Reutersreported on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia launched numerous, unpublicized strikes against Iran during the US-Israeli bombing campaign, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”
The report came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that the UAE also launched direct attacks on Iran, including one that came after the ceasefire between the US and Iran came into effect.
The Reuters report, which cited Western and Iranian officials, said there was a different dynamic between Riyadh and Tehran than between Riyadh and the UAE.
US and Saudi F-15 fighter jets fly together in 2019 (US Air Force photo)
“The UAE has taken a more hawkish stance, seeking to extract a cost from Iran and engaging only rarely in public diplomacy with Tehran,” the report said. “Saudi Arabia has meanwhile sought to prevent the conflict from escalating and has stayed in regular contact with Iran, including via Tehran’s ambassador in Riyadh.”
Officials said that the Saudis launched strikes against Iran in late March in response to Iranian attacks on Saudi territory and that Tehran was made aware of the strikes.
Officials said that Riyadh threatened to take a more hawkish approach and hit Iran harder, which led to a decrease in Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia, which hosts US troops and has a close military relationship with Washington. Saudi Arabia maintains a fleet of US-made fighter jets, and Washington had previously backed a brutal Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen from 2015 to 2022.
The UAE is seen as being much more openly aligned with Israel due to the 2020 normalization agreement, known as the Abraham Accords, and Israel has reportedly deployed an Iron Dome air defense battery to the Gulf Arab state.
Major protests have been held in London and other cities against the ban on Palestine Action. (Dinendra Haria / ZUMA Press)
On 13 February, the UK’s High Court of Justice ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful.
Palestine Action was added to the list of proscribed organizations in July 2025, a move initiated by the then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and passed by Britain’s Parliament.
In February, a panel of three senior judges allowed the challenge brought by Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, on two grounds.
First, the pathway to reach the decision to proscribe was not in line with the Home Office’s own policy. Second, a crucial ruling held that the ban under the Terrorism Act interfered with the fundamental rights of free expression and free assembly.
Yet the group remains banned, pending the outcome of the British government’s appeal.
The government’s challenge to the February ruling was heard by the Court of Appeal in late April. The verdict in the appeal case is expected within the coming weeks.
Paying no mind to the proscription, people from all walks of life have continued to show their opposition to the UK’s role in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and in imperial violence throughout the Middle East. It’s clear beyond any doubt that Westminster failed at halting autonomous resistance or popular support for Palestine Action.
Direct action is a political strategy with little regard for established pathways to change when operating within a political environment that fails to prioritize human life over the interests of global finance and a decaying imperial order. Direct action is a weapon of the people.
As I write this, I am currently incarcerated in the UK, accused of being connected to an action at Brize Norton which saw two people enter a Royal Air Force base and spray paint on Voyager aircrafts which were being used to refuel British spy planes. The spy planes had regularly been seen above Gaza during Israel’s genocidal campaign, and have more recently been used to support US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Yvette Cooper responded to the action at Brize Norton by announcing proscription. My co-defendants and I were arrested by counterterrorism police.
We were held completely incommunicado for the first 48 hours. Now, we all await trial in prison.
We have already spent approximately 10 months on remand (in pre-trial detention) and face additional time if not granted bail. Under most circumstances, the limit on detention in police custody is 24 hours and imprisonment without conviction should not exceed six months.
Moreover, being imprisoned under the Terrorism Act subjects us to further surveillance and security measures while in prison. A Muslim co-defendant of mine, held in the Wormwood Scrubs prison, has recently been visited by counterterrorism officers and instructed not to speak Arabic or practice Islam outside of his cell.
We are all subjected to legislation that is on paper the same. In reality, our treatment differs based in part on our proximity to contemporary stereotypes of terrorism.
These stereotypes, created through mainstream media and the entertainment industry, are directly linked to the state’s ability to disregard its subjects’ claims to rights, seemingly celebrated in liberal democracies.
Freedom to practice one’s religion is one of those rights.
Terror of occupation
Contemporary domestic counterterrorism powers deliberately lack many of the safeguards that, however imperfect, exist under most other encounters with the state. I am being subjected to this firsthand.
Globally, the so-called war on terror green-lighted torture and prolonged imprisonment of innocent people without any judicial oversight in places like Guantanamo or US-run black sites.
Terrorism, defined as the use of “terror” to advance a political or ideological cause, leaves out the reality that the colonizer or Western soldiers’ acts of terror are considered perfectly justified, no matter how brutal.
For the colonized, any attempts at survival are quickly designated as acts of terrorism, regardless of the actual means of resistance. From First Nations on the American continent through Algeria to Ireland and Palestine, labeling occupied people as terrorists is an attempt to strip them of their right to govern themselves and govern their land.
Palestinian children understand the meaning of terrorism far better than Shabana Mahmood, the current home secretary, or Yvette Cooper ever could. They live through the terror of occupation day in, day out.
The decision to proscribe cannot be viewed as an isolated instance of state repression. Countering so-called terrorism, with all its material consequences, has been deployed to stifle dissent throughout history.
The meaning of terrorism has always been deliberately vague and often manipulated to fit the given ruling class and its ideological interests. The designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was not an error in an otherwise well-designed system.
It might have been an escalation, but nevertheless it was one that is in line with the historical utilization of a broad range of counterinsurgency tactics against effective political movements.
So while resistance to genocide and occupation never relied on permission from the courts, the ruling of Palestine Action’s proscription as unlawful is extremely significant nonetheless. It is the first successful legal challenge to a group’s proscription since the current counterterrorism powers came into force at the start of the century.
The court ruling from 13 February isn’t only a massive victory for the freedom of speech and right to protest in the UK. It challenges the state’s hegemony on deploying counterterrorism powers as a tool to manufacture a climate of fear, to distract, to justify invasion or genocide and in our case, attempt to make us into a deterrent.
The past 10 months have seen a sharp rise in public critiques of counterterrorism powers, especially in the context of political repression.
That has been made possible in no small way thanks to the campaign organized by Defend Our Juries and thanks to continuing resistance on the streets, on the top of weapons factories, and within prisons.
I reject the label of “terrorist.” I reject it only insofar as this rejection leads to the naming of terror experienced by millions in this country and globally – lack of social care, poverty, homelessness, brutal border policies and imperial wars.
State-sanctioned terrorism is policy-driven and deliberate terror, aimed at protecting the ideology of free market capitalism. I witness the effects of state-sanctioned terrorism daily through the stories and the fears of many women held behind the same walls as me.
I reject the label of “terrorist” as a way to reject the notion that all life isn’t equal.
I believe that we will ultimately see the unlawful proscription of Palestine Action completely lifted. However, we have a duty to keep up the struggle against the strategic deployment of counterterrorism powers at large beyond this moment.
Something that seems unavoidable at a time of increased imperial violence enacted by the US and the Zionist regime, whose leaders, yet again, rely on the excuse of fighting terrorism to justify their attacks on sovereign countries, all the while instilling terror themselves.
Jon Cink is in pre-trial detention after being arrested for allegedly breaking into Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airforce base, and helping to decommission two warplanes suspected of being used in the Gaza genocide.
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the Israeli military’s leveling of more than a dozen high-rise residential and commercial buildings in the Gaza Strip late last year, attacks that the leading human rights organization said must be investigated as “war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment.”
The new report cites “celebratory and gleeful” comments from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz as evidence that there was no plausible military objective for Israel’s destruction of at least 13 multistory residential and commercial buildings in Gaza City between September and October 2025. In one mid-September social media post, Katz boasted that Israeli bombs sent one Gaza university “soaring to the heavens.”
Amnesty, which has called Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide, notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention bars occupying powers from engaging in collective punishment and property destruction “except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”
“In the month preceding the so-called ceasefire in October 2025, Israel expanded and escalated its relentless assault on Gaza City, causing one of the worst waves of mass displacement during the genocide,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns. “A key pattern of this assault was the deliberate destruction, through aerial bombardment, of multi-story civilian buildings, leveling the homes of thousands of civilians, and destroying makeshift camps in their vicinity.”
“All the available evidence indicates that Israel’s destruction of these 13 high-rise buildings was not ‘rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’ and as such must be investigated as war crimes,” she added.
“”Our children are sick from the rain and cold. It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything.“
Amnesty said that satellite imagery, interviews with residents displaced by Israel’s large-scale destruction of Gaza buildings, and verified video footage revealed “a chilling pattern of deliberate destruction of the civilian structures by Israeli forces without requisite military necessity.” A 32-year-old IT engineer told the group that his family, including three children, is now living in a tent in southern Gaza after Israel bombed the 10-story Al-Najm building in Gaza City.
“Our children are sick from the rain and cold,” the man said. “It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything. My other children, a six-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, are traumatized; we had to run away from home and they saw it bombed into rubble in front of their eyes. They don’t understand and I can’t explain it to them.”
The United Nations has estimated that Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed more than 80% of structures in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when Israel’s assault began in response to a deadly Hamas-led attack.
“The widespread destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including homes, either through bombardment or demolitions with explosives, combined with Israel’s ongoing restrictions on the entry of shelter material into Gaza and the prohibition on the return to the areas east of the yellow line, have inflicted catastrophic suffering on Gaza’s population,” said Guevara Rosas. “Israel must allow immediate, unfettered access to indispensable aid and goods, including shelter material.”
“Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable,” she added.
Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek (centre) a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is escorted by prison service guards to a hearing at the District Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday, May 3, 20
A PALESTINE solidarity activist deported from Israel today has vowed to keep mobilising “for a free Palestine.”
Saif Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish dual national, and Thiago Avila of Brazil’s deportation was announced by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Mr Abu Keshek posted a defiant video following his arrival in Athens, Greece, pointing out that his comrades were still sailing with the Global Sumud Flotilla determined to get aid into Gaza.
“Mobilise in every corner of the world, on land and at sea, for a free Palestine,” he urged.
Israel attacked the flotilla in international waters near Greece on April 30, kidnapping 175 people but only taking Mr Abu Keshek and Mr Avila back to Israel for interrogation.
They both reported ill treatment by Israeli authorities — Mr Avila that he was beaten unconscious, while Mr Abu Keshek was reportedly forced to lie face down blindfolded on the boat all the way to Israel.
In his video, Mr Abu Keshek drew attention to the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, over 3,000 of whom are in “administrative detention,” having never been tried. These military orders can be renewed indefinitely.
“I am sure that the treatment I faced is nothing compared to the suffering they are going through,” he said.
Human rights and prisoner advocacy groups have accused Israel of systematic abuse of prisoners, including rape and setting dogs on them.
In March, Israel dropped charges against five soldiers accused of sodomising a Palestinian prisoner with a “sharp object.”
Footage of the notorious incident was leaked by former Israeli military advocate-general Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, resulting in her resignation and disgrace.
Although this step would not have changed much – if anything- as the Zionist entity would have retained its privileged access to the European market, in another shameful, unmasking reaction, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul declared the three countries’ move to be “inappropriate“, saying: “We have to talk with Israel about the critical issues… that has to be done in a critical, constructive dialogue with Israel.”
“Inappropriate!”
After two and a half years of genocide in Gaza and the blockade of all aid? In light of the unprecedented brutality in the West Bank, committed by the “scum of Zionist settlers” who, with the help of Israeli occupation forces, are perpetrating a “second Nakba”? After months of slaughtering civilians in Lebanon, destroying all infrastructure just as the inhuman settler colonial fanatics of a Greater Israel did in Gaza, and bombing the Iranian population?
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Instead of finally taking action against all these repulsive massacres, Wadephul offers nothing but empty talk about Germany’s supposed historical responsibility for the Zionist mass murderers and the mantra-like repetition of a “constructive dialogue” with them being necessary.
In 19 months, this “constructive dialogue” has yielded no results for the victims of the Zionists, but as Wadephul insists on continuing it, it is high time to take a closer look at what this kind of dialogue actually entails.
Constructive dialogue
“Constructive dialogue is a form of conversation where people with different perspectives seek to understand one another – without abandoning their own beliefs – in order to live, learn, and work together. It is especially well-suited for grappling with important, complex issues that often divide people.”
As Gaza becomes a death camp, German complicity reveals the West’s racist ‘biopolitics’
If this is a definition provided by experts, such a dialogue between Germany and Israel is completely unnecessary.
When it comes to genocide, settler violence, the decades-long ongoing Nakba, the destruction of southern Lebanon and the bombing of Lebanese and Iranian residential neighbourhoods, Berlin and the Zionists do not have a single “different perspective” that needs to be clarified. They “understand each other”; they do not even have to “abandon their own beliefs”, and none of these crimes would “divide” them.
We learn even more: “At its core, constructive dialogue prioritises mutual understanding: the shared effort to understand others’ views while knowing that others are making the same effort toward yours. Through this process, participants may enrich their own perspectives, clarify differences, uncover common ground, or even create opportunities for future collaboration that once seemed out of reach.”
This helps us understand why such a dialogue is actually pointless.
In light of all the crimes against humanity that the Zionists continue to commit, there already exists “mutual understanding” between them and Germany. And it goes without saying that for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whatever his best friends have announced to do, have done and continue to do in Gaza and beyond is anything but a genocide.
In a “constructive dialogue”, Berlin and the Zionist entity cannot “enrich” their perspectives or “clarify differences”, since they are in complete agreement on everything the Zionists do.
They cannot “uncover common ground”, for they are brothers in arms and allies in genocide. And they cannot even “create opportunities for future cooperation” because, as much as the murderous genocide project of the Palestinian people is a joint one, so was the following annihilation of the Lebanese and Iranians. None of them has ever “seemed out of reach”.
Throwing smoke bombs
Wadephul, who came under pressure from the three EU member states, responded by resorting to a tried-and-true tactic that is nothing more than a large-scale deception, as another look into what “constructive dialogue” does not mean.
“Constructive dialogue is not about persuading others or winning an argument, and it is not about proving the other side wrong. While these may be reasonable goals for other forms of conversation, these are not the aims of constructive dialogue.”
And that is why Germany wants to continue the “constructive dialogue”. By definition, it rules out everything that actually needs to be done.
This hypocritical “constructive dialogue” is intended to prevent the German foreign minister from doing what he actually ought to do: convincing the Zionists to stop their heinous crimes and putting pressure on them. He would have to do everything in his power to stand up to the killing machine known as Israel, to save the lives of those it slaughters.
Actions rather than empty words would simply be the duty – and indeed, the historical responsibility – of a German foreign minister. How constructive would that be? It would directly serve the cause of life, not Zionist necropolitics.
Yet can one imagine a German foreign minister not only delivering empty “constructive” talk without consequences? Who would even dare to impose sanctions on the Zionist regime that commits an almost infinite list of barbaric crimes on a daily basis?
‘Israel First’
Certainly not, but there is much to be learned from Wadephul’s call for a “constructive dialogue”.
To call for such a “constructive dialogue” now – after Germany has unreservedly supported and encouraged the genocide for two and a half years, as well as the ongoing wars of aggression against Lebanon, Syria, and Iran – is in fact putting “Israel First”.
Israel is gripped by messianic fervour for a biblical war
Another “constructive dialogue” will lead nowhere, because it is not meant to and must not lead anywhere. Nothing is supposed to change. The eradication of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples is to continue. It is an expression of the barely concealed contempt, rooted in white supremacy, that both Germany and the Zionists harbour towards Arab and Persian civilisation.
Germany, on the other hand, honours Zionism’s contribution to western civilisation, which essentially amounts to developing some of the most advanced military technologies and the most sophisticated surveillance technologies for the purpose of killing and controlling people. Both are expressions of the Zionist cult of death, which Germany supports and seeks to profit from.
“Israel First” – that is a very German doctrine and has been for decades.
Today, we see the consequences: while the German government, even in the face of genocide, attempts to appease and deceive its own people and the world by calling for a “creative dialogue”, it is simultaneously paving the way for the messianic-Zionist horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The “constructive dialogue” that Wadephul suggests is nothing more than another coffee-table chat in which Germany, in a thoroughly constructive manner, assures the Zionists of a free hand and support for the continuation of their barbaric campaigns of extermination.
As there will never be any consequences, such talks, to borrow Wadephul’s phrase, are utterly “inappropriate”.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Jurgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024). Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited with Ilan Pappe; Nomos 2024).
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 “Community Alliance 4 Peace and Justice” hosted by Mehlaqa Samdani. It provided us with an excellent opportunity to talk about President Trump’s “Project Freedom,” 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 can’t 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. Let’s 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 war’s unpopularity in the US, led to Trump losing the first rounds of the conflict.
Even the Wall Street Journal, a fervent supporter of the war, admitted this: “Trump screamed at aides for hours. The Europeans aren’t helping, he said repeatedly. Gas prices averaged $4.09. Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis… had been looming large in his mind, people who have spoken to him said. ‘If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,’ Trump had said in March. ‘What a mess.’”
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.
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 bigger defeat.
Unfortunately, this is a misanalysis. To prepare for the prolonged anti-war tasks to come, the situation must be seen 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 first 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 global 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 be won.
The Institute for the Study of War put it specifically: “Any US settlement or resolution of the conflict that enables Iran to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would represent a major US defeat.” As the Wall Street Journal summarised: “As the president said in his first term, the US shouldn’t start a war it doesn’t intend to win. His challenge now is to prove to Iran’s regime he meant what he said.”
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 economic 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: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately… Starving for cash!”
Such sanctions genuinely damaged Iran’s economy, creating a priority for Iran to attempt to break out of them, while the US can return to bombing anytime it chooses.
Israel, and some in the US, considered sanctions strategically inadequate. Iran is a huge country, 80 times Israel’s size geographically, larger than the EU’s four largest countries put together. Iran’s population is 90 million, compared to Israel’s 10 million. In real economic terms, parity purchasing powers (PPPs), Iran’s GDP is three times Israel’s.
Faced with larger states, Israel’s policy has been, where it is unable to help create governments favourable to itself, to attempt to disintegrate and weaken them — as shown in Iraq and Syria. Israel, judging it unlikely there will be a compliant Iranian government, has long sought to disintegrate that country. Therefore, Iran faces an existential threat from Israel.
The US itself turned to a military assault on Iran, as opposed to sanctions, because of its and Israel’s victories in its genocidal attack on Gaza and also in Syria — where reactionary forces, which Israel and the US supported, came to power.
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 and January.
But not only did this fail to overthrow Iran’s 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 “rallying around the flag” in Iran — in political terms, the great majority of Iran’s population, whatever their differences on other issues, or their attitude to Iran’s government, united in opposition to the US attack. This was the basis of the US defeat in the first round of the 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 west Asia.
The facts show the opposite. The US has waged more wars in the region — against Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and 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 — 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 to heel.
This reality was made clear for all to see when Trump, for short-term tactical reasons, openly enforced an end to Israel’s bombing of Beirut, declaring: “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the US.” The US does not support Israel because it is controlled by it but because the US finds Israel useful for its own strategy.
Although the US does not need west Asia’s oil for itself, its strategy is to be able to deny it to others, particularly 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 against Iran.
John Ross is senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and a member of No Cold War 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)
“It again raises urgent questions: Is this president fit to lead and make consequential decisions that impact countless lives?” said the National Iranian-American Council.
As he struggles to force Iran’s 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 threats—including that the “whole civilization” of Iran would “die,” and that the whole country would be “blown up“—which 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 “self-defense” 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. “If there’s no ceasefire, you’re just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran,” he said. “They’d better sign the agreement fast… If they don’t sign, they’re going to have a lot of pain.”
To many observers, this sounded like a threat from Trump to carry out a nuclear holocaust, though it could also be a redux of Trump’s 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 “ironic since the war today supposedly is to prevent Iran from getting… a nuclear weapon.”
The National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) said that “threatening to make Iran glow—with nuclear weapons or otherwise—is an almost unthinkable threat to commit a mass war crime against 92 million people. It must never be normalized.”
“It again raises urgent questions: Is this president fit to lead and make consequential decisions that impact countless lives?” the group said. “Would the chain of command refuse unlawful orders to make Iran ‘glow,’ killing millions of people?”
Trump’s 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.
“Our leaders need to interrogate these questions seriously, and not write them off as the ramblings of a madman,” NIAC said. “Trump is the president, and may seek to act on these horrible, contemptible threats. This war needs to end, and so [does] Trump’s horrific threatening of war crimes.”
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 “the need for an immediate end to the violence and the building of a lasting peace based on dignity and humanity,” according to a government statement.
“Public responsibility also implies the moral obligation of not looking away,” Sanchez wrote on social media, praising Albanese as “a voice that upholds the conscience of the world.”
The Order of Civil Merit is one of Spain’s 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 Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Sanchez also sent a letter to the European Commission calling for the activation of the EU’s Blocking Statute to counter US sanctions imposed on Albanese as well as judges and prosecutors from the International Criminal Court.
“It’s like an international mafia — they want to silence everyone who demands an end to genocide, an end to the crimes,” Albanese told Spanish broadcaster RTVE, referring to the sanctions against her.
Also on Thursday, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares criticized Israel’s continued detention of Spanish-Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek, calling it “inadmissible and unacceptable.”
Jose Manuel Albares told the Spanish parliament that he summoned Israel’s top envoy in Spain on Wednesday to discuss the situation and had also spoken with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Albares said Abukeshek was “illegally” detained in international waters where Israel had “no jurisdiction” while traveling with a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla.
“Spain reacted without hesitation, with complete clarity and firmness, in response to violations of international law,” Albares said.
Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek (centre) a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is escorted by prison service guards to a hearing at the District Court in Ashkelon, Israel, on Sunday, May 3, 20
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.
![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 
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