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Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists gather outside Damon Prison near Haifa, Israel, on August 22, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
Hundreds of Israelis demonstrated at dozens of locations across northern and central Israel on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its push for changes to the judiciary, Israeli media reported.
Channel 12 said protests took place in Haifa, Nahariya, and Western Galilee. Demonstrators also gathered on several bridges in the coastal areas of Maagan Michael and Neurim in central Israel.
Protesters chanted slogans against Netanyahu and his government and held signs blaming him for the failure to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, according to the channel. They also criticized the judicial changes being advanced by Netanyahu’s government.
Since early 2023, the government has pursued a series of changes that it says would restore the balance between branches of government and curb what it considers excessive judicial interference in executive and legislative decisions.
Opposition parties argue that the measures would weaken judicial independence and limit oversight of the government.
In March 2025, the Knesset passed an amendment changing the composition of the judicial selection committee and the process for appointing judges. It is due to take effect when the next Knesset begins its term.
Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
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Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak poses for a portrait in his office in Tel Aviv, Israel on 18 July, 2023 [Noam Galai/Getty Images]
Former Israeli Premier Ehud Barak accused on Friday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “laying the groundwork” for a war that could delay the general elections on Oct. 27.
“Netanyahu is preparing the infrastructure to go to war in a way that would postpone the elections,” Barak told Channel 12.
Barak sharply criticized Netanyahu, saying he “lies as he breathes, as he eats French fries, and as he leaves a restaurant without paying.”
Barak said “we must do everything to remove him from power on Oct. 27, once and for all.”
His remarks come amid an intensifying domestic debate about the use of security issues in the election campaign.
Netanyahu warned earlier this week that Israel could face attacks ahead of the election, and also held consultations with senior security officials on developments on several fronts.
He has also threatened retaliation against anyone found to have been behind an incident involving Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Sept. 30.
He said an investigation is underway to determine whether the perpetrator acted on instructions from another party, and that “whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.”
The Flydubai incident has become an election campaign issue amid accusations by his opponents that he is exploiting security issues to bolster his position in the campaign.
Barak’s comments also come as Israeli military operations continue on several fronts, including the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
In August, Barak accused Netanyahu of seeking to reach Election Day amid heightened security tension and public fear, arguing that escalation on some regional fronts is linked to electoral considerations.
The election will be Israel’s first general vote since the Oct. 7, 2023 events.
Opposition parties have intensified coordination in an effort to replace Netanyahu’s government through the ballot box.
Ed Miliband claims that he and Andy Burnham have reformulated Blair’s triangulation strategy. Their new formulation entails acknowledging that they were wrong on Israel and Palestine but entails doing absolutely nothing about it and continuing exactly the same policies hoping that you’re too stupid to notice.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., United States on February 04, 2025. [Celal Güneş – Anadolu Agency]
US President Donald Trump declined to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for another term in office ahead of upcoming elections, avoiding direct backing of his long-time ally in an interview published on Thursday, Anadolu reports.
“Well, I can only say that I’m not involved in politics anymore, except that we’re popular—,” Trump told TIME magazine when asked whether the premier should be given another term in Oct. 27 elections.
Pressed again, he responded: “No, my primary thing—I do want to help them defend Israel,” pivoting away from an explicit endorsement in the interview conducted on Monday.
Trump pointed instead to his personal standing among the Israeli public, claiming his popularity reaches “like 99%” due to past policies.
Asked whether Washington could work more effectively with opposition contender and former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, Trump said he did not “hear bad things about him,” but cautioned against dismissing Netanyahu.
“People have written off Bibi (Netanyahu) many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times,” Trump said. “I wouldn’t underestimate Bibi.”
Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu is said to have become more strained in recent months due to the war in Iran, and Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon and Gaza.
Trump also cast doubt on reports that Netanyahu received advance intelligence warnings ahead of the Oct. 7 attacks, arguing that Israeli forces would have been placed on alert. “I don’t think so. I think … if he would have known, he would have done something about it,” he said.
Expanded Iran war and maritime control
Addressing the Iran war, now into its seventh month, Trump said he deliberately broadened military operations to dismantle Tehran’s armed and nuclear infrastructure after initial estimates projected a four- to eight-week campaign.
“Only because I wanted to go further,” Trump said, explaining why strikes continued past early targets. “I could have stopped there, and I felt it was just inappropriate.”
Trump acknowledged Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz “worked for a little while” but claimed the US later took control of the strategic waterway through which a fifth of global oil consumption flowed before the war on Feb. 28.
The US president also confirmed rejecting an Iranian truce offer that proposed reopening the strait, dismissing the terms as “not good enough.” Asked whether Washington plans to intensify air strikes following the upcoming US congressional midterm elections, Trump first said it is “possible” before quickly changing course. “I can’t tell you that.”
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Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN Headquarters in New York, United States, on September 24, 2026. [Mehmet Eser – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli occupation leadership has long been accustomed to staging bizarre spectacles on some of the world’s most prominent international platforms, but what Benjamin Netanyahu did during his latest appearance on 25th September 2026 surpassed all expectations. The leading suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court took to the podium to deliver his annual speech at the 81st session of the General Assembly carrying a Starlink satellite dish. He went so far as to display a piece of technological explosive equipment in full view of the world, appearing in the form of a handheld communications device.
This is not entirely new. Year after year, Netanyahu has become accustomed to performing his theatrical tricks on the platform of the United Nations General Assembly, bringing to New York each time propaganda boards, photographs and drawings accompanied by provocative and elaborate spectacles.
Yet, until September 2026, the world’s foremost international forum had never witnessed a Starlink satellite dish being displayed in this manner, nor had a representative of a member state dared to carry and boast about an apparent explosive device in full view.
The Israeli Prime Minister took to the podium holding up a Starlink satellite device, using it as a prop to divert attention from the international condemnation he had anticipated would once again empty the UN hall, as it had the previous year, with dozens of delegates walking out as he began speaking. This time, he appeared determined to pull more rabbits from his magic hat, drawing attention away from the embarrassment of addressing a largely empty hall while once again resorting to his familiar theatrical style, marked by arrogance and provocation.
The Israeli prime minister knows that this approach cannot convince a world that can see the reality on the ground.
The notorious war criminal is not primarily concerned with winning hearts and minds or appealing to the conscience of nations horrified by the atrocities of genocide, ethnic cleansing, occupation, settlement and arrogance.
Netanyahu sought to distract the world with an entirely different narrative centred on Iran’s restrictions on this satellite technology, in the hope of obscuring the reality witnessed by the entire world, while naturally ignoring the restrictions imposed by the occupation and genocide regime on Starlink in the Gaza Strip, for example.
One of the purposes of this theatrical appearance was to portray Israel’s most prominent official as an extremely confident speaker, still capable of creating events, setting the pace like a conductor and controlling the international narrative. This was essentially a domestic electoral speech, even though he was once again isolated as he addressed the General Assembly, whose seats were largely emptied in protest at his appearance, while the Israeli delegation busied itself giving him a standing ovation. What matters to Netanyahu is to appear once again in images that seize attention and dominate the headlines of the world’s media, through an extraordinary and striking scene featuring a Starlink satellite dish on the General Assembly platform. What a spectacle!
Over the years, Netanyahu has come to define a new Israeli approach to addressing the international community, characterised by excessive theatrics, arrogance, provocation and moralising, and far removed from the traditions of diplomatic dignity and measured language.
It is also marked by a barrage of carefully crafted accusations against those bold enough to remind the world of rights, justice and international law, among them Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of the city that hosts the world’s foremost international forum.
Representatives of the occupation’s ‘diplomacy’ follow Netanyahu’s theatrical school in their public appearances. One of them is Ambassador Danny Danon, who appeared in a video strutting through the corridors of the General Assembly, accompanied by a camera phone carried by one of his aides, during an extraordinary episode of verbal harassment directed at the Iranian delegation. The troublemaker Danon also carried the same Starlink device and repeatedly urged the Iranian delegation to take it to Tehran. This blatant provocation is, in reality, designed to portray Israel’s internationally isolated position as self-confident, as though it still has something to say and something to initiate in full view of the world; as though it remains capable of lecturing others about values and freedom of expression, and of continuing to manufacture events and distract the world with sensational stories, as if no genocide had taken place in Gaza in full view of the world. Danon has not abandoned his style of arrogance and provocation, even towards international figures. He went so far as to call UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese a ‘witch’ after she presented her report to a General Assembly committee on the genocide in Gaza on 28th October 2025. Danon attacked Albanese at the time, saying: “Ms Albanese, you are a witch, and this report is another page in your spell book.”
There is nothing new in this. Representatives of ‘Israeli diplomacy’ have become accustomed to launching fierce verbal attacks against UN officials themselves, as former Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan did in his repeated attacks on UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He said, for example, that Guterres had “lost his moral compass” (November 2023), accused him of “blindness to terrorism” (January 2024), and went so far as to say: “The only one who should be blacklisted is the Secretary-General, who encourages terrorism, and whose decisions are driven by hatred of Israel” (June 2024).
The most significant international precedent brought by the Israeli leadership to the General Assembly platform during the 81st session, however, was the display and flaunting of a model of a deadly explosive device in full view of the world. The Israeli prime minister showcased one of his country’s achievements: the booby-trapping of communications devices and their transformation into tools for killing, maiming and injuring on a scale unprecedented in the world.
Netanyahu pulled a pager from his pocket and proudly displayed it, showcasing the lethal technological capabilities of Israel’s intelligence services, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that this particular device caused deaths, injuries, mutilation and terror among children and women on a large scale in Lebanon.
In his speech, Netanyahu sought to highlight the Israeli occupation leadership’s continued exploitation of available technologies for control, targeting, killing and destruction. This was essentially an ‘achievement’ message aimed primarily at the Israeli public. What the war criminal did not say was that humanity’s advances in technology, communications and software are being harnessed in a race to serve the occupation’s programme of control, domination, oppression, genocide and accelerating ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The international community has yet to fully confront the use of artificial intelligence to commit war crimes on an unprecedented scale. This is among the issues exposed by reports and testimonies, including the documentary film NAZA, made by two Israelis who recently received an honorary award at the Venice Film Festival and which provided detailed operational accounts of such practices.
The rounds of provocation and arrogance staged by Israeli occupation leaders in diplomatic corridors should not surprise the international community, so long as it continues to allow those who have trampled humanitarian conventions and international law underfoot to take to the world’s most prominent platforms and deliver theatrical speeches, rather than face international justice.
Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech in Jerusalem on August 13, 2025.[Photo by RONEN ZVULUN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is doing everything” to prevent the establishment of an official commission of inquiry into the events of Oct. 7, 2023, former military intelligence officer Barak Seri said, Anadolu reports.
In a Saturday post on the US social media company X, Seri said Netanyahu was “warned and alerted” ahead of the attacks, but that “he ignored it all.”
“This is why Netanyahu is personally blocking the establishment of an inquiry commission,” he said.
Earlier Saturday, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Netanyahu received warnings about a possible Hamas attack ahead of Oct. 7, 2023, but did not convene a meeting to discuss them.
Citing unnamed security officials, the outlet said Netanyahu did not share the warnings with the Shin Bet, Mossad or the Military Intelligence Directorate, known as Aman.
Meanwhile, US magazine The Atlantic reported that former Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel secretly visited Israel 11 days before the Oct. 7 events to alert Tel Aviv about a possible Hamas attack.
There has been no official Egyptian comment on the claim.
Following the Oct. 7 events, Israel launched a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 74,000 people, injured around 175,000 others and turned the entire enclave into ruins.
Despite a ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, Israel has continued its daily attacks on Gaza, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians and injuring nearly 5,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
