Published date: 14 June 2025 19:34 BST | Last update:9 hours 49 mins ago
The US and Israel altered Israel’s F-35 warplanes to extend their range without the need for refuelling or compromising on stealth to help Israel’s attack on Iran, Middle East Eye can reveal.
The modification is secret, but two US officials speaking to MEE on condition of anonymity confirmed that Israel did not use mid-air refuelling during its Friday attack on Iran or land their warplanes for refuelling at any nearby countries.
Instead, the US officials told MEE that Israel and the US modified the F-35’s system to carry additional fuel that did not impact the F-35’s stealth features. The Israeli designation for their version of the F-35s is called the F-35I Adir.
The F-35 is the only long-range stealth fighter in the world, and its features make it difficult for radar or infrared sensors to track it.
The scale of Israel’s Friday attack and the surprise nature of it mean the improvement is a sea change for the F-35, the US officials told MEE.
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The F-35s performance is going to be carefully studied by Middle Eastern countries looking to acquire them, as well as the US’s foes, China and Russia.
“This is a game changer. Israel had our cooperation on this modification,” one US defence official told MEE, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Both officials confirmed that Israel modified their F-35Is with US involvement.
Exclusive: US quietly sent hundreds of Hellfire missiles to Israel before Iran attack
One US official refused to share details on how the F-35 was altered to carry more fuel, but suggested an external feature was added.
The second US official said that Israel attached external drop tanks to the F-35s.
“It’s impressive. Period,” Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace expert at aerodynamic advisory told MEE when asked about the US officials’ statements.
Aboulafia said that the only option Israel had in place of not refuelling was to use drop tanks.
“The big challenge is devising the F-35s interface system with drop tanks that don’t compromise stealth. Not only do you have to design the fixtures, but some sort of in-line modification has to be done. The Israelis, with our cooperation, I assume, practically did surgery on an existing jet to make this modification.”
The F-35 has a publicly stated combat range of roughly 700 miles. The shortest distance between Israel and Iran is roughly 620 miles one way.
If mid-air refuelling wasn’t employed, then theoretically they could have used a US base in the Gulf or in Azerbaijan, but the officials MEE spoke to said land refuelling did not take place on any US bases in the region.
Azerbaijan today said it would not allow its airspace or territory to be utilised for launching attacks on Iran or any other country, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said in a call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi.
Reports have emerged in recent years that Israel was working on such a project.
In 2021, Israel’s Walla news reported that the Israeli Air Force was working on a drop tank for the F-35I Adirs. The report at the time said Israel could finish the modification in two years.
Adding a drop tank that carries extra fuel sounds easy, but it is extremely sensitive and difficult, US officials and experts say.
The F-35 contains radar-absorbent materials and its entire engineering is designed to avoid detection. Any change to the body could compromise those features.
One challenge noted by The Aviationist magazine in 2021 was that once the tank was dropped it could expose other parts of the aircraft to radar because the attachment points and fuel lines would not be covered by any Radar Absorbing Material (RAM).
The US officials MEE spoke with refused to share details about the F-35s closely guarded engineering.
Published date: 19 March 2025 17:22 GMT | Last update:3 hours 1 min ago
Something that separates Ramadan from other times of the year is a change of routine.
That includes waking up for suhoor, a pre-dawn meal which Muslims eat in preparation for fasting.
Families, sometimes including children, rise together during the holy month to eat suhoor and perform Fajrdawn prayers.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombs in those early hours of suhoor.
Some had been awake eating with their families. Others were asleep in makeshift displacement camps as food was prepared.
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Entire generations of families were wiped out together by Israel’s devastating strikes.
‘People were killed while they were sleeping. Women were killed whilst they were preparing meals’
– Rachel Cummings, Save the Children, Gaza
“People were killed while they were sleeping. Women were killed whilst they were preparing meals,” Save the Children’s Rachael Cummings, who is currently in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, told Middle East Eye.
“There was no evacuation notice given,” Cummings said. “This was a complete bombardment across the whole of Gaza.”
The timing was reportedly deliberate: Israel launched a surprise attack in the early hours because it believed “Hamas members” would be present at suhoor meals.
Israeli officials continue to insist that Hamas commanders and infrastructure were the targets of the wave of attacks.
But of 436 massacred on Tuesday, over 180 were children.
“I do not spend too much time concerned with who the Israeli military says they targeted in attacks like this,” Miranda Cleland, of Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP), told MEE.
“Instead, look at the evidence: 183 dead children, comprising almost half of yesterday’s death toll, tells me that this is a war on children,” she added.
“Eighteen thousand dead children since 7 October 2023 tells me this is a war on children, regardless of what the Israeli military says.”
Tuesday marked one of the largest one-day child death tolls in Gaza’s history, according to DCIP, which has documented such fatalities in the enclave since 2000.
Over the past 17 months of war, DCIP has monitored child death tolls provided by the Gaza health ministry and cannot recall a day as deadly as 18 March 2025.
‘Gaza is a graveyard for children’
Among the slain children were Omar al-Jamassi, 15, and his sister Layan, 16. They were killed alongside their mother and siblings.
Layan had been excited to start the new school year on Tuesday morning. She was killed by an Israeli air strike hours before it was due to begin.
The political calculations behind Israel’s decision to go back to war
She and Omar had attended a tent school set up as part of the Gaza Great Minds project.
“They were always smiling and share happiness everywhere they go,” said Ahmad Abu Rizik, who founded the project.
Cummings said that children and babies were more at risk of dying from air strikes.
“The risks for children in this context are extraordinary,” she said. “Because they’re so small, they have less blood, so they die much more frequently from blast injuries.”
Nearly half of Gaza’s population are children, making it one the youngest territories in the world.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” Ammar Ammar of Unicef, the UN’s aid agency for children, told MEE.
“Children have been killed, injured, buried under rubble, frozen and starved to death, and many other horrors no child should be subjected to.”
‘Imprint of trauma’
For those children who have survived Israel’s 18-month war up to now, they have faced displacement and deprivation of basic needs.
Unicef estimates that all of Gaza’s one million children are in need of mental health and psychosocial support, too.
“No child will emerge from the horrors of months of relentless bombardment without the imprint of trauma,” said Ammar.
‘No child will emerge from the horrors of months of relentless bombardment without the imprint of trauma’
– Ammar Ammar, Unicef
For over two weeks, Israel has blocked all aid trucks from entering the enclave. Electricity has been cut for the past week.
Ammar said that has left many families struggling to provide enough food and safe water for their children.
“Children are dying of preventable conditions like malnutrition, dehydration, and hypothermia, due to Israel’s siege on Gaza and the mass destruction of homes and the healthcare system,” said Cleland.
She added that Israeli attacks had left minors with lifelong disabilities, without proper follow up care, prosthetics or physical therapy.
Regarding Tuesday’s attack, campaigners are clear that Israel has obligations to protect children.
“Children enjoy special protection under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. They must never be a target,” said Ammar.
Cleland added: “Yesterday’s attacks were not only a violation of the negotiated truce agreement, but a violation of international humanitarian law, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks.
“Bombing densely populated civilian areas is, by definition, indiscriminate.”
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President Trump said on Tuesday that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip, a surprise announcement he made while speaking with reporters at the White House during a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for people of the area,” Trump said.
The president said earlier that the Palestinians must be removed from Gaza “permanently,” making it clear the plan will involve the ethnic cleansing of the territory despite strong resistance from neighboring Arab states. The plan also implies that the US would rebuild Gaza for Jewish settlers.
Trump was asked who would live in Gaza under his plan and replied, “The world’s people,” and suggested some Palestinians may also be allowed.
He said, “I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there, and they’ll live there. Palestinians, also, … will live there. Many people will live there.”
Trump also said he wouldn’t rule out deploying troops to Gaza. When asked if his plan meant he would send troops, Trump said, “If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re gonna take over that piece and develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
The president suggested he had been considering the plan for a long time. “I see a long-term ownership position and bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East. Everybody I’ve spoken to — this was not a decision made lightly — everybody loves the idea of the US owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a magnificent area nobody would really know. They look, and all they see is death and destruction and rubble,” he said.
Netanyahu also commented on the plan, saying, “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level. He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism and attacks against us, so many trials and tribulations. He has a different idea and it’s worth paying attention to this. He’s exploring it and it’s something that could change history.”
Later on Tuesday, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, appeared on Fox News and endorsed the president’s plan, saying a better life for the Palestinians is “not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today.”
When asked what message Trump was trying to send by calling for a US takeover of Gaza, Witkoff said, “He’s telling the Middle East that the last 50 years of doing things was not the correct way of doing things, and he’s going to change it up.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also endorsed the US takeover and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. “Gaza MUST BE FREE from Hamas. As [Trump] shared today, the United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza Beautiful Again. Our pursuit is one of lasting peace in the region for all people,” he wrote on X.
A US takeover of the Gaza Strip would require Israel to restart its genocidal war, and it could potentially involve direct US military action. Since coming into office, Trump has begun advancing billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments for Israel funded by US military aid.
Hamas would fiercely resist a US takeover, and the group has replaced about all the fighters it has lost, according to US intelligence, despite Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians.
The acting president of the International Court of Justice, Julia Sebutinde, plagiarized large parts of her dissenting opinion on the “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
Recall that, in January 2024, Judge Sebutinde was the only judge of the 17 judges on the panel to vote against all six provisional measures in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel, including the order that Israel needed “to take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
It was in her 36-page opinion on the legal status of Israel’s occupation, however, published in July 2024, where she plagiarized many sentences, including whole paragraphs. The legal opinion also includes lengthy historical discussions, in which she got basic facts wrong and painted a distorted picture of the past. In fact, rather than citing historians, and giving those historians credit for their work in her footnotes, Sebutinde plagiarized propagandists, themselves partisans, interested not in getting history right but in defending the Zionist cause.
In short, Judge Sebutinde has no shame in presenting other people’s work as her own. This makes her a dishonest person, someone who should not be trusted to adjudicate anything at all, let alone international law for the world’s highest court. Here are 9 of the most egregious instances of her plagiarism:
The Jewish Virtual Library
Sebutinde plagiarized many sentences from the “The Jewish Virtual Library” website, run by Mitchell G. Bard and Or Shaked, two individuals who have decades of expertise distorting history to present Israel in a positive light.
1. Sebutinde: “Prior to the establishment of “British Mandatory Palestine”, Palestinian Arabs viewed themselves as having a unified identity with the Arabs in the subregion until the twentieth century.”
1. Jewish Virtual Library: “Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity.”
2. Sebutinde: “When the distinguished Arab American historian, Professor Philip Hitti, testified against the Partition of Mandatory Palestine before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he remarked: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history; absolutely not.””
2. Jewish Virtual Library: “When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”
3. Sebutinde: “In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”
3. Jewish Virtual Library: “In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.””
4. Sebutinde: “The first Palestine-Arab Congress which convened in Jerusalem from 27 January to 10 February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, adopted a resolution in which it, inter alia, considered Palestine as an integral part of Arab Syria.”
4. Jewish Virtual Library: “When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time.”
Prager U
She also plagiarized from Prager U, another organization with decades of expertise not in history, but in distorting history to present Israel in a positive light.
5. Sebutinde: “the British Government offered the Palestinian Arabs 80 per cent of Mandatory Palestine (Transjordan), and the Jews the remaining 20 per cent (Palestine) in a suggested split that was heavily in favour of the former. Despite the tiny size of their proposed State, the Jews voted to accept this offer, but the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion against the British mandate.”
5. Prager U: “The British offered them 80 percent of the disputed territory; the Jews, the remaining 20 percent. Yet, despite the tiny size of their proposed state, the Jews voted to accept this offer. But the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion.”
6. Sebutinde: “Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David, with Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000, to conclude a new two-State plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian State in all of Gaza, and 94 per cent of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinian leader flatly rejected the offer. In the words of President Bill Clinton of the United States, “Arafat was here 14 days and said no to everything.” Instead, the Palestinians launched a bloody wave of suicide bombings that killed over 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands more, on buses, in wedding halls, and in pizza parlours.”
6. Prager U: “In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David with Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to conclude a new two-state plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the Palestinian leader rejected the offer. In the words of US President Bill Clinton, Arafat was “Here 14 days and said ‘no’ to everything.” Instead, the Palestinians launched a bloody wave of suicide bombings that killed over 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands more – on buses, in wedding halls, and in pizza parlours.”
Douglas J. Feith
Sebutinde also plagiarized from a 2021 blog post by Douglas J. Feith published by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Feith is not a historian, but a war monger, serving as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President George W. Bush administration from 2001-2005 where he helped guide strategy on two of the most disastrous wars in US history, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
7. Sebutinde: ““Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman empire.”
7. Douglas J. Feith: ““Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman empire.”
8. Sebutinde: “In 135 CE, after stamping out the second Jewish insurrection of the province of Judea or Judah, the Romans renamed that province “Syria Palaestina” (or “Palestinian Syria”). The Romans did this as a punishment, to spite the “Y’hudim” (Jewish population) and to obliterate the link between them and their province (known in Hebrew as Y’hudah). The name “Palaestina” was used in relation to the people known as the Philistines and found along the Mediterranean coast.”
8. Douglas J. Feith “In 135 CE, after stamping out the province of Judea’s second insurrection, the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina—that is, “Palestinian Syria.” They did so resentfully, as a punishment, to obliterate the link between the Jews (in Hebrew, Y’hudim and in Latin Judaei) and the province (the Hebrew name of which was Y’hudah). “Palaestina” referred to the Philistines, whose home base had been on the Mediterranean coast.”
9. Sebutinde: “The line in the north emerged from Anglo-French negotiations in 1923. The one in the south was fixed by treaties in the mid-1920s between Britain and the new nation of Saudi Arabia. The border between the Mandate of Palestine and the Mandate of Mesopotamia (Iraq) was of little immediate importance, given that the line was in the middle of an uninhabited desert and Britain controlled both sides. That line was finally fixed through an exchange of letters in 1932.”
9. Douglas J. Feith: “The line in the north emerged from Anglo-French negotiations in 1923. The one in the south was fixed by treaties in the mid-1920s between Britain and the new nation of Saudi Arabia. The border between Mandate Palestine and Mandate Mesopotamia was of little immediate importance, given that it was in the middle of an uninhabited desert and Britain controlled both sides. That line was finally fixed through an exchange of letters in 1932.”
The plagiarism outlined above represents a clear breach of public trust. The ICJ needs honest judges, not judges who lie and present other people’s work as their own, not to mention work that is itself grounded not in historical research but in Zionist mythology and propaganda. Sebutinde is a disgrace to the court and its reputation, and every judge, lawyer and legal expert in the world should call for her immediate resignation.
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Zachary J. Foster is a historian of Palestine who received his Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 2017. (Newsletter, Academia, Google Scholar)
Protesters with hands painted red to symbolize blood stand outside the Turkish Embassy in Croatia on Nov. 11, 2024, holding signs in English and Croatian that read, “Erdoğan stop fueling genocide in Gaza.” The demonstration is part of a global campaign urging Turkey to cease its alleged role in oil shipments benefiting Israel.
A new report by the Stop Fueling Genocide campaign, supported by Progressive International, has revealed that 10 crude oil shipments were made from Turkey to Israel over the past year, eight of which violated Ankara’s embargo announced in May, according to the Gazete Duvar news website.
The report is the second from the group, which uses satellite imagery and shipping data to track the movement of tankers from Turkey’s Ceyhan port to Israel, providing evidence that Ankara’s crude oil shipments to Israel continued despite the trade ban.
In the first report researchers confirmed that a tanker, the Seavigour, loaded Azeri crude oil in Ceyhan on October 28, turned off its tracking signal in the eastern Mediterranean on October 30 and reappeared near Sicily a week later, having reportedly offloaded its cargo. Satellite imagery later showed the Seavigour docking at the EAPC terminal near Ashkelon, Israel, on November 5.
Ceyhan serves as the endpoint of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which transports crude oil from Azerbaijan. This oil accounts for nearly 30 percent of Israel’s crude imports. Reports indicate that Azerbaijan’s oil exports to Israel have quadrupled this year, rising from 523,554 tons in January to 2,372,248 tons in September.
Researchers identified 10 journeys made since December 2023 by another crude oil tanker, the Kimolos, between Ceyhan and the EAPC Terminal in the second report, with eight occurring after Turkey’s trade blockade on Israel was announced.
The report said the Kimolos, similar to other vessels trading with Israel, was turning off its tracking signal in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean for several days to mask the trade between Turkey and Israel.
The two ships identified in the reports are Suezmax-size vessels, which are chartered specifically for the transfer of high volumes of crude oil.
The report said researchers “have reasonably concluded” from this evidence that the Kimolos has routinely shipped Azeri crude oil from Turkey to Israel throughout the past year.
The findings contradict statements by Turkey’s energy minister, who had denied any oil shipments to Israel since the embargo began.
The ongoing trade with Israel has drawn criticism from activists, who argue that crude oil from the BTC pipeline is refined and used to fuel Israeli military equipment. Advocacy groups have called on Turkey to enforce the embargo and align its policies with its stated support for Palestine.
Experts warn that if the International Court of Justice determines Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, those involved in supplying fuel could be found complicit in failing to prevent genocide.
Earlier this month nine activists, who had interrupted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s November 29 speech at the TRT World Forum in İstanbul, accusing the president of hypocrisy for allegedly facilitating crude oil shipments to Israel despite Turkey’s public stance against Israeli military actions in Gaza, were detained and subsequently arrested by a court on December 2. They were released on December 6 after their lawyers filed an appeal contesting the arrests.
The arrests have sparked outrage among human rights groups and activists. Critics argue that Erdoğan’s government is suppressing dissent while enabling trade that contradicts its pro-Palestinian rhetoric.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he spoke with President-elect Donald Trump about Israel’s need to achieve “victory” against Iran and its allies in the region.
“I unequivocally declare to Hezbollah and to Iran: In order to prevent you from attacking us, we will continue to take action against you as necessary, in every arena and at all times,” Netanyahu said.
“I discussed all of this last night with my friend, US President-elect Donald Trump. We had a very friendly, warm and important discussion. We discussed the need to complete Israel’s victory and we spoke at length about the efforts we are making to free our hostages,” the prime minister added.
The conversation between Netanyahu and Trump came after reports said Israel sees an opportunity to bomb Iran following the regime change in Syria that ousted former President Bashar al-Assad. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Trump transition team is discussing the idea of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The pretext for any Israeli or US action against Iranian nuclear facilities would be to stop Iran from building a bomb, but there’s no evidence that Tehran has decided to pursue nuclear weapons, something recently acknowledged by the CIA.
In his remarks on Sunday, Netanyahu also said Israel was changing the “face” of the Middle East. “Syria is not the same Syria. Lebanon is not the same Lebanon. Gaza is not the same Gaza. And the head of the axis, Iran, is not the same Iran; it has also felt the might of our arm.
The Israeli leader claimed Israel has “no interest in a conflict with Syria,” but Israel has unleashed a heavy air campaign against the country since the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, launching over 800 strikes.
The recent fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus marked a turning point in Syria’s ongoing conflict, with new reports revealing a covert Ukrainian role in aiding Syrian rebels.
Ukrainian intelligence provided strategic support, including drone technology and experienced operators, to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant rebel faction in Idlib, Caliber.Az reports via The Washington Post.
This effort underscores Ukraine’s broader strategy to undermine Russian influence on multiple fronts amid its ongoing war with Moscow.
Approximately four to five weeks prior to the HTS-led offensive, Ukrainian operatives delivered 150 first-person-view drones and deployed 20 experienced operators to assist the rebels. Although Western intelligence sources suggest this aid played a modest role in the regime’s downfall, it was a significant demonstration of Kyiv’s intent to counter Russia in unconventional theatres such as the Middle East, Africa, and even within Russia itself.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the GUR, has reportedly collaborated with opposition groups in Syria under a special unit known as “Khimik,” bolstering rebel capabilities against Russian-backed Syrian forces.
Ukraine’s motivations for such actions are clear. With its homeland under siege, Kyiv is actively opening secondary fronts to stretch Russian resources and influence. A June report in the Kyiv Post detailed strikes by Ukrainian-backed Syrian rebels on Russian military installations, accompanied by video evidence of these operations.
Russian officials have expressed growing concern, with statements from representatives such as Alexander Lavrentyev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accusing Ukrainian intelligence of conducting “dirty operations” in Idlib. Despite these claims, independent verification remains scarce.
While Russia has downplayed Ukraine’s involvement, pointing to HTS’s independent drone program and prior expertise, the rapid collapse of Assad’s regime caught Moscow off guard. Russian Telegram channels have sought to minimize Kyiv’s role, suggesting Ukrainian personnel were in Syria for too short a time to significantly influence operations. However, this narrative contrasts with Ukraine’s broader pattern of covert actions against Russian forces worldwide.
Beyond Syria, Ukraine has demonstrated its capability for overseas operations in other regions. In July 2023, Ukrainian intelligence reportedly supported Malian rebels in an ambush against Wagner Group mercenaries, resulting in significant losses for the Russian paramilitary group.
Such actions highlight the GUR’s aggressive strategy, with its head, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, affirming Ukraine’s commitment to targeting Russian military assets globally. This approach has drawn concerns from Western allies, including the Biden administration, over potential escalations.
Ukraine’s actions in Syria align with its broader strategy to disrupt Russia’s influence and partnerships. By aiding HTS, Kyiv weakened a critical Russian ally in the Middle East, further isolating Moscow. Although the Ukrainian assistance may not have been decisive, it contributed to an environment where the Assad regime’s fall became inevitable.
The parallels to other intelligence failures, such as Russia’s inability to anticipate HTS’s offensive or Israel’s surprise during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, are striking. Both underscore the challenges nations face in responding to unconventional threats.
For Ukraine, these operations serve as a testament to its resilience and resourcefulness in a protracted struggle against a powerful adversary. While not the decisive factor in Damascus, Ukraine’s covert actions signal its intent to shape the global battlefield to its advantage.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of the United States Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol March 3, 2015 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined America, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.
It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.
For 30 years the Israel Lobby has induced the U.S. to fight wars on Israel’s behalf designed to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and has been prime minister for 17 years since then, has been the main cheerleader for U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East. The result has been a disaster for the U.S. and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.
These have not been wars to defend Israel, but rather wars to topple governments that oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel viciously opposes the two-state solution called for by international law, the Arab Peace Initiative, the G20, the BRICS, the OIC, and the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intransigence, and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, has given rise to several militant resistance movements since the beginning of the occupation. These movements are backed by several countries in the region.
The obvious solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is to implement the two-state solution and to demilitarize the militant groups as part of the implementation process.
Israel’s approach, especially under Netanyahu, is to overthrow foreign governments that oppose Israel’s domination, and recreate the map of a “New Middle East” without a Palestinian State. Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.
What is shocking is that Washington has turned the U.S. military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars. The history of the Israel lobby’s complete takeover of Washington can be found in the remarkable new book by Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024).
Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.
Netanyahu repeatedly told the American people that they would be the beneficiaries of his policies. In fact, Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.
If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.
The Israel Lobby not only controls the votes in Congress but places hardline backers of Israel into key national security posts. These have included Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State for Clinton), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney), Victoria Nuland (Deputy National Security Advisor of Cheney, NATO Ambassador of Bush Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Obama, Under-Secretary of State for Biden), Paul Wolfowitz (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr., Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Douglas Feith (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Office of Special Plans, Department of Defense for Bush Jr.), Elliott Abrams (Deputy National Security Advisor for Bush Jr.), Richard Perle (Chairman of the Defense National Policy Board for Bush Jr.), Amos Hochstein (Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Biden), and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State for Biden).
Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.
In 1995, Netanyahu described his plan of action in his book Fighting Terrorism. To control terrorists (Netanyahu’s characterization of militant groups fighting Israel’s illegal rule over the Palestinians), it’s not enough to fight the terrorists. Instead, it’s necessary to fight the “terrorist regimes” that support such groups. And the U.S. must be the one to lead:
The cessation of terrorism must therefore be a clear-cut demand, backed up by sanctions and with no prizes attached. As with all international efforts, the vigorous application of sanctions to terrorist states must be led by the United States, whose leaders must choose the correct sequence, timing, and circumstances for these actions.
As Netanyahu told the American people in 2001 (reprinted as the 2001 foreword to Fighting Terrorism):
The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it… Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust. The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes, such as the Sudan.
All of this was music to the ears of the neocons in Washington, who similarly subscribed to U.S.-led regime change operations (through wars, covert subversion, U.S.-led color revolutions, violent coups, etc.) as the main way to deal with perceived U.S. adversaries.
After 9/11, the Bush Jr. neocons (led by Cheney and Rumsfeld) and the Bush Jr. insiders of the Israel Lobby (led by Wolfowitz and Feith), teamed up to remake the Middle East through a series of U.S.-led wars on Netanyahu’s targets in the Middle East (Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria) and Islamic East Africa (Libya, Somalia, and Sudan). The role of the Israel Lobby in stoking these wars of choice is described in detail in Pappe’s new book.
The neocon-Israel Lobby war plan was shown to General Wesley Clark on a visit to the Pentagon soon after 9/11. An officer pulled a paper from his desk and told Clark: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years—we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”
In 2002, Netanyahu pitched the war with Iraq to the American people and Congress by promising them that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region[…] People sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”
A remarkable new insider account of Netanyahu’s role in spearheading the Iraq War also comes from retired Marine Command Chief Master Sargent Dennis Fritz, in his book Deadly Betrayal (2024). When Fritz was called to deploy to Iraq in early 2002, he asked senior military officials why the U.S. was deploying to Iraq, but he got no clear answer. Rather than lead soldiers into a battle he could not explain or justify, he left the service.
The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century.
In 2005, Fritz was invited back to the Pentagon, now as a civilian, to assist Under-Secretary Douglas Feith in the declassification of documents about the war, so that Feith could use them to write a book about the war. Fritz discovered in the process that the Iraq War had been spurred by Netanyahu in close coordination with Wolfowitz and Feith. He learned that the purported U.S. war aim, to counter Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, was a cynical public relations gimmick led by an Israel Lobby insider, Abram Shulsky, to garner U.S. public support for the war.
Iraq was to be the first of the seven wars in five years, but as Fritz explains, that follow-up wars were delayed by the anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgency. Nonetheless, the U.S. eventually went to war or backed wars against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Lebanon. In other words, the U.S. carried out Netanyahu’s plans—except for Iran. To this day, indeed to this hour, Netanyahu works to stoke a U.S. war on Iran, one that could open World War III, either by Iran making the breakthrough to nuclear weapons, or by Iran’s ally, Russia, joining such a war on Iran’s side.
The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century. All of the countries attacked by the U.S. or its proxies—Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria—now lie in ruins. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza continues apace, and yet again the U.S. has opposed the unanimous will of the world (other than Israel) this week by vetoing a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that was backed by the other 14 members of the U.N. Security Council.
The real issue facing the Trump Administration is not defending Israel from its neighbors, who call repeatedly, almost daily, for peace based on the two-state solution. The real issue is defending the U.S. from the Israel Lobby.
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Defeating the Arab democracy movement left autocratic states hollowed out and often reliant on US and Israeli support to survive. Palestinians cannot expect help anytime soon
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (R) meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Alamein in northern Egypt on 20 August 2024 (AFP)
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As Israel continues its genocidal war in Gaza, and expands it to Lebanon, most Arab countries appear to be mere observers or enablers of the massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians on an unprecedented scale.
Even with the threat of a large-scale regional war looming, which could have extremely destabilising effects on the entire region, the ability and desire of Arab states to restrain Israeli imperial hubris appears to be non-existent.
There is good reason to argue that the main enabler of the current crisis engulfing the Middle East is none other than the United States, which has effectively funded the Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon, with aid topping $17.9bn since 7 October 2023. It has also provided diplomatic cover to Israel and given its far-right government the green light to expand the war into Lebanon.
This, however, misses an important aspect of the dynamic. Namely, Israel’s colonial hubris regards having the ability to reshape the Middle East through mass violence being fed by the autocratic nature of the Arab states and the failure of the democratic movement in the region.
More than a decade after the mass revolts that swept the region, the result is weak states, with contested legitimacy, only able to exercise power over their own citizens through mass violence – not dissimilar to the way that Israel is treating the Palestinians.
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In many ways, the logic of regime survival at any cost has eroded the ability of these states to influence events in the region – and, in some cases, the social foundation of the national state itself.
Flow of US aid
A notable example of this is Egypt, the most populous Arab state and the only one to have a border with the Gaza Strip, making it, theoretically, one of the Arab states with the most potential to influence the conflict and restrain Israeli aggression.
Egypt is also a close ally of the US, receiving a whopping $183.5bn in aid since the end of the Second World War, positioning it as a possible interlocutor with Israel’s patron.
This strategic positioning, however, was overridden by the Sisi government’s obsession with survival, which placed it in a dependent relationship with Israel, even as Israel threatens the very stability that Sisi covets.
Indeed, Israel played a not insignificant role in the consolidation of the Sisi government after the 2013 coup, offering political support, security cooperation and deeper economic ties to the direct benefit of the Egyptian elites.
War on Gaza: Arab despots’ failure to stand up to Israel could fuel an explosion
For example, during the summer of 2013, after the coup that overthrew the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) was lobbying on behalf of the fledgling military autocracy to ensure the continued flow of American aid.
The close relationship between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Zionist lobbying groups continued, with reports emerging in February 2017 that Sisi met representatives of the most influential pro-Israel groups, including Aipac, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) and the Zionist Organization of America (Zoa) five times in 20 months.
The relationship between Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been described as the closest between any leaders from the two nations since the peace treaty of 1979.
This apparent closeness was anchored in close security cooperation between the countries, with reports emerging in 2018 that, in the preceding two years, Israel had conducted over 100 air strikes against militants in Sinai, with Cairo’s approval.
This security cooperation was extended to include direct repression of peaceful dissent in Egypt, with the sale of Israeli spyware to Sisi’s government, which was used to hack into the phone of Ahmed Tantawy, a prominent member of the secular opposition.
The depth of the alliance extended to the energy sector, with a $15bn deal signed in 2018 between the two countries to import Israeli gas for re-export in liquid form.
An investigation by human rights campaigner Hossam Bahgat revealed that the Egyptian private company responsible for the deal was managed by Egypt’s General Intelligence Services (GIS), allowing the country’s security elites to profit from the deal directly.
Egypt’s debt crisis
These deep structural dependencies placed Sisi’s government in an extremely vulnerable position, unable to restrain Israel, even when the idea of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza was floated by Netanyahu, with its highly destabilising effects on the government and the country.
Indeed, beyond rhetorical condemnation, Egypt has done little to impact the dynamic on the ground. The most notable example of a critical public stance was the Egyptian declaration in May that it would join the International Court of Justice case against Israel.
At the time of writing, there is no evidence of it doing so. But there is evidence of deepening economic ties, with Egypt in September signing another deal with Israel, to increase its imports of natural gas by 20 percent.
More than a decade after the coup, with the Sisi government facing a grinding debt crisis and following a logic of power consolidation at any cost, it finds itself at the mercy of Israel and its colonial hubris, unable to exert influence on one of its closest allies.
Syria in shambles
The enabling of Israel’s colonial ambitions is not limited to Israel’s Arab allies, but also extends to Syria, where the logic of government survival above all else is at its most extreme.
More than a decade after the start of the Syrian uprising, the Assad government has survived, albeit at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, high levels of foreign interference and the loss of large swathes of territory. The Syrian economy is decimated, the state’s monopoly on violence is now completely eroded, and the social foundations of the state have been eviscerated.
The post-colonial state has failed to meet its raison d’etre, namely to empower the people of the Middle East, and confront the old imperial powers, including Israel
The Syrian government has reduced the country to a narco state, blackmailing the Gulf states into reintegrating it into the Arab fold in exchange for stopping the flow of illicit drugs.
In essence, Assad decided to sacrifice the Syrian state on the altar of his survival, leaving behind a state in shambles – unable to assert control within its own borders, let alone restrain Israeli aggression that could spiral to engulf Syria as well, whose territory it already occupies.
The horrors that we are witnessing in Gaza and Lebanon are as much the result of an Israeli colonist mania, and western support for it, as it is also a direct result of the nature of the Arab political landscape that emerged from the failed Arab spring.
The post-colonial state has failed to meet its raison d’etre, namely to empower the people of the Middle East, and confront the old imperial powers, including Israel. Any pretences of this have now completely disappeared, with a new raison d’etre emerging, namely the domination of their own citizens at any cost.
This is not to argue that these states were not repressive before, but there is not now even a pretence of confronting a dangerous external enemy, now that said enemy is internal.
The dissident has now come to replace colonists and the occupier as the number one enemy of the Arab states, with the mass slaughter of the Palestinians, Lebanese and whoever dares to challenge the Israeli vision of the new Middle East standing as a testament to a new Arab autocratic political order.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Maged Mandour is a political analyst who is a regular contributor to the Arab Digest, Middle East Eye, and Open Democracy. He is the author of an upcoming book entitled Egypt Under Sisi, to be published by IB Tauris. The book will examine the social and political developments in Egypt since the 2013 coup.
In a major escalation of the imperialist military offensive throughout the Middle East, Israel launched three waves of airstrikes on Iran Saturday morning in coordination with the Biden administration.
A view of Tehran capital of Iran is seen, early Saturday, October 26, 2024. [AP Photo/Vahid Salemi]
The White House quickly endorsed Israel’s illegal attack on Iran, declaring, “We understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran as an exercise of self-defense.”
A White House official further endorsed the illegal attack in a statement to Bloomberg, calling it “targeted and proportional.” The official told Bloomberg, “The president and his national security team, of course, worked with the Israelis over recent weeks” to plan the illegal act of war.
Rather than self-defense, the attack is a calculated provocation aimed at eliciting a military response by Iran that can be used to justify further US-Israeli aggression, including the deployment of even more combat troops to Israel and a further military build-up throughout the region.
The Iranian military confirmed that airstrikes targeted bases in Ilam, Khuzestan, and Tehran provinces, and commercial flights were suspended throughout the country.
The attack follows the October 9 discussion between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the American president signed off on the strikes, along with a series of discussions with the Pentagon and White House Friday night.
The attack took place just days after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that US combat troops had arrived in Israel, in the role of air defense support for the operation.
The attack took place as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East after extensive discussions with Netanyahu in which he reviewed both the planned attack on Iran and Israel’s so-called “generals’ plan” to starve, displace, or exterminate the remaining population of Northern Gaza.
The Israeli-US attack on Iran took place just 11 days before the November 5 US presidential election. Earlier this month, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the Biden administration was planning an “October conspiracy” to escalate the war with Iran. We wrote:
There is a long history of events taking place in October that have major effects on an upcoming US presidential election. By deploying US troops to Israel, the Biden administration is not so much seeking to impact Kamala Harris’s electoral prospects as to ensure that plans for military escalation are underway before the election takes place. Instead of an “October surprise,” it is an “October conspiracy” to massively expand US involvement in war throughout the Middle East.
These warnings have now been confirmed. While the scope of the Israeli attack is at this point unclear, it is evident that the Biden Administration is recklessly seeking to escalate war throughout the Middle East targeting Iran.
Israel’s attack on Iran is part of its rampage throughout the Middle East, supported by the imperialist powers, with the aim of reimposing colonial domination over the oil-rich region as part of their effort to dominate Russia and China.
The most horrific consequence of this imperialist offensive throughout the Middle East is the genocide in Gaza. The official death toll of the Gaza genocide stands at 42,847, with over 100,544 wounded. The real death toll is likely to be far higher, with an article in The Lancet estimating it at 186,000 or more in July.
This month, Reuters reported that Israel had suspended all commercial food shipments into Gaza, leading the availability to fall to the lowest level since the start of Israel’s onslaught, as human rights organizations warned of imminent mass starvation.
The attack on Iran follows a campaign of illegal assassinations targeting all of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as leading Iranian figures, as the US and Israel expand their military onslaught throughout the region. On October 16, Israel murdered Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Rafah. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by more than 80 Israeli 2,000-pound bombs in Lebanon last month, and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by Israel in Tehran in July.
Israel simultaneously continued its ground invasion and daily bombardment of Lebanon Friday, with the Lebanese death toll rising to 2,634.
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