COMMENTARY / OPINION
🚨 BREAKING: Multiple SHOOTERS Attack Civilians In New York – Mass Casualties [24:24] Mahyar Tousi
August 17, 2025 Tousi TV
A Hero Among Us: Tim Ballard on Syria, Israel, and the Fight for Truth [49:28] Avi Abelow
August 17, 2025 – I recently had the profound honor of meeting Tim Ballard, a real-life hero whose unwavering mission to rescue children from the nightmare of sex trafficking has changed countless lives. He recently visited Israel to see what is going on in Gaza with his own eyes and to save Druze children in Syria. In a world clouded by moral confusion, his clarity, courage, and compassion shine as a beacon of truth and righteousness. If you haven’t yet seen the movie “Sound of Freedom” about Tim’s story, watch it.
Unstoppable Fires Burning All Over the World – Dane Wigington [45:22] By Greg Hunter
August 12, 2025
Renowned climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington has been warning of profound damage being done to the planet for decades. Now, he says the pace of destruction is picking up speed, and the time is short before severe climate collapse happens. Wigington has said many times that there is no serious conversation about the climate without talking about climate engineering first and foremost. Climate engineers are so desperate to cool the planet, they have literally set the world on fire to put out smoke to block the sun. Wigington says, “Are we to think that they can’t, if they wanted to, squash these fires? They are in Western North America, Siberia, Spain and Portugal. They are burning all over the world. Americans don’t know this because they are too caught up in political theater. . .. What I want to say today is the vast majority continue to arrange deck chairs on the Titanic without being able to face this near-term existential threat that is happening in our skies. It’s not just climate engineering, it’s biological and chemical warfare too. . .. There is incendiary dust that coats the forest foliage and the forest floors. You combine all that along with dry lightning . . . and we have a source of ignition. You have all the ingredients necessary for unstoppable fire storms all over the globe. Now, we have acknowledgement of what GeoEngineeringWatch.org has been saying for years, and that is they are using fire storms that they are facilitating to put enough particulate matter in the air to temporarily and toxically cool certain regions.”
What Wigington is seeing is not far off in the future. He thinks all the signs are there for a severe climate collapse. Wigington warns, “The greatest threat we face short of nuclear everything is climate engineering, otherwise known as weather, chemical and biological warfare. People do not want to face this no matter how bad it gets. Cascading collapses are occurring all over the world right now, and what are we watching on TV? Political theater, and I think it should be obvious, at this point, that those in the club are doing everything they can to protect themselves. . .. They are trying to hide the truth and not disclose it. . .. The human race will be lucky to make it beyond 2030.”
Wigington also points out the federal plans to put troops in major cities because of high crime and possibility of political unrest. People are going to panic, store shelves will empty out and there is going to be violence. Wigington says, “It’s called Mad Max with 8 plus billion people. This is not a Left/Right, red/blue, Democrat/Republican issue. You have the redistricting in Texas and Democrats heading to Illinois. All of that is part of the political theater. The public is caught up in this as if any of that theater matters when there is no food on the shelves and you can’t breathe the air because it is so toxic.”
Wigington says there is still some hope of getting climate engineering stopped. 36 states are proposing legislation banning climate engineering, following Florida and Tennessee. Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Green is proposing federal legislation to stop the spraying of toxic chemicals in the skies over America. Wigington says many have woken up to the climate engineering evil nightmare, but many more need to be brought to the fight.
There is more in the 45-minute interview.
There is an 8-minute video to explain how easy it is to ride out any terror attack or extreme storm. You can get more information on Starlink and Sat phones, too, at Sat123.com and BeReady123.com. You can also call 855-980-5830 and talk to a real human. Same goes for EscapeZone.com. where you can get Faraday bags big and small. You can also talk to a real human at EscapeZone.com by calling 702-825-0005.
Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes one-on-one with Dane Wigington, founder of GeoEngineeringWatch.org, with a huge warning of catastrophic environmental collapse for 8.12.25
Firing in the wrong direction: Defending Israel-haters isn’t noble MOSHE PHILLIPS
Free speech is not an absolute right; it comes with responsibility.
Aug. 12, 2025 JNS
A major free-speech organization made headlines this month for its advocacy on behalf of two students—Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk—claiming that their anti-Israel speech is being unfairly targeted. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) frames this as a fight for free speech, but it misses a crucial point: Not all speech should be protected, especially when it is aimed at generating violence.
FIRE’s stance may seem noble on the surface, but defending hate speech, particularly when it incites violence and calls for the vicious destruction of a specific nation, is far from noble. It’s dangerous.
Khalil’s anti-Israel extremism is protected under the First Amendment, but those rights do not mean a non-citizen should be allowed to stay as a guest in our country. FIRE has sued U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Defending this kind of antisemitism, without acknowledging its potential to incite terrorism, misses the larger picture.
The New York Post reported on Aug. 6 that Khalil endorsed terrorist violence, which went far beyond peaceful protest. In a New York Times podcast interview made public on May 5, Khalil described the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “desperate attempt by Palestinians to break the cycle,” suggesting a level of sympathy for actions that resulted in the murder, beheading, rape and kidnapping of Israelis. His remarks essentially defend the violent actions of a terrorist group, blurring the line between political speech and incitement to violence.
If FIRE is defending Khalil’s “free speech,” then it’s doing so at the cost of ignoring the broader implications of that speech. Khalil said: “To me, it felt frightening that we had to reach this moment in the Palestinian struggle,” which is as clear an endorsement of the Hamas-armed attacks against civilians as one can make.
At Tufts University, where Öztürk co-authored a highly controversial piece for The Tufts Daily student paper, a coordinated campaign to demonize Israel had gained momentum while she was there. In October 2023, the Tufts Revolutionary Marxist Students (RMS) published an op-ed calling for the overthrow of Israel. One key line in their article read: “We therefore support the Palestinian mass-led overthrow of the colonial Zionist Israeli apartheid state.”
This wasn’t just anti-Israel opinion; it was a call for the elimination of an entire nation and its people. This type of speech has no place in civilized discourse, and defending it as a form of free expression only emboldens those who seek to delegitimize Israel and harm Jewish communities.
In the months that followed, RMS and other student groups at Tufts continued their protests and demonstrations, many of which included slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—another phrase that is unmistakably a call for the destruction of Israel. These are not isolated incidents; they are part of a broader pattern of anti-Israel and, often, antisemitic extremist talk that has become increasingly common on campuses across the country.
Yet FIRE’s defense of free speech seems to overlook the fact that this kind of hate speech can fuel violence and intimidation, particularly toward Jewish students who have good reason to feel threatened by such extremism.
It’s essential to remember that free speech is not an absolute right; it comes with responsibility. Tufts University, like many schools, has a clear policy on freedom of expression, one that acknowledges limits—speech that slanders, threatens or incites violence is not protected.
True heroism lies not in defending every form of speech but in standing against speech that causes real harm. FIRE’s defense of Khalil and Öztürk ignores the fact that some speech, especially when it seeks to destroy an entire nation or demonize a group of people, should not be protected. Defending the right of individuals to spew hate under the guise of free speech is not noble; it’s irresponsible. The idea that protecting hate speech contributes to the strength of democracy is a dangerous misconception.
We need to recognize that not all speech contributes positively to public discourse. Some spreads lies, fuels hatred and undermines society. FIRE’s defense of students who promote this kind of speech ultimately enables the forces that seek to see Israeli civilians murdered. Rather than standing in defense of those who seek the downfall of Israel and the Jewish people, we should be questioning whether the protection of harmful speech is worth the risk to the safety and dignity of others.
Defending those who advocate for violence and destruction, especially when it targets communities under siege like Jews, is not an act of justice. It’s an endorsement of hate and terrorism.
For many American Jews, FIRE’s arguments are eerily reminiscent of the arguments used in the 1970s by the American Civil Liberties Union during one of the darkest periods in American Jewish history: when neo-Nazis threatened to march in Skokie, Ill., a community that was home to an extremely large number of Holocaust survivors.
In the end, those Illinois Nazis did not murder Jews, but Hamas has. What’s more, anti-Israel extremists in America have murdered others since Oct. 7: Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, in Washington, D.C., in May; Karen Diamond, 82, in Boulder, Colo., in June; and Paul Kessler, 69, in California, in May 2024. They were standing up or working for Israel—peaceful people who did nothing to incite the violence that led to their deaths.
Mahmoud Khalil is not. FIRE is aiming in the wrong direction. History will prove it.
MOSHE PHILLIPS Moshe Phillips, a veteran pro-Israel activist and author, is the national chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI). A former board member of the American Zionist Movement, he previously served as national director of the U.S. division of Herut and worked with CAMERA in Philadelphia. He was also a delegate to the 2020 World Zionist Congress and served as editor of The Challenger, the publication of the Tagar Zionist Youth Movement. His op-eds and letters have been widely published in the United States and Israel.
Russia: Europe’s Prodigal Son by Amir Taheri
August 17, 2025
- Trump…. must have realized that Russia remains economically resilient and politically determined enough not to throw in the towel. He also realized he couldn’t expect Putin to simply walk out of Ukraine without carrying something with him. This is why Trump talks of “territorial concessions by both sides”, knowing that the “both sides” part of the phrase fools no one.
- Thus, we are faced with another “land-for-peace” conundrum that has never worked as a permanent solution to conflicts between adversaries that regard each other as existential threats.
By accepting US President Donald Trump’s summons to Alaska, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the United States’ status as the indispensable power in world politics. In other words, he admits that the days when US and Soviet summits were held in neutral venues to underline their equality in status are gone. Putin knows that the war isn’t going well for him. Pictured: Trump greets Putin on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds//AFP via Getty Images)
Even before Friday’s meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska had happened, conflicting views were aired about its purpose and possible outcome.
Trump-bashers, that is to say usual suspects such as the New York Times and CNN, dismissed it as another photo-op to add a brushstroke to his portrait as peacemaker deserving Nobelization.
The Blame America First crowd, in this case represented by Harvard Professor Jeffery Sachs, claimed that Trump will try to get a chunk of Russia’s oil and gas for American big business.
The European nay-sayers’ chorus, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, sang their song of “Trump kowtowing to Putin” by excluding the European Union from the rendezvous in icy Alaska.
But even if all those assertions were true, there is no doubt that the summit marks an important event.
Trump had insisted that Putin should first accept a halt in the war before there is a meeting. That hasn’t happened. If anything, Putin has increased the rhythm and tempo of his war symphony to crush Ukraine.
For his part, Putin had made the summit conditional on two exigencies: easing of sanctions and a halt to US military support for Ukraine. Again, neither of those things happened.
Trump imposed tougher sanctions on Russia and upgraded weapons supplied to Ukraine. In other words, both men have upped the ante in their gamble over the war-ravage Ukraine. All that may paint a grim prospect for anything useful coming out of Alaska.
However, seen from another angle, things may not appear that forlorn. To start with, by accepting Trump’s summons to Alaska, Putin acknowledged the United States’ status as the indispensable power in world politics. In other words, he admits that the days when US and Soviet summits were held in neutral venues to underline their equality in status are gone. Despite all the saber-rattling by his minions like Dmitry Medvedev, Putin knows that the war isn’t going well for him.
Trump, on the other hand, must have realized that Russia remains economically resilient and politically determined enough not to throw in the towel. He also realized he couldn’t expect Putin to simply walk out of Ukraine without carrying something with him. This is why Trump talks of “territorial concessions by both sides”, knowing that the “both sides” part of the phrase fools no one.
Thus, we are faced with another “land-for-peace” conundrum that has never worked as a permanent solution to conflicts between adversaries that regard each other as existential threats.
The roots of the current war might be found in the historic failure of Russia to resolve its identity crisis and the European failure to help it do so.
Since post-empire Europe was re-organized with the Westphalian treaties, the trouble-ridden continent has experienced two threats: pan-German domination by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia and from 1870 the united German Reich on one side and pan-Slavism led by Tsarist and later Soviet Russia on the other.
The phrase “the Russians are coming!” was used as early as the 18th century to vocalize the Europeans’ fear of what Marx called “barbarians from the east”. Also, it wasn’t Winston Churchill who invented the phrase “Iron Curtain” but German writer Franz Schuselka in 1872.
All along, Russia was split between its Asiatic and European identities. Although it touches on a frozen portion of the Pacific and has some access to open seas via the Sea of Azov, Russia remains a landlocked power. This is why it never succeeded in building an empire beyond its land outreach. The European powers that divided the world into colonial trophies in the Berlin Conference left Russia out of the thieves’ family picture.
Interestingly, however, Russia never invaded Europe but was invaded by Swedish, French and German armies on a number of occasions.
Russians also boast that they acted as Europe’s rampart against the “Yellow Peril,” while cutting the Ottoman Empire and Iran, both Islamic challengers of Christian Europe, down to size.
The 19th century poet Aleksandr Blok complains in a long poem that Europeans do not appreciate what Russia has done for them as the advanced guard of civilization against “Asiatic hordes”.
At the end of the poem, he threatens Europeans that “if you don’t want us and try to keep us out, we shall come back at the head of those hordes.”
At the same time, what became Russia after Peter the Great was to a large extent a European project. Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky wouldn’t have been possible without access to English Victorian and French literature. Russian music, dance and paintings are also offspring of European art, starting with Byzantine influence.
Italians designed Petrograd, Venice of the North, and Moscow reflected French architecture.
Yet Russia, Europe’s prodigal son, bears a grudge against the West like one treated as the back sheep of the family.
Tsar Alexander abolished serfdom, but the Europeans mocked his move as a subterfuge to bolster his tyranny. They also ignored the fact that the Russian royal family was German and that French was the court language. German aristocrat Count Nesselrode was Russia’s foreign minister for half a century, but never bothered to learn proper Russian. French philosopher Voltaire got a lot of money from Empress Catherine but treated Russia with contempt.
The 1917 Russian revolutionaries were all westernized bourgeois do-nothings who carried the Marxist virus from the West but never won equal status, even from European Communists in their pay.
Part of the reason why Russia misbehaves is the feeling that whatever it does, it will always be treated as an outsider by the family of “civilized nations”.
At a time when the USSR was under an oxygen tent, President George H.W. Bush, unwittingly perhaps, showed his contempt when he asked “how could we save Russia?”
President Barack Obama showed his arrogance when he graded Russia as a “regional power” not worthy of special attention.
All that fed the pan-Slavic discourse that pits Russia against the West. The invasion of Ukraine was a symptom of the failure to find a proper place for Europe’s prodigal son.
Jeffrey Sachs’ bogus claim that Putin invaded because he feared Ukraine would join NATO is deliberately misleading. A nation with border disputes with any of its neighbors can’t even apply for NATO membership.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
Here We Go Again – The West’s Palestinian State Fantasy by Nils A. Haug
August 17, 2025 Gatestone Institute
- Only leaders completely sold out to extremist ideologies would persist in pushing a proposal so far detached from reality and so harmful to many people — starting with the atrociously governed Palestinians — that it is almost beyond comprehension.
- “If you notice, the talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize a Palestinian state. And then you have other people come forward, other countries say, well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we’re going to recognize a Palestinian state. Well, if I’m Hamas, I basically conclude, ‘let’s not do a ceasefire because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.'” — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
- The situation in Gaza could quite easily have been resolved many months ago if Hamas had laid down its weapons and released the hostages it had no business kidnapping in the first place. This did not happen. Nevertheless, Israel is blamed for trying to get its tortured and starved hostages released. What would France, Britain, Canada or Australia have done? The party responsible for Gaza’s collateral damage is Hamas.
- Israel… is doing its best in horrendously dangerous circumstances to feed the hungry people of Gaza, while Hamas deliberately starves the hostages, and has lately photographed them digging their own graves.
- A Palestinian state would, in addition, continue trying to conquer more of Israel’s historic homeland, and try to drive Jews out of it, as they openly vow to do…
- That, it seems, is Macron’s view of a “just and lasting peace”.
- “If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I’ve got a suggestion for them: Carve out a piece of the French Riviera, and create a Palestinian state. They’re welcome to do that, but they’re not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign nation. ” —US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, June 1, 2025.
- A further reason that Western efforts to impose a Palestinian state are inadvisable is that they ignore a warning from the Trump administration that “any country that takes ‘anti-Israel actions’ will be viewed as acting in opposition to US interests and will face diplomatic consequences.”
- “There was a Palestinian state. It was called Gaza. Look what we received. The biggest massacre since the Holocaust. To establish a Palestinian state after October 7 is a huge prize not only for Hamas [but] for Iran.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, February 6, 2025.
- The question remains how any rational national leader can simply discount Israel’s attitude towards an independent Palestinian (terrorist, Jihadist) state within or alongside its borders? Would those leaders countenance an uppity ISIS or Al Qaeda on their borders? Yet, Starmer and Macron (together with leaders of Spain, Norway and Ireland) are doing exactly that. Is it possible that they are endeavouring to accommodate the millions of Muslim voters they have helped infiltrate into their own broken countries?
- This irony is that many in the West who are advocating “social justice for all people” think nothing of vilifying the Jews.
- At this point in history, Israel’s legitimate actions consist in defending its people — and the stunningly ungrateful West — from a horror disguised within a veneer of fake “moral clarity,” along with false charges of a supposed genocide in Gaza. As Huckabee remarked, “If Israel is trying to commit genocide, they are really, really bad at it.” In fact, Israel is defending the West — the very people undermining them — from a genocide. Publicly expressed slogans targeting Jews simply support the murderous intent of the enemies of Israel and those apparently trying to help them finish the job.
A majority of Western leaders clearly refuse to exercise integrity when it concerns the Palestinian issue. Only leaders completely sold out to extremist ideologies would persist in pushing a proposal so far detached from reality and so harmful to many people — starting with the atrociously governed Palestinians — that it is almost beyond comprehension. “Are these people wicked or just very, very stupid?”, asks columnist Melanie Phillips. A valid question indeed. Pictured: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets with French President Emmanuel Macron on July 10, 2025 in London. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
A majority of Western leaders clearly refuse to exercise integrity when it concerns the Palestinian issue. Only leaders completely sold out to extremist ideologies would persist in pushing a proposal so far detached from reality and so harmful to many people — starting with the atrociously governed Palestinians — that it is almost beyond comprehension. Perhaps this phenomena is best described as a “cognitive bias” that can “lead to a person interpreting all new information as supporting their preconception.”
Connected to fatuous ideals of utopianism — especially to the dangerously mushrooming number of extremist Muslims on their shores — is these leaders’ pandering to prospective voters to ensure re-election. In so doing, they not only damage their society, culture and values, but race towards the rapid demise of Western civilization in favour of an Islamist Caliphate under Sharia law. In the UK, for instance, according to Stephen Pollard, “Open Jew hate is now the norm.” How the mighty have fallen.
On July 24, President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that “Paris would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly.” A week later, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a similar announcement, and on August 11, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined the scrimmage.
Hamas, needless to say, was delighted:
“The Palestinian group described the declaration as ‘a positive step in the right direction ‘toward justice for the Palestinian people and support for their right to self-determination and an independent state on all occupied Palestinian land, with Jerusalem as its capital.'”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted:
“If you notice, the talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize a Palestinian state. And then you have other people come forward, other countries say, ‘Well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we’re going to recognize a Palestinian state. Well, if I’m Hamas, I basically conclude, ‘let’s not do a ceasefire because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.'”
Three countries, Spain, Norway and Ireland, have already recognised a non-existent Palestinian state in 2024. Two of them – Spain and Ireland – have a long history of passionate Jew-hate.
The Irish boast they have never had a “Jewish problem” because, as the author James Joyce noted through an anti-Semitic character in his novel Ulysses, the reason there was no antisemitism in Ireland was because they never let admitted entry to Jews in the first place. Spain’s history of the Inquisition and expulsion of Jews in 1492 is well-recorded.
Norway was home to its anti-Semitic leader, Vidkun Quisling, a traitor who supported the Nazi cause and was responsible for sending 1,000 Jews to their deaths. Other than that historic issue, Norwegians are not generally anti-Semitic but driven, rather, by uninformed and naïve perceptions of human rights, “virtue” and “humanitarianism.” According to John A. Moen:
“The governing body of Norway’s Jewish communities has on a number of occasions emphasized the fact that it does not recognize the claim that Norway is an anti-Semitic society. “
In July 2025, in line with the European Union’s incessant criticism of Israel, 28 Western nations condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza. From a humanitarian viewpoint, the situation is indeed disastrous for the multitude of innocents on both sides caught up in the conflict. Israel’s Foreign Ministry responded that much of the criticism was “disconnected from reality and would send the wrong message to Hamas.” The distasteful truth, however, is that no one ever really cares what Israel says — it is invariably judged and found guilty, without anything even resembling due process or a trial — in the world of public opinion, notwithstanding the refusal of the UN itself to distribute food in Gaza, as it is obliged to do.
The situation in Gaza could quite easily have been resolved many months ago if Hamas had laid down its weapons and released the hostages it had no business kidnapping in the first place. This did not happen. Nevertheless, Israel is blamed for trying to get its tortured and starved hostages released. What would France, Britain, Canada or Australia have done? The party responsible for Gaza’s collateral damage is Hamas. It not only started the war after Israel, in a gesture of goodwill, had granted roughly 20,000 permits for Gazans to come and work in Israel; Hamas also seems to revel in the deaths of their own civilians and fraudulently inflate the numbers to try to blame the casualties on Israel.
Israel, conversely, with US support , is doing its best in horrendously dangerous circumstances to feed the hungry people of Gaza, while Hamas deliberately starves the hostages, and has lately photographed them digging their own graves.
Europe’s aspiring powerhouses, France and the UK, nevertheless persist in their folly of endorsing a utopian terrorist Palestinian state. Such a creation – called “Franc-en-Stine” by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in a nod to Mary Shelley’s monster — would bring nothing but disaster to Europe, Israel and to the Palestinians themselves, considering the continuing brutality of their corrupt and dead-end governance. Huckabee stated in June:
“If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I’ve got a suggestion for them: Carve out a piece of the French Riviera, and create a Palestinian state. They’re welcome to do that, but they’re not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign nation. And I find it revolting that they think that they have the right to do such a thing.”
An independent terrorist Palestinian state would reward jihadists murdering Jewish and Arab civilians — shooting Gazans trying to flee war zones (at the urging of the Israelis), Gazans trying to take the humanitarian aid sent for them, and Gazans accused of alleged “collaboration“. A Palestinian state would, in addition, continue trying to conquer more of Israel’s historic homeland, and try to drive Jews out of it, as they openly vow to do, in the words of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad:
“The Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’s name for its Oct. 7, 2023 invasion] is just the first time, and there will be a second, third and fourth… We must remove that country [Israel]… [It] must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force…. Everything we do is justified.”
That, it seems, is Macron’s view of a “just and lasting peace”.
Just the same, the West at large and the United Nations persist in striving towards a state for Palestinians, bordering, or within, Israel itself.
In late July, UNRWA ruled that Palestinians would remain permanently categorised as refugees – even if against their wishes. This sleight of hand would mean that they would be entitled to endless funding and lasting status as a people for whom a homeland needs to be established. All descendants of original Palestinian ‘refugees’ would likewise be entitled to benefits of that status.
“The enforced permanence of the Palestinian refugee issue is absurd,” wrote David May, a senior analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), and is contrary to the accepted definition of refugees.
According to May:
“UNRWA is in the business of protracting the refugee crisis, not solving it. While the UN Refugee Agency, which oversees all non-Palestinian refugees, offers a variety of solutions to help refugees improve their lives, including resettlement in a third country, UNRWA indulges the Palestinians’ desire to move to Israel en masse and overwhelm the only Jewish-majority country in the world.”
A further reason that Western efforts to impose a Palestinian state are inadvisable is that they ignore a warning from the Trump administration that “any country that takes ‘anti-Israel actions’ will be viewed as acting in opposition to US interests and will face diplomatic consequences.” There might therefore be severe financial and economic side-effects for discounting this caution. This is especially so as Trump apparently has other plans for the Gaza area. A July 25 report from FDD explains:
“The recognition of a Palestinian state as a full member of the United Nations, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), would immediately trigger U.S. funding cuts to the international organization.”
These efforts disregard Israel’s position on the matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear in February:
“There was a Palestinian state. It was called Gaza. Look what we received. The biggest massacre since the Holocaust. To establish a Palestinian state after October 7 is a huge prize not only for Hamas [but] for Iran….
“I will not allow the State of Israel to repeat the fateful mistake of Oslo, which brought to the heart of our country and to Gaza the most extreme elements in the Arab world, which are committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and who educate their children to this end.”
Echoing this idea, David May writes:
“Recognizing a non-existent Palestinian state after Hamas’s October 7 atrocities tells the Palestinians that violence works, and rewards Hamas for immiserating Gazans.”
The question remains how any rational national leader can simply discount Israel’s attitude towards an independent Palestinian (terrorist, Jihadist) state within or alongside its borders? Would those leaders countenance an uppity ISIS or Al Qaeda on their borders? Yet, Starmer and Macron (together with leaders of Spain, Norway and Ireland) are doing exactly that. Is it possible that they are endeavouring to accommodate the millions of Muslim voters they have helped infiltrate into their own broken countries?
France has a long history of anti-Semitism, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in 1894-1906. The problem, however goes back even further, even to Voltaire (1694-1778), who wrote:
“The Jews are an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched.”
This, about the small group that brought the Ten Commandments to the West, as well as its first breaths of social justice:
“You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it….”
— Deuteronomy 24:15 (NASB 1995)
“…but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do.”
— Deuteronomy 5:14 (New International Version)
“You shall not boil a young goat in the milk of its mother.”
— Exodus 23:19
“Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. “Do not make your hired workers wait until the next day to receive their pay.”
— Leviticus 19:13 (New Living Translation)
This irony is that many in the West who are advocating “social justice for all people” think nothing of vilifying the Jews.
It is anticipated that at the UN General Assembly September session, France will actually announce its recognition of a Palestinian state. This declaration will evidently be supported by Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and, probably, Britain. A US State Department spokesman curtly responded that “we will not be in attendance at that conference.”
The US not only urged other “governments to skip the event;” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in rejecting Macron’s self-indulgent nonsense , wrote:
“This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.”
Without the US endorsing the formation of an independent Palestinian state, it likely cannot eventuate. The same view applies to Israel: they cannot permit the establishment of yet another hostile entity alongside their communities — one determined to attack them endlessly more — especially without their participation in the decision. All this posturing is therefore meaningless; most likely designed to distract their nations from domestic woes. It does, nonetheless, indicate their malicious attitude towards Israel’s legitimate right to sovereignty, peace and security in its ancestral land.
Should pandering to extremism continue without a major correction in the near future, civilization in Western Europe, as we know it, will be significantly diminished and possibly replaced with the Islamic totalitarian law, effectively as repressive as the Nazi laws were in 20th century Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.
We could see Islamic Sharia law replacing the hallowed Western legal concepts of the rule of law, which, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica “supports the equality of all citizens before the law, secures a nonarbitrary form of government, and more generally prevents the arbitrary use of power,” and equality before the law, “which holds that no ‘legal’ person shall enjoy privileges that are not extended to all and that no person shall be immune from legal sanctions.” Amongst other legal remedies, the relief of Habeas Corpus for false imprisonment might be eliminated. The outcome would thus be similar to living under Taliban rule, with no rights for women and other extreme social measures.
By blindly ignoring the social, political and legal destruction caused by their new policies, certain Western leaders could destroy what generations have built up over many centuries.
Europe is apparently determined to destroy itself.
Possibly in the view of these leaders, sacrificing little Israel and a few presumably expendable Jews, is a small price to pay for appeasing the important radical voters that enable Starmer, Macron, Carney, Albanese and other like-minded invertebrates to remain in power.
Slogans such as “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea…” confirm the declaration in the Hamas Covenant. Its preamble states that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” Article 7 reads:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
At this point in history, Israel’s legitimate actions consist in defending its people — and the stunningly ungrateful West — from a horror disguised within a veneer of fake “moral clarity,” along with false charges of a supposed genocide in Gaza. As Huckabee remarked, “If Israel is trying to commit genocide, they are really, really bad at it.” In fact, Israel is defending the West — the very people undermining them — from a genocide. Publicly expressed slogans targeting Jews simply support the murderous intent of the enemies of Israel and those apparently trying to help them finish the job.
“Are these people wicked or just very, very stupid?”, asks columnist Melanie Phillips. A valid question indeed.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of ‘Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity’; and ‘Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.’ His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske, Schlaglicht Israel, and many others.
Melania Trump’s Letter to Putin:
The hostages’ headquarters activity prolongs their hold in Hamas tunnels [5:19] Dr. Mordechai Kedar – Hebrew
[Ed.: Here, Mordechai is addressing the people marching in the streets of Israel for the return of the hostages.. He is telling them that the more they march, the stronger Hamas’ stronghold on the hostages; that street protests are playing into Hamas’ hands. He sys to think well about this point and just stop with the street protests already! I know and love this guy!]
Conservatism will collapse without support for Israel. DAN BURMAWI
To be pro-Israel is to affirm belief in moral clarity, civilizational inheritance, and national sovereignty — all core components of what makes the West great.
AUG 16, 2025 The Future of Jewish
I am not an American, at least not yet, and I’ve only been living in the U.S. for two years.
Still, it’s clear to me that in today’s America, defending Israel is inextricably bound to defending the core values that underpin the conservative movement itself: religious liberty, individual responsibility, family integrity, and reverence for Western civilization.
When support for Israel falters, that foundation begins to crack. Let me explain.
The correlation between political conservatism and support for Israel is statistical and consistent. According to a Gallup poll released in March 2025, 75 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israelis in the Middle East conflict, while just 21 percent of Democrats do.
In contrast, 59 percent of Democrats express greater sympathy for Palestinians, the highest level ever recorded. This is not a split; it is a chasm. The favorability divide is just as stark. As of April 2025, Pew Research Center data shows that 69 percent of Democrats now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53 percent in 2022.
Among Republicans, only 37 percent view Israel unfavorably, while a majority still view it favorably. Among white evangelical Protestants, who represent the backbone of the conservative grassroots, 72 percent view Israel favorably. In sharp contrast, among the religiously unaffiliated, an overwhelmingly progressive demographic, 69 percent view Israel negatively. These aren’t mere policy preferences; they are identity markers.
Support for Israel, then, is an ideological identifier as clear and decisive as views on, for example, the role of government. It functions as a political signal, a proxy for where one stands on a host of related issues. To support Israel is to affirm belief in moral clarity, civilizational inheritance, and national sovereignty. To oppose Israel is to increasingly align with a worldview that sees Western institutions as oppressive, tradition as a tool of oppression, and religious conviction as a threat.
In American politics, there is what might be called the “bundled-values effect.” Voters do not engage politics issue by issue; they choose worldviews and vote for people, platforms, and parties that reflect a coherent moral and cultural framework. In this context, support for Israel has become a bundled value, an issue that travels with others and helps define ideological identity.
“Pro-Israel” candidates are rarely just pro-Israel. They are also pro-family values, pro-religious liberty, and pro-limited government. They defend the Constitution, they see America (and the West) as a real value-add to the world, and they speak the language of responsibility rather than grievance. In other words, they speak the language of conservatism.
Opposition to Israel, by contrast, increasingly travels with opposition to those very values. The same political movements that denounce Israel as a colonial power also denounce the American Founding as systemically oppressive. Many of the same voices that accuse Israel of “apartheid” also demand the deconstruction of the nuclear family and the suppression of religious speech in the public square. The same activists who chant “From the River to the Sea!” are marching to dismantle the Judeo-Christian moral order that made America possible.
Those attacking Israel in the American context are not merely concerned about the policies of a foreign government; they are engaged in a much broader campaign: the delegitimization of Western civilization itself. Israel is not isolated in their moral calculus; it is emblematic. It represents tradition, rootedness, strength, religious identity, and the West’s refusal to dissolve itself into guilt and self-loathing.
That is why they hate it. And that is why they target it.
“Progressive” strategists understand something many conservatives do not: If you can fracture the relationship between Israel and America, you can destabilize the very coalition that has held back the “progressive” agenda for decades. They don’t have to convince conservative voters to become Marxists; they only need to alienate them from the one issue that aligns them instinctively with pro-liberty and pro-order candidates.
Break that link, and the rest unravels. No less, it is working. Among younger evangelicals, support for Israel has dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2018, 75 percent of evangelical adults under 30 supported Israel. By 2021, that number had fallen below 35 percent. This is the result of relentless academic indoctrination, media demonization, and a social climate that portrays Israel as a pariah and any defense of it as complicity in oppression.
The goal is to shift the vote — because when voters shift away from Israel, they also drift toward candidates and parties that oppose the very foundations of conservative policy: religious freedom, parental rights, and moral education. A conservative disillusioned with Israel today may be persuaded to vote for a non-interventionist Democrat tomorrow, only to find themselves supporting a platform that includes the erosion of gender distinctions and hostility to religion. This is not just a loss for Israel; it is a loss for America and the greater West.
The ideological coalition that attacks Israel does not stop at the borders of the Middle East. Its critique extends to the very core of American society. Israel and America are, in their view, twin evils: settler-colonial powers, capitalist oppressors, and religious zealots. They chant “Free Palestine!” with one breath and “Abolish ICE1” with the next. They scream about checkpoints in the West Bank and riot over policing in Atlanta. They equate Gaza with Ferguson, the IDF with the New York Police Department, Zionism with whiteness, and Jewish survival with white supremacy.
The attack on Israel is, therefore, a disguised attack on America’s moral legitimacy. It is not about borders; it is about narratives. To delegitimize Israel is to prepare the ground for delegitimizing the Constitution, America’s founders, the church, and everything conservatives seek to preserve.
And the conservative movement cannot afford to be naïve about this. Supporting Israel is not optional. It is not symbolic. It is essential to the preservation of a coalition that can withstand the ideological onslaught of the modern Left.
For American voters, the choice is now clear. To support Israel is to vote for candidates who believe in the moral legitimacy of the West. It is to side with those who defend religious liberty, parental rights, and free speech. Voting for pro-Israel candidates is not about taking a side in a foreign conflict; it is about taking a side in a domestic war for America’s soul.
For policymakers, the message is just as urgent. Israel policy is not a line item; it is a foundation stone. Support for Israel must be linked with a broader conservative legislative agenda: school choice, tax reform, constitutional originalism, defense of conscience rights, and the curtailment of bureaucratic overreach.
Israel can no longer be treated as an isolated talking point in foreign policy platforms; it must be understood and framed as a civilizational ally in the defense of ordered liberty. Abandoning Israel is not just a betrayal of an ally; it is a surrender to the logic of the modern Left. And that surrender will not stop at the borders of Judea and Samaria; it will march straight into the homes, schools, places of worship, and courts of America.
To rebuild and protect the conservative coalition, leaders must reclaim the moral narrative around Israel. They must speak clearly and unapologetically: Israel is not the problem. Israel is the front line. It is a bulwark against Islamic jihad, totalitarianism, and the “progressive” alliance that excuses terrorism while criminalizing Biblical morality.
Religious leaders must teach the covenantal meaning of Israel. Candidates must link Israel support to every major cultural and political fight in America. Commentators must expose the rhetorical tricks used to smear Zionism, while laundering antisemitism and rebranding Islamic jihad. And voters must be reminded: This is not a marginal issue, but a defining one. If conservatives fail to defend Israel, they will soon find they cannot defend themselves.
The modern Left understands this. They know that breaking the link between Israel and conservatism is a precondition for capturing the electorate. They know that if they can portray Israel as morally illegitimate, they will win those who defend family values, believe in law and order, and dismantle the very idea of Western identity.
Trump-Putin Peace Summit EXPOSED: British War Machine Desperate for More Ukrainian Blood [9:15] Barbara Boyd
Aug 16, 2025 Promethean Updates – In this episode, Barbara Boyd delves into President Trump and Vladimir Putin’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict, overcoming media portrayals and political resistance. Boyd discusses the significance of the peace talks, highlights remarks from both leaders, and critiques the impact of the Russiagate scandal. Additionally, she examines the potential of a new US-Russia relationship, proposing economic collaborations and historical ties. Boyd calls for citizen action to support the peace initiative and hold accountable those behind the Russiagate hoax.
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Iran Wants Negotiations for One Reason — To Survive and Strike Later by Majid Rafizadeh
August 16, 2025
- This is the same regime that has built its entire political identity around hatred for America, branding the U.S. the “Great Satan” and chanting “Death to America” at every major gathering.
- Some of Iran’s leading scientists and engineers, who were driving its nuclear weapons effort, have been eliminated. This is not the position of strength from which Iran prefers to negotiate. This is the position of a regime struggling to keep its most prized military project afloat.
- In such a position, the leadership in Tehran is willing to agree to almost any terms if it means securing breathing space, lifting sanctions and accessing funds to rebuild. They know that negotiations can give them exactly what they need: relief from “maximum pressure” without actually abandoning their nuclear ambitions.
- The culmination of America’s empowerment of Iran was the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of Israelis. When you give the Iranian regime financial relief, you are funding terrorism.
- The worst mistake the West could make right now is to relieve the pressure at the very moment it has started to work. Just as in 2015, a deal will not defang this regime — it will recharge it.
- The Iranian regime has another game in mind, and that game ends with Iran as a stronger, more dangerous enemy. This is not the moment to sit at the table. It is the moment to stand unbudgeably firm.
The Iranian regime, long marked by hostility and defiance toward the United States and its allies, is suddenly portraying itself as eager to talk. This is the same regime that has built its entire political identity around hatred for America, branding the U.S. the “Great Satan” and chanting “Death to America” at every major gathering. Pictured: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei makes a public speech in November 2022, in which vowed: “Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about, America will no longer have any important role.” (Image source: MEMRI)
The Iranian regime, long marked by hostility and defiance toward the United States and its allies, is suddenly portraying itself as eager to talk.
Reports confirm that Tehran is now negotiating with the EU3 — France, the United Kingdom and Germany — and has even stated that it is open to discussions with the United States. This is the same regime that has built its entire political identity around hatred for America, branding the U.S. the “Great Satan” and chanting “Death to America” at every major gathering. It is the same ruling elite that has repeatedly vowed to export its Islamist revolution far beyond the Middle East, aiming especially to destabilize and infiltrate Western nations. The question then becomes: why would such a fanatical and ideologically rigid regime suddenly want to sit at the table with its sworn enemies?
The answer is not goodwill, reform or a sudden change of heart. It is weakness. The reality is that Iran has been dealt a series of crushing blows in recent months, and now a drought.
U.S. and Israeli strikes severely damaged Iran’s nuclear program — damage so extensive that even Iranian officials admit that key infrastructure has been disrupted. Facilities, centrifuges and stockpiles have been degraded or destroyed. Some of Iran’s leading scientists and engineers, who were driving its nuclear weapons effort, have been eliminated. This is not the position of strength from which Iran prefers to negotiate. This is the position of a regime struggling to keep its most prized military project afloat.
In such a position, the leadership in Tehran is willing to agree to almost any terms if it means securing breathing space, lifting sanctions and accessing funds to rebuild. They know that negotiations can give them exactly what they need: relief from “maximum pressure” without actually abandoning their nuclear ambitions. As history has shown, they can sign agreements, pocket the benefits, and secretly continue advancing toward a nuclear weapon, just as they did after the 2015 JCPOA “nuclear deal.”
Another critical factor is the Iran’s military and political vulnerability after the recent 12-day war. That adventure inflicted enormous costs on Iran’s military assets, its regional network of proxies, and even its core leadership. Key facilities were struck. Commanders and operatives were killed. The regime emerged battered. For the first time in years, the ruling elite must have felt that if another wave of strikes were unleashed, their survival could be at stake. That is why Tehran is now putting on a diplomatic smile and speaking of negotiating. It is a calculated survival strategy. By appearing cooperative, they hope to buy time to repair their military capabilities, rebuild their networks, and, once they are in a stronger position, exact revenge. Their goal is not to make peace — it is to live to continue fighting.
On the economic front, the picture is equally dire for the regime. Iran’s economy is collapsing under the weight of U.S. sanctions, international isolation, and structural corruption. The national currency has been in freefall, eroding the savings and salaries of ordinary Iranians. The regime is desperate for hard currency and access to the global financial system. That is most likely is why they see no risk in sitting down for talks that could repair their damaged nuclear program.
A deal that results in the expiration of UN sanctions and the lifting of U.S. measures would flood the regime with money. As history has shown, this money will not go to the Iranian people — it will go to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hezbollah, Hamas and other terror groups. We have seen this movie. When the Obama administration signed the JCPOA, pallets of cash and billions of dollars in sanctions relief flowed into Tehran’s coffers. The IRGC used this windfall to expand its regional influence, arm its proxies, and escalate attacks on the U.S. and its allies. From 2021 until 2025, Iran attacked more than 350 U.S assets in the Middle East.
The culmination of America’s empowerment of Iran was the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of Israelis. When you give the Iranian regime financial relief, you are funding terrorism.
That current talks are not a two-way street; they are just a one-way gift to the Iranian regime, which is the only party that benefits. By negotiating now, the U.S. would give Iran the oxygen it needs to recover from its military losses, repair its nuclear program and rearm its proxies. In return, the U.S. gets nothing but airy empty promises and unverifiable pledges. The Iranian regime has proven time and again that once it gets what it wants, it will cheat, conceal and violate any agreement. Negotiating now would be throwing a lifeline to a drowning enemy.
The sudden eagerness of the Iranian regime to engage in nuclear talks is just a sign of deception and desperation. The worst mistake the West could make right now is to relieve the pressure at the very moment it has started to work. Just as in 2015, a deal will not defang this regime — it will recharge it. The Obama-era JCPOA nuclear agreement taught us this lesson in blood and betrayal. If we empower Iran now with talks and deals, they will simply return with greater vengeance, better weapons and more aggressive proxies.
The Iranian regime has another game in mind, and that game ends with Iran as a stronger, more dangerous enemy. This is not the moment to sit at the table. It is the moment to stand unbudgeably firm.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu
