IAEA’s new report focuses on Iran’s uranium stockpile, avoids Israeli-US aggression
Press TV – November 14, 2025
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has released a new report on Iran’s nuclear program ahead of the Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, focusing on uranium stockpile estimates while avoiding comment on recent illegal attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Press TV has obtained the unpublished report, dated November 12, which will be presented at the quarterly Board of Governors meeting beginning next week in Vienna.
It will be the first such session since the formal phase-out of the JCPOA, meaning Iran’s nuclear file will now be addressed solely under the NPT Safeguards Agreement rather than the defunct 2015 accord.
The report covers the period since the director general’s last assessment in early September and revisits the fallout from the June aggression on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel and the United States.
The aggression led Tehran to halt all cooperation with the agency, citing “politically motivated” resolutions and the IAEA’s refusal to condemn terrorist attacks on its nuclear infrastructure and personnel.
Grossi has maintained his earlier stance; on September 8 he declined to denounce the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists during the June attacks, stating, “I believe this is not something that, as director general of the IAEA, falls within my purview.”
The new report similarly avoids comment on the June 13 Israeli aggression or the subsequent US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites—actions Tehran maintains violated the UN Charter, international law, and the NPT.
The director general instead focuses on verification issues that have arisen since Iran lawfully suspended cooperation in late June due to internal legislation and security concerns.
The report includes the agency’s estimate of Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile as of June 13, shortly before cooperation was suspended. The IAEA assesses the total to be 9874.9 kg, of which 9040.5 kg is in the form of UF6.
This includes “2391.1 kg of uranium enriched up to 2% U-235; 6024.4 kg of uranium enriched up to 5% U-235; 184.1 kg of uranium enriched up to 20% U-235; and 440.9 kg of uranium enriched up to 60% U-235.”
The report notes that the figure represents an estimate based on “information previously provided by Iran, previous Agency verification activities and estimates based on the past operating records of the relevant declared facilities.”
Iran says its nuclear materials remain under rubble from recent attacks. “What relates to our nuclear materials is all under the debris caused by attacks on the bombed facilities,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on September 11.
“Whether these materials are accessible or not, and the status of some of them, is currently being evaluated by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” he added.
Araghchi said that once this evaluation is complete, the report will be submitted to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which will decide on any subsequent actions considering Iran’s security concerns.
Despite the disruptions caused by the June attacks, the new IAEA report stresses that safeguard obligations remain unchanged.
It states: “The Director General has made clear to Iran that it is indispensable and urgent to implement safeguards activities in Iran in accordance with the NPT Safeguards Agreement, which remains in force, and that its implementation cannot be suspended under any circumstances.”
At the same time, the agency acknowledges that “the military attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities have created a situation which requires Iran and the Agency to cooperate constructively to implement safeguards.”
The Cairo agreement, reached on September 9 between Iran’s foreign minister and Grossi, is referenced as the basis for re-establishing some degree of procedural clarity.
According to the report, “the Cairo agreement provides a common understanding of the procedures for Agency inspections, notifications and safeguards implementation in Iran under the prevailing circumstances. While taking into consideration Iran’s concerns, these procedures remain in line with the relevant provisions of the NPT Safeguards Agreement.”
The report notes that Iran “has begun to facilitate” accounting reports and Design Information Questionnaire (DIQ) updates for facilities unaffected by the US-Israeli attacks. It also urges reports on affected sites.
Grossi claimed his readiness “to work with Iran without delay in order to achieve non-mutually exclusive objectives: full compliance with the NPT Safeguards Agreement and with the recently adopted Iranian domestic legislation.”
On June 25—the day after Iran’s retaliatory operations halted the 12-day aggression — the country’s parliament unanimously passed legislation suspending all cooperation.
The move was rooted in concerns that IAEA resolutions, particularly the June 12 resolution by the Board of Governors, paved the way for the Israeli aggression.
Talks with the IAEA resumed in September, but Iran warned that the decision by Britain, France, and Germany to trigger the UN “snapback” mechanism after the Cairo agreement would create “new conditions” rendering that framework void.
The agency has issued no criticism of the E3 decision, even as it continues to insist that Iran uphold its safeguards obligations under all circumstances.
Syria’s HTS deploys foreign fighters to Lebanon border: Report
Press TV – November 13, 2025
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has reportedly deployed foreign Takfiri fighters from northern Syria to the border with Lebanon, sparking renewed concern over the group’s destabilizing activities and growing presence in the region.
According to sources cited by The Cradle, foreign militants affiliated with HTS were transferred in recent days from the Harem area in Idlib province to the city of al-Qusayr, near the Syrian–Lebanese border.
The movement reportedly coincided with the transfer of heavy military equipment, including armored vehicles and other hardware.
“At the same time, forces affiliated with the Ministry of Defense of the ‘Syrian Transitional Government’ attempted to advance and take positions inside Lebanese territory, specifically in the Wadi al-Thalajat area of Ras al-Maara, along the Syrian–Lebanese border in the Damascus countryside,” the sources said, referring to barren areas where the Lebanese army is not present.
These reports emerge shortly after Washington announced Syria’s participation in the US occupying coalition in the Arab country, as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — once affiliated with al-Qaeda and Daesh — arrived in Washington on Sunday.
The HTS military remains deeply infiltrated by extremist elements. Many of its current commanders and officers are known former members of al-Qaeda and Daesh factions.
The reported buildup of HTS-linked forces near Lebanon coincides with renewed US threats that such militias could be deployed against Hezbollah.
On Friday, US envoy Tom Barrack said that “Damascus will now actively assist us in confronting and dismantling the remnants of ISIS, the IRGC (Islamic Revolution Guards Corps), Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist networks, and will stand as a committed partner in the global effort to secure peace.”
Analysts warn that the alignment of US policy with extremist-leaning Syrian factions such as HTS risks reigniting cross-border violence and undermining the security achieved by Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces after expelling Daesh and al-Qaeda elements from Lebanon’s eastern border in 2017.
Jolani told the Washington Post in an interview that “good” progress has been made in direct talks to reach an agreement with Israel, while boasting about weakening the Axis of Resistance on behalf of Tel Aviv.
“Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and Hezbollah represent. We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria,” he said.
“The US is with us in these negotiations, and so many international parties support our perspective in this regard. Today, we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this,” he added.
Jolani also met with US-based Syrian rabbi Yosef Hamra.
Hebrew reports have revealed that a main part of the agreement will likely involve HTS–Israeli intelligence sharing and cooperation against the Axis of Resistance, specifically Iran and Hezbollah – which helped the former government recapture large swathes of Syria from al-Qaeda and Deash.
Israel carried out heavy strikes in Damascus and elsewhere in southern Syria earlier this year, under the pretext of protecting the Druze minority from Jolani’s extremist forces.
Now, it continues to carry out incursions, seize territory, and expand the occupation it established after the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government last year.
Yet Jolani and other HTS officials have repeatedly signaled that they pose no threat to Tel Aviv.
The deployment of Takfiri fighters along the Lebanese border serves as a pretext for confronting resistance groups and advancing Israeli interests, coming as Israel continues its repeated acts of aggression across Syrian territory following the collapse of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government late last year.
Analysts are asking why al-Jolani does not deploy any forces against Israel, which continues to attack and occupy parts of Syria almost daily.
The HTS-led regime will reportedly hand over the occupied Golan Heights to Israel as part of a looming normalization deal with the illegal entity.
Since taking power, HTS has committed widespread war crimes and brutal repression, particularly against minority communities such as the Alawites, who have faced targeted violence, as Syria has experienced waves of sectarian and regional unrest under the group’s control.
US envoy says Syria will ‘actively assist’ Washington in confronting Hezbollah
The Cradle | November 13, 2025
US envoy Tom Barrack said on 13 November that the extremist-led government in Damascus will “actively assist” Washington and Tel Aviv in confronting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“I had the profound honor of accompanying Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to the White House, where he became the first Syrian Head of State ever to visit since Syria gained its independence in 1946,” Barrack said on X.
He also hailed the former Al-Qaeda chief’s “commitment” to joining Washington’s ‘anti-ISIS’ coalition, “marking Syria’s transition from a source of terrorism to a counterterrorism partner – a commitment to rebuild, to cooperate, and to contribute to the stability of an entire region.”
“Damascus will now actively assist us in confronting and dismantling the remnants of ISIS, the IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist networks, and will stand as a committed partner in the global effort to secure peace,” the envoy added.
Barrack’s comments are the latest in a series of recent threats made by the envoy against Lebanon.
He had said just last month that Lebanon would soon face a broad Israeli campaign unless it moved to fully disarm Hezbollah immediately.
Since then, Israel has killed at least 44 Lebanese people.
Lebanon’s army has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure south of the Litani River since the start of this year, in line with the November 2024 ceasefire agreement, which Israel has violated every day for the past year.
But Tel Aviv claims Hezbollah is rearming and rebuilding its presence faster than the Lebanese army is dismantling, threatening escalation and vowing not to withdraw its forces occupying south Lebanon until the resistance surrenders all its arms.
Washington has publicly backed Tel Aviv’s position.
Barrack’s comments on Friday were not his first threats of Syrian military action against Lebanon. In July, he said Syria views Lebanon as its “beach resort” and would carry out an assault against the country unless Hezbollah disarmed.
Clashes broke out between the Lebanese army and Syrian troops earlier this year, after Damascus’s forces advanced against the border under the pretext of dealing with smuggling.
The fighting ended after talks between Beirut and Damascus.
The envoy’s new threat came just two days after former Al-Qaeda chief and self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa boasted to the Washington Post about the help his extremist forces have given Israel.
“Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and [Lebanon’s] Hezbollah represent. We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria,” he said.
Hezbollah fought in Syria for years alongside the former government, and took part in the recapture of several parts of the country from groups including Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and others who were at the time considered the Syrian opposition. The Nusra Front was later rebranded into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government in 2024 and now dominates Syria’s Defense Ministry.
The Nusra Front occupied large swathes of the northern and eastern Lebanese border region for years at the start of the Syrian war, and was eventually expelled by Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in 2017.
The Nusra Front, headed by Sharaa, was responsible for numerous bombings and killings inside Lebanon, including the capital, Beirut.
Direct negotiations have been taking place between Sharaa’s government and Israel over the past several months. In September, Barrack said a Syrian–Israeli security deal was nearly complete.
Hebrew reports have revealed that a main part of the agreement will likely involve Syrian–Israeli intelligence sharing and cooperation against the Axis of Resistance, specifically Iran and Hezbollah.
Israel wants broader security agreement with US – Axios
RT | November 13, 2025
Israel wants to strike a 20-year security agreement with the US, doubling the duration of the previous one and emphasizing “cooperation” between the two nations rather than one-sided reception of military aid, Axios has reported, citing officials familiar with the matter.
The current 10-year framework agreement for long-term security assistance to Israel is set to expire in 2028. The $38 billion deal was signed under the Obama administration, making it the third in a string of ever-growing security packages for Israel. The two previous deals were worth some $21 and $32 billion, respectively.
The US poured additional military aid into Israel during the conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to recent estimates by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, the additional assistance amounted to nearly $22 billion. Moreover, the Pentagon spent up to $12 billion to prop up Israeli operations across the Middle East during the conflict.
West Jerusalem would like to sign the deal next year and has reportedly added unspecified ‘America First’ provisions to appease the Trump administration.
“This is out-of-the-box thinking. We want to change the way we handled past agreements and put more emphasis on US-Israel cooperation. The Americans like this idea,” an unnamed Israeli official told the outlet.
Israel reportedly proposed using some of the funds allocated under the pact for joint research and development, rather than funneling it all into direct military aid. The research areas could involve AI-related defense tech, as well as the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, an Israeli official told Axios.
US President Donald Trump announced his Golden Dome initiative, whose name is reminiscent of the Israeli Iron Dome anti-aircraft system, early this year. The system is envisioned as a space-integrated shield capable of intercepting missiles from anywhere in the world and is expected to involve space-based components and options for preemptive strikes. The Congressional Budget Office has projected the program’s cost could exceed $542 billion over two decades.
The Heritage Foundation Goes Woke
By James Rushmore | The Libertarian Institute | November 13, 2025
It’s been two weeks since Kevin Roberts found himself in the Israel lobby’s crosshairs, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s been much longer. The controversy kicked off on October 30, when the Heritage Foundation’s president released a video defending Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes. But Roberts’ real crime was arguing that American Christians have a right to criticize Israel without being accused of anti-semitism. He said that conservatives “should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.” What’s more, he condemned the “venomous coalition” attacking Carlson and seeking to “cancel” anti-semitic voices like Fuentes.
Roberts’ initial statement represented a precise articulation of the conservative movement’s traditional attitude towards identity politics and cancel culture. But because it sought to maintain some level of consistency and apply those principles to pro-Israeli grievance politics, it provoked a frenzy. The terminally shrill Ben Shapiro, who devoted an entire episode of his podcast to denouncing Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, said that Roberts’ statement constituted a “betrayal of the Heritage Foundation’s history and principles.” Bloated neoconservative John Podhoretz issued a tweet calling Roberts a “rancid wretch of an amoeba.” Sentient Halloween decoration Laura Loomer, responding to a clip from Roberts’ subsequent apology tour, called him a “total hypocrite” and a “liability for the GOP.”
Last Wednesday, footage leaked of Roberts addressing his peers at the Foundation. He opened his remarks with the following: “I made a mistake, and I let you down, and I let down this institution, and I am sorry for that. Period. Full stop.” What followed was a full-blown struggle session. A steady stream of Heritage employees rose to humiliate their superior. Roberts responded with a series of groveling apologies and increasingly masochistic attempts to atone for his wrongthink. But it was no use.
Senior Legal Fellow Amy Swearer, claiming that Roberts had “shown a stunning lack of both courage and judgment,” called on him to resign. IDF veteran Daniel Flesch, who serves as a senior policy analyst at the Foundation, bemoaned how difficult the past week had been for him. He demanded that Roberts issue a statement calling Carlson an anti-semite, citing the latter’s view that Americans who serve in the IDF should be stripped of their citizenship. Meanwhile, Roberts advisor Evan Myers was castigated by Victoria Coates, the co-chair of Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, after expressing fears that the Foundation would use staff attendance at Shabbat dinners as an ideological litmus test. (Soon afterwards, the Task Force severed ties with Heritage.)
The following day, Roberts tweeted out a hostage video in which he expressed gratitude to his “amazing colleagues” for showing him the error of his ways. He also expressed regret for his use of the phrase “venomous coalition” and reaffirmed his commitment to combating anti-semitism, even when “[his] friend Tucker Carlson needs challenging.” Roberts stopped short of offering reparations to the Anti-Defamation League or attending a sensitivity training seminar with Rabbi Shmuley. But his desperate attempts to appease the mob call to mind the hundreds of videos in which perpetually aggrieved college students demand apologies from professors and administrators who express sentiments they deem offensive. Indeed, there are striking parallels between the mainstream right’s hysterical response to Roberts’ statement and the racial reckoning America bore witness to in 2020.
For more than a decade, the American right has coalesced around its opposition to woke identity politics, particularly in relation to race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The rise of Trumpism was, in large part, a product of the American public’s rejection of political correctness. But ever since Israel began its genocide in the Gaza Strip, the conservative movement has sought to carve out exceptions for pro-Israel, Jewish, and Zionist identity politics. Many on the mainstream right regard Israel as a bulwark against the barbarian forces that seek to destroy Western civilization. They rightfully view the woke left’s embrace of the Palestinian cause with suspicion. After all, the left’s insistence on viewing that issue through the prism of Black Lives Matter-style racial politics is solipsistic in the extreme. The same principle applies to the left’s insistence on fusing pro-Palestinian sentiment with pro-LGBT activism, a cause that few Palestinians support. But the right fails to hold proponents of Israeli identity politics to the same standard. Rather than reject both the intersectional logic that undergirds the left’s embrace of Palestine and the ethnonationalist logic that undergirds the Israeli project, they celebrate the latter and ignore the resulting cognitive dissonance.
The right-wing backlash against Roberts is instructive precisely because it illustrates how conservatives are willing to adopt woke tactics when they benefit Israel. Many on the right see through the left’s attempts to weaponize accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia against their adversaries. But when it comes to anti-semitism, such individuals are more than happy to emulate the left. They’ll argue that Roberts and Carlson are endangering vulnerable populations by challenging the Israeli stranglehold on American discourse and “platforming” anti-semitic figures. By interviewing an anti-semite like Fuentes, Carlson is guilty of amplifying anti-semitic narratives, and Roberts’ defense of Carlson amounts to an endorsement of Fuentes’ pro-Hitler views. The only way for Roberts to atone for his sins is to beg forgiveness from the demographic he offended. But no matter how many struggle sessions Roberts takes part in, he can only hope to reduce the harm he’s caused. He can never achieve total purity.
The Heritage Foundation’s commitment to all things Israel, as well as its insistence on pandering to offended Jews and Zionists, mirrors the woke lunacy that’s become a defining feature of life on American college campuses. The heckler’s veto reigns supreme, and prostrating oneself before aggrieved victim groups is the default response to the raising of pitchforks. The existence of special committees to address the concerns of those groups isn’t even questioned. The fact that Heritage had a National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism should raise alarm bells. Conservatives rightly regard both the “anti-racism” and broader DEI industries with great scorn. So why don’t they recognize the deceit at the heart of the anti-anti-semitism racket? Indeed, the only thing such conservatives seem interested in conserving is wokethink.
Ironically, the Israeli project represents the culmination of intersectional logic. When a historically persecuted demographic is given free rein to do as it pleases, it should come as no surprise when it feels emboldened to brutalize its opponents. Nor should it strain credulity when it feels entitled to U.S. military and financial support. But much in the same way that the right seeks an Israel exception to its anti-identitarian doctrine, the left seeks to preserve the institutional architecture of wokethink, even as it seeks to deny Israel supporters the ability to capitalize on that framework. Look no further than Tel Aviv’s campaign to criminalize Hollywood boycotts of Israel, citing U.S. civil rights law as the appropriate predicate. The left may regard such efforts as a perversion of the underlying legislation, but nobody on the activist left would dare propose that the solution is to reform, let alone abolish, the prevailing civil rights bureaucracy. After all, that bureaucracy still benefits their preferred demographic cohorts.
The left refuses to question the many ways in which their preferred brand of woke activism parallels the hasbara tactics deployed by their pro-Israel counterparts. Case in point, over at The Nation, the Canadian writer Jeet Heer uses the Roberts controversy as an opportunity to tar Carlson as an anti-semite. He also takes issue with Roberts’ invocation of “globalism.” Heer feigns concern for the Palestinians, but his professed concern is outweighed by his pathological need to police other people’s language. Implicit to his piece is the assumption that the left should maintain something of a monopoly on Israel criticism. Sure, the left can tolerate certain conservative critiques of Our Greatest Ally™. But in Heer’s mind, any critiques that threaten to become unruly should invite a prolonged discourse on the dangers of “violent rhetoric.” Heer spends much of the piece arguing that genuine anti-semitism is a right-wing phenomenon, all while defending left-wing anti-Zionists from that spurious charge. Of course, he’s more than happy to deploy those same bogus charges against his opponents. It’s the fact that the left is finally getting a taste of its own medicine that bothers him. But what more do you expect from the man who earnestly defends art vandals?
The same week that Roberts embarked on his apology tour, Sydney Sweeney sat down for an interview with GQ’s Katherine Stoeffel. What followed was the conversation that launched a million memes. But putting aside the sheer entertainment value of the exchange, Sweeney’s refusal to apologize for her American Eagle ad campaign provides an object lesson in the value of standing one’s ground.
What does it say when a 51-year-old think tank president shows less courage under fire than a starlet nearly half his age? Roberts could learn a lot from Sweeney, who has spent the past few months being subjected to the dumbest attacks imaginable. One of those attacks came from Sweeney’s fellow White Lotus alum, Aimee Lou Wood, who responded to an Instagram post about the GQ interview with a vomiting emoji. Wood recently signed a petition vowing to boycott Israeli film institutions complicit in the Palestinian genocide. But her willingness to deviate from the politically correct script on that front is superseded by her compulsion to maintain the party line when it comes to “anti-racism.” Wood and her ideological bedfellows believe that the only problem with cancel culture is that it’s wielded against them. They’re more than content to weaponize it against those who make inoffensive pronouncements with which they take umbrage. In the same vein, conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation are happy to abandon their commitment to free speech and employ cancel culture against those who question America’s Israel-centric foreign policy.
Fuentes is a hateful, charismatic moron who would gladly celebrate the election of a President Gavin Newsom. He ought to be ignored. But the Heritage Foundation seems more than content to give Fuentes the attention he so clearly craves. And in doing so, it is willing to embrace the very same logic that has animated wokethink for the past decade. None of this should come as a surprise. Woke activists may claim solidarity with Palestine, but at the end of the day, the collectivist spirit that drives Israel’s genocide is indistinguishable from the mob mentality that undergirds woke ideology. Roberts initially seemed to understand this point, but he lacked the fortitude to stand his ground. And so the Heritage Foundation will no doubt become the latest America First institution to be sacrificed at the Israeli altar.
Further evidence emerges of Israel’s Mossad links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
MEMO | November 12, 2025
In what many view as further evidence of links between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Mossad, leaked emails show Israeli spy stayed in his Manhattan home. Newly leaked emails reveal that a senior Israeli intelligence officer with ties to the Israeli military and Mossad stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan residence on multiple occasions between 2013 and 2016.
The documents, reported by Drop Site News, add to growing evidence that Epstein was a key facilitator of sexual exploitation, elite political access and international espionage on behalf of Israeli intelligence interests.
According to the investigation, Yoni Koren—a long-time aide to former Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ehud Barak and a figure with deep ties to Israeli military intelligence—was hosted by Epstein for weeks at a time.
Koren, who remained active in Israeli intelligence networks long after his formal retirement, was engaged in brokering cybersecurity ventures and coordinating high-level meetings involving former CIA Director Leon Panetta and US defence officials.
Among the documents released are emails showing Barak instructing Epstein to wire funds to Koren’s personal bank account and later coordinating an unusual hand-off of a package involving a bank card. Koren also arranged private access to the Pentagon and White House for Barak’s family, allegedly via his contacts with former CIA and Department of Defence officials.
The revelations form the fourth instalment in a series published by Drop Site News, which has previously reported on Epstein’s alleged involvement in brokering security agreements between Israel and Mongolia, Russia and Côte d’Ivoire. These reports challenge the long-maintained narrative that Epstein’s vast network was confined to financial elites and celebrities, instead pointing toward his role as an informal operator for Israeli intelligence interests.
While speculation around Epstein’s connections to intelligence services has long circulated, including earlier claims that he was protected due to those affiliations, the new material offers a rare glimpse into how deeply embedded he may have been in Israeli intelligence circles. The emails include direct communication between Barak and Epstein, discussions of bank transfers, and requests for covert operational assistance. They also show that Barak used Koren as an intermediary to share information with AMAN, Israel’s military intelligence directorate.
Notably, the US Congress has so far failed to release the full Epstein files. Republican Rep Anna Paulina Luna, who has led efforts to declassify these documents, has accused House Speaker Mike Johnson of deliberately delaying a vote under pressure from President Donald Trump. The files are believed to contain material implicating powerful figures across governments, financial institutions and intelligence networks.
Koren, who passed away from cancer in 2023, was described by Barak in a eulogy as a “talented intelligence officer… with endless loyalty to the state.” Barak has refused to comment on the latest allegations, as has Jeremy Bash, former CIA Chief of Staff and frequent point of contact in Koren’s email correspondence.
Zionists target Taiwan in the push for a Zionist empire
By David Miller | Al Mayadeen | November 12, 2025
On October 27, President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan made a speech welcoming the first ever AIPAC delegation to the Island. “I extend a warm welcome to the first ever delegation to Taiwan from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC is a prominent nonprofit, dedicated to advancing US-Israel relations.” He said that “Israel” is a model for Taiwan to learn from in strengthening its defences, and he cited the Biblical story of David versus Goliath on the need to stand up to authoritarianism. He said AIPAC was “highly prestigious and infuential.”
The delegation comprised over 200 people and included CEO Elliot Brandt, Board Chair Michael Tuchin, and Board President Bernie Kaminetsky. AIPAC is playing an increasingly international role in the pursuit of a Zionist empire and in recent years has sent delegations to the Persian Gulf, India, and Europe.
AIPAC presented the president with a rather gaudy memento – a model of the US Capitol building in Washington DC – a tribute to US power. But it refrained from naming any of the rest of their delegation.

Reuters reports that “Taiwan has been a strong backer of Israel” since the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood, though “Israel, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei.”
The president went on to say that “Taiwan is one of the very few countries that holds International Holocaust Remembrance Day events each year”.
Taiwan is a geopolitical anomaly, formerly known as Formosa in colonial times. It should obviously be part of China. However, it was the last bolthole of the counter-revolutionaries of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek after they were defeated by the Chinese revolution in 1949. They set up a statelet and grandly called it the Republic of China. They then declared martial law, which was only lifted in 1987.
Since then, there has been the much vaunted economic miracle in Taiwan, which has been accomplished under the tutelage of US financial and military aid, labour exploitation and dependent capitalist development, shaped by and serving the interests of global imperial powers and a local exploiting class.
Now, with the emergent Zionist empire – Pax Judaica – we can see the expansion of Zionist influence and involvement in countries as far away from West Asia, as Taiwan.
In his comments, President Lai Ching-te emphasised the ambition to “deepen collaboration in such fields as semiconductors, ICT, and cybersecurity.” He also said it is “very willing to enhance cooperation with Israel under President Trump’s AI Action Plan.” This was launched by Trump in January, where he was flanked by two Zionist billionaires, Larry Ellison of Oracle and Sam Altman of OpenAI. Ellison is, of course, central to the Trump Gaza plan, which intended to smash the Palestinian Resistance and also to win the so called ‘8th front’ information war being waged by the Zionist entity in part via Ellison’s takeover of TikTok, CBS and potentially CNN.
Taiwan is another node in the emergence of Pax Judaica. However, Zionist movement infiltration in Taiwan is relatively recent.
The genocidal Haredi cult, Chabad, first sent Shluchim (or emissaries) to the Island in 2011. Their base is called the Taipei Jewish Center, which provides one of the two Synagogues on the island. Chabad also has a presence in China (including Hong Kong) with more than 10 offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and other places.
According to Chabad, there are 1,500-2,000 Jews in Taiwan of a total population of 24 million, less than 0.001%.
In the 1970s, there were around 50 families of mainly Russian Jews. But it is reported that the community declined to a total of “no more than 150” people around 2007.
Chabad has also been involved in the creation of a new center called the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center, costing some $16 million. It is named for its main benefactor, who is an American Zionist who has been living in Taiwan since the 1970s. Schwartz was instrumental in the recent AIPAC delegation to the island and was publically thanked by the Taiwanese President for his help.
Schwartz is also a supervisor at the other Synagogue in Taiwan, known as Congregation Lev HaMizrach. It is a Zionist Synagogue and offers up solidarity for the Zionist colony and prayers for the genocidal occupation forces
In 2024, the Synagogue sent a delegation to the BBYO Asia Pacific Conference. BBYO, the Bnai B’rith Youth Organisation, is one of the largest global Zionist youth groups, affiliated to the World Zionist Organisation, which functions to radicalise Jewish youth for genocide.
There is also a Taiwan-Israel Congressional Association, which fosters collaboration with the Knesset and oversees parliamentary delegations and exchanges. In July, for example, a total of 72 Knesset members from coalition and opposition parties signed a joint statement “condemning Taiwan’s exclusion from international forums as ‘unjustified and irresponsible.’”
The Zionist colony is unable to have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan because of its relations with China.
However, it maintains the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei. Its representative, Maya Yaron, was involved in planning the AIPAC delegation meeting in October.
Also, because of this, much of the interaction between the Settler colony and Taiwan is covert or secret. What is known is that Taiwan secretly bought Israeli missiles in the 1970s.
However, direct arms sales to Taiwan ceased around 1992 as “Israel” established formal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.
Today at least eight Taiwanese companies are involved in supplying components for drones and armaments to “Israeli” arms firms, including Elbit, Rafael, and IAI.

And significant numbers of Israeli firms are active in Taiwan, including in the area of tech firms and cybersecurity, which has a strong Zionist intelligence component.
In addition, the Zionist regime appears to be giving Taiwan a “helping hand” with the development of its own so called “Iron Dome”. Most notably, it is now clear that Taiwan played a role in supply chains for the Zionist pager attacks in Lebanon in 2024.
In July this year, Taiwan became the first foreign government to provide funding for a medical center in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Taiwan is fully on board with the genocide of the Palestinians and the push for a “Greater Israel”. And the Zionist regime is penetrating more deeply in Taiwan than before, as it is in very many places in South and East Asia.
Washington’s pro-Israeli think tanks drumming up excuses for new Iran war
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | November 12, 2025
Since the conclusion of the Iranian-Israeli war this June, pro-war think tanks responsible for influencing US government policy have been signalling the need for a second round of attacks against Iran and its nuclear program. Now they are picking up the heat.
Despite the boisterous and triumphant remarks coming from officials within the Trump administration, confidently claiming the complete destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, behind the scenes Washington’s key think tanks appear to uphold a consensus view that the job is not done.
Think tank panels, analysis, and policy recommendations for the US government’s next steps towards Iran have centred around the understanding that, short of an agreement which spells Iran’s declaration of regional defeat, another round of direct warfare will eventually be necessary. Yet, they often caveat this with the disclaimer that the next round must close the conflict for a long time and not drag things out until another round occurs.
In the interim period between wars, the role of these think tanks is crucial to shaping Washington’s understanding of the tasks at hand. Although by nature, what they are saying is always going to be propagandistic and pursuing a specific agenda; segments of their analyses and certain statements from conference panelists are far more useful than most stories published about Iran in the corporate media. If you pay attention to these think tanks, reading between the lines, it makes the logic behind US and Israeli policy make more sense.
On November 5, Kenneth M. Pollack and Reuel Marc Gerecht recently spoke at a panel hosted by the Washington-based pro-“Israel” Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, where they addressed the issue of linking US lessons from Iraq, in the post-Gulf War setting, to Iran after the 12-day war.
A few takeaways here were that while regime change should be a target, they also commented on the differences in confronting Iran, drawing key distinctions between Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Gerecht, a resident FDD scholar, makes it clear that Khamenei’s strategic thinking is much more complex, intelligent, and hence difficult to deal with.
Instead of advocating a repeat of the invasion of Iraq, they focus on strategies to weaken and isolate the Islamic Republic, including the aggressive pursuit of disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon and getting heavily involved in Iraq through the upcoming election cycle.
A policy brief published by the FDD on November 7 specifically looks at the potential opportunities for the United States inside Iraq, framing the election as an influence battle between Tehran and Washington. It is clear that the ultimate goal is to pursue the disarmament of the Hashd al-Shaabi.
Interestingly, despite the propaganda often produced for think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, depicting the Islamic Republic as being at the brink of collapse and that the Iranian public will play a key role in this, the FDD’s Gerecht paints a starkly different picture. It appears as if his calculation is built on the assumption that the anti-government Iranian diaspora are not to be relied upon to achieve regime change.
Gerecht also labels the son of the deposed Iranian dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi, “Baby Shah”, as neither of the panelists appear to put great faith in the pro-regime change Iranian opposition, expressing the frustrations that often come along with working with them.
Meanwhile, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has argued that Iran must be confronted over its growing confidence following the June war with “Israel”. The policy analysis entitled “Iran’s Self-Confidence Returns?” lays out the argument that Tehran’s ballistic missile program appears to be the backbone of its defense strategy over that of using its allies.
This article centres around the public statements of Khamenei and the post-war assessments offered by senior Iranian officials, in addition to factoring in the strength and rebuilding process of Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
Without openly stating it, the WINEP piece appears to be getting at the idea that Iran must again be militarily punished due to its growing confidence and that a political deal, which Donald Trump voices interest in, is not a possibility. Overall, the piece makes a number of mistakes in its framing of Iranian confidence over the months, but also is a sober enough analysis to admit that Iran managed to land significant and damaging blows against the Israelis.
It is clear that the Israelis are currently in a difficult spot when it comes to carrying out a new series of attacks against Iran, and this comes down to the number of potential cards that Tehran has to play. This is especially the case in the event that the conflict expands and becomes regional.
Therefore, at least outwardly, the Israelis themselves appeared poised to target Lebanon next, an attempt to weaken the Lebanese Resistance significantly and thus isolate Iran in the event of a future prolonged confrontation.
Meanwhile, think tanks based in Washington are busy forging arguments as to why the United States must get involved in any future Israeli-Iranian war, understanding that this is necessary for “Tel Aviv” to achieve any kind of victory against an enemy that is too powerful for it to deal with alone.
Universities in West are “occupied by Zionist/Jewish supremacist lobby groups,” repress speech against genocide

By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | November 11, 2025
Over the last two years, universities across the West have gone out of their way to repress speech against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and against Zionism, says a university lecturer who was forced to leave his university due to a Zionist witch-hunt.
In an interview with the Press TV website, Harry Pettit, the former Assistant Professor of Human Geography at Radboud University, the Netherlands, said any speech in support of the Palestinian resistance has been criminalized in Western academic circles.
Pettit, who holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the author of The Labor of Hope: Meritocracy and Precarity in Egypt (2023), has been hounded at his university over his strong advocacy for Palestinian rights.
His social media posts, in which he unequivocally condemned the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of Western governments, sparked controversy as Zionist lobby groups in the Netherlands campaigned for his ouster from Radboud University.
In a statement on Monday, Pettit said the university had monitored his X account and he was pressured to retract his statements on Palestine.
He was even warned by the university administration and threatened with dismissal at the behest of influential Zionist lobby groups such as the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), the Netherlands Committee for Israel and the Jewish People (NCAB), as well as media outlets like De Telegraaf and Education Minister Gouke Moes.
“Over the last two years, universities across the West have gone out of their way to repress speech against the genocide, against Zionism, and in support of the Palestinian resistance,” Pettit told the Press TV website only hours after announcing he was leaving the university.
“They have done this because they are occupied by Zionist/Jewish supremacist lobby groups that want to shut down any critique of ‘Israel’. We have no choice but to fight back against this.”
He said the pro-Israel lobby is powerful in the Netherlands, which is evidenced by the data.
“If you look at data, the Netherlands has by far the biggest economic relationship with Israel in the whole of Europe. Therefore, there is a big incentive to squash critique,” he noted.
“CIDI is the main lobby group and it acts in similar ways to other countries, targeting individuals who speak out and trying to destroy their livelihoods. It also has links to political parties, the media, and student groups like Standwithus, and together they apply pressure on universities.”
Pettit, however, was not alone in this fight. He received tremendous support from his colleagues and students, who defended his freedom of speech.
“I have received a lot of support from colleagues and students who have also been taking risks to speak out against the genocide and Zionism, and the students have been incredible at engaging in disruptive protest over the last two years that has forced the university to cut ties with Israeli universities,” he told the Press TV website.
Unfazed by the threats, he vowed to continue speaking for the Palestinian cause and against the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
“I have every intention of continuing to use my platform to advocate for Palestinian liberation. That is why I left Radboud to go to a more supportive environment that enables me to keep doing that,” he asserted.
Pettit had been vocal not only on his own social media handles but also had been giving media interviews to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians.
In one of his interviews in October, he told Volkskrant that he wants to raise awareness in the Netherlands that Palestinians “as an oppressed people have the right to armed resistance.”
“Calling October 7th a legitimate resistance operation doesn’t mean I condone everything that happened that day. But Israel wants us to see Hamas as barbarians who hate Jews. That’s a racist frame that serves to legitimize the genocide. It also obscures decades of oppression,” he said at the time.
His defense of the Palestinian resistance and the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, 2023, irked Zionist lobby groups that aggressively pushed for his ouster.
Amid the genocide in Gaza, students in many universities across Europe and the US have been suspended and even arrested at the behest of Zionist lobby groups.
Out of 270 journalists, ‘Israel’ killed 44 in Gaza displacement tents
Al Mayadeen | November 10, 2025
44 Palestinian journalists were killed inside displacement tents in the Gaza Strip, out of more than 270 media workers slain by Israeli occupation forces since October 2023.
According to a new report by the Freedoms Committee of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, many of the journalists were sheltering near hospitals and United Nations-run facilities when occupation forces launched airstrikes or opened sniper fire directly at displacement tents.
The report pointed to the systematic campaign targeting Gaza’s media infrastructure, citing the destruction of news offices and the deliberate killing of journalists in their homes, workplaces, and temporary shelters.
Deliberate targeting and legal violations
The Syndicate stressed that targeting journalists constitutes a war crime under Article 79 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, which guarantees civilian protection to media workers. It further noted that attacks on displacement tents near hospitals and schools represent a serious breach of the protections granted to humanitarian zones.
Investigators confirmed that no military activity was detected in or around the targeted tents, refuting Israeli claims of accidental strikes. The group argued that the use of precision weaponry in densely populated civilian zones “reflects a calculated intent not only to cause death, but to silence witnesses and obstruct documentation of events.”
Call for international accountability
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate urged the formation of an independent international commission to investigate the targeting of journalists and called for the activation of International Criminal Court mechanisms to pursue accountability for war crimes.
It also appealed for cooperation with UNESCO and the International Federation of Journalists to establish safe corridors and protected zones for displaced media workers, while maintaining a comprehensive legal archive to support future judicial proceedings.
Previous incidents
Earlier in August, six journalists, including Al Jazeera’s correspondent Anas al-Sharif, were killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted a tent sheltering reporters outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. The deliberate attack, which targeted al-Sharif, drew international condemnation and renewed calls for investigations into “Israel’s” criminal action.
The Syndicate’s latest report adds to growing evidence from press freedom organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RWB), that “Israel’s” war on Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern history, raising urgent alarms about systematic violations of international humanitarian law.
Israeli soldiers recount indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza
The Cradle | November 10, 2025
In a new documentary film, Israeli soldiers have described a “free-for-all” in Gaza, in which they killed civilians “without restraint” with the encouragement of politicians and rabbis, The Guardian reported on 10 November.
“If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” stated Daniel, the commander of an Israeli tank unit.
He and other soldiers gave testimony about killings they perpetrated during combat tours in Gaza for the film ‘Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War,’ which will be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday night.
The soldiers who agreed to talk confirmed they routinely used Palestinians as human shields and opened fire unprovoked on civilians seeking aid at militarized distribution points set up by the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Captain Yotam Vilk, an Israeli armored corps officer, said that in basic training, they were taught to only fire at a target that has the means, shows intent, and has the ability to cause harm.
But in Gaza, “there’s no such thing as ‘means, intent and ability,’” Vilk stated in the film.
“No soldier ever mentions ‘means, intent, and ability.’ It’s just a suspicion of walking where it’s not allowed. A man aged between 20 and 40,” he explained.
Another soldier, identified in the film as Eli, says individual commanders had the freedom to determine who was killed and who was allowed to remain alive.
“Life and death aren’t determined by procedures or opening fire regulations. It’s the conscience of the commander on the ground that decides,” Eli said.
“If they’re walking too fast, they’re suspicious. If they’re walking too slow, they’re suspicious. They’re plotting something. If three men are walking and one of them lags behind, it’s a two-to-one infantry formation – it’s a military formation,” he added.
Eli describes an incident in which a senior officer ordered a tank to destroy a residential building, crushing civilians to death inside, because a man was hanging laundry on the roof.
“The officer decided that he was a spotter. He’s not a spotter. He’s hanging his laundry. You can see that he’s hanging laundry,” he said.
“Now, it’s not as if this man had binoculars or weapons. The closest military force was 600–700 meters away. So, unless he had eagle eyes, how could he possibly be a spotter? And the tank fired a shell. The building half collapsed. And the result was many dead and wounded.”
The Guardian notes that according to the Israeli military’s own intelligence data, 83 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians, a historic high for modern conflicts. More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, with tens of thousands more likely not counted as they remain buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The Israeli military publicly claims its forces seek to protect civilians. However, some of the soldiers interviewed for the film said they were influenced by genocidal language used by Israeli politicians and religious leaders who claimed that no Palestinians in Gaza were innocent after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.
For example, a UN commission pointed to comments made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who claimed after 7 October that, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true.”
Roughly 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the Hamas attack. Israel blamed all these deaths on Hamas; however, the military itself killed hundreds with attack helicopters, drones, and tanks, per a special order known as the Hannibal Directive.
The order was given for Israeli pilots to fire on their own civilians to prevent them from being taken to Gaza as captives that Hamas could use to liberate Palestinians in a prisoner exchange.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly referred to Palestinians in Gaza as “Amalek,” citing a story from Jewish scripture in which the Hebrews were ordered to exterminate the entire Amalekite nation, killing every man, woman, and child – even babies.
Daniel, the tank unit commander, said that this type of rhetoric influenced the behavior of soldiers in his unit. “You hear that all the time, so you start to believe it,” he stated.
Jewish rabbis in the Israeli army also advised soldiers to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.
“One time, the brigade rabbi sat down next to me and spent half an hour explaining why we must be just like they were on 7 October. That we must take revenge on all of them, including civilians. That we shouldn’t discriminate, and that this is the only way,” said Major Neta Caspin.
Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who participated with his unit in the genocide in Gaza, stated in the film that, “Everything there is one big terrorist infrastructure.”
Zarbiv personally drove military bulldozers and boasted about destroying Gaza, stating that the army spent “hundreds of thousands of shekels to destroy the Gaza Strip. We changed the conduct of an entire army.”
The soldiers speaking in Breaking Ranks also confirmed their use of Palestinians as human shields, known as “Mosquitos,” to clear tunnels and homes where booby traps may be present. That way, a Palestinian would be killed rather than an Israeli soldier.
“You send the human shield underground. As he walks down the tunnel, he maps it all for you. He has an iPhone in his vest, and as he walks, it sends back GPS information,” said Daniel, the tank commander.
“The commanders saw how it works. And the practice spread like wildfire. After about a week, every company was operating its own mosquito.”
A private contractor, identified as Sam, confirmed that Israeli soldiers opened fire on and killed unarmed civilians seeking food at GHF distribution sites.
He described witnessing Israeli soldiers murder two Palestinian men.
“You could just see two soldiers run after them. They drop onto their knees, and they just take two shots, and you could just see … two heads snap backwards and just drop,” Sam explained.
In another case, he saw a tank destroy “a normal car … just four normal people sat inside it.”
At least 1,889 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli soldiers while seeking food in Gaza between 27 May and 18 August 2025, according to UN figures.
