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‘Unprecedented corruption,’ crypto ventures help Trump net $2.2bn in profits since return to office

The Cradle | July 3, 2026

US President Donald Trump’s income last year soared to more than $2.2 billion, largely due to cryptocurrency holdings and related ventures he himself was able to regulate, according to financial disclosure forms released on 3 July.

In contrast, during his first term in office, the president’s income was primarily derived from his real estate businesses, including hotels, golf courses, and other properties, such as Mar-a-Lago. In 2024, before returning to the White House, he reported making over $600 million.

Last week, Trump claimed his skyrocketing wealth was due to the stock market’s rise. “You know why I’m profiting, because the stock market’s going up,” he told reporters last week.

However, the president’s financial disclosures indicate most of his new wealth has resulted from cryptocurrency and related ventures, which he has helped enable by relaxing rules on crypto markets.

In 2024, Trump launched crypto company World Liberty Financial. A UAE state-linked firm acquired a 49 percent stake in the company for $500 million, shortly before his inauguration as president.

The acquisition provided a substantial early windfall for the Trump family, allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to flow into Trump-controlled entities. Just months later, the US president approved the export of tightly guarded AI chips to the UAE, suggesting a connection between the two deals and a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency coin issued by World Liberty Financial and promoted by Trump to his supporters has crashed in value by around 85 percent since its launch.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Trump made $1 billion on various crypto deals while his supporters lost vast amounts.

Days before returning to the White House, he launched his memecoin, $TRUMP, which reached a market value of nearly $15 billion before plunging 97 percent to about $400 million.

Roughly two-thirds of investors in the president’s memecoin have lost money, WSJ added.

“Since he retook office, he’s making over a billion dollars a year off of crypto, while at the same time his administration is writing the rules of the road for how crypto will be regulated,” Lee Reiners, a Duke University lecturer, told the Washington Post.

“Not only is this an unprecedented level of self-dealing and self-enrichment, the scale is really hard to wrap your head around.”

“It’s corruption on a scale that, to be honest, has few rivals in world history,” said Norm Eisen, who served as ethics advisor to former US president Barack Obama. “That’s because you never had the combination of a president willing to fully monetize the Oval Office combined with a world full of countries and other special interests who are willing to fork over vast sums.”

Trump or people close to him have also reportedly profited from massive, highly suspicious trading spikes in oil futures and stock indexes that occurred just minutes before the president issued major, market-moving announcements on social media regarding the US war on Iran.

Economists, lawmakers, and market analysts have raised concerns about potential insider trading, data leaks, and market manipulation coming from the White House.

July 3, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Comments Off on ‘Unprecedented corruption,’ crypto ventures help Trump net $2.2bn in profits since return to office

UN, MSM: Israel Is Deliberately and Genocidally Murdering Children

By Kevin Barrett – American Free Press – July 3, 2026

American mass media have historically demonized Palestinians and downplayed or covered up Israel’s crimes. But on June 24, Americans woke up to a CNN headline that must have made more than a few of them choke on their kosher coffee. That headline put it plainly: “Israel deliberately targeting children in ongoing genocide against Palestinians, UN commission finds.”

CNN’s headline included two assertions that have been true for decades: 1) Israel deliberately murders children, not accidentally as so-called collateral damage, but deliberately as part of a de facto national policy; and 2) Israel is committing “an ongoing genocide against Palestinians.” And while it is shocking that any government is pursuing such unbelievably evil policies, and even more shocking that American taxpayers are paying for it, the most shocking thing of all is that American mainstream media are finally admitting the truth after 78 years of systematic Israeli child-killing and genocide.

On April 9, 1948, more than 110 Palestinian men, women, and children were slaughtered in the village of Deir Yassin. The New York Times reported that more than half of the victims were women and children. It was just one of hundreds of massacres by the invading Jews who had long planned to steal Palestinian land and property by way of such a bloodbath.

During the 1948 Nakba (Palestinian holocaust) the Jews raped and murdered girls, tossed babies around with bayonets, and burned people to death with flamethrowers. Unlike the false atrocity propaganda stories invented by these same Jews’ descendants after the heroic October 7 2023 concentration camp breakout by Hamas, the 1948 abominations actually happened.

You can watch one of the Nakba perpetrators, Yosef Diamont, chuckling over his crimes in a viral YouTube video: “Tantura was a rich village and had beautiful houses. And the women in the village used to wear nice clothes. One of the (Israeli) soldiers raped a 16-year-old girl..” (Breaks out laughing.) “The soldiers took flamethrowers, and ran after the villagers and burned them. It was horrible. And no one is allowed to talk about that. I won’t talk about it, because it would be a big scandal.”

The whole Zionist project that created “Israel” is, by definition, genocidal: Its purpose has always been to murder and expel the Palestinians in order to steal their land and property. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the nation whose very existence is an act of ever-expanding genocide deliberately and systematically murders children.

In 2001 Chris Hedges described the way Israeli soldiers routinely hunt children for sport:

“Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered—death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo—but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”

American media, dominated as it is by Zionist Jews, has long hidden these facts from the American people. Hedges was effectively fired by The New York Times for his honest reporting.

So why is CNN finally telling the truth? Mainly because since 2023, Israel’s atrocities have grown too big to ignore. Tens of thousands of children have been murdered in just a few years.

CNN’s story covered the June 18 UN Report “‘The essence of childhood has been destroyed’: Israel’s deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023.” The report estimates that at least 20,179 children have been killed and 44,143 children injured since that date, while 5,160 children are still buried under the rubble of what used to be their homes.

The UN report details systematic sexual violence against children. It describes Israel hunting children with drones and rifles, and deliberately blowing up whole apartment buildings and city blocks full of civilians, using the excuse that someone in the area had a tenuous link to Hamas. Israel’s wide-impact blasts are intended to disproportionately target children: “Research indicates that children are seven times more likely to die than adults from the impact of explosive weapons due to their physiological vulnerability, that is, proportionally larger body surface area, pliable bones, smaller limbs and thinner skin. Due to their smaller size and lighter weight, children are also at a greater risk of being thrown from the impact of blasts.”

The horrific descriptions of maimed and murdered kids make this UN report unpleasant reading. But Americans need to face the truth—and stop funding genocide.

July 3, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on UN, MSM: Israel Is Deliberately and Genocidally Murdering Children

India to collect voice samples of arrested Ukrainian and US mercenaries

RT | July 3, 2026

India will collect the voice samples of six mercenaries – five Ukrainians and a US national – who were arrested in March by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), New Delhi’s anti-terror agency.

Together with another Ukrainian, they were arrested in March; all have been charged with aiding insurgent groups in neighboring Myanmar and providing them with weaponry.

The six were presented before a Delhi court on Friday amid heavy security, and were told they would remain in custody until August 1. They consented to have their voices recorded.

The court will decide the date for collecting voice samples on Saturday, when the remaining Ukrainian will be presented before it.

The NIA is also seeking an extension of the investigation period to 180 days under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, India’s primary anti-terrorism legislation.

The probe focuses on the alleged illegal entry of the mercenaries into the Indian border state of Mizoram, where foreign nationals are required to obtain a special permit, as well as their subsequent illegal crossing into Myanmar.

The Ukrainian men in custody are Petro Hurba, Taras Slyviak, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Marian Stefankiv, Maksim Honcharuk, and Viktor Kaminskyi; three were detained at Delhi’s airport, while the others were taken in by the NIA in Lucknow. Matthew Aaron VanDyke, the US citizen, was arrested at an airport in the coastal city of Kolkata.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, at the time of their arrest, demanded the immediate release of its citizens and access to them, claiming there were no “established facts proving the involvement of the said Ukrainian citizens in unlawful activities on the territory of India or Myanmar.”

It also accused Indian and Russian media of publishing “distorted interpretations of the available facts.”

But reports at the time indicated that the Indian intelligence agencies were on the trail of the suspects after gathering significant inputs, likely from Interpol or with help from foreign intelligence agencies.

Mizoram’s chief minister, Lalduhoma, alleged last year that “thousands” of Western mercenaries linked to Kiev had crossed over to Myanmar via his state.

The chief minister of the neighboring state of Manipur, N. Biren Singh, suggested in 2024 that authorities suspected the involvement of foreign mercenaries in the violence in the state, referring to combat forces linked to Myanmar. At that time, New Delhi announced it would fence the entire 1,643 kilometer (1,020-mile) border with its neighbor to the east.

July 3, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on India to collect voice samples of arrested Ukrainian and US mercenaries

Latin American media, businessman rebut US’ claim of China ‘taking over’ Panama Canal

By Tang Luyi and Tao Mingyang – Global Times – July 3, 2026

The US’ latest claim that China is trying to take control over Panama Canal has drawn rebuttals from Spanish-language media outlets, while a Chinese businessman based in Panama told the Global Times that the canal’s core operations rest entirely in the hands of the Panamanian authorities, making the claim of the so-called Chinese pursuit of control of the canal completely groundless.

US President Donald Trump claimed ⁠on Wednesday that the US will not let ‌China ⁠take over the Panama Canal, Reuters reported. In delivering remarks at the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, Trump claimed “China is trying to take over the Panama Canal, and we’re not going to let that happen,” according to the NBC.

The remarks quickly drew criticism from Spanish-language media. Colombian news magazine Semana cited a statement from the Chinese Embassy in Panama, which said that China has never participated in the management or operation of the Panama Canal, nor has it ever interfered in the canal’s affairs. The embassy said China has always respected Panama’s sovereignty over the canal and recognizes it as a permanently neutral international waterway.

Trump’s claim that the Panama Canal was sold to Panama “for one dollar” in 1977 has been widely questioned by historians, Panama-based newspaper La Estrella de Panamá reported.

The Torrijos-Carter Treaties were signed by the Panamanian and US governments in 1977, establishing that the Panama Canal would be turned over to Panamanian control on Dec 31, 1999, and the treaties were the outcome of bilateral negotiations between the two countries, according to the report.

The report noted that this is not the first time the US has used the Panama Canal as a political bargaining chip, and that the Panamanian government has repeatedly reaffirmed that sovereignty over the canal belongs to Panama, and that it is a permanently neutral international shipping waterway.

Refuting the false narrative that “China is controlling the Panama Canal”, a Chinese businessman surnamed Xu, who has been engaged in trade in Panama for a long time, told the Global Times on Friday that core functions of the canal – including channel scheduling, transit approval and the setting of toll rules – are entirely in the hands of the Panamanian authorities.

Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison only obtained commercial operating rights for cargo handling and warehousing at terminals on both ends of the canal through open bidding, which constitutes market-based supporting investment and by no means amounts to overall control of the canal, Xu said, noting that all Chinese vessels transiting the canal pay tolls in full under the same standards applied to shipping companies worldwide, and the claim that China seeks control of the canal is completely untenable.

In the eyes of the Panamanian public, it is the US that has long and deeply shaped the geopolitical security landscape surrounding the canal, Xu said. Relying on historical treaties, the US retains the power to send troops to Panama if it unilaterally determines a security risk exists, and has repeatedly exerted pressure on the country through various means. By hyping the “China threat” narrative, the US is in fact seeking a pretext to maintain its hegemony over the waterway, he said.

Panama’s public and business communities widely recognize the value of cooperation with China, Xu noted. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Panama in 2017, China has helped resume local infrastructure projects and supported the development of Panama’s coffee industry through the platform of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, with the practical cooperation winning broad recognition from various sectors in the country, he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on April 29 that it is the US that has framed normal affairs concerning relevant terminals as issues of politics and security, and it is the US that has been making pretenses and slandering others with rumors.

“China’s position on the Panamanian ports issue is clear and [China] will firmly defend its legitimate rights and interests. We urge relevant countries not to be blinded and utilized by those with ill intention,” Lin said.

July 3, 2026 Posted by | Sinophobia | , , , | Comments Off on Latin American media, businessman rebut US’ claim of China ‘taking over’ Panama Canal

Canada unveils new pipeline plan to cut US oil dependence

Al Mayadeen | July 3, 2026

Canada has moved forward with plans for a major new oil pipeline aimed at reducing its reliance on the United States and positioning itself as a supplier to Asian energy markets.

Alberta has formally submitted proposals to the federal Major Projects Office for a pipeline exceeding 1,000 kilometers, intended to carry as much as one million barrels of crude per day to the British Columbia coast, with construction slated to begin by September 2027.

Prime Minister Mark Carney described the initiative as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for the country, announcing that the new line would largely trace the path of the existing Trans Mountain corridor.

The project would be built by Trans Mountain Corp, a federal Crown corporation, in partnership with Pembina Pipeline Corp.

Billions in investment

Carney tied the pipeline to a broader economic strategy, projecting that Thursday’s announcements would spur more than C$200 billion (US$141 billion) in fresh investment.

Alongside the pipeline, the plan includes nearly tripling Canada’s liquefied natural gas capacity through five new terminals over the next ten years, as well as a C$10 billion upgrade to the Port of Vancouver.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith further called for the province’s oil production to double and for the pipeline to be operational by 2035.

Washington’s shadow looms over decision

The push comes as Canada seeks to loosen its economic dependence on Washington.

The US currently absorbs about three-quarters of Canadian exports and roughly 60 percent of its oil imports, some 4 million barrels a day, nearly all of it drawn from Alberta’s oil sands, among the largest crude reserves in the world.

Carney has vowed to double Canada’s non-US trade as President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs of up to 100 percent on Canadian goods and repeated calls for Canada to become the “51st state.”

Trump also declined this week to commit to a long-term renewal of the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement he signed in his first term.

Environmental groups

Environmental groups and First Nations communities welcomed Carney’s decision to preserve an existing tanker ban along BC’s northern coast, with Heiltsuk Nation Chief Marilyn Slett calling it “a good day” for efforts to prevent oil spills.

Carney, a former UN climate envoy, has also acknowledged that the fossil-fuel-driven strategy will push Canada’s emissions higher, distancing his government from predecessor Justin Trudeau’s more restrictive approach to the oil sector.

Industry groups, meanwhile, argue that regulatory hurdles and an uncompetitive tax structure continue to discourage investment.

The plan also unfolds against a backdrop of internal strain, with Alberta’s separatist movement gaining traction and a referendum vote on independence set for October 19.

Trump threats fuel patriotism among Canadians

Trump’s confrontational posture toward Canada appears to be reshaping how Canadians see themselves. A new Politico poll found that 52 percent of Canadians now describe themselves as very proud of their nationality, up sharply from 34 percent in December 2024.

Analysts link the surge to Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada and his tariff measures targeting Canadian exports, including a 25 percent tariff imposed by executive order in February 2025 that triggered retaliatory measures from Ottawa.

Those tariffs were later struck down by the US Supreme Court, which ruled that Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose them was unconstitutional.

Even so, the poll suggests the rise in patriotic sentiment has not translated into a sense of national unity, with most respondents saying Canada remains internally divided.

July 3, 2026 Posted by | Economics | , | Comments Off on Canada unveils new pipeline plan to cut US oil dependence

Dr. Suzanne Humphries – Doctors are NOT Taught about Vaccines in Medical School

“We are basically given a piece of paper that says when the vaccines are due and when to give them.”

Dr. Suzanne Humphries: “You may not know this, but doctors are not taught about vaccines in medical school. We are not taught what is in vaccines, the adjuvants, we are not taught how vaccines are manufactured, as far as what kind of animals go into them, we are not taught the potential dangers of vaccination, we are basically given a piece of paper that says when the vaccines are due and when to give them.”

There is your 30 seconds of Vaccine Education. You now have the amount of Education as the average doctor. Congratulations!

Don’t you think there is a purpose to keeping doctors in the DARK?

Then Dr. Humphries did her own research on what she was told about Smallpox Vaccines and Polio Vaccines – two diseases she said she was “continuously told were eradicated by vaccination.”

Dr. Humphries found out that this was a total LIE. She wrote this in her book

She found that populations that stopped Vaccinating for Smallpox had a DECLINE in smallpox.

She says the Polio vaccination did not make polio go away and this story is a more complicated one.

Today Dr. Humphries spends 6 to 8 hours every single day researching immunology and everything she needs to know about vaccinations – the “deeper details of vaccinations.”

Dr. Humphries says that medical authorities use fear to get populations to get vaccinated and the authorities tell doctors to persuade you to get vaccinated, to use fear if necessary and even to kick you out of the office if you refuse to get vaccinated.

Nothing better than the “Doctor knows Best” attitude.

Vaccines are Safe & Effective and they Need to be Given.

The medical “authorities” do not want doctors or their patients looking into the data, they just want both to comply and they use the doctors as your higher authority, but the doctors don’t know any more than you do, they are just TOLD that the vaccines are safe and effective and are told to tell you that.

That’s how the vaccine game is played and that’s how they are setting children up for a lifetime of illnesses, diseases and a much shorter lifespan than their parents and grandparents.

What is ONE Question that a Doctor should Ask EVERY Single time someone comes in their office?

Doctors should ask “When was the last time you were vaccinated and what vaccine(s)?”

Do they? NOPE.

Their superiors would have a cow if they knew they were doing this and connecting some common sense dots.

They don’t want you to know and they don’t want your doctor to know. Just follow the orders, keep your mouth shut and don’t question the narrative.

Doctors actually believe what they are told most of them get vaccinated themselves.

What better way to get the masses to get vaccinated when the doctors themselves are taking the jabs?

Doctors do not have the time to educate themselves, they are too busy and they choose to do other things on their days off.

They certainly are not going to receive this education from med school.

There are TWO Sciences here – one by the Private Medical Industry and one by Independent Scientists and Researches. One has Big Pharma Interest and the other doesn’t.

Big Pharma Science has a MAJOR “Conflict of Interests.” They can design studies by word trickery that make them reach any endpoint they desire. That is how it is done. 100%.

Don’t worry about the Thimerosal (49% Mercury) and the Aluminum in the jabs, just trust the final headliners that say the vaccines are safe and effective.

Dr. Humphries goes over some date with Unvaccinated vs Vaccinated and the picture is very clear.

Then she goes over Tetanus Vaccines – one jab you do not want to take. You can watch the full video in the source #1 below.

Improvements in lifestyles, good hygiene and nutrition had more to do with the decline of death and the incidences of diseases than both antibiotic intervention and vaccinations.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | | Comments Off on Dr. Suzanne Humphries – Doctors are NOT Taught about Vaccines in Medical School

Mother of Twins Who Died 8 Days After Vaccinations Charged With Murder

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 1, 2026

A 23-year-old mother charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of her twin toddlers was set to be arraigned later today, after an Idaho grand jury indicted her late Monday, the Payette Police Department said in a press release.

Police arrested Andrea Shaw on Tuesday afternoon, more than a year after her two children — fraternal twins Dallas and Tyson Shaw — were found dead at their home in Payette on May 1, 2025, eight days after receiving their 18-month vaccines.

The Payette Police Department said the arrest follows “a lengthy and thorough investigation” and said it would have no further comment regarding evidence in the case. “Future information will be presented through the judicial process,” officials said.

Shaw alleges that her twins’ deaths were caused by the vaccines they received at a routine doctor’s appointment. She is one of five plaintiffs — along with two other mothers, two physicians and Children’s Health Defense (CHD) — in a lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

The lawsuit accuses the AAP of running a decades-long racketeering scheme to defraud American families about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule.

Attorney Rick Jaffe, counsel of record for Shaw on two civil matters related to the deaths of her children, including the AAP lawsuit, said he believes “the criminal investigation and now the indictment is the natural consequence of the institutional vaccine program that refuses to admit vaccination carries any risk to infants.”

Jaffe, who is not involved in the criminal investigation, added, “Andrea’s indictment makes all the more urgent that the public health authorities acknowledge and address the harm that vaccination is causing to some infants, rather than just shifting the blame to the parent.”

Nurse Angela Wulbrecht, an advocate for people injured by vaccines and who has been supporting the Shaws, told The Defender she was “ shocked and heartbroken” to learn of Shaw’s arrest.

“Over the past year, I have had the privilege of walking alongside Andrea and her family after the unimaginable loss of her twin babies,” Wulbrecht said. “I have witnessed a mother’s profound grief, unwavering love for her children, and determination to seek answers.”

Andrea gave birth to a new baby, born three weeks prematurely, on June 25, Shaw’s attorney Joseph Filicetti told the local KTVB7 news station. Her husband is caring for the newborn while she is incarcerated.

Shaw told physician of family history of adverse vaccine reaction

The details of the Shaw twins’ story are laid out in court documents that are part of the lawsuit against the AAP. Andrea and her husband Nathaniel also shared their story in May 2025 with CHD.TV.

According to Andrea, she and her mother-in-law say they warned the twins’ pediatrician that there was a family history of adverse reactions to the flu shot.

However, the pediatrician dismissed these concerns. Nurses administered the flu vaccine along with hepatitis A and DTaP shots on April 23, 2025. The twins had previously received most routine childhood vaccinations, including their 1-year shots.

Within hours, Andrea said the toddlers became lethargic and ill. The next morning, their lips were blue, and they struggled to move. Andrea took the twins to the emergency room and told the doctor they had received three vaccines the day before.

The treating physician in the emergency room diagnosed them as suffering from “post-immunization reaction, initial encounter.”

The babies remained symptomatic over the days that followed. A week later, on the morning of May 1, Andrea found both children unresponsive. Police and paramedics were called, and investigators immediately focused on the parents. Andrea and Nathaniel told CHD.TV that the police immediately treated them as suspects.

“They said that it wasn’t medical and that they figured asphyxiation, and that I had supposedly had a postpartum overwhelming blackout and done it to my children,” Andrea said. The family filed a report with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.

Rather than investigating Andrea’s vaccine concerns, the Payette Police Department opened an investigation into her.

Medical industry ignores vaccines as possible cause of SIDS

When infants under age 1 die suddenly, and a cause can’t be determined, the deaths are typically classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). SIDS is the third leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public health researchers developed a “triple-risk model” for explaining SIDS. That model says SIDS occurs when a baby has an unknown medical condition, is going through an important period of development where the body changes quickly, and encounters an outside stressor, such as sleeping on its stomach.

But even as the medical industry claims to remain puzzled about the cause of SIDS, numerous studies have reported a plausible association between vaccines and SIDS in peer-reviewed literature for decades.

Researchers theorize, for example, that some children with underdeveloped liver enzyme pathways may not be able to process excipients — inactive ingredients used as preservatives or to enhance a vaccine’s efficacy — which can lead to illness or death.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has also recognized links between vaccines and infant deaths. Last year the program compensated two families whose babies died. The program determined the deaths were vaccine-induced.

Due to concerns over the link between vaccines and SIDS, some states recently introduced legislation to require that medical examiners document recent immunizations on the death certificates of children who died from unknown causes.

How common is it to bring criminal charges against parents in infant deaths?

In recent years, some parents have been criminally charged when their infants die after sleeping on their stomachs.

Last year, two different sets of Pennsylvania parents were charged with felonies for placing their babies in unsafe sleeping positions. Attorney Daniel Nevins told Spotlight PA that such charges are rare and that the burden of proof on the prosecutors will be high.

But some parents have been convicted. In 2014, Virginia resident Candice Christa Semidey, age 25, was charged with murder after she swaddled her baby and put it to sleep on its stomach, The Washington Post reported. In that case, police did not think that she intended for the baby to die.

She pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child neglect. She was ordered to serve three years of probation to avoid a five-year prison term.

Some charges have also been brought against parents in the deaths of infants sleeping with Boppy pillows. There have also been several cases of parents charged for sleeping in the same bed as their child.


This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Comments Off on Mother of Twins Who Died 8 Days After Vaccinations Charged With Murder

The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader: America’s strategic miscalculation under the shadow of Israeli narratives

By Timothy Hopper | MEMO | July 2, 2026

As Iran prepares for the funeral ceremonies of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, the scale of anticipated public participation indicates that they are set to become one of the most significant mass gatherings in contemporary Iranian history. Reports indicate that vast crowds are expected to arrive from across the country, alongside official delegations from numerous states. This moment offers a clear opportunity to assess the U.S. and Israeli decision to assassinate him in February 2026. The operation rested on a flawed assessment of Khamenei’s real role and standing within Iran’s social and political structure. In this regard, the United States was shaped largely by Israeli media narratives and intelligence assessments—accounts that substantially underestimated Ayatollah Khamenei’s popularity, institutional influence, and capacity for social mobilization. The preparations already underway and the expected scale of the turnout make this analytical failure harder to ignore. They show how far American policymakers relied on an incomplete and one-sided picture of Iranian reality.

To understand this miscalculation, it is necessary to return to the framework that had cast a long shadow over analyses of Iran before the attack. For years, Israeli media outlets and a number of research institutions close to Israel’s political and security establishment portrayed Khamenei as a leader with limited social backing, governing a society marked by deep divisions, economic discontent, and generational distance. These narratives repeatedly suggested that removing him could trigger serious instability, or even a fundamental transformation of Iran’s political system. Such an image aligned with the stated purpose of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation: weakening and destabilizing Iran’s political order. Yet this analysis ignored the more complex realities of Iranian society and politics. In assessing Khamenei’s structural position and the attachment of significant parts of society to ideas such as independence, security, and resistance to external pressure, Washington effectively accepted a narrative that minimized decisive factors. The result was an expectation that his removal would rapidly expose internal fractures. Developments since then—including a relatively orderly leadership transition and the continued functioning of core institutions—have pointed in the opposite direction.

Khamenei’s position in Iran went far beyond that of a conventional head of government. For more than three decades, he stressed national self-reliance, scientific and technological development despite external constraints, and sustained resistance in foreign policy against outside pressure.

These priorities helped produce a measure of institutional resilience and measurable progress in certain sectors. Iran has, of course, faced genuine social discontent, economic pressure, and political divisions. But that did not mean Khamenei’s role had been reduced to personal isolation, nor that his removal would necessarily paralyze the country’s political machinery. Israeli media coverage generally emphasized critical currents and visible signs of dissatisfaction while downplaying evidence of broader attachment to ideas such as independence, national sovereignty, and security. This selective emphasis produced an image of fragility and isolation that did not correspond to the durability of Iranian structures after his assassination. America’s acceptance of that image represented a serious intelligence and analytical failure in understanding the depth of Khamenei’s place within Iran’s political structure.

The February attack was accompanied by public statements from American and Israeli officials describing it as a decisive blow. The initial expectation appears to have rested on the assumption that the vacuum created by eliminating the leader would intensify internal divisions or create opportunities for greater outside leverage.

In practice, Iran preserved the functional continuity of its core institutions and its broad policy direction. This outcome showed that Khamenei’s influence was not merely personal. It had taken root in institutions, political networks, security structures, and the political culture of the Islamic Republic.

Washington’s error was to imagine that the base of support around him was narrower and more brittle than events ultimately showed it to be. The upcoming funeral ceremonies, scheduled to unfold over several days and across major cities, are set to draw exceptionally large crowds and will provide further tangible evidence against those earlier assumptions. The anticipated presence of mourners and foreign delegations will demonstrate a degree of recognition, respect, and social connection that earlier reporting and assessments had treated as marginal.

From a broader policy perspective, this episode reveals the dangers of excessive reliance on particular intelligence and media sources. In Iran’s case, cultural, religious, and historical forces shape political loyalties and behavior in ways that demand a more precise understanding of the country’s internal realities—not broad, externally produced narratives. Analyses that overlook these factors are vulnerable to strategic error. What was supposed to weaken Iran’s political structure instead reinforced commitment to established principles, heightened sensitivity to foreign intervention, and underscored the perceived necessity of institutional continuity. The forthcoming ceremonies, with their extensive organization, will serve as a visible corrective to assessments shaped by one-sided reporting.

By relying on Israeli media narratives and intelligence assessments of Khamenei’s position and the level of support surrounding him, American decision-makers arrived at a conclusion that developments since the assassination have not borne out.

In conclusion, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and the domestic and international response to it expose the limits of policymaking built on incomplete information and politically shaped interpretations. The forthcoming funeral ceremonies and the anticipated exceptional public turnout will offer a vivid illustration of social cohesion in Iran—one that stands in clear contrast to earlier predictions of rapid collapse or internal rupture. This expected turnout suggests that America’s assessment of Iran’s Supreme Leader and the degree of public support he commanded was significantly influenced by Israeli media and intelligence narratives, and ultimately proved mistaken. Rather than producing the disruption that had been anticipated, the process has highlighted Iran’s institutional continuity and social resilience.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader: America’s strategic miscalculation under the shadow of Israeli narratives

Senator Claims Iran was “Stacking” Missiles and Drones to Bomb Europe

John Kennedy forgets to mention Iran’s ballistic missiles can’t reach London or Paris

By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | July 2, 2026

Senator John Kennedy, the Democrat turned Republican from Louisiana, came up with a whopper during an interview with a comedian slash podcaster. It is a take on Netanyahu’s perennial claim Iran is five minutes away from having nuclear weapons that maniacal mullahs will use to bomb New York, London, Berlin, Brussels, in addition to all Arabs and Muslims in West Asia.

Kennedy told Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, aka Theo Von, US intelligence informed him Iran is “stacking ballistic missiles and killer drones like never before” and will rain them down on London, Paris, and Germany. The culprit here is Iran’s Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers, said to be derived from the North Korean Musudan (BM-25) missile. London is over 5,000 kilometers from Iran, while Paris is over 4,000 kilometers, and Berlin 3,000 kilometers.

Trump to the rescue, according to Kennedy. The president faced a “nightmare decision: Let them arm up until they could rain fire on our allies and threaten the homeland… or strike first and save the world? He chose to bomb their nuclear sites and stop the madness.”

I thought the illegal sneak attack on Iran, including the assassination the Supreme Leader of Iran, the 86-year old Ali Khamenei, eliminated Iran’s supposed nuclear threat, or that’s what Trump told us, ad nauseam. Iran has never possessed nuclear weapons and remains a non-nuclear-weapon state under international treaties, specifically the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran is not currently building a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s former (now persona non grata) Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March Operation Midnight Hammer had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability. No mention on the obliteration of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, murdering 156 civilians, 120 of them school girls. That collateral damage is 1,200 kilometers from the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant.

Anyway, anything Mr. Kennedy says should be taken with a boulder of salt and a fistful of antacid. He has benefited from $113,680 donated by the Israel lobby. He co-sponsored the Taylor Force Act (legislation prohibits American funds from being given to Palestinian entities), the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (making “economic speech” illegal), the Combating BDS Act of 2017 (making Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions illegal), and the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act (providing and additional $3.3 billion to Israel for “self-defense,” that is to say abducting, torturing, raping, and murdering thousands of Palestinians).

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Senator Claims Iran was “Stacking” Missiles and Drones to Bomb Europe

Does the Pentagon even know who its boat strikes are killing?

By Adam Isacson | Responsible Statecraft | July 1, 2026

The numbers are stomach-turning. In less than 10 months, U.S. forces acting on orders from the Trump administration have killed 215 people in 63 aerial attacks on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific.

Since the first attack on September 2, the Trump administration has told us that they are killing drug traffickers. But drug trafficking, especially being a low-level courier, is not a crime punishable by the death penalty, and, even if it were, the U.S. legal system assumes innocence and guarantees a day in court. Skipping that step makes this murder under U.S. law: the equivalent of a cop shooting a fleeing suspect in the back.

The administration is attempting to get around this by claiming that every one of the dead is a “narco-terrorist,” a member or “affiliate” of a profit-seeking criminal group recently added, with no outside review, to a secret Defense Department list of “Designated Terror Organizations,” or DTOs. Because the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” with the DTOs, a secret Justice Department memo argues, our military is permitted to kill them on sight, even with no self-defense justification.

Yet the administration has still not presented any evidence that a bombed vessel was even carrying drugs, much less that its deceased crew was affiliated with a criminal or “designated terrorist” organization.

What we know so far indicates that the U.S. military is being used to assassinate unknown individuals based on alarmingly flimsy evidence. And the targeting criteria are quite loose.

On the rare occasions when crew members have been recovered, “Military briefers have admitted to members of Congress that they cannot satisfy the evidentiary burden necessary to hold or prosecute survivors of the boat strikes,” reported the Intercept’s Nick Turse, who has covered the boat strikes extensively. Three survivors have been recovered alive; all have been let go without charges.

Questioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) revealed that those carrying out boat-strike targeting are using three criteria that Kaine was not authorized to disclose publicly. He could disclose, however, that “evidence of narcotics on the boat” was remarkably not one of the three criteria.

In fact, the U.S. military usually doesn’t even know the identities of the people on the boats. The Washington Post reported that the targeting instructions in the boat-strike campaign’s August 5 Defense Department Execute Order (EXORD) “do not require positive identification of any individual but rather ‘reasonable certainty’ that adult males are members of, or affiliated with,” a DTO.

A former U.S. official who had read the EXORD told the Post, “The campaign may be killing individuals who in some cases have a tenuous link to any organized drug-running operation.” That official added, “When you define ‘DTO’ and ‘affiliate’ so loosely and you’re attacking boats, (the guidelines are) basically meaningless.”

The term “affiliate,” which the Trump administration is using to end lives on the open ocean, is especially squishy. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent that, in a briefing with Pentagon officials, “They did not in any way, shape, manner, or form explain what the ceiling and floor are for ‘affiliated.’” People who received a classified briefing interviewed by the Intercept “said that they were under the impression that little more than a conversation with a DTO member might confer ‘affiliate’ status.”

Vague claims of “affiliation” or behavioral patterns introduce confirmation bias and guesswork into a lethal process. This vastly increases the probability that the boat strikes are killing people who have committed no crime at all.

“Some people who are familiar with boat movements” along the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Venezuela told the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism that “it is common for the same boats that carry drugs on the outward journey to bring passengers back. The capitanes, as the boat operators are known, take whatever work they can get.”

The Intercept raised the possibility, acknowledged by a senior military officer, that some of those killed in the first strike on September 2 may have been migrants or human trafficking victims. That boat had 11 people aboard, a strangely large number for a short-hop drug delivery of less than 100 miles between Venezuela and Trinidad.

Evidence points to some of those killed in boat strikes being fishermen plying their trade. While residents of poor coastal fishing communities may “take occasional trafficking jobs to get by,” which blurs their identities, the likelihood of dying in a strike is scaring people away from getting in boats simply to fish, the New York Times reported from coastal Colombia and Ecuador. “Residents described entire communities abandoning fishing because the small ‘lanchas,’ or speedboats, used by traffickers and fishers are often indistinguishable.”

In Santa Marta, Colombia, the family of fisherman Alejandro Carranza, killed in a September 15 strike, insists that he was not involved in the drug trade. “If he was some kind of narcoterrorist,” the mother of three of Mr. Carranza’s children asked New York Times reporters, “then why are we living in misery instead of a mansion?”

Two of those killed in an October 14, 2025 strike were Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo, 41, both from the village of Las Cuevas, Trinidad. Their families are suing the United States for damages under the Death on the High Seas Act and the Alien Tort Statute. The complaint in Burnley v. United States argues that both men had been in Venezuela for months working on farms and, in their final communications, told their families that they had obtained passage by boat home to Trinidad.

In Sucre, Venezuela, where 90% of the population lacks basic food security, some of the dead were fishermen or taxi drivers who agreed to crew a boat that shipped drugs to Trinidad in exchange for a few hundred dollars. Some, like a “beloved” indoor soccer player, may simply have been aboard for the ride.

To all the concerns about the quality and reliability of intelligence used to target people for lethal boat strikes, we must add recent cases elsewhere pointing to U.S. reliance on faulty intelligence, or even just hunches. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rendered 252 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s feared Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, alleging that they were all “terrorist” group members, an assertion that proved shockingly wrong, according to subsequent investigations. The New York Times revealed that an early March raid on an alleged DTO encampment in northern Ecuador, planned jointly by U.S. and Ecuadorian forces, in fact targeted a dairy farm. A March bombing in Iran that killed students at a school for girls is a well-known recent example elsewhere.

If even a few of the boat-strike victims are just fishermen, passengers, or low-level couriers with no relationship to big criminal syndicates, the Trump administration’s justification for the strikes simply cannot be sustained. It would confirm that this justification rests on a very rickety foundation of questionable intelligence, which should expose many in the chain of command to national and international criminal or civil liability.

The boat strikes need to stop immediately, and its architects and willing implementers must be investigated and held accountable at the earliest opportunity.


Adam Isacson has worked on defense, security, and peacebuilding in Latin America since 1994. He now directs WOLA’s Defense Oversight program, which monitors U.S. cooperation with Latin America’s security forces, as well as other security trends.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Does the Pentagon even know who its boat strikes are killing?

The Right-Wing Zionist Wave Sweeping Latin America

José Niño Unfiltered | June 30, 2026

Abelardo de la Espriella’s razor-thin victory over leftist Iván Cepeda on June 21, 2026 represented the most recent rightward shift in Latin America’s politics. The defense attorney from Barranquilla captured 49.66 percent of the vote against Cepeda’s 48.7 percent—a margin of roughly 250,000 votes in what Al Jazeera called one of Colombia’s closest elections. Within hours, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called to congratulate him, and de la Espriella posted his response publicly.

“Colombia will restore and strengthen its relationship with the State of Israel like never before. Israel can count on Colombia as a loyal friend and steadfast ally,” de la Espriella declared. Sa’ar called him “a true friend of the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” adding that he looked forward to “revitalizing relations between Israel and Colombia and taking them to their highest level ever” and that he had already invited the incoming president to visit Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his own congratulations, saying he looked forward to “working with you to strengthen the bond between Israel and Colombia.” De la Espriella has pledged to reverse Petro’s 2024 decision to cut ties with Israel and has promised to relocate the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem.

No figure looms larger in this transformation of Latin American politics than Argentine President Javier Milei. The libertarian economist who took office in December 2023 has positioned himself as Israel’s most devoted ally anywhere on earth.

“I am sincerely proud to be the most Zionist president in the world,” Milei declared at Yeshiva University in March 2026. At the Western Wall in June 2025, he proclaimed that “My support for Israel comes from the heart, because I believe this is a just cause—the cause of the West. I will always stand by your side.”

Milei personally studies Torah with Rabbi Shimon Axel Wahnish from the Moroccan Jewish community in Argentina and has said he intends to convert to Judaism after leaving office. In June 2025, he became the first non-Jewish head of state to receive Israel’s Genesis Prize, known as the “Jewish Nobel,” awarded for his “unequivocal support” of Israel.

He directed his entire $1 million prize toward creating the American Friends of Isaac Accords, the vehicle through which Argentina and Israel formally signed the Isaac Accords on April 19, 2026 in Jerusalem. The framework explicitly mirrors the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, but targets the Western Hemisphere instead.

The goals are clear. Partner countries should move their embassies to Jerusalem, designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, shift anti-Israel voting patterns at the United Nations, and create frameworks for trade in technology, agriculture, water, health, and cybersecurity.

At least one nation had embraced the embassy mandate well ahead of the Accords. Paraguay’s Santiago Peña reopened his country’s embassy in Jerusalem on December 12, 2024, making Paraguay the sixth country in the world—after the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea—and the first since the October 7 attacks to establish diplomatic presence in the contested city.

“Mr. prime minister, on behalf of all the Paraguayan people, we were with you, we are with you, we will stay with the people of Israel forever,” Peña declared at the ceremony with Netanyahu present. He called the move “a tipping point in our own history” and “a moral obligation that the Paraguayan people have asked us to fulfill.”

Paraguay was not alone in courting Tel Aviv. Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, the banana fortune heir who won re-election in 2025, traveled to Jerusalem in May of that year for meetings with Netanyahu, at which Noboa declared that “Israel and Ecuador have the same enemies” and pledged to fight poverty, terrorism, and suffering “until the end.” Israeli diplomatic sources confirmed to Jewish Insider that both Ecuador and Paraguay are expected to formally join the Isaac Accords framework.

Nowhere did the shift register more dramatically than in Chile. José Antonio Kast’s victory in Chile’s December 2025 election delivered perhaps the most symbolically significant prize. Kast overturned four years of Gabriel Boric’s more pro-Palestinian governance. After Iran’s 2024 drone attack on Israel, Kast had warned that “Iran launches a drone and missile attack on Israel. They could be the same drones that it gifted to Bolivia to monitor our borders. Chile has a serious national security problem.”

In May 2026, Kast met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and pledged to return Chile’s ambassador to Israel, ending a lengthy vacancy by naming Gabriel Zaliasnik as ambassador. He promised expanded cooperation in agriculture, health, artificial intelligence, technology, and security. Notably, Kast achieved this while governing a country home to the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Arab world, estimated at 500,000 people.

The same paradox surfaced again, more sharply still, in Central America. Nasry “Tito” Asfura won Honduras’s late 2025 election with Trump’s endorsement, becoming president on January 27, 2026. Despite his Palestinian Christian ancestry, the conservative former mayor of Tegucigalpa made Israel one of his first international destinations after being elected, traveling there alongside the United States.

“It is a great honor for me to be in Israel again and to strengthen the ties which have been in existence over the last 77 years,” Asfura stated in Jerusalem. “I hope we are entering a new era where we can improve our relations, relations of brotherhood, and prosperity, of investment.” Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar told the Jerusalem Post Magazine that Asfura “has a clear worldview that is pro-Western, pro-American, and pro-Israeli,” and characterized the broader regional shift as a “Blue Wave” of right-wing governments aligning with the United States and Israel.

Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz ended nearly 20 years of socialist MAS party rule by winning the October 2025 election. Within weeks, he restored diplomatic relations with Israel—ties the prior government had severed in 2023. Netanyahu congratulated Paz personally, and the two agreed to “promote cooperation in various fields, with an emphasis on security, and to restore the vibrant tourism of many Israeli travelers to Bolivia’s natural landscapes and rich cultures.”

Not every convert to the cause fits the expected profile. Nayib Bukele represents the most curious figure in this constellation. The Salvadoran president, who has Palestinian ancestry on his father’s side, has become an ardent Israel supporter despite his Palestinian Christian heritage. After October 7, 2023, Bukele posted that “As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians.” El Salvador voted against the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in December 2023.

To the south, another government moved along the same axis. José Raúl Mulino, Panama’s security-focused former defense minister, won the 2024 elections and tilted the country firmly toward Washington and Jerusalem. In May 2026, Israeli President Herzog made the first official visit by an Israeli head of state to Panama. Mulino issued a joint declaration pledging expanded cooperation in security, commerce, technology, agriculture, and water management. Panama remains the only Latin American country that has never recognized a Palestinian state.

The October 2026 Brazilian presidential election represents the next battleground. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who compared Israel’s actions to the Holocaust and withdrew Brazil’s ambassador in 2024, faces Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in what polls show as a statistical tie—the BTG/Nexus survey of late March 2026 showed them tied at 46 percent each in a simulated runoff, with the race narrowing from a 12-point Lula lead in December 2025. The first round is scheduled for October 4, 2026, with a runoff on October 25 if no candidate clears 50 percent.

Flávio Bolsonaro, whose father Jair Bolsonaro was imprisoned for the January 8, 2023 coup attempt and barred from office, has positioned himself as the conservative consolidation candidate. A Bolsonaro victory would add the hemisphere’s largest country to the pro-Israel bloc. The Brazil-Israel Parliamentary Caucus signed the Isaac Accords “Declaration of Shared Principles” in April 2026, demonstrating legislative support even while Lula governs.

Behind each of these realignments lay forces larger than any single election. Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025 directly tied American financial and political backing to right-wing candidates. The region’s growing evangelical Christian population, with its theologically driven support for Israel, has provided an important voting base. As the Jerusalem Post observed, Israeli officials have declared 2026 “the year of Latin America.” With more than a dozen countries having restored or strengthened ties with Israel, the Isaac Accords and the broader rightward shift have fundamentally redrawn the hemisphere’s diplomatic map with direct implications for Israel’s global standing, American regional strategy, and the future of Palestinian diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere.

The latest boondoggles in Eurasia—from the Russo-Ukrainian war to the Iran war—have forced the Judeo-American project to seek softer targets. Latin America, with its fractured polities, corrupt elites, and vast resources, is the obvious prize. The so-called right-wing resurgence is not a recovery of national pride but rather a vassalage dressed in conservative robes. Each new president who rushes to Tel Aviv is a tool, not a leader. Pace some naive nationalist minds in the West, Zionism is not nationalist in nature, but rather an expansionist movement with global ambitions. The illusion that it respects sovereignty must be shattered by serious political movements. A coordinated multi-national resistance is the only force that can stop this hemispheric takeover and other Jewish supremacist endeavors from consolidating across the globe.

July 2, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Right-Wing Zionist Wave Sweeping Latin America

Why Iran believes Israel will attack again before October

By Trita Parsi | July 1, 2026

Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.

Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.

From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran—one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.

That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.

Part of it was because of Israel’s much higher pain tolerance compared to the GCC states. Tehran was aiming to reach the most accessible pain threshold to pressure the US to end the war. But part of it was the critical role Hezbollah played in the war, contrary to much of the press coverage at the time. It played a critical role in stretching Israel’s defenses, complicating its targeting decisions, and forcing it to divide resources across multiple fronts.

That role, however, was poorly understood because Israel imposed near-total military censorship during the war—far stricter than the censorship regime in June 2025—which sharply limited public visibility into Hezbollah’s operations and their impact. As a result, the degree to which Hezbollah shaped the course of the war has been significantly underestimated.

Unlike the MOU, the current Israeli-Lebanese agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Since that outcome is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Israel is poised to retain its positions inside Lebanon, enabling it to renew the war with Iran without facing the same pressure from its northern front that constrained it during the previous conflict.

Netanyahu’s motivations are clear. Beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favourable to Israel, he now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war.

The MOU has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu. His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.

And of course, if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as Prime Minister and face trial over corruption charges.

Whether the Trump administration is coordinating with Israel on such a strategy remains unclear to Tehran. But suspicions surrounding Secretary of State Marco Rubio run particularly deep, given his role in brokering the Israeli-Lebanese agreement, his support for the war, and his perceived opposition to the MOU.

From Tehran’s perspective, there are three plausible scenarios. The first is that the White House is aware of Israel’s plans and helped broker the Lebanese agreement in part to facilitate them. The second is that Washington is unaware of Netanyahu’s intentions but would nonetheless come to Israel’s defense—and perhaps even join the offensive—once Netanyahu resumes the war. The third is that the administration is caught by surprise, chooses not to restrain Israel, but also refrains from direct military involvement in the conflict.

Tehran does not believe Israel’s advantage in Lebanon will prove decisive. Iranian officials remain confident they can impose severe costs on Israel and deny it its broader strategic objectives. But a renewed war could still achieve Netanyahu’s most immediate aim: killing the MOU. Given his mounting political and legal pressures, Netanyahu may be desperate enough to be willing to challenge Trump directly to ensure precisely that outcome.

The question is, once again, not how Trump will react, but if Trump will prevent Netanyahu from deliberately shaping and limiting Trump’s options. This is the test Trump has repeatedly failed.

July 1, 2026 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Why Iran believes Israel will attack again before October