Benjamin Netanyahu

Iranian president criticises international silence over Israeli actions

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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivers a speech during the “Leader of Resistance: Imam Khomeini International Conference” in Tehran, Iran, on July 4, 2026. [Iranian Presidency / Handout – Anadolu Agency]

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday criticised international institutions for what he described as their failure to stop Israeli actions in the region, saying global bodies have remained silent while Israel openly speaks of assassinations and targeted killings, Anadolu reports.

Speaking at a conference in Tehran’s Summit Hall held in commemoration of slain former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian said international organisations and human rights advocates were expected to prevent such actions, but instead political and logistical support was being provided.

He said Israel attacked multiple countries in the region and was responsible for many of the crises and instability across the Middle East, adding that Muslim countries had not initiated such aggression.

Pezeshkian also referred to the beginning of a “new leadership” for the Islamic community, saying the current leadership bears a heavy responsibility and that his government would continue working toward the ideals of the revolution, strengthening Islamic unity and expanding solidarity among Muslim nations.

The remarks came as funeral ceremonies for Khamenei got underway in Tehran, where thousands of mourners gathered at the Imam Khomeini Mosalla Mosque.

READ: Iran rejects UK-France Hormuz statement, warns against foreign military presence

Khamenei was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, which triggered weeks of war before a ceasefire was reached under Pakistan’s mediation in April, followed by an interim deal in June.

According to the official schedule, memorial ceremonies will continue in Tehran through the weekend with the participation of heads of state, senior officials and religious figures.

Public farewell ceremonies are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, followed by the main funeral procession in Tehran on Monday. The funeral rites will then move to Qom on July 7.

On July 8, ceremonies are scheduled in Iraq, including in Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala, where the body will be received by religious and political figures before being transferred to major Shia shrines.

The final funeral and burial ceremony is scheduled for July 9 at the Imam Ali Reza Shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad, one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites.

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace

Continue ReadingIranian president criticises international silence over Israeli actions

Two scorpions in a jar

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U.S. President Donald Trump (R) welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, United States on December 29, 2025. [Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout – Anadolu Agency]

Trump and Netanyahu need each other more than they trust each other — and that mutual need, not any shared conviction, is the only thing still holding the alliance together.

by Jasim Al-Azzawi

There is an old parable about two scorpions in a jar. Neither can leave. Neither trusts the other. And sooner or later, one strikes, not because it wants to kill the other, but because the jar has become unbearable.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are those scorpions now, and the jar is the wreckage of the Middle East they built together.

For the better part of a year, they marched in locked steps. One man’s appetite for spectacle matched by the other’s genius for making disaster look like deliverance. Netanyahu persuaded Trump that Iran could be shattered quickly, cleanly, at no real cost. Trump believed him because believing him was easier than doubting him, and doubt has never been a currency Trump trades in. The war came. But Iran did not break. And when the bill arrived, it was delivered to Trump’s door, not Netanyahu’s.

John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, who has spent a career mapping the architecture of American deference to Israeli interests, put the verdict as bluntly as a man of his discipline allows:

Netanyahu convinced Trump the war would be short and decisive, and Trump, in Mearsheimer’s words, was foolish enough to believe him.

Elsewhere, Mearsheimer has been blunter still, arguing flatly that Israel and its lobby own Trump,

and that the President has demonstrated, repeatedly, a willingness to dance to Jerusalem’s tune.

Then came Lebanon, and with it the profanity that told the truth polite diplomacy never does. Reports of a fifteen-minute call, confirmed by Trump himself, describe the President screaming at Netanyahu, demanding to know what the hell he was doing. He called Netanyahu “crazy,” reminded him that he would be sitting in prison were it not for American protection, and scolded him in the most excruciating language, that the world now despised him for it. This is not the language of alliance. It is the language of a landlord screaming at a tenant who has torched the building and still expects a reference letter.

Monsters playing victims: Danny Danon’s twisted war on the truth

Netanyahu absorbed the insult silently, the way he absorbs everything, with a statement insisting nothing had changed, that Israel’s “position remains the same,” even as his troops turned back from Beirut on Trump’s order. One American official described the call more crudely: Trump had steamrolled him, and all the great warrior-statesman could manage in reply was a chastened “OK, OK”. This isn’t how empires normally treat client states, but this was never a partnership of equals. It is, as Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University observes, the latest chapter in a decades-long bid for regional dominance. In this script, Netanyahu and the architects of Greater Israel are the sole victors; everyone else is left with the ashes. Sachs does not flinch from naming the architecture. The war on Iran, he argues, was never separate from the older “Clean Break” doctrine first sketched in 1996, a blueprint for regime-change wars with Washington cast as the enforcement arm of Israeli strategy. In that reading, Trump is not a partner but an instrument, wielded by a prime minister facing indictment at home and a coalition that cannot survive a genuine peace.

Gideon Levy of Haaretz, writing from inside Israel’s collapsing consensus, sees the same rot from the other direction. He has warned that Israel follows Netanyahu mindlessly toward a reckoning it has not yet allowed itself to imagine, and that the U.S.-Israel relationship itself is nearing its breaking point. Even Thomas Friedman, hardly a radical, has confessed to being torn, rooting against the Iranian regime while dreading what its defeat would do for two men, he flatly calls terrible people, “alleged crooks” running “anti-democratic projects” in their own countries.

Phyllis Bennis of Institute for Policy Studies frames the arrangement in the coldest terms available: not statesmanship, but real-estate logic: a transactional partnership between a president with no re-election ahead of him but a legacy to launder, and a prime minister facing an October election and a courtroom he has spent years trying to outrun.

Both men need a win they cannot contrive through governance, so they manufacture it through war. Both are impeachable, indictable, and disposable to the very coalitions that elevated them.

AIPAC, the Israeli religious right, and the Republican Zionist bloc in the U.S. Senate are Netanyahu’s insurance policy. Miriam Adelson’s checkbook and the MAGA base are Trump’s. Each man is one betrayal away from being fed to those bases as a sacrifice, and each of them knows it.

This is why the scorpion metaphor holds. Two men who need each other to survive politically are also the two men most capable of mortally stinging each other. Trump has already shown he will humiliate Netanyahu the moment the war stops being useful to him. Netanyahu has already shown he will defy Trump’s orders the moment his coalition demands it. The sting, when it finally comes, will not be ideological. It will be self-preservation, dressed up as principle, in a jar built from the bones of Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran, while the region, and the truth, are left to rot in the glass along with them.

READ: Pepe, Pakistan, and the last of the great foreign correspondents

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace

Continue ReadingTwo scorpions in a jar

Israeli army confirms authenticity of image showing Palestinian detainee abused in Gaza

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Israeli soldiers carrying rifles patrol a street during a raid on Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine, on June 18, 2026. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]

The Israeli army on Thursday confirmed the authenticity of a widely circulated image showing a Palestinian detainee being abused by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.

The image shows the detainee lying face down, blindfolded and bound with wire, with an iron rod strapped to his back.

The image sparked widespread criticism on social media and renewed calls from human rights advocates for an independent investigation into the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody.

The confirmation came in a statement carried by Israel’s Army Radio, which quoted an unnamed military spokesperson after the image circulated widely on social media.

“The army confirms that the footage published on Palestinian networks over the past 24 hours, showing a man from Gaza handcuffed, tied to a bed, blindfolded, and with a rod tied to his back, is real footage that occurred in the Gaza Strip,” the spokesperson said.

Army Radio published the image but provided no details about where or when the incident occurred.

The image renewed attention to the harsh detention conditions and abuse of Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

According to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, about 9,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, where detainees face torture, starvation, and medical neglect that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of prisoners.

Israel has waged a genocidal war on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 73,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 173,000, according to Palestinian figures, while widespread destruction has affected about 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure.

READ: Israeli army disperses protest in southern West Bank, injures, arrests Palestinians

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/

Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingIsraeli army confirms authenticity of image showing Palestinian detainee abused in Gaza

Hamas calls for emergency Arab summit over alleged Gaza displacement plans

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This picture shows national flags of the Arab league countries. [Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images]

Hamas has called on the Arab League to convene an emergency summit to address what it described as Israeli plans to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, urging Arab states to adopt a unified political response.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said repeated Israeli statements about proposals concerning Gaza’s population reflected what he described as the seriousness of efforts to displace Palestinians from the territory.

Qassem argued that these plans are accompanied by military actions that, in his view, are destroying the conditions necessary for civilian life and forcing residents to leave the Strip.

He called on the Arab League to hold an emergency summit to coordinate a collective response.

According to Qassem, the issue extends beyond the Palestinian territories and poses a broader challenge to Arab national security.

He said any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would directly affect the security interests of neighbouring Arab states, particularly Egypt.

The Hamas spokesperson urged Arab governments to move beyond statements of condemnation and adopt what he described as practical political and diplomatic measures to prevent any displacement of Gaza’s population.

He also called for efforts to end the war, halt Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade on the territory.

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations that it is pursuing a policy of forcibly displacing Gaza’s population, while international discussions continue over post-war governance and the future administration of the territory.

READ: Arab League says calls to end UNRWA’s role in Gaza lack legal basis

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Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingHamas calls for emergency Arab summit over alleged Gaza displacement plans

Colonial expansion is always accompanied by the international community’s unspoken consent

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A view of the destruction caused by Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, as seen from Israel on July 02, 2026. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

by Ramona Wadi  walzerscent

It takes little to ascertain that the reason for Israel’s genocide in Gaza was colonial expansion. Israel made no secret of it from the start, with talks about forced transfer and attempts to involve the international community in its war crimes. Settlement leaders were also very vocal about resettling in Gaza throughout the genocide and recently ridiculed the EU’s sanctions against Israeli settler leaders and organisations. The latter, unfortunately, is probably well placed ridicule as sanctions without decolonisation will not stop Israel’s colonial expansion, as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed this week.

Israeli media reported Smotrich stating that there are plans for three Israeli settlements awaiting approval by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a meeting with the mayor of Sderot Alon Davidi, Smotrich announced, “The Settlement Administration, under my leadership in the Defence Ministry, has completed its staff work, and we are ready to establish three settlements immediately once we receive the green light from the prime minister.”

Smotrich’s colonial reasoning follows earlier comments by several Israeli leaders that link settlements to Israeli security. The planned settlements are perceived as part of a plan that will provide a security buffer for Jewish settlers living on the border with Gaza.

Recently Netanyahu announced his instructions to the Israeli military to occupy 70 per cent of Gaza. Smotrich’s announced plan only reaffirms what the international community is so intent on denying – military occupation is setting the scene for Israel’s colonial expansion in Gaza.

Recently Israel also announced it was reviving its forced transfer plans for Palestinians in what remains of Gaza, opting for a rebranding now under the euphemism “plan for free movement”. According to Israeli media, the rebranding would persuade Palestinians in Gaza to comply, while also bringing foreign countries on board.

READ: The international community is not opposing Netanyahu’s threat

For Palestinians, forced transfer and a plan for free movement reek of the same colonial violence. There is no free movement when Palestinians are forced into 30 per cent of what remains in Gaza; indeed there has been no bigger show of coercion by Israel which forces Palestinians to leave, apart from the destruction of the genocide itself.

The impossibility of living without land is obvious, but offering a forced way out of Gaza is ethnic cleansing, not a free, individual decision.

The international community, however, is another matter altogether when it comes to ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion. Almost ten years ago, the UNSC approved Resolution 2334 which spares colonialism while taking issue with settlement expansion. To date, quarterly meetings discussing its implementation are still taking place, even though there is no implementation of Resolution 2334. Israel is up against nothing when it comes to the international community. It knows that settlement expansion in Gaza will be condemned but not stopped, as long as the international community can keep up appearances with briefings that are as bogus as the two-state paradigm itself.

The UN has created a brand of impunity which would force it to collapse on itself, were it to truly challenge Israel on war crimes and international law violations.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians who survived are living the unliveable, stranded in a shrinking territory while Israel gambles with euphemisms and waits for its colonial triumph.

READ: The EU does not need to clarify its support for Israeli colonialism

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel's genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism "without qualification". Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would lock him up, small Orca speaks bluntly.

Continue ReadingColonial expansion is always accompanied by the international community’s unspoken consent