Press TV – June 1, 2026
More than 300 non-Iranian vessels, mostly oil tankers, have submitted their information to secure a safe passage permit from the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) since the entity began its operations in early May, the PGSA announced in a post on X on Tuesday.
The majority of these requests came from outbound ships, which accounted for 77 percent of the total applications. Inbound ships made up the remaining 23 percent.
The PGSA noted that the primary destinations for outbound vessels have been Asian countries, particularly China and India, while the main destination for inbound ships has been the United Arab Emirates.
Iran established the PGSA following the imposition of its sovereign regulatory framework for maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.
According to the PGSA, the authority does not have the power to issue permits for ships from hostile countries.
The move comes as Washington has attempted to prevent Iran from exercising its sovereign rights in the strait.
On May 27, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the PGSA, accusing the body of funnelling revenue from a toll system to the IRGC.
The PGSA has dismissed the sanctions as an extension of Washington’s “failed” attempts to dominate the waterway, stating that it “considers being sanctioned by a country whose president boasts about piracy to be a sign of its positive performance”.
Press TV – June 2, 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy has struck the giant cargo ship MSC Sariska, affiliated with the American‑Zionist enemy, with a cruise missile in a reciprocal operation after a US attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Sea of Oman.
The IRGC Navy’s public relations department announced on Tuesday that the strike was a direct response to the “aggressive and treacherous attack” by the US military on the Iranian bulk carrier Lian Star.
“In response to the aggressive attack by the terrorist and child‑killing US army on the Iranian vessel Lian Star in the Sea of Oman, the IRGC Navy conducted a reciprocal operation and struck the MSC Sariska with a cruise missile,” the statement said, as carried by Sepah News.
The MSC Sariska, a Panamanian‑flagged vessel, was targeted near Iraqi waters and sustained a major explosion.
The IRGC Navy warned that any further aggression by the US army in the region will be met with a decisive response.
On Friday, a US aircraft fired an AGM‑114 Hellfire missile at the engine room of the bulk carrier Lian Star, disabling the vessel.
The Lian Star is a commercial vessel that was operating in international waters when it was targeted.
Iran has accused the United States of an act of state‑sponsored maritime terrorism.
The exchange comes amid heightened tensions in the strategic waters of the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The United States and Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran on February 28, assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and striking civilian and military infrastructure.
A Pakistan‑brokered ceasefire has been in place since early April, but Washington has continued to enforce a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran has repeatedly stated that it will not tolerate any violation of its sovereignty and that any act of aggression will be met with a proportionate and forceful response.
The IRGC Navy has maintained full control over the Strait of Hormuz and has warned that any interference by foreign military forces will be met with immediate retaliation.
Press TV – June 1, 2026
The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has adopted fundraising methods that obscure its role in directing campaign contributions to political candidates, as support for the Israeli regime declines among Democratic voters in the United States, according to a report.
AIPAC has traditionally highlighted its success in helping elect candidates committed to supporting the regime, including backing billions of dollars in annual US military aid.
Reporting on Sunday, however, Israeli paper Ha’aretz said growing criticism of the regime among Democratic voters has made public association with the lobbying group a potential political liability.
“But as the Israel-boosting organization’s brand becomes toxic in many Democratic primaries, [AIPAC] has adopted a new fundraising method that hides its involvement in steering funds to favored contenders,” it wrote.
According to the report, AIPAC has encouraged donors to contribute through online portals it controls that direct funds straight to candidates’ campaigns, thereby “erasing AIPAC’s fingerprints in public data.”
The tactic was reportedly used in Michigan, where Congresswoman Haley Stevens is running for an open Senate seat against Abdul el-Sayed. During the campaign, el-Sayed criticized Stevens for accepting AIPAC-linked funding, saying the money had “bought” her support for continued US military aid for Tel Aviv.
The Detroit News reported that AIPAC raised several million dollars for Stevens through a fundraising page hosted on its website. Ha’aretz also said the group previously emailed donors directing them to candidate-specific donation pages on the “Pro-Israel Network” website rather than to AIPAC itself.
The report added that these portals allow AIPAC to gather donor information and share it with candidates, while working on their behalf and “shielding” the process from public view. According to Ha’aretz, the strategy helps candidates avoid criticism for accepting AIPAC support at a time when only 13 percent of Democratic voters reportedly view the regime favorably.
In March, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego said, “I wouldn’t take AIPAC money because you have to basically be endorsing what’s happening right now, and it’s not good.”
Ha’aretz also reported that AIPAC has increasingly operated through political action committees whose names do not reference either the organization or the regime.
The issue has also surfaced among Republicans. Earlier this month, AIPAC spent $16 million in efforts to defeat Representative Thomas Massie, a prominent critic of Tel Aviv, in a Republican primary. Following his defeat, Massie said, “It’s turned into a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.”
RT | June 1, 2026
Iran has halted negotiations with the US over the ongoing Israeli offensive in Lebanon, moving to block maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Tasnim news agency has reported, citing sources.
Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in Lebanon in recent days, against what it describes as sites used by the Hezbollah militant group. The Israeli military has pushed deeper into the country’s south, seizing Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old Crusader fortress and a key vantage point in the region.
While Iran made an end to the war in Lebanon a condition for its Pakistani-mediated negotiations with the US, the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah have continued despite a supposed ceasefire announced in mid-April.
In response to the escalation in Lebanon, Tehran is stopping the “negotiations and exchange of messages through a mediator,” according to Tasnim.
Iran has reportedly demanded an “immediate cessation of hostilities” in the country, as well as in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, making it a condition for continuing the contacts with the US.
Tehran and its regional allied groups have also expressed readiness to seal off the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to “activate other fronts,” including disrupting maritime traffic in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to the agency.
Press TV – June 1, 2026
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has carried out a retaliatory strike against an air base used by the United States to launch a military attack on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran.
In a statement on Monday, the IRGC said its Aerospace Force struck and destroyed the air base from which the “aggressor US military” launched an attack on the telecom tower on Sirik Island in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan.
“Following the aggression carried out hours ago by the aggressor US military against a communications tower on Sirik Island in Hormozgan Province, the fighters of the IRGC Aerospace Force targeted the air base from which the attack originated, and the predetermined targets were destroyed,” the statement added.
The IRGC Aerospace Force also issued a stern warning against further military action, emphasizing that any future attacks would prompt more severe responses.
“The IRGC Aerospace Force warns that if the aggression is repeated, the response will be completely different, and responsibility for its consequences will rest with the aggressor and child-killing US regime,” the statement said.
The developments came after the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Sunday that it conducted “self-defense strikes” over the weekend against Iranian radar and drone command-and-control facilities in the city of Goruk and on Qeshm Island.
“The measured and deliberate strikes occurred on Saturday and Sunday,” CENTCOM said in response to what it called “aggressive Iranian actions that included the shootdown of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters.”
The IRGC Public Relations Department announced in a statement on Sunday that the elite force’s air defense units detected and successfully shot down an intruding MQ-1 Predator drone belonging to the “aggressor US military”, shortly after it encroached upon Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.
It added that the multi-mission and long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft was intercepted and destroyed as it entered the Iranian skies in the early hours of Sunday.
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – May 30, 2026
Prof. Glenn Diesen on Neutrality Studies – May 30, 2026
NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine is morphing into a direct EU-Russia war. And the war hawks in Brussels are further escalating by attacking civilians in the Donbas and Russia proper. The doves in the Kremlin are running out of options to keep their own hawks under wraps. As things stand now, an all-out EU-Russia war is not only a possible, but by now a likely scenario. But to what end?
By Jose Nino | Occidental Observer | May 30, 2026
For decades, prominent Jewish voices have wrestled privately with an uncomfortable question. Does aggressive Israeli government conduct expose diaspora Jewish communities to backlash they did not invite? In early March, Ezra Klein brought that question back into public view. Speaking with former Obama senior adviser Ben Rhodes on a podcast episode titled “The Great Lie of War”, the New York Times columnist warned that Israel’s central role in the joint U.S. assault on Iran could fuel a new wave of antisemitism.
The two men spent most of the interview discussing the strategic recklessness of the Iran operation where the United States and Israel launched an assault that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and much of his senior command. They examined the lack of congressional authorization, the absence of an endgame, the risk of a massive refugee crisis, and what they described as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s long-sought goal of drawing the United States into direct military confrontation with Iran.
The antisemitism remark came near the end of that segment, specifically as a follow-on to a discussion about Saudi ambivalence toward the war and the question of what Israel actually wants from the conflict. Klein’s exact words in the transcript were, “I’m not saying this is the biggest issue at this moment, but the centrality of Israel in the operation has raised some concerns for me about what this is going to mean for anti-Semitism. You see the amount of talk on the MAGA right, but elsewhere as well that, you know, Israel’s leverage over Donald Trump or that, you know, this is all just some kind of Israeli plot.”
Klein then noted that Netanyahu appeared to be gambling with Israel’s long term political standing in America and in the world at a time of “very, very sharply rising anti-Semitism,” expressing uncertainty about how it would all pan out. The New York Times columnist’s concern, stated plainly, was that Israel’s highly visible, central role in what many perceived as an unjustified war of aggression would fuel conspiracy theories rather than defuse them. His worry was that Netanyahu’s short-term tactical success, finally getting a U.S. president to strike Iran, risked long-term consequences for Jews, especially in the United States.
This dilemma is not new. Jewish billionaire George Soros articulated a similar concern over two decades ago. Soros has largely steered clear of public association with Jewish communal life and seldom appears at exclusively Jewish functions. That changed in 2003, when he took the stage at a New York City meeting hosted by the Jewish Funders Network. Questioned about the spread of antisemitism across Europe, Soros offered an unexpected diagnosis, laying blame at the feet of U.S. and Israeli policy. “There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” he stated. “If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish. I can’t see how one could confront it directly.”
At the time, the reaction from Jewish leadership was furious. Elan Steinberg, who served as senior adviser to the World Jewish Congress after a stint as its executive director, fired back. “Let’s understand things clearly: Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews; it’s caused by anti-Semites.” Abraham Foxman dismissed Soros’s words as “absolutely obscene.” The head of the ADL elaborated. “He buys into the stereotype. It’s a simplistic, counterproductive, biased and bigoted perception of what’s out there. It’s blaming the victim for all of Israel’s and the Jewish people’s ills.”
The Foxman and Steinberg responses reflected an orthodox position within Jewish communal leadership. Antisemitism, in this view, is a pathology of antisemites, and any attempt to link it to Israeli behavior constitutes victim blaming. Yet this position has always co-existed uneasily with a practical awareness that Israeli actions, particularly those perceived as disproportionate or aggressive, create public relations challenges for diaspora Jewish communities.
Klein’s 2026 remarks fall squarely within this tension. He was warning that Netanyahu’s gamble, making Israel so visibly central to an unpopular war, would hand ammunition to those who already believed such theories. Polling data suggests that Klein’s concerns about Israel’s political standing are well-founded. Gallup’s 2025 Annual World Affairs Survey documented a broader collapse in American sentiment toward Israel. Only 46% of Americans sympathized with Israelis, the lowest figure in 25 years of Gallup tracking. Among Democrats, 59% sympathized more with Palestinians—with only 21% sympathizing with Israelis—creating a nearly 3-to-1 ratio, the first time Palestinians had held such a commanding lead among members of a major U.S. party. A majority of Americans, and a record-high 76% of Democrats, supported an independent Palestinian state.
These trends predate the Iran strike and reflect cumulative damage from Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The joint United States and Israel operation against Iran, with Israel’s role so prominently featured, is unlikely to reverse this trajectory and will more than likely heighten Western populations’ hostility toward Israel. The polling numbers bear this out.
The Jewish People Policy Institute found that only 28% of strong liberal Jews support the war while 62% oppose it. Support climbs to 100% among strong conservative Jews. The partisan split is even more dramatic. Trump voters among American Jews back the war at 99%, while Harris voters divide 47% to 42%.
The picture among Americans generally looks very different. Pew Research found that 59% of Americans said the United States made the wrong decision in using military force and 61% disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict. An AP-NORC poll found that 59% of Americans believe U.S. military action has gone “too far,” while a Quinnipiac survey reported 74% oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran. The immediate unpopularity of the Iran war combined with Israel’s sullied image as a result of the Gaza genocide may explain why elements of American Jewry are embracing certain forms of controlled opposition to the Netanyahu regime, while stopping short of criticizing the entire Zionist project and its thoroughly Jewish nature.
It should be said that rational anti-Semitism is never about all Jews. Klein’s worry that “Jewish communities globally could be stained with guilt by association in the eyes of those who conflate the Israeli government with all Jews” should be seen as relying on the idea that anti-Semitism refers to complaints about “all Jews.” Most commonly complaints about Jews rely on understanding where the power of the Jewish community is directed, and in this case it’s obvious that the mainstream Jewish community in the U.S. and its powerful lobbying organizations (here and here) are entirely on board with the war. This is especially true in the Trump administration where the more conservative elements of the Jewish community, including Chabad Lubavitch, have increased their influence greatly.
It is simply that their vision [of conservative Jewish groups] for Jewish flourishing in America is radically at odds with the basic assumptions that have grounded American Jewish politics for much of the last century: chiefly, that Jewish interests are best served by the separation of religion and state; that American Jews are best protected through multiethnic, pluralistic coalitions rather than an alliance with the Christian majority; and that the invisibility of Jewish group interests is preferable to visible Jewish particularity.
Ezra Klein’s warnings about the centrality of Israel in the Iran war are a tacit admission that the Jewish establishment has lost its ability to operate from behind a veil. By leveraging control over U.S. administrations to initiate wars of choice, this power structure has forced a public reckoning that no amount of image-polishing can reverse. History has repeatedly shown that Jewish overreach eventually triggers an immune response from the host population.
We are currently in the midst of that reaction, and the path forward lies in the unapologetic identification and systematic dismantling of the Jewish influence networks that have compromised the highest levels of our government and financial institutions.
Press TV – May 30, 2026
An Iranian ballistic missile attack on a Kuwaiti air base has wounded several American military personnel and caused serious damage to two US MQ-9 Reaper drones, according to a new report.
The American news outlet Bloomberg, citing an informed source, said in a report published on Saturday that the attack on the Ali Al Salem Air Base resulted in minor injuries to approximately five individuals, including US service members and contractors.
It also caused significant damage to two MQ-9 Reaper drones, with one reportedly destroyed and another heavily damaged. Each drone is valued at around $30 million.
According to Bloomberg, Kuwaiti air defences intercepted an Iranian Fateh-110 missile before it reached its intended target. However, debris from the intercepted projectile fell onto the US-operated Ali Al Salem Air Base, causing the injuries and damage.
The latest development comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran.
On Thursday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed that Iran had launched a missile toward Kuwait, describing the action as a “gross violation of the ceasefire.”
In a statement issued later in the day, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had deliberately targeted the US base, noting that it had been used to launch an earlier American attack.
The IRGC went on to say that US forces had conducted a strike using aerial projectiles against a location near Bandar Abbas airport earlier that morning, describing its missile attack as a warning to the US.
It also vowed that any future acts of aggression would be met with a stronger response, stressing that responsibility for any escalation would rest with the party initiating hostile actions.
The US and Israel started an aggression against Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country.
Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the strikes by launching a barrage of missiles and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.
On April 8, forty days into the war, a Pakistan-brokered temporary ceasefire between Iran and the US took effect.
Negotiations ensued in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, but stopped short of an agreement amid Washington’s maximalist demands and insistence on unreasonable positions.
The dismissal of charges against Ori Solomon raises uncomfortable questions about how the US justice system handles Israeli nationals
José Niño Unfiltered | May 29, 2026
On January 31, 2026, FBI agents and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers executed a search warrant at a residence on Sugar Springs Drive in east Las Vegas, near Washington Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. What they found inside triggered one of the strangest criminal cases in recent Nevada history. Authorities discovered what they described as an illegal biological laboratory concealed within the property, complete with a biosafety hood, a biosafety sticker, a centrifuge, multiple refrigerators containing vials of unidentified liquids, red and brown unknown liquids in gallon-sized containers, and over 1,000 containers with unknown substances.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Delzotto described the scene as containing “a bio-safety hood, a bio-safety sticker, a centrifuge, multiple refrigerators, red-brown unknown liquids in gallon-sized containers, and refrigerated vials with unknown liquids.” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill confirmed investigators recovered “evidence of possible biological material, including refrigerators with vials containing unknown liquids” and said the items were “consistent in appearance” with those found in the 2023 Reedley, California case, per a report by ABC30.
A whistleblower reportedly told investigators that people who entered the garage became “deathly ill,” with at least one resident hospitalized for a respiratory illness. Testing of the materials was conducted at both the Southern Nevada Health District laboratory and the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland. Materials were later determined to be consistent with components for medical diagnostic test kits.
The man at the center of this investigation is Ori Solomon, a 55-year-old property manager who had been living in Las Vegas for over 20 years at the time of his arrest. Officers found an Israeli passport in the name “Ori Solomon” and a French passport in the name “Ori Salomon” at his residence. He was present in the United States on a non-immigrant visa. His primary occupation was managing short-term rental properties, and court records indicate he oversaw approximately 37 such properties in the Las Vegas area. He is not a trained biologist, and court documents note no publicly confirmed expertise in biological sciences. In a significant development, federal charges against Solomon were dropped in May 2026, with prosecutors stating “the Government has concluded that the interests of justice require dismissal of the complaint.”
Solomon managed properties for Chinese national Jia Bei Zhu, also known as David He and Jesse Zhu. Investigators described Solomon as an “agent and conspirator” with Zhu, noting that Zhu made 467 calls to Solomon in the weeks leading up to the raid. Zhu was already in federal custody in California linked to a 2023 illegal biolab in Reedley, California—a case that had attracted the attention of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. That committee found the illegal California lab was run by a PRC citizen who was a wanted fugitive from Canada and had evaded a multi-million million Canadian court judgment for stealing American intellectual property.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elayna Youchah, who is of Sephardic Jewish extraction, presided over the initial federal detention hearing on February 6, 2026. She ordered Solomon’s release on his own recognizance, finding that the allegations were concerning but not severe enough to require detention, noting Solomon had no prior criminal history. She imposed conditions including surrender of all passports, travel restricted to the continental United States, required notification before leaving Clark County, and prohibition on possessing any firearms or weapons.
The federal prosecution was led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada, then headed in practice by Sigal Chattah—an Israeli-born attorney who bore the title of First Assistant U.S. Attorney after a federal judge ruled her interim appointment had been made illegally. A criminal complaint charged Solomon with one count of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. Multiple firearms were recovered at his residence, including handguns and rifles.
Then came the twist that has fueled speculation. Chattah’s office filed a motion to dismiss without prejudice the federal firearms complaint against Solomon. The motion stated only: “After a careful review of the evidence and additional information provided by defendant, the Government has concluded that the interests of justice require dismissal of the complaint at this time.” A spokesperson declined to explain the rationale. The dismissal was without prejudice, meaning federal prosecutors retain the legal option to re-file.
Solomon still faces the Clark County felony charge for improper disposal of hazardous waste. With the federal case dismissed, there is public concern that Solomon could potentially regain his passports and leave the country before the state case is resolved.
This concern is not hypothetical. The Solomon case mirrors a separate, high-profile case involving an Israeli cybersecurity official charged with child sex crimes in the Las Vegas area in 2025. Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, 38, the Executive Director of the Cyber Defense Division at Israel’s National Cyber Security Authority, was arrested on August 6, 2025, in Henderson, Nevada, as part of a multi-week joint undercover sting operation targeting child sex predators. Alexandrovich was among eight men arrested. He allegedly used WhatsApp and the dating app Pure to communicate with an FBI decoy posing as a 15-year old girl, agreeing to meet for “sexual contact” and bringing a condom to the meeting location.
Alexandrovich was attending the annual Black Hat USA 2025 cybersecurity conference at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas,which ran August 2-7, 2025, at the time of his arrest on August 6. He was booked at the Henderson Detention Center and charged with luring a child with a computer for sex acts, a Class B felony carrying 1 to 10 years in prison.
What happened next sparked immediate international controversy. Alexandrovich posted $10,000 standard bail, set without review by a judge at the time of booking, and flew back to Israel the following day, August 7, 2025. U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah, publicly stated Alexandrovich “should have had his passport confiscated by state authorities” and must be brought back to face justice. The U.S. State Department denied any federal intervention, declaring Alexandrovich “did not claim diplomatic immunity and was released by a state judge pending a court date.”
Alexandrovich’s case proceeded through the Nevada courts. Judge Barbara Schifalacqua, ordered remote appearances after he skipped his initial arraignment. He appeared via Zoom before Judge Schifalacqua in September 2025 and was barred from contact with minors and dating apps. A grand jury indicted him on one count of luring children with technology for sexual conduct. He pleaded not guilty via video before District Judge Tina Talim and a trial was set for March 2026. Judge Talim denied a motion to dismiss in November 2025, ruling the prosecution had established probable cause.
Meanwhile, the man at the center of the original biolab investigation has faced his own reckoning. On May 5 and 6, 2026, Jia Bei Zhu was found guilty on all 12 counts for fraudulently selling COVID-19 tests and lying to the FDA. His sentencing was scheduled for August 24, 2026, with a potential sentence of up to 31 years in prison.
To say that strange things are taking place in Sin City would be an understatement. When the layers of the Las Vegas biolab investigation are peeled back, it becomes evident that the “interests of justice” cited by prosecutors are effectively code for the protection of Jewish interests under the current American regime. Solomon’s immediate release and subsequent dismissal are not aberrations but consistent features of a system that has long been captured by Jewish interests hostile to the Historic American Nation.
The ease with which Solomon, a foreign national holding multiple passports, has navigated federal jeopardy exposes the double standard inherent in our society. While common citizens and those who vehemently oppose the Judeo-American order are relentlessly pursued by the state, those embedded within the trans-national Jewish network enjoy a tacit, systemic immunity. This is the hallmark of Empire Judaica—a framework that treats the security of the American people as secondary to the preservation of a Jewish tribe that acts with the same impunity in Nevada as the state of Israel does on the global stage.
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – May 29, 2026
Al Mayadeen | May 29, 2026
Fars News Agency cited informed sources rejecting recent claims by US President Donald Trump regarding a potential agreement with Iran, saying his remarks are “a mixture of truths and lies” aimed at portraying a “fabricated victory.”
According to the report, the proposed agreement, drafted under the framework of “commitment in exchange for commitment,” is currently in the final stages of approval in Iran, though no final decision has yet been made.
The sources said Trump, whom they said is unable to withdraw from the agreement process, made statements that contradict the actual provisions of the text while simultaneously claiming that the US would immediately end the blockade against Iran.
Distortions in Trump’s remarks
The report said Trump falsely claimed that Iran would be required to open the Strait of Hormuz without imposing transit fees. According to the sources, no such clause exists in the agreement.
Iran, they said, has stressed that once the blockade is lifted, the strait would reopen according to arrangements determined by Tehran, including possible ship monitoring, inspections, maritime services, and security measures. The report added that Iran is currently preparing the infrastructure for implementing those procedures.
Fars also dismissed Trump’s claim that Iran would dismantle or destroy its nuclear materials, saying informed sources confirmed that the memorandum of understanding contains no such provision and that the allegation is “entirely baseless.”
Key provisions omitted
According to the report, one of the most important terms ignored in Trump’s statements is the immediate payment of $12 billion from frozen Iranian assets.
The sources said the agreement requires the payment to be carried out immediately and stipulates that Iran will not proceed to further stages of negotiations until the transfer is completed. Failure to fulfill this obligation would constitute a violation of US commitments under the deal, the report added.
The report also stated that another key component of the proposed agreement involves establishing a full ceasefire in Lebanon in line with Hezbollah’s position.
According to the sources, only after these issues are resolved would Iran move to the next phase of talks concerning the lifting of all sanctions and the nuclear issue, in accordance with Tehran’s “red lines.”
Iranian officials also stressed that any final agreement would be based on the principles and red lines of the Islamic Republic and formulated with “complete distrust” toward the US, ensuring that any breach of commitments would trigger an immediate reciprocal response.
By Ben Freeman | Responsible Statecraft | May 29, 2026
At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before.
Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.
Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.
If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the U.S. has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the U.S. provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the U.S. providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain.
Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S. By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.
The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East.
This unprecedented level of U.S.-Israeli military integration stands in stark contrast to the traditional aid model of defense cooperation, in which Israel already stood out as the top recipient of U.S. military assistance. As laid out in a recent Quincy Institute brief, authored by Steven Simon, this shift from an aid model to a military integration model has troubling implications, namely:
The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.
This all comes at a time when the Israeli military has repeatedly used U.S. weapons in strikes that have violated international humanitarian laws in Gaza, and as Israel has repeatedly violated ceasefires (as has the U.S. itself) in the Trump administration’s unnecessary war with Iran.
The enormous gulf between what most Americans want and what the president is doing when it comes to Israel and what Congress is proposing here should not be ignored. Just 30% of respondents to a New York Times/Sienna poll from mid-May believe Trump made “the right decision” to go to war with Iran, with 64% saying it was wrong. An Institute for Global Affairs poll released earlier this week dove even deeper into the American psyche when it comes to arming Israel, finding that “Just 16 percent say the United States should keep supplying Israel with weapons without new restrictions. Thirty-eight percent want to stop supplying weapons entirely, and another 24 percent want weapons conditioned on how they’re used.”
Yet, mainstream leadership in both parties remains largely pro-Israel and continues to shape the base legislative text before amendments and broader congressional debate open it to the full body, as is the case with this NDAA provision.
Though slowly, tides within both parties are shifting as more and more members speak out against the growing divide between Israel’s actions and America’s interests. For example, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday that, “The Democratic Party has provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments, even as their actions have increasingly undermined American interests and values.” On the Republican side of the aisle, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) have openly decried the Israel lobby’s corrosive influence — a stance that may have, at least partially, cost both of them their seats in Congress.
What can other members of Congress who are concerned about Israel’s destabilizing actions do right now? Stop the Israeli-U.S. military-industrial merger in its tracks. Lawmakers should reject Section 224 from the NDAA to avoid deep integration with Israel’s military at a time when a growing number of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in the region.
Ben Freeman is Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute and the author of “The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home” (2025).
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Press TV – April 13, 2016
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
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