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In a grandstanding speech at the United Nations aimed at lecturing Israel and the world about Palestinian sovereignty on Tuesday, French president Emmanuel Macron <a href="https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/2102482152642552313">unleashed</a> a claim so glaringly false that it leaves one wondering what universe Paris is living in.
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&#8220;Hamas has never operated in the West Bank,&#8221; Macron declared.
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That outrageous statement is a brutal rewrite of modern history.
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To assert that the terrorist group Hamas has not “operated” in the Biblical areas as Judea and Samaria — misnamed the “West Bank” — let alone ignore their murderous actions, is to ignore decades of soaked blood and shattered lives. The historical record is crystal-clear.
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Hamas cells based in Judea and Samaria have systematically orchestrated hundreds of shootings, suicide bombings, stabbings, and ambushes targeting innocent civilians.
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Here’s a quick history lesson for Macron:
Hamas operatives from Judea and Samaria were behind the horrific 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, which led to the murders of 15 people. A 16th victim died in 2023 after more than two decades in a coma. A Hamas suicide bomber from Tulkarm carried out the 2002 Park Hotel Passover massacre in Netanya, killing 30 people at a holiday seder. Hebron-based Hamas cells were behind the 2003 Jerusalem bus bombing (23 dead), which Islamic Jihad also claimed, and the twin bus bombings in Beersheba in 2004 (16 dead).
The carnage didn&#8217;t end in the 2000s. In 2014, a Hebron-based Hamas cell kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in Gush Etzion. Senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri later acknowledged Hamas&#8217;s role, and the killings helped ignite that year&#8217;s Gaza conflict. More recently, Hamas claimed responsibility for the June 2023 shooting in Eli that killed four. It also claimed a January 2025 attack in al-Funduq that left three dead, though Israeli security officials said the gunmen belonged to the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Last year, a Hamas member opened fire on a vehicle near Bruchin, killing Tzeela Gez, a pregnant woman on her way to give birth. Her baby, delivered by emergency C-section, died two weeks later.
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To tell the international community that Hamas &#8220;has never operated&#8221; in these areas is an insult to hundreds of terror victims and a shocking denial of reality.
The Israeli prime minister&#8217;s office blasted Macron, <a href="https://x.com/IsraeliPM/status/2102496213316628601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2102496213316628601%7Ctwgr%5E3ee3c46c156cd08ee2ccfe3d33f2eb24cff96bff%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.dailywire.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D1183977action%3Dedit">writing</a>, &#8220;The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron&#8217;s statement is staggering. On Sunday, the eve of Yom Kippur, just two days ago, Netanel Shukrun — a FRENCH CITIZEN and father of six — was murdered in his car by a Hamas terrorist in Judea and Samaria. With his final breath, he told his son to run.&#8221;
&#8220;Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria. Ignorance is NO EXCUSE for erasing their blood,&#8221; the office added.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee <a href="https://x.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/2102599632400593113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2102599632400593113%7Ctwgr%5E17cf695819f95721f660a6dbaf6b80120e73320c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.dailywire.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D1183977action%3Dedit">added</a>, &#8220;Hard to imagine a more out of touch with reality speech than Macron at UN. &#8230; 
Hamas is an evil scourge, and they have killed innocent American citizens.&#8221;
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Macron’s wild falsehoods didn&#8217;t stop there.
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Throughout his address, the French president pushed a tired, inaccurate narrative regarding Palestinian rights and Israeli actions. He lamented, “Sovereignty for the Palestinians, whose most basic rights are still being violated today.”
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He glossed over basic facts regarding the Middle East. Arab citizens of Israel make up roughly 21% of the country’s population, and they hold full citizenship, vote in free elections, serve as high-court judges, and even form political parties that have joined governing coalitions. The civil liberties, legal protections, and political freedoms enjoyed by Arabs inside democratic Israel stand in stark contrast to the repressive policies, lack of free elections, and severe restrictions on women&#8217;s rights found across much of the Arab world.
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Macron further attacked Israel’s campaign against terrorism, leaning into cynical talking points meant to delegitimize its defense, saying, “A year ago, right here, around a dozen of us recognized Palestine. I hear the cynicism of some: ‘A paper recognition, look at reality.’ But what credibility do we have if we remain inactive in the face of Gaza?”
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Military experts reject these characterizations. As John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, has authoritatively <a href="https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/2099948300002873362">noted</a>, “By no definition (words have meaning) has Israel done a genocide in Gaza. Not by the definition’s intent or actions requirements. No actual evidence support the intent or actions allegation. The government of Israel was in a war against the terror army of Hamas in Gaza after they invaded Israel on October 7th and withdrew into Gaza with 250 hostages; they were also at war with the terror army (more equipped than many nations) Hezbollah in Lebanon after they attack on October 8th. Israel is not working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza or Lebanon. No evidence shows they have targeted civilians.”
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Instead of holding accountable the terrorists who start wars, use human shields, and launch attacks from both Gaza and Judea and Samaria, Macron opted to indulge in cheap, ungrounded rhetoric on the world stage.
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But grandstanding politicians cannot destroy reality. The facts remain, and Macron&#8217;s absurd claims stand thoroughly debunked.
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81st United Nations General Assembly

Macron Ignores Blood-Soaked Reality, Gaslights U.N. On Hamas. Here Are The Facts.

emmanuel macron

hamas

israel

united nations

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world

Israel has been hit with false genocide charges nonstop since virtually the day the Jewish state was reborn, and the latest barrage after the October 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis is the ugliest chapter yet.
In a detailed essay, Norman J.W. Goda, professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Florida, traced how the world’s oldest and most relentless smear against the Jewish state got started and why it keeps coming back stronger.
Goda notes that accusing a country of genocide is supposed to be the ultimate stain. Plenty of countries have faced the charge over the decades, from the U.S. in Vietnam to China, Cambodia, and others.
But Israel is different. Alone among nations, it has been labeled genocidal almost continuously since its founding in 1948. The charge has always been linked to claims of racism and colonialism that took off in the 1960s. After Hamas’s October 7 massacres, the accusations exploded with unusual speed and fury, complete with attempts to stretch and lower the legal definition of genocide itself so it fits whatever Israel does in self-defense.
The tropes that come with it are pure antisemitism. Critics drag in violent passages from the Hebrew Bible to paint Jews as uniquely bloodthirsty and “chosen” at everyone else’s expense. They soft-pedal Hamas’s own open calls for Jewish destruction while fixating on images of dead Palestinian children. They invent vast Israeli powers to brainwash Western governments.
Worst of all, they tar every Jew worldwide as complicit in the false “genocide.” The result has been a global spike in attacks on Jews, from New York streets to Amsterdam pogrom to synagogues from Montreal to Melbourne. French Jewish leaders have cited the endless “genocide” accusations to the surge in antisemitic incidents.
The Genocide Convention was being drafted at the exact moment Israel was born. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, wanted a broad definition covering cultural destruction. UN diplomats narrowed it to mean intentional physical destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. War itself, they insisted, does not equal genocide. Heavy civilian losses in combat do not either. Intent is everything.
Arab and Muslim leaders, meanwhile, were talking in apocalyptic terms about wiping out the Jews even as they tried to write their own version of the convention. Saudi Arabia floated a draft that would have classed terrorism and the &#8220;moral debasement&#8221; of a group as genocide, language that appeared aimed at Jewish underground groups like the Irgun and Lehi. Syria pushed to include forced displacement so the Palestinian refugees could qualify.
Both efforts failed. The convention stuck to physical destruction with clear intent. Historians like Benny Morris have shown there was no pre-planned Zionist policy of mass expulsion in 1948; panic, fighting, and some local expulsions produced the refugee wave. Arab states not only refused peace, they refused to resettle the refugees.
Fast-forward to 1982 and Israel’s war against the PLO in Lebanon. That conflict produced the loudest early wave of genocide charges. Communist states, Arab regimes, and the Non-Aligned Movement piled on at the UN. They inflated death tolls, trafficked in blood-and-chosen-people language, and accused Israel of Nazi-style crimes. After the Sabra and Shatilla incidents, carried out by Lebanese Christian militias, the General Assembly voted that the killings were “an act of genocide.” Legal scholars later called the resolution pure politics, not law. A private MacBride Commission, stacked against Israel, openly admitted it was using a “different form of genocide” that included destroying Palestinian “national will.” Serious law journals ignored the report, but Palestine-focused outlets ate it up.
The modern version of the charge got its theoretical upgrade in the 1990s and 2000s. People like Patrick Wolfe redefined genocide as an ongoing “structure” of elimination rather than a specific crime requiring intent and mass killing. Time, place, and even death itself become optional.
The Holocaust has been treated as an inconvenient distraction. Herzl’s writings have been misquoted. Biblical stories of Amalek and the Canaanites are weaponized as the original sin. Netanyahu’s 2023 reference to Amalek was instantly treated as a confession of genocidal intent, despite the fact that he also told civilians to move to safer areas and has used the same language about Iran.
In Gaza, the “slow genocide” narrative took off with the post-2007 blockade aimed at stopping Hamas weapons smuggling. Activists and figures like Richard Falk labeled restrictions a “holocaust in the making.” Population growth continued. Food crises never matched the rhetoric.
After the 2008-09 and 2014 Gaza wars, UN-linked investigators and the revived Russell Tribunal flirted with the genocide label but usually stopped short of formal findings until after October 7. UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Amnesty International, and others used the structural theory to stitch 1948 to today into one continuous crime. Social media and the slogan “It’s not complicated. It’s genocide” do the rest, shutting down any talk of Hamas’s charter, human shields, October 7, or the actual text of the Genocide Convention.
Goda is clear in his essay: this is lawfare dressed up as moral clarity. It is designed to put Israel and its supporters outside the bounds of civilized debate.
The Gaza war will eventually end.
The propaganda will not.

Israeli flag blowing in the wind – Close up

The Endless ‘Genocide’ Lie: How The World Has Smeared Israel Since 1948

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The Trump administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/us/politics/trump-israel-bombs.html">greenlit</a> a $2.8 billion arms deal to supply Israel with thousands of heavy-duty 2,000-pound bombs, signaling a significant expansion of military aid.
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The proposed package encompasses 40,000 one-ton munitions that are split evenly between standard MK-84s and BLU-117s along with 20,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads designed to smash through deep underground soil, rock, and concrete before detonating.
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While the State Department has submitted the proposed sale for informal congressional review, Secretary of State Marco Rubio retains emergency authority to bypass Capitol Hill, where a two-thirds majority in both chambers would be required to block the transaction.
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The move fully cements a policy reversal from the Biden era, which paused a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs meant for Israel. The current administration quickly unblocked that shipment upon taking office and approved an initial $2.7 billion weapons transfer shortly thereafter.
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The rationale for providing these munitions comes from the reality of fortified underground warfare. John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, has emphasized that 2,000-pound bombs are vital tactical tools rather than indiscriminately destructive weapons. He has blasted myths surrounding the bombs, making clear that while they produce blast craters depending on the area, they are precise weapons intended for heavily fortified military targets.
&#8220;By no definition (words have meaning) has Israel done a genocide in Gaza,&#8221; Spencer <a href="https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/2099948300002873362">wrote</a>. &#8220;Not by the definition&#8217;s intent or actions requirements. No actual evidence support the intent or actions allegation. The government of Israel was in a war against the terror army of Hamas in Gaza after they invaded Israel on October 7th and withdrew into Gaza with 250 hostages; they were also at war with the terror army (more equipped than many nations) Hezbollah in Lebanon after they attack on October 8th. Israel is not working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza or Lebanon. No evidence shows they have targeted civilians. All of the Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran fronts have contained buried and fortified targets that can justify the use of modern 2,000-pound bombs.&#8221;
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According to Spencer’s expert <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/vilifying-israels-use-2000-pound-bombs-only-ends-costing-more-lives-opinion-1927905">analysis</a>, Israel’s biggest strategic challenge lies in neutralizing deeply buried command structures and stockpiles. Both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon have spent decades building huge underground networks, which sometimes went as deep as 200 feet under heavily populated areas. Smaller munitions simply lack the kinetic force and penetration capabilities required to collapse these hardened bunkers or reach high-value targets.
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Furthermore, Spencer argues that restricting a military&#8217;s access to heavy bombs during city battles does not reduce civilian harm. Instead, it often leads to longer, far more destructive engagements.
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Historical events such as the WWII Battle of Manila or the 1950 siege of Seoul showed that when bombs were restricted, fighting degenerated into drawn-out, block-by-block ground sieges that dramatically increased casualties and devastation of the cities.
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By depriving an army of the bombs needed to quickly eliminate fortified positions, military operations stall, dragging out the duration of the war.
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In Spencer&#8217;s view, ensuring Israel retains access to 2,000-pound bombs is critical for dismantling deeply entrenched terror networks and preventing prolonged warfare that ultimately increases human suffering on all sides.
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Waving Flags Of USA And Israel On The Same Flagpole On Background Of Blue Sky. Copy Space For Text. Design, Template Horizontal Plane

Trump Administration Approves $2.8 Billion Heavy Bombs Arms Sale To Israel

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Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher destroyed the narratives pushed by revisionist historians on the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks.
Maher, during Friday&#8217;s broadcast of &#8220;Real Time,&#8221; reflected on the 25th anniversary of the attacks — through which Islamic terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 Americans — and ripped into those who still refuse to tell the truth about what happened.
&#8220;There was a war on terror, and we won. And yet, so much has changed since 9/11. For example, back then, we were against the terrorists,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now, a lot of media outlets don&#8217;t even want you to say the &#8216;T-word.&#8217; On the 20th anniversary, four American journalism associations put out guidance that said &#8216;terrorism&#8217; should only be used in quotes because it&#8217;s emotionally and politically loaded.&#8221;
Noting that a number of media outlets had advised employees not to refer to the attackers as &#8220;terrorists&#8221; or the attacks themselves as acts of &#8220;terror,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/billmaher/status/2098609787739226115">Maher</a> questioned the wisdom of failing to say aloud what the real cause of the attacks was.
&#8220;Really? We can&#8217;t anymore just say out loud who the bad guys were on that morning?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;Those 19 hijackers, they shared something — oh, let&#8217;s call it a world view, and it wasn&#8217;t astrology. But somehow, over time, we&#8217;ve decided not to harp on that, the whole business about who wanted us dead and why. Let&#8217;s not put a name on it.&#8221;
&#8220;When it comes to terrorist attacks, please, there are very fine people on both sides,&#8221; Maher quipped, mocking one of President Donald Trump&#8217;s most often misquoted comments about the removal of Civil War era statues.
Maher went on to mock Canadian State TV (CBC) for telling reporters not to refer to the attacks as &#8220;terrorist attacks&#8221; laying out the definition of terrorism and explaining why September 11th was a textbook example of terrorism.
&#8220;What should we call it then?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;Unruly passengers? A wrong turn taken at the Chrysler building? Why not just say the planes and the towers got into a fight?&#8221;
The BBC, he noted, told reporters that using the word &#8220;terrorist&#8221; could be a &#8220;barrier rather than an aid to understanding.&#8221;
&#8220;You know what&#8217;s really a barrier to understanding?&#8221; he asked before answering, &#8220;Lying.&#8221;
Maher went on to explain that 25 years later, some 20% of young people had a favorable view of al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
&#8220;Was this a clash of civilizations? It was, and it still is. Not between Muslims and Christians &#8230; But radical Islamism versus Western liberalism? Yes, that’s a real thing. Fighting people who hate freedom of religion and hate homosexuals. And hate the idea of women as equal and free humans, how did liberals wind up on their side? And many did,&#8221; Maher said.
The comedian then pivoted to call leaders in the Democratic Party &#8220;cowards,&#8221; saying that their failure to express the moral clarity of Islamic terror has bled into other areas of global conflict and political contention.
&#8220;Nowhere has this moral confusion become more obvious than in a place called Gaza, a little strip of land that was not part of the original Israel, but which they won in a war launched against them, but then gave back as a peace gesture. Did they tell you that part on TikTok, kids?&#8221; he said. &#8220;And the people who run Gaza, Hamas, who you celebrate as a liberation movement but are really a terrorist mafia gang, just like the one that terrorizes Haiti, only ever used it to stage attacks on Israel. I think Macklemore spoke for all clueless celebrities when he said, &#8216;I know enough to know this is a genocide.&#8217; Actually, you don’t know sh*t. It’s not a genocide, it’s a counter attack in a war.&#8221;

Bill Maher

Bill Maher Destroys Revisionist Historians On 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

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media bias

radical islam

real time with bill maher

september 11 attacks

The following is an excerpt from the new book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Room-Israels-Against-Iranian/dp/B0G2JWY3TG">In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel&#8217;s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis</a>,&#8221; by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot Kaufman, published by Wicked Son.
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How did Iran’s regime, the master of proxy warfare, come to engage in open fighting with its more powerful adversaries? One answer is its stubborn pursuit of nuclear weapons, the focus of President Trump’s single day of strikes in June 2025’s 12-Day War. But the current war with Iran has been focused as much, if not more, on Iran’s missile program. That is what unleashed the open warfare in the first place.
On April 14, 2024, Israel’s two-front battle with Hamas and Hezbollah exploded into a three-front war. Iran attacked Israel with more than 110 ballistic missiles, dozens of cruise missiles, and some 170 drones. One of the largest single drone and ballistic-missile assaults in military history, this was an act of aggression that permanently altered the Middle East.
Until this point, Tehran and Jerusalem had engaged in a shadow war, one that had been going on for 45 years with little fundamental change. Both sides preferred to kill each other’s operatives and destroy each other’s assets through proxies or clandestine services. This preserved plausible deniability and avoided a direct confrontation that would have unpredictable consequences.
Why did this enduring pattern break down? One reason is that each party became too successful at its own mode of operation. The Islamic Republic achieved “too much” on October 7, 2023, via its junior proxy Hamas. But this Iranian “success” awakened the sleeping Israeli giant, shifting it from the limited retaliations of the past against Hamas to a far more aggressive strategy that sought to overthrow the terrorists running Gaza. Both Gaza City and Khan Yunis, Hamas’ northern and southern capitals, were not merely subdued by the IDF. They were destroyed.
Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in its campaign to destroy the Jewish state, had fired rockets, missiles, and mortars at Israel since October 8, 2023. By December, the IDF had started to rout Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon. But in a way, this only increased the frustration among Israel’s leaders that Iran had managed to inflict a two-front war on Israel without suffering any direct consequence. Everyone knew that Hamas and Hezbollah were armed, trained, and funded by Iran to menace Israel. Would the proxy strategy again be allowed to grant Iran immunity?
Not this time, Israel’s war room decided. In December 2023, the Israeli Air Force assassinated Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, in an airstrike near Damascus. Israel increased its attacks on IRGC officials in Syria, a key hub for Iran’s proxy war, until it crossed an Iranian line.
On April 1, 2024, Israel took out Mohammed Reza Zahedi, the top commander in the IRGC’s Quds Force for Lebanon and Syria, in an airstrike on Damascus. Zahedi had also commanded the Quds Force’s Unit 1800, which is responsible for smuggling ammunition and precision weapons into Lebanon. That went to the heart of Hezbollah’s war effort.
Israel had kept silent on its responsibility for such occasional targeted assassinations of Iranians in Syria, and in the past, Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khamenei had used that silence as an excuse not to take direct retaliatory action. This was how the game worked. But the killing of Zahedi, the manager of the Syrian and Lebanese proxy fronts for Iran, went too far for the regime. Khamenei decided that he needed revenge.
Iranian media reported that Zahedi had been meeting with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Iranian terror proxy, at the time of the strike. According to later Israeli accounts — once the IDF eventually admitted to the strike — the Air Force had targeted a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy. But this was not the narrative presented to the world. The world heard that Israel had hit part of the Iranian embassy itself. Some reports at the time indicated that the building had served as the residence for Iran’s ambassador to Damascus and was very close to Canada’s embassy as well.
Herzi Halevi, the IDF chief, privately admitted that the IDF and the Mossad had misjudged the situation. “Netanyahu and the other senior cabinet members throughout the war told me they did not want to accidentally drag Iran into the war,” he confided to other IDF officers.
Sources close to the Mossad sought to distance it from responsibility. “The [IDF] plan for the location of the assassination did not mention anything about the embassy of Iran. The Mossad saw that only afterward. The analytical assessment of potential scenarios could have been different if there had been information connecting it to the Iranian embassy,” one source told us. “This was a fundamental error.”
These intelligence sources focused not on whether the building was diplomatic in the formal sense, but on how the activities it hosted would cause the world to perceive it as diplomatic. Had the Mossad known this beforehand, it likely would have nixed the attack, in its telling.
Halevi was not having it. “After time had passed since the killing” of Gen. Zahedi, he recounted to other officers, “Dadi [Barnea, the Mossad director] said, ‘I don’t know if there were enough dapaot’” — contingencies listed in the pre-strike IDF Intelligence documents. Halevi responded to him, “You supported it, don’t try to wriggle out” of responsibility now.
We can reveal that the Israeli miscalculation was shared across the board and involved an inability to imagine a larger Iranian reaction than a counter-attack against an Israeli embassy. On March 20, 2024, several senior and mid-level IDF and Mossad intelligence officials attended a planning meeting for the targeted strike. Among the Mossad representatives, we can also disclose, were those with analytical responsibility for Iran as well as for Canada, suggesting that the Mossad understood the sensitivity of the target.
We can further disclose that there was a PowerPoint presentation at the meeting which showed that the target location was close to the Iranian and the Canadian embassies, highly sensitive sites, on both sides. Yet at the time, the scenarios offered by the Mossad and the IDF for Iran’s potential reactions to the strike were moderate — and nearly identical.
Offering a rare explanation of the secretly discussed intelligence process, Halevi said the pre-strike contingencies presented by IDF Intelligence and the Mossad included a medium-to-high probability of a proportionate Iranian retaliation. The agencies thought Syria might fire some rockets or drones at Israel. These secret assessments from IDF Intelligence and the Mossad also found a medium-to-low probability of Iran launching drones directly, which Israel could handle.
On March 21, Halevi gave the strike on Zahedi his final approval. On March 22, Netanyahu gave his final approval at a meeting with Halevi and top IDF Intelligence officials as well as Barnea and the Mossad’s top official for analysis. Again, the IDF and Mossad predictions regarding Iran’s response were essentially the same.
But most decisively, on April 1, Barnea attended the first post-strike meeting of senior Israeli defense officials. He told the attendees that the whole world knew the airstrike had taken place close to the Iranian embassy, and that there was already evidence that Iran was trying to pretend this was its official consulate.
The Mossad chief praised the Air Force and IDF Intelligence for an impressive operation, adding that the latest estimate was that Iran’s response would be more dangerous than some of the lowest pre-strike estimates, but still not so high-risk, perhaps attempting to attack an Israeli embassy someplace. Though even that was not likely, Barnea caveated, and it was probably the worst-case scenario, though Israel should be ready for changes.
All of this suggests that the Mossad knew what IDF Intelligence knew and had very similar views about the expected blowback from Iran both before the attack and in its first analysis after the attack. This means the Mossad’s narrative that it did not have the information to properly advise on the issue would come only later.
Halevi insists the IDF gave the Mossad accurate information. “We didn’t say ‘embassy’ because it wasn’t the embassy. Nor was it a consulate. In the land records of Damascus itself, it was not listed as a diplomatic building,” Halevi said. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant concurred: The building had no flag. Afterward, Halevi said, the Iranians tried to put a flag there, but they knew the truth.
Even so, why did most of the world see it as an Israeli violation of Iranian diplomatic immunity? For one, the building was adjacent to an Iranian diplomatic building. According to Halevi’s version of events, because they were so close by, the Iranians sometimes used the second building, where Israel struck, as surplus office space. Sometimes, the Iranian ambassador had even slept there. Israel’s misunderstanding, sources indicated, was to believe it mattered that the Iranians had ceased sleeping in the building for some time. Tehran and other capitals viewed it as every bit a diplomatic building nevertheless.
For three weeks before the strike, the IDF had tried to clarify which floor and room Zahedi would be in, but it did not succeed. This meant the Air Force needed to use a larger munition. Pressed on why it was necessary to kill such a high-ranking Iranian official in the first place, Halevi explained to other officers that Iran was pushing the Syrians to fire more on Israel directly from Syrian territory, and that Israel wanted to stop the trend. In trying to deter attacks from Syria, then, Israel ended up escalating with Iran directly. But it did not know that at the time.
“After the fact,” Halevi has said, “Iran immediately claimed it was an embassy and told this to the leader, Khamenei,” misleading Iran’s top decision-maker. The IDF chief believes this internal Iranian deception changed everything. Ayatollah Khamenei did not often travel outside his palaces and command centers and relied on a small coterie of advisers to receive updates about the world. Had the ayatollah known that Israel had merely hit overflow rooms from the embassy, rather than the embassy itself, he might not have responded the same way.
If the ayatollah was misinformed, he wasn’t alone. “Some of the top American officials really think it was the embassy and view Iran’s claim as authentic,” another senior IDF official told us. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was furious at the Israeli strike. In his view, Israel was obfuscating the significance of what it had done. He either did not accept Israel’s story about the building, or he thought Jerusalem was standing on a technicality that ignored what mattered: Iranian diplomats used the building, which meant Israel had broken the rules of the game. Austin told Gallant that the Iranians would now up the ante, and he was right. Khamenei would transform the conflict.
Halevi, however, swears by his finding: “We know it was not a diplomatic building. If it was,” he said, “I would not even have suggested the attack to the cabinet.” To the IDF chief’s regret, however, “fake news succeeded in Iran and in the US.” Iran pressed the theme so hard that most top Biden Administration officials, even in private, have told us they believe Israel struck an Iranian diplomatic compound.
The misinformation given to Khamenei led him to order the first-ever massive direct attack on Israel late on the night of April 13, 2024, and early in the morning of April 14. The decision stunned the Mossad and IDF Intelligence, which in 2025 considered it their second-largest miss of the war, following only October 7, 2023. Indeed, IDF Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva was shown the door later in April 2024 not because of the initial failure of October 7, which he had somehow weathered, but because he also underestimated Khamenei’s response in mid-April. He would remain in office for a few more months, but his fate was sealed.
Iran’s direct attack in April 2024 would provoke a direct Israeli retaliation later that month, targeting air defenses. If the conflict had seemed contained in the aftermath, we now know that could not have been further from the truth. The invisible wall, which had prevented direct military exchanges with Iran for decades, had been broken. Another exchange would follow in October 2024, leaving more Iranian air defenses down and clearing the path for the 12-Day War of June 2025. That war’s extraordinary success, in turn, gave President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the confidence to launch a new Iran war on February 28, 2026. The wall was down, and each subsequent decision was made in its wreckage.
***
Elliot Kaufman is a Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member and writer, focusing on Israel, Iran, and U.S. foreign policy. 
Yonah Jeremy Bob is the senior military correspondent at the Jerusalem Post.
&#8220;In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel&#8217;s Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis,&#8221; can be purchased on Amazon <a href="https://a.co/d/0gnemAxJ">here</a>.

Inside Israel’s High-Stakes Fight From October 7 To The Heart Of Tehran

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iran

mossad

I was 13, sitting in a barbershop in Amman with my younger brother, transfixed by what we were witnessing on the television, when the men around us began to chant “Allahu Akbar.” It took a moment for a dozen grown men to realize what they were watching: a victory for Islam and our people.
As the towers fell, as the Pentagon burned, as the civilized world reacted in horror, we rejoiced — America, the Great Satan, had fallen.
Since then I have heard “Allahu Akbar” again and again —  from men beheading captives in Iraq, from those who burned people alive in cages in Syria, from suicide bombers who walked into Israeli and Parisian cafés, and in gay bars and synagogues in America when terrorists opened fire on innocence.
I eventually heard it coming out of my own mouth, marching with thousands through the streets of Amman against a Danish cartoonist who had dared to draw the Prophet.
Allahu akbar. God is greater. What we understood it to mean, as ordinary Muslims, not radicals, not some secret cell, but as schoolchildren, as boys in a mosque on Friday, was that we were greater. Islam was greater. It was a supremacy shot through with grievance and rage, and it was not preached to us in a back room by a masked man. It was the air. It was the curriculum. It was the sermon.
Today the West is told the lie that September 11 was a response to American foreign policy, that October 7 was a response to occupation, that tens of thousands of Islamic attacks each had some local cause. Or, in the words of a Democratic Senate <a href="https://jewishinsider.com/2026/04/abdul-el-sayed-on-temple-israel-terrorist-hurt-people-do-hurt-people/">candidate</a>, “hurt people hurt people.”
It is a lie meant to normalize what sits at the core of the doctrine: that as a Muslim you are superior, you are just, you are right, and no one else is. The question is not whether every Muslim obeys this. Most Muslims do not. But it is the core of the ideology they follow.
Recently I listened to a German man, a former Muslim of Turkish descent, describe what he was taught at home as a child: Jews and Christians are infidels; they must know their place, pay the jizya, the tax of the humiliated, and if they refuse to convert, they die. He grew up in Düsseldorf. I grew up in Amman. We had never met, yet we had learned the same thing.
This ideology is older than America, older than Israel, older than the grievances invented to explain it away — a doctrine that spent 14 centuries erasing civilizations, enslaving Africans and Europeans, and burying the dead by the millions.
Every human being has the capacity for evil.
Most religions restrain it, setting moral boundaries against violence and cruelty. Christianity commands its followers to love their enemies and refuse vengeance. Judaism, despite its people&#8217;s long persecution, never formed a doctrine commanding global conquest or the extermination of non-Jews.
Islam does the opposite. When an ISIS fighter beheads a captive, he is not acting outside his faith. He is following the Koran and the example of Muhammad, a warlord who personally oversaw the beheading of hundreds of Jewish men in Medina and the rape and enslavement of their wives and daughters.
When Hamas slaughters festivalgoers, they are not betraying Islam; they are fulfilling the doctrine of jihad, which commands war on the infidels until Islam rules the world.
A Christian who murders violates his faith. A Muslim who kills an infidel is fulfilling his highest calling. It is a mistake to think this is just another religion, rather than the most dangerous ideology the world has ever known.
Now, 25 years later, we must acknowledge the danger in our midst.
Don&#8217;t be fooled: this doctrine rejects, and holds in contempt, the Western values of pluralism, equal rights under law, women&#8217;s equality, freedom of conscience, free speech, religious freedom, and reciprocal tolerance. Those who take this ideology’s medieval teachings seriously — those who view us all as infidels — are taking positions of power by concealing their goals in the language of a civilized society. They are using democratic and liberal language they do not believe in to disarm a society that does.
I am not warning you as an outsider. I am warning you as someone who once stood on the other side… now, as a man, changed by the grace of God, I live here in this nation that is a “city on the hill.” Islam hates our liberty and commands its followers to wage war on it.
To this doctrine, you are already an infidel, whether you know it or not. I know it, because I once thought this about you.
***
Danny Burmawi is the author of “Islam, Israel, and the West” and is the founder of the Ideological Defense Institute. He is leading a coalition of former Muslims from September 11 through October 7 to mark Infidel Awareness Month, to teach the West what it means, and to stand with every infidel who has suffered.  Learn more at <a href="http://infidelawareness.com/">InfidelAwareness.com</a>

First Tarawih prayer in Jordan

Twenty-Five Years Ago I Celebrated 9/11. Today I Celebrate America — As A Proud Infidel.

islam

islamic terrorism

opinion

We moved into a new house this week. I had forgotten to call ahead and arrange internet service before moving day, and when I finally applied, I was told the earliest installation date was ten days away. Both my wife’s work and mine depend almost entirely on being online. Our phone hotspots burned through their data almost immediately, so I texted our next-door neighbor, a white American Christian whom I had spoken with only briefly. I explained the situation and asked whether we could use his Wi-Fi until ours was installed. As a thank-you, I offered to pay his internet bill for the month. He apologized and said no.
As someone who grew up as a Muslim in the Islamic world, lived in several Muslim countries, and traveled to perhaps twenty more, I can say with confidence that I would be surprised to find a Muslim who would refuse that request from a new neighbor.
When I was ten years old, I lived in Jerash, Jordan, a city filled with Roman ruins because ancient Gerasa was one of the cities of the Decapolis. We saw tourists constantly. I still remember an Italian tourist who seemed lost. I found him a cab, explained where he needed to go, and paid the entire fare out of the small allowance I had, even though no one expected me to. Hospitality was simply something we were taught to do.
I doubt many cultures can compete with Arabs and Muslims when it comes to hospitality. Knock on the door of a Muslim family and, before they ask why you have come, there is a good chance they will invite you inside, offer you food and something to drink, and only then ask what brought you there. Stop a Muslim on the street and ask for help, and he will never brush you off the way people often do in the West. He may spend an hour with you if that is what it takes to make sure you find what you need.
Last week, during the CAIR summit, several speakers talked about the need for Muslims to spend more time with Americans so that Americans could see how nice Muslims are and thereby combat what they described as “Islamophobia.” I can see why they think that strategy will work.
Last year, I was invited to speak at a synagogue about Islam. Afterward, a Jewish woman objected to what I had said because, as she explained, her daughter had a very nice Muslim friend.
This is where many people in the West become confused. They hear Muslim clerics speak about Islam’s global ambitions, they see what Muslim terrorists do around the world, they remember the beheadings, the persecution of minorities, the grooming and rape gangs, and other acts committed by Muslims. At the same time, they personally know Muslims who are kind, generous, decent people. Faced with that contradiction, many resolve it by separating the Islam of their nice Muslim friends from the actions of violent Muslims and treating the latter as a fringe phenomenon with little or nothing to do with Islam itself.
When a Muslim man stopped two ISIS terrorists in Sydney, his religion was immediately emphasized. He was not “the human who stopped the Muslim terrorists” but “the Muslim who stopped the terrorists.”
The World Beneath the Surface
Muslim “niceness” belongs to a very old social world. Among Arabs, hospitality is tied to karam, generosity, honor, and the way a person presents himself before others. In traditional Bedouin life, that made practical sense. A traveler crossing an arid landscape could depend on the hospitality of strangers for food, water, shelter, and protection. Refusing a guest could have serious consequences. Over time, hospitality became part of the moral code itself. A good man was expected to receive generously, and a family’s reputation was partly measured by how it treated guests.
Islam did not create these customs. The same habits are found among Arab Christians, Druze, and other non-Muslim communities. Anyone who has spent time in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, or Iraq, knows that generosity toward guests crosses religious lines. It is Arab and Mediterranean, not Islamic. The same pattern extends beyond the Arab world. Greeks, southern Italians, Turks, Spaniards, and other Mediterranean peoples have long been known for dense family networks, animated social life, strong guest obligations, and a deep concern for reputation and honor. These societies are not identical, but they share a level of interpersonal intensity that feels immediately different from northern Europe or the United States.
But the same culture that produces extraordinary hospitality also produces problems.
The neighbor who brings you food without being asked also feels entitled to comment on your marriage, your children, or your salary. The family that would empty its savings to rescue a son also believes it has the right to control whom he marries.
This is why I do not think “Muslims are nicer” is quite the right description. They are more relational. Human life is organized around thick personal ties. That can produce warmth, loyalty, generosity, and an astonishing willingness to help. It also produces gossip, intrusion, nepotism, family pressure, emotional manipulation, and a constant concern with how one appears in the eyes of others.
In societies where institutions have historically been weak or corrupt, reputation and relationships become a kind of social insurance. In Jordan, if something goes wrong, you call someone who knows someone; in America, you call customer service. In the Arab world, a friend may spend half a day accompanying you from office to office because that is how problems get solved, while in America there is a form and an appointment.
In a corrupt society, the dependence on personal relationships can make life feel warmer because someone is visibly stepping in for you. In a just society, the absence of that personal intervention can feel cold precisely because the system is supposed to work without favoritism. One feels more human in the moment; the other is less personal but can serve millions of people who have no connection to one another.
In Arab culture, generosity is meant to be seen. Someone pays for your dinner, a family fills the table with far more food than anyone can eat, and people may argue passionately over who gets to pay the bill because generosity is tied to honor and reputation. The act does good, but it also tells everyone present something about the giver.
American generosity is built differently. Americans give enormous sums to churches, universities, hospitals, food banks, medical research, disaster relief, scholarship funds, shelters, and charities whose beneficiaries they will never meet. The donor may receive no public recognition at all, and the person helped may never know who gave the money. One form of generosity is closely tied to social visibility; the other is detached from reputation and built into durable institutions that continue doing good long after the donor has left the room.
In a religious culture built heavily around visible performance, what matters is not what a person is, but what he appears to be before the community. The woman in hijab is presumed more pious than the woman without it, even though the first may be a prostitute and the second a saint.
I can keep going, quality by quality, and every good quality a Muslim displays will turn out to be either a normal human quality shaped by education, neighborhood, class, national culture, and personal experience, or something with a theological explanation that exposes its true nature. None of those nice qualities has anything to do with Islam.
Are Bad Muslims Bad Because of Islam?
The answer is yes. You can read much of my work, which proves beyond a shred of doubt that the worst acts committed by Muslims, from the beheading of infidels to lying, rape, exploitation, corruption, dictatorship, the oppression of women, child abuse, and so forth, are rooted in Islamic teachings, not merely in descriptive passages but in prescriptive ones.
Yes, All humans have the capacity for evil, we all have within us the ability to justify unspeakable horrors, but most religions restrain human evil, they set moral boundaries, condemning acts of violence, injustice, and cruelty. Christianity commands its followers to love their enemies, forgive those who harm them, and refuse vengeance. Judaism, despite its history of persecution, never formed a doctrine commanding global conquest or the extermination of non-Jews.
Islam, however, does the opposite.
When an ISIS fighter beheads a captive, he is not acting outside the teachings of his faith. He is following the example of Muhammad, who personally oversaw the beheading of hundreds of Jewish men in Medina. When Hamas terrorists slaughter Israeli families, they are not betraying Islam, they are fulfilling the doctrine of jihad, which commands war against non-Muslims until Islam dominates the world.
Unlike Christianity, which calls for self-sacrifice, Islam calls for sacrificing others. Unlike Judaism, which focuses on preserving its own people, Islam commands the subjugation or destruction of all who reject it. A Christian who commits murder is violating his faith. A Muslim who kills an apostate is fulfilling his. A Buddhist who wages war is going against the teachings of his religion. A jihadist who slaughters unbelievers is doing exactly what his religion commands.
Islam is the only major religion that actively commands the atrocities we fear. It is the only faith where genocide, subjugation, and violence are not historical accidents, but divine commandments. It is a mistake to think Islam is just another religion, rather than the most dangerous ideology the world has ever known.
The Individual and the Crowd
A Muslim encountered alone is not the same social phenomenon as Islam activated through a group. Nietzsche described a related dynamic as “herd morality.” In groups, the same nice people you know can adopt a different morality because they begin asking: Who is more committed? Who is purer? Who has compromised? Once righteousness becomes visible, it becomes competitive. Islam intensifies this because piety can be displayed in ways everyone around you can recognize: loyalty to Islam, dress codes, public outrage, sexual rules, attitudes toward outsiders, and the willingness to defend whatever Islam regards as sacred.
If being a good Muslim is constantly communicated through things that can be seen and judged by other Muslims, then religion becomes a social ranking system. The man who condemns criticism of Muhammad more fiercely appears more zealous. The person who defends Islam immediately appears more loyal than the one who hesitates.
The nice Muslim you know privately and the Muslim acting inside a strongly activated religious group can begin to look like two different people. Collective identity converts people back into categories. You are no longer simply John, David, or Susan. You become Christian, Jew, atheist, apostate, Zionist, secularist, unbeliever.
A man alone has to explain why he believes something, in a crowd, everyone else’s certainty becomes part of his evidence. He can repeat what the group believes and feel less personally responsible for examining it. Muslims in groups see solidarity with other believers as a religious obligation. A Muslim can regard a morally corrupt Muslim as closer to him than a morally admirable non-Muslim. The reason is that one shares the sacred identity and the other does not.
A Muslim who barely practices his religion can suddenly become fiercely defensive of it when an outsider criticizes it. He may drink, rarely pray, ignore sexual rules, and know very little theology, yet react with extraordinary anger to an insult against Muhammad. That apparent contradiction makes sense once you understand how Islam is not only a religion, it is a citizenship, an identity.
The absolute majority of Muslims support Hamas. Forget the recent polls showing that almost 42% of Muslims in America support Hamas; many of those interviewed were probably afraid of ICE. Any Muslim, nice or not, religious or not, will support Hamas, except for the seven individuals who still identify as Muslims but are considered infidels in the eyes of Muslims anyway. On an individual level, if you ask them, they will use the occupation to explain their support for Hamas. But in a group setting, they support Hamas because of Islam.
Nietzsche once wrote that “madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.” A Muslim alone still has to live with his own judgment, his own doubts, and the consequences of what he believes. Inside a group, those restraints are gone. The crowd supplies certainty, rewards conformity, and turns excess into proof of loyalty. Ideas that would sound extreme coming from one person can become normal once everyone around him repeats them. The individual begins to borrow his moral confidence from the group, and once that happens, the group, especially an Islamic group, makes fanaticism a virtue.
Love Muslims. Hate Islam.
Most of the Muslims you meet are not walking around performing taqiyya. They are not actors pretending to be kind while secretly plotting against you. If your Muslim neighbor is decent to you, he is probably decent to you because he is a decent human being. His kindness is real. The mistake begins when you take that kindness and turn it into a theological argument for Islam.
The West has become so crippled by kindness and cultural relativism that the religion of the terrorist is omitted, and the religiously motivated act of violence is absorbed into the generic category of “terrorism,” alongside cartels, organized crime, and human trafficking. Islamic movements and Muslims who exploit Western freedom and democratic institutions in order to advance a destructive Islamic project are discussed without any attention to the religious doctrine motivating them.
The kindness of a Muslim friend tells you something about the friend, it tells you nothing about how Muslims believe that Muhammad is the moral model for mankind, or how Sharia must take over liberal democracy, or anything about the apostasy laws, the nature of jihad, women and non-Muslims under Islamic law, or how Islam can never coexist with a constitutional order built on freedom of conscience.
Islam must be judged by what it teaches, not by the nicest person who happens to belong to it. Islam is not only a collection of private beliefs about God, prayer, fasting, and the afterlife. It is a political ideology that contains rules about government, war, taxation, criminal penalties, family regulation, and rules governing Muslims and non-Muslims. Once Islam takes over a society your nice Muslim friend will be irrelevant.
Individually, Muslims differ enormously, but institutions, mosques, Islamic organizations, religious parties, activist networks, and clerical authorities, funded by Islamic nations, bring Muslims together. That is when what you see as “nice” is deemed by Islam as “bad,” and at that point these enclaves will be full of nice Muslim individuals and a very bad Muslim group.
When the West assures Muslims that Islam embodies Western values, it does not strengthen the humane Muslim against destructive Islam. It strengthens Islam against the human beings enslaved by it. When politicians insist that every criticism of Islam is an attack on Muslims, they merge the person with the ideology, protecting the ideology without providing any additional protection to the individual, who is already protected by Western law.
Defend the Muslim as a person and hate Islam as a set of ideas. Defend the Muslim citizen against discrimination, and refuse every attempt to convert that protection into immunity for Islam. Make it impossible to punish a Muslim for being Muslim, and equally impossible to punish someone for criticizing Muhammad, the Qur’an, Sharia, or Islamic history.
Love your nice Muslim neighbor, but to survive you have no option but to hate Islam.
***
This is republished with permission by the author. The original can be found <a href="https://www.danburmawi.com/p/the-nice-muslim-fallacy">here</a>.
Danny Burmawi is an author, political commentator, and founder of the Ideological Defense Institute. His book, &#8220;ISLAM, ISRAEL AND THE WEST: A Former Muslim&#8217;s Analysis,&#8221; can be ordered <a href="https://a.co/d/0hFHZSaY">here</a>. Subscribe to his newsletter <a href="https://www.danburmawi.com/">here</a>.

Kibuli mosque Kampala

The Conflation Of Muslim And Islamic Could Be The End Of The West

islamophobia

jihadism

muslim community

In a high-stakes operation in Western Gaza City, a specialized joint force from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency successfully captured Moein Al-Arabid, the head of Hamas’s internal security and intelligence apparatus.
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‼️⭕APPREHENDED: The Head of Hamas’ Internal Security in Gaza, as part of a targeted operation to remove threats posed by Hamas in northern Gaza.
The apprehended terrorist has recently worked to consolidate Hamas&#39; control over northern Gaza and to advance terrorist attacks…
&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2094832971773542597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The capture marks a critical intelligence breakthrough for Israel. Often referred to as the leader of the &#8220;Palestinian Shin Bet,&#8221; Al-Arabid was grabbed near his home. <a href="https://www.news18.com/world/hamas-top-commander-captured-in-gaza-netanyahu-says-he-helped-hide-move-israeli-hostages-10304951.html#google_vignette">According</a> to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al-Arabid played a pivotal role in managing internal intelligence, directing counter-intelligence, protecting senior leadership, and hiding and relocating Israeli hostages taken on October 7, 2023, during the horrific Hamas massacre.
Israeli officials further accused the former Qassam Brigades figure of attempting to reconstruct Hamas’s operational capabilities and restore its administrative governance in Gaza.
Al-Arabid&#8217;s capture provides Israel with an unprecedented window into the inner workings of Hamas’s security architecture and hostage-network infrastructure. The imperative to secure such high-level intelligence is underscored by the horrifying, documented atrocities of the October 7, 2023 attacks.
The full magnitude of October 7 is preserved in the IDF’s 47-minute <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/b1pnmg9up">unedited compilation</a> film, Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre. Assembled by reservists Yuval Horowitz and Matan Harel-Fisch, the raw footage captures a relentless killing spree across more than 30 southern Israeli communities and the Supernova music festival. Relying entirely on GoPro footage worn by terrorists, civilian dashcams, home security systems, and victim cell phones, the film provides undeniable courtroom evidence of unspeakable cruelty.
The visual record exposes terrorists firing point-blank into civilian vehicles, setting homes ablaze to force families out, and murdering toddlers in their beds. In one devastating CCTV sequence, a father leads his young sons into a bomb shelter before a militant throws a grenade inside, killing the father and leaving his wounded children to flee back into their home while the attacker calmly raids their refrigerator.
The film documents victims being executed, disfigured, stripped, and paraded through Gaza to cheering crowds, with terrorists celebrating and filming their actions in real time.
Beyond the raw footage, a <a href="https://cc4e0711-9401-400e-ae14-65ae0400675b.filesusr.com/ugd/aab121_882e9391df384e169d29f16c0faefeac.pdf">landmark May 2026 report</a> by the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes further illuminated the systematic nature of the violence. Based on more than 1,800 hours of analysis, the report concluded that Hamas utilized sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as a calculated, integral weapon of war.
Investigators documented 13 distinct patterns of abuse, including gang rapes at the Supernova festival, sexual torture, postmortem mutilation, and &#8220;kinocidal&#8221; acts forcing family members to abuse each other. Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks recovered from dead militants contained explicit commands like &#8220;take off your pants.&#8221; The commission cited the documents as evidence supporting its conclusion that sexual violence was premeditated.
The apprehension of Moein Al-Arabid represents a monumental victory for Israeli intelligence. Interrogating the mastermind behind Hamas&#8217;s internal security offers Israel vital insights to dismantle Hamas’ remaining terrorist networks.

Silhouette of soldiers with Israel flag against the sunset

Israel Captures Top Hamas Intel Chief Behind Hostage Operations

benjamin netanyahu

israel defense forces

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
The U.S. Department of the Treasury followed in the United Kingdom’s footsteps on Wednesday, <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0616/">designating</a> Palestine Action as a terrorist front. Acting under the authority of Executive Order 13224, Treasury has confirmed what analysts have documented for years: that a transatlantic network of cells, funders, and ostensible grassroots organizations has been waging coordinated violence against defense infrastructure, intimidating Americans through civil terrorism, and providing material and ideological support to designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
The Palestine Action designation is also the latest in a systematic effort to chip away at transnational organizations aiming to subvert American interests through crime and intimidation. Treasury sanctioned the sham nonprofit Samidoun, which had been raising funds for the Marxist FTO Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in October 2024. It has now identified Palestine Action and Masar Badil (another Samidoun front) as extensions of the same enterprise. Next, we must recognize that these groups serve as hubs connected to dozens of spokes — funders, partners, and footsoldiers — each of which poses a danger to our national security and the integrity of our republican system of government.
A few actions would keep Treasury’s momentum going.
First, Treasury and the State Department should designate Unity of Fields as an alias of Palestine Action UK. Unity of Fields was once known as Palestine Action US, and has been a force of destruction stateside — attacking banks and other businesses in acts of violent intimidation. Founded by the same network, funded by the same sources, and acting for the same cause, Unity of Fields has left little doubt that it, too, materially and ideologically supports terrorism.
<a href="https://manhattan.institute/subscribe?utm_source=DailyWire&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=reihan">Click here for more Manhattan Institute content.</a>
Treasury should move quickly to designate Unity of Fields as an alias or successor of Palestine Action, ensuring that it is considered toxic under American law. Its funds should be frozen, and its leadership should be investigated promptly. (Then-Senator Marco Rubio already <a href="https://x.com/SenMarcoRubio/status/1846946478171828455?s=20">recommended</a> that the Department of Justice investigate Unity of Fields for domestic terrorism.)
Which brings us to action item number two: Individually designate Calla Walsh. Walsh co-founded Palestine Action U.S. alongside centimillionaire failson James “Fergie” Chambers, faced criminal charges for engaging in civil terrorism, and remains a key figure in the organization’s operational apparatus. She is a founding member of the Babochki Collective, which controls Chambers’s grant-making, alongside multiple members of the Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee.
Walsh is an obvious terror mouthpiece. She has praised the October 7 Hamas attacks as “the glorious Al-Aqsa flood,” publicly called on activists to “build our own people’s war,” expressed support for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah, and questioned why there were not “100 more” attacks on Israeli diplomats. In July 2025, she traveled to Iran and delivered a speech chanting “Death to America! Death to Israel!” She has since relocated to Beirut, where she contributes to Iranian state media. She has been arrested twice and served 60 days in jail for vandalism and criminal trespassing connected to her activism. An individual Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designation under E.O. 13224 is overdue and could help pry open even larger networks of bad actors connected to Walsh.
Third, press the Chambers prosecution and open investigations into his network. Chambers faces a federal indictment alleging he transferred approximately $7.5 million out of the United States in material support of Hamas. His extradition from Spain should be pursued vigorously. But Chambers did not operate alone. The Babochki Collective funneled donations far and wide within the permanent protest ecosystem. Among many other suspicious items, Chambers’s grantmaking funded legal defenses for activists arrested during A15 Action’s April 2024 civil terrorism campaign, which shut down the Golden Gate Bridge, O’Hare International Airport, and Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing facility, among others.
Digging into the astroturfed demonstrations backed by Chambers reveals a constellation of actors who tend to show up, or lurk behind the scenes, whenever far-left demonstrations turn criminal. A15 Action directed its bail fund through Community Justice Exchange, fiscally sponsored by the Tides Center, and coordinated legal support through the National Lawyers Guild. Federal investigators should map every organization that received Chambers-linked funds and assess whether they maintain links with a now-designated terrorist organization.
Fourth, Congress should show that this is a priority. A bipartisan letter from the relevant Senate and House judiciary and intelligence committees — endorsing Treasury’s designation, calling for the Unity of Fields alias action, and requesting a full accounting of the network’s domestic financial infrastructure — would send the important signal that lawmakers across parties recognize these criminal enterprises for what they are. These are not dissenters or even partisans, but participants in a terrorist enterprise that has coordinated with Iran and explicitly called for violence against American institutions. Neither party should have any interest in doing PR for these groups by calling them by the common euphemism of “protest.” Palestine Action doesn’t think it is a protest movement, and neither should we.
Treasury is leading the way, using the powerful tools at its disposal to neutralize what it rightly perceives as a serious threat. The question is whether the full weight of the American enforcement apparatus — investigators, prosecutors, and policymakers alike — will act before these subversion networks can take any more steps forward.
***
Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Masked man holding sub-machine gun, b&w

Inside The Federal Crackdown On Palestinian Terror Networks Threatening America

james chambers

palestine action

politics

terrorism designation

treasury department

The inspector general’s office for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/node/8198">reported</a> Wednesday that over 100 current and former staff members from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of over 1,200 Israelis.
Critics have warned for years that taxpayer-funded UNRWA is thoroughly infested with Hamas terrorists. Wednesday&#8217;s report was also shared by President Donald Trump.

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Despite the overwhelming evidence that the U.N. agency serves as a subsidized wing of Hamas, Democrat politicians are still begging to hand them more cash. Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has explicitly championed restoring U.S. taxpayer funding to UNRWA. Pushing a radical foreign policy platform that demands an end to military support for Israel, El-Sayed&#8217;s campaign <a href="https://abdulforsenate.com/priority/money-out-of-politics/#h-sensible-foreign-policy">officially calls</a> for an &#8220;immediate re-investment in foreign aid, including to UNRWA.&#8221;
El-Sayed&#8217;s campaign did not respond when asked by The Daily Wire if the Democratic candidate still wants to use U.S. tax dollars to re-invest in UNRWA after the troubling report.
According to federal watchdog records, the referrals detail UNRWA staffers actively engaged in horrific acts during the 2023 massacre. Among those flagged are former UNRWA school teachers who also acted as Hamas terrorists, including one who allegedly engaged in kidnapping, one who held civilian hostages, and another who commanded communications for terror cells from his post as a school principal. One former UNRWA social worker involved in kidnapping a civilian from Kibbutz Be’eri had his debarment proposal terminated only because he was already dead.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Investigations by the USAID Inspector General, dubbed &#8220;<a href="https://freebeacon.com/israel/exclusive-un-is-actively-obstructing-us-probe-into-links-between-its-gaza-relief-groups-and-hamas-as-americans-warn-un-to-divorce-cancerous-unrwa/">Operation Stop the Carousel</a>,&#8221; have been examining UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terrorism. Yet, despite receiving billions in international backing, U.N. entities are actively stonewalling the probe. Watchdogs report that U.N. agencies, including UNICEF and the World Health Organization, have repeatedly refused to hand over employee records and payroll data, effectively shielding suspected Hamas terrorists.
Seized Hamas military records revealed that senior staff at UNRWA schools, including principals, deputy directors, and classroom teachers, were active fighters in the Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. UNRWA facilities were routinely earmarked as military hideouts and weapons depots, while Gaza residents openly acknowledged the agency&#8217;s terror ties as an open secret.
As U.N. Watch Director Hillel Neuer told Congress in January 2024, “As we have shown in numerous reports over the past decade, teachers and schools at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which runs education and social services for Palestinians, regularly call to murder Jews, and create teaching materials that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis, and incite antisemitism.&#8221;
From 3,000-member teacher group chats<a href="https://twitter.com/HillelNeuer/status/1744883114042658902"> celebrating</a> the October 7 massacres to classroom materials inciting violence against Jews, American tax dollars have systematically underwritten radicalization.
While figures like El-Sayed push to reopen the money flow, leaders in Washington are moving to shut it down forever. State Department officials and key lawmakers are calling for UNRWA to be permanently dismantled.

Michigan Democratic Senate Primary Winner Abdul El-Sayed Holds News Conference Day After Primary Win

Feds Uncover Disturbing U.N.-Oct. 7 Link As El-Sayed Pushes More Cash For Org

2026 midterm election

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Rose City Antifa, one of the oldest and most active Antifa organizations in America, relied on the same foreign technology collective that provided digital infrastructure to groups connected to Hamas, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to a recently released State Department memo.
The memo was first reported by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/exclusive-state-dept-reveals-portland-antifa-connection-hamas-irans-irgc-sweeping-terror-action">Fox News</a> on Wednesday as the Trump administration escalated its campaign against what it describes as transnational far-Left terrorism. 
The State Department designated the Italy-based Autistici/Inventati, known as the A/I Collective, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and accused the group of providing encrypted communications, web hosting, secure video conferencing, streaming and anonymity services to violent extremist organizations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the collective’s services were used by “the most active and violent Antifa cells in the United States and across the world.”
“Far-Left terrorism poses a profound threat to the United States and the broader West,” Rubio wrote on X. “There will be no refuge for violent extremists who wage war on our civilization and plot to undermine law and order, destroy critical infrastructure, assault political opponents, or conspire to conceal their crimes from authorities.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Far-left terrorism poses a profound threat to the United States and the broader West. Today, the United States sanctioned several transnational far-left terrorist networks, including Autistici/Inventati – a major far-left tech collective whose services are used by the most active…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) <a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/2092620708744491201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2026</a></blockquote>
The State Department memo specifically identifies Portland-based Rose City Antifa as one of the American groups that used A/I Collective infrastructure. The group, which has operated in Portland, Oregon, for almost two decades, has been repeatedly associated with violent clashes, property destruction, and attacks on law enforcement. The city has long been a major center of Antifa activity, including during the 2020 George Floyd riots and more recent confrontations over immigration enforcement.
According to the State Department, Rose City Antifa used A/I Collective tools to organize and encourage violent and criminal activity, including distributing a flyer encouraging supporters to aim lasers at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopters. The memo says at least one person responded to the call and later pleaded guilty to aiming a laser at a CBP helicopter, forcing the aircraft to abort a planned landing. Rose City Antifa also allegedly used the infrastructure to disseminate personal information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and encourage attacks against ICE agents both at their homes and in public.
But the Portland group&#8217;s connection to the A/I Collective extends into a much broader international network. The State Department says the same technology infrastructure was used by a media organization to disseminate information to terrorist organizations Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the PFLP. The A/I Collective reportedly operates thousands of digital services, including roughly 16,000 mailboxes, 1,500 websites, 5,500 mailing lists, and 10,000 blogs. The State Department says its services have been used by extremists to distribute propaganda, information on targets, tactical manuals, and claims of responsibility for attacks. The collective also allegedly tests users for Left-wing alignment before allowing them access to services, according to the State Department.
The designation represents another step in the Trump administration&#8217;s broader effort to treat violent far-Left networks as a counterterrorism problem rather than just a domestic protest movement. President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-designates-antifa-a-major-terrorist-organization">designated</a> Antifa a domestic terrorist organization in 2025 following a series of violent confrontations involving activists and federal immigration authorities. The administration has since pursued terrorism charges against alleged Antifa militants involved in an armed attack on an ICE detention facility in Texas and has pushed international governments to cooperate against what it describes as transnational political extremism.
The administration&#8217;s focus has increasingly extended beyond individual violent actors to the infrastructure supporting them. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Wednesday that the administration would target those who provide financial and logistical support to violent far-Left groups. 
“Far-Left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice: We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear,” Bessent told Fox News. “Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”
Rubio said the administration would continue using its counterterrorism and economic authorities against the networks. 
“We will use all the tools and authorities at our disposal to fight terrorism and protect our way of life from terrorist coercion,” Rubio said.

Antifa Protesters

The Foreign Collective Linking Hamas, IRGC, And A U.S. Antifa Cell

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A new report is warning that Muslim Brotherhood-aligned networks have embedded themselves across the Canadian government, charities, and universities, raising concerns about the influence of Islamist organizations within the country’s democratic institutions.
The 195-page <a href="https://isgap.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/An-Assault-on-Canadian-Democratic-Values-and-Principles.pdf">report</a>, published by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), examines what it describes as “Islamist entryism” in Canada and identifies connections between Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organizations and institutions ranging from universities and student groups to political advocacy and charitable groups.
“Canada’s challenge is not simply the presence of individual extremist voices or isolated institutional weakness,” Charles Asher Small, ISGAP’s executive director, told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/muslim-brotherhood-linked-networks-embedded-across-canadian-institutions-new-report-alleges">Fox News Digital</a>. “The report maps how interconnected ideological networks acquire legitimacy, institutional access, public funding, political influence, and protection from scrutiny.”
The report, titled “Assault on Democratic Values and Principles: How Islamist Entryism Weakens Civil Society and Higher Education in Canada,” argues that the organizations it examined should not be viewed as isolated entities, but as components of a broader network operating across multiple sectors. 
One of the report’s principal areas of focus is the Muslim Association of Canada, a large nonprofit organization based in Mississauga that operates mosques, community centers, schools, and educational programs. ISGAP alleges that leaders of the organization have been “directly or indirectly” associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and argues that those relationships warrant scrutiny of the organization’s activities and institutional influence.
The Muslim Association of Canada disputes the allegations.
“The ISGAP report is nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as research,” the organization told Fox News Digital. “It is a biased, unsubstantiated hit piece that relies on discredited allegations that were themselves challenged by the Ontario Superior Court for their apparent bias.”
The organization also said that a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audit had been completed and that “preliminary questions raised around any links to the Muslim Brotherhood were dismissed from the CRA’s final conclusion.”
The CRA previously raised concerns about potential Muslim Brotherhood connections during an audit of the Muslim Association of Canada. The organization denied the allegations and accused the agency of “systemic bias” and Islamophobia. The CRA ultimately did not revoke the organization’s charitable status.
The report divides what it describes as the Brotherhood-linked strategy into four overlapping areas: narrative development, institutional embedding, political mobilization, and what ISGAP calls “legal framework manipulation.”
According to ISGAP, the first involves shaping public discourse surrounding Islam, Islamism, the Palestinian cause, Israel, and accusations of Islamophobia. The second involves establishing connections across mosques, charities, schools, universities, student organizations and advocacy groups. The third involves translating those institutional relationships into political activity, including coalition building, relationships with policymakers, and electoral mobilization. The fourth involves the use of litigation, procedural challenges, and reputational pressure to respond to scrutiny. 
ISGAP points to the “Vote Palestine” campaign during the 2025 Canadian election cycle, which it says secured endorsements from 344 candidates across four political parties.
The report also examines relationships among Muslim Students’ Association chapters, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Palestinian Youth Movement. The Muslim Students’ Association was established in 1963 by individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and is referenced in a 1991 document known as the Brotherhood’s “Explanatory Memorandum.” MSA National says it now has chapters at more than 600 colleges and universities across North America.
ISGAP alleges that the organizations have collaborated and references support and resources provided by American Muslims for Palestine, whose leadership has included individuals associated with organizations identified as part of a Hamas-support network during the federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation. The report also examines foreign funding of Canadian universities, particularly funding connected to Qatar. 
ISGAP argues that the combination of foreign funding, university partnerships, and organizations it identifies as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s broader ideological network warrants greater transparency and scrutiny. Additionally, the group called on Canada to coordinate with the United States in addressing what it describes as Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks operating across North America.
The findings come as the Muslim Brotherhood itself has faced increasing scrutiny from the U.S. government. In January, the Treasury Department <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0357">designated</a> the Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the organization as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. In July, the administration <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0572">sanctioned</a> a senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood official whom Treasury accused of helping finance Hamas’ military wing.
“The Trump administration will relentlessly pursue terrorists and those who finance them,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote. “Whether operating under the guise of charities, businesses, or underground financial networks, those who enable Hamas will be exposed, sanctioned, and held accountable.”

Rally ‘Stop Genocide Now’ Held In Edmonton

Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Networks Embedded Just Across U.S. Border, Report Warns

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