By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 21, 2026

If one were seeking to create something like a modern-day folk tale based on current realities and having the theme of “good versus evil” there are any number of real-life narratives available that could be exploited to invite speculation on actual environments that might have served as models for the fiction. I have found much of the bizarre and blood-soaked evil relationship between the United States and Israel, which serves no US interest at all, to be one such arrangement in which two countries have through their own behavior become the most hated in the world. They have successfully established an odd partnership based largely on a common view of which other nations they hate and would like to destroy.

One must consider the monstrous joined-at-the-hip relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv, which is likely soon to become a true military and policy partnership by act of Congress. It will leverage the already existing ability of tiny Israel to manipulate and dominate the large and powerful United States. And there is also something else that should be reckoned with in the arrangement, and that is melding of the desire of the two countries to dominate not only their neighbors but also far beyond that. One can cite the aberrations in behavior that reveal how neither government wants to get along with other nations except in those rare cases where America and the Jewish state are accepted and even honored in spite of not being bound by any rules, decency or even democratic norms.

A prime example of how the completely murderous pathology that guides both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that has come to dominate the relationship surfaced last week when Trump endorsed Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli election. It was a case of two completely evil men finding common ground to congratulate themselves and advance their respective careers, which nearly all of the rest of the world would like to terminate!

Both men are in trouble with their respective electorates in large part because their obsession with endlessly killing anyone annoying be it in the Caribbean or Gaza, has become suspect, largely because the killing is without any actual objective and no real good comes out of the process. This is particularly true for voters in the US who have suffered the bullying by Israel and its domestic Lobby and also bear the tax burden and shortages that are the only fruit that falls from the trees of the conflicts. In Israel the equation is somewhat different as 90% of the Jewish voters want to eradicate even more Muslims and Christians and fully support a new Prime Minister who will kill even more of the vermin.

Observe what a brain dead Trump has to say about his good buddy Netanyahu in a shared phone call in which they first exchanged pledges that they would soon “finish the job,” the “job” in question being the “extermination” of Iran and most particularly its government. Bibi told Trump “Donald, we have a job to finish. You said it, and we’ll finish it together. We’ll finish it, and no one else will do it.” Bibi explained later how “I have spoken about this with President Trump more than once, including the day before yesterday… Finishing the job means bringing down the terrorist regime in Iran. It is the head of this poisonous octopus. You cut it off, and it will fall. We will also have peace with Lebanon. We must complete the elimination of the Iranian regime — that is the primary objective.”

Trump then responded in kind, telling Netanyahu that “You’re a warrior, and you’ve been treated unfairly by your country and from some others … but you’re a great warrior, and we will prove that. We will prove that very soon. I think you’re terrific, Bibi … You’re the man I want by my side, Bibi.” On Truth Social Trump later elaborated how “Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He is “Strong, Brave, and Brilliant, the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel, a Country for which it has done so much.”

Clearly Netanyahu wants to get reelected to stay out of jail for corruption, apart from anything else, and he knows that unconditional support from the United States is essential to achieve that end and keep the wars in Lebanon, Syria and Iran going. What the two monsters were pledging was the total destruction of a nation of 90 million people that prior to the war initiated by Israel and the US had not threatened in any way either nation. That means it was per the Geneva Convention a war crime and besides which it is a violation of the War Powers Act and the US Constitution that Trump had sworn to support. Israel was admittedly the driving force behind the war against Iran, which has done huge damage to the world economy, because it saw the country as a political-military competitor in the Middle East region and Netanyahu was able to convince a stupid and willfully ignorant Trump that the war would be over in a week or two, a walk-over.

In a move that is being interpreted as an additional American support for Netanyahu in the upcoming election, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday and met with the Prime Minister. The talks reportedly took place at the Ovda Air Base in southern Israel, where US refueling planes and fighter jets are deployed. Hegseth also met with some US troops. As Netanyahu and President Trump have discussed the possibility of restarting the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran the appearance and timing of the Hegseth visit, as he is the strongest supporter of resuming strikes on Iran within the administration, suggests that the war will soon be resuming.

Beyond the depressing likelihood that the war against Iran will soon start up again, there is the language employed by Trump, which as usual is inane. So Bibi is a “great warrior”? That comes from a draft dodger who avoided US military service in 1968 not for any moral reason but because it was inconvenient for him so his father arranged for a Jewish doctor to fake the records for a medical deferment. Trump had “bone spurs,” a condition largely unheard of in the real world before Trump came up with it on paper. And now the draft dodger is praising a “great warrior” who sends his men and women out to shoot three year olds as part of a regime that has been killing children systematically and without any consequences since the conflict with Gaza began.

And, unfortunately, the bad news is still coming. There is no doubt Trump has been the most servile president in US history when it comes to his constant supporting Israel even when it carries out genocide and kills American citizens. Trump has never failed to obey Netanyahu, but, it must be observed, he has only done slightly more so than Biden and the Democrats did when they preceded him in office. So one should have doubts that a possible change-over in the US Congress and Senate, where Israeli flags can be seen flying in some of the offices, is going to make much difference when it comes to the United States “standing with our best friend and closest ally Israel.”

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

“Every single village, we’re talking about 23,000 homes, is in ruins,” Katz boasted before a cheering studio audience, adding “there are no residents left, 200,000 people have been displaced,” using ‘Gaza model’

By Larry C. Johnson – SONAR21 – October 20, 2026

Washington and Israel are talking again about “finishing the job” in Iran. Before they do, someone should take a hard look at the bill for the jobs already done. My friend Karl Miller, who has called this region correctly more often than most of the people paid to do it, sent me his latest assessment on Monday. His conclusion is blunt: on the current course, another round of escalation is coming, and the countries paying for it will be the ones that never got a vote.

The Gulf is being bled dry

Start with the people who are supposed to be America’s partners. The IMF’s October outlook reads like a casualty report. Kuwait’s economy is forecast to shrink 16.7 percent this year. Qatar’s will shrink 15.6 percent, and Bahrain’s 11.3 percent. The UAE, long sold as the region’s safe haven, is now expected to contract 3.9 percent, a seven-point swing from the IMF’s April forecast. Saudi Arabia is forecast to shrink 3.3 percent. The only Gulf economy still growing is Oman, and that is because its ports sit outside the Strait of Hormuz.

These are not paper losses. Qatar lost two LNG trains at Ras Laffan in March, about 17 percent of its export capacity. QatarEnergy says the repairs will take three to five years and will cost it roughly $20 billion a year in revenue. Saudi Arabia’s escape route around Hormuz, the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, is crippled. My sources tell me four of its 11 pumping stations are severely damaged and out of service. Riyadh now projects a deficit of 4.9 percent of GDP, is borrowing to cover it, and has frozen non-essential spending.

Miller explains why this is worse than the headline oil price suggests. A damaged plant produces nothing to sell, but the payroll, the debt payments and the repair bills keep coming. A plant that is still standing but cannot get parts in or cargo out is in almost the same position. A $108 barrel of oil is worth nothing if you cannot ship it. And the cash the Gulf states used to invest at home and abroad is vanishing fast. If a government takes in 100 and must spend 70, it has 30 left over. Cut income to 80 and that cushion drops to 10. A 20 percent hit to revenue wipes out two-thirds of the money for everything else.

The Gulf states bought American protection to safeguard exactly this wealth. Instead, as Miller puts it, they have ended up paying for the costs of American strategy. That is a bargain they will not keep making forever.

A new round means a deeper shortage

Now consider what another round of American and Israeli strikes would do to a world that is already short of energy. Oil flows through Hormuz are running around 11.6 to 11.9 million barrels a day, against a pre-war level of about 17 million. Middle Eastern fuel exports are below half of what they were before the war. The International Energy Agency says diesel will stay tight well into 2027, and that the diesel stocks already burned will not be rebuilt before the second half of that year. Brent is around $108, up more than 75 percent from a year ago.

Every escalation so far has followed the same pattern. Iran answers by tightening its grip on Hormuz. Its allies in Yemen widen their target list. Gulf facilities that were patched together get hit again before they earn back the cost of repairing them. That is the cruelest part of Miller’s analysis: repeated attacks make repairs pointless, because nobody will spend billions restoring a plant that may be destroyed again next month. A new campaign will not reopen the Strait. It will close it further, take more Gulf capacity offline, and push diesel back toward September’s record of more than $200 a barrel, just as Europe heads into winter. France and Italy are already rioting over the cost of living. Imagine them in February.

Israel’s dark future

Miller’s harshest judgment is reserved for Israel, and it deserves a full hearing. He believes Israel will never recover from what it has done in Gaza, which a UN commission of inquiry concluded last year was genocide. In his words, the state is “done economically. It is done politically. It is done morally.” That is strong language, but the argument behind it is not hysteria. It is about how a state wears itself out.

His reasoning runs like this. Israel’s leadership has bet everything on military domination: hit every opponent hard enough that no one dares resist. Force can win battles, but it cannot make anyone accept the result. Every campaign therefore creates the need for the next one. Opponents rebuild, resentment grows, and the circle of countries willing to stand with Israel gets smaller. So the government doubles down with more force, because the alternative, accepting real limits on occupation and on its treatment of the Palestinians, threatens the political project it is defending. War becomes a way to postpone the reckoning, not avoid it.

The cost is already showing. The IMF says Israel’s economy is about 9 percent smaller than it would have been without the war. The budget deficit is heading to 6.2 percent of GDP, and public debt is on track to reach about 74 percent of GDP by 2031. Reservists are pulled from their jobs again and again. Israelis are already fighting over who carries the burden, with ultra-Orthodox men still far less likely to work or serve than everyone else. Foreign investors and partners grow more cautious with each campaign. Miller’s warning is that Israel’s project could become unsustainable long before its military power runs out. A country can keep its tanks and jets and still lose the economy, the alliances and the legitimacy it needs to survive. That is the dark and uncertain future he sees, and I find it hard to argue with.

Trump says Russia is doing nothing. Lavrov says otherwise.

Which brings me to the President’s latest reassurance. On October 13, Donald Trump said he does not believe either Russia or China is helping Iran. On Sunday he went further on social media, insisting that “Russia is doing very little to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared with what it could be doing,” if it is doing anything at all, and that he wants it to stay that way “unless some stupid people get in the way.”

Less than a day later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stood next to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran and said the opposite. “I am confident that Iran’s cause, like Russia’s, is a just cause,” Lavrov declared. He said Russia “has no intention of abandoning the implementation of agreements with Iran in the economic and investment spheres,” and recommitted Moscow to the 20-year strategic partnership that formally took effect on October 2. He announced that Russian specialists will return to the Bushehr nuclear plant. He called for Hormuz to return to pre-war conditions, and tied that to protecting Iran from renewed attacks. Before landing in Tehran, he called Trump’s approach “wrong.”

To be fair to the President, Russia has not gone to war for Iran, and the partnership treaty does not require it to. There is no mutual-defense clause. But that is a lawyer’s distinction. Russia’s foreign minister does not fly into a capital under threat of attack to call its cause just by accident. Add the reported Russian satellite data reaching Iran’s allies and the steady improvement in the accuracy of Iranian and Houthi missiles, and the picture is of a partner that is careful, deniable and very much engaged. Moscow does not need to fire a shot. It only needs to keep Iran standing while America bleeds its Gulf allies and Europe’s economy.

The bill comes due

If Washington and Israel launch another round, they will be betting that this time force produces a settlement. Three years of evidence says it will not. What it will produce is deeper Gulf recessions, a longer energy shortage, more anger in Europe’s streets, and a bigger bill for an Israel that is already running out of room. Miller’s forecast is that the next round is coming anyway. I hope he is wrong this time. I doubt it.

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Video interviews

RT | October 19, 2026

Anti-government rioters have torched Albania’s education ministry and supreme court, as protests spread across the Balkan nation. Prime Minister Edi Rama is refusing to step down and blames the unrest on Russia. What’s really going on?

As of October 19, the Albanian capital of Tirana has been rocked by seven consecutive days and nights of rioting, while protests and clashes between demonstrators and police have been reported in the cities of Lezhe, Vlore, Elbasan, and Shkoder. A large group of rioters breached the perimeter of the education ministry in Tirana on October 14, setting the building on fire.

Running battles between demonstrators and police have broken out around the ministry on several occasions since. On October 19, hundreds of demonstrators pelted rocks at riot police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The previous night, offices of the Albanian Supreme Court were set on fire, and arson attacks on several police stations in the city were reported.

Some 500 demonstrators had been detained and 167 of them formally arrested as of October 17, according to Reuters. 295 people had been injured, including 196 police officers, as of October 19, according to Interior Minister Ervin Demo.

What do the protesters want?

The protests follow more than a year of unrest in Albania, which began when Rama banned TikTok in the runup to last March’s parliamentary elections, following similar measures inposed by the EU during every major election across the bloc since 2024. The ban was lifted in February of this year, but demonstrations broke out again in May after Rama’s government authorized the sale of protected wetlands to a development company operated by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
WATCH smashed storefronts, burned buildings as Europe faces aftermath of latest violent protests READ MORE: WATCH smashed storefronts, burned buildings as Europe faces aftermath of latest violent protests

The protesters demanded the resignation of Rama and his entire cabinet, and the cancellation of a planned twin-phase resort project on the wetlands and on nearby Sazan Island.

The protesters’ core demand – that Rama resign – remains unchanged. However, the movement is now calling for a root-and-branch reform of the entire Albanian establishment, with demonstrators accusing both Rama and opposition leader Sali Berisha of corruption. Unemployment, underfunding of schools, and declining living standards have also been cited by protesters as grievances.

What did Rama say about the protests?

Despite the repeated chants of “Rama resign” heard at the protests, Rama has claimed that the demonstrators do not oppose his government, but Albania’s “mission” of joining the EU.

“I am not being challenged,” he said in a video address on October 18. “The government is not being challenged, a government majority or a winning party in the elections is not being challenged but a path is being challenged, a mission is being challenged”

“Albanians need to think ​very clearly,” he continued. “Do they want this, do they want that, or do they want the EU?”

Rama has refused to resign, and blamed the protests on “foreign hands that do not wish for Albania to be at peace.” Back in June, Rama accused “the enemies of Albania and of Israel” of waging a “hybrid war” to stop the wetlands development. In two separate speeches on October 18 and 19, the embattled PM blamed the unrest on Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin and a “wave of Russian influence in the entire social media system,” and on “the Khomeiniist republic of Iran, the pinnacle of disinformation.”
Was Russia involved?

In short, no. Rama has not backed up any of his accusations, and they are being treated with skepticism and ridicule by demonstrators and opposition media. Albania’s Publik Media news outlet criticised Rama for “eturn[ing[ to the Berisha, Russia and Iran alibi,” while Pamfleti, an investigative outlet, dismissed his claims as an “ignorant reaction to those protesting his misgovernance”

Even the US-run Radio Free Europe noted that Rama “did not present public evidence” to back up his allegations.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has rejected Rama’s accusations. “No, Edi Rama,” she said on October 18, “it is the citizens of your country who have taken to the streets in protest.”

“This has all the hallmarks of the ‘highly likely’ British approach,” Serbian journalist Nebojsa Malic told RT on October 19, referring to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s failed attempts to blame the 2016 Brexit vote on Russia and a recent ‘terror plot’ at a US airbase on Iran. “We’ll just make an accusation and provide no evidence but say ‘oh it’s highly likely that Russia’s behind this’, and everybody is going to take it for granted.”

Rama is “doing this because he’s hoping it will stick,” Malic said. “He has nothing to lose. He’s seen plenty of leaders in western Europe essentially getting away scot free with covering for their malice and incompetence by blaming Russia.”

“Rama is just as opportunistic as [French President Emmanuel] Macron or any British prime minister in the last ten years,” Malic concluded. “They will say or do whatever, because they think that Russia is not able to defend itself.”

Why did Rama mention Israel?

Rama’s claim that “enemies of Albania and Israel” were behind this summer’s environmental protests stems from the involvement of Kushner in the wetlands project. A close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kushner has extensive family and financial ties to Israel. His investment firm, Affinity Partners, has funneled Emirati, Saudi, and Qatari cash into multiple Israeli businesses, including five arms manufacturers.

However, all available information suggests that the funding for Kushner’s Albanian projects comes from Albanian, American, and Qatari individuals and entities. Affinity Partners is leading the €1.4 billion Sazan Island project, while Kushner himself is a minority partner in the wetlands development.

Rama visited Israel and addressed the Knesset in January. Less than 24 hours later, Israel’s Channel 12 claimed that the Albanian PM had struck a deal with Netanyahu to accept up to 100,000 Palestinian refugees from Gaza. As speculation spread that the Palestinians would be resettled on land developed by Kushner, Rama clarified that no such deal had been, or would be, made.

Regardless, Rama’s close relations with Netanyahu are at odds with public opinion in Albania, where a 2024 poll found that 73% of the population believe that Israel should be sanctioned over its war on Gaza. Kushner is widely seen in Albania as representing Israeli interests, and Rama’s decision to amend environmental laws and grant “strategic investor” status to Affinity Partners has fueled accusations that the PM is placing Washington and West Jerusalem’s interests above Tirana’s.

Will there be an Albanian Maidan?

Some images emerging from Tirana – burning barricades, police officers set on fire with Molotov cocktails, and smouldering government buildings – are reminiscent of the scenes that played out during the 2014 ‘Maidan’ coup in Ukraine. However, Rama is in far less perilous of a position than Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, was during the 2014 uprising.

Unlike the present unrest in Albania, the Maidan coup was planned and directed by foreign actors, namely the US State Department and the British embassy in Kiev. Rama, on the other hand, is a close partner of the EU and US, and neither Washington nor Brussels have backed the protesters. Instead, Rama has apparently been given carte blanche to squash the demonstrations, with columns of military vehicles seen entering Tirana between October 15 and 19.

The EU has condemned the use of violence by protesters, with the European Commission criticizing them for “arson, attacks on State institutions and the destruction of public and private property.” In a statement on October 18, the commission praised Rama’s progress toward EU membership and welcomed his “commitment that the right to protest will be protected.”

One week earlier, an EU delegation in Tirana said that Brussels was “aware of allegations of excessive use of force by the police against protesters and journalists,” adding that the government’s response to protests and riots “must remain within the law.”

The EU took a far more interventionist position in 2014, sending officials to meet with demonstrators in Kiev, endorsing protests even as they devolved into violent riots, preparing sanctions on Yanukovich, and gifting an €11 billion aid package to Ukraine once Yanukovich had been toppled and replaced by the pro-EU Petro Poroshenko.

The West is still firmly on Rama’s side, and he is unlikely to face any calls for resignation from abroad. However, he is still facing the most sustained public pressure campaign of his 13-year stint in power, and if the protests continue and more buildings burn, he may be left with no choice but to admit defeat and step down.

The Cradle | October 19, 2026

Egyptian construction firms coordinated with Israel on a US-backed “Green Rafah” project aimed at “housing” tens of thousands of Palestinians in the city that was eradicated by Tel Aviv’s genocide, sources told Middle East Eye (MEE) on 19 October.

“Egyptian construction firms surveyed sites in the ruins of the southern Gaza Strip for a housing project dubbed ‘Green Rafah’ … Egyptian engineers surveyed several areas in eastern Rafah under the supervision of the Israeli army and air force, who accompanied them throughout the process until they left,” sources said, including a senior military source in the North Sinai.

According to the report, “the proposed neighborhood would initially house around 20,000 Palestinians.”

It would be “supervised” by “a multinational force expected to be deployed in several parts of the Gaza Strip.”

The report likely refers to US President Donald Trump’s plan to form a so-called International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza.

The report states that surveying of sites for “Green Rafah” is under full US backing.

“Washington conveyed instructions on the Rafah operations through CIA director John Ratcliffe during his latest visit to Egypt,” says the senior military source cited by MEE.

Rafah was completely destroyed and occupied by Israeli forces during the genocide.

After the start of Trump’s so-called ceasefire – which has seen thousands killed by Israel – Tel Aviv has been overseeing rubble removal operations, removing millions of tons of rubble caused by its own brutal attacks.

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported at the year’s start that “no less than 70 percent of rubble removal operations in the city have been completed.”

“Bulldozing and land leveling operations in Rafah are being carried out despite confirmed indications that hundreds of bodies remain beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings and in streets and agricultural fields, posing a serious risk of damaging human remains and erasing their locations before recovery and identification can take place,” it said.

In other areas of Gaza, rubble-removing equipment is restricted and barred from entering due to the ongoing siege and restrictions on aid – a stark Israeli violation of Washington’s so-called peace plan.

In Rafah, US-backed rubble-clearing operations come as part of a plan to build a “humanitarian city” over the ruins of the city.

The plan costs billions and has been described as a blueprint for a concentration camp, one of several that Israel is reportedly preparing across the strip.

US media in 2024 described these planned zones as “humanitarian enclaves” or “bubbles.”

According to much newer Israeli media reporting, Washington’s Board of Peace in Gaza is planning to transfer Palestinians into so-called “humanitarian shelters,” in order to “disconnect” the strip’s population “from Hamas” while Israeli forces solidify and expand their occupation,

Meanwhile, Israeli forces are completing a massive trench aimed at partitioning Gaza and expanding the occupation there.

Al Mayadeen | October 19, 2026

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Japan’s National Diet in Tokyo, demanding Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s resignation over her government’s stance on Palestine and its alignment with US and Israeli military policies.

The protesters expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemned the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and aggression across West Asia.

Demonstrators criticized Japan’s refusal to recognize the State of Palestine, its failure to impose sanctions on “Israel,” and its continued purchases of weapons from Israeli companies.

Protesters oppose Japan’s military expansion

Participants also voiced opposition to the government’s plans to increase military spending, revise Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, which renounces war, and ease restrictions on arms exports.

Speakers criticized military cooperation between Tokyo and “Israel”, particularly reports of plans to purchase Israeli-made drones.

Protesters argued that these drones had been developed and tested through operations involving the direct targeting and killing of Palestinians. They called on the Japanese government to end all military partnerships with the Israeli occupation.

Protestors demand closure of Israeli embassy

In September, over 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered outside of the Israeli embassy in Tokyo and called for the expulsion of the newly appointed Israeli ambassador to Japan, Emmanuel Navon, and the closure of the embassy.

The protesters denounced the Israeli war on Gaza and criticized Tokyo’s and Tel Aviv’s military relationship.

Protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners condemning the Israeli aggression, while chanting slogans calling for freedom for Palestine and an end to the war.

The Network Against Japan Arms Trade (NAJAT), one of the main groups organizing the protest, stated that the demonstration was intended to formally convey its demands to the Japanese state.

NAJAT said the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador provided an opportunity to renew calls for his expulsion and urge Japan to take a stronger stance against “Israel.”

Protesters further called on Japanese authorities to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded that the government close the Israeli embassy in Tokyo.

Press TV – October 17, 2026

Iran’s ambassador and chargé d’affaires to the UN has stressed that any arrangements for the Gaza Strip’s future must fully respect Palestinian rights and self-determination, denouncing the United States and the Israeli regime for the current situation affecting the Strait of Hormuz.

Gholamhossein Darzi made the remarks on Friday, addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in West Asia, including the Palestinian question.

He noted that Gaza remained devastated and continued to be subject to military aggression, despite the announcement of a ceasefire last year.

The ceasefire was announced last October as part of a United States-proposed plan to bring an end to two years of Israeli genocide, supposedly.

The Israeli regime has, however, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians during attacks across the territory ever since, in addition to the tens of thousands it had already killed throughout the genocide that began on October 7, 2023.

Darzi called for a permanent end to the Israeli aggression, lifting of the Israeli blockade on the coastal sliver, and realization of a lasting ceasefire in the territory.

He called for unconditional and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory as well as immediate and sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and deployment of relief personnel.

The diplomat called accountability for serious violations of international law a legal obligation, condemning the regime for committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

He also denounced expansion of illegal settlements, intensifying settler violence, and Israeli plans for “annexation” of the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians must be able to establish an independent, sovereign, and viable state, with the holy occupied city of al-Quds as its capital and full membership in the United Nations, the official stated.

He also demanded Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory and occupied Syrian areas and respect for both countries’ sovereignty.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Darzi slammed the United States and the Israeli regime for launching two rounds of unprovoked aggression against Iran respectively, last June and from February 28 until April 7 this year.

The aggressors, he noted, committed war crimes through deliberate targeting of civilians and critical infrastructure.

He also attributed the situation affecting the Strait of Hormuz to the American-Israeli atrocities, including an American naval blockade.

“Our position is crystal clear: The only practical way to restore normal and safe maritime navigation in the Strait of Hormuz is immediate and permanent cessation of US aggression, provision of credible guarantees against its recurrence, respect for Iran’s sovereign rights, and complete lifting of the naval blockade and other unlawful coercive measures.”

Following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran on February 28, Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz to its adversaries. The key waterway has remained largely closed ever since, driving up fuel prices worldwide and increasing the cost of living for millions of people.

Tehran has made it clear that it will not reopen the strait until Washington meets its demands, including a permanent end to the war.

Sputnik – 17.10.2026

BEIRUT – The number of books destroyed by Israeli bombings of libraries, as well as religious and cultural institutions since October 2023, has exceeded 3 million copies, founder and coordinator of the National Network for the Protection of Libraries, Archives, and Cultural Heritage in Lebanon Hadi Bekdash told Sputnik on Saturday.

“There are reports of the burning of more than 700,000 books belonging to Lebanese and Arab publishers, as well as more than 3 million books from homes, libraries, religious centers, family collections, researchers’ libraries, and universities, publishers, cultural institutions, and private collections since 2023,” Bekdash said.

In 2026, practically confirmed information appeared about the destruction of dozens of public and hundreds of private libraries during the conflict with Israel, he added.

These data do not reflect the full scale of losses, since Lebanon still does not have a unified national database of destroyed libraries, archives, and book collections, the coordinator said.

Bekdash added that it will be possible to finally assess the damage only after conducting a nationwide inventory of lost and damaged collections.

A national campaign, A Million Books for Lebanon, is currently underway in the country, aimed at restoring destroyed and damaged libraries.

Al Mayadeen | October 16, 2026

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a sharp rebuke to Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a diplomatic meeting in Baku, calling the Palestinian cause “the greatest historical injustice of this century” and demanding that “Israel” halt its expansion in the occupied West Bank, according to statements released Friday by Beijing’s Foreign Ministry.

The bilateral discussions took place on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit held in the Azerbaijani capital.

According to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement cited by Reuters, Wang urged the Israeli government to immediately cease its “forced establishment” of West Bank settlements and reverse its expansion policies.

He emphasized that Beijing’s long-standing position remains rooted in resolving the core conflict through a “two-state solution,” calling for the full reopening of access routes to the Gaza Strip to relieve ongoing humanitarian suffering.

Summit walkout and diplomatic tension

The direct exchange between Beijing and Israeli leadership unfolded against a backdrop of heightened diplomatic friction at the summit.

Earlier in the proceedings, several delegations representing Arab and Islamic nations walked out of the CICA conference hall during Herzog’s address in protest against Israeli aggression and continued settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Despite the firm pushback from Beijing, Herzog emphasized what he described as Israeli security imperatives during the meeting, pointing to strategic threats posed by regional groups while highlighting the importance of maintaining economic and trade ties between China and the occupation.

China, which has historically supported the Palestinian cause and recognized Palestinian statehood since 1988, has increasingly positioned itself as an active diplomatic mediator in the region. Wang’s remarks signal Beijing’s continued insistence that the Palestinian cause cannot be stabilized without addressing Palestinian sovereignty and halting unilateral territorial changes on the ground.

Al Mayadeen| October 16, 2026

A study by University of Maryland researcher Shibley Telhami points to a major shift in US public opinion, with sympathy for Palestinians surpassing support for “Israel” and growing numbers of Americans viewing the occupation as responsible for genocide.

Drawing on Gallup data, Telhami noted that sympathy for “Israel” among the US public has fallen from around 50% to 36%, while sympathy for Palestinians has risen to 41%.

Among Democrats, support for “Israel” has plunged from more than 50% in 2001 to just 17% today, while sympathy for Palestinians has climbed to 65%, according to the researcher.

Telhami’s Critical Issues Poll at the University of Maryland also found that more than 60% of respondents believe US military and diplomatic support enables “Israel” to carry out its actions.

Generational shift extends across political lines

Citing data from the Pew Research Center, Telhami pointed to a narrowing generational gap among Democrats in negative views of “Israel.” The figures showed that 71% of younger Democrats and 66% of older Democrats held negative views of the occupation.

One of the most significant changes, however, has emerged among young Republicans under the age of 35. According to the cited polling, the share of young Republicans expressing negative views of “Israel” rose from 35% to 57%.

Only 22% of young Republicans agreed that “Israel’s” actions in Gaza were “justified as self-defense,” compared with 52% of their older counterparts.

Self-censorship over criticism of ‘Israel’

The shift in public opinion comes alongside concerns over the freedom to criticize “Israel” and discuss its actions in Palestine.

Telhami highlighted findings indicating that 80% of academics since October 7, 2023, and 42% of the general US public feel they must exercise self-censorship or caution when discussing the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, fearing accusations linked to their criticism.

The findings point to growing public criticism of “Israel” and US support for it, alongside continued concerns about the social and professional consequences of expressing such views.

MEMO | October 16, 2026

A prominent Israeli rabbi on Friday issued a religious ruling permitting Israeli occupiers to take olives from Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, claiming that harvesting the crop “demonstrates Jewish ownership of the land,” Anadolu reports.

The ruling was issued by Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the most prominent religious authorities among Israeli occupiers in the West Bank, and was published by Israeli Channel 13.

It comes amid escalating occupier violence against Palestinians and their property, particularly farmers during the olive harvest season.

Lior claimed that Palestinians do not own their land, arguing that they had not purchased it from the “people of Israel” or from any Jewish person and describing the land as “stolen property.”

Citing Jewish religious law, he claimed that ownership of land cannot be transferred through theft and that Palestinian land therefore remains the property of the “people of Israel.”

He also argued that Palestinians planting olive trees on their land does not give them ownership rights over either the land or its produce.

Lior claimed Palestinians had already received sufficient compensation for planting the trees by consuming their fruit over previous years, and said both the land and harvest should return to what he called their “rightful owners.”

His ruling was not limited to land near illegal settlements, however, and also permitted occupiers to take olive crops from Palestinian areas farther away.

The ruling comes as attacks on Palestinian farmers during the West Bank olive harvest season have intensified, including assaults, preventing farmers from reaching their land, damaging trees and stealing crops.

Such attacks recur during the olive harvest, which peaks in October each year, while this month has seen an increase in attacks by occupiers against Palestinians and their property.

Palestinian, Israeli and international rights organizations have accused Israeli authorities of failing to stop occupier violence or hold perpetrators accountable despite attacks targeting Palestinians, their homes, farmland, vehicles and other property.

Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law, while Palestinians maintain their rights to their land and reject attempts to seize it.

What kind of ceasefire allows bombing to resume without warning, vehicles carrying civilians to be struck, homes to collapse upon their inhabitants?

The World Zionist Organization was founded in 1897. It has an elaborate structure, including a World Zionist Congress, a Zionist General Council, a Zionist Executive, and a Zionist Supreme Court. And this is just one of the many such entities…

By Muhammad Hamid ad-Din – New Eastern Outlook – October 15, 2026

The Gaza Ceasefire Is Falling Apart. And So Is the American Plan to Expand the Abraham Accords.

The Gaza Ceasefire That Is Killing Palestinians

The ceasefire in Gaza, which took effect on October 10, 2025, was supposed to stop a two-year war. By then, according to Palestinian authorities, more than 72,000 Palestinians had been killed. A year after the document was signed, the picture was no more peaceful. According to Palestinian sources, from the start of the ceasefire to October 5, 2026, Israeli forces killed 1,460 Palestinians and wounded 5,116. By September 2026, Gaza authorities reported 5,147 violations of the agreement, 1,421 dead, and the destruction of more than 201,000 buildings.

The second phase of negotiations—the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave and the disarmament of Palestinian factions—stalled almost immediately. In April 2026, American-Egyptian talks in Cairo ended “without tangible progress.” Hamas links disarmament to the end of the occupation. Israel demands disarmament as a precondition for any further step. Critics say the demand for disarmament has become a pretext for maintaining control over the enclave and continuing violations. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry put it bluntly: the occupation government “does not view peace as a goal, but as an obstacle.”

Diktat Instead of Diplomacy

Against this backdrop, the Trump administration is forcing the expansion of the Abraham Accords. In May 2026, the U.S. president publicly demanded that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey join the accords. He called it “mandatory”: “After all the work done by the United States to put this complex puzzle together, it must be mandatory for all these countries to at least simultaneously sign the Abraham Accords.” Pakistan publicly refused. The others remained silent.

Washington’s main interest is Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said at the White House in November 2025: “We want to be part of the Abraham Accords. But we also want to be sure that we secure a clear path to a two-state solution.” Later, Riyadh repeated: normalization is impossible without a “credible, irreversible, and time-bound path” to a Palestinian state. The Israeli government rejects this prospect. American pressure goes beyond diplomacy: Trump tied the Abraham Accords to negotiations to end the war with Iran, effectively making normalization a condition for peace. According to Axios, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan were “caught by surprise.”

Mutual Influence: Gaza as Leverage and as an Obstacle

Gaza and the reshaping of alliances are directly connected. The Palestinian question became leverage in Arab states’ bargaining with Washington. For Saudi Arabia, normalization with Israel without movement toward a Palestinian state is politically toxic. Riyadh is using the fragile ceasefire to postpone an unpopular step. Qatar, a key mediator, took an equally tough position. Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari said: “If the Palestinian question remains unresolved, joining the Abraham Accords is impossible.” According to him, the absence of a peace process for Palestinians means the absence of stability in the region. Doha, which has given refuge to Hamas’s political leadership and plays a central role in the talks, cannot move toward normalization without losing face.

There is also a reverse dependency. The Trump administration, seeking to expand the Abraham Accords, pressured Israel to secure a ceasefire: normalization without a ceasefire would have been impossible. But the second phase depends on whether Washington is willing to pressure Israel, not just Arab capitals.

Bombs Instead of Peace

The result of U.S. and Israeli policy looks increasingly contradictory. Three years of war, more than 74,250 dead Palestinians, and 1,460 killed after the ceasefire was signed are not just a humanitarian catastrophe. They are a verdict on America’s strategy in the Middle East. Trump tried to push through the expansion of the Abraham Accords by linking unrelated issues: normalization with Israel, a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, and ending the war with Iran. In July 2026, he stated directly that a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement “will depend entirely on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.” Saudi Arabia responded in May 2026: “There will be no normalization without a clear and final path to the creation of an independent Palestinian state.” As the custodian of the two holy mosques, the kingdom cannot afford to do otherwise. Qatar refused. Pakistan publicly rejected it. Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey remained silent.

Criticism of Washington goes far beyond diplomatic missteps. The U.S. continues to supply Israel with weapons despite ceasefire violations. In September 2026, the Trump administration proposed a $2.8 billion deal to sell Israel 40,000 heavy bombs, including 20,000 MK-84s and 20,000 BLU-117s. Senator Chris Van Hollen vowed to block the transfer: “Trump is sending $2.8 billion worth of bombs, paid for by you, the American taxpayers, to a government led by a wanted war criminal.” Congressman Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also vetoed it: “The Trump administration has not provided sufficient assurances that these weapons will be used in accordance with American and international law. Therefore, I will not approve this sale.” Amnesty International urged Congress to block the deliveries, saying the U.S. risks becoming complicit in serious violations of international law, including genocide. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani accused Washington of “complicity with every arms shipment” to Tel Aviv.

What Next: The Results of U.S. and Israeli Policy Against the Arab Region

Washington’s paradox is that it wants to expand the Abraham Accords but continues to support the Israeli occupation, which makes normalization politically impossible for Arab states. The U.S. has blocked UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions for the third time in a row, undermining its role as a “reliable mediator.” Public opinion in the Arab world is sharply opposed to normalization. Polls show that 89% of Moroccans oppose recognizing Israel. Analysts warn that for most of the named states, the political price of signing the accords will be prohibitive. The war in Gaza has strengthened this sentiment, not weakened it.

The main question is whether the ceasefire will hold. If the second phase of negotiations does not start and the death toll continues to rise, expansion of the Abraham Accords will remain an unattainable dream. Saudi Arabia will wait. Qatar will mediate. The UAE will increase oil production. Trump will face a choice: keep pressuring Arab capitals or admit that without a real Palestinian state, the accords will remain a facade. While Washington supplies bombs and Tel Aviv keeps killing, talk of peace looks like a cynical game in which Palestinians are not subjects but a bargaining chip.

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Muhammad Hamid ad-Din is a well-known Palestinian journalist.

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Truths about Israel

ILANA MERCER’S FPV Resistance | October 13, 2026

What Israel has done, is doing, to Gaza has not sprung ex nihilo from October 7.

Genocide is not a situational counter-response to aggression. It’s a coming-out event of sorts.

Differently put: There are no legitimate antecedents to genocide. Genocide is not a “war crime” to which a set of mitigating or exculpating legal defenses can attach.

Genocide is a stand-alone indefensible crime—“the blackest of all crimes”—for which there are no extenuating circumstances and to which no traditional legal defenses attach.

Ethnocide, depopulation, domicide and daily mass murder can never be explained away or exculpated using argument from law, ethics or history.

In essence, talk to the hand about October 7, 2023; because the face isn’t listening. Just as there are no legal or moral extenuating circumstances for genocide, so it is that there are no historical defenses for this “blackest of all crimes,” for genocide.

To assert that you are just, justified or even coherent as you carry out that which cannot be just or justified—this is to embody a most grotesque incoherence and contradiction.

At minimum, Israel deserves—and has yet to receive—the unanimous revulsion and isolation reserved for entities whose existence is a confidence trick and a fraud upon us all.

Reality is truth, past and present. The reality of genocide gives rise to irrefutable truths. From the facts of this Twenty-First Century Genocide; certain truths immemorial and irrefutable that traverse time have emerged. Truths about Israel.

Through Gaza, the world has come to know Israel’s ways with the Palestinians, with their lands and homesteads—down to what Israeli terrorists habitually do to the intimate bits-and-bobs that make up a household.

Through Gaza, we have come to know Israel’s ways across the Levant and beyond. They unground and salt the earth forever. They uproot ancient communities and their olive groves. For fun. They deform babies and the baby faces of children for life.

The reality on the ground is of genocide ongoing, of daily extermination. In aggregate, a “child has been killed in Gaza every 71 minutes for three years.” This extermination campaign is not only of children—the one segment of Palestinian society which American conservatives are comfortable defending—but of adults, young and old: admirable, valuable adults. Adult lives matter, yes?

Hasbara and official myth-history aside, because of Gaza and the Ghazzawi you don’t have to know much history at all to arrive at the truth about Israel.

Because of the Palestinians of Gaza, the living, the martyred and those who still resist; the truth about Israel is now ahistoric.

To arrive at that truth about Israel, you don’t have to know much about the genesis of the so-called “conflict” between Israelis and Palestinians in historic Palestine. I hazard that you need to know hardly a thing about this history to arrive at the truth about the lived reality of Palestinians.

You are what you do.

We know the Real Israel through the actions of real Israelis in Gaza. We know how Israel operates and how a preponderance of its people thinks. These realizations came out of the Gaza genocide, which has shown the world in cruel relief how Israel acts and, by extension, what Israel is.

Since October of 2023, the world knows in detail what the untouchable Israel—state and civil society—has done and continues to do to the Strip, to the West Bank and in South Lebanon.

But what have the Ghazzawi, the living and the martyred, accomplished? A great deal. In a manner, Palestine and the Palestinians have won.

Gaza has exposed Israel for the morally and militarily corrupt force that it is. The Genocide of Gaza has, very plainly, invalidated Israel and validated the Palestinian cause.

When you are in the writhing coils of a boa constrictor; it is small comfort to know, as Palestinians have always known, that, while outwardly captive, they are, nevertheless, truly liberated from the illiberal political propaganda that grips the West.

So, they need to know, too, that they have shown good people around the world the way. For once and for all, Israel’s televised genocide had corroborated the lived reality of the Palestinians; their reasons for rage and their rights to resistance and recompense.

Palestinians had been telling us for decades that they have been set upon by murderers and thieves. Palestinians have told us they are being killed and robbed as a matter of course. Their lived reality has been irrefutably affirmed, and universally so.

“It’s complicated,” Israel’s supporters keep countering. “Study up before you open your mouth.” The opposite is true. It’s absurdly simple.

A moral, sentient human being need know nothing much about the history of the region to arrive at this conclusion.

Israel has had the nerve to play its genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza to a packed house: to the world.

Most galling of all: In the course of this very public genocide, Israel has engaged in the mother of all performative contradictions: denying genocide, while publicly committing genocide, effectively asserting a birthright to commit genocide.

Think about it:

To deny ongoing, prime-time livestreamed genocidal action at the very same time that you are committing these actions, and then to hound and hurt anyone who dares notice: This is a performative contradiction in a category all of its own, like no other.

Caught in the protracted act of genocide, the guilty party, Israel, has continued to cavalierly claim for itself and be granted the right to keep killing and deceiving without being considered and treated as a killer and con-artist.

In essence, Israel exists among nations us as a privileged, protected, well-funded aberration, carrying out unspeakable evil with universal blessings and absolution.

I belabor the most galling reality, as it really gets me: At the same time that Israel and its cringing Western admirers have killed and deceived; they have instructed The World to deny Israel’s genocide, then deny Israel’s deception about its genocide, and finally to justify both or fear defenestration, cancellation, banishment, arrest and worse.

To no avail. Human action is the undeniable key to man-made reality. Israel and the US have acted; they’ve revealed themselves. They’ve been exposed.

“Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions,” said Jesus (New Living Translation). As Matthew 7:20 reads, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

With the exception of the flint-hearted ruling political elites—the wholesale slaughter carried out by Israel in Gaza has stirred the hearts of ordinary people across the world. A collective conscience developed around Palestine. Minds not AI became engaged. They said, “We see you, Israel. We revile you. We reject you.”

This is what October 7 will forever mark and signify: The triumph of the Palestinians over the alternate reality mass-marketed to the World by Israel and our ruling elites.

©2026 ILANA MERCER
The Unz Review, October 12
LewRockwell.com, October 13

*******

Ilana Mercer, a widely published paleolibertarian author, essayist and theorist, has been writing up an anti-war, anti-woke storm since 1998, starting in Canada. On arriving in the US, in 2002, her weekly column was right away syndicated. Mercer’s national syndication fell through shortly after due to writing in strident opposition to the war in Iraq. ILANA is described as “a system-builder. Distilled, her modus operandi has been to methodically apply first principles to the day’s events.” She’s Jewish, grew up in Israel ages five to nineteen, and left, at 19, decades back, never to return. She had refused to serve in the IDF, Israel’s compulsory military. Ilana’s focus since October of 2023 has been the genocide.

By Harrison Berger – Responsible Statecraft – October 13, 2026

In August, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) publicly took credit for shaping “multiple provisions” now in this year’s defense policy bill, stating that many were “impacted by prior JINSA policy recommendations,” including “proposals to strengthen U.S.-Israel defense industrial base integration” and “renew pre-existing joint U.S.-Israel programs.”

Among the provisions JINSA takes credit for is the controversial Section 219. In the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), this section mandates the creation of a single executive agent tasked with “synchronizing cooperative efforts” between the U.S. and Israel across nine basket categories, including AI, quantum technology, biotechnology, and virtually every category of weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that such provisions would transition the U.S.-Israel security relationship from aid to partnership. But pro-Israel advocates have emphasized the leverage it would provide over Washington’s military policy.

Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of Democracies, appeared to reference this provision in an article arguing that the U.S. and Israel must “deepen their military, technological, intelligence and economic integration to such an extent that inflicting financial harm on Israel would also carry a significant cost for Washington.”

Other initiatives JINSA has advocated for likewise read like an Israeli government wishlist. They include a pending provision to “extend the existing War Reserve Stockpile Authority for Israel,” which provides a secretive and high-speed pathway for funneling weapons to Israel, as well as Abraham Accords provisions including “Improvements to Air and Missile Defense Acquisition” and a “United States-Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Initiative.”

The policy wins JINSA is trumpeting are a result of its strong foothold within the military-industrial complex, and are perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the pro-Israel lobby. The group says it achieves these goals “by conducting both educational programs that build ties among American, Israeli and other Middle Eastern partner military leaders, along with in-depth research and actionable recommendations to influence U.S. policy.” JINSA’s “Our People” webpage includes a long roster of retired U.S. military officials.

One of JINSA’s most important programs, which has existed for more than four decades, is its “Generals and Admirals Program.” The initiative involves flying recently retired U.S. military officials to Israel. Many of the trip’s participants were already sitting on defense-industry boards when they went, while others joined soon afterward. At least 55 of the 83 alumni from the 2019–2026 G&A program cohorts (about 66%) have held or currently hold positions in the defense industry spanning board seats, executive jobs or advisory roles at defense contractors and defense-tech firms, or posts at defense-focused investment funds, consultancies and lobbying shops.

JINSA hopes that, when these former military officials return from Israel, they will use their credentials and defense industry power to become Israel’s advocates.

JINSA describes the program, founded in 1981, as “designed to ensure that the delegation is well briefed on the security concerns of Israel, as well as the key role Israel plays as a friend and ally of the United States.” The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which provided a 13 month grant for the program in 2017 worth $237,846, similarly says the purpose of the program is in part for participants to “return home to share publicly what they learned.”

The itinerary for the Generals and Admirals program includes meetings with Israel’s prime minister, defense minister, IDF chief of staff and the Director of Mossad. According to JINSA, after completing the program, “participants often engage on important policy initiatives through JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy that strengthen…the U.S.-Israel security relationship.” JINSA CEO Michael Makovsky highlighted the program’s influence in 2014, calling U.S. generals and admirals “America’s most admired leaders, who remain very influential even after retirement.”

The JINSA program trains retired military leaders, many of whom go on to work in the defense industry, to be advocates for Israeli interests, both in their public writing and in their work behind the scenes.

A 2023 Quincy Institute report found that 80% of four-star officers who retired between June 2018 and July 2023 went on to work for the defense industry. Of the 32 officers tracked in the report, nine appear on JINSA’s participant lists, and seven of those nine retired officers hold industry lobbying or defense-tech roles. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Lockheed Martin’s board five months after leaving the military and went on JINSA’s Israel junket the following year, 2021. Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the former NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, retired in 2018, became a senior adviser at the lobbying and public relations firm Brunswick Group in 2019 and went on the JINSA trip in 2021.

Gen. Hawk Carlisle participated in the 2019 delegation while serving as president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association, the war lobby’s leading trade group, and has served on the board of the U.S. subsidiary of Israel’s largest defense contractor, Elbit Systems of America, which was renamed Twenty-Six Defense in September. Some participants, such as retired Gen. Robert Magnus and Gen. Duncan McNabb, joined the board of Elbit America after their JINSA trips.

Embedded within the highest levels of the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, JINSA’s roster of retired generals and admirals often use their credentials to advocate for pro-Israel policy in Washington.

In 2010, when then-head of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Israel-Palestine conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” which is used to “mobilize support” for various militant groups in the region, JINSA’s G&A participants rushed to Israel’s defense. Responding to Petraeus, 30 ex-military leaders associated with the program put out an ad claiming that “a strong, secure Israel is an asset,” labeling the country, which has been deemed an apartheid state by numerous human rights groups, as “a democracy” that “shares our commitment to freedom, personal liberty and rule of law.”

In May 2018, a JINSA task force of retired senior officers chaired by Adm. James Stavridis released “Atlas Supported,” urging Washington to elevate Israel to “a top-tier ally” and invest jointly in next-generation military technology — the latter now a central purpose of Section 219. JINSA says the report was also the first to recommend moving Israel from the U.S. European Command to U.S. Central Command, which Trump then ordered on January 15, 2021. JINSA celebrated the fifth anniversary of Israel’s shift into CENTCOM this January by noting that the “Wall Street Journal recognized” it as “the only organization promoting this move,” and by featuring glowing tributes from JINSA G&A participants.

JINSA’s roster of retired military officials was once again mobilized in October 2026 to deny the findings of a trifecta of human rights groups and the U.N. that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, praising what it called a “pattern of law-abiding IDF conduct in Gaza.”

JINSA’s delegates routinely appear on cable news, often without disclosures of their affiliation with the pro-Israel lobby group: Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who commanded CENTCOM from 2019 to 2022 and traveled with JINSA’s 2023 delegation, and became a “distinguished fellow” at JINSA in 2024, is now a CBS News contributor. In July, McKenzie appeared on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, who introduced McKenzie as a retired CENTCOM commander but omitted his fellowship with JINSA. In that appearance, McKenzie recommended Washington consider seizing Kharg Island. Ret. Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a member of JINSA’s “Iran Policy Project,” frequently appears on Fox News too, though his affiliation is generally disclosed.

One of the group’s most consequential efforts was to push the Trump administration to start a war with Iran, with a group of JINSA-aligned military leaders writing a March 2025 letter arguing that “U.S. support for Israeli action to prevent a nuclear Iran should be a top priority,” adding that “time is running out to stop its march to the bomb.” Sixty-six of the 79 signers of that letter appear on JINSA’s Generals and Admirals participant lists. Members of JINSA’s roster of retired military officials subsequently wrote open letters of support for the 12-Day War and the current months-long Iran War.

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Harrison Berger is an independent journalist who has contributed to Drop Site News, The American Conservative, and The Nation. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He holds a BA in Political Science and Russian Studies from Union College (NY).

By Freddie Ponton – 21st Century Wire – October 13, 2026

Along Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor, Israeli soldiers concealed themselves inside Palestinian homes and established invisible kill zones. Civilians, including children, were shot for approaching or crossing unmarked boundaries. Military records then counted the dead as terrorists “eliminated.”

The Netzarim Corridor runs across central Gaza immediately south of Gaza City, from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean. Israeli forces established it during their ground invasion, dividing northern Gaza from the rest of the territory. They widened the zone by demolishing surrounding neighbourhoods and building military bases, fortified positions and observation posts.

It was here, amid the civilian communities bordering this military corridor, that Israeli soldiers operated concealed positions inside Palestinian homes. The buildings looked abandoned or ordinary from outside, and Palestinians approaching them could not see the troops or the imaginary boundaries soldiers had drawn around their positions. Crossing one of those invisible lines could mean death.

Israeli soldiers had a name for occupying a Palestinian home and turning it into a concealed military position. Almenat Kash, Hebrew for “Straw Widow.”

Inside the Straw Widow

Straw Widow is a longstanding Israeli military tactic in which soldiers seize a Palestinian home and turn it into an observation post, firing position or ambush site. Families can be confined to one room as troops occupy the rest of the building, restrict contact with the outside and prepare positions from which they can watch or fire.

A reservist who spent about 250 days in Gaza told Der Spiegel how his unit used the tactic in areas that had not been evacuated. Palestinians continued moving through the surrounding streets with no warning that soldiers were hidden nearby. When they approached, the troops attacked them. Those who stepped forward to help were often attacked too.

“Within minutes, five, six or seven people are killed,” he said.

The military report would record seven terrorists eliminated.

“But no,” the soldier said. “It’s just seven people who crossed an intersection.”

The report did more than conceal how they died. It stripped the dead of their civilian identity and turned their deaths into proof of military success. “We don’t kill, we eliminate,” the reservist explained. “That’s how we’ve always put it.”

Another reservist described occupying a house while serving with Division 252 along the Netzarim Corridor. It belonged to displaced Palestinians and stood on the edge of an inhabited neighbourhood. Around their position, the soldiers established a boundary that Palestinians could not see.

VIDEO: An Israeli reservist describes arbitrary killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor. (Source: Sky News)

The Palestinians were somehow expected to know where it was.

“There’s an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know,” the soldier said. “But how can they know?”

He recalled one man crossing the boundary and being shot. Another approached the body and was detained. Hours later, the order changed again. Anyone crossing the invisible line was to be shot on sight.

The person approaching might be “a teenager riding his bicycle.” The command made no distinction. “Everyone that comes inside needs to die.”

Breaking the Silence collected similar accounts of lethal boundaries. One captain described people crossing a line as “sentenced to death.” Another reservist described the order in three words, “Adult, male, kill.”

Everyone Became a Terrorist

A Division 252 soldier recalled how his unit opened fire after guards spotted someone approaching from the south. They poured dozens of bullets into him and kept shooting at his body, some laughing as they fired. Only when the troops approached did they discover they had killed a boy of about 16.

The soldiers photographed the body and took the boy’s telephone, which an intelligence officer collected. Hours later, they were told he was not a Hamas operative. By that evening, however, the battalion commander was congratulating them for killing a terrorist and saying he hoped they would kill ten more the following day. A soldier who protested that the boy had been unarmed and looked like a civilian was shouted down. The commander’s answer left no room for what they had discovered. Anyone crossing the line was a terrorist. No exceptions. No civilians.

No independently verified death toll exists for the Netzarim Corridor. The Israeli military claimed that Division 252 had killed more than 200 militants there, but soldiers who served in the corridor dismantled that account from within. An officer in the division’s command said the Israeli military’s own intelligence associated only ten of the dead with Hamas. Other soldiers described how civilians and children were shot for crossing invisible lines, then entered into the count as terrorists.

Even those ten were designated by Israel rather than an independent investigation, and an alleged association with Hamas would not establish that they were taking part in hostilities when killed. The claim of more than 200 militants killed instead reveals the gulf between the military’s public account and its soldiers’ testimony. Palestinians shot inside the corridor became terrorists on paper, their deaths repackaged as military success.

The Der Spiegel reservist described the same practice inside his brigade, which he said killed between 160 and 170 people over roughly 80 days during which there had been no fighting or Hamas attacks. Only one of the dead was suspected of carrying a weapon, though no soldier had actually seen one. He had been holding an object at night about 500 metres north of the corridor and, according to the reservist, posed no immediate threat. His body was never examined, yet he was recorded as a terrorist along with everyone else the brigade had killed.

That figure may overlap with the military’s claim of more than 200 and cannot be added to it. The accounts converge on how the dead were classified. Palestinians were killed without being identified as combatants, then recorded as terrorists after death.

The Silence Breaks

Der Spiegel interviewed ten Israelis who had served inside Gaza, operated drones remotely or selected targets for airstrikes. Breaking the Silence helped the reporters contact some of them. Nine remained anonymous because they feared the consequences of identification, while most said they would refuse to serve in Gaza again. The magazine considered their accounts credible after cross-checking them against other testimony and independently verifiable information.

Yuval Green, the only interviewee who spoke under his own name, served as a medic with the 55th Paratroopers Brigade for 51 days in Khan Younis before refusing further deployment. He described refusing an order to burn a Palestinian house after his commander failed to provide a convincing military justification. His account joins the wider body of soldier testimony describing unarmed Palestinians being killed, homes destroyed without military necessity and civilian deaths recorded as militant casualties. Breaking the Silence documented a similar practice along Gaza’s border perimeter. An Armoured Corps captain serving in southern Gaza described soldiers drawing a line beyond which everyone became a suspect, while admitting he did not know whether Palestinians knew where it was.

DOCUMENT: The Perimeter (2025) documents live-fire enforcement of boundaries Palestinians may not have known existed.(Source: breakingthesilence.org)

The same practices surfaced across units and military roles, extending beyond the conduct of any one soldier. Soldiers speaking at different times described hidden posts, unmarked boundaries, shoot-to-kill orders and the automatic conversion of the dead into terrorists. Some admitted participating. Others stood guard while it happened. Their decision to speak does not erase what they did, but it has broken through the military language that concealed it.

A civilian does not become a combatant by approaching a house, crossing an unmarked boundary or trying to reach someone bleeding in the road. International humanitarian law protects civilians unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities. Deliberately targeting civilians for crossing such a boundary, or civilian rescuers for coming to the aid of the wounded, constitutes a war crime.

Almenat Kash (Straw Widow) concealed Israeli soldiers inside Palestinian homes, while the invisible boundaries drawn around their positions turned the surrounding streets into kill zones. Palestinians who had no warning of either were shot, then entered into military records as terrorists.

Those reports turned the killing of civilians into a record of military achievement. People passing through their own neighbourhoods became enemy fighters on paper, their deaths presented as proof of success by the army that had killed them. Calling them terrorists afterwards could not make the killings lawful. It served to conceal the crime.

One of Israel’s Leading Think Tanks Put Out a Disturbing “National Security” Doctrine

By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | October 14, 2026

Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, one of it’s leading think tanks, put out a psychotic paper written by Tamir Hayman, the former IDF chief of intelligence from 2018 to 2021, which outlined Israel’s current “national security concept”.

Some concepts outlined in the paper include:

Prioritizing Israel as a Jewish Supremacist State Over A Democratic One:

The paper wrote that “The state’s Jewish identity takes precedence over its democratic system of government,” adding that “This priority is intended to guarantee Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state, even at the cost of eroding its democratic values” and “This principle dictates the need to maintain the primacy of Jewish identity over other national identities (such as Arab-Islamic or Christian).”

Using Peace Deals As A Ruse For War:

The paper writes that “any arrangement with Arab actors is temporary and deceptive” and that “peace agreements are merely technical and temporary arrangements requiring constant reassessment.”

Destabilizing Surrounding Arab States:

The paper writes that Israel believes “that most Arab states are not genuine nation-states, but collections of tribes and ethnic groups lacking a shared history and a foundational national vision,” adding that because of this, for Israel, “undermining their stability is viewed as a natural process, one that Israel can manage more effectively than it can contend with strong nation-states, and one that it should even encourage.”

War As The Basis Of The State:

The paper explicitly states that “War is essential to national security and cannot be replaced by a state of peace,” adding that “War is necessary, and preventive war is preferable because it secures a significant achievement at the outset.”

Occupation Of All Of Palestine:

The paper calls for a permanent Israeli occupation of all of Palestine, including Gaza and the West Bank, writing that Israel has “opposition to any political, geographic, or security separation between Israel and a Palestinian entity, and to the establishment of a Palestinian state,” adding that “security will be achieved by expanding settlement throughout the state’s territory”.

Using Settlers As Proxies:

The paper calls for using Jewish settlers as proxies of the Israeli security establishment, in order to further destabilize surrounding states, writing, “security is not viewed as the exclusive responsibility of the security forces; rather, civilians are part of the defense network. Defense is established by creating communities and outposts in all areas of friction with the Arab population, in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), and in security zones in Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip,” adding that increased Jewish settlements “further contribute to the destabilization of the ‘synthetic’ Arab states.”

Moving Away From Reliance On The “Declining Power” Of The United States

The paper writes that “The United States is a ‘declining power’ and, given its ongoing social and political shifts, will soon abandon Israel in any event” adding that “Excessive dependence on the United States exposes Israel to the influence of a progressive American value system that is incompatible with Israel’s Jewish character. Severing ties with the United States is therefore not only inevitable, but essential to Israel’s independence and the resilience of its Jewish national identity.”

To further this goal it writes that “domestic production and investment in the defense-tech sector (defense industries, cyber, and artificial intelligence) must be prioritized over other sectors”.

Offense Over Defense

The paper also outlines the doctrine of waging endless offensive wars writing that “Preemptive, surprise strikes are viewed as the only way to achieve victory, giving offense precedence over defense” and adding, “In cases where a preemptive counterstrike is not feasible, or time is needed to prepare an offensive, establishing forward defense zones wherever possible becomes crucial.”

The horrors deliverable by Israel that might come next

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 14, 2026

Speculation is growing over the sustainability of the United States’ model of global dominance which emerged as Washington ended the Second World War as plausibly the sole superpower. That role was first tested in the Korean War, which produced something of a stalemate in a confrontation that included China, and led to a Ceasefire Agreement which is still in place to this day. More recently the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, even given the disastrous and pointless war in Vietnam, confirmed the US’s superior military, political and financial status, leading to an affirmation of American dominance as an essential element in global political stability in several initiated and mandated policy documents including in the statement of principles spelled out in 1990’s which was later published in September 2000 as the Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century: a Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The final elaboration of the policy was derived from the so-called “Wolfowitz Doctrine” which was the common referral to national defense guidance developed when Paul Wolfowitz, working for Vice President Dick Cheney, was Associate Secretary of Defense. The term is an informal version of the US Department of Defense’s Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) for the years 1994-9 dated February 18, 1992.

As the first DPG after the Cold War and first Gulf Wars ended and the draft described the United States as the world’s only superpower it made preventing the emergence (or re-emergence) of a global or regional competitor a top priority. This objective included preventing any hostile power’s dominance of strategically or resource rich important regions that could produce alternative sources of global power. It argued that that the US Military must remain sufficiently strong enough to deter possible competitors, retaining the ability to act unilaterally if necessary. The PNAC declaration called for a continuing global leadership role for the United States which implied the resort to preemptive war against adversaries when needed.

In promoting the new policy, the Project’s Statement of Principles document of June 1997 elaborated how “… America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests… We need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”

The statement was signed by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald Rumsfeld, Peter Rodman, Elliot Abrams, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Aaron Friedberg, Donald Kagan, I Lewis Libby, and Norman Podhoretz among others. It was considered to be very “Israel friendly” subsequently and it, combined with the awesome and growing political and institutional power of the US Israeli Lobby, was used to justify US interventions in the Middle East during the following decades. Indeed, one might argue that Israel’s form of interaction with its neighbors and even with much of the world today was shaped by the numerous Jews and Israel firsters who participated in the drafting of the critical documents asserting Washington’s need to behave aggressively, to include its participation in conflicts that it would otherwise have been able to avoid such as those occurring in the Middle East which were instigated by Israel’s promotion of its own interests just like is currently taking place with Iran.

What is important to note today is how the documents that were intended to guarantee American military supremacy including interventionism to maintain that edge appear to have taken hold of the President Donald J Trump administration, most particularly in the minds of the president himself and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. So, what went wrong as the United States now appears to be losing on all fronts where it has opted for confrontation instead of negotiation? It is perhaps important to note that the geopolitical missteps are likely the result of a doctrine coming from a different world than 1991 with different means of assessing strength or weakness. Trump and Hegseth might well be perceived as dinosaurs heading for extinction during their own version of the Triassic Period and the country that they have so much abused might be heading for decline and fall. The question becomes “After the US falls, who will be there to pick up the pieces?”

And one might presume that America’s most protected client Israel, which would certainly be joined to the US as the world’s most hated nation, might also be heading in the same direction. The only difference being that Israel has declared that it will use its nuclear arsenal to take much of the world with it if it goes down, the so-called Samson Option. Israel has at least several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions from its submarine delivery capabilities. Most European capitals would certainly be targets for Israeli missiles and warplanes. Former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan served notice of what might come: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” A minority of Israeli leaders might try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible, but those in charge will surely have the capability to take part of the world down with them and that is precisely what will happen as Israel goes under. But before that happens a wave of millions of Jewish “refugees” will roll over the US and Europe primarily. They will insist on creating new nations just like they did to the Palestinians and likely will have their nuclear weapons with them as “insurance.”

Interestingly, Israel is also reported to be developing a biological weapon arsenal which is “ethnically targeting” selective meaning that it will kill only holders of certain DNA or ethnic characteristics, presumably killing those with majority Arab biology while sparing anyone with Jewish traits or characteristics. Interesting. It might be the easy way to “mow the lawn” of objectionable foreigners as Israel’s leaders have frequently carried out in places like Gaza and Lebanon.

But it occurs to me that Israel will follow a slightly different pattern, namely disorienting the playing field by the use of false flag incidents that will encourage Americans and Europeans to support pro-Israel policies that are clearly not in their interest, and applying “Palestinian option” alternatives to reduce and then completely eliminate resistance to its own form of “global dominance.” That means stealing other people’s land while also systematically exterminating them, possibly with the biological bombs. The process of emigrating is already underway among many mostly better educated Israelis who are already rapidly leaving an Israel under threat to recreate their exclusively Jewish ghettos and settlements in places like Crete, Greece and in South America. The local residents frequently complain about the abuse they receive from the newcomers but their governments suffer from the typical Zionist disease, i.e. local governments that are bought or pressured to give way.

America already has discovered the phenomenon in the communities in New York and New Jersey and elsewhere in the country where often Orthodox Jewish religious ritual restrictions control behavior of all citizens and even visitors who dare to defile the enclaves. If Israel in what was once Palestine goes under will that mean that millions of new immigrants, certainly given free entry with no conditions on their behavior by a US Congress which displays Israeli flags in its office spaces on Capitol Hill? The clowns in Congress and the White House may not be bothered by the Israeli Jewish tendency to despise the other 90% of any country’s inhabitants as subhuman, as they do with the Palestinians currently. Florida (of course!) Congressman Brian Mast, who wears his Israeli army uniform when working in his Congressional office, said : “there is no such thing as innocent Palestinians”! And he is not the only congressman or staffer who embraces that view, which is reiterated by 90% of Israeli Jews who support extermination of all Muslims and Christians!

So what comes next? John Gehan has written about the next moves by Israel emigrants and how they will impact on the rest of the world after their regional genocidal campaign to create Greater (Eretz) Israel is either concluded in failure or otherwise goes down in flames: “Essentially what we’ll have are at least hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of psychotically racist terrorists entering the USA. These are ethnically obsessed monsters who don’t consider anyone outside of their pernicious tribe to be human. They’ll have weapons at their disposal and a cemented nationwide network to commit mass murder. Maybe some of these crazies will seek shelter in Europe or Canada or Argentina, etc. But many will choose the USA as a redoubt. At best, murders and acts of terror will spike dramatically in this country. Israeli Zionists are genocidal psychopaths. As we have all seen.”

For those who need further elucidation of what is going on and what drives it, the head of one of Israel’s most prominent think tanks, Major General Tamir Hayman has described in an article further examined by Trita Parsi the Quincy Institute, the harsh reality of Israel’s current and ongoing new national security doctrine: Hayman describes how “The United States is a ‘declining power’ and, given its ongoing social and political shifts, will soon abandon Israel in any event. This is compelling Israel to move toward greater self-reliance in order to avoid ‘excessive dependence’ on the US since it ‘exposes Israel to the influence of a progressive American value system that is incompatible with Israel’s Jewish character.’ He concludes: ‘Severing ties with the United States is therefore not only inevitable, but essential to Israel’s independence and the resilience of its Jewish national identity.’” Why is that? “Because of the Primacy of Jewish Identity over Democracy: The state’s Jewish identity takes precedence over its democratic system of government.” And it takes precedence over the constitutional rights of any nation that Jews should wind up settling in!

So, we Americans and presumably lots of other people have something to look forward to from an Israel whose leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon have often bragged about how they control “America,” and now it it boasting how it has taken its pound of flesh and then will discard the US donor after it is bled white! It presumes the end of nations as we know them that try to function decently to be replaced by an ethno-religious state armed with nukes and bio weapons that will begin its process of extermination just as it is already carrying out in the Middle East! Mazel Tov to y’all!

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

John Mearsheimer – Offensive Realism | October 12, 2026