Note: Greg Maybury is a writer and blogger from Australia. He has compiled the following historical information and presented it in a condensed form for all. It is of paramount importance to comprehend the savage and murderous colonialism of France in Africa, and the information he has gathered is verifiable.
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Another slice of our past narrative missing from those not-so-reliable tomes that we call history books. Fact check this mes cheries. ===
France gathered 400 Muslim scholars and beheaded them. In 1917 AD, during the occupation of Chad. In 1852, when France entered the city of Laghouat in Algeria, it killed two-thirds of its population in a single night and burned them alive.
France occupied Algeria for 132 years. In the first 7 years after their arrival, the French eliminated 1 million Muslims, and in the last 7 years before their departure, they eliminated 1.5 million Muslims. The French historian Jacques Gorky estimated that the total number of Muslims killed in Algeria from France’s arrival in 1830 to its departure in 1962 was 10 million.
France occupied Tunisia for 75 years, Algeria for 132 years, Morocco for 44 years, and Mauritania for 60 years.
When France entered Egypt during its famous campaign, French soldiers on horseback entered mosques and raped free women in front of their families. They drank wine in the mosques and turned them into stables for their horses.
It is strange to see some people boasting about and defending French civilization, forgetting all its dark history. This is France; remind them of its history.
When France entered the city of Aghwat (Laghouat) in Algeria in 1852, it burned two-thirds of its inhabitants to death in just one night.
France conducted 17 nuclear tests in Algeria between 1960 and 1966, resulting in an unknown number of deaths estimated between 27,000 and 100,000 and the effects persist to this day.
When France left Algeria in 1962, it left behind 11 million landmines more than the total population of Algeria at the time.
France occupied Algeria for 132 years. In just the first seven years of their occupation, they massacred one million Muslims, and in the last seven years, they martyred another 1.5 million Muslims.
France is the fourth largest holder of gold reserves in the world, with 2,436 tons of gold stored at the Bank of France, even though France has no active gold mines.
In contrast, Mali one of the world’s largest gold producers with 14 official gold mines has no gold reserves of its own.
Similarly, the Republic of Congo, which ranks seventh among gold-producing countries, also has no gold reserves in its central bank.
On 7 May 2026, Trita Parsi and I were on the podcast of the โCommunity Alliance 4 Peace and Justiceโ hosted by Mehlaqa Samdani. It provided us with an excellent opportunity to talk about President Trumpโs โProject Freedom,โ which he announced on 3 May 2026 and launched the following day, 4 May 2026, only to pause it the following day, 5 May 2026.
It is clear that the president is desperately searching for a way to bring the war to an end on favorable terms for the US and Israel, but just canโt find a workable strategy. Trita and I believe there is no way he can win this war in any meaningful way, and indeed, the US and Israel have lost it. Trita, however, is a bit more optimistic than I am about getting a meaningful ceasefire and working out a deal that ends the war. Letโs hope he is right.
THE entire peace movement opposed the US/Israeli war against Iran. Opposition went well beyond those normally opposing US actions. It is widely understood that resistance by the peoples of Iran, Lebanon and Yemen, together with the warโs unpopularity in the US, led to Trump losing the first rounds of theย conflict.
Even the Wall Street Journal, a fervent supporter of the war, admitted this: โTrump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans arenโt helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisisโฆ had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said. ย โIf you look at what happened with Jimmy Carterโฆwith the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,โ Trump had said in March. โWhat aย mess.โโ
But it is a misjudgement to believe that because the US and Israel lost the first battle, therefore they have lost the war and are resigned to this. Instead, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle to defeat US and Israeli attacks on Iran.ย ย
Some genuinely taking the right side in this war have written that the US has already suffered its biggest defeat since Vietnam, or even that this is a biggerย defeat.
Unfortunately, this is a misanalysis. To prepare for the prolonged anti-war tasks to come, the situation must be seenย accurately.
Precisely because if the US loses the war against Iran it would be its biggest defeat since Vietnam, it has no intention of giving up because it lost the firstย battle.
US ruling circles understand perfectly that US loss of the war would mean significant erosion of the credibility of its international threats, significantly weakening its globalย position.
They therefore simply conclude that the wrong tactic was chosen, and the US must change this to win the struggle. Even some forces in the US who believe launching the war was a tactical mistake believe that now it has started it must beย won.
The Institute for the Study of War put it specifically: โAny US settlement or resolution of the conflict that enables Iran to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would represent a major US defeat.โ As the Wall Street Journal summarised: โAs the president said in his first term, the US shouldnโt start a war it doesnโt intend to win. His challenge now is to prove to Iranโs regime he meant what heย said.โ
The new US tactics to attempt to win the war can be clearly grasped if it is understood why it lost the first battle. Prior to the first military attack on Iran in June 2025, and the widespread assault launched in February, US policy under Trump had been to force Iran to capitulate to US demands by prolonged economicย sanctions.
The US has now intensified this attack, after its defeat in the first round of the war, via its blockade of Iranian ships, with Trump claiming: โIran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediatelyโฆ Starving forย cash!โ
Such sanctions genuinely damaged Iranโs economy, creating a priority for Iran to attempt to break out of them, while the US can return to bombing anytime itย chooses.
Israel, and some in the US, considered sanctions strategically inadequate. Iran is a huge country, 80 times Israelโs size geographically, larger than the EUโs four largest countries put together. Iranโs population is 90 million, compared to Israelโs 10 million. In real economic terms, parity purchasing powers (PPPs), Iranโs GDP is three timesย Israelโs.
Faced with larger states, Israelโs policy has been, where it is unable to help create governments favourable to itself, to attempt to disintegrate and weaken them โ as shown in Iraq and Syria. ย ย Israel, judging it unlikely there will be a compliant Iranian government, has long sought to disintegrate that country. Therefore, Iran faces an existential threat fromย Israel.
The US itself turned to a military assault on Iran, as opposed to sanctions, because of its and Israelโs victories in its genocidal attack on Gaza and also in Syria โ where reactionary forces, which Israel and the US supported, came to power.ย ย
Israel and the US miscalculated that they could now achieve the same in Iran. The US supplied thousands of Starlink systems and, as Trump publicly admitted, guns to demonstrators in Iran in December andย January.
But not only did this fail to overthrow Iranโs government but when the US and Israel launched their full-scale military attack on Iran in February, as even Western media admitted, there was a โrallying around the flagโ in Iran โ in political terms, the great majority of Iranโs population, whatever their differences on other issues, or their attitude to Iranโs government, united in opposition to the US attack. This was the basis of the US defeat in the first round of theย war.
But the US cannot retreat from this conflict due to the role west Asia plays in its strategy. A mistaken analysis was put forward a few years ago that because, due to fracking, the US has become self-sufficient in oil, it would be less interested in controlling westย Asia.
The facts show the opposite. The US has waged more wars in the region โ against Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon andย Iran.
The US is no longer being itself dependent on West Asia, but constantly waging wars there, has led some to claim that this is because Israel controls US foreign policy โ that the tail wags the dog. Any analysis of the relation of forces between the two makes clear this is untrue. Israel cannot produce the weapons it relies on to carry out military terror; the US merely has to threaten to cut off arms and Israel would immediately be brought toย heel.
This reality was made clear for all to see when Trump, for short-term tactical reasons, openly ย enforced an end to Israelโs bombing of Beirut, declaring: โIsrael will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the US.โ The US does not support Israel because it is controlled by it but because the US finds Israel useful for its ownย strategy.
Although the US does not need west Asiaโs oil for itself, its strategy is to be able to deny it to others, particularlyย China.
Because this is key for the US, it will not give up its attack on Iran, only the forms will change. Therefore, the peace movement must prepare for a prolonged struggle against US aggression againstย Iran.
John Ross is senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and a member of No Cold Warย Britain.
US President Donald Trump, flanked by US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, speaks with workers painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, on May 7, 2026.
(Photo by Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images)
โIt again raises urgent questions: Is this president fit to lead and make consequential decisions that impact countless lives?โ said the National Iranian-American Council.
As he struggles to force Iranโs capitulation, US President Donald Trump issued what seemed to be yet another threat to commit an act of mass destruction against the country through nuclear warfare.
When negotiations have faltered in recent weeks, Trump has on multiple occasions defaulted to genocidal threatsโincluding that the โwhole civilizationโ of Iran would โdie,โ and that the whole country would be โblown upโโwhich have only seemed to anger and galvanize his Iranian adversaries rather than make them quake with fear.
While the Trump administration has continued to insist that the ceasefire with Iran was still in effect, the two countries have exchanged significant fire this week.
On Thursday, the US launched what it said were โself-defenseโ strikes on military facilities it claimed were responsible for attempting to attack three US Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran called the attacks a violation of the ceasefire and said its attacks on US ships were in response to American bombings of Iranian oil tankers the previous day.
Trump told reporters on Thursday that if the ceasefire were truly over, everyone would know. โIf thereโs no ceasefire, youโre just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran,โ he said. โTheyโd better sign the agreement fastโฆ If they donโt sign, theyโre going to have a lot of pain.โ
To many observers, this sounded like a threat from Trump to carry out a nuclear holocaust, though it could also be a redux of Trumpโs threats to attack civilian energy infrastructure, which would still be a war crime.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, the editor-in-chief of Responsible Statecraft, noted that if it were indeed a nuclear threat, it would be โironic since the war today supposedly is to prevent Iran from getting… a nuclear weapon.โ
The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) said that โthreatening to make Iran glowโwith nuclear weapons or otherwiseโis an almost unthinkable threat to commit a mass war crime against 92 million people. It must never be normalized.โ
โIt again raises urgent questions: Is this president fit to lead and make consequential decisions that impact countless lives?โ the group said. โWould the chain of command refuse unlawful orders to make Iran โglow,โ killing millions of people?โ
Trumpโs pledge to wipe out Iranian civilization last month drew widespread condemnation and led dozens of Democratic members of Congress to call for his Cabinet to remove him from office using the powers of the 25th Amendment.
โOur leaders need to interrogate these questions seriously, and not write them off as the ramblings of a madman,โ NIAC said. โTrump is the president, and may seek to act on these horrible, contemptible threats. This war needs to end, and so [does] Trumpโs horrific threatening of war crimes.โ
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awards the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, on 7 May 2026 [sanchezcastejon/X]
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awarded on Thursday the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, recognizing her work documenting violations of international law in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.
Sanchez received Francesca Albanese in Madrid, where they discussed the situation in Palestine, the importance of international law and โthe need for an immediate end to the violence and the building of a lasting peace based on dignity and humanity,โ according to a government statement.
โPublic responsibility also implies the moral obligation of not looking away,โ Sanchez wrote on social media, praising Albanese as โa voice that upholds the conscience of the world.โ
The Order of Civil Merit is one of Spainโs highest civilian honors and is awarded to Spanish and foreign citizens for extraordinary services benefiting the state or society.
Albanese, an Italian legal scholar, has served since 2022 as the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. She has become one of the most prominent international voices criticizing Israelโs military operations in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Sanchez also sent a letter to the European Commission calling for the activation of the EUโs Blocking Statute to counter US sanctions imposed on Albanese as well as judges and prosecutors from the International Criminal Court.
โItโs like an international mafia โ they want to silence everyone who demands an end to genocide, an end to the crimes,โ Albanese told Spanish broadcaster RTVE, referring to the sanctions against her.
Also on Thursday, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares criticized Israelโs continued detention of Spanish-Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek, calling it โinadmissible and unacceptable.โ
Jose Manuel Albares told the Spanish parliament that he summoned Israelโs top envoy in Spain on Wednesday to discuss the situation and had also spoken with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Albares said Abukeshek was โillegallyโ detained in international waters where Israel had โno jurisdictionโ while traveling with a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla.
โSpain reacted without hesitation, with complete clarity and firmness, in response to violations of international law,โ Albares said.โโโโโโโ
It has now emerged that Trumpโs decision to pause the operation was driven by complaints by Saudi Arabia, two US officials told NBC News.
Saudi Arabiaโs leaders had been angered by the announcement and the government told the US it would not allow American military forces to fly aircraft through Prince Sultan Airbase, located southeast of its capital, Riyadh.
Officials said the Kingdom denied access for any US aircraft to fly through Saudi airspace as part of Project Freedom.
A call is reported to have taken place between Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the pair were unable to reach a resolution โ forcing the US president to axe the operation.
Trump has ruffled feathers across the Gulf with seemingly unilateral decisions (Reuters)
The leaders โhave been in touch regularlyโ and officials are also in touch with vice president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, a Saudi source told NBC News.
โThe problem with that premise is that things are happening quickly in real time,โ the source said about the announcement, adding that the country was โvery supportive of the diplomatic effortsโ by Pakistan to guide the countries towards an agreement.
A White House official told NBC News that โregional allies were notified in advance.โ
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
A diplomat in the region said that the operation was not coordinated with Oman either. โThe US made an announcement and then coordinated with us,โ they said, adding, โWe were not upset or angry.โ
Trump’s project is said to have angered the Saudi leadership (Getty)
โBecause of geography, you need cooperation from regional partners to utilise their airspace along their borders,โ one US official explained about the success of the scheme.
The Strait of Hormuz is a vital shipping route for global supplies of oil, fertiliser and other commodities that has been virtually closed since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February, causing global price rises.
Trump said the operation was a โhumanitarian effort to rescue ships running low on essentials after more than two months trapped in the Persian Gulfโ.
He said the mission would begin on Monday morning and warned that any interference would โhave to be dealt with forcefullyโ.
West Bank commander boasts about high death toll and defends looser rules of engagement, including firing at unarmed Palestinians
An Israeli soldier stands on guard during an army raid at a cafe in the Rafidia neighbourhood of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on 23 April 2026 (Nasser Ishtayeh / SOPA Images via Reuters)
Published date: 4 May 2026 14:13 BST | Last update:2 days 20 hours ago
Israelโs top commander in the occupied West Bank has said the army is killing Palestinians at levels โnot seen since 1967โ, according to Haaretz.
Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli armyโs Central Command, made the remarks in a closed forum, where he also defended looser rules of engagement allowing troops to fire at unarmed Palestinians.
He acknowledged a discriminatory approach whereby Jewish Israeli stone-throwers are not targeted while Palestinians carrying out similar acts are fired at.
“In three years, we have killed 1,500 terrorists,” he said, referring to Palestinians.
“So how is there no intifada? Why arenโt they taking to the streets? Why is the Palestinian public indifferent? Why are there no disturbances?” Bluth, a settler who has been the Israeli army commander in the West Bank since 2024, added.
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“The Arabs understand that โif someone rises to kill you, kill him firstโ is part of the rules of the Middle East, and therefore we are killing like we have not killed since 1967.”
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), since 7 October 2023, Israel has killed 1,081 Palestinians in the West Bank and the occupied East Jerusalem, including at least 235 children.
Bluth attributed the high number of Palestinian deaths to orders he gave, which made it easier for Israeli soldiers to open fire at civilians.
He said troops are permitted to shoot, from the knee down, at Palestinians attempting to cross the West Bank separation barrier.
“Today, there are many โlimping memorialsโ in Palestinian villages of those who tried to infiltrate and got hit, so there is a price that is paid,” Bluth said, according to Haaretz.
Preferential treatment for settlers
Bluth admitted that his subordinates do not shoot Israelis who throw stones at army forces because of “sociological implications,” while they kill Palestinians who do the same.
He added that in 2025, Israeli forces killed 42 Palestinians accused of stone-throwing, which he described as terrorism.
When shown footage of settlers throwing stones at troops, he cited an incident in which two masked Israelis were shot, noting it caused a public outcry.
Bluth’s remarks come amid growing discontent about his actions among hilltop youth, the settler militias who terrorise Palestinians communities in the West Bank, who view him as yielding to left-wing and international pressure.
Ex-Mossad chief says Israeli settler violence reminds him of the Holocaust
Last week, Haaretz reported that Bluth labelled the growing numbers of settler attacks as “terror,” and criticised hilltop youth who establish outposts without coordinating it first with the army’s command.
Bluth added that the army, with the coordination of the settlers, established some 150 outposts in Area C in the West Bank in recent years, which he alleged helped prevent Palestinian โterrorโ and building expansion.
Last week, Knesset Member Limor Son Har-Melech, a vocal supporter of the settler militias, called Israel Defence Minister Israel Katz to immediately fire Bluth from his post over his remarks.
Meanwhile, the Israeli NGO Peace Now reported on Sunday that the Israeli government assigned some 130 million shekels to those same settler groups under the guise of curbing settler violence.
The funds were allocated towards โreducing risk situations and expanding positive responses for youth in the Judea and Samaria area,โ using the Israeli name for the West Bank.
Peace Now said the funds will, in practice, be used to strengthen the settlements and โchannel millionsโ to their regional councils.
“The government uses every excuse to justify pouring more and more millions into settlements. This is a programme to expand settlements under the guise of combating violence,” Peace Now statement said.
“The government is directing a significant portion of the funds to the same actors and activities that currently serve as the main supporters of the outposts and farms from which the violence originates,” the NGO added, calling on the government to stop the funds and the army and police to stop the violent acts.
Amnesty International has called for the release of abducted activists Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, who have been detained by Israel since its forces intercepted Global Sumud Flotilla vessels while in international waters last week.
Abu Keshek and Avila are โat great risk of human rights abuses, including torture and other ill-treatment,โ Amnesty said, citing its โprevious documentation of the abuse inflicted on flotilla activists detained in October 2025 at the hands of the Israeli authoritiesโ.
The NGO said it was especially concerned about Abu Keshek, โa Palestinian-Spanish-Swedish nationalโ, as he is โbeing detained on suspicion of affiliation with a terrorist organization given Israelโs discriminatory laws and persistent record of harassment and oppression of Palestinians under Israelโs system of apartheidโ.
Amnesty International called on Israel to โimmediately release them and ensure they are protected while in custodyโ.
As we reported earlier, Israeli rights group Adalah said Israelโs Beersheba District Court had rejected an appeal for the activistsโ release, ruling instead to extend their detention to Sunday morning.
Iranโs permanent mission to the UN has urged member states to reject a resolution drafted by the US and its Gulf allies pressing Iran to ensure safe passage for shipping through Hormuz, calling it โflawedโ and โpolitically motivatedโ.
โThe only viable solution in the Strait of Hormuz is clear: a permanent end to the war, the lifting of the maritime blockade, and the restoration of normal passage,โ said Iranโs UN mission in a post on X.
It went on to accuse the US of using the resolution to โadvance its political agenda and legitimise unlawful actions โ not to resolve the crisisโ.
Lawyers says two activists are being subjected to ‘psychological torture’ as their detention is extended for another week
Activist Thiago Avila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla seized by Israel in international waters, sits at a magistrate’s court hearing in Ashkelon, Israel, 3 May 2026 (Amir Cohen/Reuters)
Published date: 5 May 2026 12:08 BST | Last update:21 hours 34 mins ago
Two activists seized by Israeli forces in international waters while en route to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been threatened with death or lengthy imprisonment, their lawyers said on Monday.
The legal centre Adalah, which represents Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek, said the pair have been subjected to psychological abuse and held in solitary confinement since their capture last week.
On Tuesday, a court in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon extended their detention until Sunday.
Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish national of Palestinian origin, and Avila, a Brazilian national, were detained late on Wednesday when Israeli naval forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters off Greece.
They were taken to Israel and accused of assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership of and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and transferring funds to such a group. Both deny the charges.
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Since their detention, the men have been held in cells under constant bright light, a practice intended to cause sleep deprivation and disorientation, according to Adalah. They are also blindfolded whenever taken out of their cells, including during medical examinations, which it described as a serious breach of medical ethics.
Global Sumud Flotilla: When states fail, humanity sets sail
Avila reported being subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours, during which he was allegedly threatened that they would be “killed” or “imprisoned for 100 yearsโ.
He is also being held in very low temperatures, the group said.
The two men, now in solitary confinement, have entered their sixth day of a hunger strike in protest at what legal experts have described as an unlawful seizure outside Israelโs territorial waters.
Lawyers Hadeel Abu Salih and Lubna Tuma of Adalah told the court the case was โflawed and unlawfulโ, arguing there is no legal basis for applying Israeli law to foreign nationals in international waters.
During Fridayโs raid, Israeli forces intercepted at least 21 Gaza-bound vessels and detained 175 activists, in what organisers from the Global Sumud Flotilla described as an act of โpiracyโ.
The boats were seized about 600 nautical miles from Gazaโs coast, near the Greek island of Crete.
Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday describing the detention of Avila and Abu Keshek as illegal.
When France entered the city of Aghwat (Laghouat) in Algeria in 1852, it burned two-thirds of its inhabitants to death in just one night.
A woman carries an Iranian flag during a pro-government gathering at Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, square in Tehran, Iran, May 4, 2026
![Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awards the Order of Civil Merit to UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, on 7 May 2026 [sanchezcastejon/X]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/pedro-sanchez-francesca-albanese-award.jpeg.webp?fit=920%2C615&ssl=1)
Peace and Justice Post 