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea, and appeared prominently at her wedding. Both she and Jeffrey Epstein were invited multiple times to the Clinton White House. Long after Epstein was jailed, President Bill Clinton invited Ghislaine to an intimate dinner with him at an exclusive Los Angeles restaurant.
Although she failed in her bid for the White House, President Obama named Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, and one of her first actions was to appoint Djerassi to her team. He quickly rose in the ranks, becoming Chief of Staff at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. In this role, he specialized in developing the United States’ policy towards Israel and Iran, although he also worked on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and accompanied Clinton on visits to Israel and the Arab world.
While at the State Department, he served as the U.S. government representative to the Friends of Libya and the Friends of the Syrian People Conferences. These were two organizations of hardline, hawkish groups working towards the overthrow of those two governments, and their replacement with U.S.-friendly regimes. Washington got what it wanted. In 2011, Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi was overthrown, killed and replaced by Islamist warlords. And last December, longtime Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, fled to Russia and was replaced by the founder of al-Qaeda in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Djerassi was later appointed an associate at the U.S.-government-funded think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. While there, he again specialized in Middle East policy, his bio noting that he “worked on matters relating to democratization and civil society in the Arab world, the Arab uprisings, and Israeli-Palestinian peace.” Today, he works in Silicon Valley.
While Djerassi’s fortunes were tied to the Clinton faction of the Democratic Party, his cousin Xavier Malina (Christine Maxwell’s eldest son) backed the right horse, working on the Obama-Biden 2008 presidential run.
He was rewarded for his good work with a position in the White House itself, where he became a Staff Assistant at the Executive Office of the President. Like his cousin, once his time in office was over, Malina also secured a position at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace before pursuing a career in the tech world, working for many years at Google in the Bay Area. He currently works for Disney.
While the actions of parents and grandparents should not determine the careers of later generations, the fact that two individuals who come from a multi-generational family of unrepentant spies and operatives of a foreign power secured positions at the center of the U.S. State is at least worthy of note.
The Maxwell Brothers: From Bankruptcy to Counterterrorism
Much of the Maxwell clan is most influential in American and Israeli politics. However, brothers Ian and Kevin also hold considerable sway over affairs in their native Great Britain. Although being acquitted of charges over widespread allegations that they helped their father, Robert, plunder over $160 million from his employees’ pension fund, the brothers kept a low profile for many years. Kevin, in particular, was known for little more than being Britain’s largest-ever bankrupt, with debts exceeding half a billion dollars.
However, in 2018, they launched Combating Jihadist Terrorism and Extremism (CoJiT), a controversial think tank pushing for a far more invasive and heavy-handed government approach to the question of radical Islam.
In his organization’s book, “Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses,” Ian writes that CoJiT was set up to play a “catalyzing role in the national conversation,” and to answer “difficult questions” arising from the issue. Judging by the content of the rest of the book, this means pushing for even more extensive surveillance of Muslim communities.
Within Britain, CoJiT was a highly influential organization. Its editorial board and contributors are a who’s who of high state officials. Individuals participating in its inaugural conference in London in 2018 included Sara Khan, the government’s Lead Commissioner for Countering Extremism, and Jonathan Evans, the former Director General of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.
Like so many Maxwell projects, CoJiT appears to have wrapped up its affairs. The organization has not updated its website or posted anything on its social media channels since 2022.
In fairness, in the past few years, the brothers have had other priorities, leading the campaign to free their sister Ghislaine from prison, insisting that she is entirely innocent. In a manner reminiscent of Robert Maxwell, however, it appears that Kevin may have failed to pay the defense team; in 2022, Maxwell’s lawyers sued him, seeking unpaid fees of nearly $900,000.
The Infamous Mr. Epstein
For years, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein ran a sex trafficking ring that exploited hundreds of girls and young women. They were also connected to vast networks of the global elite, including billionaire business owners, royalty, star academics, and foreign leaders, among their closest acquaintances, leading to intense speculation about the extent of their involvement in their many crimes.
It is still unclear when Epstein first met with the Maxwells, with some alleging that he was recruited into Israeli intelligence by Robert Maxwell. Others state the relationship only began after Robert’s death, when he saved the family from penury following its financial problems.
Only one month after his 2019 arrest, Epstein was found dead in his New York City prison cell. His death was officially ruled a suicide, although his family has rejected this interpretation.
Perhaps the two most powerful individuals in Epstein’s circle of confidants were Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton, already infamous for the numerous accusations of sexual misconduct against him, is known to have flown at least 17 times on Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the “Lolita Express,” and was accused by Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre, of visiting Little St. James Island, the multimillionaire’s private Caribbean residence, where many of his worst crimes took place.
Trump, arguably, was even closer to the disgraced financier. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” he said in 2002, “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it.” Like Clinton, Trump flew on the Lolita Express. Epstein attended his wedding to Marla Maples in 1993, and claimed to have introduced him to his third wife, Melania.
Unfortunately, while Epstein’s ties incriminate the entire political spectrum, coverage has often been framed as a partisan issue. A MintPress study of over one year of Epstein coverage on MSNBC and Fox News found that each network downplayed his connections to their preferred president, while emphasizing and highlighting the links to the leader of the other major party. As a result, many in the United States see the affair as an indictment of their political rivals, rather than of the political system as a whole.
There also remains the question of Epstein’s links to intelligence, something that has been openly speculated about in the media for decades, even years before any allegations against him were made public. Throughout the 1990s, Epstein’s biographer Julie K. Brown noted, he openly boasted about working for both the CIA and Mossad, although the veracity of his claims remains in doubt. As Britain’s Sunday Times wrote in 2000, “He’s Mr. Enigmatic. Nobody knows whether he’s a concert pianist, property developer, a CIA agent, a math teacher or a member of Mossad.” It is possible that there is at least a grain of truth to all of these identities.
Epstein met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns three times in 2014. Burns would later be named director of the CIA. Burns’ proximity to Epstein, however, pales in comparison to that of former Israeli Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Between 2013 and 2017 alone, Barak is known to have traveled to New York City and met with the convicted criminal at least 30 times, sometimes arriving at his Manhattan mansion incognito or wearing a mask to hide his identity.
Numerous sources have commented on Epstein’s connections to Israeli intelligence. A previous girlfriend and victim of his, referred in court documents as Jane Doe 200 to hide her identity, testified that Epstein boasted about being a Mossad operative and that, after he raped her, she could not go to the police because his position as a spy made her fear for her life.
“Doe genuinely believed that any reporting of the rape by what she believed to be a Mossad agent with some of the most unique connections in the world would result in significant bodily harm or death to her,” reads the court filing.
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former senior official in Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, claimed that Epstein was a spy and that he and Ghislaine Maxwell were running a honeytrap operation on behalf of Israel. Four (anonymous) sources told Rolling Stone that Epstein had directly worked with the Israeli government.
Unlike much of the Maxwell family, however, his Israel and intelligence connections are based largely on testimony and unverified accounts. His only known trip to the country was in April 2008, just before his sentencing, a move that sparked fears he would seek refuge there.
Nevertheless, there has been intense public speculation that he could have been working for Tel Aviv. At the Turning Points USA Student Action Summit 2025, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson stated that there is nothing wrong, hateful or anti-Semitic about asking questions about Epstein’s foreign connections. “No one’s allowed to say that the foreign government is Israel, because we’ve been somehow cowed into thinking that that’s naughty,” he said, before expressing his exasperation about the media’s silence on the issue.
What the hell is this? You have the former Israeli prime minister living in your house, you have had all this contact with a foreign government, were you working on behalf of the Mossad? Were you running a blackmail operation on behalf of a foreign government?”
Carlson’s comments drew harsh condemnation from former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false. Epstein’s conduct, both the criminal and the merely despicable, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel,” he wrote.
“This accusation is a lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t,” he added, concluding that Israel was under attack from a “vicious wave of slander and lies.”
Whatever the truth about Epstein, it is indisputable that the powerful Maxwell family holds wide-ranging connections to U.S., British and Israeli state power. It is also beyond doubt that if the full story of their activities were ever to reach the public, it would incriminate a significant number of the world’s most powerful people and organizations. Perhaps that is why Trump has, in short order, gone from promising to release the Epstein Files to potentially releasing his accomplice.
Iraqi FM warns PMU, Lebanese Hezbollah cannot be disarmed by force
The Cradle | August 18, 2025
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stated on 18 August that efforts to pass a new law in the parliament to regulate the status of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are coming at the wrong time, while at the same time emphasizing the government’s inability to disarm the resistance factions comprising the PMU by force.
“The timing of introducing the Popular Mobilization Forces law was wrong, and I was the only minister who expressed this within the cabinet before the draft law was sent to parliament, especially in light of the tense regional and international situation and the Iranian–American conflict,” Hussein said in an interview on Iraqi TV.
The new law would update an existing law regulating the PMU, transforming it into a fully independent security institution directly under the prime minister and bypassing the Defense and Interior Ministries.
The PMU was created in 2014 to recruit volunteers to fight against ISIS, which had just taken over Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, with covert support from the US and Peshmerga forces loyal to Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani.
The PMU, which was comprised of multiple Shia armed factions, was incorporated into Iraq’s security forces with the passage of the first PMU law in 2016. The group was later expanded to include other ethnic groups, including Sunnis, Yezidis, Shabaks, and Christians.
The Coordination Framework coalition, a Shia political bloc supported by Iran, is pushing for the Iraqi parliament to include a vote on the new PMU law in its upcoming sessions.
In contrast, Foreign Minister Hussein argued that the PMU should be disarmed, but through dialogue rather than force.
“We need a rational dialogue with the factions to disarm, and this cannot be done by force, as this could lead to internal strife. Before the national dialogue, we need an inter-Shia dialogue between the Shia parties and leaders, but unfortunately, so far, there has been no dialogue in this regard,” Hussein added.
The US has also reportedly pushed for the PMU to be disarmed.
Hussein, who also serves as deputy prime minister, compared the issue of the PMU in Iraq to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US is also pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, which defended the country from Israel’s invasion last year.
“Hezbollah’s weapons in Lebanon cannot be disarmed except through dialogue, and the Iraqis cannot disarm the Popular Mobilization Forces by force. Centralization of decision-making is the problem in Syria, and decentralization may be the solution.”
The minister accused Iran of interfering in Iraqi affairs by promoting the law. “Most neighboring countries interfere in political, security, and military affairs, including Iran, which has significant influence,” he stated.
Hussein’s statements come amid interference from Washington, which seeks to block the law’s passage.
The US has warned Iraq against passing the new law, arguing it would entrench Iranian influence and empower armed groups “undermining Iraq’s sovereignty.”
US Chargé d’Affaires Steven Fagin and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio both raised these concerns in meetings and calls with Iraqi officials, pressuring parliament to halt the vote despite the bill already completing its second reading in July.
Iraq’s parliament has since avoided including the law on its agenda, facing opposition from Sunni and Kurdish blocs, while pro-Iran factions continue to push for its passage.
Shafaq News wrote on Monday that according to Iraqi MP Thaer Mokheef, “the real obstacle lies in US opposition, warning that Washington seeks to block the legislation and may attempt to reassert influence in Iraq.”
Among the groups represented in the PMU are Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and the Al-Nujaba Movement – Iran-linked resistance factions involved in the attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, which began after the start of the Gaza war and ended months later with the help of Iraqi government pressure.
Last year, the US launched heavy strikes on Kataib Hezbollah sites in Iraq in response to the killing of three soldiers in a drone strike on a US military base on the Syria–Jordan border.
Normalisation is death of Arab sovereignty, Syria is the best example
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | August 14, 2025
We have reached the stage where it can no longer be denied that the Syrian leadership is at the complete mercy of the US and its allies. Its normalisation drive, whereby its officials meet with their Israeli counterparts, are not negotiations but discussions aimed at achieving the best implementation of Tel Aviv’s orders.
When Arab states make the decision to capitulate to the Israeli-US normalisation and neo-liberal economic model, they set themselves up for a loss of sovereignty and to become at best a tool for policy makers in Washington.
If we look at the Jordanian and Egyptian models, we see that their agreements have not saved them from growing instability and economic decline, particularly in Egypt’s case. Once, it had become a big deal when President Hosni Mubarak began selling gas to the Israelis, now, Cairo purchases gas through its own pipelines that have reversed the flow.
Turning our focus to the current predicament of Syria, it is not even correct to assess it is based upon the Egypt model. In fact, despite some similarities, it is in even worse a predicament than Sudan.
The Sudanese state, following the fall of its former leader Omar Bashir, went into a transitional phase whereby the Army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia agreed upon a power-sharing phase. During this time, the Zionist Entity swept in to take advantage of the situation, fostering relations with both sides, but particularly with notorious goldmine owning war-lord Hemedti’s RSF.
Sudan, working closely with US President Donald Trump’s administration at the time, managed to get sanctions lifted, remove itself from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, receive sanctions relief and aid, while almost paving the way to adopt a neo-liberal economic model; seeking IMF and World Bank loans.
Khartoum had pledged that in exchange for these “gifts” from the US, they would join the so-called “Abraham Accords” and began negotiations behind closed doors with the Israelis.
Is this starting to sound familiar?
Then, in April of 2023, the Civil War erupted, and the Israelis swept in to back both sides, after having covertly provided the RSF with military capabilities that enabled it to balance the power on the battlefield in the first place. While the Mossad supported the RSF, the Israeli Foreign Ministry leaned towards the Sudanese Army.
In Syria, almost the exact same process has occurred. Yet most pretend as if we haven’t seen this same story before.
The key difference, however, is that the new Syrian government of Ahmad al-Sharaa has less control than when the RSF and Sudanese Army ran an interim unity government. The recent sectarian bloodshed in Sweida proved this without a shadow of a doubt.
There are now separatist militias in Sweida who actually coordinated with Israeli-Druze army forces who had set up a joint communications room to help locate targets during the latest round of bloodshed. Meanwhile, the Syrian security forces had coordinated the entry of tanks into Sweida with the Israelis, yet were bombed anyway, leading to as many as 700 dead amongst their ranks.
While the majority of the Syrian Druze and wider Syrian public oppose ties with the Israelis, the Zionist Entity finds inroads with both sides and watches on as they slaughter each other, all in the interest of further weakening the country.
Ahmad al-Sharaa was basically non-existent, as it appeared for over a week that Syria was heading towards another civil war, only offering brief statements before the US envoy announced a bizarre arrangement, claiming that Damascus and Tel Aviv had agreed to a truce.
It was especially strange because the announcement didn’t initially come from the Syrians themselves, but also due to the fact that there was no Syrian-Israeli war. What was happening was that Syrian forces were getting blown to pieces and ordered to stand down. The only relevance the Syrian government forces had was in their failed role inside Sweida, where they went out of control and participated in civilian massacres, alongside Bedouin tribal forces.
Never in the known history of war has a nation been invaded, occupied, its capital repeatedly bombed and hundreds of its soldiers blown to pieces, and the country being attacked did not respond in any way. Not only have Ahmad al-Sharaa’s forces failed to fire a single bullet towards their occupiers, they have not even threatened the use of force.
Even worse, rather than respond, they give the Israelis gifts like infamous spy Eli Cohen’s belongings, cracking down on the Palestinian Resistance forces, and declaring fellow Muslims and Arabs their enemies, despite them being the only ones willing to stand up for Syria.
Meanwhile, every minority group in the country is isolated, and every community feels the need to bear arms and protect themselves, as nobody trusts the ill-trained, unprofessional security forces.
This is what capitulation looks like, a leadership which exists more so on Facebook, X, and Instagram than it does in real life. A sectarian bloodbath, with no stability, no national unity, no sovereignty, and whose leaders are collaborating with the genocidal entity, in violation of all the regional, national, cultural, and religious moral obligations.
This is normalisation. This is capitulation. This is what happens when you worship at the feet of your occupiers. Syria is the worst case of all, because there is no longer even a united nation or cause that it embodies, which has, for the current moment, died.
Only through a unified resistance front will Syria liberate itself. It may take time, but this is the only path, and historically, the Syrian people had resisted the Ottomans, the French, and even got themselves back on their feet after the CIA overthrew their government in 1949. It can happen, but it will take the Syrian people coming together in order to overcome their predicament.
There is no example of where normalisation with the Zionist regime, or total capitulation to the US, saves a nation in turmoil. Even in the cases where the US poured trillions into attempts to set up new regimes, like what happened with Iraq and Afghanistan. The only examples of where a regime has not yet declined or sacrificed its security predicament due to normalisation, are in the cases of the UAE and Bahrain, but both were already immensely rich, and nothing much changed upon normalisation.
However, even in the cases of the UAE and Bahrain, their positioning themselves as part of the Israeli-US regional anti-Iran alliance puts them in the firing line and could risk national stability in the event of a broader war.
The positions of the current regime in Syria are indefensible. Not even from a selfish materialist perspective could you argue their case without engaging in mental gymnastics. There is no strategic depth, nor a demonstration of competent governance in the direction we see the nation going, and at a time when unity is needed the most.
Netanyahu Says Pursuing Historic, Spiritual Mission for “Greater Israel” Plan
Al-Manar | August 13, 2025
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is on a “historic and spiritual mission” and feels “very” attached to the vision of so-called ‘Greater Israel’, which includes territories earmarked for the Palestinian state and parts of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.
In an interview with Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS on Tuesday, conducted as his government prepares to expand its carnage into the remaining parts of Gaza, Netanyahu described his mission as one “of generations,” saying: “There are generations of Jews that dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will come after us.”
Asked if he felt connected to the vision, Netanyahu responded: “Very much.”
Some analysts view the ongoing genocide in Gaza as an accelerated attempt to implement this plan, with the government’s approach described by critics as seeking “maximum land, minimum Arabs.”
Gaza Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday that hospitals received 123 martyrs and 437 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total victims since October 7, 2023, to 61,722 martyrs and 154,525 wounded.
The US-Israeli plot to partition Syria’s West
By Abdullah Suleiman Ali | The Cradle | August 13, 2025
“When you look at the map of Syria, I mean, it looks like a flat Rubik’s cube because of the way that the country is divided up, and what we are talking about is mainly the governance of the western part of the country.”– Senator James Risch during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 13 February
It began with a seemingly offhand statement by US Senator James Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just weeks ahead of the March coastal massacres in Syria against the Alawite minority.
“My idea,” he expounded, “is we need to focus on this western part and continue to look at the others. But the first objective is if you do not get a handle on this you are not going to get a handle on the rest of the country.”
Testifying before the Committee on US policy post-former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Michael Singh, responded:
“I think that we can focus on what is happening in western Syria, deal with the government there, while also trying to encourage and maybe facilitate this process of coming together among these groups.”
But these remarks have since crystallized into a structured, multi-front operation now moving steadily toward execution. The “Western Syria” project has now shed any ambiguity, emerging as a concrete blueprint that fuses sectarian engineering with foreign military coordination, aimed at carving out new realities on both sides of the Syrian–Lebanese border – under Tel Aviv’s supervision.
A plan spanning Syria and Lebanon
The scheme extends deep into Lebanon, where an orchestrated campaign against Hezbollah is intended to disarm the resistance movement while redeploying armed Syrian factions from Lebanon to the coastal strip. The right-wing Israeli government, acting as both sponsor and chief architect, directs the plan through two named coordinators –General “Yael” and Captain “Robert.”
Marketed publicly as a mission to safeguard minorities, especially Christians, the plan’s hidden mechanism is to stage attacks on churches, monasteries, and heritage landmarks across the coast. These provocations are designed to inflame sectarian tensions, creating the pretext for an Israeli-led intervention.
One of the earliest signs emerged in Tartous, where internal security announced the arrest of a cell accused of plotting to attack the Mar Elias Maronite Church in Safita, not to be confused with the suicide bombing of the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus in June. The revelation – delayed by three weeks – sparked suspicions of Israeli infiltration of Syrian security structures.
Internal Security Forces Chief in Tartous, Abdelal Mohammad Abdelal, said the plot was foiled in a “high-level security operation” after extensive surveillance and was based on “precise intelligence indicating that an outlaw group affiliated with remnants of the deposed regime was surveilling Mar Elias Maronite Church in the village of Khreibet, in the Safita countryside.”
However, many saw it as a calculated move to unsettle Christian communities and justify external involvement.
Two days before that announcement, partisan media channels circulated an unverified statement claiming the formation of a so-called “Christian Military Council” under the name Elias Saab – a figure absent from any credible public record.
The declaration spoke of organizing Christian fighters who had defended their communities against extremist factions like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who are now integrated into the state’s security forces.
It called for uniting fighters from Mhardeh, Al-Suqaylabiyah, Sadad, Maaloula, and Tartous under one legal and military umbrella, documenting crimes against Christians for presentation to international bodies, ensuring their representation in any political settlement, and opposing partition while defending a unified, secular Syria.
While this narrative has circulated in partisan outlets, there is no independent verification of its authenticity or the council’s existence. Its sudden appearance, timed just before heightened tensions in the coastal region, has fueled speculation about its role as a manufactured proxy front to justify foreign involvement under the guise of ‘minority protection.’
The US-Israeli scheme takes shape
On 5 August, in the US capital, the government relations and strategic advisory firm Tiger Hill Partners announced it would serve as the official representative of the “Foundation for the Development of Western Syria.”
Specializing in government relations and strategic lobbying, Tiger Hill pledged to advocate for Christians, Druze, Alawites, Kurds, and “moderate Sunnis” while working with US policymakers to shape Syria’s political transition. The one-year contract, valued at roughly $1 million, was filed publicly and framed as a mission to ensure minority rights remain central to Washington’s Syria policy.
In late July, a coastal faction calling itself “Men of Light – Saraya al-Jawad” made its debut. The group’s statement attacked Abu Mohammad al-Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa), Qatar’s emir, and Turkiye’s president, while offering thanks to Egypt, Israeli journalist Eddy Cohen, and notable expatriate Alawite, Druze, and Christian figures – including Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, Mazloum Abdi, and Patriarch John al-Yaziji. Although ridiculed for its unusual tone, its appearance dovetailed with coordinated moves behind the scenes.
That coordination became more visible on the 17 July, when the Tel Aviva Hotel in Israel hosted a closed meeting between government officials, Syrian Alawites, and Syrian Druze figures. The attendees included seven long-exiled Alawites and Druze linked to Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif’s circle – the Druze leader in Israel – both Syrian and Israeli nationals. A second meeting followed on the 21st–22nd, just before Saraya al-Jawad’s unveiling and the release of its operational footage.
An Alawite–Druze alliance
On 6 August, Eddy Cohen, an Israeli journalist and commentator on Arab affairs, announced on his Arabic-language Facebook page the preparation of an Alawite–Druze alliance in the US. Observers have paired this with an alleged leaked audio recording of a Syrian woman – said to be related to a former senior officer with Israeli ties – speaking to another participant in the Tel Aviv meetings.
In the recording, she reportedly described coordination between a secular Syrian expatriate network and Israeli intermediaries, noting specifically that one of the councils involved held shares in Tiger Hill. The recording also alleged plans to covertly deploy some 2,500 foreign fighters into Syria, dispersing them across Homs and the coastal region.
Despite the project’s determined momentum, domestic and external actors are moving to block it, even offering intelligence support to the Sharaa administration despite disputing its legitimacy. This counter-effort has already thwarted the Safita church attack and prevented a major bombing in Damascus.
A partition map in the making
As one credible regional security source informs The Cradle:
“Israel seeks to exploit Syria’s sectarian and ethnic divisions to use minorities as political and military tools, serving its plan to partition the country and open two strategic corridors: an eastern one linking Suwayda to Hasakah, and a western one running from Syria’s coast to Afrin, securing multi-front influence and encircling the Turkish axis from within.”
“Western Syria” may remain in the shadows or step fully into the open, but its trajectory is unmistakable: a deliberate dismantling of Syria’s territorial cohesion, draped in the language of minority protection and enforced through foreign-backed militias and political fronts.
For Damascus, Beirut, and the wider region, this is no distant or hypothetical threat, but an active campaign already reshaping the map to the advantage of outside powers.
Zionism won’t stop, the Arab world must collapse
By Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 10, 2025
Four weeks after the signing of the Abraham Accords—signed on September 15, 2020, with U.S. mediation and involving the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—Israeli urban planning authorities have authorized the construction of 4,948 new homes in the occupied territories of the West Bank. No significant public statements, no troop movements: just bureaucratic approvals marking a further step in the expansion of Israel’s presence. This advance, shrouded in the rhetoric of ‘peace’, took place in silence, reflecting a well-established approach: proceed with normalization when the region is compliant and intensify colonization when international attention wanes.
This logic is rooted in the expansionist model of Zionism: where possible, military force is used; where this is not convenient or feasible, soft penetration is used in the form of security agreements, economic cooperation, and intelligence alliances. This dual strategy—based on physical conquest and hegemonic consolidation—has been in place since 1967 and today extends unchecked from the Jordan River to the Atlantic Ocean.
Let us be clear: the Zionist project, in all its aspects, will not stop. The Arab world represents an obstacle to the construction of Greater Israel and the manifestation of Zionist hegemony.
The “Greater Israel” project manifests itself on two levels: on the one hand, the annexation of Palestinian territories, and on the other, geopolitical control of the region through indirect means. And, if we want to extend our projections, we must consider that Greater Israel is the starting point, not the end point.
This is a vision rooted in Zionist ideology, which envisages Jewish domination over the entire “Biblical Land of Israel.” When direct occupation is not sustainable, Tel Aviv prefers maneuvers of influence and destabilization that undermine the sovereignty of neighboring Arab states. The two dimensions—territorial and imperial—are interdependent.
This strategy has deep roots. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of revisionist Zionism, wanted control over all of Mandatory Palestine and beyond, arguing that colonization should take place even against the will of the local populations. David Ben-Gurion, while publicly accepting the partition in 1937, saw that compromise only as an initial phase towards subsequent expansion, confirming the intention to extend the borders to the whole of Palestine once the Israeli military apparatus had been strengthened, as indeed happened. At first, Israel’s military power was insufficient for large-scale operations, so the “periphery doctrine” was developed, through which Israel cultivated alliances with non-Arab states and marginalized minorities (the Shah’s Iran, Turkey, Iraqi Kurds, Sudanese Christians), indirectly weakening its Arab rivals. This strategy, now adapted, is also visible in recent relations with the Druze communities in southern Syria.
Normalization means influence
Israeli penetration into the Arab world has reached an unprecedented level. The Abraham Accords have opened the door to large-scale economic, military, and technological cooperation. The historic treaties with Egypt and Jordan were only the beginning, with the United Arab Emirates subsequently becoming a prominent trading partner. The same is true in the Maghreb: Morocco, for example, has purchased weapons and signed industrial agreements in the drone sector, becoming a production hub for Israeli UAV systems. All this has created a geopolitical corridor linking Israel to the Gulf and North Africa, expanding its access to strategic routes, intelligence spaces, and crucial markets.
As economic relations intensify, colonization continues. Raze everything to the ground, indiscriminately; drive out the Palestinians, no questions asked; conquer the lands they consider “divine right.” Infrastructure is designed to isolate Palestinian communities in unconnected enclaves, making the formation of an autonomous state impossible.
Israel has also consolidated its presence in Syria (in the Quneitra region, near Damascus and Deraa), taking advantage of the chaos following the fall of Assad and the seizure of power by the jihadist group HTS led by Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly known as al-Julani). In Lebanon, it maintains control of key areas such as the Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shuba hills, as well as military positions along the Blue Line.
Expansion is masked by integration. Today, the Israeli occupation is no longer manifested solely through weapons, but is supported and fueled by diplomatic agreements and trade flows. “Normalization” has not stopped the occupation: it has made it more effective. Each new agreement with Arab countries increases Israel’s ability to extend colonization and strengthen military control. Plans are already underway to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights and increase the military presence along sensitive areas. The consequences are being felt: Egypt is building a wall on the border with Gaza to manage possible flows of displaced persons; Jordan sees its water resources threatened; Syria and Lebanon are under increasing pressure to normalize relations with Israel.
The Greater Israel project is advancing: on the one hand, it is swallowing up territories; on the other, it is influencing the sovereign choices of Arab states. Together, they represent two sides of the same strategy: annexation and subordination.
And all this, let’s be clear, will not stop at Palestine.
Zionism is viscerally anti-Christian and anti-Islamic. Anything that does not adhere to Zionist Judaism must be eliminated.
From an Islamic perspective, criticism of Zionism is based on several levels. First of all, Zionism, in its state form, has led to the confiscation and occupation of Muslim holy sites—primarily Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem—with a progressive erosion of access to and management of sacred places. This is not only a political violation, but also a spiritual one, as Islamic sovereignty over Jerusalem is considered a religious duty, rooted in the Quran and prophetic tradition. The Zionist rejection of Arab sovereignty – expressed in the marginalization of Islamic religious institutions in the occupied territories – is a denial of the Umma, the unity of the community of believers, and of its legitimacy to safeguard the places of Islam.
Similarly, Christianity, especially in its Eastern expressions, has also suffered from an exclusionary Zionist approach. The Zionist theological imagination, which demands a Jewish “territorial redemption” of Palestine, excludes the historical and cultural presence of indigenous Christian communities, reducing them to tolerated or suspect minorities. Talmudic hatred of Christians is well known. For many Palestinian and Middle Eastern Christians, Zionism represents a form of nationalist secularization that empties the Holy Land of its universal value, transforming it into an exclusive ethnic-religious property.
In its quest to create an exclusive Jewish state, Zionism has promoted dynamics of exclusion and delegitimization of the other Abrahamic religions historically present in Palestine. This makes it ideologically antithetical to any pluralistic and shared vision of the holy places and communities that have coexisted there for centuries.
We should not be surprised if we soon see conflicts arise between the powers of the Arab world or, by extension, in other Islamic countries, such as in Asia, precisely because of their geopolitical and geoeconomic relations with the Zionist entity.
Because, ultimately, this is the plan: in Greater Israel, there can only be Israeli Zionism. Christianity and Islam must first be exploited, then banned. At any cost.
John Fetterman, a hawkish US senator who represents Americans but speaks for Israel
By Musa Iqbal | Press TV | August 7, 2025
It is no secret that the political apparatus of the United States is teeming with Zionists.
While some politicians are sleek in their support for the Zionist Occupation (with politically convenient cries for ‘civility’ in Palestine and the rest of the region), others are completely devoted to a maximalist Zionist agenda – advocating for Zionist expansion, aggression, and total servitude to Israeli interests – no matter their maximalist goals.
Among the latter is US Senator John Fetterman, a hawkish politician who once campaigned as a “progressive,” but has now turned into the Israeli occupation’s most darling Democratic cheerleader and an unofficial mouthpiece and apologist of the genocidal child-murdering regime.
Fetterman’s unwavering support for Israel, which comes with belligerent calls for war against Iran, betrays the very principles he once claimed to champion.
During the election cycle that put him into power, progressive groups had rallied around Fetterman as a “working man” that most Americans could relate to. They could not have been more wrong.
Fetterman, often skulking the halls of the US Capitol in a hoodie and gym shorts, has become the poster child for the US political establishment’s subservience to the Zionist project and its reckless drive toward regional hegemony in Western Asia.
Fetterman has shown total support with each new act of Zionist terror, something his constituents are increasingly condemning.
His rhetoric, particularly his enthusiastic endorsement of Israel’s military actions and his calls for US involvement in illegal and unprovoked strikes on Iran, is not only a betrayal of his constituents but a dangerous escalation that threatens to give more support to an increasingly belligerent Israeli occupation entity as it faces an existential crisis.
He has draped himself in the Israeli flag on several occasions—literally and figuratively—while dismissing calls for a ceasefire and championing Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself” against a besieged, starving population.
Perhaps as a hat-tip to his pro-Israeli donors, his office walls are covered with posters of Israeli captives held by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, further serving as a shrine to a one-sided narrative that erases the decades-long suffering of Palestinians under occupation.
To compare, there are tens of thousands of Palestinian hostages in Zionist prisons, a sizeable amount of them being Palestinian youth.
Speaking of donors, Fetterman has unapologetically collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Zionist lobby. Based on the data organized by Track AIPAC, Fetterman has received over $370,000 in donations from Israeli-associated PACs and donors, with one of his top donors being JStreetPAC, which donated $175k in 2024 alone.
Donations of this caliber suggest extreme levels of loyalty to furthering Israeli settler-colonial interests in the power corridors of Washington – from domestic policy fighting against Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) efforts to foreign policy warmongering on behalf of the American-Israeli axis of evil.
It also aligns with Fetterman’s refusal to acknowledge the Palestinian death toll—over 150,000 by some estimates, including thousands of children—while fixating on Israeli victims reveals a moral bankruptcy that aligns him with the most hawkish elements of the US political spectrum.
Fetterman ghoulishly refuses to acknowledge the catastrophic loss of life, insisting that “now is not the time to talk about a ceasefire.”
Clearly, Fetterman’s loyalty to the Zionist cause goes as far as deliberate endorsement of collective punishment of innocent Palestinians, including children and women, a policy that violates international law.
Of course, being in line with the Zionist occupation’s expansionist interests, Fetterman’s zeal for Israel does not stop at Gaza. He has cheered on for US military aggression against Iran, celebrating the bombings against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and threatening that Israel can continue to assassinate its nuclear scientists with his and other US politicians’ approval.
In his March 2025 visit to the occupied territories, Fetterman told journalists in Jerusalem al-Quds that he supports “partnering with Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” urging the US to “blow it up.”
His rhetoric continued to escalate, including in June 2025, when he called for Israel to assassinate the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. Such statements are not the musings of a principled senator but the ravings of a warmonger eager to appease the Zionist war machine and its patrons in Washington.
Fetterman’s rhetoric must be seen in the context of the broader US-Israel agenda to neutralize Iran as a regional power, especially as the latter secures critical economic alliances such as a place in BRICS and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization).
For decades, the US and its Zionist ally have sought to undermine Iran’s sovereignty, from crippling, high-pressure sanctions to covert sabotage operations and outright military threats.
Fetterman’s calls for illegal and unjustified strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Iran maintains are for peaceful energy purposes, echo the same discredited playbook used to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombing of Libya, the destruction of Yugoslavia, etc.
The threat of a nuclear bomb armed Iran is a propaganda campaign orchestrated by Washington and Tel Aviv to justify aggression while ignoring Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, a violation of international norms, and a total means to destabilize the region.
The hypocrisy of Fetterman’s position declares the official US policy for the area: Israel’s nuclear capabilities are strategic and protect American interests, but Iran’s pursuit of energy independence is an intolerable existential threat.
Fetterman, in his blind allegiance to Israel, seems unperturbed by the realities of what the execution of this US-led policy would look like, choosing to ignore the total rupture of the region, plunging the US into a war it would not understand or be prepared for – Iran is not Iraq, Libya, or Afghanistan.
It is a regional power with a sophisticated military and an alliance with resistance groups that would be eager to defend their ally against American aggression.
By endorsing Israel’s strikes on Iran and advocating for US aggression, Fetterman is perpetuating a cycle of violence that benefits only the US ruling class and its Zionist beneficiaries.
The US has spent trillions on wars in the West Asia region, leaving behind shattered societies that will take decades to redevelop.
Fetterman’s call to “take out” Iran’s leadership and nuclear program is a recipe for more of the same- a reckless gamble with lives and resources that the US can ill afford, and would further plant the seeds of disdain for US policy both at home and abroad.
The American people, weary of endless wars and economic hardship, deserve a senator who prioritizes their interests over those of a foreign power tied to genocidal crimes and occupation.
Fetterman’s betrayal of his “progressive” voter base that elected him into power is not just a personal failing but a symptom of a deeper, more sinister alignment in US politics, where loyalty to Israel and the war machine comes before anything else, if anything else at all.
It is incumbent on the global community to reject the likes of Fetterman and their imperialist agendas, as there are war mongers like Fetterman, or worse, spread throughout different Western governments.
While they are considering replacements, they can also add someone who knows how to dress themselves as a requirement. Indeed, the bar has never been lower.
The verdict of history: How political calculations betrayed Gaza
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 6, 2025
The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a comprehensive report on 27 July describing the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide. However, the delay in publishing such an indictment is troubling and adds to an existing problem of politically motivated decision-making processes that have, in their own right, prolonged the ongoing Israeli war crimes.
The report accused Israel of committing genocide, a conclusion reached after a detailed analysis of the military campaign’s intent, the systematic destruction of civilian life, and the government-engineered famine. This finding is significant because it adds to the massive body of legal and testimonial evidence affirming the Palestinian position that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.
Moreover, the fact that B’Tselem is an Israeli organization is doubly important. It represents an insider’s indictment of the horrific massacres and the government-engineered famine in the Strip, directly challenging the baseless argument that accusing Israel of genocide is an act of antisemitism.
Western media were particularly interested in this report, despite the fact that numerous first-hand Palestinian reports and investigations are often ignored or downplayed. This double standard continues to feed into a chronic media problem in its perception of Palestine and Israel.
Claims by Palestinians of Israeli war crimes have historically been ignored by mainstream media or academia. Whether the Zionist militia’s massacre of Tantura in 1948, the actual number of Palestinians and Lebanese killed in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, or the events resulting in the Jenin massacre in the West Bank in 2002, the media has frequently ignored the Palestinian account. It often gains a degree of validation only if it is backed by Israeli or Western voices.
The latest B’Tselem report is no exception. But another question must be asked: why did it take nearly two years for B’Tselem to reach such an obvious conclusion? Israeli rights groups, in particular, have far greater access to the conduct of the Israeli army, the statements of politicians, and Hebrew media coverage than any other entity. Such a conclusion, therefore, should have been reached in a matter of two months, not two years.
This kind of intentional delay has so far defined the position of many international institutions, organisations, and individuals whose moral authority would have helped Palestinians establish the facts of the genocide globally much earlier.
For example, despite the ICJ’s historic ruling on 26 January 2024, that determined that there are plausible grounds for South Africa’s accusation of Israel of committing genocide, the court is still unable, or unwilling, to produce a conclusive ruling. A definitive ruling would have been a significant pressure card on Israel to end its mass killing in Gaza.
Instead, for now, the ICJ expects Israel to investigate itself, a most unrealistic expectation at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises his extremist ministers that Israel will encourage the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
The same indictment of intentional and politicised delays can be attributed to the International Criminal Court. While it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister on November 21, 2024, no concrete action has been taken. Instead, it is the Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, who finds himself attacked by the US government and media for having the courage to follow through on the investigation.
Individuals, too, especially those who have been associated with ‘revolutionary’ politics, the likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, among others, have been reluctant to act. On 22 March 2024, Ocasio-Cortez refused to use the term genocide in Gaza, going as far as claiming that, while she saw an “unfolding genocide,” she was not yet ready to use the term herself.
Sanders, on the other hand, who has spoken out repeatedly and strongly against Netanyahu, describing him in an interview with CNN on 31 July as a “disgusting liar,” has had repeated moral lapses since the start of the war. When the term genocide was used by many, far less ‘radical’ politicians, Sanders doubled down during a lecture at a university in Ireland. He said that the word genocide “makes him queasy,” and he urged people to be “careful about it”.
These are not simply lost opportunities or instances of moral equivocation. They have had a profound and direct impact on Israel’s behavior. The timely intervention of governments, international institutions, high courts, media, and human rights groups would have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the war. Such collective pressure could have forced Israel and its allies to end the war, potentially saving thousands of lives.
Delays born of political calculation and fear of retribution have given Israel the critical space it needed to carry out its genocide. Israel is actively exploiting this lack of legal and moral clarity to persist in its mass slaughter of Palestinians.
This must change. The Palestinian perspective, their suffering, and their truths must be respected and honored without needing validation from Israeli or other sources. The Palestinian voice and their rights must be truly centered, not as an academic cliché or political jargon, but as an undeniable, everyday reality.
As for those who have delayed their verdict regarding the Israeli genocide, no rationale can possibly absolve them. They will be judged by history and by the desperate pleas of Gaza’s mothers and fathers, who tried and failed to save their children from the Israeli killing machine and the world’s collective silence or inaction.
Super PAC Targeting Massie Funded By Three Israel-Backing Billionaires
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | August 3, 2025
Though it sports a Kentucky- and MAGA-branded name, the new Super PAC launched solely to support a primary challenge against popular Republican Congressman Thomas Massie is funded entirely by three Israel-backing billionaires from Nevada, New York and Florida, according to disclosure filings posted on Thursday.
The super PAC was launched in June, just days after President Trump threw a social media tantrum over Massie’s condemnation of Trump’s commitment of US forces to Israel’s war on Iran. Massie has long been a thorn in Trump’s side on domestic issues too, from opposing the $2 trillion, Trump-backed Covid-19 “relief package” in 2020 to voting against this year’s Big Beautiful Bill. However, Massie’s opposition to US involvement in Israel’s war seemed to have been the last straw. Trump assigned his top political operatives Tony Fabrizio and Chris LaCivita to start and run the super PAC. LaCivita told Axios the entity will spend “whatever it takes” to oust Massie.
The PAC’s only three donors have two things in common: they’re billionaires, and they’re ardent supporters of Israel. According to the PAC’s first funding disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, it has received:
- $1 million from New Yorker hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who has also funded a Israel-favoring US think tank and other pro-Israel organizations, and urged Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal
- $250,000 from Floridian hedge fund manager John Paulson
- $750,000 from the Preserve America Super PAC, which has also been led by La Civita and primarily funded by Nevadan Miriam Adelson and earlier, her late husband Sheldon Adelson
The PAC is called “MAGA Kentucky,” a name that’s misleading on two levels. Not only are its funders not Kentuckians, their principal motive for destroying Massie is his opposition to US bankrolling of Israel and participation in its wars. That is anything but a MAGA motive. As Trump recently told a prominent Jewish donor, “My people are starting to hate Israel.”
MAGA Kentucky has already started running misleading attack ads that cherry-pick items from the sprawling Big Beautiful Bill and accuse Massie of voting “against” them, and also accuse him of “siding” with Iran’s ayatollah.
In addition to opposing aid to Israel, Massie has also voted against legislation designed to stop Americans from criticizing Israel. The Antisemitism Awareness Act would use an expansive definition of antisemitism to expose universities to federal enforcement action if students voiced opposition to Zionism — a political philosophy — or compared the actions of Israel’s government to those of Nazi Germany.
In April, Massie introduced the Dual Loyalty Disclosure Act, which would require candidates for federal office to disclose any non-American citizenships they hold. Advocates of Israel swiftly accused him of antisemitism, but Massie said his measure doesn’t target any specific country. “We swear an oath to the Constitution, and the question is, if you’re a citizen of two countries, which oath are you taking more seriously, or can you take them both seriously?” Massie asked Fox’s Will Cain.
First elected to Congress in 2012 and consistently advocating for fiscal discipline, the right of armed self-defense, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, Massie has built a large and loyal national following among the libertarian right and other conservatives, with many regarding him as the congressional successor to the iconic Ron Paul. In his latest aggravation of Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, Massie is leading the drive to compel the release of Epstein investigative files. He has introduced a discharge petition that’s predicted to secure enough signatures to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA H.Res. 581), which he introduced with Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna.
With Georgia GOP Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene recently introducing an amendment to remove military aid to Israel from the defense bill, and accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, don’t be surprised to see a “MAGA Georgia” PAC created to oust her, too — funded by a similar cast of Israel-first characters. In the meantime, the drive to take out Massie is having unintended consequences:
Iraq’s PMF law seen as test of sovereignty amid US objections
Al Mayadeen | August 3, 2025
Iraqi Popular Mobilization Authority chief Faleh al-Fayyad affirmed on Sunday that the vote on the draft Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) law represents a “national responsibility tied to the dignity of those who answered the call of the religious authority and defended Iraq’s sovereignty.”
In a message addressed to members of Iraq’s parliament, al-Fayyad described the moment as one that reflects loyalty to the history and sacrifices of PMF fighters, many of whom played key roles in the defeat of ISIS.
“Passing this law is not just a legislative step. It is an affirmation of the rights of those who wrote Iraq’s glory with their blood, and a recognition from the people for those who bore arms to defend Iraq and its unity,” al-Fayyad said.
Draft law guarantees rights of PMF fighters
The legislation seeks to enshrine the rights of PMF personnel and provide a legal framework governing their structure, responsibilities, and benefits. According to Al Mayadeen’s Baghdad correspondent, the law aims to better regulate the Popular Mobilization Authority’s operations and grant it stronger legal recognition under Iraqi law.
However, the law has drawn criticism from Washington. US Senator Marco Rubio reportedly expressed “deep concern” about the legislation during recent talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani.
Rubio claimed the law would “entrench Iranian influence and empower armed groups that undermine Iraqi sovereignty,” reflecting US unease with Iraq’s growing military independence and refusal to marginalize the PMF, which has long been a target of US pressure.
PMF integral to Iraq state institutions
Al-Fayyad last year said the adoption of the service and retirement law for the PMF is the first sign of loyalty to the fighters, stressing that what has been achieved was in the spirit of Resistance and not in the spirit of a job.
Speaking at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the PMF, al-Fayyad said, “The PMF did not achieve what it did in the spirit of paying for fighting, as we are not mercenaries.”
While stressing that he “does not underestimate the other armed forces formations,” al-Fayyad emphasized the uniqueness of the PMF as “an entity that arose from a legitimate basis and was built on volunteerism and self-motivation,” stressing that this “identity must be preserved.”
Al-Fayyad stressed, “Bearing very heavy burdens from both close and distant quarters to maintain this entity as one representing the spirit of jihad [fighting against the enemies] and rising above partial classifications and political categorizations, above parties and above any other designation,” explaining that “the Popular Mobilization is the present shield of the nation in every confrontation and battle.”
Zionism without borders: Annexation and normalization as tools of Arab subjugation
By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | August 1, 2025
Four weeks after Israel signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords with the UAE and Bahrain on 15 September 2020, Tel Aviv’s Higher Planning Council approved 4,948 new settler units in the occupied West Bank. No public fanfare.
No tanks rolled in – just signatures authorizing another layer of occupation. The first wave of expansion advanced quietly, legitimized by the language of “peace.”
This sequencing deliberately reflects the core logic of Zionist expansion: Normalize when the region submits, colonize when the world blinks.
Where possible, the occupation state’s army conquers land directly. Where resistance or scrutiny makes that unfeasible, the occupation government builds a web of security pacts, trade routes, and intelligence partnerships that extend its reach without a single uniformed soldier. This dual formula, territorial conquest and hegemonic integration, has underpinned Israeli strategy since 1967, and today stretches unimpeded from the Jordan Valley to the Atlantic coast.
Two paths, one destination
“Greater Israel” represents the settler-colonial ambition to annex, settle, and absorb land across historic Palestine and beyond. It is rooted in the Zionist vision of Jewish dominion over the so-called “biblical Land of Israel.” In contrast, “Great Israel” describes the imperial design to dominate the surrounding region through proxies, economic leverage, and security alignments.
Where occupation is costly, Tel Aviv turns to influence. Through deals, destabilization, or coercion, it reshapes the sovereignty of its neighbors. Greater Israel devours land. Great Israel neutralizes independence. Together, they are one project.
Zionist literature makes this plain. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, demanded sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan – “Greater Israel on both sides of the Jordan River” – and rejected compromise with Arabs. In The Iron Wall (1923), he declared that only an unyielding Jewish force could compel Arab acquiescence:
“Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population.”
The occupation state’s first prime minister and Labor Zionist leader, David Ben-Gurion, publicly accepted a partition plan in 1937, but privately described it as “not the end but the beginning.” In a letter to his son, he wrote that a Jewish state on part of the land would strengthen the Zionist project and serve as a platform to “redeem the entire country.” In a June 1938 meeting of the Jewish Agency executive, he said:
“After the formation of a large army … we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”
Early Zionist leaders did not view borders as final, but as phases. During its first two decades, Israel lacked the military strength or western backing to expand beyond its 1949 borders. Direct confrontation with Arab states risked catastrophe. Instead, Tel Aviv pioneered a subtler doctrine of peripheral infiltration.
Through the “periphery doctrine,” it cultivated covert ties with non-Arab states and oppressed minorities – Shah-era Iran, Turkiye, Kurdish groups in Iraq, and Christian separatists in Sudan. This strategy sowed chaos among Israel’s Arab rivals while embedding Israeli influence in strategic corners of West Asia and Africa. Most recently, the occupation state has made overtures to Druze communities in southern Syria, seeking to replicate this strategy amid renewed instability.
The corridor to colonization
Israel’s integration into the Arab world is now deeper than ever before. Through normalization, Tel Aviv has converted former enemies into partners economically, diplomatically, and militarily. While Egypt and Jordan first formalized ties through Camp David and Wadi Araba, it was the Abraham Accords that opened the floodgates. What followed was a deluge of tech deals, weapons transfers, and commercial partnerships linking the occupation state to the Persian Gulf.
By 2023, Israel’s trade with the UAE had reached $3 billion annually. That figure rose by 11 percent the following year, even as Israel waged genocide in Gaza. Israeli Consul General Liron Zaslansky described trade relations between Abu Dhabi and Israel as “growing, so that we ended 2024 at $3.24 billion, excluding software and services.”
In 2022, Morocco purchased $500 million worth of Israeli Barak MX air defense systems. Rabat also partnered with BlueBird, an Israeli drone firm, to become the first UAV manufacturer in West Asia and North Africa.
This has created a “corridor of influence” that grants Tel Aviv access to new markets, air and sea routes, and intelligence spaces stretching from Casablanca to Khor Fakkan.
On the ground, the war continues
While trade flourishes, colonization accelerates. In 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government approved 12,855 settler homes – a record for any six-month period. More than 700,000 settlers now occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That figure has grown sevenfold since the early 1990s.
In May 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed cabinet approval for the construction of 22 new West Bank settlements, including multiple previously unauthorized outposts. Katz framed the move as necessary to “strengthen our hold on Judea and Samaria” and to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
These settlements are not arbitrary. They are connected by Jewish-only bypass roads, fortified by the occupation army, and strategically designed to fragment the occupied West Bank into isolated Palestinian enclaves. This is de facto annexation, defined by a matrix of irreversible facts that eliminates the territorial basis for any future Palestinian state, while avoiding the international fallout of formal annexation.
The “logic” of expansion has also spilled beyond Palestine. In Syria, Tel Aviv now occupies 250 square kilometers across Quneitra, Rural Damascus, and Deraa – territory seized during the collapse of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government by Al-Qaeda rooted terrorists – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – who now occupy the seat of power in Damascus. HTS was under the leadership of former ISIS chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Upon ousting Assad, Julani began using his government name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and became the de facto president of Syria.
In Lebanon, Israeli forces maintain a presence over 30–40 square kilometers, including Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba Hills, and the northern half of Ghajar. Additional outposts and buffer zones stretch along the so-called Blue Line.
Occupation rebranded
Israel’s expansion today is no longer confined to bulldozers and soldiers; it is mediated through trade, tech, and treaties. But make no mistake: normalization has not replaced occupation. It has enabled and accelerated it.
Every Emirati deal, every Moroccan drone line, every Bahraini handshake fuels Tel Aviv’s capacity to deepen its military presence and Judaize more land. Plans are underway to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights and to deploy armored units along the demilitarized zone.
The ripple effects are already destabilizing the region. Egypt has begun constructing a concrete wall on its border with Gaza to prepare for mass displacement or military spillover. Jordan faces existential peril in the Jordan Valley, where settler expansion is displacing Bedouin communities and draining natural aquifers. Syria and Lebanon remain hemmed in by fortified Israeli positions, with both countries facing increasing pressure from Washington to normalize relations.
Greater Israel devours Arab land. Great Israel colonizes Arab decision-making. One swallows borders. The other swallows sovereignty.
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China and India have ‘low intellectual potential’ – top Zelensky aide
RT | September 13, 2023
The people leading India and China lack the ability to predict the long-term consequences of their policies, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.
Mikhail Podoliak pointed to what he called “the problem of the modern world,” singling out India and China, in an interview with Ukrainian media on Tuesday.
“The problem with these countries is that they do not analyze the consequences of their own moves. These countries, unfortunately, have low intellectual potential,” he said.
Podoliak suggested that even though India has a lunar exploration program, it “does not mean that this nation understands what the modern world precisely is.”
The dismissive remarks were in the context of Beijing and New Delhi’s refusal to support Kiev in its conflict with Moscow. Podoliak complained that India, China and Türkiye were “profiting” from the war by maintaining trade with Russia.
“Technically, it is in their national interests,” he acknowledged, before presenting his view of what would benefit China in the long-run.
“China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he claimed. … continue
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