Rhode Island Staffer Could Be Reinstated After Firing Over Ceasefire Post
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2026
A federal judge has ruled that the office of Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee violated the First Amendment when it fired a staffer over a post he made on X.
Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island granted Miguel Sanchez, who worked in the governor’s office in constituent services, partial summary judgment in the case. The ruling also denied qualified immunity to two of McKee’s aides.
Sanchez was fired on October 27, 2023, but the court decision means he may now be reinstated and receive damages.
Sanchez, who is a member of the Providence City Council and was first elected in January 2023, worked in the governor’s office since May 2021.
The post that got him fired was made off-duty on October 22, 2023, from the account he uses as a councilman. In it, Sanchez said, “prov did not disappoint…yesterday, I marched with thousands of people calling for an immediate ceasefire and a [sic] end to the occupation,” and included a video of the march in Providence.
Some staff in the governor’s office thought rally participants had chanted “from the river to the sea.” But the court said that “nothing suggests that Mr. Sanchez adopted or repeated that phrase nor is there evidence to suggest he endorsed that chant, or is in favor of violence.”
Nevertheless, the governor’s staff wanted him to delete the post, and when he refused, he was given the choice to either resign or be fired.
The reason for the firing, as the officials put it, was “the disruption in the office” caused by the post, as well as “the likelihood of continued disruption if the post were left up.”
The court found that this was not a valid reason, noting that the right to speak on public matters “is not lost when an individual chooses to work for the government.”
As for the “disruption,” the office received one inquiry from the Providence Journal, three emails, and two phone calls from the public, and a state legislator asked an aide about the post in an elevator. In addition, NBC 10 and a radio host each inquired about it. But the judge said that this did not amount to much, and that one of the governor’s aides, Joseph Almond, testified that the number of inquiries was “not a lot” and that they “did not interfere with the operation of the office.”
The governor’s office also spends most of its time responding to current events and media inquiries – some 85%, according to the court – and one aide said that “it’s just part of the job of being a governor.”
The real disruption came after Sanchez was fired, as at least 17 reporters inquired about it, 11 outlets reported about it, and by November 2, the office had received 63 emails and 38 phone calls about the firing.
As the judge noted, “The alleged distraction caused by his post pales in comparison to the inquiries after the firing.”
The court also dismissed the claim that the post could have caused future disruption as a “speculative argument”, and noted that Sanchez had no policy-making or spokesperson role in the governor’s office.
Sanchez’s legal fees were covered by X, attorney Gene Schaerr confirmed to local TV station WJAR, adding that it was not Elon Musk personally who paid, but X, through a program the company set up in August 2023.
At the time, Musk announced on the platform, “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit. Please let us know.”
The same pattern of behavior of government employers occurred in May when it was revealed that Florida’s wildlife agency had paid biologist Brittney Brown $485,000 after firing her over a post about Charlie Kirk.
The agency had claimed that it had received hundreds of complaints and that Brown’s post had caused a “major operational disruption” – but during discovery it was revealed that the true number was “approximately 50 complaints, not hundreds.”
In both cases, employees were fired for lawful political speech, and their employers then tried to justify the decision by claiming that it caused a huge number of complaints and disruption – but failed to prove it.
It’s unclear why governments and their agencies keep using the same flawed arguments to try to justify their violations of the First Amendment – but it’s also unclear why it has to take a social media company to pay for a person’s legal representation in order for their rights to be recognized.
Will Republicans Learn Their Lesson from the ‘Disastrous’ Midterms?
By Ron Paul | November 9, 2026
Politicians break campaign promises with hardly any hesitation and usually they get away with it. Americans have come to put up with broken promises for so long, they hardly even seem to notice. Last week, however, voters noticed. They showed the Republican party just how angry they were over President Trump’s decision to attack Iran and how angry they were with Congress for abandoning its Constitutional authority over matters of war and peace.
The results were dramatic. Voters even turned Texas blue, as Democrats took firm control of both the House and Senate.
As President Trump’s promise of a quick war and a quick victory rapidly faded, the costs of the unnecessary and illegal attack thousands of miles away soon began to hit Americans hard. The predictable closure of the Hormuz Strait sent fuel costs through the roof, fanning the fires of inflation which hit everything transported by road, rail, or air.
For months the polls were clear: Americans’ top three concerns were high fuel prices, inflation, and the Iran war. All were related yet Republicans ignored voter concerns. Last Tuesday, voters had the final say.
The peace candidate usually wins, and President Trump promised repeatedly on the campaign trail that not only would he not start wars, but he would end existing conflicts. But we’ve heard it all before. George W. Bush was elected promising a “more humble” foreign policy. After eight years of Bush’s Middle East wars, Obama was elected as the “new” peace candidate. However soon the “Saddam must go” of the Bush era became “Assad must go” and “Gaddafi must go” in the Obama era. Trump was elected after Biden took us to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine. He promised that this time he would be the real peace candidate. We got war on Iran instead – a war that we did not win and cannot win.
Has the Republican party gotten the message? Have they learned the lesson voters can deliver when they finally have had enough of being lied to?
Neocons are seeing the voter rebuke of Trump as an opportunity to return the Republican party to the Bush era. Yes, prices and inflation are a problem, they argue, but that has nothing to do with the Iran war.
Nobody is buying that.
Vice President Vance laid out clearly why Republicans lost in the midterms: the war, inflation, rejection of America first, and our unhealthy relationship with Israel. Bush-era neocons like Marc Thiessen were furious, accusing Vance of being “disloyal” to the President.
Does Vance really mean what he said, or is it just another example of politicians promising what they think voters want to hear?
It seems a Republican Party that drummed out Thomas Massie over his opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” who warned about the dangers of putting foreign countries before our own, and who demanded an end to all foreign aid is not a Republican Party that Americans are interested in.
The pain will continue until the Party finally rids itself of the neocons and warmongers and returns to its roots as exemplified in the past by the late Sen. Robert Taft and in the present by Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tucker Carlson, and many others who genuinely care about peace and liberty.
Nima R. Alkhorshid: U.S. Military Bombs Multiple Targets on Iran’s Qeshm Island
Dialogue Works | November 8, 2026
New attack on Iran could devastate ‘Israel’, IOF general warns
Al Mayadeen | November 8, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s second term has exposed a reality starkly at odds with his promises to end crises and “achieve world peace,” as wars continue and economic difficulties deepen, Israeli reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik said.
In an article published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Brik noted that the West Asia region remains engulfed in an ongoing war, amid fears that the confrontation could spread to other parts of the world. Meanwhile, the global economy is deteriorating rather than experiencing the prosperity Trump had promised.
Brik argued that the outcome of the US midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of Congress, reflected the extent of public dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies and declining confidence in his ability to resolve the crises he had pledged to address.
According to Brik, the US president is now facing consequential decisions over the war on Iran, amid sharp divisions within his administration and the absence of a unified strategy for dealing with the evolving confrontation.
US divided over war
Brik further stated that disagreements within the White House revolve around two principal options: escalating military attacks on Iran in an attempt to achieve a decisive outcome through force, or maintaining economic pressure while pursuing an agreement that could bring the war to an end and prevent further escalation.
However, military and political calculations are not the only factors shaping Trump’s decisions, the Israeli general said. He suggested that the US president’s sense of “humiliation” over Iran’s treatment of him could drive him to launch an attack out of a desire for revenge rather than on the basis of strategic assessments.
He warned that a military decision motivated by such considerations could have grave consequences for the entire region, particularly if “Israel” joined any new offensive.
A catastrophe for ‘Israel’
Brik stressed that another aerial assault on Iran, potentially involving “Israel”, could rapidly trigger a full-scale regional war in which “Israel” would find itself at the center.
He acknowledged that the damage “Israel” could sustain in such a confrontation would be “enormous and unbearable,” noting that some of the damage it suffered during previous rounds of fighting had already become irreparable.
Brik called on the “sensible and responsible” figures within the US administration to dissuade Trump from ordering another attack, warning that further escalation could open the door to a confrontation extending far beyond the current war.
He argued that the expectation that airstrikes alone could secure a decisive military victory over Iran rests on unrealistic assumptions. Without a ground intervention, he said, aerial operations cannot topple the Iranian government or prevent Iran from becoming a “nuclear state”.
Citing the outcome of previous attacks, Brik maintained that they had failed to achieve their strategic objectives, producing little more than temporary destruction while strengthening Tehran’s determination to continue developing its capabilities.
What are the costs of war?
In outlining the options available to Washington, Brik argued that addressing Iran’s nuclear program would require one of two principal courses of action, neither of which could produce results without imposing a substantial cost.
The first option would involve a large-scale ground operation inside Iranian territory, directly targeting nuclear facilities with substantial troop deployments, extensive air support, and the use of technological and intelligence capabilities.
Brik believed this option could potentially deliver a decisive military defeat to the Iranian government and neutralize its nuclear facilities. He acknowledged, however, that it would require a massive operation resulting in heavy casualties among US forces.
The second option would involve economically exhausting Iran through stringent sanctions and a prolonged blockade, backed by the full participation of Western countries, with the aim of isolating the Iranian economy from global markets.
He specified that this approach would require preventing Iran from exporting oil, gas, and other products, while restricting the entry of raw materials and weapons through land crossings, thereby subjecting Tehran to sustained economic pressure.
Brik acknowledged that this option had a lower likelihood of success than a ground military campaign and would require prolonged patience, international discipline, and broad Western commitment.
At the same time, Brik rejected reliance on a “middle-ground solution” based on repeating aerial attacks, arguing that such an approach would neither halt Iran’s nuclear program nor achieve a decisive military outcome. Instead, it could drag “Israel” into a regional war in which it would pay a heavy price.
Brik concluded his article by urging decision-makers to abandon their reliance on political promises and displays of air power, warning that military decisions driven by revenge, without adequately assessing their consequences, could aggravate the crisis rather than resolve it.
U.S. Midterms – a Referendum on Israel and Zionist Power
By Mark Collett | Occidental Observer | November 7, 2026
Trump’s naked pro-Zionist agenda triggered an unprecedented ‘blue wave’ that was characterised by a complete rejection of Israel first neo-conservative foreign policy, changing U.S. politics forever.
In 2024, Donald Trump achieved an electoral miracle. Coming back from an embarrassing defeat in 2020, he won a sweeping victory – winning the presidency in terms of both the electoral college and the popular vote, but also securing Republican majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Effectively, this comprehensive win granted Trump and the Republican Party complete control over the U.S. federal legislative machinery. Holding power over this political trifecta granted Trump a golden opportunity to enact his agenda, something he struggled with during his first term. This incredible victory and the resulting political mandate was largely built around two policies: controlling immigration and ensuring America withdrew its support for the war in Ukraine and did not embroil itself in any other costly foreign conflicts. This policy platform was dubbed ‘America First’, with the overarching narrative being that American politicians needed to focus on domestic issues and the wellbeing of Americans, rather than embroiling the country in foreign entanglements or prioritising the needs of migrants.
The success of Trump’s third campaign for the White House makes the Republican defeat at the 2026 U.S. midterms even more catastrophic, presenting a sweeping structural collapse of the party’s elected power base. The Republicans not only lost their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but they did so comprehensively, losing a number of historically safe seats along the way. The Democrats did not just win, but to quote President Trump, they won ‘bigly’, striding confidently into Republican heartlands and scoring victories in red states where the idea of a Democrat win was previously unthinkable. While it is true that midterms often see an electoral swing away from the party that is currently in charge of the White House administration, that swing is usually driven by a very specific voting pattern. Usually in a midterm election with a Republican incumbent in the White House, pollsters would expect to see two distinct patterns of voting: Republicans who wished to punish the establishment would stay at home and Democrats wishing to punish the establishment would turn out in greater numbers.
This election however, was different. Democrats who wished to punish Trump did indeed turn out in greater numbers, but interestingly, Republican voters did not stay at home – they went out and voted, but for the Democrats. Usually, Republican voters wishing to punish their own party will simply opt not to vote, thus reducing their party’s tally. However, most of those Republicans won’t actually vote Democrat, because that is a mental step too far, and those voters view that as an endorsement of the ‘other side’ and of policies they fundamentally disagree with. Trump however managed to alter this established pattern; he motivated vast numbers of Republicans to vote Democrat and this is what led to such a monumental swing that altered the balance of power in Congress. What’s more, this is why as the votes were counted Trump watched in horror as the Republicans not only lost swing seats, but also took losses in areas that were viewed as Republican fortresses: Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1932, Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly four decades and South Carolina flipped to the Democrats for the first time since 1998.
But what fuelled this massive electoral swing is arguably far more interesting than the results themselves. The massive swing that saw millions of Republicans voting Democrat for the first time was primarily fuelled by one issue: Trump’s betrayal of his core anti-war promises and his abandonment of the ideal of America First and the consequent inflation. Trump had embarked on a wholly unnecessary war with Iran at the behest of the state of Israel, and the consequences of that conflict had harmed middle class families all over America. This was not just another unnecessary war, but it was a war that was affecting Americans at home and hitting families where it hurt the most: normal people could no longer afford to fill up their cars with fuel or fill up their shopping cart with groceries. And Trump was not only committed to the war with Iran, but went as far as to make it very clear that he believed the cost to the average American family was not only acceptable, but something that those families should bear for the good of Israel’s wider goals in the Middle East. This was no longer America First, it was Israel First.
Trump was extremely bullish about his commitment to the war, and when asked by reporters whether his slavish support for the Zionist cause was worth the economic hardship that was being experienced by American families as a result of the war, he responded: ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.’ For the man who once championed the phrase “Make America Great Again”, this comment hit Republicans hard. Voters who had rallied around Trump and turned out in record numbers for him in 2024 could now see the truth: Trump was happy to let Americans suffer. And American families were suffering because Trump was ready to further prioritise the needs of a Middle Eastern nation that was already sucking billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers that could have been better spent on services at home. Further to this, Trump brazenly stated that the federal government could no longer afford to pay for programs like Medicare and Medicaid due to military spending on the war with Iran.
But Trump’s slavish support for Israel and his willingness to destroy the living standards of his voter base to send U.S. troops to war with a country that most Americans couldn’t point to on a map did not occur in a vacuum. This rerouting of American tax dollars away from domestic priorities and towards a wholly unpopular war was egged on by Trump’s rapidly changing inner circle. What’s more, those who had been the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s America First platform, like Tucker Carlson, were now moving away from him and turning into his greatest critics. At the same time, new faces began appearing around the president and these new cheerleaders were shouting a very different message altogether. Trump found himself surrounded by a cabal of hawkish Zionist Jews including Mark Levin, Laura Loomer and former Trump critic Ben Shapiro. These individuals all egged Trump on, attempting to convince him that his new direction was the correct path and that voters weren’t bothered by the war and that they would support him and his agenda no matter what. These people were exactly the sort of ‘friends’ that any politician could do without, but all of them managed to gain the ear of Trump by playing on his greatest weakness – his ego.
But Trump hadn’t exactly been shy about his subservience to Israel and had been openly vocal about his ties to leading Zionist megadonors. In a 2025 Hanukkah reception at the White House, Trump famously brought Jewish megadonor Miriam Adelson on stage. While introducing her, Trump brazenly stated, ‘Miriam gave my campaign indirectly and directly 250 million. She was number one. When somebody can give you 250 million, I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello.’ This is the kind of comment that a president would wisely only make in a very private circle of trusted friends; instead, Trump blurted it out on stage in front of a crowd of dignitaries, the press and the media. This statement of course raised a number of eyebrows and led to accusations about the transactional nature of Trump’s relationship with his pro-Israeli donors. During her time on the microphone, Miriam Adelson revealed she had been discussing the legality of a third presidential term with Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz – this added further weight to the accusations that Trump was merely a tool of a group of very powerful and wealthy Zionist donors.
But while Trump had clearly abandoned domestic concerns over inflation in the costs of living, he had notably focused his time and energy on several domestic electoral races which added fuel to the fire regarding where his loyalties really lay. Earlier in the year, Trump came together with Miriam Adelson and several other Zionist megadonors to ensure that previous spending records were smashed in relation to a Republican primary election. This was of course the fierce battle that ensued over the re-election of Thomas Massie, a prominent anti-Zionist Republican who consistently opposed U.S. military aid to Israel, opposed the war in Iran and had worked tirelessly to ensure the full disclosure of the Epstein files, an issue that had made Trump uncomfortable, leading to him branding Massie as a ‘traitor’. Similarly, Trump also labelled Marjorie Taylor Greene as a ‘traitor’ and a ‘ranting lunatic’ after she condemned the administration’s alignment with pro-Israel lobbying groups and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the US into a broader conflict with Iran.
This all painted a very clear picture. Trump was clearly accepting phenomenal sums of money from Jewish Zionists and openly bragging about the size of the donations, even going as far as admitting this money had granted those donors unprecedented access to the White House. These donations clearly looked transactional, and appeared even more so when Trump pivoted away from his anti-war America First pledges in order to take the U.S. into another deeply unpopular and damaging war in the Middle East, which directly affected the living standards of the average American family. But while doing all of this, Trump was focusing domestically not on attacking or unseating ‘woke’ Democrats in order to please his core voter base, but instead was engaged in a ‘night of the long knives’ where he viciously purged anti-Zionist America First Republicans. U.S. presidents have been accused in the past of being pro-Israel, but never before have such accusations been given so much weight by such obvious and shameless words and actions.
This placed Trump in an interesting position heading into the 2026 midterms. Despite the fact he had made good on a number of his domestic pledges regarding border control, travel bans and the U.S. system of processing asylum claims, he had completely pivoted on his anti-war pledges. Not only had Trump failed to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, but he had opened up a new front in Iran, and the Iranian response of asymmetric warfare targeting the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz was causing domestic havoc by means of creating a cost-of-living crisis in America. This all ensured that the stage was set for a perfect storm – midterm elections that would result in one of the greatest examples of a political collapse in post-war history. But while Trump had appeared on the surface to be blissfully ignorant of the coming storm, his surprise announcement on election day would suggest that even he knew what was coming, but more importantly, he knew that his pro-Israeli policies were the root of the problem. At the 11th hour, Trump issued a desperate proclamation as polls opened that he was about to end the annual $3.8 billion military aid package to Israel.
This was clearly not a principled policy change brought about due to a genuine concern for the American electorate and the America First policies that voters had elected Trump to enact; instead, it was a last-minute desperate capitulation aimed at stemming the electoral bloodshed. Trump clearly realised that the Republicans were headed for a humiliating midterm defeat, a fact that would undoubtedly hurt his fragile ego and mar his legacy. However, this election morning announcement most likely worked against him, as it simply served to remind the average voter exactly how much U.S. taxpayers were gifting to Israel as American families struggled to cover the cost of basic groceries. Rather than granting a last-minute reprieve, this policy announcement was likely the final nail in Trump’s coffin. Whereas midterms are often characterised as the electorates’ chance to place a check on executive power, this election would be different – being fought largely over the issue of Zionist power and U.S. subservience to Israel, with even the President himself playing into the narrative. What’s more, post-election, this was publicly acknowledged by Vice President JD Vance.
On November 4th 2026, JD Vance took to X and posted the following:
‘One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was “composition”—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1. End the war
2. Focus on cost of living/inflation
3. Put America First
4. Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.’
This lengthy admission as to what was at fault was unique. Not only is Vance the Vice President, but his lengthy post goes against what has been the central pillar of Republican foreign policy for more than half a century – the unconditional support of Israel. This was an example of someone at the highest level of political office admitting to the new political reality: there is a massive gulf between the voters who turned out in record numbers in 2024 and voted for America First, and the cabal of Republican Zionists who support the now deeply unpopular neo-conservative policy that has dominated U.S. decision making for decades. Vance’s admission was also unique because he went further and actually dared to blame Trump’s relationship with Israel for the Republicans’ recent electoral failures, going as far as to admit that the ‘blue wave’ was driven by slavish support for a war that is not in the interests of American families, but instead, wholly for the benefit of Zionist power in the Middle East. Had this statement been made by the likes of David Duke, it would have been scoffed at or dismissed, but these were the words of JD Vance.
But Vance was not issuing this statement blindly, swinging wildly and waiting to see what would come back; instead, he was playing to an increasingly large gallery – one which was stacked with powerful and influential pundits and politicians. This was Vance speaking an almost forbidden truth and opening the door to a larger and now-legitimised discussion over Israeli power and Zionist lobbying in America, a discussion which was already entering the mainstream thanks to Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. But in another blow to Trump, this very discussion is one that he had tried to stifle and silence. This sets up a critical fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party that will rage between now and the next presidential election. The battle lines are drawn: on one side stands the neo-conservatives and Israel first cheerleaders, on the other stands the America First movement and traditional, isolationist conservatives – with the prize being the reins of America’s oldest political party and control of its future direction.
Interestingly though, the American electorate – while at war over issues such as immigration, DEI and abortion – is increasingly united over the issue of foreign wars, Israeli power and Zionist lobbying. Which raises another issue that cannot be ignored: the role of the Democrat voter in creating the ‘blue wave’. While most of the post-election discussion has focused on the Republicans who ‘switched sides’, it is important to note that the ‘blue wave’ was not simply made up of passive Democrats benefiting from angry Republican votes. The Democrats won because their more radical, anti-war flank completely energised their base. Traditionally, the Republican base would slavishly support Israel, while the Democratic base would be far more likely to oppose interventions in the Middle East and scorn unconditional support for the Zionist state. But the combination of angry Republicans who felt betrayed and highly motivated anti-war Democrats created the perfect storm that powered the ‘blue wave’ and helped to achieve a clean sweep of both the House and the Senate. This was a bi-partisan vote, that achieved huge change, powered by a shared and unifying dislike of neo-conservative foreign policy.
Historically, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Zionist lobbying groups have played a decisive role in U.S. elections, often deciding the outcome in key battlegrounds and helping to unseat anti-Israel candidates, as was seen when Thomas Massie lost his place on the ballot in Kentucky. However, the blue wave witnessed at the recent midterms was so great, it completely broke AIPAC’s power, rendering them impotent or at least forcing their donors to make donations without any reference to Israel or AIPAC, despite their immense spending power. The primary example of this was seen in the Senate race in Michigan. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed campaigned transparently against Washington’s subservience to Israel, centring his platform on an anti-war message and a demand that American tax dollars be spent on healthcare and infrastructure at home rather than being used to fund foreign conflicts. Sensing an existential threat, AIPAC and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), went entirely on the offensive. They pumped a record-breaking $42 million into the electoral race in order to stop El-Sayed.
But the pro-Israel lobbyists went far further than just providing huge sums of money. In a stunning escalation of the establishment’s panic, El-Sayed’s pro-Israel primary opponent, Haley Stevens, crossed party lines just days before the election to endorse the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers. Yet AIPAC’s record spending and the other dirty tricks they employed all failed to influence the outcome and El-Sayed easily overcame the pro-Israeli opposition. El-Sayed went on to mock AIPAC during his victory speech, stating: ‘To AIPAC, who spent $42 million against us: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.’ The midterms were not just a referendum on Zionist power and Israeli control of America; they were not simply a ‘blue wave’, but they were an indicator that pro-Israel super PACs are starting to lose their formerly vice-like grip over U.S. elections. This provides proof that when angry Republicans and energised Democrats vote together over a shared issue of concern relating to Israeli influence, AIPAC loses its position as kingmaker. But the breaking of the Israel lobby’s power in Michigan was not an isolated anomaly, but instead part of a nationwide phenomenon that saw voters reject candidates backed by Zionist money.
Ultimately, the results of the U.S. midterms point to the fact that despite differences over domestic policy, there is a growing consensus among both Democrats and Republicans that whichever way America chooses to go, it should do so under its own direction, rather than that of the Israeli state. What’s more, this consensus is so great that even record super PAC spending cannot overcome it. But interestingly, for this mass awakening, the new voter consensus and the rejection of the Israel First agenda, there is only one man to thank: Donald Trump. Trump’s naked, brazen and often shameless support for Israel has woken up millions of normal Americans to the stranglehold that the state of Israel and Zionist lobbyists have over U.S. politics. In many ways, Trump has lifted the curtain on this pressing issue – whether that is by design or by accident, through his often brash and bumbling behaviour is another matter – but the effects remain the same nonetheless. Trump was so obviously slavish to those he served, that he inadvertently alerted the entire nation to an issue that had, for most voters, flown under the radar for decades.
As a result, political discussion centered on Israel’s power that was once confined to less frequented corners of the internet, banned from YouTube and other mainstream social media platforms, is now being openly espoused by the U.S. Vice President, Tucker Carlson and numerous other notable public figures. Ideas that were once branded as ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories about Jewish lobbyists, Israeli influence and Zionist power are now becoming more mainstream and are actually influencing voting patterns and helping to decide major elections. As such, Donald Trump, through his total lack of restraint, has become at the very least an accelerationist president who has brought a once taboo topic under the spotlight. What’s more, it is often true that people are moved primarily by economic factors – when the populace starts to feel the financial pinch, they react at the ballot, venting their anger by changing their voting habits. And for the first time since the Second World War, American voters are joining up the dots and connecting their financial woes to Zionist power and the American establishment’s support for Israel, firmly placing pro-Israel foreign policy in direct contradiction with the good of the American people.
The fundamental paradox of the second Trump administration is that a president who swept to power on the promise of ‘America First’ ultimately chose to uphold the values of the old neoconservative consensus. By abandoning his populist mandate in order to wage a catastrophic, proxy conflict on behalf of Israel, Trump did not merely commit a strategic foreign policy error; he shattered the economic security of the very middle-class families who were the electoral backbone of his political resurrection. The resulting ‘blue wave’ that characterised the 2026 midterms was not a routine swing of the electoral pendulum, but a unified, bi-partisan rejection of Zionist power and neo-conservative policy. However, through his shameless behaviour and total lack of restraint, Trump performed an unintended civic service: he permanently lifted the curtain on the mechanics of the Israel lobby, forcing a historic convergence of angry populist Republicans and energised anti-war Democrats. The ultimate irony of the 2026 ‘blue wave’ is that Donald Trump did indeed fundamentally alter American politics forever – not by successfully executing an ‘America First’ agenda, but by proving to millions of voters that true domestic sovereignty can only be reclaimed by decisively rejecting the politicians, lobbyists and megadonors who wish to put ‘Israel First’.
Twice as many Canadian Jews serve in Israeli military as Canada’s armed forces: Report
The Cradle | November 6, 2026
More Canadian Jews were serving in the Israeli army in March 2025 than in the Canadian military as of earlier this year, The Maple reported on 6 November, according to documents from the Canadian and Israeli governments.
An article on the Government of Canada website published in March stated that an estimated 680 Canadian Jews currently serve in the country’s regular armed forces, making up one percent of its total number, with more serving in the reserves.
Jewish Canadians make up about 0.9 percent of the Canadian population.
By comparison, 1,524 Canadian Jews with Israeli citizenship were serving in Israel’s military as of March 2025, according to a document released by the Israeli government in February of this year.
This means that there may be double the number of Canadian Jews serving in Israel’s military than in Canada’s.
In addition, another 60 Canadians who do not hold Israeli citizenship are thought to be fighting in the Israeli army.
In October 2025, The Maple published an article about 49 Canadians who have served in the Israeli military since the genocide of Gaza began in 2023.
The majority were Canadians who moved to Israel to serve in the military as so-called “lone soldiers.”
A March 2026 Pollara survey commissioned by The Maple found that 54 percent of Canadians agree with making it illegal for Canadian citizens to serve in Israel’s military.
Canadians can currently serve in foreign state militaries unless that military is at war with a Canadian ally. It is therefore legal for Canadians to serve in the Israeli military.
In April 2024, the Israeli military killed Canadian-American military veteran Jacob Flickinger, along with six other aid workers in a drone strike in Gaza. He was working with World Central Kitchen (WCK) to help distribute food in the devastated strip when Israel killed him.
The attack attracted international condemnation because the aid workers were traveling in clearly marked humanitarian vehicles on a route that had been coordinated with the Israeli military.
Israel refused to pursue criminal charges against the soldiers involved. Ottawa issued statements condemning Flickinger’s killing but took no action to sanction Tel Aviv in response.
In 2006, the Israeli military killed a Canadian soldier, Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, who was serving as a UN peacekeeper in Lebanon.
In the days before an Israeli airstrike killed him, the soldier had “sent emails home to Canada reporting that Israel was bombing schools and waging ‘a campaign of terror against the Lebanese people.’”
Past reporting from The Maple has found that Israeli military service is “celebrated by mainstream Jewish institutions in Canada,” including in Jewish schools, which promote fighting for Israel.
Jared Kushner’s Diplomacy for Hire
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | November 7, 2026
Many observers of the highly dysfunctional President Donald J Trump administration have noted how a major contributing factor for the foreign policy disasters might well derive from the appointment of two real estate billionaires personally linked to the president as its top negotiators. That Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had no diplomatic experience right from the beginning the presumption should have been a given that they would be managed and consistently out-maneuvered by their counterparts from other countries. That Kushner possessed unique access to Trump and might be inclined to give him bad advice in return for business “favors” also should have been reckoned by Congress and the national media.
In fact, there have been a lot of good reasons to be most particularly suspicious of son-in-law Jared Kushner given his history of shady business dealings. Indeed, any concerns have proven to be valid with one only needing to cite the complete failure of the two presidential special emissaries judging by their involvement in the so-called peace negotiations relating to the conflicts in Russia-Ukraine and in the Middle East. In both cases, the situation seen from a perspective of US actual interests, has deteriorated in spite of clear evidence that other parties to the negotiations were seeking a solution. Kushner, an unashamed Israel Firster, like his partner in crime Witkoff, did everything he could to protect war criminal Israel and those Arab states considered to be friends and was ineffective in dealing with the Russians, who rightly do not trust him. Kushner’s family is meanwhile extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to stay at the Kushner family home in New Jersey some years ago when he was in the US. The Kushner family foundation has also been funding Israeli settlements on the Palestinian West Bank, which is illegal, all of which makes Jared a ridiculous choice as US designated negotiator.
Kushner is, of course, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism which is how he was able to step up into his White House designated position. He also was and is a business partner of the president and his family. Reckoned altogether, it has meant that Jared Kushner has been able to exploit his status with the White House to take steps to enrich the Trump family as well as himself and his own family through both connivance and manipulation of his interlocutors in the foreign policy world, most particularly in the Gulf States.
To cite only one example of how politics, Israeli interests and the profit motive all come together one only has to review Kushner’s glowing account of the splendor of a future redeveloped Riviera style resort, quite likely to be named after Trump and featuring a gilded statue of the president, constructed on the rubble remains of old Gaza that will cover or otherwise dispose of tens of thousands of Palestinian bodies. It is a developer’s dream that is too disgusting to contemplate and is the mark of the man, unfortunately. Kushner’s participation in Trump’s phony Board of Peace has been little more than a cover story giving Netanyahu license to kill coming from America’s president, a man also owned by Israel, who believes that the only real thing that matters is ignoring his responsibilities as president and manipulating his position to make money, lots of it!
Jared Kushner has apparently inherited genes that make him acquisitive beyond all reason. His father Charles is currently serving as Trump appointee US Ambassador in France, where he speaks no French and is constantly complaining about antisemitism in the country. He was previously convicted and served nearly two years in prison more than a decade ago in a felony tax fraud case that grew into a bizarre tale involving sex tapes including the hiring of a prostitute. Kushner had hired the woman to seduce his brother-in-law who was testifying against him over the fraud charges, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister to force the relative to back off. Charles subsequently received a full pardon from Trump after contributing heavily to the Trump presidential campaign and was subsequently given the ambassadorial post.
Real estate mogul Jared followed in his father’s footsteps to include possible involvement in the aftermath of the 2018 murder and dismemberment of US resident Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi agents when he reportedly became the White House’s most ardent defender of the Saudi monarchy in exchange for an offshore substantial dollar bank account arranged by Riyadh. As a result the murder of an American resident by the Saudis was never seriously challenged.
And Jared has also been in the news lately over a not-altogether-legal scheme involving the Rothschild banking dynasty that was coordinated with corrupt local officials to acquire an island offshore of Albania to develop into an Adriatic Sea luxury resort. Local people were revolted by the development itself and the corruption involved and turned out in their tens of thousands to protest, forcing the government to back down on the deal.
Corruption might be Jared’s middle name! Beyond the development projects erected over both environment devastation and a mountain of dead bodies, the tragedy of Jared Kushner is his destruction of his slice of US foreign policy out of deference to Trump and his own family interests, which also meant making billions of sometimes insider trading generated dollars as part of the process. A new book by Matthew Cole on his perfidy has just appeared entitled “Princes and Thieves.” There have also number of articles on it and related issues, one of which by Charles P Pierce in Esquire magazine bore the possibly appropriate title “Jared Kushner Is the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to This Country, Maybe the World” subtitled “A new book reveals the extent of his shady dealings in the Middle East.”
The book makes the claim that Jared Kushner conducted something like diplomacy for profit without regard for actual American interests, behavior that might be regarded as treasonous by many. Also considering that Jared was privy to intelligence secrets through his White House access, one might reasonably argue that he shared such information with his “investors” from the Persian Gulf and Israel, meaning that he was engaged in espionage. A major revelation is how he and several United Arab Emirate leaders conspired during Trump’s first term in office to establish a $2 billion in slush funds as part of a plan to influence US foreign policy in the region. Kushner’s ties to Gulf money have also drawn scrutiny more recently. After leaving the White House in 2020, his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a deal that has drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs. Affinity has also invested in an Israeli weapons manufacturer, making one question his sincerity in “negotiating” to bring a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Jared Kushner certainly knew then and knows now that any efforts made by him to shape US policy that came from a foreign government that had provided him with money would make him an agent of a foreign power and require his registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. The act requires citizens who lobby in that fashion to declare themselves and the country they are working for to the Justice Department. Once registered, the individual or group would be required to observe complete transparency over the sources of its income and it political contacts with foreign officials. It is presumed that Kushner might be investigated and charged by the new Congress that will be installed as a consequence of the recent election regarding any number of crimes but even if it does happen in the next two years he will likely be pardoned by Trump.
What does Jared Kushner have to say about his behavior? Inevitably, he has denied the claims made in the Cole book, though he has refused to be interviewed on the subject. His lawyer has promised lawsuits however and has already filed one against Vanity Fair, which published an article by Cole on the subject. The book’s claims are in fact supported by descriptions of the access of Cole’s often anonymous sources in his notes, citing, for example, “a confidential source with direct knowledge” and “author interview with source who attended the meeting.” What is already known confirms that Kushner’s key relationship initially, beyond that with Israel, was with the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed (widely known as MBZ). It developed after the first election of Donald Trump in 2016, with Kushner being identified as the key player supported by the substantial secret bank account to be able to influence the new president on Middle Eastern policy. Per Cole, four senior officials from Trump’s first term, including two national security advisers, stated to him that they knew of no presidential approval for Kushner to have access to any foreign government’s bank accounts which means the UAE relationship was secret right from the beginning.
A highly respectable source that has been plausibly identified by Pierce in his article relating to the Kushner-UAE relationship is, perhaps surprisingly, Dutch government intelligence. “Sometime in late 2017, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) made a startling discovery: A General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) operative, a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data, was traveling to the UK for an espionage mission. When the Russian national arrived in England, the Dutch informed him that he had two options: he could work for them against the GRU, or the British would arrest him. Once in UK government custody, the operative would be charged with espionage. If convicted, he would spend years in a British prison. The Russian chose to change his employer. Later that year, the Russian operative gave the Dutch spies access to one of the GRU’s most sensitive assets. Located in Rostov, Russia, the GRU’s hacking and cyber team operated a remote server on which they stored some of their bounty. During their search through these secret files, the Dutch found something astonishing: screenshots of Jared Kushner’s iPhone. As they monitored Kushner’s phone, they discovered he used it to log in to a UAE bank account. By the time the Dutch spies had visibility into the phone, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. Their initial assessment was that the bank account was affiliated with the government there.”
The connivance between MBZ and Kushner in what was to follow, whatever its provenance, would represent what must surely be the worst case ever of US foreign policy being managed clandestinely without any regard for the Constitution, the established federal government bureaucracy, nor both the president and Secretary of State, neither of whom were aware of the relationship. In this case, Cole demonstrates how Kushner worked with the UAE to determine US policy across the Middle East and, in return, he was given full access to “slush fund” bank accounts set up for that purpose. Beyond the UAE, it is believed that Kushner used the money to cultivate relationships and come to secret agreements with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Some of the money was apparently also used to establish friendly regimes in Egypt, Yemen, Qatar and Libya. One major objective was to support the rise of Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince of Saudi Arabia and, ultimately, the normalization of relations between Israel and many of the Muslim powers, the so-called Abraham Accords.
As it turned out, the UAE’s expectations were borne out by what followed. Trump did indeed make Kushner his senior adviser with a broadly conceived brief that included the pursuit of a final settlement in the Middle East that would benefit both Israel and the UAE. Kushner benefited from the development in that he was able to operate without any oversight while having access both to top secret information and the ear of the president, all of which was financed by what was in practice unlimited dollar accounts coming from the Saudis and the Emirates.
And one should not ignore what was in it for Israel. Israel-firster Kushner, for his part, gained the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his arrangement with MBZ produced results for Jewish State in terms of the Gulf States often noted failure to align with the Palestinians as Israel moved to takeover both Gaza and the West Bank. Kushner was also able to manipulate Trump, a relatively easy task as both he and the president were already largely dominated by Netanyahu. Interestingly, Kushner and his family as well as several Trumps, including the president, were also getting rich as a side benefit while allowing US foreign policy to be largely influenced and even controlled by several foreign powers.
Over 16,000 hectares of farms, forests burnt in Israeli offensive on southern Lebanon, says minister
Press TV · November 7, 2026
Lebanese Environment Minister Tamara el-Zein says Israeli assaults have scorched more than 16,000 hectares of farmland and forest between October 2023 and September 2026, citing the deployment of phosphorus shells and other munitions banned by international law.
In a statement marking the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict on Friday, Zein highlighted that Israeli forces utilized 1,800 tons of explosives in three demolitions in southern Lebanon.
She detailed the environmental devastation resulting from these attacks, which included fires in agricultural and forested areas, harm to nature reserves, and the loss faced by farmers whose crops and means of living were obliterated.
Furthermore, she pointed out that the demolitions significantly transformed the landscapes of the targeted regions.
“Who will take responsibility for this destruction, and who will ensure that the Lebanese are not abandoned to cope with its repercussions and the costs of remediation?” Zein questioned.
The minister cautioned that the environmental repercussions might endure over time, and emphasized the necessity for monitoring contamination as well as the effects of leftover munitions on soil, water resources, and agricultural output.
Zein shared findings from a Lebanese Environment Ministry report that analyzed three demolitions executed by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
The report indicated that around 80 tons of explosives were deployed in Majdal Zoun in the Tyre district, 700 tons near Beaufort Castle in the Nabatieh district, and 1,100 tons at Ali al-Taher Hill in the same district.
Zein noted that the explosions produced shockwaves comparable to earthquakes measuring 3.1, 3.8, and 4.2 on the Richter scale, respectively, while underscoring that the effects reach far beyond immediate environmental harm, influencing the daily lives and livelihoods of residents.
The minister urged the international community and the United Nations to “assist Lebanon in addressing the environmental damage and hold Israel accountable for its actions.”
She also called for the creation of an independent and effective accountability mechanism to ensure that those responsible for environmental harm are held accountable and required to pay for remediation and compensation.
This comes amid a larger context of ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon, with airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery bombardments targeting the country almost daily.
Israeli forces opened fire near Lebanese farmers harvesting olives and detained a resident during an incursion into Deir Mimas in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported.
The incidents, reported between early Friday and afternoon, affected the districts of Marjayoun, Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil and Tyre.
Hezbollah launched military operations against Israel on March 2 in response to the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, repeated Israeli violations of the 2024 ceasefire, and Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese territory in the south.
Since then, despite months of negotiations, Israel has continued its military offensive against Lebanon.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported on Thursday that Israeli strikes since March 2 have resulted in 4,390 fatalities and 12,429 injuries.
Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon, including long-held positions as well as territories taken during the 2023-2024 war, where Israeli ground troops moved approximately 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into Lebanese territory.
Revive Iran’s MOU Deal or Face a Forever War /John Mearsheimer
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – November 6, 2026
Kafr Qasim at 70: The massacre Israel still hasn’t owned up to
Israeli soldiers conduct a military raid in the Old City of Nablus, northern West Bank, Palestine on November 1, 2026. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri | MEMO | November 6, 2026
Israel almost always promises to investigate allegations of misconduct by its military, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which it often portrays as the most moral army in the world. Yet such investigations rarely lead to meaningful accountability, particularly in major cases involving the killing of civilians. They can drag on for months, sometimes years, and when conclusions are eventually announced; they tend to produce one of two outcomes: either no criminal wrongdoing is established, or responsibility is attributed to an individual soldier, usually a low-ranking one, while the commanders and the wider chain of command are spared. A minor disciplinary measure follows, and the case is effectively closed.
This pattern is not new. It is deeply rooted in the history of Israel’s establishment and how it conducts itself. More importantly, it helps reinforce an image Israel has carefully cultivated since its creation: that of a tiny but highly modern and democratic country, where the rule of law is supreme and justice is not merely a principle embedded in the state’s legal culture but a way of life, surrounded by a sea of “savages” determined to destroy it.
Last week marked 70 years since Israel committed one of its most notorious massacres of Palestinian citizens, in the small Palestinian village of Kafr Qasim, in central what is now Israel, east of Tel Aviv. Unlike hundreds of Palestinian villages depopulated and erased from the map following Israel’s establishment in 1948, Kafr Qasim survived and retains its name. It is now a Palestinian Arab town, with a memorial to the victims erected in 1976 and a museum preserving the memory of the massacre. On the evening of 29th October 1956, as Israel launched its invasion of Egypt alongside Britain and France, Israeli Border Police officers stopped groups of Palestinian villagers returning home after a day’s work in the fields, quarries and elsewhere outside the village. They had committed no offence and had no knowledge of what was happening: they were unaware that the Israeli military had suddenly imposed a curfew. Earlier that afternoon, the normal curfew time of 10 pm had been brought forward to 5 pm, with the village’s local leadership receiving only half an hour’s notice. The returning workers were given no warning or opportunity to explain their ignorance. Instead, the Border Police opened fire on them at close range. Within an hour, 47 people had been killed in Kafr Qasim alone, including women and children. The massacre is commonly commemorated as the killing of 49 Palestinians, although a more comprehensive archival accounting by the Israeli research institute Akevot puts the total at 51 lives, including two people killed in neighbouring villages, an unborn child and an elderly man who died several hours after the shootings.
The massacre was not the result of a spontaneous confrontation but an intentional mass killing of innocent civilians.
The commanding officer, Colonel Issachar Shadmi, commander of the Israeli army’s 17th Brigade, had ordered the curfew ordered the Border Police officers to enforce the curfew against anyone found outside after 5 pm. The instruction was followed to the letter, and the result was the mass murder of dozens of Palestinian civilians. In an attempt to contain the political damage and protect its image, Israel established a commission of inquiry, followed by the prosecution of 11 Border Police officers. Eight were convicted in October 1958, including battalion commander Major Shmuel Malinki and Lieutenant Gavriel Dahan, who were sentenced to 17 and 15 years respectively. Three others were acquitted. But the convictions did not translate into lasting punishment. Appeals, sentence reductions, presidential commutations and early releases progressively dismantled the original sentences. By March 1960, less than two years after convictions, all eight were free,
Shadmi himself was tried separately, acquitted of murder and convicted only of abuse of authority for imposing the curfew without authorisation. His punishment was among the most shameful in the history of justice: a reprimand and a fine of just ten Israeli prutot, equivalent at the time to approximately half a US cent!
The man at the top of the chain of command escaped a murder conviction, while those who carried out the killings served only a fraction of their original sentences. Ask Israel today about Kafr Qasim and the likely answer would be: of course it was a crime, and those responsible were punished under the law! In details it might add that: it investigated, prosecuted and convicted those responsible. But such an answer deliberately ignores what happened after the verdicts: practically the entire process and its outcome were a joke by any judicial standards.
The same pattern of shambolic accountability continues to this day. A BBC Verify investigation published on 15th October 2026 provides compelling evidence of how little has changed over the last 70 years. The investigation examined more than 60,000 published reports and identified 300 separate incidents in which the Israeli military had said it was investigating allegations of killing or injuring people during Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Israel since 7th October 2023. Of these, the IDF announced the outcome of only 28 cases, while the status of another 18 remained unclear. The remaining 254 had no publicly available outcome. At least one person was reportedly killed in more than 200 of these incidents, and some investigations dated back to late 2023. As is usually the case, despite repeated requests, the IDF failed to provide transparent updates on the status of these investigations, either to the BBC or to anyone else. The idea is the same: say a great deal but reveal very little of substance, in order to continue controlling the damage and safeguarding the illusionary image of the “most moral army in the world”, while continuing to commit all kinds of crimes against largely innocent civilians, including more than 20,000 children, in the Gaza genocide alone.
And again, the Israeli criminal military maintained that it took allegations seriously. But this is precisely the problem: announcing an investigation is not the same as completing one, and completing one is not the same as holding those responsible accountable. The IDF’s strategy appears to be based on a simple calculation: announce an investigation, allow it to disappear into the bureaucratic maze, and wait for public attention to fade. As time passes, people either forget or become overwhelmed by the growing number of new crimes committed and new investigations announced. Since so little of substance ever emerges from Israeli investigations into alleged crimes by its forces, few people take these repeated promises of accountability by Israel’s deeply hypocritical judicial system seriously.
Seventy years after Kafr Qasim, the central question remains the same: how many investigations, inquiries and official promises of accountability must pass before those responsible for killing Palestinian civilians actually face justice?
Would President Vance really ditch Israel?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 6, 2026
Never hesitate to state the obvious: Everyone with eyes to see is recognizing that the US midterm elections have been sensational. The Democrats have achieved a stupendous – “historic” according to the Financial Times – triumph; the Republicans have suffered a crushing, Stalingrad-scale rout.
Let’s focus on the rout: This is the moment when, on the same day, a New York Times front page main headline promises to explain the GOP’s “historic collapse” while Tucker Carlson starts his show with a wry “well, that was a disaster” (adding that he really means “disaster,” as in the sinking of the Lusitania, not rain at a wedding party).
You may suspect both America’s paper of liberal Centrism and the former Fox host turned MAGA dissident of bias or, at least, Schadenfreude. Yet bias is simply irrelevant in this case, where, for once, the facts really do speak for themselves: The great, enormous, humungous GOP midterm catastrophe is quantifiably worse than the 2006 drubbing the party received for George W. Bush’s Iraq War insanity or the “shellacking” – in his own words – voters administered to Barack Obama and his Democrats in 2010. As the staid Economist has summed up the Republican fiasco, this is “not a normal midterm swing against a sitting president, but the biggest wave-election since the aftermath of Watergate more than 50 years ago.”
What is even clearer than that the Republicans have been devastated is that one man in particular has taken a stunning hit: US President Donald Trump. He may insist that he was not on the ballot as much as he likes. No one is fooled. Of course, he was, if not officially – as no president ever is during midterms – then all the more in reality. This was, the Wall Street Journal has noted correctly, “one of the most decisive repudiations of a president in modern history.”
The causes of this “blue tsunami” will keep commentators and, later, historians busy. Here, let’s just note two things: They go beyond the key issues of “affordability,” a typical US euphemism for mass impoverishment and the “Iran War,” in effect another euphemism, standing for a US defeat much worse than Vietnam, incurred for no real reason other than to please genocidal Israel. In particular, the spike in gasoline prices resulting, most of all, directly from this perfectly avoidable war and defeat has delivered a gut punch to Trump’s party.
But also recall that US voters, as we know from polls, are angry as well about such things as the tariff wars that made their lives more expensive even before the Iran War, the blatant rapacity of the Trump clan and their cronies, and the shooting of US citizens in brutal ICE crackdowns.
Not to speak of bulldozing part of the White House in a quixotic quest for the biggest, blingest ballroom of them all. Most of all, perhaps, there is a deep background noise of resentment at a president who seems to make a point out of displaying how little he cares. About his countrymen and about his own promises of no more wars and putting America first, and not Israel.
And now? That is, of course, the most important and most urgent question of this moment. Rumors are swirling: The (political) heads of Secretary of War (On Behalf of Israel) Pete Hegseth and Trump’s chief of staff and single most important adviser Susie Wiles are said to be on the chopping block, for instance.
In this volatile dog-eats-panicked-dog world, one man seems to have made up his mind rapidly. Vice President J. D. Vance, former vehement Trump critic, then devoted Trump convert, has had another moment of revelation and rebirth. With the battle scarcely over and lost, he has addressed the public via X to, in essence, put as much distance between himself and his losing boss as he possibly can while, perhaps, keeping his job.
In a long post, Vance has outlined his theory of why the GOP was crushed. Unusually rich in detail about polling, turnout, and voter movements from one camp (the GOP) into the other (the Democrats), the gist of the post is one clear if implicit message: It’s Trump who is to blame.
Because that’s what you are saying when you say, as Vance does, that the key issue that lost the election was the war against Iran. If you add, as Vance also does, that voters wanted not only an end to that war but also a “focus on cost of living/inflation,” putting America truly first, and a “change of our relationship to Israel,” the point gets only clearer. The Wall Street Journal is right: This was a “stunning repudiation” of Trump.
For while Trump is by no means the only one to blame for the perverse American dependency on and support of a hyper-aggressive and genocidal midget state (that would be virtually the whole US establishment), he has made himself the single most prominent epitome of this national syndrome. And that makes him the single most convenient fall guy, too.
There’s no reason to pity Trump for being stabbed in the back by his very own Brutus. It was always clear that Vance is, to put it mildly, highly flexible in his positions and values as well as unscrupulous. His burning ambition is, if anything, even more obvious: Hire a Vance, don’t complain when he’ll kick and stab you when you’re down.
The Iranian leadership has made no secret of being highly unimpressed by Vance’s latest self-update. “Losing gambler energy, can’t walk away from the table. Boss is prepping the next war phase while America teeters on an Israel-First cliff. Skip the TED talk. Why not say this to your boss?” That was the response of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament.
Tehran has every reason to be harsh as well as skeptical. But for the rest of us, it makes sense not to dismiss Vance’s sally so quickly. His motives are certain to be selfish. The fact that he was launched by one of America’s most devious and power-hungry oligarchs, Antichrist-obsessive Peter Thiel, makes his CV even less appealing. But we still have to ask what he may have in mind with his “break” with Trump.
Clearly, Vance is positioning himself for a potential run for the presidency. But what would be his agenda if he ran and won? Skeptics see a massive psyop: Vance will only pretend to offer MAGA cleansed of Trumpian contaminations, in other words, to really put America and Americans first, and cut Israel loose. In reality, they predict, his aim is to betray his potential voters no less than Trump has. Trust neither Vance nor his friend and MAGA rebel Tucker Carlson, the skeptics warn, because they will, in the end, sell out to Zionism and give you the same old, same old again.
There is no compelling reason to rule out such a scenario. Yet there is no reason to find it inevitable either. It is equally possible that Vance – out of opportunism, not because of the conscience he does not have – could really stand for a great right-wing turn away from Israel. Not because Israel is genocidal and all-purpose criminal, but because being tied to it is becoming far too politically costly.
This possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. For two reasons: First, being Israel’s tool in the Middle East has really produced catastrophe for the US and its establishment. And second, until now – or perhaps recently – supporting Israel come-what-may has been a vile bipartisan consensus. To break it down entirely will require great changes both among Democrats and Republicans.
US politics is exceptionally dark and often outright evil. But the geopolitics and the domestic calculus of the long decades of America’s “Israel First” obsession could shift even in that world of darkness. For Israel’s victims, the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemenis, Iranians, and many others, it won’t matter why exactly the US will finally stop propping up their tormenters. A realistic commitment to their liberation must focus first of all on getting the US out of the Middle East. Under what regime at home it will make that retreat may matter. Or not.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Using nuclear weapons, the US-Israeli alliance still can’t beat Iran
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2026
While it is true that conventional weapons cannot penetrate Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site, there is no guarantee that using a nuclear weapon will actually yield results. Instead, the fall-out is the only thing that is certain.
The United States, at the behest of their Israeli partners, are speculated to be weighing the nuclear option against the Islamic Republic of Iran. In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has continued to make threats against Tehran, claiming that he will even deploy the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB).
However, the target that the Trump administration and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu appear the most obsessed with, is the facility located under Pickaxe Mountain, near the Natanz Nuclear Facility. Satellite imagery suggests that there has been significant activity at the site, at least according to US media.
All the talk of bombing this site, which Trump himself has publicly threatened to do, is predicated on the concept that Iran’s highly enriched Uranium is located at this underground facility. Based upon this assessment, there’s only one way to go about destroying that target. A MOAB is not a bunker buster munition, it is an airburst weapon, therefore officials in Washington can’t be seriously considering this as their weapon of choice.
Conventional weapons have failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and underground missile facilities, meaning that the only natural last option is a tactical nuclear weapon.
Yet, there are a number of problems with this strategy, beyond the obvious implications of using nuclear weapons in the first place. The first obvious issue is that the US and Israelis don’t actually know with any degree of certainty that Iran is storing its enriched uranium at this site, at best it is an educated guess.
The next issue they face is that tactical nuclear weapons have never been used in combat, yet alone against this specific kind of target. While hypothetically the force of the weapon would destroy the underground facility, it is also possible that the mountain will absorb a lot of the shock, meaning that what will be felt will be like an earthquake, but not necessarily enough to destroy the infrastructure.
Another major issue that the US has is that they have no idea how deep the infrastructure is actually buried underneath the mountain range. They estimate that the nuclear facility could be buried around 80-100 meters, but have no blueprints and are again guessing. No nuclear inspectors have gained access to it to inspect, so there is no way of telling for sure. It is also unknown precisely where the US, or the Israelis, would have to strike in order to have any hypothetical success.
Let us assume that the US or their Israeli partners use the nuke and still fail to destroy the facility, or that Iran’s nuclear material is not even located there, would it be worth it to deploy such a weapon? Iran has built these facilities and its missile cities, with the threat of nuclear weapons in mind, meaning that they are more than likely prepared for such an eventuality also.
The response that would come to a nuclear attack on Pickaxe Mountain would then be enormous, killing any hope of a negotiated settlement in the short term, ensuring a long and bloody war. As we have seen demonstrated since the Israeli attack on Iran in June of 2025, conventional weapons cannot destroy Iranian underground missile facilities, meaning that they would then have to use countless nuclear weapons if they hoped to penetrate them. It would then be a doomsday scenario, and every front would ignite in a way that cannot be anticipated. In addition to this, the use of these weapons is not even guaranteed to achieve their goals.
Overall, the US-Israeli alliance is not actually attacking Iran over the nuclear weapons issue; they have attempted to inflict regime change. Using nuclear weapons against nuclear sites will do nothing to achieve the overthrow of the Iranian government.
For every offensive action that Washington carries out at the behest of Tel Aviv, Tehran has an answer for it. If there was a quick and simple road to victory, Netanyahu and Trump would have already taken it.
Using nuclear weapons would be a ridiculous and reckless mistake, with potential far-stretching consequences that span much further than the scope of this article. While the third round appears inevitable, the outcome will ultimately have to be a US retreat from the region. First, it is clear that the Zionist regime must be dealt a strategic defeat in order for that to be allowed to happen.
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Only a Beginning… Charles Malik’s vision of an emergent Pax Judaica
By David Miller | Tracking Power | November 12, 2026
In August 1949, three months after Israel joined the United Nations, Lebanon’s envoy in Washington sent his government a long report. Charles Malik, no firebrand, had signed the UN Charter and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His Report on the Present Situation lay largely unread until Dar An-Nahar printed it in 2002. … continue
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