The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) has strongly condemned an open letter published by The Guardian, noting that its Western academics and signatories have distorted history and provided “ideological cover” for the intensification of the war against Iran.
In a detailed response, the collective said the August 20 letter creates a “false and dangerous equivalence” between the defensive measures of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the aggressive acts of the United States and Israel, which it described as “the most powerful and genocidal imperialist forces in world history.”
It added that the letter fails to place Iran’s current circumstances within the longer history of imperialist intervention in the region.
“The letter distorts history, obfuscates the current geopolitical conjuncture, and provides ideological cover for the intensification of the ongoing war against Iran,” highlighted the collective.
The AISC said the letter refers to several historical events without providing sufficient analysis, context or citations. It particularly slammed the absence of Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause and said the letter overlooked decades of intervention involving coup attempts, wars, mercenaries, information warfare, sanctions, economic pressure and sabotage by the US-led imperialism.
Instead, the collective said, the letter offers only a “deracinated acknowledgement” of the 1953 US-backed coup and a vague reference to the 1988 executions in Iran.
The AISC said the historical omissions were particularly significant given the continuing US-led pressure campaign against Iran.
“As US imperialism accelerates and the resistance against it strengthens, the battle of ideas continues to intensify,” the collective said, adding that anti-imperialist intellectuals have a responsibility to be “rigorous and vigilant.”
It said the circumstances surrounding The Guardian letter also raised questions, noting that, at the time of its response, the authors remained obscured and the social media page that had originally posted the letter had been erased. The collective described the document as an “alarming, pro-imperialist document.”
AISC challenges the letter’s account of Iran’s history
A central part of the response concerns the Iran-Iraq War and the events surrounding the 1988 executions.
The collective noted that Iran was fighting a US-backed Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of 1980, which was carried out at the behest of Washington. It said the war had a wider objective of “balkanizing “Iran, toppling the Islamic Republic and regaining control over the country’s state and resources.
The AISC also highlighted the role of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MKO terrorist group, in the final stages of the war. It said the group, funded and trained by the US and Israel, joined Iraqi forces in an ultimately failed operation to invade Iran, referring to the July 1988 incursion of terrorists from Western borders, which was defeated within days under Operation Mersad.
Against this backdrop, the collective disputed TheGuardian letter’s treatment of the 1988 executions, noting that the executions largely targeted terrorist MKO members who had participated in operations against Iran.
“Neither the US nor Israel have ever given up on destroying Iran, in no small part because of the anti-zionism of the Islamic Republic and its defense of Palestine,” it added.
The response further noted that the historical experience of the Iran-Iraq War shaped Iran’s approach to national defense, scientific development and economic self-reliance.
The collective rejected the letter’s call for the release of individuals involved in January riots, noting that riots were an “urban warfare campaign led by Mossad and CIA-backed mercenaries.” It added that concealing that history turns TheGuardian letter into “a form of academic counterinsurgency.”
The AISC then questioned the timing of the letter.
The collective pointed to the signing as coming after the deliberate US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s hospitals, pharmaceutical clinics, bridges, food and water storage facilities, and schools during the war that aggressors launched on February 28. It specifically named the attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, where 168 children and staff were massacred in a double-tap strike.
It said the letter was published on the same day the United States announced what it called “crushing economic warfare” against Iran.
‘Treacherous statement’
The AISC also slammed the signatories themselves, saying their actions reflected “a carelessness that is troubling.”
It said that many of the academics publicly support Palestine but had nevertheless signed a letter condemning Iran, which the collective described as the only country that “actively and materially supports the Palestinian resistance.”
The response said some signatories subsequently claimed they had not read the letter carefully, had been confused by its creation or had been misled during the process of collecting signatures.
The AISC said it was particularly concerned that the signatories had not identified the authors of the statement or explained how their signatures were obtained.
“We are dismayed that the signatories still refuse to name the authors of this treacherous statement and how their signatures were acquired, despite claiming to have been hoodwinked by them,” the collective said.
The collective said it expects the intellectuals who signed the letter to approach the issue with “clarity, urgency, and intellectual rigor,” adding that if the signatories are incapable of that, “silence is always an option.”
The Guardian has published an open letter to Iran’s “political prisoners,” signed by Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rashid Khalidi, Robin DG Kelley, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Judith Butler, and Walden Bello, among others (although Kelley has since withdrawn his signature, and there is considerable doubt that Mumia Abu-Jamal knowingly lent his name to the venture). … continue
Prof. John Mearsheimer joins Daniel Davis LIVE to discuss the latest developments in the Iran war, U.S. strategy, Israel, and the broader geopolitical consequences of the conflict.
Legendary Journalist Seymour Hersh just published another major story on his Substack quoting sources who alleged the possibility that the late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was an asset of the Israeli Mossad, as well as the U.S. F.B.I., potentially for blackmail operations.
According to Hersh, “I have been told that specific evidence about Epstein’s connections to foreign and domestic intelligence services, particularly Mossad and the FBI, though they do exist in government files, have yet to be the subject of materials made public by the Trump administration’s Justice Department and have not come under scrutiny by Congress and the media.”
One “well-informed international source I’ve known for a long time” told Hersh that “if all the details were to come out about Epstein and Israel it could cause problems for the past and present members of some in the Trump administration, as well as for senior officials in prior Democratic administrations”.
According to the source, in the 1980s, a Mossad agent was sent “to fly to New York City, buy off-the-shelf listening devices and cameras and covertly install them in a room of Epstein’s apartment in New York City.”
He reportedly “was explicitly told to purchase off-the-shelf camera equipment in New York for the risky mission, but, as he sadly related to his friends, he didn’t follow those instructions and instead relied on the high-end equipment on which he had trained for Mossad.”
The Mossad agent reportedly said, “that his operation had been compromised and the FBI caught him and immediately realized—given his nationality and the use of expensive Israeli gear—that Israel was aware of Epstein’s client list and its obvious blackmail and extortion potential in the world of international trade and intelligence collection”.
Hersh’s source raised the possibility that following the FBI uncovering the Israeli plot, Epstein “provided the FBI with any of the tape recordings or videos” and may have even gone “further, and supplied both Israel and the FBI with films and recordings”.
Hersh reported that “Epstein’s ties as an ongoing asset to the FBI kept him out of trouble and also left a large and politically devastating collection of recordings and films that have yet to be discussed publicly or even acknowledged by the Justice Department or the FBI, as well as by the Trump White House” though he added the caveat that “no one I spoke to for this report mentioned any specific information linking Trump to the Epstein whorehouse”.
One senior U.S. official told Hersh that, “there was yet to be a serious nonpartisan investigation of the role of some senior members of the FBI who knew of and abetted Epstein’s collection of compromising videos.”
Hersh’s source’s allegation of the Mossad using Jeffrey Epstein for blackmail purposes has long been echoed by the former Mossad agent Ari Ben-Menashe who has argued that “Epstein was recruited by (Ghislaine and Robert) Maxwell and then by Ehud Barak who was director of military intelligence at the time then Prime Minister … and then they started work compromising people … and my understanding is they compromised quite a number of American politicians and other politicians as well”.
Giving a specific example, Ari Ben Menashe alleges that the Mossad used compromising material on then-President Bill Clinton obtained from Jeffrey Epstein to sabotage a U.S. deal with Iran.
Within the Epstein files, a confidential human source of the FBI, Charles Johnson, who worked for Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s attorney, alleges that he “shared phone calls between Dershowitz and Epstein during which he/she took notes. After these calls, Mossad would then call Dershowitz to debrief. Epstein was close to the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak and trained as a spy under him.”
The possibilities become even broader after the allegations from Seymour Hersh’s sources.
They raise the possibility that not only was Epstein recruited by Mossad, but the FBI learned of its plot to use compromising material on powerful figures and joined the Mossad in the blackmail operations, instead of stopping it.
Saudi Arabia has reiterated that it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without the creation of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, amid reports that US President Donald Trump is seeking to link a civil nuclear agreement with Riyadh to Saudi normalisation with Israel.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Trump has referred the US-Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement to Congress for review but has stipulated that it will not take effect unless Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords.
“The president’s position has not changed, and the agreement will not move forward unless Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords,” the newspaper quoted a US administration source as saying.
The reported condition follows the signing of the nuclear agreement last month by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.
A Saudi source quoted by Israel’s Channel 12 rejected linking the nuclear agreement to normalisation, saying Riyadh’s position on relations with Israel remained unchanged.
“The Saudi position is clear, firm and unwavering,” the source said. “There will be no diplomatic relations with Israel without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The source maintained that Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear program forms part of its broader strategic partnership with Washington and should not be conditional on establishing relations with Israel.
Things are becoming increasingly clear about the US green light for the Israeli enemy to press ahead with its attacks on southern Lebanon. According to US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Washington has not, so far, reached an agreement with Tel Aviv to halt its assaults.
Even more strikingly, asking ‘Israel’ to stop attacking southern Lebanon apparently amounts to asking it to “do everything,” according to Issa, himself of Lebanese origin, whose broken Arabic carries a distinctly Lebanese accent.
The remarks by Issa were made Wednesday, after a meeting with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian.
“So far, we haven’t agreed with them (Israelis) to halt attacks (on southern Lebanon),” Issa told reporters.
The US ambassador, meanwhile, made it clear that Washington is instead pressing disarmament of Hezbollah Lebanese resistance group as the condition for ‘Israel’ to fulfill its own obligations under the ceasefire that was lately reached in June.
“There is no agreement to end the Israeli aggression because Hezbollah has not handed over its weapons,” Issa added.
Hezbollah “does not want to do anything, so why ask Israel to do everything?”
He claimed, however, that Washington remained open to talks with Hezbollah “if they have something to offer us”, but dismissed what he described as unproductive contacts, saying negotiations could not amount to “visits and coffee”.
Asked whether Washington was effectively making Hezbollah’s disarmament a precondition for ‘Israel’ to halt its attacks and withdraw, Issa simply framed the issue as a question of “who should act first.”
“If two people are in dispute, one of them asks the other to start implementing what is required of him so that he, in turn, implements what he is required to do,” he said.
The problem with the analogy, however, is that one of the two parties, which is Hezbollah, has already stopped attacking northern occupied Palestine, while the other, which is the Israeli enemy, goes ahead with daily airstrikes, artillery shelling, assassinations, demolitions and systematic destruction across southern Lebanon.
But apparently, asking ‘Israel’ to stop such aggression is asking it to do “everything.”
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on UK-based Palestine Action, freezing its US assets and prohibiting Americans from providing funds, goods or services to the pro-Palestine group.
The US Treasury Department announced the measure on Wednesday, designating Palestine Action as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), according to a notice published on its website.
The designation blocks any property or financial interests belonging to the group that fall under US jurisdiction and generally bars US persons from conducting transactions with it.
It also prohibits the provision of funds, goods or services to the group, with violations potentially carrying civil or criminal penalties.
The move makes Palestine Action the first known British left-wing activist group to face US so-called counterterrorism sanctions over activities Washington considers “terrorism.”
The designation places it on the same US sanctions list as groups including al-Qaeda and the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
The measures could also put British citizens who continue to fund Palestine Action or participate in activities on its behalf at risk of US sanctions and visa restrictions.
The US State Department said the action forms part of a broader campaign against what it describes as transnational far-left terrorism, including efforts to identify and disrupt international networks that organize, facilitate or carry out “violent activities.”
The designation follows the UK government’s decision in July 2025 to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act, citing the group’s targeting of companies linked to Israel’s military industry.
Palestine Action has focused much of its campaign on Elbit Systems UK, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, which the group says has supplied weapons to the Israeli military during the genocidal war in Gaza.
In June 2025, activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft, an incident that preceded the British government’s decision to proscribe the group.
The group’s US branch, Palestine Action US, was formed with a similar aim of targeting and disrupting companies and military contractors connected to Israel. It later rebranded as Unity of Fields.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori denounced the US move, saying the group’s actions were aimed at disrupting Israel’s military industry.
The US sanctions come as Palestine Action continues to challenge its proscription in Britain. In July, the UK Court of Appeal upheld the government’s decision, ruling that Palestine Action was not an “ordinary protest group.”
However, the UK Supreme Court has since granted Ammori permission to challenge the ban. The case is scheduled to be heard between October 1 and December 21.
The Israeli Ministry of War and Israeli weapons companies have directed millions of dollars in unreported funding to US university research programs for weapons development, either sponsoring research directly or serving as a pass-through entity for the funding, according to a Drop Site investigation.
A review of state and university audits, foreign-funding disclosures, and other institutional records identified millions of dollars in financial ties over the last two decades between the Israeli Ministry of War, Israeli weapons manufacturers, and US universities, much of which does not appear consistently in national databases intended to track foreign funding into US universities.
An analysis of audit records, building on findings compiled by the Antiwar Initiative, an academic research group that documents connections between universities and the global arms industry, found more than $15 million in unreported or inconsistently reported entries for funding tied to the Israeli Ministry of War or Israeli defense manufacturers.
Israeli Ministry of War funding reaches US universities
According to DSN, the true scale of Israeli support is difficult to determine because entries for such funding were often not reported in public filings mandating disclosure of foreign gifts, but were discovered by manually cross-referencing public and internal databases, audit records, and acknowledgments in academic papers.
Some projects listed in university materials as being sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of War or weapons companies also did not include the amounts of funding provided, or contained inconsistent or contradictory records in audit databases.
Drop Site reviewed and verified public records showing research grants, tuition payments, and gifts totaling millions of dollars to dozens of colleges and universities across the country. The data shows examples of financial support and sponsorship for American researchers from the Israeli Ministry of War, as well as Israeli weapons manufacturers such as Elbit Systems.
Records dating from 2004 to 2025 point to a large number of schools that have had financial relationships with the Israeli Ministry of War or Israeli weapons manufacturers, including Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard, Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Texas Tech, the University of Connecticut, the University of Tennessee, the University of Maryland, the University of Florida, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Rhode Island, the University of New Mexico, Washington University in St. Louis, and the State University of New York.
The recorded financial relationships include time-bound research contracts and do not indicate whether relationships with the ministry are still ongoing. Previous reporting has documented ministry funding of programs at MIT and student protests there over the relationship.
In addition to financial support from the ministry and Elbit, records also showed sponsorship of individual research projects related to military technologies by Israeli defense manufacturers Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries.
Taken together, the records reveal an opaque defense-research pipeline spread across some of the country’s most prominent universities.
Defense research ties span major American campuses
In one example that illustrates the typical nature of these ties, a War Ministry-sponsored project at the University of Connecticut was listed in public audit records under the title, “Impact Point Prediction Research for Short & Medium Range Thrusting Projectiles.”
Connecticut’s annual federal-award schedules record $668,456 in funding under that title across nine fiscal years between 2013 and 2023, with the funder listed as “Israel’s” Ministry of War. Another Israeli Ministry of War-linked research project at the school titled “High Sensitivity SQUIDs for Magnetic Field Detection” received $251,336 in funding across the same period.
Federal law requires colleges and universities receiving federal assistance to disclose gifts and contracts totaling at least $250,000 in a calendar year from a foreign source, though transactions below that threshold may remain outside the public reporting system. But these multi-year contributions do not consistently appear in federal databases intended to help the public track foreign money flowing into American universities.
The Education Department’s latest public disclosure of foreign gifts and funding contains no “Israel”-attributed entry for the University of Connecticut, even as entries for ministry funding appear in other databases and audit documentation.
The Israeli occupation government and its allies in Congress are now seeking to transform relationships like these from a scattered research pipeline into formal American defense policy. The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act already directed the Pentagon to establish a US-Israeli Defense Industrial Base Working Group to consider integrating “Israel” into what it calls “the American National Technology and Industrial Base.”
A proposal advanced by the House Armed Services Committee for the fiscal 2027 NDAA would go further, creating a United States-“Israel” Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative charged with expanding bilateral research, development, testing, weapons production, and industrial cooperation.
If these measures become law, the scattered funding connections documented in American university audit trails and research papers would become part of the American military-industrial base’s architecture.
Israeli weapons companies fund military research
Israeli forces have used drones, automated intelligence tools, persistent aerial surveillance, precision-guided projectiles, and large-scale data analysis throughout the genocide in the Gaza Strip, as well as wars on Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Yemen.
Those operations draw upon technologies originating in the same research fields that the Israeli government and weapons manufacturers have paid American academics to advance, including video surveillance, human-activity recognition, autonomous flight, network analysis, target identification, magnetic sensing, and projectile impact modeling.
At the University of Central Florida, researchers have received funding from Elbit Systems to develop algorithms to recognize human activity and detect objects in video.
Records from the University of Tennessee show that a US subsidiary of Elbit also provided $514,500 in payments to the school between 2023, 2024, and 2025. The available public documentation does not identify what programs or researchers the contributions were intended to support, with the description listing the purpose of the funding simply as “tuition payments for various students.”
“For relatively small sums, like the price of funding a single PhD—Israel has gained major new capabilities that have bolstered its capacity to commit genocide in Gaza, carry out a brutal occupation of Lebanon, and spark a war with Iran that has escalated to a region wide conflict,” said William Hartung, a political scientist and expert on the US arms industry and Pentagon budgetary practices.
Many awards from the Israeli Ministry of War are classified as US Department of War expenditures, with the Israeli ministry identified as the pass-through entity that administers the grants. MIT, for example, has stated that the money for its projects funded by the Israeli ministry originated with the US Department of War.
The US provides an estimated $3.8 billion in annual military aid to “Israel” on top of other forms of assistance.
Some audit records identify the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which administers US security assistance and weapons-transfer programs, as the primary agency providing the funding that was ultimately directed by the Israeli Ministry of War.
The public documents do not establish whether every dollar for particular research support at a school came from “Israel’s” treasury, from US military assistance placed under Israeli procurement authority, or from some combination of the two.
Audit trail reveals actual numbers
In the summer of 2025, MIT professor Markus Buehler withdrew from an Israeli Ministry of War grant after a student-led campaign publicized the project. The decision followed more than a year of protests over MIT’s defense relationships with “Israel”, which the university says amounted to $4 million for individual ministry-linked projects between fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2024, plus $290,000 in fiscal 2025.
A trail of open-source records traces similar financial and research relationships between the Israeli defense establishment and schools in Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, California, and Virginia.
At Columbia University, annual audits name two ministry-linked projects and record $799,190 in grants. One Ministry of War-funded project for “Direct 3D Printing of Integrated Electro Mechanical Systems” accounted for $469,999 from 2016 through 2021, while another for “Optimizing Micro Resonators Based Sensor” accounted for another $329,191 from 2021 through 2024.
Columbia’s fiscal 2024 audit lists the latter project under the US Department of War, with the “Israeli Ministry of Defense” as the “pass-through name,” and records $25,327 in funding.
The Research Foundation for the State University of New York shows audit entries for five Israeli Ministry of War-linked projects totaling $949,915 from 2010 through 2021.
Florida’s statewide audits record $1,195,795 in expenditures passed through the Ministry of War from 2012 through 2021, while not identifying the schools that received all of this funding.
Campus records connect at least some of the awards to the University of Central Florida and the University of Florida. One University of Florida engineering publication names an Israeli Ministry of War-sponsored project, “Coupled Size and Rate Effects in Ultra-High-Performance Concrete,” beginning in 2012. While listing the project under “Sponsored Research,” the newsletter did not identify the amount the school received from the ministry for the study.
In response to a request for comment about another $150,000 contract beginning in March 2015 that named the Israeli Ministry of War at UC Berkeley, a spokesperson said that, “UC Berkeley complies with all of the statues and regulations that apply to contracts and gifts from foreign sources,” noting that the school is only involved in fundamental research and adding that, “every government, every researcher, every person in the world can read the results of our research in freely available scientific publications.”
UC Berkeley did not respond to additional questions about the purpose of the ministry funding. Other schools contacted by Drop Site did not respond to requests for comment or stated that they could not provide information about the cited funding.
In addition to records from audits, public information from individual researchers provides more hints of the scope of Israeli military research funding.
In February, The Nation reported that computer-vision researchers Mubarak Shah and Abhijit Mahalanobis received a $200,000 Elbit Systems of America grant in 2020 to develop “human activity recognition” technology, while Mahalanobis received another $60,000 for algorithms involving object detection and human-activity recognition.
At the University of Maryland, aerospace engineering professor Inderjit Chopra’s research page lists two Israeli ministry grants: $150,000 for “Autonomous Operation of Micro-Helicopters,” from 2011 to 2012, and $300,000 for “Aeromechanics of Rotorcraft in High Speed Flight,” from 2014 to 2016.
A curriculum vitae filed by another researcher in a separate US Patent and Trademark Office proceeding lists Israeli Ministry of War funding of $150,000 for “Functional Targeting of Terror Networks: A Big Data Approach,” from February 2017 through December 2018, and $153,520 for “Fast Algorithms for Group Between-ness Centrality in Massive Social Networks.”
Princeton University records identify physicist Michael Romalis on a $600,000 contract called “Pulsed Scalar Atomic Magnetometer.” The university’s fiscal 2018 sponsored-awards report names the Government of “Israel’s” Ministry of War and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency as sponsors and gives a contract period from July 2015 through June 2019.
Texas Tech University’s engineering newsletters list another award for $400,000 from the Israeli Ministry of War to research a “Sealed Vircator HPM System,” naming James Dickens, John Mankowski, and Andreas Neuber as researchers.
The vircator technology has a clear military application: Texas Tech’s Center for Pulsed Power and Power Electronics describes vircators as compact, high-power microwave sources and says its work includes coordinating vehicle-mounted emitters with GPS timing to place a microwave “hot spot” at a desired location, an application potentially useful for combating drone swarms.
The purpose of a separate Israeli Ministry of War-linked funding stream at the University of Texas at Austin is less clear from the public records. UT Austin’s fiscal 2013 financial report identifies $58,992 in expenditures under an Israeli Ministry of War purchase order. Statewide audit schedules record expenditures under the same purchase order reappearing in public audit records from 2010 through 2014, for $299,952.
The audit archive contains still more Israeli military-named expenditures, including recorded contributions to Northwestern University and Washington University in St. Louis, and repeated entries for the Ministry of War in audits for the state of Virginia.
But the opaque nature of some support that turned up in public records means that financial and in-kind support to universities may not even be recorded in any audit trail at all.
At the University of Texas at Dallas, Haoran Wei and Nasser Kehtarnavaz produced a video-surveillance system in a study that the published paper indicated was “funded by Elbit Systems of America through a contract with the University of Texas at Dallas” without mentioning the amount of financial support.
The report also noted that the company had provided “far-field video clips” to help conduct their research on target recognition.
Federal disclosures leave gaps in funding records
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act generally requires a federally assisted university to report covered gifts and contracts from a foreign source when they meet or exceed $250,000, including multi-year contracts meeting that threshold over their duration.
Under the Education Department’s example, a five-year research contract worth $50,000 a year is reportable at signing because its lifetime value is $250,000.
The Education Department’s inspector general warned in February 2025 that oversight of the system was weak, with insufficient controls to ensure reporting requirements were being met.
The current disclosure thresholds also make it easier for foreign countries to contribute amounts below that number to avoid triggering reporting requirements while still providing significant sums for individual research projects.
That lack of oversight contributes to a situation in which millions of dollars from a foreign military under increasing scrutiny in the US for human rights abuses and facing genocide charges from international courts have been used to fund military research at American universities.
These relationships are now coming under greater scrutiny at a time when public opinion on “Israel” has soured in the US due to the genocide in Gaza and the Israeli aggression in other regional wars. “No self-respecting university should accept funding from Israel, given its destabilizing, destructive, and inhumane use of U.S. weapons,” said Hartung.
Three vocally pro-“Israel” House Democrats were given influential posts on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, with Rep. Jared Moskowitz taking the reins of the subcommittee that oversees US policy toward West Asia, according to Axios.
“If Democrats take control of the House, I’ll be in a position to help steer US policy on Israel and the Middle East,” he told Axios.
In addition to Moskowitz leading Democrats on the West Asia and North Africa subcommittee, pro-“Israel” Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Wesley Bell were appointed to the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. They all defeated left-wing primary challengers during this election cycle who targeted their support for “Israel”.
Rep. Mark Pocan, a pro-Palestinian progressive and outspoken critic of AIPAC, was also appointed to the panel.
Pro-Israeli lawmakers overtake committee
Rep. Greg Meeks, the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the appointees’ “experience, commitment, and expertise will strengthen our work and help guide the committee as it addresses urgent challenges in national security and diplomacy.”
“I look forward to working closely with all of our members during this turbulent time when Congressional oversight is most needed,” added Meeks, who is also a vocal supporter of “Israel”.
AIPAC punishes Democrats over ‘Israel’, ends their fundraising
This notably comes after AIPAC suspended campaign fundraising support for more than two dozen House Democrats who voted in July in favor of reducing billions of dollars in US military funding to “Israel”.
On Wednesday, more than 100 Democrats in the House backed an amendment to the fiscal 2027 State Department and national security appropriations bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The measure would have barred funds in the legislation from being used to assist “Israel” and cut the Foreign Military Financing program by $3.3 billion.
The amendment was defeated in a 104-314-10 vote. Democrats were nearly evenly divided on the proposal, while Massie was the only Republican to support it. The vote underscored an increasingly visible shift within the Democratic Party regarding the United States’ closest ally in West Asia.
Israeli forces began forcibly evicting the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its vocational training center in occupied al-Quds on Tuesday, escalating “Israel’s” campaign against the agency and its services for Palestinian refugees.
The Qalandia Training Centre, located between the Kafr Aqab neighborhood in occupied al-Quds and the Qalandia refugee camp, was established in 1952 and provides vocational training to around 340 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank each year, according to UNRWA.
The operation followed repeated warnings from the agency that Israeli authorities were preparing to target the facility.
Israeli forces enter UNRWA center in occupied al-Quds
UNRWA said Israeli forces “forcibly entered” the training center at around 10 am local time, with at least four armored vehicles and more than 50 Israeli occupation personnel entering the compound.
Around 20 UNRWA staff members were present at the facility at the time.
An AFP journalist at the scene reported that Israeli occupation forces closed the main road near the center’s entrance while forces inside moved between its buildings.
A convoy of three civilian vehicles was later seen leaving the facility under Israeli military escort.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the evacuation had begun under his directive and following legislation targeting UNRWA.
UNRWA condemns forced entry
UNRWA condemned the Israeli operation, stressing that armed forces had entered a United Nations facility without authorization.
“UNRWA unequivocally condemns this unauthorised and deeply concerning incursion,” the agency said.
It added that the “entry of armed occupation forces into a United Nations facility, without the authorisation or consent of the United Nations, is unacceptable.”
The operation directly affects a facility that has provided vocational training to Palestinians for more than seven decades.
Israeli far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben Gvir celebrated the operation, saying Israeli forces were implementing legislation to remove UNRWA from the site.
He later published an image of an Israeli flag above the entrance to the training center alongside the caption, “UNRWA in our hands.”
‘Israel’ escalates campaign against UNRWA
“Israel” has repeatedly accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas and alleged that its personnel carried out resistance operations alongside Hamas fighters.
Legislation severing Israeli ties with UNRWA and banning the agency from operating in Israeli territory took effect in January 2025.
However, investigations into the allegations have not substantiated “Israel’s” broader claims as presented by its officials.
A review led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna identified “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA but said “Israel” had not provided conclusive evidence for its central allegations.
TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that reaching a “good” agreement with Iran’s authorities is impossible.
A ceasefire between the United States and Iran has been agreed upon, including freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Pakistani military sources and Iranian security sources previously told Sputnik. The parties are expected to officially announce the ceasefire in the coming days.
Speaking at an event on settling the West Bank, the Israeli prime minister said that he is determined to ensure no threats from Iran. Netanyahu said that he discussed this with US President Donald Trump a few weeks ago at the White House.
“We discussed three options. I told him about an old option – to reach a good agreement. We have no objections. But I doubt that with this group of people … an agreement can be reached. I told him [Trump] that an agreement is impossible,” Netanyahu said.
The prime minister said that the second option is a resumption of hostilities.
Trump announced the launch of an economic operation against Iran on August 20, calling it “isolation on an unprecedented scale.” He urged US allies to join Washington.
Tehran will use all its resources to combat Washington’s economic pressure, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, adding that the only option for the US is respectful dialogue with the Iranian people.
Israeli warplanes struck and destroyed a water desalination plant in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of northern Gaza City on Monday, injuring several civilians, according to Palestinian local sources.
The facility provided potable water to thousands of families and displaced Palestinians in Sheikh Radwan and surrounding areas. Local sources said its destruction would further exacerbate water shortages affecting residents of the Gaza Strip.
The strike comes despite a ceasefire agreement that has been in effect since October 10, 2025, amid continuing Israeli military operations in the territory.
According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israeli forces have committed 4,379 violations of the ceasefire since it took effect. The office said those actions have killed 1,286 Palestinians, wounded 4,257 and resulted in the arrest of 180 others. The figures could not be independently verified.
Palestinian authorities have repeatedly warned that damage to water and sanitation infrastructure, combined with restrictions on fuel and essential supplies, has severely reduced access to safe drinking water across Gaza.
The latest strike comes amid continuing disputes over implementation of subsequent phases of the ceasefire agreement, including Israeli military withdrawal, the disarmament of Hamas, reconstruction and humanitarian access.
Palestinian authorities say Israeli restrictions continue to limit the quantities of food, medicine, medical equipment and shelter materials entering Gaza, while continuing airstrikes and other military operations have caused further casualties.
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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