Tag: israel

ATIP records show Edmonton mayor deferred to NCCM during campaign against police chief’s Israel trip

As antisemitic hate crimes continue to surge across Canada, newly released access-to-information records reveal Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack was actively coordinating with and relaying the concerns of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and affiliated activist groups during the controversy surrounding Edmonton Police Chief Warren Driechel’s trip to Israel.

The records raise an uncomfortable question: Why was city hall treating the NCCM coalition as its primary stakeholder while appearing to give far less weight to Edmonton’s Jewish community?

The controversy began after Driechel participated in a professional development trip to Israel alongside other North American police leaders. The trip focused on public safety, emergency management, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism.

Almost immediately, the NCCM, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities and more than two dozen affiliated organizations launched a campaign against the chief, demanding answers and ultimately suggesting that, absent satisfactory responses, Driechel should resign.

Behind the scenes, the newly released records show Mayor Knack repeatedly directing police leadership toward NCCM.

“The best starting point for organizations to engage with is the letter sent by NCCM which lists out many organizations,” Knack wrote to the police chief and police commission chair.

Knack did not merely pass along the coalition’s concerns. He endorsed them.

“I think the three questions that community have raised are reasonable questions to be answers,” he wrote, referring directly to the demands contained in the NCCM-led coalition letter.

The mayor also offered city hall’s assistance in arranging a meeting between the activists, the chief and police leadership.

“Finally, NCCM would like to meet with Council and both of you all together. Our office is more than willing to help coordinate,” Knack wrote, adding that “this would be hosted by NCCM” and that “they would be leading the meeting.”

Knack went even further, recommending NCCM-connected figures as advisors to police leadership.

“Both were formally involved with the Edmonton and/or National parts of NCCM and have been taking calls and meetings non-stop since Tuesday and would have some excellent insight if there is interest,” he wrote.

The contrast with the treatment of Edmonton’s Jewish community is striking.

Keep reading

A Regional Crisis or a Protracted International Disorder?

On May 31, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam gave a televised address in which he condemned Israel’s invasion and intensified attacks on southern Lebanon as a dangerous escalation, warning that a “scorched-earth policy” will never bring security to Tel Aviv: “Israel must understand that with its scorched-earth policy, collective punishment, and the bulldozing of villages and towns, it will gain neither security nor stability.”

As Salam said, this process is now advancing. “Israel is practicing mass displacement that amounts to collective punishment. It no longer targets only specific locations or areas, but has adopted a policy of comprehensive destruction of cities, towns, and all aspects of life within them.”

Tactical wins, strategic devastation

Israel’s Obliteration Doctrine is a lethal mix of scorched earth policy, collective punishment and civilian victimization, coupled with massive indiscriminate bombardment and systematic use of artificial intelligence (AI), as I have demonstrated in The Obliteration Doctrine (2025) and The Fall of Israel (2024).

This doctrine often goes hand in hand with ecocide, which Israel has committed in Gaza and is committing in Lebanon. The net effect is ethnic cleansing and, given continued and unhindered escalation, genocidal atrocities.

Whether Prime Minister Netanyahu, former PM Naftali Bennett or former head of the Israeli defense forces Gadi Eisenkot will win the 2026 Israeli legislative election is effectively immaterial. With or without Netanyahu, the Obliteration Doctrine will prevail.

Netanyahu brought to power the most far-right Messianic government in Israeli history. Naftali Bennett is a millionaire politician and the ex-leader of a religious Zionist far-right party. Ironically, the more “moderate” of the three is the ex-military chief Gadi Eisenkot who first tested the Obliteration Doctrine in Dahiya, a Shia enclave in Beirut in 2006.

The greatest threat to Israel’s long-term future is not external enemies alone, but the transformation of military escalation into a permanent governing principle. Once security policy becomes inseparable from territorial expansion, ethnic cleansing and perpetual warfare, the consequences extend far beyond the battlefield.

Keep reading

‘Trade over Aid’: GOP Resolution Introduced to Phase Out U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Republican Reps. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ) have introduced a resolution calling for the phased elimination of the $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel and its replacement with a partnership focused on trade, joint technology development, and strategic cooperation — a proposal endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The nonbinding resolution, introduced Wednesday, urges the United States and Israel to negotiate a memorandum of understanding before the current ten-year agreement expires in 2028. Under the proposal, direct military assistance would be gradually phased out and replaced by a framework centered on joint defense cooperation, co-development, co-production, and mutual investment.

The effort comes with Netanyahu’s backing.

Following a May 27 meeting in Jerusalem with Stutzman and Hamadeh, Netanyahu sent a June 1 letter expressing support for the initiative and embracing its broader vision of transitioning the U.S.-Israel relationship from one based on aid to one based on partnership.

Keep reading

Digitally annexing the West Bank: Israel moves its theft of Palestinian land online

Israel’s annexation of the West Bank is moving full steam ahead on the ground, but it’s also going online. Last Wednesday, the Israeli government launched a new digital platform for registering lands in the West Bank, open for use by Israelis and Israeli corporations.

The new platform allows the registration of property and applies to lands in Area C of the West Bank, which comprises over 60% of the territory under the 1993 Oslo Accords. The rest of the West Bank is divided into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has varying degrees of civil and security control.

The launching of the platform comes on the heels of previous Israeli moves to alter how land ownership works in the West Bank, starting with an Israeli government decision in June 2025 to make Palestinian lands in Area C open to registration by anybody, including Israeli settlers. Since then, the Israeli government has taken several more steps to advance its annexation of the West Bank — not only with laws that lay the groundwork for annexation, but by exercising actual Israeli authority over Palestinian lands. 

Now, these measures have moved to the digital realm, making it even easier for Israelis to take control of Palestinian land in the West Bank. The PA has already condemned the online Israeli land registry as “a step towards actual annexation,” calling upon Palestinians to refrain from using the platform. 

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli Knesset member Orit Strock, both hardline supporters of the Israeli settler movement, called the project “a fundamental pillar of implementing [Israeli] sovereignty” over the West Bank.

Keep reading

Why Trump May Actually Have Told Netanyahu ‘Everybody Hates You!’

“You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

According to Axios, this is what Donald Trump said to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in “an expletive-laden call” earlier today.

Trump also accused Netanyahu of ingratitude since Trump had helped keep Netanyahu out of jail. At the heart of the matter was Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu not caving to his demands to cease bombing Lebanon, as Israel’s aggression risked jeopardizing Trump’s diplomacy with Iran.

The story has understandably been met with considerable skepticism. After all, there is a long and well-documented pattern of American presidents privately expressing anger and frustration with Israeli prime ministers while publicly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them and continuing to support their policies.

Take Joe Biden as an example. In late December 2023, Axios reported that Biden’s frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu had become so intense that he abruptly ended a phone call with the Israeli leader, reportedly concluding the exchange with the terse remark: “This conversation is over.” Yet in practice, Biden remained firmly aligned with Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.

Two months later, NBC News reported that Biden had repeatedly referred to Netanyahu as an “asshole” in private conversations with aides and donors. But even as he vented his exasperation behind closed doors, Biden continued to arm Israel lavishly and shield it from mounting diplomatic and political pressure at the United Nations. The gap between private frustration and public policy could hardly have been more striking.

According to Bob Woodward’s 2024 book War, Biden’s frustrations became intensely personal during the Rafah dispute and Biden told an associate: “That son of a bitch, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad f***ing guy.” No policy change followed.

There are plenty of other examples.

There are, however, a few important counterexamples – particularly from Trump’s second term – that suggest the Axios story is not entirely implausible. (Indeed, the report would have been far more difficult to believe had Axios claimed that Trump told Netanyahu, “Everybody loves you.”)

Keep reading

Selling dead bodies to the US Navy for Israeli military training?

Medical case manager Miriam Volpin was at work in Nevada when she received a disturbing message from a student journalist at the University of Southern California (USC).

That student, Jennifer Nehrer, was part of a team investigating allegations that bodies donated to the school for education and scientific research were being sold to the United States Armed Forces. Some may even have ended up in the hands of Israeli military surgeons.

“I just got sick to my stomach,” Volpin told Al Jazeera.

Her 101-year-old mother, Jeanette, had died in 2021. A former flight nurse who served in World War II, Jeanette had arranged to donate her body to USC.

Volpin now fears her mother’s body was among those used to train surgical teams for conflicts like Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The AJ+ documentary series Direct From caught up with Volpin and other family members who wonder whether the remains of their loved ones were used to provide training for military personnel.

Direct From also met with the student journalists who broke the story in 2025, to take their investigation further.

Their reporting revealed that USC was one of two schools in southern California that provided cadavers to the US Navy for Israeli surgical teams.

Records show that, since 2018, USC has supplied at least 89 fresh cadavers as part of agreements involving training for both the US Navy and Israeli military personnel.

Public information about the Israeli training is limited. But a 2020 medical paper written by USC and US Navy instructors offers a rare glimpse inside the process.

Keep reading

Far-Left Media Claims Trump Unloaded on Netanyahu During Heated Call Over Lebanon Conflict

President Donald Trump is once again demonstrating that he is the only world leader capable of preventing a wider Middle East war while simultaneously protecting America’s interests and maintaining peace through strength.

On Monday, President Trump announced that he personally intervened to stop a major Israeli operation targeting Beirut, Lebanon, stating that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to reverse course after a direct conversation between the two leaders.

Trump announced on Truth Social:

“I had a conversation with Bibi Netanyahu today, asking him not to go into a major raid of Beirut, Lebanon. He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi! I also had a conversation with Representatives of the Leaders of Hezbollah, and they agreed to stop shooting at Israel, and its soldiers. Likewise, Israel agreed to stop shooting at them. Let’s see how long that lasts — Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!”

The president’s remarks came amid rapidly escalating tensions along Israel’s northern border after renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah threatened to derail ongoing diplomatic efforts in the region. Reuters, CBS News, and other outlets reported that Trump publicly claimed Israel had turned back troops heading toward Beirut following his conversation with Netanyahu.

But while Trump publicly celebrated a temporary de-escalation, Netanyahu made clear that Israel’s military posture has not fundamentally changed.

In a statement posted on X, Netanyahu said:

“Tonight, I spoke with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens—Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut. This stance of ours remains unchanged. In parallel, the IDF will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.”

Keep reading

Yemen’s Prisoner Swap and the UAE–Israel Project Saudi Arabia Couldn’t Bury

Behind a UN-backed prisoner exchange between Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis lies a deeper story of islands, radar, black sites, and a southern Yemen security order Riyadh chose to dismantle after years of coalition decay. This proxy network stretching from Yemen’s Socotra Island to Bosaso on Somalia’s coast, across the maritime corridor between the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, was built on torture, constant sea surveillance and coalition infighting, only to be sold to the world by Western navies as “freedom of navigation.”

After January 2026, we were told that this decade-long tripartite between the UAE, Israel, and the Yemeni separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) had been dismantled. But how much of that machinery still stands, under new flags and quieter names, waiting for the next round? Since January 2026, the noise has been about “dissolving” the STC and managing Saudi–UAE friction, but what almost no one has asked is whether the UAE–Israel island pact, its radars, runways and black‑site prisons strung along Yemen’s southern waters, ever stopped operating, or just slipped under friendlier flags.

Riyadh’s strike on the STC shattered a larger Red Sea order

On 14 May 2026, negotiators for Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and Ansarallah signed the country’s largest prisoner exchange since the war began, agreeing in Amman to swap more than 1,600 detainees under UN auspices. Saudi Arabia helped facilitate the deal behind the scenes, while the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council stayed out of sight and the UAE had no formal role at the table, even though some of the war’s most notorious detention networks grew out of the southern security order they built together. For families searching prisons, camps, and unofficial detention sites, the agreement offered a rare opening in a war that turned disappearance into routine.

Keep reading

‘Ceasefire Is a Joke’: Israeli Soldiers Recount Ongoing Indiscriminate Killings in Gaza

Israel Defense Forces soldiers interviewed for an article published Friday by The Associated Press described ongoing indiscriminate killing of Palestinians – including civilians – despite a purported ceasefire.

One IDF combat soldier told the AP that he saw his teammates “yelling in celebration” and “congratulating one another” after blowing up a vehicle driving near the ever-expanding so-called “yellow line” dividing the Gaza Strip into Israeli and Palestinian-controlled zones. The strike killed everyone inside the vehicle.

“It was a jungle,” the soldier said. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”

The problem is, the yellow line is often unclear, invisible, and often shifts. It cuts through farmland, roads, neighborhoods, and areas where Palestinians live and work.

Nadav Weiman, an IDF veteran who is now the executive director of the veterans’ whistleblower group Breaking the Silence, told the AP that the military’s permissive shoot-to-kill policy has “created a reality where countless civilians have and are being killed for crossing invisible lines.”

One IDF soldier interviewed by the AP said “there was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable.” The soldier said his commanding officer told him it would be “too much work” to clearly mark the yellow line, and that Palestinians were supposed to somehow know where it was.

According to the AP, one soldier said that “sometimes snipers fired warning shots at people close to the line… but commanders told troops to do more to protect themselves. The soldier understood that to mean firing more lethal shots.”

“Soldiers shooting or ordering drone strikes don’t always know who’s crossing the line,” the AP reported, citing interviewed troops. “Although soldiers must provide coordinates and get approval from superiors before striking, it’s hard to give exact information as people are moving,” and soldiers reported colleagues “calling in coordinates based on a hunch or the last place they saw someone.”

IDF troops interviewed by the AP also described “a sense of confusion” and “a lack of clarity on rules of engagement around the yellow line.” Some commanders “paid lip service” to the ceasefire agreement that’s been in effect since last October, but in practice ignored it.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 3,005 times, resulting in more than 900 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,800 others injured, despite the truce.

“To call it a ceasefire is a joke,” one IDF soldier told the AP.

Israel claims that the entire length of the yellow line is now clearly marked. However, as Common Dreams reported this week, the IDF has incrementally shifted the boundary deeper into Gaza, where Israel now controls more than 60% of the coastal strip. This has left Palestinians sometimes waking up to learn they’re in “open-fire zones” where they are subjected to being shot on sight.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including thousands of people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Israeli troops have previously described indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, including children and aid-seekers.

Keep reading

Israeli Claims About an Iran ‘Threat’ Were Always a Lie. Now We Have Proof

Could it be that Israel’s 30-year narrative about Iran – one that persuaded US President Donald Trump to wage a criminal and disastrous war of aggression – was always a fiction, an invention cooked up in Tel Aviv?

Far from Tehran posing an existential danger to Israel, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed for decades, might Israel’s real fear be that a stronger Iran would undermine its unique leverage over Washington, threatening its status as the region’s sole – and unmonitored – nuclear power?

Might large parts of the globe be facing economic meltdown simply so that Israel can remain the Middle East’s top dog – an unaccountable apartheid state committing genocide against the Palestinian people and ethnically cleansing southern Lebanon?

We got a definitive answer last week, care of the New York Times. It is an uncompromising yes to all of these questions.

The newspaper reported that Netanyahu not only mis-sold Trump on the idea of quick regime change in Iran following a short “shock and awe” bombing campaign. He also identified to the White House who was going to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader.

Extraordinarily, according to the Times, Netanyahu named the man for the job as former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The aim at the start of the air campaign was for Israel to kill Khamenei, then liberate Ahmadinejad from house arrest by striking the guards who were confining him.

Presumably, Ahmadinejad was then supposed to storm the citadel and seize the keys to the palace. But only Khamenei’s assassination went according to plan.

Ahmadinejad, who had reportedly been consulted on the scheme beforehand, is believed to have been injured in the Israeli strike near his home. He got cold feet, possibly suspecting he was being set up for assassination too, and went into hiding. His current whereabouts and medical condition are unknown.

Keep reading