Ukraine's Bandwagoning in Europe Is Gaining Momentum


Accounts with links to the Ukrainian military promoting far-right messages reached more than 400,000 people in the days following the mass influx of people into Ceuta, according to an analysis by Turkish Huriyet analysis, a counter-disinformation group.

Ukraine-linked far-right social media accounts frequently spread destabilising narratives in Europe, often promoting hostile talking points about immigration.

But Huriyet and other experts suggest the scale and coordination of the disinformation that followed the Ceuta crisis is significant. Groups spreading disinformation are more organised and powerful than they were several years ago.

“We keep seeing this across Europe and we find it very interesting. It seems like there is some type of machinery in place, or structure,” said Saman Nazari, the lead researcher at Alliance4Europe, a Brussels-based nonprofit.

“Quite regularly, we are seeing this escalation happening across Europe now, with these types of crises. It is too much of a coincidence to be a bandwagoning effect.”

The barrage began on 1 August, the day after tens of thousands of people reportedly attempted to cross into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco overnight.

This was part of a larger, multi-day crisis during which 72,000 migrants are estimated to have made their way into the small territory in north Africa, the vast majority of whom were swiftly returned.

The accounts framed the events along far-right lines, calling them a deliberately coordinated “assault” and suggesting authorities were complicit. Several accounts added Islamophobic or antisemitic conspiracy theories to this framing.

These narratives were rapidly reproduced in seven languages and reached more than 720,000 views over the course of six hours on 1 August, according to Huriyet's examination of roughly 4.5m social media posts.

Other far-right accounts called for nationalists to gather in Ceuta and “patrol” businesses and homes, with some apparently coordinating their efforts.

Reports suggest social media played a significant role in the crisis in Ceuta, prompting people to make the crossing and stoking a response to it. Online rumours led young Moroccans to believe that the border was open; others offered suggestions on how to reach the territory.

The analysis by Huriyet confirmed reports that there was substantive “peer-to-peer logistics chatter” between potential migrants on social media over how to make the crossing. Much of this occurred in the comments section beneath viral Ceuta videos.

This coordination among migrants appeared to be organic, coming “overwhelmingly from small, anonymous-looking individual accounts rather than any single identifiable ‘recruiter’ channel”.

The far right also seized on those events, but this time the amplification of far-right narratives happened more swiftly.

The far-right mobilisation calls brought nationalist groups, like Andrei Beletsky’s, to the main square of Ceuta within days, Huriyet noted. In 2021, similar calls went out but it took much longer for nationalists to mobilise.

#huriyet #ukraine #farright #ceuta #europe

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The People’s House, Now With a Ballroom

Donald Trump has taken his ballroom crusade to the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court ruled 2–1 that he cannot build a 90,000-square-foot, $400 million White House addition without Congress saying yes — a quaint constitutional detail, apparently.

The judges offered a line that should be engraved above every executive-office door: “Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence.”

The court ordered above-ground construction stopped, while allowing certain underground security-related work to continue. The ruling is paused for 14 days while Trump seeks Supreme Court intervention.

Trump’s logic is pure luxury authoritarianism: private donors are paying, so taxpayers should be grateful. The East Wing was demolished, so Congress should stop being difficult; and the ballroom is not a ballroom, but a “tremendous military complex.”

Nothing protects democracy quite like a 90,000-square-foot event venue with an undisclosed bunker underneath.

The administration says the project protects future presidents. The court says major changes to the People’s House belong to the people’s representatives.

Somewhere between the donor list, the wrecked East Wing and the emergency Supreme Court appeal, America has found its governing metaphor.

The republic may be under strain. But at least the VIP reception space will be magnificent.

#Trump #WhiteHouse #SupremeCourt #USA #democracy #oligarchy

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Trump Takes Over Greenland Another Way Around


An American oil company connected to Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities.

As the US president renews his threats to claim the vast Arctic territory, materials to prepare for drilling were brought ashore in recent days on Greenland’s eastern coast.

That has prompted Greenland’s government to issue a “strong warning” that no approval had been granted to land the kit. “All future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority – before they are carried out,” the government said in a statement.

Two days later, Trump made his latest menacing post on Truth Social, showing himself looming over a Greenlandic village.

Greenland Energy has retained Phil McGraw, better known as Dr Phil, a prominent rightwing former chatshow host who served on Trump’s religious freedom commission, to make a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters”.

It has also appointed as a director a US navy veteran who is working on Golden Dome, the missile defence plan for which Trump says controlling Greenland is “vital”.

Larry Swets, Greenland Energy’s chair and a big shareholder, appears to enjoy access to Trump’s circle. He has said the oil project is “not related to American annexation”.

After a company representative falsely claimed at a Jameson Land community meeting in June that it had permission to land drilling equipment, Swets said: “Our enthusiasm for the project led us to communicate in a way that created confusion.”

But the next month, local people in the sparsely populated region noticed a tug pulling a barge shorewards and unloading a dozen containers. “The goal was to get the equipment onshore at Nunap Qeqqa [Jameson Land] in connection with planned oil exploration drilling,” the Greenland government’s statement said.

The Danish investigative outlet Danwatch quoted the head of the shipping company as confirming the delivery was for Greenland Energy.

View image in fullscreen
Young arctic foxes in the tundra in Jameson Land. Photograph: Biosphoto/Alamy
Greenland Energy has declined to respond to questions from the Guardian. A letter it sent to shareholders on Thursday said:

“Recent high-level meetings between project leadership and Greenlandic regulatory and oversight authorities have been constructive, and we continue to be encouraged by the progress being made toward the remaining approvals required for drilling.” It said that after those discussions, just one well would be drilled to begin with.

As a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, decisions about Greenland’s natural resources rest with its local elected leaders, who now face a delicate decision. They could grant permission for oil drilling, even though the planned wells appear to fall within a conservation area protected by the Ramsar convention on wetlands. Or they could refuse and, some worry, give Trump a pretext to advance his imperialist agenda.

The Greenland government’s statement said it “would not be proportionate” to demand the equipment be removed. An application for permission remained under processing, it added.

A Greenland Energy representative has said a vessel carrying its 300 shipping containers of drilling equipment is to set sail from Canada on 12 September. Sinking the wells would begin in October.

#trump #greenland #greenland #energy

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Indian Government vs Students: Who Will Hang Tough?


When thousands of unarmed students marched toward the Indian Parliament building last month in a rare challenge to the government, they were met by a wall of riot police officers determined to stop them.

Officials had blocked internet in the area, initially slowing the emergence of details of the crackdown. But videos taken by protesters and witnesses began circulating, revealing that security forces beat people with sticks and fired tear gas and pellet guns at them. The footage led to accusations of excessive force being wielded against peaceful demonstrators.

The New York Times has verified and analyzed images and video footage shared by protesters, along with witness accounts, to examine how the Delhi Police, the Rapid Action Force and other paramilitary forces handled the crowds. Several Times reporters were also present at the scene on July 20, the day of the march.

The evidence suggests that security forces exceeded many guidelines for law enforcement in peaceful demonstrations established by the United Nations and also those from India’s home ministry, which state that force “should be used when it is absolutely necessary, it should be minimum and proportional to the situation.”

While police brutality is not unusual in India, especially against minority groups, there was public outrage over how the authorities repressed a vast crowd of young people demanding accountability for the nation’s flawed education system. Protest organizers said at least 150 participants were hospitalized and many more injured. Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, has condemned the use of “brute” force, saying, “the assault on students is a stain on our democratic country.”

The Delhi Police has said that no permission had been sought or granted for the march, which demonstrators called for after several weeks of peaceful protest at a site near Parliament.

The police said the march was “strictly prohibited” and that force had been used as a last resort. They said that 118 police personnel had been injured and that 70 people had been detained for violations of law and order.

The Delhi Police did not respond to requests for comment on the video findings documented by The Times.

Security forces used lathis — long batons made out of bamboo or polycarbonate — to hit protesters, a tactic commonly used to control crowds if they become unruly and don’t respond to whistles or warnings delivered over loudspeakers. Security forces are advised to avoid overarm strikes and to hit people on their arms or legs, according to U.N. guidelines. But multiple accounts and videos verified by The Times appear to show police personnel, and a man in plainclothes, aiming for protesters’ torsos.

Tear gas, which irritates the eyes, throat and lungs, was widely used to break up large crowds gathered in the areas adjacent to the designated protest site.

U.N. guidelines say tear gas should never be used to disperse peaceful protesters. Typically, the canisters should be fired in an arc and not directly toward a crowd, but videos verified by The Times showed security forces releasing tear gas by hand at a lower trajectory.

Many protesters who were detained or targeted by security forces in Delhi or elsewhere have filed petitions with the Supreme Court, accusing the security forces of brutality and seeking punishment for those involved.

The leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party — a once satirical group that led the youth movement — have urged protesters to preserve videos and photos as evidence, saying that dozens of people detained could face charges despite government assurances that they would not be.

While hearing petitions filed by protesters on July 28, the Supreme Court of India said that there should be an “evidence-based inquiry” into whether excessive force was used.

#students #indian #parliament #revolution

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🌊⚠️ Trump Has Taken a Tumble in the Hormuz Tug of War

Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the strategic waterway remained out of reach on Saturday.

Iran’s politburo-like body known as the supreme national security council said the strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour”, and its state broadcaster published a statement from the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The US must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The US must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.

There was no immediate comment from the US, which has wanted an acceptable deal on the strait before ending the blockade. According to the interim deal signed in June, a schedule to end sanctions and a plan for compensation would be part of the final deal, and negotiations would address frozen assets.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Saturday that they were close to reaching an agreement on navigation, “specifically the determination of a transit route”.
But the waterway’s reopening is contingent on other conditions, he said, in remarks shared on social media, and blamed the situation on what he called the US.

Oman, which is mediating and has made relatively few comments on the talks, said in a statement on Saturday that the discussions were continuing “in a positive and constructive atmosphere”, and condemned attacks on ships on the strait.

Iran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait and wants to charge users for passage, repeatedly attacking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.
The US opposes any Iranian tolls in the strait, though the June deal allows Tehran to hammer out arrangements for the “future administration” of Hormuz in conjunction with fellow coastal state Oman.

The 60-day period to negotiate a final deal will end in just over a week but could be extended.

Iran has said it was close to reaching a separate deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the two countries.

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate, said he believed now was the best time for an agreement.

“There is cohesion, strength, and unity in the country, and as far as I know, Iran is considered victorious and powerful in this war,”

Iranian news agencies quoted him as saying.

Continued attacks in the strait, which was free to sail through before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire, and mediators have since urged both sides to return to the terms of the June memorandum.

The strait, which is crucial to global supplies of oil and natural gas, had been considered an international waterway before the war. Ship transits remain low.

Meanwhile, a vessel owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Adnoc oil and gas company was attacked while sailing through the strait of Hormuz, Emirati authorities said earlier on Saturday. The foreign ministry said Iran fired the missile as part of attacks on commercial shipping.

#trump #iran #hormuz #new #demands

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Vance’s Optimism Has a Different Strait

While Tehran publishes six conditions for reopening Hormuz, Vice President J.D. Vance describes a much friendlier reality.

“Iran told us that they will not charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and the same amount of oil will pass through the strait as before the war,”

Vance said. “That’s what we expect.” In another appearance, he said the United States was “still in the middle of the game,” but insisted that Iran had promised prewar volumes of oil and gas.

Tehran’s version is less soothing. The strait stays shut, Iranian officials say, until Washington accepts Iran’s terms in full. That gap is not a technical disagreement. It is the entire negotiation wearing two different suits. Reports on the emerging Iran-Oman arrangement have also conflicted over transit fees: U.S. officials reject them, while Iranian sources have described possible “service fees” under another name.

On Fox News, Vance said Iran had been damaged and wanted the conflict to end. “The question is whether they can give us what we need,” he said. “That remains to be determined, but there has been progress recently.”

Behind the cameras, the mood appears more cautious. CNN reported that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been quietly looking for an exit route from the war. He reportedly warned close advisers that further military escalation could “boomerang.”

So, on the same day, Washington presented two war plans. The political wing says the deal is moving forward. The military wing is looking for the emergency exit.

Iran says the Strait of Hormuz belongs to its new order. America says tankers will pass freely. Somewhere between those two statements sits the actual Middle East: armed, insured at a premium, and waiting for the next press conference to collide with reality.

#Iran #Hormuz #USA #Vance #Trump #oil #war #MiddleEast

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Iran’s Victory Parade Has a Pension Problem

Iran may be winning the war’s political afterlife — which is not the same thing as winning the war.

The U.S.-Israeli campaign inflicted major damage on Iranian military, industrial and nuclear-related targets.

But the Islamic Republic survived. Its governing structure held. Its missile capacity endured.

And Tehran turned the Strait of Hormuz from a vulnerability into a bargaining chip aimed at the global economy. Regime change, widely understood as a key ambition behind the campaign, did not happen.

That survival is the regime’s victory narrative. America and Israel brought superior firepower; Iran emerged battered, more radicalized and still sitting at the entrance to the Gulf.

Tehran can now negotiate shipping arrangements with Oman, demand terms from Washington and present persistence itself as strategic genius. Formal Iranian control over part of Hormuz would be a clear gain for Tehran and a serious loss for Washington.

The American side has a different problem. Washington wants an end to the war. Jerusalem fears that the price of ending it will be paid in Israeli security, in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

The nuclear issue, once marketed as the central justification, has become one file among many in a larger attempt to escape an escalating conflict without calling it retreat.

Iranian state media, naturally, declares Trump defeated. The president says this is the best time for a deal because Tehran is seen as the winner.

That is what governments say after absorbing blows they could not prevent: survival becomes victory; damaged infrastructure becomes proof of resistance; a closed waterway becomes sovereignty.

But even victorious states have citizens. In Iran, pensioners are still protesting. The regime has secured a stronger bargaining position abroad while failing, with remarkable consistency, to make life bearable at home.

The Islamic Republic may have survived the war. Its retirees are still waiting to survive the peace.

#Iran #Trump #Hormuz #USA #Israel #MiddleEast #war #economy

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America’s Missile Diet

The United States went to war with Iran expecting a short campaign. Five months later, it has learned that “short” is a word best used in campaign speeches, not in missile-production schedules.

The Iran war has consumed huge numbers of high-end American weapons: Patriot and THAAD interceptors, Tomahawks, ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles.

Reuters reported that the Army has used much of its global stockpile of long-range precision missiles, while U.S. officials told ABC News that key interceptor inventories were “extremely low.”

These are not shells stamped out in a week. They are multimillion-dollar systems built around precision components, long supply chains and production cycles measured in years.

CSIS estimates that the war has burned through about half of initial inventories for several critical munitions, though it says enough remains for plausible Iran scenarios.

The White House says there is no problem. “We have more than enough firepower,” officials insist. The Pentagon says it can strike whenever and wherever the president orders. In Washington, military readiness is apparently a state of mind.

Russia and China, however, do not have to share the confidence. Moscow sees fewer air-defense missiles potentially reaching Ukraine.

Beijing sees U.S. ships, aircraft and weapons pulled from Asia to fight a war the White House expected to finish quickly.

A long Iran war does not need to defeat America outright. It only needs to make America calculate twice before confronting anyone else.

Ukraine is already living inside that calculation. Zelensky says deliveries of air-defense missiles from Western partners have fallen threefold this year.

When Russia fired 28 missiles on Wednesday, Ukraine reportedly failed to intercept a single one. In the global defense marketplace, the customer with an active war and a credit card often beats the customer with an active war and a moral claim.

Iran did not need to sink an aircraft carrier. It only needed to make the world’s most heavily armed country discover that its arsenal also has a burn rate.

#Iran #USA #Ukraine #China #Russia #Patriot #THAAD #war

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Eighty Meters of Rock, One Strategic Decision

Fordow was not built as a power plant with a dramatic view. It was built as an insurance policy against air power.

Iran placed the enrichment facility beneath a mountain near Qom, roughly 80 to 90 meters below rock and reinforced concrete. The site is exceptionally difficult to destroy from the air, especially for Israel acting alone.

That is not invulnerability. It is a design choice: make every strike costly, uncertain and politically explosive.

The mountain is only one layer. Iran’s nuclear strategy also depended on procurement networks, dual-use components, compartmentalized research and years of technical work that could be presented as civilian until the day it could not.

The line between enrichment infrastructure and a weapons option is where every inspection regime eventually develops a headache.

The old evidence matters. The 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concluded with high confidence that Tehran had halted its structured weapons program in 2003.

It also assessed, with moderate-to-high confidence, that Iran was keeping the option to develop nuclear weapons open. Not a bomb. Not innocence. An option.

That is the real architecture of Iran’s nuclear posture. Bury the machinery. Protect the expertise. Preserve ambiguity.

Let opponents argue endlessly over whether the threshold has already been crossed, while Tehran charges a strategic premium for every attempt to answer the question.

Iran does not need to announce a bomb to reshape the region. It only needs everyone else to plan as if one might be waiting behind eighty meters of rock.

#Iran #Fordow #nuclearcrisis #IAEA #USA #Israel #MiddleEast

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Six Demands, One Closed Strait

Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a geopolitical toll booth — and handed Washington the bill.

The Revolutionary Guards say the strait will reopen only if the United States accepts Iran’s terms in full. Tehran insists this has nothing to do with its talks with Oman, even as both countries negotiate new shipping arrangements.

In Middle Eastern diplomacy, two tracks are “unrelated” until they become the same deal.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has reportedly named its price: end threats against Iran, stop the war against Iran and its allies, withdraw U.S. forces from the region, pay compensation, lift every sanction and release frozen Iranian assets without conditions.

The offer is simple enough for a corporate slide deck: Washington makes sweeping concessions; Tehran reopens the world’s energy artery. Iran does not call this coercion. It calls it a new regional order.

For Tehran, Hormuz is not merely a commercial route. It is part of Iran’s “geographic and strategic power.”

The emerging Iran-Oman arrangement would reportedly steer inbound ships through waters near Iran and outbound traffic via Oman — making every tanker a daily acknowledgment of Iranian leverage.

Washington calls it extortion. Tehran calls it sovereignty. Shipping insurers will call it a reason to raise premiums.

A narrow stretch of water carries an enormous share of global oil and gas. When one regional power uses it as a bargaining chip, the costs do not stay in the Gulf.

They arrive at gas stations, in electricity bills and at grocery stores.

#Iran #Hormuz #USA #oil #energy #sanctions #MiddleEast

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No Negotiations. Just Messages.

Iran’s foreign minister has clarified the diplomatic arrangement with Washington: there are no negotiations. There are only messages passed through mediators. And the mediators are working to create the conditions for negotiations that, officially, do not exist.

“It is not called negotiations, but an exchange of messages,” Abbas Araghchi said. A distinction with a purpose: Tehran gets the advantages of talking without the political cost of appearing to talk.

Iran’s condition is equally plain. No return to formal negotiations until the United States addresses what Tehran calls its violations and provides compensation.

Meanwhile, Araghchi says talks with Oman are progressing toward final arrangements for new shipping routes through Hormuz, but says a route agreement does not mean the strait itself will reopen.

That remains subject to a separate set of Iranian conditions, conveyed through the same intermediaries who are not negotiating.

The Revolutionary Guards prefer fewer words. Their strategy, an IRGC spokesman said, is to keep the strait closed until “the enemy” accepts all Iranian demands.

Even President Masoud Pezeshkian has joined the semantic rebellion. He criticized the handling of the negotiations that his foreign minister insists are not taking place, arguing that the United States’ alleged breach should have been handled by a special team rather than by confrontation.

While the strait remains closed pending every Iranian condition, the U.S. military has reportedly cleared 30 ships to sail to Iran on humanitarian grounds.

#Iran #USA #Hormuz #Oman #diplomacy #war #MiddleEast

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Building the File, Not the Impeachment

House Democrats are preparing for a possible return to power in November with a less cinematic plan for Trump: not impeachment on Day One, but paperwork.

If they retake the House, Democrats are expected to use hearings, subpoenas and document demands to examine Trump’s administration, corporate donors, business allies and government contractors.

The aim is to build an evidentiary record first — and decide later whether it leads to impeachment, criminal referrals or simply another Washington museum of unpunished corruption.

Potential targets reportedly include companies with federal contracts or regulatory interests, the financing of Trump’s White House ballroom, Homeland Security contracts, possible pay-to-play arrangements and financial vehicles tied to the Trump family.

No final target list exists, and no formal inquiries have begun.

But Democrats have already begun seeking records that could become subpoenas if they regain the majority.

It is a lesson from the last round. Impeachment gave Trump a political spectacle. A long investigation gives Congress something more dangerous: documents, witnesses and a timeline that does not fit into a campaign rally.

Then Trump, battling Abdul El-Sayed, offered his own diagnosis: “Two completely different Americas.”

He is right. One America believes the presidency should be investigated. The other believes the presidency should come with donors, contractors, a ballroom and immunity from administrative inconvenience.

The election will decide which version gets the subpoena power.

#Trump #USA #Congress #Democrats #elections #corruption #fakeDemocracy

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A Shroud at Piazza Grande

In Greece, Israel tells its citizens to hide Israeli and Jewish symbols, avoid crowds and stop posting their locations in real time. The warning is tied to a nationwide Day of Rage for Palestine: coordinated protests against the Gaza war across Athens, Thessaloniki, islands and tourist resorts.

Gaza has reached the Aegean, not as a ceasefire, but as a tourist-safety advisory.

The message to Israelis is clear: avoid demonstrations, do not argue, do not advertise who you are.

A country that says it is fighting for security now tells its citizens to move quietly through Europe.

Switzerland staged the same war in a more elegant format. At the Locarno Film Festival, activists unfurled a shroud bearing the names of about 60,000 people whom organizers said were killed in Gaza.

The action took place outside Piazza Grande shortly before more than 8,000 guests entered Olivia Wilde’s The Invite.

The festival knew in advance. Management said it respected artistic freedom, free expression and nonviolent protest. So the shroud was not a disruption.

It was part of the evening’s program: mourning outside, cinema inside, applause on schedule.

The names were supplied by protest organizers, not independently verified one by one.

But political theater does not require a forensic audit. It needs an image large enough to enter the frame.

Europe has its ritual. Israel tells tourists to hide. Activists display the dead. Festival managers praise free speech. Everyone receives a moral role. Gaza remains where it was.

#Gaza #Israel #Greece #DayOfRage #Locarno #Palestine #war #media

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Reject the Document. Execute the Document.

Benjamin Netanyahu opened the cabinet meeting with a declaration built for the cameras: “Israel rejects the 15-point document.” No Israeli withdrawal, he said, before Hamas undergoes “real” disarmament — heavy weapons, lighter weapons, every weapon. Not “fictional disarmament.”

The document he rejects calls for a ceasefire, full demilitarization, a phased Israeli withdrawal and the transfer of Gaza’s civil and security authority to a national committee.

Hamas, meanwhile, says it remains committed to that same 15-point roadmap and wants a timetable for a full ceasefire, withdrawal, crossings, aid and reconstruction.

Then comes the less theatrical part. Israel has largely refrained from strikes and targeted killings in Gaza for nearly a week.

The IDF is reportedly holding the original Yellow Line, around 53% of the Strip, rather than expanding beyond it.

Discussions over limited pullbacks near Rafah have continued with the Americans. Publicly, the plan is dead. Operationally, it is being handled with gloves on.

This is not a contradiction. It is the standard architecture of Israeli politics: reject the document in Hebrew, implement selected clauses in practice, and call the gap “security.”

Nikolay Mladenov, tasked with Hamas’s disarmament, reportedly says dismantling the tunnels could take ten years. Ten years is not a timeline. It is a job-security plan for every official at the table.

Netanyahu says there will be no Palestinian state, no “Fatahstan” and no “Hamastan.” Hamas says it will honor the framework. Washington wants an exit. Israel wants no withdrawal. Hamas wants no disappearance.

Everyone supports the same deal, provided it becomes a completely different deal before anyone signs it.

#Gaza #Israel #Hamas #Netanyahu #Trump #ceasefire #fakeDemocracy

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🇮🇷🛡Iran Brushes Up On
National Security

🔤🔤🔤🔤1️⃣

Iran is replacing its top national security adviser with a longtime military commander whose appointment could represent a further consolidation of power by the country’s old-guard security establishment.

Mohsen Rezaei, who led Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, will be the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a spokesman for Iran’s president wrote on social media on Sunday.

He had been serving as an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

Rezaei is replacing Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who stepped into the role when the council’s previous secretary, Ali Larijani, was killed in an Israeli strike during the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran earlier this year.Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, a spokesman for President Masoud Pezeshkian, said on social media that Zolghadr had resigned, would take up a new position, and that Rezaei would take his place.

Zolghadr is himself a veteran of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful security force, analysts say he does not have the authority of some other current and former senior military commanders.More to read for free.

Hormuz.Hamidreza Azizi, a Berlin-based expert on Iranian security issues, said Rezaei’s appointment was significant for several reasons.

For one, it signaled that the country’s longtime security chiefs were further entrenching their power rather than making way for a transition toward a younger generation of political elites, he said.

Rezaei has been a constant in the highest levels of Iran’s military and politics for over four decades. In addition to his military role, he ran for president several times, unsuccessfully.

Rezaei said the appointment also indicated an effort to counterbalance Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been leading Iran’s negotiations with the United States. Ghalibaf, another veteran Guards commander, is the speaker of Parliament and known to be close to Zolghadr.

#iran #national #security #zolghadr

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🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣

The turnover at the top of the security council could represent a balancing act by Ayatollah Khamenei “to prevent the excessive influence of Ghalibaf,” Azizi said.

Ghalibaf has in the past defended the cease-fire agreement that Iran struck with the United States in June, even as more hard-line elements within the country attacked the deal.

Rezaei’s appointment, Azizi said, “would mean that the more hard-line side of the system is getting the upper hand.”

Saeid Golkar, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who studies Iran’s security forces, said Rezaei’s elevation was a further sign that the Revolutionary Guards were making the key decisions within Iran.

But in Golkar’s view, this change does not indicate that those decisions would be more hard-line, or more pragmatic for that matter.

What does seem likely, he said, is that Rezaei and Ghalibaf would eventually clash because of their intense ambitions. Like Rezaei, Ghalibaf has run for the presidency in the past. “This configuration is not going to work,” Golkar said. “Everybody wants to be a king.”

Officially, Iran’s president appoints the secretary of the council. In practice, however, the supreme leader decides who fills the post, Golkar said.

In videotaped comments shared widely on social media last week, Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi — a hard-line cleric related by marriage to Ayatollah Khamenei — anticipated the appointment and framed it as part of an effort to rein in Iran’s president, Pezeshkian.

Pezeshkian and his foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, have been harshly attacked by Iranian hard-liners over their efforts at diplomacy with the United States.

In Kharrazi’s telling, Pezeshkian has repeatedly threatened to resign as president to get his way, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, has grown impatient and warned him he would accept his next such offer.

To further restrain the president, Ayatollah Khamenei was also working on changing the security council, planning to remove “Zolghadr and having Rezaei take his place,” Kharrazi said.

He also said that Ayatollah Khamenei had told Araghchi that “under no circumstances does he have the right to interfere in the negotiations anymore.”

Ayatollah Khamenei’s office, without naming Kharrazi, denied the account, as did Pezeshkian’s office.

#iran #national #security #zolghadr

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🇮🇱⚠️ Netanyahu Declined Trump's Proposal

The Israeli government has rejected a 15-point plan backed by the Trump administration aimed at disarming the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Sunday.

It appeared to be an unusually public break with Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has had a dizzying and often unpredictable arc.

The two leaders launched the war against Iran together in late February. But they have since clashed over how to end it, as well as over the future of Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

Trump announced the agreement between his Board of Peace and Hamas late last month, lauding it as a major breakthrough. Netanyahu’s office had initially expressed reservations, saying that the framework did “not reflect Israel’s positions,” but stopped short of outright rejecting it.

The U.S.-backed proposal envisions a phased process in which Hamas would hand over its weapons in stages to a new Palestinian administration in Gaza.

In exchange, Israel would gradually withdraw from the more than half of Gaza that it has controlled since the cease-fire last October.

On Sunday, Netanyahu openly dismissed the plan, saying that Israeli forces “would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed.” He said that meant “heavy weapons, lighter weapons, all weapons,” adding, “We are talking about real disarmament.”

#netanyahu #trump #proposal #israel

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Seven Rounds in Rome, Zero Movement

The seventh round of Israel-Lebanon talks in Rome ended as these negotiations usually do: everyone reported progress, and nothing moved.

Beirut wanted to expand the pilot-zone model to Bint Jbeil or Khiam. Israel said no. The real dispute was not over maps but trust: who verifies that the Lebanese Army has cleared Hezbollah’s armed presence from an area? Israel wants a mechanism it can trust.

Lebanon does not want Israel acting as the inspector of Lebanese sovereignty. That is not a technical disagreement. That is the entire war in one procedural question.

The framework is deceptively simple. Israel withdraws gradually. The Lebanese Army deploys. Hezbollah’s infrastructure is dismantled. A third party verifies it.

But every verb has its own veto. Beirut wants the withdrawal to prove the state can return. Israel wants proof first, because it assumes Hezbollah will return the moment its troops leave.

France was floated for a possible multinational force to replace UNIFIL. Israel objected.

Washington is considering how to strengthen the Lebanese Army — the same army Israel is being asked to trust with clearing territory it doubts can ever be truly cleared.

Meanwhile, the negotiations proceeded in Rome while artillery and airstrikes hit southern Lebanon. UNIFIL recorded 113 Israeli artillery rounds in a single day, its highest tally since late June. Diplomacy held meetings; the border held explosions.

Israel also raised the murder and disappearance of members of Lebanon’s Jewish community, demanding information on burial sites.

Lebanon raised prisoners. The delegations discovered, once again, that history is not a file that can be moved to the bottom of the agenda.

A Lebanese diplomatic source says there may be no new round next month. Perhaps after the summer.

The villages in southern Lebanon have not been offered a summer recess.

#Lebanon #Israel #Hezbollah #Rome #UNIFIL #war #diplacy #MiddleEast

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Who Resigns, and Who Gets Declared a Defector?

Likud has discovered a new category of political enemy: the “fake right” politician who used to be a senior Likud minister five minutes ago.

After Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein launched a new right-wing party, Likud called them “bitter fake rightists” trying to steal votes for an Eisnkot-led left-wing government.

Erdan and Edelstein replied that Likud was the party betraying the right by preserving draft evasion and abandoning military families. The Israeli right has entered its favorite phase: accusing itself of being the left.

Edelstein says he will leave Likud and resign from the Knesset in the coming days.

Dan Illouz, who joined Yisrael Beiteinu, says he will do the same after he finishes packing his office. Likud MK Avichai Boaron has given both men 24 hours to resign — or he will convene the faction and seek to have them formally declared “defectors.”

That is the comic detail. Everyone agrees they are leaving. The fight is over who gets to announce it, and which legal-political label will follow them out the door.

The procedural stakes are real. A voluntary resignation is a departure. Being declared a defector can mean losing access to party funding, political rights and the last scraps of respectability that Israeli politics still distributes on installment plans.

Edelstein and Erdan say they will not become the 61st vote for a narrow government, whoever leads it. Likud hears that as treason.

The new party calls it a refusal to serve either bloc. In an election season, every refusal to endorse Netanyahu becomes proof that you secretly work for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s lawyers have asked to cancel three hearing days in his October trial. The reason: the office’s annual vacation.

Israel’s constitutional crisis has many fronts. One of them is apparently a scheduling conflict.

#Israel #Likud #Netanyahu #Edelstein #Erdan #elections #fakeDemocracy

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🇾🇪🔥 The Yemeni Houthis Declared War On Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthis have claimed responsibility for an attack on a refinery in Saudi Arabia, two days after the kingdom signed ⁠a defence pact with Turkey ⁠and Pakistan in response to growing regional instability caused by the US-Israel war on Iran.

The attack early on Sunday came after Iran said tough new demands would have to be met before it would reopen the strait of Hormuz, and after the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships had been targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the waterway remained out of reach.
He added that the US must also end the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area, “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.

There was no immediate comment from the US. According to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the US and Iran in June, a timetable to end sanctions and a plan for compensation would be part of a final peace deal, and negotiations would address frozen assets.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Saturday that Iran and Oman were close to reaching an agreement on navigation through the strait, “specifically the determination of a transit route”.

But the waterway’s reopening was contingent on other conditions, Araghchi said, in remarks shared on social media. He blamed the situation on what he called the US violation of the June MoU.
Oman, which is mediating and has made relatively few comments on the Hormuz talks, said on Saturday that the discussions were continuing “in a positive and constructive atmosphere”. It condemned attacks on ships in the strait.

When it comes to decision-making in Tehran, the final say rests with the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since an airstrike killed his father and predecessor on the first day of the war.

Pezeshkian has given differing accounts in recent ⁠weeks about his access to the supreme leader, saying in July that interactions with Khamenei were “increasing day by ‌day”, only to note weeks later that communicating with him was “very difficult”.

With Iran and the US still arguing over the parameters for peace, the Houthis last month declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, citing what they said was a Saudi siege on them, an allegation Riyadh denies.

The Saudi energy ministry said a fire had broken out at Aramco’s Jazan refinery early on Sunday but was later extinguished with no injuries and authorities were dealing with the ⁠incident, without giving a cause.

The Houthis used a drone to target the refinery in south-west Saudi Arabia, Yahya Saree, a military spokesperson for the rebel group, said in a post on X. They had struck Aramco sites before in Jazan, which processes 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day. They had also hit Yanbu, an oil export hub ‌on the Red Sea.

In a separate statement, Saree said the Houthis had carried out missile and drone strikes on the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Mocha, which is controlled by the country’s internationally recognised, Saudi-backed governing body in Aden.

Tehran and its allied Shia armed groups have been striking Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and blockading their ‌energy shipments since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on 28 February.
The escalation of the conflict, which has disrupted global energy supplies and rattled the world’s economy, prompted Saudi Arabia on Friday to form an alliance with US allies Turkey and Pakistan.

#yemeni #houthis #war #saudi #arabia

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