Tag: perpetual war

The Israeli Knesset just voted to dissolve itself, but this won’t end the Gaza genocide

Israel might change its government sooner than expected after the Israeli Knesset voted to dissolve itself last week. The bill presented to the parliamentary body on May 20, which passed with a majority of 110 votes in favor and no opposing votes, could lead to early elections in September rather than November of this year. The vote was held in the absence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is set to be reconsidered at three more readings before moving toward implementation.

If passed, the current Knesset will expire, along with the government coalition based on its composition and the current cabinet led by Netanyahu. According to Israeli polls, Netanyahu’s main coalition allies, namely hardline ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have low chances of winning. Although the two main opposition leaders, Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid, joined forces in a new party, polls indicate that Netanyahu’s Likud Party would still win 56 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. This leaves the Likud as the main political force in Israel, but without enough of a majority to form a government on its own, forcing it to form a coalition with other opposition parties.

The vote came amid renewed controversy surrounding the military drafting of Orthodox Haredi Israelis to military service. Haredi leaders presented the bill after Netanyahu’s government failed to advance another bill to exempt the Haredis from military service. 

The vote to dissolve the Knesset also comes amid mounting criticism of Netanyahu over his performance during the war on Iran and the security failure on October 7, 2023.

But what would the dissolution of the Israeli Knesset mean for Palestinians? And what does it say about the current state of Israeli politics that Netanyahu didn’t oppose the vote to move to early elections?

The short answer is: not much, or at least not for the better. Israel’s opposition parties have backed the war on Gaza, the expansion of settlements, and the war on Lebanon just as fervently as Netanyahu’s coalition, and in some cases have criticized him for not going far enough. Any new government will most likely pursue the same fundamental policies toward Palestinians. In the near term, the more pressing concern is what the current government will do to shore up its electoral standing before it leaves office. Precedent suggests that means further escalation.

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ICE Arrests Daughter of Cuban Communist Regime ‘Old Guard’ General

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently arrested Alina Rosales Aguirreurreta, daughter of General Ulises Rosales del Toro, a longtime key figure of the communist Castro regime.

ICE sources confirmed to Martí Noticias on Tuesday that Rosales Aguirreurreta, who is a doctor according to past statements from her family, was arrested in Florida. Her 84-year-old father, General Rosales del Toro, is widely described as part of the Cuban regime’s “old guard.” While keeping a relatively low profile from the public, the Cuban general has reportedly exerted significant political and military power in Cuba throughout the years thanks to his deep ties with both late dictator Fidel Castro and his brother and successor, Raúl Castro.

Rosales del Toro has occupied several high-ranking positions in the Cuban regime and the Cuban Communist Party over the past decades — including, but not limited to, vice president of the council of ministers, agriculture minister, and chief of the general staff of the revolutionary armed forces (FAR) in addition to holding the honorary title of “Hero of the Republic of Cuba.”

Martí Noticias first reported Alina Rosales Aguirreurreta’s presence in United States territory in February. According to testimonies given by her relatives, Rosales Aguirreurreta is reportedly believed to have entered the United States in 2023 during the administration of former President Joe Biden with a U.S. B-1/B-2 non-immigrant visa issued in Havana and has resided in Miami— staying in southern Florida hoping to adjust her migratory status.

“Let it be clear: the henchmen of the Castro regime and their accomplices have no place in the United States,” Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) wrote in a social media post applauding the arrest of Rosales Aguirreurreta.

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Inside The Effort To Build Ukraine’s Ground Robot Arsenal

With ground maneuver a huge risk thanks to the ubiquity of deadly aerial drones, Ukraine is increasingly relying on uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) to move supplies, rescue the wounded, shoot down drones, lay mines and even fight battles. As a result, the head of the country’s defense technology incubator has been tasked with ensuring that there are enough of these systems to meet the voracious demand.

These efforts are being closely watched. Five years into an existential fight, Ukraine has become a global leader in ground drone technology. Kyiv is deploying these systems at a scale and pace that even the most advanced militaries can’t come close to keeping up with.

In an exclusive hour-long interview earlier this month, Brave1 CEO Andrii Hrytseniuk spoke with us about how Ukraine is set to produce tens of thousands of UGVs this year, how they are being used, and the importance of artificial intelligence in increasing the efficiency of these robots in combat.

This is the second of a two part interview. The first part focused on Ukraine’s interceptor drones, which you can read here.

Some of the questions and answers have been edited for clarity.

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Israel Says It Will Not Let Trump Sign A Bad Peace Deal

Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich gave comments to reporters today on the wars.

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

“We need to cut the electricity in Lebanon.

“If the Lebanese government does not control Hezbollah, then the territory south of the Litani — and even south of the Zahrani — must become a ‘security zone’ for the State of Israel. 

“We need to cut the electricity, destroy the infrastructure, and make clear to them: if there is terrorism, you will suffer.

“In light of the reactions around the world, you can understand one thing: Israel has stopped being the punching bag of the Middle East — and I’m proud of that.

“The policy I lead is not a policy of giving them sandwiches and flowers. That doesn’t help. It doesn’t help. They come again and again and again. They mock us. They call us suckers when we behave the way they expect us to.

“You saw that even the Europeans apparently learned something — surprisingly, it works. The message gets through.

“The Israeli government will not let Trump sign a “bad deal” with Iran.

“I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu: call Trump, go to him, bang on the table in front of him, and make clear that the State of Israel is not willing — not willing to accept this, not willing to tolerate this.”


Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:

“The most effective way to stop Hezbollah is simply to announce that for every drone, 10 buildings in Beirut will be destroyed.

“If there were seven drones, then 70 buildings. If there were 15, then 150.

“And if the buildings in Beirut run out, then we move on to Tyre, Sidon, and the Beqaa Valley.

“We are changing the Middle East. Iran is far weaker today, even if it has not yet collapsed — and that too is a goal we will achieve, with God’s help.

“Look at what Gaza looks like. Look at what Lebanon looks like.

“We are completely changing the equations.

“We are striking our enemies hard — not with one blow, but with 100 blows.

“Have we finished? Not yet.

“The war must end with there being no Hamas in Gaza. Period.

“We are in 60% of the Gaza Strip, and there will be no reconstruction without demilitarization and without completing the mission — the destruction of Hamas.

“I’m convinced Netanyahu — and I take my hat off to him and give him full credit for this — knew how to bring Trump and the United States to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against the Iranian threat.

“We have the most supportive administration that has ever been in the White House.  There has never been anything like it.”

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Five Shameless Moments of Iran War Opportunism & Grifting

As the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz threatens an already tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, many at home are looking to profit. Below are five examples of wartime grifters, profiteers, and opportunists absolutely outdoing themselves.

Lockheed Martin CEO: wartime Trump Pentagon a “golden opportunity”

Late last month, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet lavished praise on the Trump administration for rolling out the red carpet to the defense industry.

“This is a golden opportunity right now based on who’s in government,” Taiclet told investors during an earnings call. He cited in particular officials’ “willingness to change” and “the demand that they have for what we do and what our partners in our industry do.”

That “demand” of course is war, and the administration has pretty much been in it since Trump’s 2025 inauguration, from supporting Israel in its Gaza and Lebanon operations, firefights with the Houthis, and now Iran. Lockheed has signed billions in contracts with the Pentagon since the beginning of the year, mostly to replenish missiles. Lockheed Martin also has an agreement with the Pentagon to quadruple its production of THAAD interceptors by 2027.

And the U.S. has used many of them both. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies found late last month, the U.S. has burned up over 45% of its Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) and roughly half of its THAAD and Patriot missile defense interceptors.

To refill these stocks, the U.S. is mulling a possible Iran war supplemental package — slated to cost an estimated $80 to $100 billion — to replace lost munitions and other military equipment. According to Mike Fredenburg in his reporting for RS in 2024, the U.S. pays way too much for each missile, a lot more than it should for say, a SM-2 missile ($1.2 million-$2 million a piece) or SM-6 (upwards of $5 million each), but since there are only a handful of prime contractors in the business, they can charge whatever they want.

As Stephen Semler, journalist and co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, tells RS, “The interceptor shortage will be addressed in the military-industrial-congressional complex’s favorite way: throw money at the problem.”

Trump’s sons roll in the drone industry dough

Powerus, a drone firm funded by President Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., received an Air Force contract for an unspecified number of interceptor drones last week. Bloomberg reported last month that Powerus is also in talks with the United Arab Emirates about a potential sale of drones that can counter Iranian attacks.

In recent months, the Trump brothers have gone all out on defense tech, lining themselves up to profit from the wars their father is waging. Besides Powerus, Eric Trump has invested in Israeli attack drone firm and DoD contractor Xtend, whose drones have seen use in Iran, through a multimillion dollar contract with an unnamed Middle Eastern government. Donald Trump Jr., for his part, backs drone parts startup Unusual Machines and is also a partner at defense- and tech-oriented venture capital (VC) firm 1789 Capital.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine, also joined Powerus as an advisor last month, mere months after leaving his diplomatic post — likewise positioning himself to cash in on his time in government.

Defense-contractor funded think tanker: Iran war is a bargain!

Last week, the Pentagon estimated that the Iran war has cost about $25 billion. Matthew Kroenig, a senior director at the defense contractor-funded Atlantic Council, called the low-ball price tag a “very good value.”

“The entire U.S. defense budget is roughly $1 trillion and designed to deal with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,” Kroenig wrote on X. “It only cost 2.5% of the annual defense budget to seriously degrade one of the four.”

But others have to pay for Kroenig’s bargain.

“I’m sure the farmers, trucking companies, and other small businesses that are going belly up because of soaring gas prices won’t be surprised to hear that a war industry funded think tank believes the Iran war is a ‘very good value,’” Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, told RS.

The total cost of the Iran war has been a point of contention. Critics challenged the Pentagon’s $25 billion estimate; U.S. officials have since told CBS the conflict has cost around $50 billion. Last month, Harvard economist Linda Bilmes predicted taxpayers will pay at least $1 trillion for it in the long term. And none of these estimates include the broader impact of the war on the global economy.

According to the Quincy Institute’s Think Tank Funding Tracker, the Atlantic Council has received nearly $13 million from Pentagon contractors since 2019.

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The Bond Market Is About To Break Washington

The bond market is beginning to force reality onto Washington, and it may ultimately force an end to the Iran war long before politicians or diplomats are willing to admit it.

For months, investors have focused on missiles, retaliation headlines, oil chokepoints, and the possibility of a broader regional escalation from the Iran War. During the geopolitical noise, I urged readers not to overlook stress in financial markets that was happening before the war even started, namely in places like private credit and subprime auto lending. I called these “real crises” hiding behind record highs while “investors” chase gamma squeezes higher in an ongoing distortion feedback loop that is making things look far better than they are under the surface.

And now, beneath all the geopolitical noise, a much more serious, harder to ignore crisis is unfolding. As Cypher says in The Matrix: 

“Fasten your seat belt Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.”

This crisis is in the Treasury market. Bond yields are moving sharply higher, and they are sending a message that policymakers can no longer afford to ignore: the financial system is becoming unstable under the weight of war spending, massive deficits, persistent inflation, and a debt load that was already unsustainable before this conflict began.

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Netanyahu gifted Trump a golden pager at White House meeting, PM’s office confirms

The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday confirmed reports that Benjamin Netanyahu gave a golden pager as a gift to US President Donald Trump during their meeting at the White House on Tuesday, a reference to the clandestine operation that decimated the Hezbollah terror group.

The gift “symbolizes the Prime Minister’s decision that led to a turning point in the war and the starting point for breaking the will of the terrorist organization Hezbollah,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The operation “expresses the power, technological superiority and cunning of Israel against its enemies,” according to the PMO.

The golden pager displayed text that read: “Press with both hands,” and was given to Trump on a trophy-style display with a placard saying: “To President Donald J. Trump, our greatest friend and greatest ally. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

“That was a great operation,” Trump responded, according to Channel 12 news.

In return, Trump reportedly gave Netanyahu a photo of the two of them from the visit, with the dedication “To Bibi, a great leader.”

On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah across Lebanon suddenly exploded, killing dozens of operatives and maiming thousands, marking the beginning of Israel’s escalation against the terror group, after almost a year of persistent Hezbollah rocket fire that displaced some 60,000 residents of the north.

The pagers, laced with explosives, were detonated via an encrypted message that required users to hold the devices with both hands, maximizing the likelihood of the subsequent blast causing debilitating injuries.

A day later, hundreds of walkie-talkies also blew up, killing and injuring scores more.

The attacks came as Israel began to step up a counter-offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which began striking Israel almost immediately after the allied Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. The pager operation was immediately linked to Israel, which claimed responsibility in November 2024.

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Russia Vows ‘Systematic Strikes’ on Kiev – Foreigners Warned To Leave Ukrainian Capital, Residents Urged To Stay Away From Military, Industrial and Government Sites

Kiev is in Russia’s crosshairs.

After Ukraine killed 21 students in a college dorm in Luhansk oblast, Russia retaliated yesterday (24) with a massive combined drone-missile attack on Kiev.

The strikes on Ukraine’s capital were one of the heaviest in the war, and even the new hypersonic Oreshnik (‘Hazel’) missile was used.

But that was not the full extent of Moscow’s retribution, as it warned of ‘systematic strikes’ on military targets in Kiev.

RT reported:

“The [Foreign] ministry made the statement on Monday, a day after a large-scale retaliatory strike on Kiev, prompted by the drone attack on the college in the Lugansk People’s Republic. The Ukrainian strike killed at least 21 people in their dormitory, mainly teenage girls.

The Starobelsk attack has become yet another testament to ‘the Nazi and terrorist nature of the Kiev regime, which deliberately targets civilians and does not hesitate to murder children in cold blood’, the ministry said, warning that Moscow is shifting its approach to the Ukraine conflict.

‘This was the last straw. Under these circumstances, the Russian Armed Forces will be launching systematic strikes against the Ukrainian military-industrial complex in Kiev, including locations where UAVs are designed, manufactured, programmed, and prepared for use’, the ministry said, adding that the campaign will also affect ‘decision-making centers and command posts.”

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NATO-made mines found on gas tanker arriving in Russia from Belgium – investigators

A tanker ship that arrived in Russia’s Leningrad Region from the Belgian port of Antwerp had NATO-made magnetic mines attached to its hull, the Russian Investigative Committee has said.

A criminal case has been opened over an attempted terrorist attack on the gas tanker, the Arrhenius, the agency said in a statement on Monday.

Divers discovered “factory-produced naval magnetic mines manufactured in one of the NATO countries” on the hull when they inspected the vessel upon its arrival in the port of Ust-Luga, the statement read.

The explosive devices were neutralized by Federal Security Service officers, working together with servicemen from the Defense Ministry and the National Guard, it added.

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China and Russia Issue New World Order Declaration: All Talk, No Action

Russia and China just released two documents outlining how they want to remake the world order and displace the United States as the leader of the global system. The documents are heavy on aspirations but absent any means of achieving those goals.

One of the key themes in the documents is increased defense cooperation. However, there is still no mutual defense agreement between the two countries. Essentially, the documents confirm what China and Russia want and what they have already been doing, while the United States remains the world’s leading economic, military, and diplomatic power.

On May 20, 2026, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing following two days of talks. The visit marked Putin’s 25th trip to China. The summit produced two distinct joint statements, issued simultaneously as a package, along with more than 40 bilateral agreements. The first was a Joint Statement on Further Strengthening Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation, which focused on the practical bilateral relationship.

The second was a Joint Declaration on Advocating a Multipolar World and New Types of International Relations, ideological in nature and targeted at the existing U.S.-led international order. The two sides also agreed to extend the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the China-Russia strategic partnership.

The bilateral statement deepens cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union and China in transport, logistics, digitalization, e-commerce, and agricultural trade, and links the Eurasian Economic Union development plans to the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia reaffirmed the one-China principle, recognizing Taiwan as an integral part of China and supporting Beijing’s actions to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement also commits both sides to expanding joint military exercises, increasing air and maritime coordination, and strengthening cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The only genuinely new and concrete outcome was a separate agreement to build a second railway line through the Zabaikalsk-Manzhouli crossing, an actual infrastructure project backed by a signed deal.

The military language falls well short of a defense alliance. There is no Article 5-style collective defense clause, no obligation for either country to come to the other’s aid, no defined trigger for military intervention, no integrated command structure, no basing rights, no pre-positioned forces, and no shared nuclear doctrine. Joint exercises and military-to-military contacts already existed.

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