Tag: israel

US Believed Israel Tried To Assassinate Iran’s Top Negotiators As Ghalibaf’s Plane Made Emergency Landing

The New York Times has issued a new report citing unnamed US officials who believe that Israel came close to assassinating Iran’s top negotiators Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

According to the report, a concrete Israeli threat against Ghalibaf and the FM emerged while they were traveling back to Iran from Islamabad following talks with US Vice President JD Vance on April 12.

Prior to that point, during active fighting, Israel had worked its way through killing much of Iran’s senior leadership starting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but questions lingered over whether the country’s top negotiators – who have come to represent Tehran on the global stage – could be deemed legitimate targets.

Even as Washington and regional brokers stepped in to try and halt the prospect of runaway conflict, wherein the US would find itself in yet another ‘forever war’ and quagmire, Israel still floated the potential for more assassinations targeting top Islamic Republic leadership. 

The NYT, citing officials, sets up the mid-April near-miss incident as follows:

In April, Mr. Ghalibaf was set to travel to Islamabad to meet with Vice President JD Vance. But Iranian security officials were concerned that Israel would use the opportunity to assassinate Mr. Ghalibaf or Mr. Araghchi to derail the talks, the officials said.

Iranians sought guarantees from the United States, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not carry out any covert operations targeting the Iranian delegation, the officials said.

Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.

But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.

From there, Iranian security forces reportedly notified Ghalibaf’s plane of intelligence indicating that Israel planned to attack the aircraft – and the delegation took the warning seriously enough to divert from the original flight path and make an emergency landing in Mashhad, northeastern Iran.

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Massie Introduces Resolution to Honor USS Liberty Crew, Declassify All Records.

America First GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced a resolution today honoring the crew of the USS Liberty, which Israel attacked 59 years ago as the ship patrolled international waters.

The resolution, which condemns the “unprovoked” Israeli attack, names the 34 dead, and calls upon the president to declassify records related to the attack.

It also condemns Israel.

Top U.S. military officials at the time called the attack deliberate, while Israel weakly claimed the attack was a case of “mistaken identity.”

Weeks ago, Massie called for a new investigation into the attack. Those who oppose discussing the Liberty or investigating it often call questions about it “antisemitic.”

The Unprovoked Attack

Sailing in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967, the Liberty was collecting signals intelligence related to Israel’s Six-Day War with nearby Arab states, notably Egypt.

The ship flew an American flag and was otherwise clearly marked.

Israeli reconnaissance aircraft surveilled the ship for more than six hours, flying as low as 200 feet, the Liberty Association website explains. Despite that surveillance, Israeli jets attacked the ship relentlessly for almost 25 minutes.

When it was over, 34 Americans were dead and 171 wounded. Captain William McGonagle received the Medal of Honor for heroism in secret. His citation says he received the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. It does not name the country that attacked the Liberty. 

Fighter jets sent to defend the ship from two American aircraft carriers, the USS America and USS Saratoga, were recalled.

Recalling the aircraft, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer wrote for the Houston Chronicle in 2004, “was the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my entire military career.”

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Why Iran Believes Israel Will Attack Again Before October

Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.

Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep – and not entirely unwarranted – suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.

From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran – one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.

That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.

Part of it was because of Israel’s much higher pain tolerance compared to the GCC states. Tehran was aiming to reach the most accessible pain threshold to pressure the US to end the war. But part of it was the critical role Hezbollah played in the war, contrary to much of the press coverage at the time. It played a critical role in stretching Israel’s defenses, complicating its targeting decisions, and forcing it to divide resources across multiple fronts.

That role, however, was poorly understood because Israel imposed near-total military censorship during the war – far stricter than the censorship regime in June 2025 – which sharply limited public visibility into Hezbollah’s operations and their impact. As a result, the degree to which Hezbollah shaped the course of the war has been significantly underestimated.

Unlike the MOU, the current Israeli-Lebanese agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Since that outcome is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Israel is poised to retain its positions inside Lebanon, enabling it to renew the war with Iran without facing the same pressure from its northern front that constrained it during the previous conflict.

Netanyahu’s motivations are clear. Beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favorable to Israel, he now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war.

The MOU has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu. His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position – undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.

And of course, if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as Prime Minister and face trial over corruption charges.

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Marco Rubio Helps Israel Pursue Goal of Civil War in Lebanon

After President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance committed the United States to a deconfliction cell with Iran in Switzerland – a mechanism enforcing a ceasefire in Lebanon as well as Iran – Israel and its powerful lobby moved instantly to sabotage it. And in a preview of the sorts of foreign policy fissures that will likely define the 2028 GOP primary, the lobby has deployed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the man to pursue Israel’s interests and pave the way for Israel’s further occupation of Lebanon.

The first article of the 60-day interim agreement signed by the U.S. and Iran conditions an end to the conflict on the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” and on “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.” That second clause, more than any other, appears to be the one Israel is most reluctant to accept.

Despite Israeli withdrawal now required to end a war that now threatens to destabilize the entire global economy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said that Israel would occupy southern Lebanon indefinitely, stating that “we dominate southern Lebanon, from the summit of the Beaufort, and we will remain as long as required,” adding that “we do not intend to withdraw from it.” Defense Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said there was “no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,” and that Israel would not withdraw even if there were one, later telling reporters that southern Lebanon was Israel’s “playground.”

That Iran has set out to secure the complete “territorial integrity” of Lebanon is unacceptable to Israel, which seeks to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon and possibly further north, with the goal of seizing the land for the Greater Israel Project.

In order to sabotage a deconfliction track outlined in Switzerland and continue their endless project to secure more lebensraum, the Israelis have turned to the U.S. State Department and the Israel Lobby’s man in charge, Marco Rubio, whose spearheaded deconfliction framework was signed by the governments of Israel and Lebanon in Washington on Friday.

Intended to supplant the one announced by Vance – which the Times of Israel reported “infuriated Israel” – Rubio’s agreement strips out the guarantee of Lebanese territorial integrity that Iran insists is necessary to end the war and replaces it with an Israeli wishlist that includes permissions for continued Israeli occupation of a “security zone” and a plan to deputize Lebanese forces to accomplish the likely-impossible objective of “disarming” Hezbollah.

Such an agreement is unacceptable to Hezbollah, which has vowed to keep fighting until Israeli forces leave Lebanon. That is why Israel and Marco Rubio deliberately excluded the group from the deal, producing a “peace deal” between two warring parties to which only one of them agreed.

Indeed, although the deal was pitched by Marco Rubio as “a framework for lasting peace and security,” statements made by Israelis and Hezbollah in recent days reveal that narrative to be nothing more than propaganda designed exclusively for Western audiences. On Israel’s Channel 13 after the signing of the Rubio deal, an Israeli analyst remarked how “it seems we’re leading the state of Lebanon into civil war,” adding “maybe it’s not so bad for us, let the Lebanese government fight Hezbollah.” That was “the goal from the start,” replied his co-host. Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, who is close to Hezbollah, agreed with the Israeli assessment, telling Al-Mayadeen on Friday that Lebanese ​authorities would not be able to enforce the agreement signed ‌in ‌Washington ​on ‌Friday ⁠unless, with ​U.S. backing, “they go ⁠to civil war.”

As John Mearsheimer foresaw in April, “what I think Netanyahu wants to do is to foment civil war in Lebanon, a war with the government on one side and Hezbollah on the other,” describing the strategy as a way of weakening them both. “The Israelis can’t disarm Hezbollah, so they want the Lebanese government to do it.”

In response to questions about the apparent divergence between the Lebanon frameworks pursued by JD Vance and Marco Rubio, the White House has denied that any divisions exist at all. Israel Katz has essentially said the same, admitting that even after Trump linked the Iran and Lebanon tracks and demanded that Israel stop “bringing down buildings in Beirut,” the IDF expanded ground operations north of the Litani River and enlarged its occupation of southern Lebanon, all of it, Katz said, “carried out with U.S. approval.”

Whether the intra-administration split is real or kayfabe, the status quo in Lebanon and its spoiling effect for a peace deal remain the same.

Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. 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 studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).

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Israeli authorities arrest 20-year-old American citizen in Jerusalem on suspicion of conducting espionage missions for Iranian intelligence

In a major joint counterintelligence operation, the Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency announced the arrest of a 20-year-old American citizen residing in the Jerusalem area on suspicion of conducting espionage missions for Iranian intelligence.

The suspect, whose identity remains withheld under court-authorized restrictions, was taken into custody following critical intelligence provided by a number of undisclosed security agencies.

A prosecutor’s statement was formally filed in court, a mandatory legal precursor signaling that a formal indictment and a request to hold the individual without bail until the conclusion of legal proceedings will be submitted.

According to security officials, the investigation revealed that the suspect had been actively maintaining contact with operatives acting on behalf of Iranian intelligence agencies over the course of several months.

During this period, the American reportedly accepted and executed numerous assignments that primarily involved documenting and photographing sensitive strategic sites across Israel. In exchange for the surveillance data and media, the suspect allegedly received financial compensation “ranging from dozens to hundreds of U.S. dollars per completed task.”

The arrest comes amid a sharp spike in Iranian-directed espionage operations inside Israel, which have increasingly relied on recruiting local residents and foreign nationals through digital platforms.

Chief Inspector Amichai Panta, an investigations officer with the Jerusalem District’s Major Crimes Unit, emphasized the gravity of the case, noting that multiple espionage operations have been dismantled recently, with some suspects operating directly during active wartime to aid hostile foreign plots.

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Americans Want Peace, Israel Wants War

America wants peace. Israel wants war. The great majority of Americans want an end to the war against Iran. The great majority in Congress just want more contributions from the Israel Lobby and its supporters.

Now, most members of Congress are really squirming. They know that most of their constituents are fed up with foreign wars and want this stupid war in Iran over, the sooner the better.

But they are afraid to criticize Israel’s war for fear of the Israel Lobby steering big campaign contributions against them. Their silence is deafening.

Most members are trying to keep quiet. Almost no one other than Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, and the Israel First crowd are enthusiastic about this war.

The only ones speaking out strongly in favor of it are members who have received and/or who hope to receive millions in campaign contributions from the Lobby like Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Tom Cotton and others.

They didn’t even criticize Israel when it was starving and killing more than 20,000 children in Gaza. Congress would have rushed to pass a resolution of condemnation if it had been done in any other country than Israel.

But the killing goes on, even during so-called ceasefires. Thousands have been killed over this past year by Israeli forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.

We don’t hear and see as much about all this killing because Israel was losing the public relations battle, and pro-Israel billionaires bought up significant parts of the national media that they did not already own.  Lesser-known conservative “influencers” and podcasters were given money, and 1,000 ministers were given free trips to Israel. Even TikTok was bought because its coverage was supposedly causing too many teenagers to have anti-Israel opinions.

However, all the pro-Israel propaganda has not worked so far. Even President Trump has apparently gotten angry at times with Netanyahu, telling him at one point that he shouldn’t blow up an entire apartment building to get at one person.

And Vice President Vance told the world in a press conference that Israel’s cabinet should realize that President Trump was the only world leader still supporting  Netanyahu and that two-thirds of all the military equipment and ammunition used by the IDF in these latest wars had been paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

The very few members of Congress and commentators who are criticizing President Trump for giving into Iran in the Memorandum he signed need to be asked what their alternative is.

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Israel-Lebanon Deal On Life Support: Israel Won’t Withdraw, And Lebanon’s Christians Are Split On Whether It’s A Lifeline Or A Trap

The US-brokered “Trilateral Framework” signed in Washington on June 26 — sold as a “first step toward peace” — is fraying within days. The 14-point deal ties any Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the “verified disarmament of non-state armed groups,” a plain reference to Hezbollah. A now-public security annex states: further IDF pullbacks are conditioned on “results, not time” — on “successful completion of agreed upon and verifiable disarmament,” with no withdrawal timeline at all. Israel can therefore stay indefinitely and call it legal.

Netanyahu, visiting troops in the self-declared “security zone” alongside Defense Minister Israel Katz, said Israel “will not leave southern Lebanon until the threat has disappeared”; Katz added they “will not withdraw a millimeter” until Hezbollah is disarmed. Since disarmament is the precondition for a withdrawal Israel refuses to start, the sequencing seems circular by design. Israeli strikes have continued across the south, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem branded the deal “null and void,” a “humiliation,” and vowed to keep fighting until Israel leaves — a rejection driven by the Iran-backed militia’s determination to keep its weapons and its war, not by any concern for the Lebanese state.

The Christian angle is where Western coverage flattens a real divide — and it’s worth getting right, because Israel has a documented history of cultivating Lebanese politicians.

On one side, Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces cheered the pact as “the most significant political step taken by the Lebanese state in half a century.” But Geagea is the most Israel-friendly voice in Lebanese politics — so his enthusiasm should be weighed accordingly, not taken as the Christian consensus.

The Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon’s second largest Christian party, founded by former President Michel Aoun and led by Gebran Bassil, did not celebrate but seems open to finding a way forward. Bassil’s verdict: the agreement “is beneficial if we regain all our rights, and dangerous if it is a recipe for strife,” demanding “responsible engagement.” The party said it backs “a comprehensive and lasting peace” but that peace “cannot be achieved through surrendering to Israeli demands or sacrificing Lebanese rights,” warning the framework “lacks guarantees for Israeli withdrawal” and that its use of “redeployment” instead of withdrawal leaves “the door open for the continuation of the occupation.”

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Chilling Report Finds Israel Deliberately Targeting Children As Genocide In Gaza Continues

Tension over Israel continues to grow within US political discourse. From both sides of the aisle, people’s attitudes towards the Zionist settler-colonial project are souring. Israel is the most disliked it has ever been, with a recent survey from the Pew Research Center finding that the majority of people across 36 countries hold unfavorable views of Israel and Netanyahu, with the number as high as 60% among Americans.

Support for Israeli war crimes continues to drive a rift between both parties. Just this week, opposition to Israel played a key role in the outcomes of New York’s congressional primaries, with anti-Zionist candidates receiving sweeping victories over candidates backed by establishment Democrats. Meanwhile, on the right, conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson officially announced he was leaving the Republican Party specifically due to its continued support for Israel.

These sentiments will likely only continue to grow in light of a new report recently released by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. From the very beginning, the report is unambiguous in its findings with the headline reading “the essence of childhood has been destroyed.” In it, the inquiry found conclusive evidence that Israeli forces have consistently and deliberately targeted children in Gaza, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and including within protected refugee camps, resulting in the death of at least 20,179 and injury of 44,143 since October 7th, 2023.

According to the report, among those killed, 5,031 were under the age of five, while more than 1,000 were under one year of age. Most disheartning, the inquiry found that approximately 420 of those killed were newborn babies.

The commission noted the actual number of child casualties is “certainly higher”, due to the amount of unaccounted child victims who are missing or buried under rubble, estimated to be roughly an additional 5,160.

The commission interviewed 17 medical professionals who had worked at hospitals across Gaza. Among them, one doctor attested that many of the injuries they documented were akin to “a game of target practice”, with Israeli snipers targeting different body parts of teenage boys on different days. With other doctors documenting similar acts of deliberate depravity.

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The NDAA Proposed Merger of the US and Israeli Military Is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional

Prior to the American Revolution being fought on battlefields, it was fought as an argument about sovereignty.

Who decides the fate of a nation? Who commands its armies? Who determines when its citizens go to war and when they remain at peace?

The Founders answered those questions with remarkable clarity. In a republic, sovereignty belongs to the people and is exercised through constitutional institutions accountable to them. Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2027 threatens to undermine the foundational principles of our republic and our constitutional democracy.

Advocates for Section 219 describe it as a strategic partnership, a modernization of military cooperation between the United States and Israel. Yet the language of the provision reaches far beyond cooperation. It calls for the integration of military planning, intelligence sharing, technological development, procurement systems, research capabilities, and strategic operations in ways that blur the distinction between two sovereign nations.

This is not merely a policy question, it is a constitutional one.

America has alliances with many nations. We cooperate with allies. We conduct joint exercises. We share intelligence. However, there is a profound difference between cooperation and integration.

Cooperation preserves independent decision making.

Integration creates pressure toward shared decision making and shared consequences.

The Constitution was deliberately designed to prevent precisely this type of entanglement.

The President serves as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. Congress possesses the authority to declare war. Together these provisions were meant to ensure that decisions involving American lives, American treasure, and American military power remain accountable to the American people.

Section 219 moves the nation in the opposite direction. It creates permanent structures through which military, intelligence, technological, and strategic functions become increasingly intertwined with those of another government. Even if no formal transfer of command occurs, the practical effect is to make American decision making dependent upon relationships and commitments that exist far beyond the reach of American voters.

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American Liberals Silent as Hamas Crushes Anti-Hamas Protests

The “Free Palestine” movement has remained silent on the arrest, torture, and murder of anti-Hamas protesters in Palestine. The violence and repression committed by the Hamas terrorist organization against Palestinian civilians throw a wrinkle into its narrative blaming Israel and President Trump for all of the suffering in Gaza. The protests also dispel claims by the American left that Gazans want to be ruled by Hamas or that Hamas is the legitimate governing authority.

For the second time in little more than a year, Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets demanding an end to Hamas rule. According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Hamas’s approval rating fell from 52 percent in December 2023 to 43 percent by May 2025. The demonstrations, organized as the “June 26 Peaceful Revolution,” reflected growing anger over nearly two decades of Hamas control, the devastation of the war, and allegations of corruption and repression.

The protests were organized across 18 locations throughout the Gaza Strip. Demonstrators called on Hamas to disarm and transfer civil administration to a transitional governing authority.

Hamas responded with a sweeping crackdown. Security forces arrested organizers, kidnapped suspected participants, threatened demonstrators, and used mosques to denounce the protests before many rallies could begin. Armed operatives arrested Gazans in the streets, seized mobile phones, restricted movement around displaced persons camps, and rounded up others at hospitals.

Although the crackdown prevented large-scale demonstrations in many areas, hundreds of Palestinians defied the threats and publicly called for Hamas’s removal.

In the days preceding the protests, Hamas launched what activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born Palestinian now living in exile in the United States, described as an “industrial-scale campaign of terror, intimidation, interrogation, and blackmail” against thousands of Gazans who had planned to participate.

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