Tag: israel

UN Security Council Passes Iran War Resolution, Yet With No Mention Of US Or Israel

Many independent pundits have long complained of the emptiness of the United Nations as some kind of ‘moral authority’ – given it often claims to be just this. The vacuous nature of UN statements connected to war is on display once again as the Security Council (UNSC) issued a formal condemnation of the Iran war on Wednesday, but without mentioning either the United States or Israel at all.

For this reason, Iran quickly slammed the vote, also as Russia and China abstained. The passed resolution demands an end to Iranian attacks across the Gulf, and notably made zero reference to US or Israeli strikes on Iran.

It was tabled Bahrain and backed by 135 countries, and calls for “the immediate cessation of all attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran against Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan.”

It further condemns actions or threats by Iran “aimed at closing, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The measure passed 13-0, and a second draft resolution was proposed by Moscow, which called on all sides to cease hostilities, however it failed to pass.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Walz stated: “Iran’s strategy of sowing chaos, of trying to hold their neighbours hostage, trying to shake the resolve of the region, has clearly backfired, as shown by this vote today.”

China’s UN envoy Fu Cong said the text “does not fully reflect the root cause and overall picture of the conflict in a balanced manner.”

The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, without warning, and while Iran was engaged in several rounds of nuclear talks with Trump envoys. 

Like the June war, the assault appears to have caught Tehran completely by surprise, and Iranians have condemned the unprovoked nature of the assault. 

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‘Of Course’: IDF Drops Case Against Soldiers Accused of Raping Palestinian Prisoner

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday dismissed the indictments of five soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in July 2024 – an attack that sparked worldwide outrage.

The IDF spokesperson’s office said the decision to drop the indictments of five reserve members of Force 100 – a special unit of the military police responsible for guarding and controlling high-risk detainees – “was made following an examination of all the considerations, evidence, and relevant circumstances.”

“Among the factors taken into account were the complexity of the evidentiary basis in the case and the implications of the release of the security detainee to the Gaza Strip, which created significant consequences for the evidentiary aspect of the case,” the office added. “These developments created exceptional circumstances that affect the ability to continue the criminal proceedings while preserving the right of the defendants to a fair trial.”

The dismissal of the indictments, according to The Jerusalem Post, does not mean the soldiers have been exonerated.

The five soldiers were caught on video assaulting a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman on July 5, 2024. Although they used riot shields in a bid to conceal the nearly 15-minute attack, medical reports cited in the case show the victim suffered serious rectal injuries requiring surgery, a ruptured bowel, punctured lung, and fractured ribs. An Israeli medical staffer said that the victim arrived at the hospital in critical condition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – welcomed the dismissal of the indictments, which he said had “damaged Israel’s reputation in the world in an unprecedented manner.”

Israeli President Israel Katz raised eyebrows by asserting that “the role of the IDF’s legal system is to protect and safeguard IDF soldiers who engage heroically in war against cruel monsters, and not the rights of the terrorists of Hamas.”

Netanyahu and Katz both called the prosecution of the Sde Teiman reservists a “blood libel.”

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Israel’s Greatest Weapon Was Fear – And It Is Now Failing

Israel’s war on Iran reveals a deeper crisis: the collapse of a psychological doctrine built on fear and invincibility.

Origins of Israel’s Psychological Warfare

Wars are rarely fought only on battlefields. They are also fought in the minds of societies, in the perception of power and vulnerability, and in the political imagination of entire regions. Israel understood this principle early in its history, and psychological dominance became a central component of its military doctrine.

From the earliest years of the Zionist project, the idea that power must appear overwhelming was openly articulated. In 1923, the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote in his famous essay The Iron Wall that Zionism would only succeed once the indigenous population became convinced that resistance was hopeless. Only when Palestinians realized they could not defeat the Zionist project, he argued, would they accept its permanence.

The events surrounding the Nakba of 1947–48 reflected this logic. Between 800,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled or forced to flee their homes, as hundreds of villages were destroyed or depopulated. The expulsions occurred through a combination of direct military assault, forced displacement, and the collapse of Palestinian society under war.

Massacres played a crucial role in spreading fear. The killings at Deir Yassin in April 1948, in which more than one hundred civilians were killed by Zionist militias, quickly reverberated across Palestine. But Deir Yassin was only one among many massacres that occurred during that period. Killings in places such as Lydda, Tantura, Safsaf, and numerous other villages contributed to a climate of terror that accelerated the depopulation of Palestinian communities.

The psychological impact of these events was enormous. News of massacres spread from village to village, convincing many Palestinians that remaining in their homes meant risking annihilation. The lesson was clear: war could function not only as a tool of conquest but as an instrument of psychological domination.

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US News Orgs Nearly Silent on Israel’s Violent Suppression of Journalism

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently published two meticulous reports that further expose Israel’s violent repression of journalism, in its ongoing genocide in Gaza and elsewhere.

CPJ published a report on February 19 titled ‘‘’We Returned From Hell’: Palestinian Journalists Recount Torture in Israeli Prisons.” CPJ collected 59 in-depth testimonies from Palestinian journalists released from Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.

The report goes into excruciating and painstaking detail about the experiences of 56 journalists, who told CPJ they were “repeatedly beaten inside prisons by authorities, as well as during arrest and transfer to the facilities.”

Less than a week later, CPJ published a report (2/25/26) that found “Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist and media-worker killings in 2025”—86 of the 129 deaths CPJ recorded.

That was an uptick from 2024 (when Israel was responsible for 85 out of 124) and 2023 (78 of 99), CPJ revealed.

Taken together, these reports added more evidence of Israel’s illegal and shameless targeting of the journalists who cover its war crimes.

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“Unprovoked act of aggression,” Russia claims Israel attacked its cultural center in Lebanon

Russia’s international humanitarian cooperation agency said on Monday that Israel attacked the partner Russian House in the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, calling it an “unprovoked act of aggression,” Anadolu reports.

In a statement on Telegram, head of the agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, Evgeny Primakov said the cultural center was strictly civilian.

“Israeli aviation struck the partner Russian House in the Lebanese city of Nabatieh. The director of the cultural center, Assaad Deia, is alive and safe. These are our good friends, there was no military activity in the cultural center. The strike was not provoked by anything,” he said.

He added that the agency’s official representative office, the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, is in contact with colleagues from the Nabatieh office.

“We regard its destruction as an act of unprovoked aggression,” Rossotrudnichestvo said in an official statement published on Russian social media platform Max.

It also noted that the Soviet Cultural Center in Syria’s capital Damascus was destroyed by a direct hit from Israeli bombs on Oct. 10, 1973, during the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, killing two people.

Tension escalated across the region on Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched large-scale attacks on Iran that have so far killed around 1,300 people, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Tehran has responded with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, as well as Gulf countries that are home to US assets.

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ADL Orders Advertisers to Bail on Twitter, Calls the Bible an ‘Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory’

The far-left Anti-Defamation League has ordered advertisers to “pause Twitter spending” after accusing the platform’s users, and its new owner Elon Musk, of “antisemitism” and “hate” amidst a surge in free speech. Among the “hate” tweets cited by the ADL is a Bible verse posted to Twitter by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

After a week of back and forth between Elon Musk and the ADL regarding free speech on the Twitter platform, the far-left pressure group that’s increasingly seen as being a Jewish supremacist organization authored a long tweet thread calling on advertisers to ditch the platform.

Allowing free speech, the ADL claimed in the thread, is not only “toxic,” but part of a “hate for profit” scheme.

“Today, we are joining dozens of other groups to ask advertisers to pause Twitter spending because we are profoundly concerned about antisemitism and hate on the platform,” reads the ADL’s initial tweet, authored Friday, November 4th.

“Here’s why we’re asking advertisers to #StopHateForProfit and #StopToxicTwitter,” it went on, introducing the thread that called the Holy Bible an “antisemitic conspiracy theory.”

The ADL’s call for collectively multi-billion dollar advertising sponsors to leave Twitter high and dry came just days after Elon Musk was slammed for groveling to the anti-speech group that threatened “dire consequences” for allowing free speech and re-instating accounts they don’t like.

On Wednesday, Musk announced that he’d met with ADL leadership following their threat, as well as the NAACP, and even members of the Bush political machine.

Musk said at the time that his Twitter platform would continue enforcing anti “hate” and “election integrity” policies at the ADL’s behest.

But, “since that meeting,” the ADL claimed in their tweet thread, “Musk permitted @KanyeWest to start posting again,” which, apparently, is a grave offense.

Among Ye’s tweets that the ADL is most vehemently opposed to is his sharing of Holy Bible verse John 19:19, something the ADL claims is equivalent to posting “antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

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Staggering number of US troops wounded in Trump’s Iran war

As many as 150 US troops have been wounded in the Iran war, Reuters has reported. 

The figure, disclosed on Tuesday, is far higher than the Pentagon‘s previously acknowledged tally of eight seriously wounded. 

Seven US service members have been killed after Donald Trump launched strikes against Iran on February 28.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The human toll comes amid mounting concerns over the financial cost, the Pentagon having burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions in the first two days of the war alone. 

Gas prices have rocketed to an average of $3.5 per gallon from $2.9 before the war began, oil prices now at levels unseen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

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Crushing the Right to Conscientiously Object

As the U.S. and Israel’s deeply unpopular war with Iran enters its second week, social media platform X is censoring the accounts of people providing information to military servicemembers on how they can refuse to serve. This is particularly relevant as fears have grown that U.S. ground troops may enter the conflict.

The Center on Conscience & War, an 80-year-old nonprofit that, according to its website, “advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war,” was banned on X for 12 hours. The center’s executive director, Mike Prysner, shared a notice that the center received from X which labeled their posts as having “violated X rules” against “illegal and regulated behaviors.”

Prysner wrote: “This is the post @CCW4COs was suspended for, informing service members of their legal right under DoDI 1332.14 to report “failure to adapt” within first 365 days of service and receive an entry-level discharge.”

It remains legal to conscientiously object to military service. The only conceivable way that the post could be framed as encouraging illegal or irregular behavior would be to recast such objections as mutiny, which is exactly what pro-Israeli voices on social media have been frantically doing in the last few days.

In response to conservative commentator Candace Owens also encouraging those in the U.S. military to conscientiously object to serving in Iran, pro-Israel journalist Emily Schrader wrote on X:

“This is illegal. She is literally advocating mutiny. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2387 (Advocating overthrow or disloyalty in the armed forces). It is a crime for any person, including civilians, to willfully advocate or attempt to cause:
• insubordination in the armed forces
• disloyalty among service members
• mutiny or refusal of duty
It also criminalizes distributing materials intended to encourage those outcomes.
The penalty can be up to 10 years in prison and fines.”

Other pro-Israel voices like Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, reposted Shrader’s sentiments.

The social media ban on the Center for Conscience and War came less than 24 hours after its executive director, Prysner, also wrote via social media regarding anecdotal evidence of troops being readied for combat:

“I just spoke with the mother of a service member in this unit. They were given one last call home before having to turn in their phones. He told his mom they were going ‘boots on the ground’ tonight.”

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Trump Says He Will Make a ‘Mutual’ Decision With Netanyahu on When To End Iran War

President Trump said on Sunday that any decision to end the war with Iran would be a “mutual” one made with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president made the comments in a phone call with The Times of Israel, where he claimed that the US and Israel have “destroyed” Iran.

“Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it… We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel,” Trump said.

When asked if he alone would decide when the war is over or if Netanyahu would have a say, the president said, “I think it’s mutual… a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.”

After the US and Israel first launched the war on February 28, Trump suggested it could last four weeks, but the timeline has repeatedly shifted, and there are signs that the US is preparing for a long, open-ended conflict.

The US-Israeli bombing campaign, which has killed more than 1,200 civilians, and the Israeli strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have not stopped the Iranian military’s response or fractured the government in any way, as Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been chosen as the new leader.

In his interview with the Times of Israel, Trump also praised Netanyahu and reiterated his call for Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon him. “Bibi Netanyahu should be given that pardon immediately. I think [Herzog is] doing a terrible thing by not giving it. We want Bibi to be focused on the war, not on a ridiculous pardon,” Trump said.

“Bibi’s done a great job. He’s been a wartime prime minister. We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel. Would have destroyed Israel if I wasn’t around,” the president added.

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Lindsay Graham Met With Israeli Intelligence In Attempt To Lobby Trump On War With Iran

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham made multiple trips to Israel in recent weeks to gather ammunition for his push to get President Trump to strike Iran, sitting down with members of the country’s spy agency along the way.

“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The South Carolina Republican also admitted to advising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the best way to pitch Trump on military action, according to the same report. Netanyahu ultimately presented intelligence to the president that helped convince him to green-light the operation, WSJ reported.

Israel Hayom, an Israeli outlet, confirmed the tight relationship between Graham and Netanyahu, describing the senator as one of four central figures behind the war. The outlet reported that Graham flew back to Mar-a-Lago from his Middle East tour carrying word that Gulf states wanted the U.S. to act, a message that clashed with what was being reported publicly at the time.

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