Report warns that ‘Jewish terrorism is out of control’ and could lead to major security escalation
MEMO | January 22, 2026
An Israeli report warns of a rapid rise in Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank, saying it has become a widespread phenomenon with serious security and strategic implications. The report cautions that this trend aims to undermine the Palestinian presence and could trigger large waves of violence, while also causing growing damage to Israel’s international standing.
The report, issued on Tuesday by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University (INSS), says recent years—especially since 7 October 2023—have seen a sharp increase in both the scale and severity of attacks carried out by Jews against Palestinians. It describes these acts as part of a “struggle over control of land” and “growing attempts to weaken the Palestinian presence”, particularly in areas classified as Area C.
According to the report, data from Israeli military and international sources point to a steep rise in such attacks. Figures from the Israeli army’s Central Command show that in 2025 there was an increase of about 27 per cent in incidents classified by the security establishment as “nationalist crime”. Around 870 offences were recorded, including 120 described as serious, compared with 83 serious offences in 2024.
United Nations data, however, present an even darker picture. In 2024, about 1,420 attacks against Palestinians were documented, a 16 per cent rise compared with 2023 and the highest level since systematic monitoring began in 2006. The report says these attacks led to the killing of five Palestinians and injuries to around 350 others. More than 300 Palestinian families — nearly 1,700 people — were also displaced from their homes.
The report adds that the upward trend has continued, noting that the number of attacks in 2025 has “exceeded 1,770 incidents”, surpassing the peak recorded the previous year.
Why Trump’s ‘Board Of Peace’ Is Destined To Crash And Burn
By Robert Inlakesh – The Palestine Chronicle – January 21, 2026
The recent announcement of US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” (BoP) has stirred intense debate over what Phase 2 of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like. In reality, figuring this out is rather simple: it is a mission destined to crash and burn, similar to how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and the Floating Aid Pier did.
Proponents of the Trump administration’s BoP have little to show other than fancy rhetoric, churned out unironically, due to their lack of any basic understanding of Gaza’s predicament.
The Board Of Zionist Failure
As of the White House press briefing issued on January 16, the so-called Board of Peace was initiated with seven appointed members to its “Executive Board.” None of them is Palestinian, let alone from Gaza, and none possesses even the slightest credibility in dealing with such a sensitive and arduous task.
They include Trump administration officials Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Robert Gabriel, and the demonstrably incompetent son-in-law of the US President, Jared Kushner. Then there is former British Prime Minister—the butcher of Baghdad himself—Tony Blair. That leaves pro-Israel billionaire Marc Rowan and World Bank Group President Ajay Banga.
However, the individual granted the most consequential role, the High Representative for Gaza, is none other than Nickolay Mladenov. While serving as a United Nations envoy to the Middle East, he developed a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also earned the favour of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and was awarded the ‘Grand Star of the Order of Jerusalem’ by its President, Mahmoud Abbas.
Mladenov is presented as a man who maintains relations with all sides, yet those citing his ties to the PA as evidence of this are doing so disingenuously. Setting aside questions of the PA’s legitimacy, it has not ruled Gaza since 2006. As such, his relationship is not with the governing authorities of the besieged territory.
In addition, Mladenov left his UN post to become director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. He not only resides in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but also serves as a Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).
His affiliation with WINEP should raise major red flags. The institute is often referred to as the think-tank wing of the Israel Lobby in Washington and, according to the Quincy Institute’s ‘Think Tank Funding Tracker,’ is funded by dark money. Mladenov is also a passionate supporter of the Trump administration’s so-called “Abraham Accords,” an initiative aimed at pushing Arab states to abandon the demand for a Palestinian state before normalizing relations with Tel Aviv.
While there is much more to be said about the so-called BoP, it suffices to note that it is a pro-Israel endeavour—one that reportedly demands a $1 billion sign-up fee for participating nations, as though it were a subscription service, a kind of Netflix for states.
The mere existence of the BoP constitutes a clear violation of international law and even contradicts the US’s own newly adopted National Security Strategy doctrine. None of this would have been possible, however, without the utter cowardice of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members back in November.
UNSC Resolution 2803 authorized this colonial throwback board—an unelected, illegitimate authority imposed upon Gaza—while effectively rewarding Israel for committing genocide. Every state that voted in favor is complicit, with no exceptions. The resolution erased decades of UNSC and UN General Assembly resolutions, undermined the Geneva Conventions, and authorized a plan that violates rulings issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s own legal body.
Why It Will Fail
As for what the BoP is actually meant to do, meaningful analysis is nearly impossible at this stage. It has no clear vision—only a pro-Israeli orientation. The BoP is a cash grab, trafficking in vague concepts such as “peace,” “accountability,” and “reconstruction,” while offering no substance. Its continued existence rests largely on the unwillingness of states to challenge it, out of fear of the occupant of the White House.
What is clear is that this project has no viable options. Already, the Israeli government has begun objecting to it, as members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet openly call for the permanent occupation of the Gaza Strip to facilitate illegal settlement construction. Netanyahu himself is demanding the return of the body of Israel’s last captive and the disarmament of Hamas—both demands that remain unresolved.
Under only one condition are Israeli leaders prepared to consider extending the ceasefire into Phase 2: the violent overthrow of Hamas through “disarmament.” In a Monday address to the Knesset, Netanyahu echoed Trump’s threat—“we do it the easy way or the hard way”—in reference to demilitarisation.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Israel has killed nearly 500 Palestinians since the so-called ceasefire began. It has also refused to halt attacks on civilian infrastructure and violated the “Yellow Line” meant to separate the 53 percent of Gaza under occupation, instead seizing roughly 60 percent of the territory.
These ceasefire violations—including the restriction of agreed-upon aid flows—have been monitored by the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), led by the United States and involving more than 20 national militaries.
The CMCC does not engage in combat; it merely monitors violations—a mission it has clearly failed. It has made little to no tangible difference, aside from rendering the US military directly complicit in facilitating Israeli war crimes.
For the BoP to coordinate an “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) tasked with disarming Hamas, it would require not tens of thousands of troops, but hundreds of thousands. Alternatively, as suggested by Israeli and American officials and private military contractor UG Solutions, private mercenary forces could be deployed to compensate for an incoherent and vastly outnumbered ISF.
Compounding this is the existence of five Israeli-created ISIS-linked militias operating in Gaza, reportedly backed by the UAE, which may be used as cannon fodder in such a conflict.
Israeli officials themselves previously estimated that occupying Gaza City alone would require approximately 200,000 soldiers and could take up to a decade, simply to replicate a West Bank-style occupation. How, then, are tens of thousands expected to succeed where Israel could not?
If the ISF, under the direction of the BoP’s Zionist loyalists, truly wages war on Hamas, it would likely collapse—and in doing so, confirm that the so-called international community has chosen to resume Israel’s genocidal campaign. The proposition borders on madness.
Either Trump’s “peace plan” will be subordinated entirely to Israeli dictates, or it will be blocked altogether—leaving regime change in Gaza and foreign occupation as its core objectives. Phase 2 was supposed to begin months ago, yet it remains stalled because no one is willing to confront the current ultra-Zionist American administration.
On October 8, even before the ceasefire was announced, I wrote in The Palestine Chronicle that what lay ahead was a prolonged limbo between Phases 1 and 2. I warned it would amount to little more than a glorified pause—one Israel would violate whenever it suited its interests. Thus far, that prediction has proven accurate.
A BoP may well be assembled, and an ISF may even be deployed, but it will neither deliver sustainability nor realize the fantastical visions being proposed. Eventually, something will break—and this prolonged stalling, misleadingly labelled a “ceasefire,” is likely to backfire catastrophically.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
‘Board of Peace’ resembles a club that turns the world into the ‘law of the jungle’
By Li Zixin | Global Times | January 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose 200 percent tariffs on French wines and champagne after French President Emmanuel Macron was reported to be unwilling to join his “Board of Peace” on Gaza, according to media reports.
The so-called Board of Peace is part of a “20-point peace plan” proposed by the US to end the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. According to the draft charter of this board, it will be chaired by Trump. Membership would be by invitation from the chairman, who would hold key authority over terms, renewals and removals. What shocked the international community even more was that the US plan openly priced the board’s “permanent seats” at $1 billion each. This act of “privatizing” international affairs and “commodifying” regional peace not only disregards the will of the Palestinian people but also poses a huge challenge to the existing international governance system and norms of conduct.
The current Israel-Palestine conflict has lasted nearly 30 months, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to worsen. The White House’s push to form a “Board of Peace” is primarily aimed at demonstrating US influence over the situation in Gaza. However, this institution, which should be responsible for peace in Gaza, is a typical product of “transactional diplomacy.” The nomination list is filled with US politicians and their cronies, but conspicuously absent is the most critical stakeholder – the Palestinians. This “absence” has drawn widespread criticism from the international community, with some even suggesting it reveals the institution’s “colonial” nature – attempting to privately outline Gaza’s future without the consent of the Palestinian people.
Even more shocking is the White House’s explicit offer of a “permanent seat” for $1 billion. This move reduces the solemn cause of international peace to a game of money. Gaza’s future should not be a commodity to be bought; under the influence of capital and hegemonic will, it will find it difficult to achieve true peace.
Judging from the proposed charter of the “Board of Peace,” this mechanism is unlikely to resolve the current crisis and may even poison the political landscape of the Middle East. First, it has not prioritized the imminent humanitarian crisis in Gaza, instead focusing more on the capital operations of postwar reconstruction.
Second, this board seriously hinders a comprehensive and just solution to the Palestine-Israel issue. The US-led Gaza peace plan not only eliminates the political role of the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza but also establishes a so-called Board of Peace controlled by external forces above the Palestinian technocratic committee. In essence, this replaces sovereign governance with external intervention, undermining the political foundation of the “two-state solution.” The US thereby deprives Palestinians of their fundamental right as a state to handle their own affairs, effectively further dividing the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and making a just and lasting peace even more unattainable.
Third, this move has severely impacted the global governance system. The current Gaza crisis is a brutal illustration of the disorderly state where “might makes right.” If peace seats can be bought and major powers can arbitrarily establish their own systems outside the existing international order, the fairness of the postwar international order will be undermined. This “club governance” model reduces international law to a private contract among major powers, forcing the world back into the law of the jungle.
To truly resolve the Israel-Palestine issue, we must return to the international order of fairness and justice. Any arrangements regarding the postwar governance of Gaza must be discussed within the framework of the UN and must fully respect the fundamental principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine.” Genuine peace should be built on the basis of the “two-state solution” and the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, not on a “small group” privately established by a hegemonic power. The international community should be wary of the dangerous tendency to place geopolitical games above international law and ensure that the reconstruction of Gaza is the reconstruction of justice, not an expansion of hegemony.
The author is a research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
After the headlines fade: Gaza, abandoned while the genocide persists
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 21, 2026
A colleague, an editor at a widely read outlet that centered Gaza throughout the two-year genocide, recently voiced his frustration that Gaza is no longer a main focus in the news.
He hardly needed to say it. It is evident that Gaza has already been pushed to the margins of coverage — not only by mainstream Western media, long known for its structural bias in Israel’s favor, but also by outlets often described, accurately or not, as ‘pro-Palestine.’
At first glance, this retreat may appear routine. Gaza during the height of the genocide demanded constant attention; Gaza after the genocide, less so.
But this assumption collapses under scrutiny, because the genocide in Gaza has not ended.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the so-called ceasefire was declared in October 2025, despite repeated claims that large-scale massacres had ceased. These are not isolated incidents or “violations”; they are the continuation of the same lethal policies of the last two years.
Beyond the daily death toll lies devastation on an almost incomprehensible scale. More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with entire neighborhoods erased, infrastructure pulverized, and civilian life rendered nearly impossible.
To grasp the depth of Gaza’s crisis, one must confront a brutal reality: well over one million people remain displaced, living in tents and makeshift shelters that collapse under winter storms, floodwaters, or strong winds. Infants have frozen to death. Families are swept from one temporary refuge to another, trapped in a cycle of exposure and fear.
Beneath Gaza’s ruins lie thousands of bodies still buried under rubble, unreachable due to Israel’s destruction of heavy machinery, roads, and emergency services. Thousands more are believed to be buried in mass graves awaiting excavation and dignified burial.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain scattered in areas east of the so-called Yellow Line, a boundary claimed to separate military zones from Palestinian “safe areas.” Israel never respected this line. It was a fiction from the start, used to manufacture the appearance of restraint while violence continued everywhere.
From Israel’s perspective, the war has never truly stopped. Only Palestinians are expected to honor the ceasefire — compelled by fear that any response, however minimal, will be seized upon as justification for renewed mass killing, fully endorsed by the US administration and its Western allies.
The killing has merely slowed down. On 15th January alone, Israeli attacks killed 16 Palestinians, including women and children, across Gaza, despite the absence of any military confrontation. Yet as long as daily death tolls remain below the psychological threshold of mass slaughter — below 100 bodies a day — Gaza quietly slips from the headlines.
Today, more than two million Palestinians are confined to roughly 45 percent of Gaza’s already tiny 365 square kilometers, with only trickles of aid entering, no reliable access to clean water, and a health system barely functioning. Gaza’s economy is effectively annihilated. Even fishermen are either blocked entirely from the sea or restricted to less than one kilometer offshore, turning a centuries-old livelihood into a daily risk of death.
Education has been reduced to survival. Children study in tents or in partially destroyed buildings, as nearly every school and university in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Nor has Israel abandoned the rhetoric that laid the ideological groundwork for genocide. Senior Israeli officials continue to articulate visions of permanent devastation and ethnic cleansing — language that strips Palestinians of humanity while framing destruction as policy, a strategic necessity.
But why is Israel determined to keep Gaza suspended at the edge of collapse? Why does it obstruct stabilization and delay movement to the second phase of the ceasefire agreement?
The answer is blunt: Israel seeks to preserve the option of ethnic cleansing. Senior officials have openly advocated permanent occupation, demographic engineering, and the denial of Palestinian return to their destroyed areas east of the Yellow Line.
And the media?
For its part, Western media have begun rehabilitating Israel’s image, reinserting it into global narratives as if collective extermination never occurred. More troubling still, even parts of the so-called ‘pro-Palestine’ media appear to be moving on — as though genocide were a temporary assignment, rather than an ongoing moral emergency.
One might attempt to justify this neglect by pointing to crises elsewhere — Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Greenland. But that argument collapses unless Gaza has truly emerged from catastrophe, though it has not.
Israel has succeeded, to a dangerous degree, in systematically dehumanizing Palestinians through mass killing. Once violence reaches genocidal proportions, lesser — yet still deadly — violence becomes normalized. The slow death of survivors becomes background noise.
This is how Palestinians are killed twice: first through genocide, and then through erasure — through silence, distraction, and the gradual withdrawal of attention from their ongoing collective suffering.
Palestine and its people must remain at the center of moral and political solidarity. This is not an act of charity, nor an expression of ideological alignment. It is the bare minimum owed to a population the world has already failed — and continues to fail — every single day.
Silence now is not neutrality; it is complicity.
Introducing Mossad Farsi, the Motto and the Methods
By Ilana Mercer • Unz Review • January 21, 2026
I’ll stifle the impulse not to say the obvious, and say it: An Israeli-American regime-change operation is underway in Iran.
It’s “right out of the US-Israel playbook” for such operations, notes Professor John Merisheimer, a scrupulous scholar of “great-power politics,” or, more precisely, of naked imperial power.
First, the US “wrecked the country’s economy through crippling sanctions, making the populace profoundly unhappy, poor, desperate, hungry.” Next, cheek-by-jowl with Israel, massive protests were fomented, confirmation for which came in a December 29, Jerusalem Post article, the headline to which read as follows:
“Mossad spurs Iran protests, say agents with [the] demonstrators, in [a] Farsi message: As protests grow across Iran, the Mossad posted an unusual Farsi message urging demonstrators to act, saying it is with them in the streets, amid rising economic pressure and public unrest.”
To Israel, the United States of America offers service and subservience.
Thus, comments from Trump on Truth Social and Mike Pompeo, more openly, backed the fact of an orchestrated, malevolent intervention, in what were initially organic, peaceful protests that stemmed from ruthless economic warfare (American) against the Islamic Republic.
Duly, on January 2, 2026, Pompeo, former U.S. Secretary of state and CIA director, wrote: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”
As reported by the Times of Israel, on January 16, “Channel 14, seen as close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” initially said that “‘foreign actors’ are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.” A little later, a typically oleaginous Israeli source quipped: “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.”
We’ve sensed as much. The Iranian January 2026 protesters are acting out-of-character. More like Israelis than ordinary Iranians. These protesters appear thoroughly Israelized—it is certainly unusual historically for the generally demure, respectful Iranians to burn down and desecrate their own holy sites; acts that conform, however, to the rules and customs of Israeli “transnational terrorism.”
Historically, Iranians in protest have targeted government symbols, but not national and religious symbols.
And, Lo: These Iranian protesters had enjoyed access to 40,000 StarLink terminals, a news tidbit confirmed by the Times of Israel and Fox News, in bursts of good cheer and cheerleading. The “live” firearms provided were in keeping with Israel’s terror-state tactics. Recall that, in June of 2025, in connivance with the CIA, Mossad, MI5 and Trump—Israelis had smuggled needed materiel into Iran for their war of aggression. Trump had done his part in the subterfuge by pursuing “diplomacy-as-deception” with his trusting Iranian interlocutors, thus distracting and deceiving them.
The third stage in the “US-Israel Axis’” “four-part regime change playbook,” avers Mearsheimer, is the disinformation campaign.
Before their respective, well-coordinated air forces and armies alight on their Iranian victims in targeted attacks and assassinations—the “transnational terrorists” of the “US-Israel Axis” have a trifling task: Convince the most-propagandized minds in the world, Westerners, that this grotesque burlesque of a regime-change farce is a naturally occurring thing.
In other words, that America’s color-coded, plant-based “democratic” revolutions, you know the kind—“Purple” in Iraq, “Blue” in Kuwait, “Cotton” in Uzbekistan, “Grape” in Moldova, “Orange” in the Ukraine, “Rose” in Georgia, “Tulip” in Kyrgyzstan, “Cedar” in Lebanon, “Jasmine” in Tunisia, “Green” in Iran, still un-christened in Russia and Syria—these are but natural uprisings, led by noble patriots, who just happen, all-too frequently, to be aligned with and sponsored by Foreign Policy Inc., the clubby DC foreign-policy establishment and its Israeli offshoots and operatives.
Mearsheimer appears to imply that the stages of regime change are consecutive, or sequential. I would argue that, as in all formulaic stage theories—the stages of regime change overlap, run into each other, reoccur and repeat. To wit, Iran has and will continue to endure this devilry for decades.
Over and above regime change, Israel, by Mearsheimer’s careful estimation, has a “deep-seated interest” in “wrecking Iran,” in breaking the Islamic Republic apart, and fracturing the surrounding nations.
“At bottom,” I posited during the 12-day war on Iran, “If Israel wanted to enjoy its neighborhood; it would not perennially reduce it to a primordial, pre-civilization stage, as in Gaza, by wiping out knowledge, experience, strength; smarts, beauty and goodness. … These Israeli atavists—who during the 2025 offensive in Iran murdered nearly 900 Palestinians in Gaza—don’t want educated, erudite neighbors; equals with whom to make magic in the region; they want subjects they can sanction and slaughter into submission.”(“IRAN: Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid Of The Israel Lobby To Ask,” July 1, 2025.”)
I should revise that: According to the twinned belief-systems of Jewish supremacy and American exceptionalism; all ‘good,’ ‘happy’ human beings are either those who are like Americans or like Israelis, or en route to becoming clones of the one or the other.
Those involved in these foreign-policy drives honestly believe that to be American or Israeli is the existential Gold Standard. Lowly humanity is a pilgrim en route to the Promised Land, whether they know it or not —sometimes by hook or crook. Ultimately, the lives of all the Others being roused to revolt are just not worth much until they “arrive.”
As to their deep involvement in inciting regime-change riots in Iran: News tidbits to that effect have come to us directly via the Israelis themselves.
By now you know that Israel is “amoral,” it acts outside the laws of both man and God. By now you know that bursts of pride accompany Israeli barbarity. As is often the case, Israelis and their media openly report their crimes. And they are especially proud to be inciting regime-change in Iran. On the ground.
Take the X account titled “Mossad Farsi.” So nauseatingly audacious in content is it, that I doubted its authenticity.
In sickeningly sugared tweets, “Official Mossad in Farsi” and its bots (the programmed, online Artificial Intelligence responders or Israel’s paid lickspittles) profess the love Israelis have for the largely pro-Palestinian Iranians.
These are the same Israelis, still mid-murder in Gaza and the West bank, who were posting and celebrating imagery of murdered Palestinians with the flesh hanging on their bones in ribbons. That amoral Israel is now “loving on” the Iranians, a people who have generally resisted for Palestine.
Filled with love, “Mossad Farsi” has been loud and proud about its role in attempting to break the Islamic Republic. Here is the Mossad Farsi tweet that got world attention. Dated December 29, it reads as follows: “Let’s come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally, we are with you in the field as well.”
Speaking in unison, Israeli media—Channel 14, i24, Israel Hayom, and others, no doubt—confirmed the authenticity and impetus of this account. In identically scripted messages, all outlets announced that a “Mossad X account in Farsi urges Iranians to protest as unrest sweeps the country.”
The criminal Svengali Bibi tips the nose toward Iran (allegedly), in a December 29 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump runs. “Fetch,” says Netanyahu to a pack of dreadful American curs, and they fetch. (Apologies, again, to animals for using them as the source of metaphor for things stupid and evil. It’s a regrettable feature of the English language.)
What might I add to the information provided by Mearsheimer (and reported by Max Blumenthal) in hashing out the finer points of the Israeli scheme? I can provide a translation from the Hebrew of the motto embedded by Mossad Farsi in its X account’s graphic. It reads as follows:
“Without connivance [as in scheming], a nation will fall”:
באין תחבולות יפול עם
Mossad Farsi’s motto is The Message. Israel’s message.
Regime Change In Iran Is The Final Phase Of The ‘Clean Break’ Strategy
The Dissident | January 21, 2026
Lindsey Graham, the Neo-con Republican Senator, at the Zionist Tzedek conference, gave the real reason for America’s policy of regime change in Iran, namely to isolate the Palestinians in the Middle East and pave the way for Israeli domination.
Graham, referring to regime change in Iran said, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, Lindsey Graham and the U.S. believe that regime change in Iran would lead to the collapse of Palestinian resistance and allied groups Hezbollah and Ansar Allah and lead Middle Eastern powers to normalize with Israel without any concessions to Palestinians, thus paving the way for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, and further expansion into Syria and Lebanon in service of the Greater Israel project.
This motive is not only driving the desire for regime change in Iran, but has been the main motive for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11, not fighting a “war on terror”.
In 1996, key figures who ended up in high level positions in the Bush administration, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, who were at the time advising the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu, sent him a letter titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, which called on him to make a “clean break” from peace talks with Palestinians and instead focus on isolating them in the region, first a for-most by, “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
Netanyahu kept to his word and made his “Clean Break” from the Oslo Accords during his first term as Prime Minister, later boasting:
how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. ‘They didn’t want to give me that letter,’ Netanyahu said, ‘so I didn’t give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”
Soon after, the authors of the clean break document became key advisors on the Middle East in the George W. Bush administration.
After 9/11, they used the attack to carry out the “important Israeli strategic objective” of “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”, who was seen as too sympathetic to Palestinians.
As David Wurmser, one of the authors of the clean break document and the Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, later admitted , “In terms of Israel, we wanted Yasser Arafat not to have the cavalry over the horizon in terms of Saddam”.
George W. Bush aide, Philip Zelikow said , “the real threat (from Iraq) (is) the threat against Israel”, “this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat”, “the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell”.
But for Israel and the Bush administration, the war in Iraq was just the first phase of the “clean break strategy”, to take out all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.
As the U.S. General Wesley Clark revealed the clean break went from a plan to take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq to a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”. (Emphasis added)
As Clark later explained on the Piers Morgan show, the list came from a study which was “paid for by the Israelis” and said, “if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding”.
With every other country on the hit list either weakened (Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan) or taken out (Iraq, Libya, Syria) from the ensuing years of U.S. and Israeli intervention, Neo-cons and Zionists see Iran as the last bulwark in the way of carrying out the Clean Break plan.
Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’: The illusion of transition and the reality of control
Washington claims the war has entered a ‘second phase,’ but conditions in Gaza show no power shift, no end to violence, and no real sovereignty
By Mohammad al-Ayoubi | The Cradle | January 20, 2026
The announcement arrived wrapped in the familiar choreography of diplomacy. Carefully chosen language, optimistic briefings, and reassurances that the war on Gaza had reached a new stage, one that would ease suffering and open the door to political reordering.
According to Washington, “phase two” of the ceasefire agreement had begun, signaling a move away from annihilation toward stability, governance, and transition.
In Gaza, the reality was less abstract. Israeli drones continued to hover above neighborhoods already reduced to rubble, Rafah remained sealed, bodies still arrived at hospitals, and Israeli forces showed no sign of withdrawal.
Aid trickled in sporadically, reconstruction remained a distant promise, and the daily mechanics of siege carried on uninterrupted. Nothing that defines a genuine shift in conditions or authority had materially changed, except the vocabulary used to describe it.
The question raised by the US announcement is therefore not whether ‘phase two’ has begun, but whether it was ever intended to exist as anything more than a political abstraction.
Is this a real transition in the trajectory of the war, or another exercise in linguistic repackaging meant to stabilize Israel’s position without addressing the foundations of the conflict itself?
The historical record leaves little room for doubt. US involvement in Palestine has consistently revolved around managing the scale and visibility of violence, calibrating its intensity in ways that safeguard Israel’s strategic dominance while containing diplomatic fallout.
Read in this context, ‘phase two’ emerges as a political device rather than a substantive shift. It is a framework meant to absorb the aftermath of mass destruction, shield Israel from international isolation, and reorder Palestinian life under post-war conditions, all while leaving untouched the structures that made the war inevitable.
A declaration without enforcement
Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a Palestinian writer and political analyst close to Hamas, tells The Cradle that Washington’s announcement amounts to nothing more than “a political position rather than a genuine transition on the ground,” especially given Israel’s failure to comply even with the terms of the first phase.
Israeli forces continue to expand what Palestinians refer to as the ‘Yellow Line,’ a militarized buffer zone that now consumes much of Gaza’s territory. Rafah remains closed, essential goods are blocked, targeted killings continue, and no meaningful reconstruction effort has begun. The conditions that defined the war before the ceasefire remain largely intact beneath a layer of diplomatic messaging.
Hazem Qassem, Hamas’s official spokesperson, echoes this assessment, acknowledging that while the announcement appears positive in form, “what has happened so far is a media declaration that requires concrete steps on the ground.” He emphasizes that Israel has failed to meet even the benchmarks of phase one, making any talk of a second phase more aspirational than real.
In the logic of international relations, a political declaration without enforcement mechanisms is no declaration at all. The US, which possesses full capacity to pressure Israel, has once again chosen the role of “biased mediator” – or more accurately, a partner in re-engineering the war through less crude means.
Netanyahu’s moment of clarity
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement describing the move to the second phase of the Gaza agreement as “largely symbolic” cannot be read as a marginal opinion or personal estimate.
It is an official Israeli definition of the function of this phase. When Netanyahu makes such a statement immediately after Washington’s announcement, and in front of the families of captives, he makes it clear that Tel Aviv does not treat ‘phase two’ as a binding executive path, but as political and media cover, allowing it to manage time and pressure without offering substantive concessions.
More revealing still was Netanyahu’s dismissal of the proposed Palestinian governing committee as symbolic as well. The implication was unmistakable. Israel does not recognize any Palestinian administration, even one stripped of factional power and framed as technocratic, as a sovereign actor. At best, such bodies are temporary facades. At worst, they are obstacles to be bypassed or neutralized.
This position directly undermines Washington’s narrative of “phased transition.” Israel is not preparing to withdraw, hand over authority, or allow meaningful Palestinian governance to take root.
Instead, it is preserving the outer shell of an agreement while hollowing out its content, a strategy refined through decades of negotiations that maintained form while denying substance.
Seen in this light, the US announcement functions as crisis management rather than conflict resolution, while the Israeli response amounts to an admission that there is no intention to leave Gaza, empower Palestinians, or commit to a political timetable.
‘Phase two’ is designed to freeze escalation and manage fallout, not to dismantle the structures that made the war inevitable.
A first phase that never materialized
From the perspective of Palestinian factions, the premise of phase two is flawed because phase one never truly existed in practice.
Israel did not withdraw from the ‘Yellow Line,’ which now covers roughly 60 percent of Gaza’s land. It did not open the crossings, halt its killing campaign, or allow unrestricted aid. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 460 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was announced, alongside over 1,100 violations, according to Hamas, including assassinations and incursions that continued even as the agreement was being celebrated diplomatically.
These figures alone dismantle the notion of transition.
Speaking to The Cradle, Mahfouz Manwar, a senior figure in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), argues “talk of a second phase is premature so long as Israel has not been compelled to implement the first phase.”
What exists, he says, is an agreement that survives on paper but has collapsed on the ground, with the concept of ‘phases’ repurposed as a mechanism to legitimize continued occupation at a reduced political cost.
What a real transition would require
If ‘phase two’ had genuinely begun, its indicators would be unmistakable. Israeli forces would withdraw from occupied areas, Rafah would open fully and without political conditions, targeted killings would cease, and reconstruction materials would begin entering Gaza at scale.
None of this has occurred.
Instead, Israel continues to use Rafah as a tool of pressure, blocking any Palestinian sovereign presence, even in its most symbolic form. Authority remains firmly in Israeli hands, reshaped through security arrangements that leave the underlying power balance intact. ‘Phase two,’ as it currently stands, operates as a managed delay rather than a move toward implementation.
At the center of the ‘phase two’ narrative lies the proposal for a transitional Palestinian administration in Gaza, a question that should not be treated as a bureaucratic detail but as a core indicator of whether any real shift is underway.
According to Madhoun and Qassem, Hamas approached the administrative committee as a Palestinian necessity rather than a concession to external pressure. The movement facilitated its formation, they argue, in order to ease humanitarian suffering and remove the pretexts used to justify continued war.
The principle of such a committee was agreed upon more than a year ago with Egyptian mediation, and clear criteria were established, including local representation from Gaza, independence from the occupation, and professional rather than factional qualifications. Disagreements over specific names did arise, as Madhoun acknowledges, but some were resolved through revisions while others remain under discussion, a dynamic that Manwar describes as natural within a fragmented national context.
What is striking, however, is the absence of Fatah from the Cairo talks, reflecting a deeper structural crisis in the Palestinian political system, where authority is fragmented and accountability diffuse. The more pressing question is not whether consensus exists, but whether Israel will permit any Palestinian body to function with real authority. Thus far, the answer has been unequivocally negative.
Administration without sovereignty
The proposed committee, reportedly headed by a former deputy planning minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), Ali Shaath, and composed of roughly 14 professionals from Gaza, has been presented as a step toward Palestinian self-administration. In reality, the environment in which it is expected to operate exposes the limits of that claim.
The backgrounds of its members have reportedly been vetted by the US, Israel, and Egypt, while its authority is tied to international oversight structures, and its freedom of movement remains subject to Israeli approval. This produces a familiar paradox: a Palestinian body tasked with administering a territory over which it exercises no control.
There is no authority over borders, airspace, or crossings, and not even autonomy over the movement of its own personnel. What emerges is not governance in any meaningful sense, but service provision under occupation, a structure designed to manage humanitarian fallout without possessing the political tools to address its causes.
Decision-making power remains external, particularly through international mechanisms overseeing reconstruction funding, reproducing a well-worn model in which local administrators operate beneath an internationalized center of control.
Hamas and the politics of withdrawal
One of the most consequential developments in this phase is Hamas’s declaration that it is prepared to relinquish administrative control of Gaza without exiting the national struggle. According to the movement’s leadership, this reflects a genuine effort to facilitate relief rather than a tactical maneuver.
By stepping back from civil governance, Hamas removes the primary Israeli-American justification for continued war. If the movement is no longer administering Gaza, the argument that military operations are necessary to dismantle its rule loses coherence. Yet history suggests that governance was never the real issue, and that Palestinian existence itself has always been treated as the fundamental problem.
Weapons and coercion
The attempt to link reconstruction to disarmament is widely viewed by Palestinian factions as a form of political blackmail. Both Hamas and PIJ reject the premise outright, arguing that it seeks to impose politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily.
Qassem states that Hamas is open to regulating weapons within a national framework, but not to surrendering them. Manwar highlights the contradiction at the heart of Israeli claims: if Israel insists it has already destroyed the resistance’s military capabilities, why does disarmament remain a central demand?
The answer lies not in security, but in symbolism. Weapons in Gaza are not merely arms, but markers of agency, and stripping them away would transform the territory from a space of resistance into one managed externally through security arrangements.
A ceasefire without an endpoint
There is little evidence that ‘phase two’ leads toward a permanent end to the war. What exists instead is a fragile pause, vulnerable to collapse, in which phases are used to reposition rather than resolve.
In its current form, ‘phase two’ risks becoming a form of undeclared trusteeship, a humanitarian administration without sovereignty, or a gradual erosion of resistance under sustained pressure.
None of these outcomes constitutes peace.
Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, and the US are presented as guarantors of the agreement, yet even American officials concede that there has been no progress on an International Stabilization Force (ISF) and that reopening Rafah ultimately remains an Israeli decision.
This admission captures the essence of the crisis. A second phase cannot succeed so long as Israel retains veto power over every operational detail. Only sustained pressure, not diplomatic optimism, can convert an agreement from text into lived reality.
What is unfolding in Gaza points away from any genuine transition toward peace and toward a reshaping of control under new terms. ‘Phase two’ has evolved into a test of Palestinian factions, regional mediators, and the credibility of international guarantees alike.
It will either open the way to an unconditional end to the war and meaningful reconstruction, or take its place among the many agreements reduced to form without substance.
Gaza, which endured annihilation without surrender, will not be subdued by administrative committees or phased rhetoric. The struggle has expanded beyond territory and military confrontation. It is now a battle over who defines politics, who controls humanitarianism, and who ultimately holds the right to decide.
UNRWA under attack: Ben-Gvir directs demolition in al-Quds
Al Mayadeen | January 20, 2026
Israeli occupation authorities bulldozed buildings inside the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in eastern occupied al-Quds, as “Israel” intensifies restrictions on humanitarian organizations providing aid to Palestinians.
Local sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli troops, accompanied by bulldozers, stormed the UNRWA compound after sealing off surrounding streets and increasing their military presence. The forces then demolished structures inside the compound.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas at a Palestinian trade school, marking a second incident targeting a UN facility in the same area.
Israeli officials present during the demolition
“Israel” has repeatedly accused UNRWA of pro-Palestine bias and alleged links to Hamas, without providing evidence, claims the agency has strongly denied.
“Israel’s” Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demolition was carried out under a new “law” banning the organization.
Extremist Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he accompanied crews to the headquarters, calling the demolition a “historic day”.
On his part, Israeli-imposed deputy mayor of occupied al-Quds Aryeh King referred to UNRWA as “Nazi” in a post on X.
“I promised that we would kick the Nazi enemy out of Jerusalem,” he wrote. “Now it’s happening: UNRWA is being kicked out of Jerusalem!”
UNRWA denounces ‘open defiance of international law’
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini described the demolition as an “unprecedented attack” and “a new level of open & deliberate defiance of international law.”
“Like all UN Member States & countries committed to the international rule-based order, Israel is obliged to protect & respect the inviolability of UN premises,” he wrote in a post on X.
He added that similar measures could soon target other international organizations.
“There can be no exceptions. This must be a wake-up call,” Lazzarini stressed. “What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission.”
UN demands immediate cessation of demolitions
On his part, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned “in the strongest terms” the Israeli occupation forces’ demolition of the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah compound, spokesperson Farhan Haq said during a news conference.
Citing the inviolability and immunity of UN premises, Haq said, “The Secretary-General views as wholly unacceptable the continued escalatory actions against UNRWA, which are inconsistent with Israel’s clear obligations under international law, including under the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.”
“The Secretary-General urges the Government of Israel to immediately cease the demolition of the UNRWA Sheikh Jarrah compound, and to return and restore the compound and other UNRWA premises to the United Nations without delay,” he added.
Aid groups face widespread restrictions
The move comes amid international condemnation following “Israel’s” ban on dozens of international aid organizations providing life-saving assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
“Israel” has lately revoked the operating licences of 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council, citing non-compliance with new government regulations.
Under the new rules, international NGOs working in Gaza and the occupied West Bank must provide detailed information on staff members, funding sources, and operational activities.
Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel” could face proceedings at the International Court of Justice if it does not repeal laws targeting UNRWA and return seized assets.
In a January 8 letter, Guterres said the UN could not remain indifferent to “actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”
Laws targeting UNRWA expanded
“Israel’s” parliament passed legislation in October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating in “Israel” and prohibiting Israeli officials from engaging with the agency. The law was amended last month to ban electricity and water supplies to UNRWA facilities.
Israeli authorities also occupied UNRWA’s offices in eastern occupied al-Quds last month.
UNRWA was established more than 70 years ago by the UN General Assembly to provide assistance to Palestinians forcibly displaced from their land.
Truth as first casualty: Deconstructing disinformation campaign on Iran riots death toll
By Yousef Ramazani | Press TV | January 19, 2026
Amid the foreign-instigated riots and terrorism that struck Iran in recent weeks, a parallel narrative war also unfolded, centered on the deliberate propagation of wildly inflated and unverifiable casualty figures.
These figures were designed to manufacture global outrage and legitimize calls for American military intervention and yet another aggression against the Islamic Republic.
The discourse surrounding riot-related casualties in the past few weeks has been fundamentally shaped by a coordinated disinformation campaign originating from US-funded organizations operating entirely outside Iran. Central to this campaign was the circulation of sensational death tolls that bore little resemblance to verifiable facts on the ground.
The figure of 12,000 deaths was initially promoted by the New York–based Center for Human Rights in Iran, an organization financially linked to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US Congress–funded entity with a well-documented history of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.
This claim was presented without transparent methodology, primary data, or independent verification, raising eyebrows both inside and outside the country.
Despite this lack of evidence, the narrative was uncritically amplified by major Western media outlets and online influencers, creating a pervasive – but demonstrably false – impression of mass violence. Iranian officials consistently rejected these claims, presenting forensic evidence of manipulated datasets and instead reporting a death toll in the hundreds, the majority of whom were security personnel and civilians killed by armed rioters with foreign backing.
The subsequent escalation of these figures to even more implausible numbers – such as claims of 52,000 dead – underscores the persistence of a hybrid warfare strategy aimed at demonizing Iran while obscuring or outright excusing the violence committed by its adversaries.
Genesis of a false narrative: Center for Human Rights in Iran and its backers
The primary source of the sensational 12,000-fatality claim was neither an Iranian authority nor a verifiable international body, but the Center for Human Rights in Iran, an organization headquartered in New York. Despite its name, the group operates entirely outside Iran and has no physical presence or investigative capacity within the country.
An examination of its leadership and funding reveals a clear political orientation inconsistent with impartial human rights monitoring. The chair of its board is Minky Worden, an American activist with a documented history of spearheading anti-China advocacy campaigns, including efforts to politicize the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Financially, the organization relies heavily on grants from the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C. The NED is a privately managed but publicly funded institution that receives annual allocations from the US Congress through the State Department budget.
Historians, observers, and former intelligence officials have long characterized the NED as a transparent successor to activities once conducted covertly by the Central Intelligence Agency, particularly the funding of political opposition groups and media outlets under the banner of “democracy promotion.”
The NED’s record includes extensive involvement in “regime-change” efforts across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and West Asia – regions that have consistently featured in American foreign policy campaigns.
Amplification network: From NED grantees to global headlines
The unfounded casualty figure did not remain confined to a single organization. It was rapidly injected into the global media bloodstream through a tightly networked ecosystem of interconnected groups.
Other NED-funded entities, including the Human Rights Activists News Agency and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, echoed and cross-cited the same unsubstantiated statistics.
Operating largely from the US, these organizations function within a closed loop of mutual citation, manufacturing the illusion of multiple independent confirmations.
This echo chamber was then leveraged by major Western media outlets, including BBC Persian, Voice of America, The Washington Post, and ABC News, which incorporated the figures into their reporting.
Typically, these outlets attributed the numbers vaguely to “human rights groups” or “activists,” effectively laundering the information and granting it a veneer of credibility without conducting any independent verification. This failure is particularly striking given the well-documented funding sources and political objectives of the originating organizations.
Crucially, much of this coverage omitted the context that these groups are financially and ideologically aligned with the very governments actively seeking to pressure, isolate, and destabilize the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iranian rebuttal and exposure of fabricated evidence
Iranian government officials and domestic media mounted a comprehensive, forensic rebuttal to the widespread disinformation campaign. The judiciary’s spokesperson and the head of the Supreme National Security Council categorically denounced the claim of 12,000 deaths as “psychological warfare” and a “complete fabrication.”
They publicly challenged the originators of the figure to provide a single verifiable name, death certificate, or precise locational detail to substantiate their alleged casualty lists, a challenge that was never answered.
Cyber units affiliated with Iranian media conducted technical analyses tracing the viral dissemination of the figures to known bot networks operating from locations in the United States, Israeli-occupied territories, and Albania.
Further investigations revealed that purported “martyr lists” were riddled with fraud: hundreds of duplicate entries, names of individuals who had died decades earlier during the Holy Defense war, and even names copied directly from public cemetery records in other countries.
The case of Saghar Etemadi became emblematic of the deception. Widely declared a “martyr” by external outlets, she was later confirmed by the Iranian judiciary and by her own family to be alive and receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained during a riot.
Iranian reports emphasized that the actual death toll, resulting from terrorist acts carried out by foreign-backed armed rioters, numbered in the hundreds. A significant proportion of the victims were police officers, Basij forces, and civilians deliberately targeted by violent saboteurs.
Escalation to absurdity and the weaponization of atrocity propaganda
The disinformation ecosystem demonstrated its capacity for rapid and unchecked escalation.
From the initial claim of 12,000 deaths, narratives soon proliferated across social media platforms and activist circles alleging 52,000 fatalities and more than 300,000 wounded.
These figures, divorced from any conceivable reality, serve a deliberate psychological and political function. They are designed to induce global emotional shock, overwhelm critical scrutiny, and portray the Iranian state as uniquely and exceptionally undemocratic
This narrative fulfills a dual geopolitical purpose, according to experts. First, it seeks to manufacture consent for foreign intervention, intensified sanctions, or diplomatic isolation by invoking a humanitarian pretext. Second, it functions as a tool of distraction and moral laundering.
By creating a false equivalence, or even attempting to eclipse, the documented casualties inflicted by the Israeli regime in Gaza, the campaign aims to redirect global outrage and obscure the horrendous crimes of Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s allies.
Influencers and online networks aligned with the Israeli regime aggressively promoted the fabricated Iranian casualty figures in an effort to undermine the global Palestine solidarity movement and digitally overwrite the extensive evidence of Israeli war crimes.
Underlying architecture: NED as a US “regime-change” instrument
The role of the National Endowment for Democracy is central to understanding the structural foundations of this disinformation campaign. Leaked documents and historical analyses reveal the NED as a key instrument of US foreign policy, operating as a conduit for government funds to support political movements aligned with American strategic interests abroad.
The organization was established following congressional scrutiny of CIA covert operations. One of its founders, Allen Weinstein, openly acknowledged that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
The NED’s activities extend far beyond Iran. It has been a principal funder and organizer of so-called “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and has been formally designated an “undesirable organization” by Russia for interference in domestic affairs. Its involvement in Hong Kong and Xinjiang has prompted sanctions from China.
In the Iranian context, the NED has for decades funded an array of exile media outlets, advocacy groups, and cultural figures, with the explicit aim of cultivating an alternative political leadership.
A leaked 2024 proposal revealed NED plans to funnel State Department resources into an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of US neoconservatives and selected exile figures, exposing the direct link between humanitarian narrative construction and overt regime-change ambitions.
A perennial pattern of narrative warfare
The manipulation of casualty figures during the 2025–2026 unrest is not an isolated episode, but part of a recurring tactic in the long-running hybrid war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The pattern is consistent and predictable: a US-funded NGO, operating safely from New York or Washington, releases an unverifiable and sensational claim. A network of affiliated organizations and social media assets amplifies it, after which mainstream Western media repackages it as credible reporting.
The objective is never truth, but the construction of a carefully engineered perceptual reality serving strategic interests. This reality is designed to demonize independent states, legitimize coercive policies, and erase or minimize the crimes of allied regimes.
The Iranian experience, from the myth of 12,000 deaths to the even more fantastical claim of 52,000, stands as a stark case study in the weaponization of information in the 21st century.
In this domain, the battlefield is not only the street, but global consciousness itself, and the most powerful weapons are often not missiles, but meticulously crafted falsehoods.
What a War on Iran Would Really Look Like — Beyond the Regime-Change Fantasy
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 19, 2026
While the corporate media and social media influencers run non-stop regime change propaganda, replete with unverified statistics, fabricated claims, and the denial of objective reality, it is important to cut through this and ask the more important question: What will a regime change war on Iran look like?
The following analysis must be first prefaced by stating that the unrelenting wave of regime change propaganda currently being disseminated with the implicit intent of manufacturing consent for war is, in essence, no different from the claims and rhetoric used over decades to justify various other wars of aggression.
Last year, Israel attacked Iran in a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter, and was later followed by the United States, which also participated in illegal aggression. Although it should be noted that using the metrics of International Law is at this stage redundant, as it has been rendered null and void by the US-Israeli alliance since October 7, 2023.
In the immediate aftermath of last June’s 12-Day-War, US-based pro-war think-tanks ranging from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) all the way to the Atlantic Council, all began scheming about what the next round should constitute and its intended outcomes. Meanwhile, on July 7, Axios News cited its sources claiming that Israel was already seeking a greenlight for a new attack and that it believed the US would grant it.
Fast forward to December 28, 2025, when peaceful protests erupted in Iran over government mismanagement of the worsening economic crisis, caused by Western economic sanctions. The very next day, December 29, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett posted a video talking about a mass anti-government uprising, which had not yet happened. His message was accompanied by countless old videos and AI-generated footage depicting such a rebellion.
As this was happening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting US President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where, according to several media reports, he was requesting an American attack on Iran and had received everything he had asked for. At the beginning of January 2026, violent elements suddenly emerged, and protests calling for the fall of the government began.
On January 8, 9, and 10, the situation dramatically escalated as Iran shut off the internet across the country. The footage revealed that the largest crowds participating in the riots and protests numbered only in the tens of thousands, yet numerous rioting groups emerged throughout the country.
The Western media and pro-Israeli social media influencers had by this time constructed their own narratives that deemed what was happening a “revolution” of “millions across Iran” and that peaceful protesters were being slaughtered for standing up for their freedom.
Without going into the fine details, it suffices to say that what we see portrayed in the corporate media about Iran is a reflection of a parallel universe. There is a total denial of any nuance, an inability to accept mass pro-government demonstrations that were bigger than the riots that occurred, a refusal to air the countless videos of armed militants on the streets and mass destruction caused by rioters.
Instead, Iran is an “evil regime” that is “slaughtering its own people” for absolutely no reason beyond that they are peacefully protesting for their freedom. There is also a particular focus on women’s rights when it comes to this propaganda. Even those who accept that over 160 members of the Iranian security forces were killed, including some who were beheaded and set on fire, still uphold that a peaceful revolution occurred. One that they all claimed would topple the government in days or weeks.
You need only look back over the past decades to see the same regime change scripts in action. The Colonial Feminism employed to justify these wars of aggression has been apparent throughout, especially in the case of Afghanistan. Yet, after 20 years of war and 2 trillion dollars in taxpayer dollars later, it was clear that the US’s longest war had nothing to do with “liberating the women of Afghanistan”.
Bear in mind also that atrocity propaganda can come from so-called trusted sources, especially when used to drum up support for such a major foreign policy objective as overthrowing the Iranian government. For example, Amnesty International gave credit to totally fabricated claims that Iraqi soldiers had thrown babies out of incubators in the lead-up to the First Gulf War.
Former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi was also accused of “killing his own people” as the justification for NATO intervention, while it was claimed that peaceful protesters sought to achieve democracy. Then came a tirade of totally fabricated statistics and outlandish stories, none of which the corporate media dare challenge.
Every time it’s the same cycle, a totally fictitious narrative is constructed as a means of justifying a kind of “humanitarian intervention”, after which everyone will later acknowledge much of it was exaggerated or outright false. Then, anyone challenging this is labelled a “regime puppet” and called names to delegitimise their arguments. Disgruntled members of that nation’s diaspora are also employed to come up with sob stories and advocate regime change, a cheap identity politics trick.
What Will A War On Iran Look Like
A war with Iran could go in many different directions, depending on a large number of variables and how countless actions factor into decision-making on all sides. Therefore, the first point of entry into this brief analysis should be the reality inside Iran and separating this from the fictional depictions provided by the corporate media.
Iran is not Venezuela, nor is it Syria. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for a start, possesses military capabilities that are beyond any other player in West Asia, with exceptions of the Israelis and Turkish militaries. Even in these cases, they do not possess the volume of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, or drones that Iran has mass-manufactured.
What Tehran lacks in terms of the latest in technological development, it makes up for with its offensive missile and drone arsenal, enabling it to hit the Israelis and US bases across the region. These capabilities are now tried and tested on the battlefield.
On the ground, Iran has its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along with its regular army. The conservative estimates put the total active personnel of the IRGC at around 190,000 men strong, while the regular army is said to have 420,000 active duty members. In addition to this, there is a volunteer paramilitary force known as the Basij, which is said to be able to mobilise over a million fighters if needed.
The Iranian military is well trained, well armed and is constantly running exercises designed to combat insurgencies and foreign invasion forces. Iran’s terrain is also mountainous and vast, meaning that even in the event that mistakes are made, there is room for them to then regain lost ground. All previous US war games estimated that an invasion of Iran in the early 2000’s would have been a disaster for American forces. This was before the Iranians developed militarily in the way they have over the past decade or so.
Millions of Iranians who have demonstrated they will come to the streets in order to protest in solidarity with their government is also a strong sign of the base of support behind the current government. Although survey data is scarce, a large portion of the Iranian population is indeed socially conservative and believes in the religious doctrine of the Islamic Republic.
Another element to consider here is that the Iranian opposition has no real leader. The son of the Shah has a very small base of support inside Iran and is widely regarded as no more than an Israeli puppet. Then we have the Iranian minorities, who have managed to coexist much better under the Islamic Republic than the former Shah’s rule, as the Shia religious system does not rule for the Persian majority alone and does not have the same ethno-supremacist tendencies as previous Iranian leaderships.
On top of Iran’s own forces, there are also its regional allies. These include Ansarallah in Yemen, the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi, the Afghan Fatimeyoun, Pakistani Zeinabiyoun, the entire Palestinian resistance, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. These are the main players, but there are also various other groups that they have partnered with.
There is also a question mark surrounding what role China will play in support of Iran, while it is expected that Russia will also provide some kind of assistance. Beijing, in particular, cannot afford the fallout of losing Iranian oil and has already signed an economic partnership deal with Tehran.
Understanding all, there are clearly various cards that the Iranians have to play, and the idea that the government would simply fall without a fight and that its leadership would flee is pure fantasy. Several scenarios could play out given a war opens, including the following:
- Iran initiates a preemptive series of strikes.
- The US bombs Iran symbolically and tries to fight a limited conflict.
- An Israeli-US total regime change plot is hatched.
To address the first way this could unfold, it may be possible that, given the failure of the riots to create major fractures in the Islamic Republic’s system and drag the country to civil war, the US and Israelis may be trying to bait Iran into attacking first. The reason for this would be so they are able to gauge how broad the confrontation will be from the opening round of strikes and then adjust their own offensive from there. This kind of conflict would likely be limited.
The next option would be a US air campaign designed to deal a blow to Iran, with the hope that it could also lead to a change of events that results in regime change, but primarily to send a message and extend the conflict to another round. Such an exchange could end up getting out of hand, depending upon how both sides choose to retaliate against each other’s actions, yet the goal would be to avoid a long war.
If these kinds of 12-Day-War style rounds are to keep occurring each year or so, then this would greatly favour Iran. This is the case as Iran replaces its stockpiles infinitely quicker than the US and Israel.
Then there is the worst-case scenario, an all-out regime change war. Whether this arrives through a series of waves of attacks, both from the air and using militants on the ground, or through a tit-for-tat escalation that leads to it, expect enormous death and destruction on all sides.
There can be no disputing the US military edge here from the air, although an air campaign alone will not topple the government. If this happens, the worst-case scenario will be that the US will strike Iran repeatedly, perhaps alongside Israel’s attacks, assassinating political and military leaders, taking out weapons depots, missile launch sites, infrastructure targets, government buildings, and cultural sites. If Iran is unable to effectively defend from such an assault, it should be expected that it will take around 4 days to get on its feet.
This being said, such an assault would likely radicalise the population and make them double down. If the US and Israel succeed at assassinating Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, then we should expect an unprecedented war that may even extend beyond the region. More than being the Iranian Supreme Leader, he is also a Shia Spiritual leader, meaning his role transcends that of a leader of a country. It would be the equivalent of assassinating the Pope.
Iran itself has several options: to pound American bases, strike US aircraft carriers, launch much larger waves of ballistic missiles into Israel, and at this point, it is likely its allies would have mobilised. The Iranians themselves could shut down the Persian Gulf by locking the Gulf of Hormuz, inflicting a global economic crisis.
Hezbollah, Ansarallah, the Hashd al-Shaabi, Zeinabiyoun, Fatemeyoun, and Palestinian factions could all then participate in an all-out war, one from which there is no turning back. For the Shia in particular, their ideology is not one of backing down in these situations; they will very likely interpret such circumstances as their equivalent to the battle of Karbala, where the Prophet of Islam’s grandson Hussein was martyred.
If this becomes an all-out battle, everyone will take the gloves off, and the only way the Israelis will likely prove capable of escaping is to begin using nuclear weapons, which may not even work.
Although the doomsday scenario is possible, it is likely the war will end before it gets to that stage, and although all of Iran’s allies may participate this time, it would appear the US would like to refrain from entering a long, unpopular, and unwinnable war of aggression. The Trump administration likes quick wars that don’t take much time and runs away when things don’t go their way, as we saw with their attack on Yemen.
It should be expected that the Israelis and their Western allies throw the kitchen sink at Iran in an attempt to manufacture civil war, also. So far, the Syriaization of Iran has failed, but this isn’t to say they will give up on implementing such an agenda.
All of this is to say that regime change in Iran is not a simple matter of committing a few airstrikes; it is an ideologically driven State with mass support and a large number of allies willing to fight on its side. Therefore, the likelihood of the Islamic Republic of Iran falling in a few days or weeks is outlandish to say the least.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Palestinian prisoners in 2025: Shocking figures and escalating violations
Palestinian Information Center – January 17, 2026
RAMALLAH – The Asra Media Office has revealed alarming data regarding the situation of Palestinian prisoners up to the end of 2025, noting that their number has reached approximately 9,300 prisoners, nearly half of whom are held in detention without charge or trial amid an unprecedented expansion in the use of administrative detention and arbitrary classifications, including the so-called “unlawful combatant.”
In a report issued today, Saturday, the office explained that the Israeli occupation authorities have escalated their repressive policies by targeting women, children, journalists, and medical personnel, alongside systematic violations inside prisons. These violations include physical and psychological torture, deliberate medical neglect, starvation, detention under inhumane conditions, sexual assaults, the denial of visits, restrictions on lawyers’ work, and obstruction of the tasks of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
According to official data, since 1967 and up to the end of 2025, around 323 prisoners have died inside Israeli prisons, including 86 prisoners since 2023 and 32 during 2025 alone. The occupation authorities continue to withhold the bodies of 94 prisoners, constituting a grave violation of international humanitarian law, amid documented cases of direct killing, torture, and medical neglect leading to death.
The Asra Media Office noted that by mid-January 2026, the number of martyrs of the prisoners’ movement had risen to 324, including 87 since the war of genocide, with the continued withholding of 95 bodies under a policy of collective punishment prohibited under international law.
Despite the release of 3,745 prisoners during exchange deals in 2025, the Office confirmed that the occupation continued its policies of deportation and re-arrest, alongside the enactment of dangerous repressive legislation, including calls for the execution of prisoners, the extension of administrative detention periods, the revocation of citizenship, and the targeting of human rights institutions working on prisoners’ issues.
The Office called on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities and to take immediate action to hold the occupation authorities accountable for these crimes, ensure the urgent release of sick prisoners, children, and women, and impose independent international monitoring over Israeli prisons.
US announces Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ amid ongoing Israeli ceasefire breaches
Press TV – January 17, 2026
The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced the executive members of Gaza’s so-called Board of Peace, a body purportedly tasked with managing transitional governance in the territory, as Israel continues to violate its ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
On Friday, the White House published the names of the Gaza Strip’s so-called “Board of Peace” members and the head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), marking the launch of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
Ali Sha’ath, a former Palestinian deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), will lead the NCAG, according to the White House.
The so-called Board of Peace will be chaired by Trump himself, with key members including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The statement also listed members of a “Gaza Executive Board”: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy; veteran Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi; Egypt’s intelligence chief Hassan Rashad; UAE-based Bulgarian diplomat and former UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov; Cypriot-Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay; Dutch politician Sigrid Kaag; as well as Witkoff, Kushner, and Blair.
Mladenov will act as High Representative for Gaza, linking the Board of Peace with the NCAG, while Major General Jasper Jeffers will lead the International Stabilization Force (ISF).
The US also appointed Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum as senior advisers to the Board of Peace to supervise “day-to-day strategy and operations.”
More appointments to the Executive Board and the Gaza Executive Board are expected in the coming weeks.
The announcement follows Witkoff’s Wednesday statement launching the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan.
The second phase is said to focus on “demilitarisation, technocratic governance, and reconstruction.”
However, most of the goals in Trump’s 20-point plan that became the basis for a ceasefire in Gaza three months ago never became a reality on the ground.
Phase one was designed to immediately halt the fighting, facilitate the exchange of Israeli and Palestinian captives, set a boundary for Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza, allow the full entry of humanitarian aid, and open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
While the daily number of Israeli attacks has decreased since the start of the ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 451 Palestinians and injured 1,251 – an average of nearly five killed every day – since October 10.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas released all 20 living Israeli captives in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas has also returned 27 of the 28 bodies of deceased captives, while the search is still on for the remaining body, believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel.
However, according to Hamas, Israel has failed to release all women and child prisoners as stipulated in the agreement.
Moreover, the Israeli military did not fully withdraw its troops to an area dubbed the “yellow line” and continues to restrict aid.
The opening of the Rafah crossing did not happen, either.
Since Israel launched its genocidal campaign on October 7, 2023, more than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 172,000 wounded, the majority of them women and children.
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TV Drama Review
Japanese drama projects Japan’s wartime atrocities onto Chinese characters
Global Times | October 25, 2026
By portraying Chinese characters as perpetrators of ruthless violence while casting Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) intelligence operatives as defenders, the season 2 of the Japanese drama Vivant has recently drawn criticism from Chinese netizens, who argue that its depiction turns historical reality on its head while ignoring Japan’s wartime atrocities.
The TBS drama series – a spy suspense story in which an alleged unofficial intelligence unit of the SDF operates across the globe — has attracted a passionate fanbase. Its currently airing season 2 opened with a household rating of 18.8 percent, the highest for a TV drama this year, according toa commentary article by Japanese media Toyo Keizai.
What draws attention is the portrayal of the enemies in the series, the article noted. Scenes in which the Chinese organization subjects kidnapped members of the SDF unit to brutal torture are repeated with unrelenting intensity.
It is rare for Japanese TV dramas to explicitly portray a real-life country as the enemy, the article noted.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also made a reference to the drama, saying that she has been recording Vivant and hopes to binge-watch it over the year-end and New Year holidays, according to Japanese media outlets.
China’s CCTV News report on Sunday revealed that the drama features scenes in which Chinese personnel cut off the fingers of and stab Japanese intelligence operatives in the abdomen. Such acts bear striking similarities to the torture inflicted on Chinese nationals by invading Japanese troops during the World War II.
The drama distorts the truth by attributing these atrocities to modern Chinese characters. Beneath the surface, it subtly glorifies Japan’s cross-border overseas operations, blurs the functional boundaries of the SDF and implicitly promotes an expansionist narrative, per CCTV News. … continue
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