Trump faces MAGA rift over possible US role in war on Iran
Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2025
A sharp divide is emerging within Donald Trump’s MAGA base over the war on Iran, with some of the president’s most vocal allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, commentator Tucker Carlson, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, openly questioning whether he is abandoning his “America First” foreign policy.
Following a week of deadly strikes and Trump’s abrupt departure from the G7 summit in Canada, these conservative voices are warning that a deeper US role in the Middle East could fracture the coalition that helped propel Trump to power.
Trump, who has long campaigned on non-interventionism, is now facing backlash from within his movement.
On X, Charlie Kirk wrote, “No issue currently divides the right as much as foreign policy,” adding that he feared a “massive split among MAGA” could disrupt their progress. He and others warned that any perception of Trump backing US military involvement could unravel his core message and political future.
Trump flew back to Washington unexpectedly this week amid rising tensions, and issued a dramatic social media warning, “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” claiming the US knows the location of Iran’s Leader Sayyed Khamenei, but does not intend to target him, “for now.”
These remarks have reignited speculation that Trump may support direct US military action, such as supplying “Israel” with bunker-buster bombs to target Iranian nuclear facilities. However, the State Department and US military have already ordered the voluntary evacuation of nonessential personnel from select diplomatic sites in the region.
Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham is urging Trump to go further. “If that means providing bombs, provide bombs. If that means flying with Israel, fly with Israel,” Graham said on Face the Nation, arguing that now is the moment for Trump to help eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.
MAGA figures accuse Trump of breaking his anti-war promise
Trump’s consideration of a broader US role is facing strong resistance from the same voices who once championed him as a disruptive force in US foreign policy.
Tucker Carlson, long a loyal supporter, warned that Trump is veering dangerously close to betraying the voters who backed him for staying out of foreign wars. “You’re not going to convince me that the Iranian people are my enemy,” Carlson said on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast.
Carlson also aimed at pro-Trump media allies like Sean Hannity, challenging them to hold Trump accountable for his foreign policy stance. Trump responded to the criticism by calling Carlson “kooky” and reiterating that “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Furthermore, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sided with Carlson, saying she shared his anti-interventionist principles. She posted, “Foreign wars, intervention, and regime change put America last, kill innocent people, make us broke, and lead to our destruction,” adding that “That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for.”
Kirk: MAGA youth voted for peace, not another war
Charlie Kirk, while still supportive of Trump, has echoed concerns about mission drift, noting that younger Trump voters were especially drawn to his record of avoiding new wars. “This is the moment that President Trump was elected for,” Kirk said on Fox News. But later added: “There is historically little support for America to be actively engaged in yet another offensive war in the Middle East.”
He continued, “The last thing America needs right now is a new war…Our number one desire must be peace, as quickly as possible.”
In a similar event, in April, some MAGA-aligned podcasters expressed doubts about looming tariffs and market disruptions. Earlier, Trump criticized Biden’s decision to let Ukraine use US long-range weapons but stopped short of advocating a full aid cutoff, another move that drew rebukes from his isolationist flank.
While these disputes have not derailed Trump’s base, the war on Iran marks one of the clearest tests of whether his coalition can stay united if he edges closer to military engagement abroad
Israel’s Hidden Front: How Israel’s Military Embeds Itself Among ‘Civilians’
Quds News Network | June 14, 2025
As Iran responds to Israeli attacks, Israel has begun publishing photos and videos showing what it claims are civilian casualties. However, many of Israel’s key military command centers and bases are embedded inside or beside densely populated civilian areas, raising serious concerns about the use of human shields.
Israel has long accused the Palestinian resistance of using civilians as human shields. But a closer look at its own military infrastructure tells a different story. From Tel Aviv to Be’er Sheva, Israeli army bases, intelligence centers, and military leaders are embedded deep within cities and residential neighborhoods, protected not by concrete walls, but by Israeli flesh and blood.
At the heart of Tel Aviv lies HaKirya, Israel’s central military headquarters. It’s just a few steps away from the bustling Azrieli Center, Ichilov Hospital, residential towers, and the HaShalom train station. The commander-in-chief’s office sits only 450 meters from hospital patients. This proximity is not incidental. It’s strategic.
Across the country, similar patterns appear.
In Ramat Gan, the Sheba Medical Center neighbors the Tel Hashomer military base. In Haifa, the Israeli navy base is hidden behind the Rambam Medical Center, a civilian hospital. Even Israel’s alleged nuclear capabilities, reportedly housed in Sdot Micha Base, are surrounded by quiet rural communities near Beit Shemesh.
Civilians as a Human Shield Strategy
This overlap is not limited to infrastructure. Israel’s leadership, too, shelters in residential zones.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resides in Jerusalem’s Talbieh neighborhood, surrounded by settlers. The defense minister lives in Moshav Kfar Ahim and the Israeli military chief of staff in Hod Hasharon. All are Israeli ‘civilian’ areas.
This practice isn’t new. It’s systematic.
The Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank mirrors the same approach. Entire communities of settlers, including women and children, are placed deep inside conflict zones. They are the frontline of a colonial project. When violence erupts, these ‘civilians’ become both the shield and the justification for further expansion.
Meanwhile, military rabbis, settlement leaders, and ideological figures operate among the settlers, posing as spiritual guides. They shape policy and drive confrontation but deny responsibility when blood is spilled.
Military Bases in Plain Sight
Even advanced cyber warfare hides in plain sight. The Glilot base, reportedly home to Unit 8200, Israel’s elite surveillance unit, is just 2 kilometers from northern Tel Aviv’s residential zones. This site has been flagged by Hezbollah and other groups for its proximity to civilians.
The Palmachim Airbase, responsible for drone operations and missile testing, lies just 10–12 kilometers from densely populated areas like Yavne and Greater Tel Aviv. The base shares airspace with commercial zones, a fact that Israel rarely acknowledges.
This civil-military fusion is not an accident. It’s a strategy.
On the surface, Israel tries to project an illusion of normal life: soldiers stationed beside shopping malls, military towers rising over playgrounds, officers living quietly among schoolchildren. But this is no coincidence. It is the architecture of a colonial project; one where the line between soldier and settler is deliberately blurred. Israeli ‘civilians’ are not just bystanders; they are often active participants or enablers of a violent military apparatus. From settlement expansion to surveillance networks and military conscription, every layer of society is embedded in the machinery of occupation and war.
While Israeli officials accuse Palestinian fighters of operating from urban areas, their own army commands from skyscrapers, hospitals, and suburban homes. They accuse Gaza’s defenders of hiding among civilians, yet embed their own war machines in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Israel’s military-industrial complex does not merely exist beside civilian life; it consumes and shields itself with it.
The clock is ticking down to ‘Israel’s’ capitulation
By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2025
Netanyahu has put “Israel” in an impossible position that it cannot sustain, even with indefinite American re-supply.
It has taken Iran less than three days to fully absorb the blows struck in “Israel’s” surprise offensive against its military and nuclear infrastructure. With its balance restored, it has gone on the offense to reestablish the deterrence that collapsed over the course of the last two years.
Among the Israeli public and political elites, the initial euphoria over their fleeting successes is already giving way to a terrible realization. They are in a direct war, for the first time in 50 years, with a state that can continue the current levels of hostilities for far longer than they can.
Even the regime’s much gloated-over missile defense systems, the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow, began to fail with the first barrage of Iranian missiles, which inflicted unprecedented destruction in the heart of Tel Aviv. While still intercepting most of the projectiles fired, at least according to “Israel”, the rate of depletion of interceptor missiles is exponential. At best, Tel-Aviv can sustain acceptable interception levels for a matter of weeks. This while Tehran has yet to unleash the most powerful missiles in its arsenal.
As of day four of this war, the critical power plant in the Haifa Bay area has already been struck, with the effects on operations at its largest port and northern power grid being immediate and only compounding by the hour.
The distinct focus of media coverage on the destruction in urban areas and against economic targets is hiding, but only barely, the true extent of losses inflicted on critical military infrastructure. Army and air-force bases, weapons and fuel depots, and of course “Israel’s” nuclear facilities, remain cloaked by official military censorship.
Given the rate at which the regime is burning through its interceptor munitions, it will very soon face the reality of having to ration them, limiting their use to the defense of vital military targets, and leaving the country’s urban and economic fabric utterly exposed.
Repeated hits on the Haifa plant, or similar facilities like Orot Rabin, Rutenberg, or Eshkol, will bring down the civil power grid entirely, halting everything from weapons manufacturing to water desalination. As the missile shield depletes, airbases will be rendered inoperable (if they aren’t already) and the Israeli regime’s most potent weapon, the air force, will be unable to continue operating.
While Tel-Aviv does have its US patron to replenish its stocks, even this will not restore its capabilities to their initial level. The production of interceptors such as the Tamir and Stunner missiles is limited, even in the US, to the low thousands per year. Resupply is probable, if not inevitable, but it will be of limited use when the regime must expend thousands of such rockets per week simply to prevent nationwide devastation.
Elite opinion has begun to recognize this fact. Netanyahu’s senior security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, has publicly noted that Tehran’s inventory of mid-to-long-range ballistic missiles is far deeper than was initially estimated. As the relative cost of successful strikes declines (fewer missiles can be fired at once with more evading interception), this allows the Iranians to sustain the current tempo of operations for months, if not longer.
Under current conditions alone, the countdown to “Israel’s” societal, economic, and military collapse can be measured in weeks, not months. The only variable that would extract Tel Aviv from the trap it laid for itself is active US involvement. Though this remains frighteningly possible, the combination of domestic opposition and the prospect of a ferocious energy-driven inflation shock makes this less appealing with each passing day.
Ultimately, absent a full-scale American war on the Islamic Republic, Netanyahu has set up his regime and himself for a historic humiliation. The ceasefire likely to end this conflict will be imposed on terms dictated by Tehran, which could include everything from the definitive end of the Gaza genocide, UN scrutiny of Israeli nuclear weapons, to large-scale sanctions relief and abolition of the snap-back mechanism expected later in the year.
Iran has undoubtedly suffered serious blows at the outset, but that was the extent of what “Israel” was capable of. The pace of events is now dictated by Ayatollah Khamenei more than anyone else, and he has at last been presented the opportunity to shatter Israeli pretensions of being the region’s “superpower.”
Iran warns of firm response if US directly joins Israeli strikes
Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2025
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva warned on Wednesday that Tehran would respond firmly to any direct US involvement in the Israeli occupation’s war on Iran.
The remarks follow days of escalating strikes between Iran and “Israel”, and come amid rising fears of a broader regional war.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s UN envoy in Geneva, said Tehran considers the United States “complicit in what Israel is doing.”
He added that Iran has already conveyed a clear message to Washington: if the US crosses a red line by engaging directly in the conflict, Iran will respond decisively. He did not specify what exact actions would trigger a military response.
The ambassador’s warning comes as the Israeli occupation intensifies its air campaign, which began last Friday.
Israeli officials claim Iran was nearing nuclear weapon capability, an accusation Tehran has strongly denied. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and within international legal bounds.
While the United States has not launched strikes of its own, it has taken indirect military steps to support “Israel,” including assisting in intercepting missiles and deploying additional fighter aircraft to the region.
According to three US officials cited by Reuters, some warplanes are being kept on extended duty in West Asia as tensions rise.
Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ amid tensions
US President Donald Trump escalated rhetoric on Tuesday, calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” in a post that Tehran interpreted as a threat. Ambassador Bahreini denounced Trump’s statement as “completely unwarranted and very hostile.”
“We cannot ignore them. We are vigilant about what Trump is saying. We will put it in our calculations and assessments,” Bahreini added, suggesting that such statements would factor into Iran’s strategic decisions moving forward.
Reiterating Iran’s defensive posture, Bahreini stated, “I am confident that (Iran’s military) will react strongly, proportionally, and appropriately.” He emphasized that Tehran is closely monitoring the depth of US involvement and will react when it deems necessary.
Though the current US support for “Israel” has been limited to indirect military aid, Iranian leadership views this as part of a broader pattern of Washington’s alignment with Israeli policies. The possibility of direct US involvement remains a red line for Iran.
The rapidly worsening conflict has led to mounting international concern, with analysts warning that any direct US military action could provoke a severe regional escalation.
Khamenei: Iran stands firmly against imposed war; US intervention to cause ‘irreparable damage’
Press TV – June 18, 2025
Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, in a message on Wednesday, said the Iranian nation will “firmly stand against” an imposed war.
In a televised message, amid the continued Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Iranian nation will never surrender to “any form of imposition.”
In the wake of continued Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution commended the Iranian people for their “composed, courageous, and timely” conduct.
He said the brave response of people reflected the nation’s growing maturity, as well as its spiritual and intellectual strength.
“The Iranian nation will firmly stand against an imposed war, just as it will resolutely resist an imposed peace,” he said in a televised message.
“This is a nation that will never surrender to any form of imposition.”
Referring to the recent war-mongering rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, Ayatollah Khamenei warned against any American military intervention.
“Those with wisdom, who truly understand Iran, its people, and its long history, never speak to this nation with the language of threats. Iran will not yield,” he asserted.
“The Americans must understand—any US military incursion will undoubtedly lead to irreversible consequences.”
Leader’s latest message came as the Israeli-imposed war against the Iranian nation entered its sixth day on Wednesday. The unprovoked war was launched on Friday. leading to the assassination of many senior-ranking military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.
The wanton aggression has only continued and escalated in the past five days.
Iranian retaliatory operation, dubbed ‘True Promise III’, was launched on Friday evening, targeting numerous strategic and sensitive military intelligence targets of the Israeli regime.
The eleven phases of the operation have caused heavy blows to the regime, and instilled a sense of fear among settlers who have been hiding in underground tunnels.
On Tuesday, Trump again resorted to saber-rattling against Iran, accusing it of pursuing nuclear weapons. Iranian officials maintain that the country is not in the race for nuclear arms but stands ready to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Islamic Republic.
Former Israeli commander warns against war of attrition with Iran
Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2025
Israeli Reserve Major General Israel Ziv, former head of the Israeli occupation military’s Operations Division, warned on Wednesday that “Israel” has nearly exhausted its capacity to carry out direct strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities without US involvement.
He stressed that dismantling Iran’s nuclear program completely would require deeper, more effective measures that go beyond current military capabilities.
Writing for the Israeli Channel 12 website, Ziv cautioned that “Israel’s” current efforts, even if they achieve 60%, fall short of Iran’s determination to obtain a nuclear weapon at any cost. He added that if the situation remains unchanged, Tehran could produce a nuclear bomb in under a year.
Ziv outlined two strategic options available to both “Israel” and the United States. The first involves US diplomatic intervention to forge a stricter nuclear agreement, one that not only halts Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also addresses what he described as Tehran’s network of regional “arms.”
The second option, he warned, is a slow descent into a war of attrition that would carry severe consequences. “This descent cannot be compared to the limited threats posed by Yemeni forces,” he said, pointing to Iran’s more advanced and accurate capabilities.
According to Ziv, such a scenario could inflict long-term economic harm on “Israel” and compromise its internal security.
Ziv emphasized that Iran’s growing precision and boldness in recent operations pose a significantly elevated threat compared to traditional military adversaries. Prolonged attrition, he warned, would expose the Israeli occupation to sustained economic and strategic damage far beyond the scope of previous regional conflicts.
Israeli missile defense at risk of collapse in coming days: WaPo
On a related note, The Washington Post wrote that a long war of attrition between “Israel” and Iran may not be sustainable for Tel Aviv, highlighting mounting costs and dwindling interceptor supplies as critical vulnerabilities in “Israel’s” air defense network.
The report, published Monday, cites assessments from US and Israeli intelligence officials indicating that without urgent resupply or direct US military intervention, “Israel” may only be able to sustain its current level of missile defense for another 10 to 12 days.
“They will need to select what they want to intercept,” one source briefed on the matter said. “The system is already overwhelmed.”
The Post’s analysis aligns with recent warnings by military-focused open-source intelligence (OSINT) account @METT_Project, which projected that Iran’s sustained ballistic missile salvos could begin heavily breaching “Israel’s” multi-layered missile shield around Day 18 of the war. That projection, based on interceptor usage rates and known inventories, suggested that daily missile penetrations would increase significantly as the Israeli grid begins to ration munitions and prioritize critical zones.
Poll: Americans Support Talks With Iran, Oppose Involvement in Israel’s War
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 17, 2025
A new poll shows that a majority of Americans want President Donald Trump to engage in negotiations with Iran and do not want Washington to support Tel Aviv’s offensive war against the Islamic Republic.
The survey, conducted by YouGov following the unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran, found 60% of Americans do not want Trump to enter the newest conflict in the Middle East, compared to just 16% of voters who want Washington to aid Tel Aviv’s military operation.
Even among Americans who voted for Trump in 2024, only 19% support entering the conflict. A majority of Republicans said they want Washington to stay out of the war.
While the US has not conducted direct strikes on Iran yet, Washington has provided substantial support to Tel Aviv’s war machine. The US has given Israel the arms and intelligence Tel Aviv needed to launch its bombing campaign.
Additionally, Israeli officials say Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked together privately to convince Tehran that a deal was possible and no attack was imminent.
The YouGov poll also found that three in five Americans believe Trump should engage the Iranians in talks to end the war. Only 18% of voters are opposed to negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
However, talks between Washington and Tehran appear increasingly unlikely. On Tuesday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran must agree to an “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” to end the war.
Overall, Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Middle East by a slight margin. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they approve of Trump’s Iran policy, against 44% who disapprove.
The rise of Abu Shabab: Mapping the Gaza militia armed by Israel
By Muhammad Shehada | The New Arab | June 10, 2025
A political earthquake hit Israel last week when former Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman revealed that “the Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State [in Gaza], at the direction of the prime minister”.
Netanyahu has since admitted that Israel had been “running” proxy militias in Gaza, but tried to put a positive spin on it, claiming that such a move aims to challenge Hamas’s rule.
But branding these gangs as potential rivals to Hamas masks the very goal of why Israel created them in the first place. Around 300 untrained thieves, drug dealers, criminals, and convicted murderers cannot overpower Hamas’s estimated 30,000 militants.
Their actual role has more to do with advancing Israel’s genocide, starvation, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza while creating plausible deniability.
Furthermore, recent evidence indicates that Israel may have been collaborating with some of these Islamic State-linked elements even before 7 October.
Abu Shabab: A front for an Israeli proxy?
The most prominent gang leader in Gaza is Yasser Abu Shabab. His name first appeared in August 2024 on Hamas-linked social media groups as the figure responsible for looting the vast majority of humanitarian aid and reselling it on the black market for astronomical prices.
A senior security source told The New Arab that Abu Shabab’s gang had been active for months before then.
Local authorities knew Abu Shabab well. He was serving a long sentence in prison for the possession of large quantities of drugs, according to three knowledgeable sources. He was one of many inmates who escaped under the cover of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
Some other inmates were released on parole when Israel began bombing government facilities. Israeli newspapers like Maariv and Yediot Ahronot confirmed Abu Shabab’s criminal history through people close to him, and even added that he had links to the Islamic State (IS) through smuggling drugs from Sinai into Gaza.
Police in Gaza were perplexed when he emerged as a top gang leader. The security source told The New Arab that Abu Shabab is 35 years old, thin, weak, short (around 150cm in height), uncharismatic, illiterate, has strabismus in one eye, and has never received military training.
To them, he didn’t seem like someone with the leadership skills necessary to form a group of 300 armed militants, steal truckloads of aid, and store it under the radar.
Local authorities quickly decided that Abu Shabab was merely a front for an Israeli astroturfing campaign to maintain its policy of starvation in Gaza after the international community pressured Netanyahu to ease his total siege and allow a trickle of aid into the enclave.
What made this clear, according to them, is how Israeli drones bombed emergency committee volunteers or police officers every time they came close to thwarting a looting attempt by that gang in particular.
By late September 2024, Abu Shabab was talked about in Gaza as an Israeli-backed collaborator, not just a gang leader. That is when Hamas militants attempted to ambush him, firing around 90 bullets at a vehicle they thought belonged to Abu Shabab.
The vehicle, however, was identical to the one used by Islam Hijazi, the program officer of a US charity called Heal Palestine. She was tragically killed in the incident.
Two months later, Abu Shabab received widespread media attention after he burned a fuel truck and completely shut down the route used by aid convoys to retaliate against another Hamas ambush that killed his brother Fathi and 21 other members of his gang.
Soon after, the Washington Post revealed that the UN had named Abu Shabab in an internal memo as the main figure behind aid looting under “passive or active IDF protection”. This left little room for doubt that Abu Shabab’s gang was a tool for Israel to maintain starvation while externalising blame.
Mapping gang leaders: IS, ex-PA intel officers, and murderers
Abu Shabab’s deputy is thought to be Ghassan al-Dahini, 38, reportedly a former lieutenant in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Dahini is the one running the gang’s operations on the ground and actively trying to recruit new members, along with Saddam Abu Zakkar, per local authorities. His Facebook profile displays Israeli hostage emojis.
Another senior Palestinian security source told The New Arab that Dahini was a member of the “Army of Islam”, the extremist group responsible for kidnapping journalist Alan Johnston in 2007.
The group pledged allegiance to IS in 2015. Ghassan’s brother, Mohammed, died in prison after he was detained on drug-related offences, and Ghassan himself was imprisoned twice in March 2020 and November 2022, per the source. He added that “the Army of Islam relied on Dahini for the Sinai smuggling routes”.
On Sunday, Dahini posted a video of himself in military gear in Eastern Rafah close to Israel’s perimeter fence. He was standing next to a white pickup truck with a UAE license plate from Sharjah and firing a brand-new Serbian Zastava rifle.
Another prominent gang leader in Rafah is Shadi Soufi, a convicted murderer who was awaiting a death sentence before 7 October for killing a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader. Like Yasser, he also escaped prison during the war and was named by humanitarian organisations as responsible for looting aid under Israeli protection in Rafah.
Soufi, al-Dahini, and Abu Shabab are from the same Bedouin Tarabin clan that stretches across Rafah, Israel’s Negev desert, Egypt’s Sinai, and Jordan. Abu Shabab’s family recently disowned him for collaborating with Israel and said they will go after him to hold him accountable.
Another prominent leader of the Abu Shabab gang is Essam Soliman Nabahin, 35, a convicted murderer and IS member. He was implicated in a series of bombings against Hamas in 2015 by extremist Salafist groups and escaped to Sinai to formally join IS’s ranks. He caught the attention of Egyptian media in 2017 after taking part in attacks against the Egyptian army.
Nabahin’s name resurfaced in June 2023 when the police raided a house in central Gaza where he was hiding. He killed a police officer and was convicted in a military court before his escape in the early days of the war.
Israel says Nabahin was previously “recorded launching rockets into Israel without coordination with Hamas”.
Local authorities in Gaza have long suspected that IS-linked individuals like Nabahin were being pushed by Israel’s Shin Bet to fire one or two primitive projectiles sporadically to give Israel a pretext to strike Gaza and bomb specific targets. Hence, the police detained those militants repeatedly.
A senior Palestinian security source told The New Arab that authorities in Gaza caught a collaborator in 2018 who directed such occasional rocket attacks to give Israel cover for military action in Gaza.
Other members of the gang include multiple known drug dealers and convicted murderers.
How is Israel helping them?
Israel’s government has admitted it provided weapons to these gangs, mostly rifles and other light weaponry, in addition to money and equipment. Footage posted by Abu Shabab’s gang showed them driving in white pickup trucks with machineguns on top that looked virtually identical to those of Hamas.
In addition, Israel provides these gangs with safe refuge in areas fully depopulated by the Israeli military, like Rafah, and declared “extermination zones”, where any Palestinian entering would be killed on the spot. They are also provided with logistical support, protection, and even access to Israeli territory.
A Palestinian journalist documented one case of a gang member crossing into Israel, which could explain how those gangs disappeared completely during the ceasefire last January.
On the ground, the Abu Shabab gang has established warehouses operated with forklifts where they store looted aid. They have also established a military complex, according to the UN, which said the Israeli army would force aid convoys to drive through the areas where the gangs had positioned their militants and put up checkpoints to loot trucks.
And where the Israeli military goes, so do the gangs. After Israel issued forcible expulsion orders for Khan Younis and raided the European hospital and its surrounding area, Abu Shabab moved into the ‘Jarghoun’ villa in that very same area, per security sources.
On Tuesday, Israeli news channel i24 reported that Israel had launched airstrikes to protect the gang after it was attacked by Hamas militants in southern Gaza. The strikes killed four Hamas members.
What role do the gangs play on Israel’s behalf?
The Israeli-backed gangs in Gaza have become an unofficial arm of the Israeli military. For instance, whenever Israel gets pressured to allow food into Gaza, it immediately unleashes the gangs to maintain their use of starvation as a weapon of war, while blaming it on Hamas.
Experts believe Israel is using starvation as a tool for genocide by imposing conditions on a group “calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Prolonged starvation inflicts permanent mental and physical damage, particularly on children.
Israel has also been using these gangs to orchestrate chaos and engineer societal collapse through attacks on markets, shops, private businesses, homes, warehouses, soup kitchens, and other places vital to maintaining the population’s survival.
For instance, in early May 2025, a gang attacked a communal kitchen in Gaza. As soon as volunteers arrived to stop the looting, Israel bombed it and killed six volunteers, which implies it was a coordinated attack.
The Israeli army also sends the gangs on reconnaissance and surveillance missions in dangerous areas. Last month, Hamas released footage of an ambush it carried out against armed men in Rafah whom it thought were undercover Israeli troops. They turned out to be Abu Shabab militants.
Israel also uses the gangs to infiltrate Palestinian society and gather intelligence, as well as to kidnap and interrogate Palestinians by luring them with the promise of food, as documented by Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi.
Israel is using proxy gangs for the final phase of the war
The most concerning use of these gangs, however, is Israel’s recently announced plan to push Gazans into camps in Rafah on Egypt’s borders to depopulate and destroy “everything that remains” of the rest of the enclave. This is a precursor to Israel’s declared goal of the mass expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt and other countries.
The Abu Shabab gang recently announced establishing an encampment area in eastern Rafah near the Egyptian borders and is using the very aid they have been systematically looting to lure starved Gazans into moving there.
This announcement was preceded by a clear rebranding psyop, where the same gang responsible for looting aid suddenly and shamelessly declared itself as a new “security force” that aims to “protect aid from looting”. They have since emerged in brand-new military and police uniforms in the Israeli-designated buffer zone in Rafah, where no Palestinians are allowed to enter.
Remarkably, Israel has allowed these gang members to wear Palestinian flags and insignia on their uniforms, while at the same time refusing to let the Palestinian Authority’s staff at the Rafah border crossing wear any such symbols.
In other words, Israel is using these gangs as a front. The Israeli army knows that if it orders Gazans to come to camps in eastern Rafah, people will immediately know it’s a trap for mass expulsion. But if a uniformed Palestinian force with good PR on social media makes such a demand, some people might fall for the trap.
Israel has used this same proxy tactic in Lebanon against Palestinians in 1982, where the Israeli military bolstered the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and used it and other militias to commit the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which saw 3,500 Palestinians killed.
Those collaborators collapsed after the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, as their leaders surrendered or fled to Israel. The same fate awaits these new Israeli-backed gangs once the Gaza genocide comes to an end.
Muhammad Shehada is a Palestinian writer and analyst from Gaza and the EU Affairs Manager at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Follow him on Twitter: @muhammadshehad2
Officials admit: US assets were used to intercept Iranian missiles
Al Mayadeen | June 17, 2025
US naval ships and ground-based air-defense systems have indeed intercepted Iranian missiles aimed at “Israel”, two US officials confirmed to NBC News.
They claimed, however, that the total number of these interceptions remains relatively low.
According to the Associated Press, American air defense systems and a Navy destroyer actively helped “shoot down incoming ballistic missiles” from Iran during a barrage aimed at “Israel” last Friday.
American defense assets, including Patriot and THAAD batteries, drove off several projectile waves, according to multiple US sources.
Additional US Navy destroyers, notably the USS Thomas Hudner, alongside the USS Arleigh Burke and USS The Sullivans, have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean to reinforce interceptions of Iranian ballistic missiles.
Iranian strike on Weizmann wipes out years of Israeli war research
Al Mayadeen | June 17, 2025
A recent Iranian missile strike has inflicted extensive damage on the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, central occupied Palestine, a facility long considered a cornerstone of the Israeli occupation’s scientific and military-industrial infrastructure.
According to The Marker, a daily business newspaper published by the Haaretz Group in “Israel”, several buildings within the institute sustained direct hits, with one key laboratory complex entirely destroyed by fire.
The targeted site housed advanced research in life sciences, artificial intelligence, and molecular biology, areas that have directly supported the Israeli entity’s development of surveillance, targeting, and weapons systems used in attacks across the region.
Described by Israeli media as the “scientific and military brain” of “Israel”, the Weizmann Institute has played a pivotal role in the research and development of technologies underpinning airstrike coordination systems, drone warfare capabilities, and battlefield medical technology, all of which have been deployed in repeated assaults on civilian populations in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and most recently, Iran.
One of the laboratories destroyed was run by Israeli Professor Eldad Tzahor, a veteran in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology. Israeli Professor Eran Segal, whose AI lab was also directly hit, noted that millions of dollars’ worth of equipment was damaged beyond recovery due to water and structural damage. Segal’s lab had reportedly contributed to algorithmic systems used in battlefield decision-making and real-time surveillance, tools that have aided the Israeli entity’s strikes in Gaza and elsewhere.
Photos released by Israeli media showed scorched interiors, collapsed lab floors, destroyed electrical systems, and structural devastation, the result of what sources described as a precision strike.
Not a random target: A symbol of militarized science
While Israeli officials have downplayed the implications, The Marker acknowledged the strike was “not random,” but a calculated attack on a facility used for military power through scientific research.
Media reports also framed the operation as direct payback for the assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists.
Experts say the institute’s deep ties to the Israeli security apparatus have made it a legitimate military target in Iran’s eyes, particularly given its support for advanced weapons technologies used to target civilians.
Israeli Professor Sharel Fleishman, whose lab was not impacted, admitted the losses are irreplaceable. “Life sciences labs rely on materials that are gathered and preserved over many years. When a lab is destroyed, and with it all those materials, it’s irreplaceable,” he said.
Another Israeli researcher, Professor Oren Schuldiner, told The Marker: “It’s as if the lab evaporated into thin air.” Schuldiner noted that rebuilding the affected laboratories and their capabilities will take at least two years.
The destruction of the Weizmann Institute sends a clear message from Tehran, analysts say: the Israeli occupation’s institutions cannot continue to serve dual roles as research centers and military enablers with impunity.
MAGA’s Civil War: Who dares to take on the Israel lobby?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | June 17, 2025
Steve Bannon – the smart, stubborn, and irrepressible right/far-right public intellectual and once ally as well as chief strategist and bestie of US President Donald Trump – is back in the news. And in a way that speaks to much more than the ups and downs, and ins and outs, of US elite careers.
The hill he has chosen to fight on this time is resistance to the US waging another war in the Middle East in the service of Israel and its powerful lobby in America.
Bannon, make no mistake, is not taking a de facto stand against Israel because of its apartheid, genocide, and wars of aggression. He ought to, obviously, especially as a man flaunting his Christian belief. (From one sort-of-Roman-Catholic to another, Steve: Our Lord Jesus Christ really didn’t like the child killers, and I am pretty sure he would have found the lingerie-camouflage cross-dressers with machine guns rather off-putting, too.)
But then, if Bannon had principled moral objections here, he would not be Steve Bannon, a very conservative American, who will probably never shake off deeply ingrained mental habits of violence and racism.
But from Trump’s perspective – and that of the Israeli influence agents surrounding him – Bannon’s line of attack is actually more dangerous than a genuinely moral stance. Because Bannon is positioning American national interest against following Israel’s lead. By declaring that Israel pursues an ‘Israel First’ policy about as egotistically as Berlin’s ‘Germany First’ trip between 1933 and 1945, Bannon has dared to state the obvious: Israel’s interests are not identical with those of the US, and therefore, a genuine ‘America First’ policy must not obey Israel. Hence, stay out of the war against Iran. Or to be precise, get out of it.
And there Bannon is of course right and has the facts and logic on his side, which makes his challenge all the more threatening.
The background to Bannon’s sally, which as the Financial Times points out, signals a split among Trump’s domestically indispensable MAGA base, is the perfect mess Trump and his team have made over the attack on Iran. Despite their clumsy mixed messaging – really, contradictory lying and boasting – Israel’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iran can obviously only be waged because of massive American support.
In reality this is already a combined US-Israeli attack, and it makes no difference to this fact that Israel always wants even more, including – as Axios, a network with remarkably easy access to Israeli sources, has reported – open US help in attacking the key Iranian nuclear installations at Fordow.
Never mind, by the way, that deliberately striking a nuclear facility is as criminal as it gets. It constitutes a clear breach of the Geneva Conventions, as the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei has recently had to publicly school German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul about. The latter is clearly just as ignorant of his job’s basics as his legendarily inept predecessor Annalena Baerbock used to be.
Yet, as Bannon’s intervention shows, the key role the US plays in the assault on Iran has caused noteworthy ripple effects inside America and in particular inside the movement now known as MAGA. Originally the abbreviation was an extremely successful 2016 Trump campaign slogan – inspired by a forerunner used by Ronald Reagan in 1980 – meaning ‘Make America Great Again’.
But as a movement, MAGA has a much longer history. Its influences and ancestors include, for instance, nativism, isolationism, the original America First, and the more recent Tea Party. That’s why it is important to understand that MAGA overlaps with but is not identical with Trumpism, as often assumed. In reality, MAGA is part of an older, powerful tradition that Trump has tapped into with great success. But he is not guaranteed to always be in control of it, as the term ‘Trumpism’ may misleadingly imply.
Take for instance the perhaps greatest cleavage running through contemporary Trumpism 2.0: that between a right-wing populist orientation still aiming at, for want of better terms, ordinary Americans, and a techno-elitist wing busy with fantasies of openly establishing an AI-based rule of the richest. Things clearly remain volatile. For wasn’t it only yesterday that the would-be tech lords, represented by former “first buddy” Elon Musk, seemed to have defeated the populist tribunes of the Steve Bannon type? And yet, now Musk, the “man-child” is out (if not necessarily forever) and Bannon, the old battle axe, is making headlines again.
Warning of the “fog of war” – read that as code either for just ordinary information unreliability or for deliberate Israeli and Western disinformation – and “unintended consequences,” Bannon has been explicit: The US must not be “sucked into another major war on the Eurasian land mass, particularly the Middle East.” And yet, he added, America is already an “active combatant” by providing air defense to Israel.
For Bannon, at least in his current iteration, none of this is new. As he has also recently charged, the fundamental reason why American troops are in Iraq and thus in harm’s way is that the US government and its media, including both Republicans and Democrats, have “lied to us,” i.e., the American people, for decades. It has not been, as Bannon stressed, simply incompetence or mistakes, but the “bald-faced lies” and “spin of the neocons.”
That is of course a reference to the fact that the US and its Western accomplices started their 2003 unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq with a massive, Gleiwitz-level deception by deliberately trying to deceive the world about non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And that, according to Bannon, was along with the financial crisis of 2008 the original sin that triggered “this movement,” clearly here meaning what we now know as MAGA.
Bannon’s history may be a little off as far as facts are concerned. The roots of contemporary American right-wing populism include a tradition of isolationism, but they are certainly not identical with a revolt against the Iraq War, insane and criminal as the latter was.
But veracity and accuracy aren’t the point here. Instead what matters is how precisely Bannon is trying to rewrite history, namely by claiming opposition to neocon “forever wars,” specifically in the Middle East (transparent code for on behalf of Israel) as not only a core value of MAGA, but as a key element of its origin story.
As for Israel’s assault on Iran, Bannon was scathing. Rhetorically exploiting the silly pretense that Israel was “going it alone” when starting the attack – which Bannon is certainly intelligent and realistic enough to know is nonsense – he called on Israel to stick to doing just that. Yet instead, he scoffed, the “going-it-alone lasted six hours” and Israel is doing everything it can to drag Americans ever deeper into another massive war.
Importantly, Bannon is not alone. As he pointed out, conservative media heavyweight Tucker Carlson has made the same point. In fact, Carlson has been even more explicit. Using his X account with over 16 million followers to claim that the key divide of US politics is between “those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it – between warmongers and peacemakers,” Carlson started naming “the warmongers,” including “anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,” such as “Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson.”
Carlson added that “at some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.” And what names they are: Of the five, three, i.e., 60 percent – Levin, Perlmutter, and Adelson – are as most Americans would know or guess, Jewish. Murdoch and Hannity, in the minority, are not.
But all of the five are staunch Zionists, Hannity having been acknowledged by the Jerusalem Post as one of “10 Pro-Israeli Christians,” i.e. a Christian Zionist. And that was in October 2024, a full year into Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. Mark Levin, an influential and extremely rightwing media personality, got his “Friends of Zion Museum ‘Defender Award’ for his steadfast support of the State of Israel and the Jewish people” in 2018.
Murdoch, the Western publishing oligarch with massive political influence, used a rambling – but who’s going to edit him, right? – 2009 Jerusalem Post article to admit he feels very flattered by frequently being misidentified as Jewish and to explain that the “free world” – old-timers’ speak for “rules-based value West” – must support Israel to the hilt.
According to Wikipedia, Ike Perlmutter is “an Israeli-American billionaire businessman and financier” – although ironically enough born in Mandate Palestine – who “through a variety of sometimes unorthodox business deals” has been “an influential investor in a number of corporations.” He also used to run Marvel Entertainment. Yes, that Marvel, the superhero story company now absorbed by Disney and perhaps the single most effective vehicle of contemporary US propaganda.
And multi-billionaire Miriam Adelson is of course not only the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the “casino mogul” and arch Zionist, but also a fanatical Zionist in her own right. Both Adelsons have been among Donald Trump’s most generous supporters. During his 2016 presidential campaign they were already among his “top donors.” In 2020 – when he lost – they made the single biggest individual contribution, a whopping $75 million. In 2024, Miriam Adelson dialed it up to eleven with $106 million. Only Elon Musk ($276 million) and rich heir extraordinaire Timothy Mellon ($150 million) gave even more.
And then there is the influential MAGA icon and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. In a long post on X, she fired a broadside against any further US involvement in wars abroad: “We are $36+ TRILLION in debt and have mountains of our own problems. We have giant planks sticking out of our own eyes while we complain about splinters in other’s eyes. Every country involved and all over the world can be happy, successful, and rich if we all work together and seek peace and prosperity.”
MTG, as she is often called, has also preemptively and rightly rejected any accusation of “antisemitism” and even of isolationism: “Taking this position is NOT antisemitic. It’s rational, sane, and loving toward all people. Taking this position of peace and prosperity for all is not isolationism, it leads to GREAT trade deals and GREAT economies that help ALL PEOPLE.”
Worst of all, from Trump’s and Israel’s perspective, she has in effect reminded her 4.8 million followers, as well as many others who will read about her post in the traditional media, of Trump’s own campaign promise to end and not start wars, because no more wars is “what many Americans voted for in 2024.”
Clearly, there are influential representatives of MAGA who are not only willing to openly challenge the perversely self-damaging hold that Washington allows Israel to have over its foreign policy, but are also beginning to be explicit about the fact that Israel’s lobby in the US – whether Jewish or not – is putting another country first, at enormous cost to Americans.
Unfortunately, there are reasons to fear that this right-wing criticism of ‘Israel First’ will not prevail. Trump may very well be so beholden to and afraid of the Israel lobby that he will make the single worst mistake of his life and get even deeper into the war against Iran.
But then the question is: What will happen next? There is a brave left-wing opposition to Israel in America – full disclosure: my sort of people – and there also is clear polling evidence that Israel’s grip on American society as a whole is finally slipping, especially among the young. Now add a right-wing, MAGA-based opposition and another great US fiasco in the Middle East backfiring on America’s home front. Israel may get its wish once again, but in the not-so-long run it should be very careful what it wishes for. And that, as grim as the news is, is a tiny speck of hope on a very dark horizon.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory
Ritter’s Rant Ep. 5: Grossi’s got to go
The IAEA’s incestuous relationship with Israel has destroyed its credibility
Scott Ritter | June 16, 2025
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Lies are Unbekoming | January 25, 2026
The waiting room is clean. The receptionist is polite. The forms ask reasonable questions. Nothing in the physical environment suggests danger. The magazines are current. The hand sanitizer dispenser works. Someone has chosen calming colors for the walls.
A pregnant woman sits in a chair designed for her comfort. She has been told to be here. Not ordered—no one orders. Recommended. Strongly recommended. Everyone does this. Her mother did this. Her friends did this. The women in her prenatal group compare notes about their appointments the way they compare notes about nursery furniture. Which provider did you choose? What tests have you had? The questions assume the answers. The answers assume the questions.
She will be offered things today. Offered is the word used. The offers will come with information sheets that list risks and benefits in tabular form. She will sign consent documents. Everything will be voluntary in the legal sense. No one will hold her down. No one will threaten her. She will choose, and her choices will feel like choices, and she will leave feeling she has done the responsible thing.
What she will not feel is the weight of what has been arranged before she arrived. … continue
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