Trump pushes for ‘total dismantlement’ of Iran’s nuclear program
RT | May 5, 2025
US President Donald Trump has said he wants Iran to completely scrap its nuclear program, as negotiations between the two countries have been postponed.
The president was asked by Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday whether he was aiming to limit or completely abolish Iran’s nuclear program.
“Total dismantlement. Yes, that is all I would accept,” Trump said. He questioned the necessity of the Islamic Republic having nuclear technology for electricity generation.
“They have so much oil – why do they need it? … Civilian [nuclear] energy often leads to military wars. And we don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple deal,” he said.
“I just don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon because the world will be destroyed,” Trump added.
He made his remarks after Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi announced that the fourth round of indirect, mediated US-Iran talks, planned for Saturday, had been postponed indefinitely “for logistical reasons.”
The negotiations, previously described by both sides as constructive, have been overshadowed by tensions in Yemen, where the US and Britain have ramped up airstrikes against the Houthi militants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate after a Houthi ballistic missile landed near Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv on Sunday, injuring eight people.
The Houthis said they were aiming for a “comprehensive air blockade” of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Iran denied directing the attacks, calling such claims “misleading.”
Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 UN-backed deal on Iran’s nuclear program during his first term in office, accusing the Islamic Republic of secretly violating the agreement. Tehran has denied any wrongdoing but has since rolled back its own commitments under the deal and increased its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned last month that the country would resist any “pressure and threat” from the US.
Did the Israeli Embassy Order My Arrest?
Richard Medhurst | May 3, 2025
Emails show Israeli foreign influence in UK’s legal system: the Attorney General’s Office provided the Israeli Deputy Ambassador with contact information of UK prosecutors and counterterrorism police, in the same period that journalist Richard Medhurst and other British reporters and activists were arrested by CT police in a government crackdown. This raises questions about the impartiality of the Crown Prosecution Service and the degree of foreign meddling in the UK’s judiciary.
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Richard Thomas Medhurst (1992) is an independent journalist, political commentator, and analyst from the United Kingdom with a focus on international affairs, US politics, and the Middle East. Medhurst is known for his coverage of the Julian Assange extradition case in London, as one of the only journalists to report on the trial of the WikiLeaks founder from inside the court.
He has also covered the Iran nuclear deal talks on the ground in Vienna. Medhurst was born in Damascus, Syria.
His father is English and mother is Syrian. Both his parents served in United Nations Peacekeeping and Observer missions and were among the UN Peacekeepers awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. Owing to his parents’ professional mobility, he has lived in Syria, Pakistan, Switzerland, and Austria. He speaks four languages fluently: English, Arabic, French, and German.
As an independent journalist, Medhurst regularly hosts live broadcasts and video reports on his YouTube channel. Previous guests include the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, the Dep Foreign Minister of Iran; the Palestinian, Russian and Cuban ambassadors to the United Nations in Vienna; the former British Ambassador to Syria; and various UN officials, journalists, and more. Medhurst’s reports and analysis on Yemen, Ukraine, Syria, Niger, Lebanon, Iran, the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its genocide in Gaza have gone viral countless times, racking up millions of views.
Richard Medhurst has a combined following of roughly one million people online, and appears regularly on international news outlets including Al Jazeera, WikiLeaks, Black Agenda Report, Al Mayadeen, The Times, LBC, and others.
‘Israeli pride’ – Celebrating rape in the Zionist entity
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | May 4, 2025
Shoshana Strook, the daughter of far-right Israeli settlements minister Orit Strook who has accused both of her parents and one of her brothers of raping her as a child, has published a video alleging that they filmed her rape for use as child pornography and that criminals have threatened her with the publication of the video for accusing them. Ms Strook travelled to Italy to disclose her allegations but has now returned to “Israel”, where she asks Israeli police to protect her from her parents and from the blackmailers.
Settler, genocidal racist, abuser?
But who is Orit Strook?
Orit Strook helped to spread the totally false fabricated claims that the Palestinian Resistance committed sexual assaults during Al-Aqsa Flood. She, of course, has stated there is ‘no such thing’ as a Palestinian people. Strook is part of the fascist Jewish Power party (led by Itamar Ben-Gvir) and sits in the Knesset as part of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism.
In 2007, Orit Strook’s son, Zviki Strook and his friends had entered a Palestinian neighbourhood, captured a 15-year-old boy, handcuffed and beat him, stripped him, and allegedly hit him with an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) before leaving him tied up in a field. The victim escaped hours later, suffering from severe injuries.
Zviki was also reported to have killed a newborn goat at the scene by kicking it to death. He was convicted on charges related to the attack and served 30 months in an Israeli prison.
But the Strook family is not the only one in the Zionist colony seemingly addicted to abuse. And nor is abuse confined to the far right, the settler movement, or ultra-orthodox Haredi sects. There is a sickness which permeates the whole settler society.
Most Israeli men say forced sex with acquaintance is not rape, as reported in an academic survey. Six out of 10 men said forced sex was not rape – and so did four out of 10 women. The results illustrated, the author said, the Israeli public’s “tolerant attitude to rape by an acquaintance”.
System failure
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in “Israel” reports that police responses to sexual offences exhibit ‘Systematic failure’: Most complaints are not investigated by police – over 80% of sex offense cases in “Israel” are closed without action.
Gang rapes are a common feature of Israeli life. In one particularly awful case in Eilat in 2020 a 16 year old was raped by 30 men who reportedly stood in line waiting for their turn.
Amid a rise in high-profile gang rape cases in schools, The report found that most victims (63%) of reported gang rapes in 2018 were girls between the ages of 12 and 18.
In one case in the southern town of Netivot of the settler colony in 2019, a 13-year-old girl reported that she was repeatedly raped by four boys who were three or four years above her at the school. In another case in the North the same year, eight suspects between 14 and 16 were investigated for multiple rapes of an eleven year old girl.
If anything rape is seen as a sort of right for the Jewish supremacists who run the colony.
Who can forget the heroes’ welcome for a gang of Jewish rapists returning from Cyprus after their crimes had been revealed back in 2019. Haaretz ran the headline “Sex-party Boys Cleared of Rape in Cyprus Get Heroes’ Welcome in Israel.” There were shouts of ‘Israeli pride!’ from friends and family at Ben-Gurion Airport, “then they opened a bottle of Champagne”.
Of course, in that particular case, the victim was effectively bullied into recanting her testimony and was then convicted of lying about the events in Cyprus. It took years before the legal system admitted that it was wrong, by which time the perpetrators were long gone.
Meanwhile yet another case of young Jewish rapists occurred in Cyprus in 2023. As The Times reported, “On September 3, 2023, a week after arriving at the party hotspot popular with British teenagers, she was allegedly abducted, pinned down and raped by five Israeli men after being dragged from a pool party into their hotel room.” But they got off, “judges returned a not guilty verdict and the five defendants were free to return home to the northern Israeli town of Majd al-Krum, about 11 miles from the Lebanon border.”
In April this year, however, the Cypriot Attorney General appealed the acquittal.
Zionists love rape
Zionists, in other words, love rape. They don’t have any real concept that it is abuse, or if they do, they glory in their ability – their right – to commit abuse. Even the former President of “Israel”, Moshe Katsav, has been convicted of rape.
Zionist entity haven for child rapists
Many accused American pedophiles have reportedly fled to “Israel”, taking advantage of the Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews, with minimal barriers.
Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an American organization tracking these paedophiles, reports over 60 suspects fleeing from the US to “Israel”, though the actual number is certainly higher due to limited resources and knowledge.
The Matzof Association, which monitors paedophilia in “Israel”, estimates that tens of thousands of offenders operate each year, affecting around 100,000 victims annually.
It’s even been suggested by some Zionists that the regime is attempting to legislate to make the rape of children easier.
According to the government of the Zionist entity, there was “a 24 percent increase in children and teenagers treated by authorities after being sexually abused from 2019 to 2020, according to Welfare Ministry figures released Tuesday.”
According to the data, “10% of the victims were aged 3-6, 44% were 7-12 and 46% were 13-17.” About “half the cases of abuse were allegedly committed by family members. Some victims were abused by several people. Actual abuse numbers are thought to be much higher as many cases go unreported, according to experts.”
Paedophiles appear to be liberally spread throughout the global zionist movement. A former leader of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the World Jewish Congress, as well as a long-time Labour MP, Greville Janner was alleged by more than thirty complainants to be a serial paedophile, but the police failed to properly investigate.
Strikingly, his three children all defended him, claiming that the allegations were all invented for nefarious purposes. His daughter, Laura Janner Klausner, is a Rabbi, and not just any old Rabbi. She is the former senior rabbi of Reform Judaism.
Reform Judaism – or to give it its full name, ‘The Movement for Reform Judaism‘ – is the notionally reform-minded sect within Judaism, which, however, remains, in its own words, ‘unequivocally Zionist’. It is closely allied with Liberal or Progressive Judaism in the World Union for Progressive Judaism (which is also Zionist) and has had its own case of an abusive Rabbi.
In other words, we should be clear that the alleged practice of paedophilia (and denial of it) is not confined to the ultra-orthodox, but also manifested among mainstream Zionists (the United Synagogue, also Zionist, to which Janner senior adhered) and on the liberal end of the spectrum.
What is true for their own children and for their women in general is, of course, magnified when it comes to non-Jews and in particular Palestinians: Women, Children, and men too.
The testimony of Ibrahim Salim revealed that sexual torture is routine, including the rape of children. He reported: ”For sexual torture they used to call out prisoners individually. When we were at Sde [Teiman] we heard that they raped someone. We went crazy when we heard that… When we heard that they actually raped him. They even raped children. I swear to God, there was a young guy from Zeitoun who was raped. Not a young man, a child. He was 15 years old.”
In the rape and torture camp at Sde Teiman, even the Western media have reported the mass rape of Palestinian hostages. And when video evidence was released there was a virtual insurrection to prevent the rapists being arrested or prosecuted.
“Israel” appears to be the only place in the world where there are actual demonstrations defending rapists as national heroes precisely because of their crimes.
So, of course, the Western media has been full of allegations about sexual crimes by the Palestinian Resistance for the past 18 months. All of these have been proven to be false, many of them actually invented and spread by the rescue group Zaka. The founder of Zaka, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, who died in 2022, attempted suicide in 2021, after accusations of rape and pedophilia emerged in the daily Haaretz. Several people “testified that they were sexually assaulted by him days after he received the Israel Prize for his contribution to Israeli society. He then refused the prize because of the charges against him.”
Every Zionist accusation is a confession.
Israeli TV producer’s call for Holocaust against Gaza population sparks outrage
Press TV – May 4, 2025
A recently unearthed social media post by Elad Barashi, an Israeli producer associated with Channel 14, has sparked public outrage and condemnation for advocating a Holocaust against Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
In the controversial social media post originally published in Hebrew on February 27, Barashi called for “a cruel and harsh death” for all Gazans, including women and children.
“Who is the fool who says there are ‘innocents’ in Gaza? Who is the despicable scoundrel who wants to let them flee to Arab countries or Europe freely?” he wrote.
In his lengthy post, Barashi made the claim that the entire population of Gaza “deserve death.”
“Men, women, and children — by any means necessary, we must simply carry out a Shoah [Holocaust] against them — yes, read that again — H-O-L-O-C-A-U-S-T!”
“Without fear, without weakness — just crush. Eliminate. Slaughter. Flatten. Dismantle. Smash. Shatter,” he added.
“Without conscience or pity — children and parents, women and girls — all of them are marked for a cruel and harsh death.”
Outraged social media users have criticized Elad Barashi for his recently resurfaced post, condemning the “graphic description” of death for all Gazans and dehumanization of Palestinians.
Channel 14 is a far-right television network widely seen as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favored platform for interviews and messaging.
Barashi, a researcher and producer for shows such as “Story Night” and “Israel Morning” on Channel 14, has been peddling Israeli propaganda to the network’s audience.
Top UN expert urges trial for EU officials over complicity in Israel’s war crimes
Press TV – May 4, 2025
The top expert on Palestine at the UN has called for senior EU officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas to face prosecution for their complicity in Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.
“The fact that the two highest figures of the EU continue business as usual engagements with Israel is beyond deplorable,” said UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese in an interview ran by The Intercept on Saturday.
“I’m not someone who says, ‘History will judge them’ — they will have to be judged before then. And they will have to understand that immunity cannot equate with impunity,” she added.
Israel has killed nearly 52,500 people and destroyed Gaza’s entire civilian infrastructure. Most of the dead have been civilians, including tens of thousands of children and women.
Israel’s initial aim of exchanging captives with Hamas has turned into a US-backed vision for ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza.
To that end, the Israeli military has increased its lethal attacks after breaking a 2-month ceasefire deal with Hamas on March 18.
It has enforced a complete blockade on humanitarian aid, electricity, food, and water since March 2, marking the longest aid blockade since the start of the genocide nearly 19 months ago.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly called on the EU members to boycott Israel and stop selling weapons to the regime.
Nonetheless, since taking office in December, Kallas has blamed Hamas for Israel’s decision to end the ceasefire, continued normal diplomatic relations, and vowed to “stand in solidarity with Israel.”
A complaint against Leyen, the European Commission president, was also filed at the International Criminal Court last May for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Evidence has shown that the EU has turned into a foundation upon which, the member countries contact and make deals with the Israeli regime.
Beyond demanding accountability from EU leaders, Albanese has said she has been working on a report that will expose banks, pension funds, tech companies, and universities for complicity in Gaza’s destruction.
“All those implicated and involved in the unlawful occupation, in providing it with support, are aiding and abetting violations of international law and human rights violations, and a number of these amount to crimes,” she said.
“There can be individual responsibility and individual liability for those who have been aiding and abetting or enabling such crimes,” she added.
US House to vote on bill criminalizing boycott of Israel
Press TV – May 3, 2025
The US House of Representatives is set to vote on a controversial bill that proposes fines or prison terms for Americans participating in boycotts of Israel or Israeli settlements, promoted by international governmental organizations such as the UN or EU.
The House is scheduled to vote Monday on the contentious anti-boycott act, which seeks to penalize American citizens with fines up to $1 million or prison terms as long as 20 years for boycotting the Israeli regime.
Sponsored by pro-Israel congressmen Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer, the bill will broaden the US anti-boycott law by targeting voluntary, values-based political actions undertaken by American citizens.
The underlying objective is to shield the Israeli regime from non-violent international pressure campaigns, notably the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS).
Rights groups warned that the legislation will criminalize constitutionally protected political expression.
The move, according to rights groups, is part of a broader push by the US government to suppress opposition to Israeli genocide, apartheid, and illegal settlement expansion, under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.
The original act was introduced in 2024. Back then the Republican-controlled Congress passed this bill with broad bipartisan support, but the Senate Democrats blocked the legislation.
Now that Republicans control the Senate as well, there is a significant chance that the act will pass both Congress and Senate.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful Israeli lobby group in the US, said it “strongly supports” the act.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Action has already supported the legislation and broader congressional campaigns to push back against anti-Israeli boycotts.
The majority of anti-Israeli boycotts aim to force the regime to end its genocidal war on Gaza that has taken the lives of more than 52,500 Palestinians and injured at least 118,000, most of whom are children and women.
The Israeli regime has put Gaza on a total blockade for 2 months and barred the entry of all humanitarian aid, including food, which according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), has driven the territory’s 2.3 million population toward famine.
Melissa Jane Kronfeld: American Zionist who campaigns for demolition of al-Aqsa Mosque
By Maryam Qarehgozlou | Press TV | May 3, 2025
A viral video captures pro-Palestinian protesters chanting “war criminal” at Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a convicted terrorist supporter and advocate for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, during a confrontation at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
The demonstrators can be heard shouting “Shame on you!”, “Free Free Palestine!” and “War Criminal!” as Ben-Gvir, who has previously called for the expulsion of Palestinians and the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, aggressively screams and attempts to lunge at them.
Accompanying Ben-Gvir in the video is Melissa Jane Kronfeld, seen filming and verbally assaulting protesters, who had convened at the Capitol for Muslim Hill Days (April 28–29), an annual event organized by the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and other Muslim advocacy groups.
The gathering aimed to engage members of Congress on Capitol Hill to push for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip and an end to the ongoing genocidal war and blockade.
This event overlapped with Ben-Gvir’s visit to the US Congress.
But who, exactly, is Melissa Kronfeld, the woman visibly incensed by pro-Palestine protesters at the US Congress, while accompanying Ben-Gvir?
A New York native, Kronfeld boasts a résumé spanning international relations, international law, national security, and Jewish philosophy, with academic credentials from George Washington, New York University, Rutgers, and Bar-Ilan University.
She is an American-Israeli propagandist, college lecturer, and political advisor who has spoken at conferences around the globe, including at the White House and Capitol Hill. Kronfeld is also a frequent commentator across pro-Zionist print, television, radio, and podcast news outlets.
Over the years, Kronfeld has worked with, joined, or supported numerous pro-genocide Zionist organizations, including the World Jewish Congress, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, StandWithUS, the Zionist Organization of America, and the Republican Jewish Coalition, among others.
In addition, she founded an organization named ‘High on the Har’, sponsored by the PFAP Foundation, a tax-deductible Zionist group operating out of Florida, US.
PFAP claims that it “develops and sponsors community projects advancing Israel, Judaism, Zionism, and the welfare of the Jewish people” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
High on the Har is also funded by taxpayers in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia. It regularly organizes provocative incursions of the al-Aqsa Mosque under the guise of “tours.”
The al-Aqsa compound is Islam’s third-holiest site and a powerful symbol of Palestinian identity.
It doesn’t take deep investigation to grasp the real agenda: High on the Har, and Kronfeld herself, aim to see the Al-Aqsa Mosque replaced with a “Jewish Temple.”
The ultra-Zionist group actively incites settlers to storm the holy mosque and provoke Palestinians.
In an interview with CBS News last March, Kronfeld made her intentions clear, stating her desire to see Israel demolish the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and construct a “Jewish temple” in its place.
“The whole thing is going to go, we have to build a temple,” she said.
She has previously disclosed her involvement with the Israeli occupation army as well.
High on the Har has also been distributing “3rd Temple” patches to Israeli occupation soldiers taking part in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where more than 52,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed since the onslaught began 19 months ago.
High on the Har has been sending patches of the “3rd Temple” to Israeli soldiers committing a genocide in Gaza.
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed his cabinet in 2022, Israel has been systematically eroding the status quo of the al-Aqsa Mosque with brazen audacity.
Last August, Ben-Gvir ignited outrage by declaring his intent to establish a Jewish synagogue within the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East al-Quds—should the opportunity arise.
Earlier this month, pro-settler social media accounts circulated an AI-generated video depicting the mosque engulfed in flames, eventually replaced by the so-called “Third Temple.”
The video, captioned with the message “Next Year in Jerusalem, Messiah Now,” sparked swift condemnation from several Arab countries, including Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
In 2024, more than 53,600 Israelis stormed the mosque compound, marking the highest number since Israeli occupation forces first allowed Jewish access over two decades ago.
According to the al-Quds governorate, approximately 13,000 settlers entered the site during the first quarter of 2025 alone.
Israel seized East al-Quds during the 1967 war and illegally annexed the city in 1980, a move that remains in violation of international law.
Iran says US ‘not serious’ about nuclear talks after Trump imposes new sanctions
The Cradle | May 2, 2025
The Iranian Foreign Ministry affirmed on 2 May that Tehran is committed to continuing the diplomatic process and negotiations regarding its nuclear program but that it “will not accept pressure and threats that violate international law and target the rights of the Iranian people.”
In a statement, the ministry condemned the continued illegal sanctions on Iran and the “pressure on its economic partners,” viewing them as “further evidence that the United States is not serious about adopting a diplomatic approach toward Iran.”
It also stressed that the continuation of these policies “will not change Iran’s firm positions in defending its legitimate rights,” and that “testing failed methods will only lead to a repetition of past failures.”
The Foreign Ministry went on to say that the Iranian negotiating delegation, during the first three rounds, attempted to “reach a fair agreement that guarantees the rights of the Iranian people, within the specified frameworks that allow Tehran to use peaceful nuclear energy.”
Tehran entered indirect negotiations with Washington following US President Donald Trump’s letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to “resolve a fabricated crisis through diplomacy, based on good faith,” the statement added.
The Ministry’s statement came after Trump announced on Thursday that all purchases of Iranian oil or petrochemical products must stop, warning that any country or individual continuing such trade would face immediate secondary sanctions and be barred from doing business with the US.
“They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form,” he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.
Secondary sanctions are a powerful tool for the US because of the size of its economy.
Trump’s comments follow the postponement of the latest US talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that the fourth round of talks, which were due to take place in Rome on Saturday, had been rescheduled at the suggestion of the Sultanate of Oman for “logistical reasons.”
Sources speaking with Al Mayadeen he explained that the postponement came “against the backdrop of the conflicting positions taken by the US administration regarding the talks, and Washington’s efforts to change the general framework for negotiations that had been previously agreed upon.”
In a related development, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted on 1 May that Iran must “walk away” from both uranium enrichment and the development of long-range missiles.
“They have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis (in Yemen), they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox News.
His comments came as the fourth round of nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington, set to take place in Rome on Saturday, were postponed.
An Iranian official cited by Reuters said a new date for the talks would be set “depending on the US approach.”
Tehran has repeatedly affirmed that both its uranium enrichment and its defense capabilities are non-negotiable in the talks with the US.
Ansar Allah triumphant: US facing Red Sea defeat again
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | May 3, 2025
On April 28th, Western media outlets became abuzz with news that the USS Harry S. Truman – which is leading the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle Ansar Allah’s anti-genocide Red Sea blockade – lost an F/A-18E fighter jet and tow tractor, while executing a hard turn to evade fire from the Resistance group. While a US Navy press release on the incident made no reference to Ansar Allah’s assault, nameless American officials have briefed several mainstream journalists that the losses were Yemen’s doing.
Reporting on the disaster by dependably servile CIA and Pentagon propaganda megaphone CNN was extraordinarily candid. “US Navy loses $60 million jet at sea after it fell overboard from aircraft carrier”, its headline read. The outlet explicitly acknowledged this resulted from an Ansar Allah “drone and missile attack” on USS Harry S. Truman. CNN went on to note the aircraft carrier has “repeatedly been targeted in attacks” by Yemen, while suffering a series of shameful blunders since its deployment to the Red Sea in September 2024.
In December that year, a US fighter jet posted to USS Harry S. Truman was shot down while conducting a refueling mission over the Red Sea in a friendly fire incident. The USS Gettysburg, which was escorting the aircraft carrier, blasted the jet with a missile for reasons unclear. This gross misadventure remains subject to official investigation. Then, on February 12th this year, USS Harry S. Truman was extensively damaged after colliding with a commercial vessel near Egypt’s Port Said, at the Suez Canal’s northern end.
The aircraft carrier returned to service after a period spent in Greece’s Souda Bay for repairs. The US Navy refused to release details about the cost of these repairs, or the total damage USS Harry S. Truman sustained in the collision. Whether further repairs were required was also not clarified. However, the accident was apparently considered so catastrophic within the Pentagon that the carrier’s chief, Dave Snowden, was fired from his post on February 20th, “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command”.
These humiliating developments were completely ignored by the media. Concurrently, however, mainstream outlets were engaged in a concerted effort to rehabilitate Operation Prosperity Guardian, the embarrassingly failed Biden administration attempt to smash Ansar Allah and end the Resistance group’s righteous Red Sea blockade. Launched with much hype following the Gaza genocide’s eruption, a vast US flotilla led by USS Eisenhower spent nine months getting battered by a relentless barrage of Ansar Allah drones and missiles to no avail, before scurrying back to the US.
‘Defensive Systems’
Throughout Operation Prosperity Guardian, current and former US military and intelligence officials expressed disquiet at the enormous “cost offset” involved in battling Ansar Allah. The US Navy squandered countless difficult-to-replace missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars – if not millions – daily to shoot down the Resistance group’s low-cost drones. As Mick Mulroy, a former DOD official and CIA officer, bitterly told Politico :
“[This] quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in [Yemen’s] favor… We, the US, need to start looking at systems that can defeat these that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us.”
There was no sign of this “cost offset” having been remediated by the time Operation Prosperity Guardian fizzled out in July 2024. Official US Navy figures on the “unprecedented” engagement suggest the USS Eisenhower-led carrier group fired a total of 155 standard missiles and 135 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, while accompanying fighter jets and helicopters “expended nearly 60 air-to-air missiles and released 420 air-to-surface weapons” – 770 munitions in total – over the nine-month-long conflict.
Independent analysis suggests these figures are likely to be even higher. Moreover, the US Navy did not provide a breakdown of the costs involved in Operation Prosperity Guardian. Even if one accepts the official figures, a single Tomahawk alone costs around $1.89 million, meaning firing 135 cost a staggering $255,150,000. There is also the enduring question of whether this astonishingly expensive arsenal failed to protect USS Eisenhower from direct Ansar Allah attack.
In February 2024, a cruise missile fired from Yemen penetrated so many layers of the aircraft carrier’s defences it was seconds from impact, forcing USS Eisenhower to employ the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System – its “last line of defense”. It marked the System’s first-ever recorded use in battle. Then in June that year, the USS Eisenhower inexplicably withdrew from its sphere of operations in the Red Sea at maximum speed, immediately after Ansar Allah announced it had successfully struck the carrier.
As Al Mayadeen recorded at the time, multiple Western news reports painted a dire picture of Operation Prosperity Guardian in its aftermath. Associated Press revealed that participating sailors and pilots had found the experience “traumatizing”, as they “weren’t used to being fired on.” Many had repeatedly come within seconds of being struck by “Houthi-launched missiles”, before they were destroyed “by their ship’s defensive systems.” The Pentagon was thus considering providing “counseling and treatment” to thousands of US Navy employees suffering from “post-traumatic stress”, and their families.
‘Supplemental Funds’
Fast forward to February 2025, and Business Insider published a curious article, claiming, based on documents exclusively obtained by the outlet, that in fact the US Navy had successfully “fended off” Ansar Allah’s Red Sea blitzkrieg throughout Operation Prosperity Guardian, “without firing a shot”. Instead, “undefined” and “unspecified” methods and weapons of a “non-kinetic” variety were “successfully” employed to protect “Navy and coalition warships and commercial vessels”. This was, of course, at total odds with literally everything the mainstream media had hitherto reported on the debacle.
With hindsight though, the report’s propaganda utility was clear. It served to rehabilitate the US Navy’s performance in its war on Yemen at a time the Trump administration was preparing to kickstart hostilities against Ansar Allah again. So it was on March 15th, US airstrikes began raining down on Sanaa anew, while the USS Harry S. Truman-led carrier force thrust stridently into the Red Sea. US officials have talked a big game about the fresh assault continuing “indefinitely”, and Trump has bragged that Ansar Allah is “decimated”.
The April 28th loss of an F/A-18E fighter jet due to Yemeni attacks amply demonstrates such boasts to be entirely untrue. In the meantime, on April 4th, the New York Times reported Pentagon officials were “privately” briefing that Trump’s belligerence was failing to graze Ansar Allah, while costing in excess of $1 billion to date. This not only meant “supplemental funds” for the operation needed to be mustered from Congress, but doubts about continued ammunition availability gravely abounded:
“So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.”
The New York Times also noted the Trump administration had offered no explanation as to “why it thinks its campaign against [Ansar Allah] will succeed”. Almost a month later, clarity on this crucial point remains unforthcoming. We can perhaps surmise then that the flurry of mainstream interest over the USS Harry S. Truman’s recent troubles is indicative of a determination by the Pentagon to end Washington’s renewed malevolence against Yemen before Ansar Allah inflicts yet another historic defeat on the US Empire.
More Exciting News from the White House
Donald Trump has appointed a Jewish community liaison officer
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • May 2, 2025
I know that those who read my articles will be interested to learn that President Donald Trump has appointed Martin Marks to be his administration’s liaison to the American Jewish community with the title Special Assistant to the President and Director of Jewish Engagement in the White House Faith Office. Marks, whose mother handbag designer Lana Marks served as US ambassador to South Africa in Trump’s first term, appears to be well qualified for the position as “Before turning to politics, [he] was a writer and owned a yoga studio in Palm Beach.”
To be perfectly honest I was a bit confused by the appointment as the US government already has an Office of the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism and a Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues actively promoting the Jewish/Israeli line at the State Department and even worldwide. And one might observe Trump’s entire cabinet is unrelentingly Zionist in its inclinations while Congress is discussing the so-called Antisemitism Accountability Act which will turn any criticism of Israel into a crime even more so than it is regarded as such right now, ask any one of the college students who are being deported! How much “liaison” protecting the most wealthy and educated 3% of the population against the curse of perceived perpetual Jewish victimhood is still warranted? And how will such “liaison” differ from the orders delivered directly from Benjamin Netanyahu, the “Chosen” leader, of the Jewish state of Israel to provide Trump and the rest of the US government with their marching orders, just as was the case with Genocide Joe Biden and his merry band of largely Jewish/Zionist cabinet members?
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University has described the current Donald Trump regime as an “Israel First Administration” packed with Zionists at all levels. The State Department Press Secretary Tammy Bruce has declared that “Anyone who tries to touch Israel will wind up in hell.” But there are some who are still brave enough to go against the tide. The Institute for Historical Review, which is one of the few online publishers and free speech associations that still survive in the good old USA, has been confronting the Israel Lobby for forty-seven years. In an email that appeared last week they discuss another new Jewish appointment and laid out the problem in plain English that even Donald Trump might understand:
“Power, Priorities, and Puppeteers: Who Really Governs America?”: The nomination of Yehuda Kaploun — a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi, Trump loyalist, and confidant of Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson — as US Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism underscores an uncomfortable reality: Zionist interests wield disproportionate influence over American politics, even as the nation fractures under economic despair. Kaploun’s appointment, framed as a defense against antisemitism, instead reveals a political dynamic that prioritizes the interests of world Jewry over the needs of ordinary Americans. Consider the timing. Household debt has soared to $18.04 trillion, credit card delinquencies hit 14-year highs, and inflation continues to erode wages. Yet policymakers focus on policing campus activism, cracking down on criticism of Israel, while ignoring the collapse of social mobility. Kaploun’s own rhetoric comparing US universities to “1930s Germany” diverts attention from the rising cost of living and the United States’ fraying social fabric. Meanwhile, pro-Israel groups like AIPAC have funneled $100+ million into elections, ensuring bipartisan fealty to policies that prioritize Israeli interests at the expense of America. This is not governance. It’s an occupation by foreign interests.”
The IHR point is well made and applies to Biden, Trump and Congress as well as to the 38 states that require citizens to sign documents or swear oaths pledging themselves not to support any boycotts of Israel if they wish to receive benefits or jobs. To even suggest that Israel and American Jews are some kind of victims who must be protected at a time when they are actively engaged in genocide and complete ethnic cleansing of literally millions of Palestinians.
My principal complaint with the government Jewish agenda is that it creates two classes of people before the rule of law, i.e. those who are Jews and must be protected and the rest of us who, on the contrary, will face the consequences if we so much as criticize Israeli or Jewish behavior. Ironically, we can criticize our own country or any other country in the world, but not Israel. If we are a legal resident or a student on an educational visa who crosses the line we can have that status erased and be deported without any due process. It also means that any encounter with law enforcement or government that has any taint of being critical of Jews can lead to two level justice, as many foreign students in the US are currently discovering.
A story last week out of Crown Heights Brooklyn illustrates precisely what I mean. Israel’s monstrous Security Chief Itamar Ben-Gvir, who believes in killing all Palestinians if it becomes necessary to remove them, was in town being cheered on by a large crowd of the indigenous Ultra Orthodox Jews. A local resident, a woman in her thirties, wondered what all of the noise was about and went out to take a look. She was immediately set upon by a large crowd of roughly one hundred, which screamed at her that she was a “Palestinian demonstrator,” which was not true. She “feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spit at and pelted with objects by [the] mob of Orthodox Jewish men. She recalled how ‘They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting death to Arabs. I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene.’ As the chants grew in intensity, a lone police officer who had joined her sought to escort her to safety back towards her apartment. They were followed for blocks by hundreds of men and boys jeering in Hebrew and English. Video shows two of the men kicking her in the back, another hurling a traffic cone into her head and a fourth pushing a trash can into her. She was beaten and kicked and even had a large garbage can thrown on top of her.” The woman later recalled how “I felt sheer terror. I realized at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.” After several blocks, the officer moved the woman into a police vehicle which prompted one assailant to yell, “Get her!” but the crowd erupted then in cheers as she was driven away. Interestingly, there were many police officers in the immediate area, presumably to protect all the rioting Jews from attacks by antisemites, but they had not intervened while the woman was being pursued apart from the one officer who came to her assistance.
The entire episode was filmed by bystanders and one would think that the Jews who had beaten the woman would face some consequences, but as is always the case when it is Jews/Israelis who are committing crimes there is the presumption of antisemitism at play and nothing happens. I could find nothing in the subsequent press coverage that suggests that anyone was arrested or even detained. I have previously suggested that this has also been the pattern connected to the past year’s demonstrations over the slaughter in Gaza. The universities and local police are quick to detain those normally peaceful demonstrators regarded as pro-Palestinians but when those individuals are in turn physically attacked by Jewish organized groups the Jews are not subjected to the same standard of law enforcement. To put it mildly, there is absolutely no mandate to protect Palestinians or ordinary Americans who become victims in the violent counterattacks on peace encampments staged by local Jews and, reportedly, including some Israeli army veterans in incidents at both Columbia University and the University of California at Los Angeles. Have any violent Israelis been arrested or deported? No? Apparently, the US “justice system” is focused on serving Israel at the expense of the US Constitution’s protection of free speech and free association.
The “Jewish Exemption” that is in practice at all levels of US and local government is readily discernible nearly everywhere to include the media coverage of Israeli atrocities. Israel, has, for example, its own completely illegal nuclear arsenal obtained through theft and deception from the United States, but nobody in the US government is allowed to mention that and it rarely comes up in the press. And no one is permitted to enforce American laws if they impact on Israel, like the Leahy Law which forbids military assistance to any country that violates human rights “with impunity.” Israel clearly is qualified to be sanctioned by that standard, but no US Administration has dared to enforce the law for fear that the powerful Israel Lobby will retaliate.
My point is that every time one turns around currently the government is doing something to exempt Jews or Israel from the consequences of their own behavior while at the same time the folks who criticize that behavior are being punished with denial of free speech and crippling penalties that will in some cases diminish their prospects for the rest of their lives. This has got to stop and all Americans must be treated the same under law. Jews are the most protected and coddled tribe that goes to make up what we Americans call a “country” but they are not the only ones here. It is time that the corrupted political class in this nation begin to realize that.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
‘Israel’ launches extensive strikes across Syria
Al Mayadeen | May 2, 2025
Israeli warplanes launched a wide-ranging series of airstrikes across Syria in what local reports describe as one of the most expansive attacks in recent months.
According to Syrian sources and Israeli media outlets, the operation began with intense drone activity over the provinces of Daraa, Homs, and Hama, before transitioning into a coordinated aerial assault carried out by Israeli fighter jets overnight.
Strikes target military sites across central and southern Syria
One of the earliest reported strikes targeted the area near the village of Shaṭḥa in western Hama countryside, where a military warehouse located within what is being described as a Syrian army base of the former regime was hit. Simultaneously, Israeli aircraft were heard over multiple governorates, signaling the broad scale of the attack.
In Latakia’s countryside, airstrikes struck the al-Sha‘ra region, while further south, Israeli jets flew heavily over Damascus and its surroundings. Explosions were reported in and around the capital, particularly near the Harasta suburb.
Confirmed targets included the Signal Battalion headquarters and areas around the former Tishreen Military Hospital in northern Damascus. Local sources confirmed that the strikes targeted camps, sites, and military warehouses in the mountain range surrounding Harasta, Barzeh, and al-Tall.
Additional raids reported in Daraa and Idlib
Further south, the town of Muthbin in northern Daraa was also hit by an Israeli airstrike. Israeli media outlets reported that the strikes included previously untouched areas in Damascus and simultaneous hits on positions in Idlib.
Local sources said that a second Israeli airstrike on Daraa hit the outskirts of the city of Izra’ in the governorate’s countryside. The attack targeted the Syrian Arab Army’s 175th Regiment camps.
No official response from Damascus yet
As of Sunday, the Syrian government had not issued any official statement regarding casualties or the extent of material damage. Local sources said that one person was martyred in the strikes that targeted the outskirts of Harasta.
This latest escalation marks a significant moment in the Israeli regime’s ongoing air campaign in Syria.
Humanitarian response in Gaza ‘on the verge of total collapse’, Red Cross warns
MEMO | May 2, 2025
The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned today.
“Six weeks of intense hostilities, combined with a complete blockage of aid for two months, have left civilians without the essentials they need to survive,” the aid group said in a statement on its website.
“Civilians in Gaza are facing an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance,” said Pascal Hundt, ICRC deputy director of operations. “This situation must not—and cannot—be allowed to escalate further.”
Under international humanitarian law, Israel has an obligation to use all means available to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population under its control are met. However, the occupation state completely sealed the Gaza Strip on 2 March, banning the entry of food, water and medicines, imposing a policy of starvation on the civilian population of over two million Palestinians.
The Red Cross Field Hospital in Gaza is also running dangerously low on food and medical supplies, with some essential medicines and consumables already exhausted, the ICRC said. Hospitals and other medical facilities are reorganising stocks and prioritising supplies to be able to continue lifesaving activities. “Without urgent replenishment, hospitals will struggle to continue providing much-needed medical care to patients,” it added.
The deterioration of the water, sanitation and hygiene situation is also acute. Disruption to water systems — including the closure of water pipelines and destruction of critical sewage trucks — has created an unacceptably high risk of waterborne diseases.
The situation is compounded by repeated attacks impacting the work of healthcare facilities and medical personnel. Last month, 15 medical, civil defence, and humanitarian personnel, including eight medics from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, were brutally killed after Israeli occupation forces opened fire on them as they were responding to an emergency call.
“The ICRC remains committed to serving civilians in Gaza, but the deteriorating security situation is severely limiting the work and movement of ICRC personnel and our partners,” the medical group said.
“Aid must be allowed to enter Gaza. Hostages must be released. Civilians must be protected. Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.”
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From the Archives
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
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