Donald Trump

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

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

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Iran’s UN ambassador Kazem Gharibabadi in Vienna, Austria on 10 July 2019 [Aşkın Kıyağan/Anadolu Agency]

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi on Saturday said the Strait of Hormuz “is not a stage for extra-regional powers to display military force,” warning against “any military activity” in the key waterway, Anadolu reports.

“The Strait of Hormuz is not a stage for extra-regional powers to display military force.

“As a responsible power and the guarantor of security in the strait, Iran warns against any military activity in this sensitive waterway,” Gharibabadi wrote on US social media company X.

His remarks came in a post in which he shared a UK-France joint statement on the Strait of Hormuz, saying the two countries “stand ready to deploy the wider Multinational Military Mission to support freedom of navigation” in the waterway.

In response, Gharibabadi said the strait’s security “rests with the littoral states.”

“Those who create crises will bear responsibility for the consequences of their adventurism. This is a serious warning,” he added.

A memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US, brokered under Pakistani mediation, entered into force on June 18 after being electronically signed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump.

It provides a framework for ending the conflict and addressing outstanding issues between Tehran and Washington through negotiations, including a cessation of hostilities, sanctions relief, the nuclear issue, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and broader regional security arrangements.

READ: Israel planned to target Iranian negotiators to derail talks, US acted to prevent it – report

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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 ReadingIran rejects UK-France Hormuz statement, warns against foreign military presence

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

Rights center documents 83 Israeli attacks on Christians in 3 months, mostly in occupied Jerusalem

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Palestinian Christians attend a Christmas Mass at the Holy Family Church with Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa taking part in the service amid Israel’s blockade, in Gaza City, Gaza, on December 21, 2025. [Khames Alrefi – Anadolu Agency]

This April to June saw 83 Israeli attacks on Christians in Israel or Israeli-occupied territories in 76 incidents, most of them in Jerusalem, according to a report released Friday, Anadolu reports.

The report was issued by Israel’s Religious Freedom Data Center (RFDC) and the its Hotline for Documenting Harassment against Christians in Israel, a nongovernmental center specializing in documenting attacks related to freedom of worship.

According to the report, 68 incidents took place inside Jerusalem, a city also revered by Christians. Two incidents were recorded in Haifa and the Galilee in northern Israel, one in the Sea of Galilee area, one in the West Bank, one in Beit Shemesh west of Jerusalem, and two in Mevaseret Zion west of Jerusalem. The report did not give the location of the remaining incident.

Of the 68 incidents recorded in Jerusalem, 46 took place in the Old City, 13 in West Jerusalem and nine on Mount Zion, a historic hill southwest of the Old City, the report said.

“As in previous reports, the high number of spitting incidents remains particularly striking. During this quarter, 47 incidents involved spitting, accounting for 56% of all recorded forms of harassment,” the RFDC said.

“In recent years, these acts have increasingly taken place openly, in broad daylight, and at times in a deliberately demonstrative manner. In several cases, perpetrators even explained to Hotline volunteers—and on camera—why they believed such behavior was justified,” it added.

The center said reported incidents included Israeli parents spitting and directing insults in front of their children, and encouraging them to do the same.

READ: Palestinian president urges Jerusalem churches to reject Israeli municipal tax, warns of threat to Christian presence

-Rise in harassment

As in previous years, the report noted a sharp increase in incidents during Jerusalem Day and the Flag March (28 Iyar on the Hebrew calendar), an annual Israeli event marking the occupation of East Jerusalem.

“While some incidents involved individuals acting alone, moving in groups appeared to encourage spitting and similar acts,” the report says.

The report said harassment and attacks are increasingly taking place openly in public spaces, with little hesitation from perpetrators. It cited a violent assault on a nun on Mount Zion and verbal abuse directed at a monk in a store.

The center says on its website that the reality in the Christian Quarter and the Old City of Jerusalem has long been sensitive and full of challenges and complexities, but that the situation changed radically for the worse in early 2023 with a rise in harassment.

In April, Israeli police prevented Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in East Jerusalem during Christian holidays, and imposed restrictions on Christians taking part in Easter celebrations at the church.

In recent years, Israeli extremists have been involved in spitting incidents targeting churches and Christian clergy in Jerusalem, along with attacks on holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank and the targeting of churches in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war that started in October 2023.

Churches around the world have also criticized Israel’s recent wars on Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, warning of their humanitarian and religious consequences.

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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 ReadingRights center documents 83 Israeli attacks on Christians in 3 months, mostly in occupied Jerusalem

Trump Plans to Make 250th US Birthday ‘All About Himself’ With Long Speech, Late Fireworks

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Article by Brett Wilkins republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US President Donald Trump dances on stage as he tours the Al-Udeid Air Base on May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

One journalist said that “this is like the epitome of personalist rule—turning this into an imperial, dictatorial display of self-glorification.”

As the desolate debacle of President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” continues against a backdrop of an empty National Mall and Shrek-green Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, criticism of the president’s plans for his “most spectacular Trump rally” and record-seeking fireworks show mounted this week as new details of his self-aggrandizing extravaganza emerged.

“Our luck has it that America’s 250 was when Trump is president, and we know that a big thrust of these 250 commemorations are in a lot of ways a celebration of Trump and Trumpism, and if it’s not direct, it’s the vision that Trump and the MAGA movement has of America,” Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner told BreakThrough News on Tuesday.

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Organizers with the Next250 initiative

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Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz told Greg Sargent, who hosts The New Republic’s The Daily Blast podcast, that “the fact that we are not going to be able to have a real celebration of America’s 250th birthday—one that respects how far we have traveled, how far we have to go… it’s a real shame that this is what we’re going to get instead: a would-be authoritarian ruler trying to make it all about himself.”

On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration made a late announcement that it would be shutting down air traffic at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for three hours on July 3 and 12 hours on the Fourth of July “to help ensure the safe and efficient movement of air traffic during celebrations of America’s 250th birthday, including the iconic flyovers and fireworks.”

During a rally planned for July 4, Trump is expected to speak for at least 45 minutes starting at 9:00 pm. While attendees are advised to arrive very early, they’re reportedly not allowed to bring coolers, lawn chairs, bags, or more than one bottle of water on a day when temperatures are forecast to soar to triple-digits.

Trump said earlier this month that a military flyover featuring a 17-aircraft formation will include the $400 million Boeing 747-8 “flying palace” gifted to Trump by the repressive Qatari monarchy.s

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News on Sunday that the Trump administration is then planning the “greatest and biggest celebration of fireworks ever.”

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that 850,000 fireworks will be detonated in a 40-minute show scheduled to start unusually late—after 10:30 and possibly even 11:00 pm. That’s 50 times as many explosions over twice the length of a typical Fourth of July fireworks show, which even in a typical year can spark severe anxiety in dogs and other pets and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans.

Trump DC fireworks won't start until at least 10:30 p.m. Heavy TSA-like security, so people will have to get there way early. It's going to be one-billion degrees. No coolers, no metal/thermal water containers. Enjoy your $20 bottles of Trump water and your tearful, exhausted children! Happy Fourth!

— Rex Huppke (@rexhuppke.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T17:52:43.638Z

If Trump’s so-called “Great American State Fair” is any indication, there should be plenty of lawn space available on the National Mall for the July 4 events.

While the president posted a self-congratulatory message to his Truth Social Network on Monday, praising the “fantastic job” his administration has done during the first week of the event and claiming the National Mall was “packed with happy people,” attendees and journalists reported “light crowds, short lines, and plenty of open space.”

This, despite a nationwide ad blitz on Fox and other networks and websites viewed by scores of millions of people.

Some called it the “Great American Fail.”

Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said in a video posted Monday on Bluesky that “10 years ago I voted to create ‘America 250.’ But here’s the truth: Trump started ‘Freedom 250’ to replace it, and made it about himself. Trump’s newest stunt? Trying to convince us there’s a big crowd for Freedom 250. But our eyes don’t lie.”

María José Gutierrez Chavez, trending news writer at the business magazine Fast Company, described “the unbearable emptiness of the Great American State Fair,” writing that the purported celebration “looks more like a liminal space.”

Gutierrez cited one TikTok user who commented, “I’ve seen graveyards with more people,” and another who said that “there were more people in line for the Trader Joe’s summer tote bags.”

Meanwhile, the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a focal point of the semiquincentennial festivities, remains what Common Dreams columnist Abby Zimet described Tuesday as a “fetid debacle” as cleaning up the algae-choked centerpiece proves more difficult than anticipated.

Instead of blaming the no-bid contracted company owned by a Trump donor for the emerald embarrassment, detractors say the president has humiliated himself even further by attempting to pin the blame for his administration’s failure on elusive vandals and former President Barack Obama.

Even some Trump supporters have had enough.

“This sucks,” Fox News columnist David Marcus said earlier this month following an event featuring daredevil dirtbike jumps and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) cage matches on the White House lawn that critics said looked like they were inspired by the classic Mike Judge dystopian satire Idiocracy.

“This pisses me off,” Marcus said after one of the UFC fighters called former First Lady Michelle Obama a man. “You wanna throw out this nonsense at a rally? Fine. Not at an official Freedom 250 event. Disgraceful.”

Some are calling on people to eschew the July 4 event in favor of local celebrations.

“This is like the epitome of personalist rule—turning this into an imperial, dictatorial display of self-glorification,” Sargent said. “It’s important that Americans reject this and not show up to this.”

Gertz concurred, replying, “I think what we have here is a president who does not respect any sort of separation between himself and the country at large.”

“He views the idea of celebrating the nation’s birthday as one and the same with celebrating himself,” he added.

Article by Brett Wilkins republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he's heard that she's a which with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he’s heard that she’s a which with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up

Continue ReadingTrump Plans to Make 250th US Birthday ‘All About Himself’ With Long Speech, Late Fireworks