"Agents of Influence": How Netanyahu, through Trump's family circle, dragged America into war to save his own skin

Viktor Mikhin | New Eastern Outlook

The Resignation That Exposed the Mechanism of Betrayal of U.S. National Interests.

On March 19, 2026, an event occurred that, in a normal political system, should have caused an earthquake. Joe Kent, Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, resigned. But not for family reasons or due to "differences over strategic issues" — the euphemisms Washington typically uses to cover up the departure of those who have fallen out of favor. Kent stepped down with a public statement that reads like an indictment: "I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran."

This is not just a resignation. It's the removal of a seal behind which lay the ugly truth about how foreign policy decisions are actually made in the United States. Kent, a veteran of special forces and the CIA, a man whose wife died in Syria while on duty, stated what Washington usually prefers to keep quiet: the Trump administration launched a war with Iran under pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby.

Iran did not pose an "imminent threat" to the United States. This was acknowledged by a man who, by virtue of his position, had access to the most classified information on terrorist threats. Yet America found itself drawn into a full-scale military conflict that has already cost the lives of American service members — at least 13 killed and about 200 wounded (at the time of this writing).

How did this become possible? The answer to this question leads straight to Jerusalem, to the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, who found a way to use the U.S. president as a tool to achieve his own political and personal goals.

The Puppeteers from the Family Circle: Trump's Sons-in-Law and "Mossad Agents"

For those still doubting how deeply Israeli influence has penetrated the highest offices of the White House, one need only look at Donald Trump's inner circle. At the center of decision-making are two of the president's sons-in-law — Jared Kushner and, according to some reports, his other son-in-law as well — who hold Israeli passports and, according to informed sources, maintain direct contact with Israeli intelligence agencies.

It was Kushner who, according to reports, played a key role in orchestrating deals and military decisions in Israel's interest. And this is not speculation: Netanyahu himself, in his memoir "Bibi: My Story," described how his close adviser Ron Dermer used "golf terminology" to communicate with Trump, finding common ground with him that was beyond the reach of professional diplomats. Trump, as experts note, is "hungry for flattery," and this weakness was masterfully exploited.

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Join The US Military - Kill And Die For Israel

Brian McGlinchey | Stark Realities

President Trump's decision to join Israel in launching a regime-change war on Iran has so far cost the lives of at least 13 American service members. More than 200 have been wounded, dozens seriously enough to require evacuations to military hospitals in Europe and the United States. Among them are individuals who've suffered traumatic brain injuries, burns and shrapnel wounds. One was facing potential amputation of an arm or leg.

As much as these service members and their families are victims of Iran's justified retaliation for a surprise attack perpetrated amid ongoing negotiations, they're victims of a betrayal perpetrated by their president and the joint chiefs of staff, who cast them into an unconstitutional war of aggression, packaged in lies and initiated to advance the agenda of a foreign government, while undermining the security of their own country.

Of course, US casualties comprise a small subset of the total bloodshed. In executing this unjust war, Americans have collectively inflicted far more death and dismemberment than they've endured, teaming up with their Israeli counterparts to kill more than 3,000 Iranians, including some 150 schoolgirls — mostly between age 7 and 12 — whose school was destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles at the war's very start.

Though it should have already been apparent, Operation Epic Fury should make clear that — service members' good intentions aside — combat waged under the US flag rarely has anything to do with American security. Moreover — and I say this as former Army Reserve enlistee and Regular Army officer — anyone thinking of starting or extending a military career should understand that their government may send them to be killed, maimed or psychologically damaged, and to slaughter foreign innocents, so long as it helps those in power remain in the good graces of the extremists who rule Israel, and their powerful collaborators inside the United States.

A New Regime-Change War Built On False Premises

Under international law, a war of aggression is considered a supreme war crime unto itself, and Operation Epic Fury is precisely that. Like so many of America's wars before it, this one was launched on false premises. Contrary to the US-Israeli narrative...

Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. In 2007, the US intelligence community assessed that Iran halted any effort to develop a nuclear weapon in 2003. Since then, the intelligence community has periodically re-validated that conclusion, most recently in March 2025. Belying Trump's claim that the United States had only two weeks in which to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this week testified that Iran had made "no efforts" to rebuild its enrichment capacity after it was devastated by last summer's US bombing.

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Screw the Pooch, Betray the Base

Comment: Excellent article and well worth reading in full.

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Harrison Koehli | Political Ponerology

According to Gallup polling from last year, up to 45% of adult Americans identify as political independents. That's a plurality, as the remainder is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with 27% each. Forty-five percent is around 120 million adults, and that number has been growing for the past 20 years, driven largely by the younger generations. It's easy to see why. Neither party represents them.

Every four years, independents are put in the position of either throwing their vote away for a third-party candidate who will get at most 3% of the popular vote, or choosing what they see as the lesser of two evils. (In the last 50 years, only Ross Perot came close, winning 19% in 1992.)

That's not to say independents are a homogeneous group. Slightly more independents lean Democrat than Republican (20% vs. 15%), with a core 10% who explicitly reject both parties. Given the choice (and an electoral system that would support it), their votes might be split among a handful of parties, as is the case in most democracies. The end result is that the largest segment of the American voting population does not have consistent political representation, at least on the federal level.

That's not always the case, however. Independents may genuinely favor a particular candidate, despite his alignment with one of the parties. This was arguably the case with Donald Trump. As Bret Weinstein — a liberal Democrat who voted for him — described it recently on Tucker, Trump did the impossible: "he beat the duopoly, both sides of it, took over the Republican party, defeated the Democratic party soundly." He did that by dipping into the pool of independents and disaffected liberals like Weinstein. And he did that by presenting a platform that voters largely agreed with, e.g., no new wars, MAHA, unrigging elections, mass deportations, DOGE.

In the first year of his second term, he seems to have at least tried to follow through on many of these promises, despite obstruction from judges and the immobility of Congress. And even when his decisions were controversial among some of his base, such as last year's Iran strikes and January's kidnapping of an El Presidente, those operations were successful one-and-dones, over as soon as the news reached the homeland, with any ex-post-facto criticism just coming across as lame.

All of that seems to have changed with Operation Epic Fury. (And the only reason I say "seems" is because of the meme.) Regime-change war is back on the menu (but it's not a regime change war, in fact, it's not a war, it's an excursion to prevent a war, which might still turn into one, but it's war for peace) and the price of gas is no longer important. Within days, the White House was already caving on another central policy, mass deportations: "Don't mention them anymore." Along with the handling of the Epstein files, voters who aren't Catturd are notably pissed. For many, not going to war with Iran was the main reason they voted for Trump. Here's how Weinstein put it:

Now, I will say I'm very upset with President Trump at the moment. I feel personally burned as somebody who worked to get him elected. I did it for a reason and frankly if given the same choice today I would have to make the same vote, because I think what the Democratic party offered was anti-constitutional. We had a demented president who they pretended wasn't, and then we had somebody who hadn't won a primary installed by the party. This is not the consent of the governed. So I would have to vote for Trump again just because he's at least a qualified person who was the nominee of his party through a lawful process. But I'm angry at him because I voted for no new wars. And when I voted for no new wars, Iran was top of mind for me because I knew that it was on the agenda of the neocons. So I expected somebody to try to force this to happen.

This was Vance in 2024: "America doesn't have to constantly police every region of the world. Our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country."

When Trump said "no new wars" on the campaign trail, and when voters gave their support to that policy with their votes, they had precisely Iran in mind. The neocons have been blue-balled for decades over Iran. They have gotten practically every other country on their list: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Iran was the last one, probably because it was the biggest challenge. (Unless they really want to try Turkey after this.) Now the Lindsay Grahams and Mark Levins have their war — a war that never would have happened if Trump were president, I'm sure.

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Messianic Theology is now Israeli State Policy

Phil Harper | The Digger

For decades, the Western gaze has mapped onto Israel the familiar contours of a modern liberal democracy — a tech-savvy, secular state navigating the rough neighborhood of the Middle East with a pragmatic eye on security and strategic depth. But to listen to the rhetoric echoing out of Jerusalem this spring is to realize that this secular model is obsolete. On March 12, 2026, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the nation and spoke not of buffer zones or GDP, but of a metaphysical "place of rest and heritage" and the arrival of the "Days of the Messiah."

The message was clear: the Israeli state is no longer merely a refuge for a people; it has become, in the eyes of its leaders, an instrument of divine prophecy. For the secular economies of the West, which rely on materialist explanations like oil, land, and power to understand the world, this theological pivot is almost impossible to parse. Yet, without integrating these messianic undercurrents into our model of the nation, we are effectively flying blind.

The roots of this shift go back further than many realize. Footage from 1990 captures a younger Netanyahu meeting Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who urged the politician to "do something to hasten" the arrival of the Messiah. Netanyahu's response? That he was already working on it. Thirty five years later, Netanyahu's recent actions in Iran may be judged against this very promise.

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See also: The Z Factor VIII: Chabad Lubavitch (1)

Israel's biggest US donor now owns CBS

Alan Macleod | MintPress News

After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison — the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison — has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising "unbiased" news coverage and "varied ideological perspectives," which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network's new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her "pro-Israel stance."

MintPress News examines Ellison's close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss's extensive career as Israel's most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.

Israel's Man In Silicon Valley

Although Skydance, Ellison's media empire, is officially headed by David, it is well understood that father Larry holds both the purse strings and the reins of power. With a net worth of $301 billion, placing him second on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Rankings, Larry made his fortune by founding tech giant Oracle.

Oracle started as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, it is named after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation on which Ellison worked. For some time, the CIA was Oracle's only customer, until it began to win contracts with other agencies of the U.S. national security state. Today, although Oracle's customer base is much wider, it maintains its role as the privatized face of the CIA.

Yet if Oracle is close to Washington and Langley, it is perhaps even more intimately tied to the State of Israel. An avowed Zionist, Ellison has worked tirelessly to advance Israel's political project. Among his closest personal friends is Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he vacationed on his private island in Hawaii. Ellison was so impressed and confident in the Israeli prime minister that he offered him a seat on his company's board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

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The US-Israeli murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

Eva Bartlett | RT

Graves being prepared for the victims, mostly children, of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on February 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, March 2, 2026. ©  Iranian Foreign Media Department via AP

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed 'Operation Epic Fury', attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters' murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children's desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child's shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media - only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting:

"These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how "rescue" promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood."

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

International reaction: Silence

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children's lives don't merit Western media outrage. Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC's report, which describes the massacre as a "reported" strike on a school, which "Iran has blamed the US and Israel" for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel's crimes. The US is "looking into reports." Israel is "not aware." Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing:

"Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: "the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control." The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist "moderates" east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no "Israel says."

CNN ran the headline "A girls' elementary school was hit in Iran. Here's what we know." Its video report not only doesn't mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel's claiming Gaza's Shifa hospital was a "Hamas base", and staging weapons as "proof"), CNN claims the children's school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN's report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as "proof" of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn't a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military's Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was "looking into reports of the incident," and the Israeli army as saying it was "not aware of any IDF operations in the area." Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized - if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

Since the February 28 Minab school massacre, US-Israeli strikes have attacked still more civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring more Iranian civilians.

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran's Enghelab Square he'd seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT's Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

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The Israeli Government Installed and Maintained Security System at Epstein Apartment

Comment: Sure Barak...Whatever you say...

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Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hussain | Drop Site

The Israeli government installed security equipment and controlled access to a Manhattan apartment building managed by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a set of emails recently released by the Department of Justice. The equipment was installed starting in early 2016 at 301 E. 66th Street — the residence where former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak frequently stayed for stretches at a time.

The security operation at "Ehud's apartment" was in place for at least two years, emails from the DOJ disclosure show, with officials from the Israeli permanent mission to the United Nations corresponding regularly with Epstein's staff regarding security. The apartment was technically owned by a company connected to Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, but was effectively controlled by Jeffrey Epstein. Units in the building were frequently loaned out to Epstein's contacts and used to house underage models.

Rafi Shlomo, then-director of protective service at the Israeli mission to the United Nations in New York and head of Barak's security, corresponded with Epstein employees to arrange meetings to discuss security and coordinate installation of specialized surveillance equipment at the 66th Street residence. Shlomo personally controlled access to the apartment for guests and even conducted background checks on cleaners and Epstein's employees.

Under Israeli law, former prime ministers and other high ranking officials typically receive security services after they leave office. According to the emails, Epstein personally approved the installation of the equipment and authorized meetings between his staff and Israeli security officials.

Ehud Barak and the Israeli mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment.

At the time of Epstein's death in 2019, Barak downplayed his connection to the disgraced financier, stating that while he had met with Epstein several times, he "didn't support me or pay me."

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Second Nakba, Bibi's 9/11: The start of monumental destruction of the Middle East?

Peter Koenig | Global Research

On October 7, shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel, PM Benjamin Netanyahu declared the offensive as Israel's 9/11. He is right in more ways than one. The US 9/11 was a horrendous and deadly false flag, and so is the Israeli one, or the so-called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, assault by Hamas.

Both 9/11's are meant to "justify" endless and crushing retributions. In the US, an endless and worldwide war on "terror" which means the entire world, as Washington sees fit, according to its "rules-based order." Misbehaving nations are simply sanctioned and crushed, forced to their knees.

Israeli intel, as well as that of Egypt, the UK, the US, Brussels - EU - knew about the impending attack, planned by Israel in coordination with Hamas. A Jewish charity leader says Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to stand down for 7 hours during the Hamas invasion.

For Israel, it justifies a stepped-up war on Palestine, the end of Gaza, eventually forcing 2.3 million Gazans to flee through Rafah into the Sinai Peninsula in northeast Egypt.

Despite the official rejection of Israel to establish a corridor for Gazan refugees - an agreement with Israel and Washington to starve to death as many Palestinians as possible - Egypt eventually may allow to open the Rafah border for "humanitarian reasons." It is all part of the deal. 

[...]

This was planned for years.
Hamas was set up and funded by Israel and the US/UK secret services.

Hamas must do the bidding of its masters - namely periodically shooting back at aggressive Israeli attacks at Palestine settlements, mostly in the Gaza strip, and eventually launching a massive attack on Israel (on 7 October), thus, provoking an even more gigantic and deadly act of retribution - one that may not end until Palestine is erased from the map.

And then onwards - for the creation of Greater Israel, in the process absorbing one third to half of the current Middle East.

For broader understanding of the Israel-Palestine war, see also this.

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Iran in ‘full-scale war’ with US and Europe, says president

The Independent

Iran’s president has claimed that his country is in an all-out war with the West, days before Donald Trump meets with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Masoud Pezeshkian said that the “full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe” was worse than Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s, in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

“We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they do not want our country to stand on its feet,” he said in the interview published on the website of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday.

Mr Pezeshkian said the West’s war against Iran is “more complicated and more difficult” compared to the 1980-88 war with Iraq that left more than 1 million casualties on both sides.

“In the war with Iraq, the situation was clear: they fired missiles, and I also knew where to hit,” he explained. “Here, they are besieging us from every aspect, they are putting us in difficulty and constraint, creating problems – in terms of livelihood, culturally, politically, and security-wise – while raising society’s expectations. 

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Netanyahu to ask Trump to support another attack on Iran

Dave DeCamp | antiwar.com

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to ask President Trump to support another US-Israeli war on Iran, according to an NBC News report from Saturday. The Israeli PM is expected to make the case during a December 29 meeting at Mar-a-Lago.

The report said that Netanyahu will stress Israel's concern over Iran's production of ballistic missiles and will present Trump with options for the US to join or assist Israel with an attack on Iran. Israeli officials are also warning that Iran is reconstituting its nuclear sites that were bombed by the US during the war in June, but that was not their immediate concern.

According to a report from Israel Hayom, Israeli officials are preparing an "intelligence dossier" on Iran to present to Trump. Netanyahu's office has said the meeting will take place on December 29, though President Trump suggested last week that it wasn't finalized, saying, "We haven't set it up formally, but he'd like to see me."

Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has been warning that another war with Iran was likely since Israel didn't achieve all of its goals during its previous attack on the country, pointing to the fact that Iran's missile strikes forced Israel to agree to a ceasefire quickly.

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Israel wants to implement the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners. Here's what you need to know

Comment: I guess the Zio-Nazis feel they haven't genocided enough Palestinians so they need to leverage the killing machine that bit further... What can you expect from a surfeit of psychopaths?

 

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Qassam Muaddi | Mondoweiss

 

Israel is advancing a dangerous bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners. Right-wing leaders want to go even further and use the bill to give Israeli forces the authority to carry out extrajudicial killings.

Israel is one step closer to passing a law that would allow Israeli courts to sentence Palestinian prisoners to death. On Monday, the Israeli Knesset passed the bill in a first reading with a majority of 39 votes in favor against 16 in opposition. The bill was presented as "exceptional" law, under a special status that allows it to be passed only with the majority of votes cast, and not the majority of the Knesset members, which is why absentees and abstentions were not counted. It still needs to pass two more readings before entering into force.

The law applies to individuals who are convicted for acts that led to the death of Israelis, if the acts were motivated by "racism or hostility towards the public" and "committed with the objective of harming the state of Israel or the rebirth of the Jewish people," making it applicable exclusively to Palestinians. It was introduced by Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech from the ultra-nationalist "Jewish Power" party with a strong support base by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, like Har-Melech herself.

The party is led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a key ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government coalition. The death penalty for Palestinian prisoners has been a main political demand of Ben-Gvir, who has been behind the worsening of detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners in recent years.

Israel does have the death penalty in its law, but has only been considered applicable in rare situations of grave crimes, like genocide, and was applied once in 1962 against former Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann. The new law introduces three new stipulations which indicate the intention is to use the death penalty on Palestinians.

First, the bill's wording allows the death penalty on individuals convicted of killing Israelis on "nationalistic or racist" grounds. This limits its application to non-Israelis and employs the euphamism of "nationalistic" crimes which is commonly used to describe Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Second, since it applies to Palestinians in the occupied territory, it gives Israeli military courts, who are the ones who issue penal sentences against Palestinians under occupation the power to put Palestinians to death.

Third, it allows the death sentence to be given with a simple majority of judges, and not by consensus.

Even still, Ben-Gvir continues to push to loosen the law's application even more to give Israeli forces the authority to execute Palestinians in the field.

 

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Israel Arrests Ex-Army Lawyer Over Leaked Video Showing Palestinian’s Abuse

Al Jazeera

Israeli police have arrested a former military prosecutor after she leaked a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained overnight on Monday, according to the country’s national security minister, following a scandal that erupted after she leaked a video, resigned and then disappeared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leaking of the video perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel since its founding.

Reporting from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said the arrest of Tomer-Yerushalmi has created “a political and legal storm in Israel”, noting the spotlight on the leaker has overshadowed attention to the original crime.

“There is so much focus on the fact that this video was leaked, at the expense of discussing how this crime actually happened – and the fact that the UN says that these kinds of crimes are being committed in a systematic manner,” Odeh said.

“In one way, it’s a way to shift attention from the fact that these crimes are happening, by focusing on this woman and the fact that she leaked the video.”

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Gaza Cease-fire Agreement Furthers Ongoing Age of Imperialism

Jeremy Kazmurov | Covert Action Magazine 

In October 9, Israel and Hamas announced the adoption of a cease-fire agreement involving the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

Israel, in exchange, agreed to allow for the entry of humanitarian aid, to release Palestinian prisoners, and to withdraw its forces to a so-called “yellow line” from which they will still control all land crossings into Gaza.

The U.S. additionally agreed to send 200 more troops to Israel to monitor and oversee the agreement.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman gushed that President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for helping to broker the agreement. However, the World Socialist Web Site reported that the October 9 “peace” deal inscribes a return to the open colonial domination of the Middle East that prevailed in the 19^th century.

Gaza is now to be governed by a “Board of Peace” headed and chaired by Donald Trump and which will include former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) noted that the “peace agreement” was “steeped in colonial rhetoric” and that its “inclusion of an international ‘Board of Peace’…ensures the exclusion of Palestinian voices from the decision-making of Palestinian futures.”

A hidden U.S.-Israeli agenda has long been to control oil and gas fields off the Gaza coast that are estimated to be worth more than $500 billion.

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German Police Arrest Author Over Posts Criticizing Netanyahu

Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net

A high-profile arrest in Germany has triggered outrage over what many see as part of an alarming encroachment on free expression.

Jürgen Todenhöfer, the author and former member of parliament, was taken into custody in Munich after publishing social media posts that likened Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi crimes during World War II.

Police reportedly searched his apartment and seized all electronic devices following weeks of surveillance.

The 84-year-old, once a prominent figure in the center-Right Christian Democratic Union before founding his own Justice Party in 2020, revealed on X that he had been detained, citing the message that led to his arrest: “Mister Netanyahu, does your conscience never actually protest when you do to Palestinians the same thing that the cursed Nazis did to the Jews?”

Authorities have yet to comment publicly, but the incident falls under Germany’s strict anti-incitement laws, which forbid statements perceived as diminishing the Holocaust.

Todenhöfer has never been shy about challenging Germany’s foreign policy.

His books on conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria earned him a reputation as a persistent voice against militarism. […]

This is not his first confrontation with law enforcement. Todenhöfer said police had previously investigated him after he accused former Chancellor Olaf Scholz of treason for allegedly permitting the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

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The Not-so-Secret History of Netanyahu's Support For Hamas

Ghousoon Bisharat | +972 Magazine

From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict. Even after Oct. 7, argues historian Adam Raz, he's still advancing the same strategy. 

When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to write "The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel's Moral Degradation," he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu's involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict.

Raz's book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a controversial policy whereby Netanyahu's governments for years routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told +972 that this is "just a sliver of the bigger picture," which is rooted in Netanyahu's broader opposition to a just resolution to the conflict. "People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu's strategy," he said.

According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu's priority is not maintaining Israel's security but rather preventing any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. Keeping the cash flowing to Hamas served this objective by ensuring the Palestinian national movement remained splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land. Even after the devastating events of October 7, Raz warns that Netanyahu's playbook remains unchanged.

This book isn't a history lesson about the conflict, Raz emphasizes, but rather a damning exploration of a political alliance that continues to degrade Israel's moral fabric. "I didn't write this book, I yelled it on the pages," he said.

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Straussians take control of the United Nations and NATO

Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet.org

It had not been planned, but the proponents of the generalized war, the Straussians, expelled from the governing bodies of the United States, have regrouped in intergovernmental organizations. To everyone’s surprise, they are certainly present in the European Union, but especially in the United Nations and in the Contact Group on the Defence of Ukraine. Institutions dedicated to peace have been recovered by the warmongers.

For almost a year, President Donald Trump has been handing order to the United States. It has restored the principles of equality before the law and promotion to merit to the detriment of those of diversity, equity and inclusion (IED). He slashed in federal budgets everything that corresponded to imperial expenses and tried to restore the primary function of the armies, the defense of the homeland. 

At the same time, we all see how he fails to conclude the peace he hoped for in Ukraine and Palestine. He lets the Europeans fight not for Ukraine, but against Russia and the coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu persist in his program of a “Greater Israel”, that is to say annexation of his neighbors.

However, we do not see the most serious: the Straussians, who held the dragee high under the mandates of George Bush Jr., Barack Obama and Joe Biden are still not defeated. They have withdrawn to two intergovernmental organizations: NATO and the UN.

On the sidelines of NATO, they have taken control of the Contact Group on the Defence of Ukraine (formerly the Ramstein Group) which, since 9 September, no longer meets alternately at the US military base in Ramstein and at NATO headquarters in Mons-Brussels, but now also in London.

They were the ones who organized, with the Ukrainian secret services, drone flights over the Western and North European airports. Then, they pushed for the delivery of German Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine, after secretly organizing the transfer of the first batteries from Israel.

They are still the ones who falsified the reports of the United Nations General Secretariat on the meetings of 19 and 26 September of the Security Council. Unlike these – which we have been wrong to believe in – the Security Council has not validated the return of sanctions against Iran. He did not have the power.  

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Hamas just accepted Trump’s ‘peace’ plan. Here’s what it didn’t accept.

Qassam Muaddi | Mondoweiss

The response of Hamas to U.S. President Donald Trump's "peace" plan to end the war in Gaza came in late on Friday. It sparked immediate and conflicting reactions.

Five days after the U.S. president first announced his plan, the Palestinian movement gave its answer in a statement announcing that Hamas announced its "approval for the release of all hostages — living and dead - according to the exchange formula included in President Trump's proposal." Hamas added that it was ready to enter talks "to discuss the details."

 In a move practically unheard of by a U.S. president, Trump shared Hamas's statement on his account on Truth Social:

"Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting peace. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the hostages out safely and quickly!"

Minutes later, Trump announced Hamas's acceptance of his plan in a live address at the White House, considering the event "a big day, unprecedented in many ways." Trump added that he "looks forward to having all [Israeli] hostages come back to their parents," stressing that "we have to put the final word in concrete." The U.S. President thanked Arab and Muslim states for "helping me put this together," promising that "everybody will be treated fairly."

Hamas's response to Trump's plan came a day after the Israeli army sealed off Gaza City. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a "final warning" to the estimated 500,000 Palestinians still in the city, announcing that those who decide to remain will be considered "terrorists or supporters of terror."

Netanyahu 'surprised' amid international approval

Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey also accepted Hamas's response, while French President Emmanuel Macron said that the "release of all hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza are within reach," and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Hamas's response was "a significant step forwards." 

Trump's near-immediate positive response to the Hamas statement was reportedly met with "surprise" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an unnamed Israeli official who spoke to Israel's Channel 12. Netanyahu had held a deliberation on the Hamas response to Trump's plan before the U.S. President published his Truth Social statement. According to Channel 12, the Israeli Prime Minister considered the Hamas response a rejection of Trump's framework. 

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