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Is It Just About AIPAC’s Money, or Does the US-Israel Rot Run Far Deeper?

The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the very creature it has nurtured and shielded for decades. Blaming this dependency solely on campaign contributions no longer suffices; the rot is far deeper. It is driven by a deep-seated fear and trepidation among American politicians who have spent their entire careers learning that political survival requires absolute obedience to Tel Aviv.

By Ramzy BaroudJuly 24, 2026, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-it-just-about-aipacs-money-or-does-the-us-israel-rot-run-far-deeper/

Two major stories regarding the United States and Israel in recent days represent profound watershed moments in the history of the relationship between both countries. 

The first incident occurred on July 8 when US Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) and his delegation were detained by armed, illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. 

“These hoodlums come in with machine guns—an M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us,” Khanna in a stunning statement. “They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.” 

Equally shocking to the congressman’s direct encounter with the raw, lawless reality of the occupation was the response of US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. Rather than defending an elected American lawmaker, Huckabee dismissed Khanna’s harrowing experience as a mere “stunt.” 

This defiance of old taboos, however, is not confined to progressive factions. In an even more unprecedented development on July 15, US Vice President JD Vance used an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience to deliver some of the sharpest criticism of Israel ever uttered by a sitting, top-tier US official.

Addressing a reported Israeli government-funded online influence campaign aimed at sabotaging the administration’s diplomatic efforts, a furious Vance “certain elements within the Israeli government” of actively trying to derail peace negotiations and manipulate American public opinion. He went so far as to target the operators behind the foreign-backed campaign, telling them directly to “go to hell.” 

Yet, even as fierce criticism of Israel reaches the very apex of American politics, a profound, schizophrenic rupture divides Washington. While the American public, influential media personalities, and top-tier politicians are openly turning against Israel’s unbridled violence, the traditional power structures continue to toe the line.

This is explicitly evident in Congress, where establishment politicians remain busy acting as defense contractors for Tel Aviv. Lawmakers are quietly pushing forward with Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2027. Far from distancing the US from the ongoing regional bloodbath, this legislation aims to permanently integrate and synchronize the US and Israeli militaries under a joint “Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.”

This institutional blind spot is why the entire alliance is beginning to look utterly ridiculous.

Traditional foreign policy theory views Israel as an American ‘vessel’ or ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ in the Middle East, policing the region on behalf of Western hegemony. Whether that was ever true is highly debatable. Today, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the relentless war on Iran, and the escalating aggressions against Lebanon and Syria have yielded zero strategic value to the American people. Instead, the United States has paid a massive financial and moral largesse to fund bloody regional wars that disrupt the global economy and make Washington a direct, complicit partner in the destruction of the Palestinian people. 

Yet, the American administration continues to offer unquestioning support, with the exception of occasionally leaked, manufactured of ‘tense’ phone calls between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. No matter the physical, economic, or reputational damage inflicted on the US, Washington continues to march blindly toward the precipice.

To believe this subservience is a recent phenomenon is to misunderstand history. For many, the physical detention of Congressman Khanna by Israeli forces evokes the memory of Rachel Corrie—the 23-year-old American peace activist who was brutally crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16, 2003, while peacefully shielding a Palestinian family home from demolition. In both cases, the message from Tel Aviv was clear: American status offers no protection.

Yet, this dependency runs deeper, rooted in the 1967 USS Liberty incident. During the Six-Day War, Israeli forces launched a relentless two-hour attack on an unarmed US intelligence ship, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. Instead of demanding accountability, the Johnson administration accepted Israel’s excuse of a “mistake” and covered up the truth to protect its ally. This established a decades-long precedent: Washington would act as a political and military shield for Israeli actions, even at the cost of American lives.

It is often argued that Israel’s stranglehold on American policy stems entirely from the financial power of its lobby in Washington, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Conventional wisdom holds that AIPAC’s true dominance as the ultimate kingmaker began in 1981, when it waged a historic, ferocious battle to block President Ronald Reagan’s proposed sale of AWACS early-warning surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia.

But the USS Liberty incident occurred long before the lobby wielded such immense power. The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the very creature it has nurtured and shielded for decades. Blaming this dependency solely on campaign contributions no longer suffices; the rot is far deeper. It is driven by a deep-seated fear and trepidation among American politicians who have spent their entire careers learning that political survival requires absolute obedience to Tel Aviv.

This is precisely why JD Vance’s recent remarks are so critical. It proves that the armor of absolute impunity is cracking, and the language of genuine, systemic criticism of Israel has officially been normalized in mainstream political discourse.

August 2, 2026 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s Dangerous Gambit To Merge The Iran And Ukraine Wars

Of course this would also appeal to Israel, prolonging the Middle East war and potentially drawing European governments into the theater, too.

Trita Parsi Responsible Statecraft, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/29/zelenskys-dangerous-gambit-to-merge-the-iran-and-ukraine-wars/

As Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Washington, much indicates that he is no longer merely trying to draw greater American support into its war against Russia. Increasingly, it appears to be pursuing something far more consequential: merging the Ukraine war with the U.S.-Iran conflict into a single strategic theater.

The distinction matters. If the two wars become one, Ukraine ceases to be merely a recipient of American military assistance and instead becomes a direct participant in Washington’s war with Tehran. By the same token, the United States would no longer simply be Ukraine’s principal arms supplier. It would become an active belligerent against Russia through a conflict that stretches from the Black Sea to the Caspian.

For Kyiv, this would represent the strategic breakthrough it has sought since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

From the outset of the war, Ukrainian leaders consistently urged NATO to move beyond supplying weapons and intelligence. Zelensky repeatedly appealed for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone, warning that anything less amounted to allowing Russia to bomb Ukrainian cities with impunity. He pressed Western governments to provide increasingly sophisticated weapons systems long before they were politically acceptable in Washington. And he argued that victory required the West to abandon what he viewed as self-imposed escalation timidity.

The Biden administration sympathized with Ukraine’s predicament but consistently refused to cross several red lines. President Joe Biden rejected sending American ground troops, arguing that direct combat between U.S. and Russian forces risked a wider war between nuclear powers. He repeatedly ruled out establishing a no-fly zone because enforcing one would require U.S. pilots to shoot down Russian aircraft. His administration initially declined to provide F-16 fighter jets, long-range ATACMS missiles, and other advanced systems for fear of uncontrolled escalation, only relaxing some of those restrictions gradually after lengthy internal debate.

Throughout those decisions, Washington’s guiding principle remained consistent: help Ukraine defend itself without allowing the United States to become a direct combatant against Russia, while also eschewing diplomacy that could have brought the fighting to an end.

Today, however, the strategic landscape has changed. The Trump administration’s war with Iran has produced exactly the dilemma many critics predicted. Washington possesses overwhelming military superiority, yet it has suffered a strategic defeat at the hand of Tehran. Iran has demonstrated an ability to widen the battlefield horizontally, impose costs across multiple theaters, and force the United States to defend allies and assets far from the original front lines. Iran has escalation dominance; Trump has no good military option and he lacks the patience to pursue the diplomatic ones with discipline.

Trump’s vulnerability creates a historic opening for Kyiv. Instead of appearing as a country dependent on American assistance, Ukraine can now present itself as a strategic asset capable of helping Washington turn a military debacle into a splendid victory. Ukrainian drone warfare has evolved faster than almost any military innovation during the past three years. Its experience integrating inexpensive autonomous systems into conventional warfare has few equals.

Just as important, Ukraine could offer something Washington currently lacks: an opportunity to expand the conflict into an entirely new geographic theater. That is, turn Iran’s horizontal escalation against it.

The Caspian Sea represents such a possibility, in the Ukrainian argument. Opening pressure against Iran from the north would complicate Tehran’s military planning, force it to redistribute scarce resources, and reduce its ability to dictate where the conflict is fought.

From Kyiv’s perspective, offering that capability transforms Ukraine from America’s benefactor to its savior.

But a greater strategic prize for Kyiv would be to fuse the two conflicts into one. Such a merger would fundamentally alter the political logic of both wars. American personnel, intelligence assets, logistics, and operational planning would become increasingly intertwined across the two theaters. Russian and Iranian military cooperation would likewise encourage Washington to treat them as components of a single conflict rather than separate crises.

Once that threshold is crossed, the distinction between supporting Ukraine and fighting Russia becomes progressively harder to sustain.

This dynamic would also appeal to Israel. First, it would give the Iran war another lease on life. Second, it would internationalize the conflict further by drawing European governments into the Iran theater through their deep commitments to Ukraine. And third, perhaps most significantly, it would transform the political narrative. Defeating Iran would no longer be presented as a necessity to defend Israel, but rather, to defend Ukraine.

Given the levels of elite and public support Ukraine enjoys — after all, it was the victim of an illegal invasion — such a framing is far more politically digestible than centering the war on Israel, given Israel’s plummeting standing in the West due to its genocide in Gaza and critical role in starting the illegal war with Iran

None of this means that Ukraine’s gamble will succeed. But Trump may be susceptible to it given his self-inflicted predicament in the Strait of Hormuz. (However, judging by the decision not to hold a press conference today, this may mean Zelensky’s meeting with Trump earlier at the White House was less than successful.)

Though Biden’s Ukraine policy deserves much criticism, he is resisting this type of escalation because the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could lead to a much larger and more catastrophic war. Those concerns have not disappeared simply because the White House has changed hands or because Trump has trapped himself in a foolish war.

Attempts to solve one strategic problem by broadening the scope of a conflict have often made both problems harder to resolve. The greatest danger today may not be that Trump chooses to fight two wars simultaneously, but that seemingly small escalatory steps pave the way for a disaster both Biden and Trump have sought to avoid.

Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

August 1, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, Israel, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Saudi Nuclear Deal Invites Disaster (Wall Street Journal)

July 26, 2026, By: Henry Sokolski, https://npolicy.org/the-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-disaster/

Critics of the recently announced U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia let out a sigh of relief when President Trump posted on Truth Social that the deal wouldn’t go ahead until Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel and insisted that the agreement permits “no enrichment of material.” Still, there are serious problems with the agreement, not the least of which is that—despite Mr. Trump’s post—it allows for enrichment. The administration and Congress should correct that.

Uranium enrichment can make fuel for both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. That’s why for the past half-century Washington has never included nuclear fuel-making as a part of any of its civilian nuclear agreements with states that lack nuclear weapons. In recent decades, other major nuclear supplier states including France, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea have followed America’s example.

Washington should continue this policy. The Pentagon recently bombed Iran’s nuclear fuel-making plants. Providing Saudi Arabia a pathway to build the capacity the U.S. Air Force is razing in Iran gives hypocrisy a bad name. It not only would make it more difficult to get Iran to restrict its own program, but also set a poor example and encourage other nuclear suppliers to misbehave.

More important, it’s sure to spook Riyadh’s neighbors. U.S. negotiators agreed that Iran may, after a moratorium, resume enriching uranium. The U.S.-Saudi deal allows a similar privilege to Riyadh. The U.S. got the United Arab Emirates to agree to forgo making nuclear fuel with the caveat that if Washington afforded any neighbor more-generous terms, the U.A.E. could renegotiate.

Then there are Egypt and Turkey, both building large nuclear plants. U.S. diplomats asked both to forswear making nuclear fuel. Both refused. The Saudi deal, in short, could pour proliferation kerosene on these states’ smoldering nuclear ambitions.

Energy Secretary Christopher Wright insists the opposite. He says this deal will “uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.” In fact, it represents a new low. The agreement doesn’t require Riyadh to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s model inspections under what’s known as the Additional Protocol. These inspections allow short-notice visits at any time, anywhere. One hundred forty-four states have already adopted the Additional Protocol; Saudi Arabia has refused. The fear is that it might want to hide something.

The Energy Department is quick to insist that it will “black box” any nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi Arabia to prevent military diversions. That is magical thinking. No such box has ever been developed, nor has it been explained publicly. That’s because it doesn’t exist.

Saudi nationals couldn’t be kept clear of a large nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi territory. At a minimum, construction and operation of such a “black box” plant would make it far more difficult to detect Saudi efforts to build a covert facility (possibly with the assistance of its nuclear-armed ally Pakistan). And black boxing can never protect against sovereign Saudi seizure of what’s in the box.

Fortunately, the reported deal contains an escape clause. It doesn’t promise the immediate transfer of uranium-enrichment technology. Rather, it pledges a two-year study into the concept. But it doesn’t take two years to figure out that this is a bad idea.

Washington shouldn’t be in the business of transferring nuclear bomb-making capability to Saudi Arabia or any other country. To make sure it doesn’t, Mr. Trump—who relishes getting the best bargain—should renegotiate the deal. Alternatively, Mr. Trump could simply decline to send this bad deal to Congress. If he sends it anyway, lawmakers need to hold hearings and legislate to condition its implementation on making it right.

To read the full piece, click here.

July 31, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It’s Working.

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel, with the goal of infiltrating artificial intelligence.

Nick Cleveland-Stout, Drop Site News, Jul 29, 2026

Since October, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has been quietly overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel. One article, titled “The Reality Behind Gaza’s ‘Journalists’: Terror Ties, Propaganda, and the Laws of War,” asserts that a majority of journalists in Gaza were linked to terrorist organizations. Another casts doubt on the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in 2024.

The key intended audience of these sites is not concerned Americans, it’s not even humans—most of the sites average a few hundred unique visitors each month. Instead, Parscale and his firm, Clock Tower X, created them as part of a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government to try and influence artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, tools like Claude or ChatGPT.

Parscale has made his goal of influencing artificial intelligence—often referred to as “LLM poisoning”—explicit. In his initial agreement with Israel, Parscale said that he would deploy “websites and content to deliver GPT framing results on GPT conversations” as part of the contract. More recently, his team even told Axios they are “seeing success” at getting popular AI systems to incorporate information from their sites, though they declined to provide data.

And it is working, according to disinformation experts who reviewed a Drop Site analysis of chatbot queries and training data, meaning tens of millions of Americans who use chatbots are increasingly likely to receive answers manipulated by Parscale on behalf of the Israeli government.

When Drop Site asked Perplexity “Is it beneficial for the US to enhance military cooperation with Israel?” the chatbot responded with a one-word answer: “Yes.” The top source listed was Allyvia.org, a Parscale-created website dedicated to promoting the U.S.-Israel military relationship. Microsoft Copilot similarly cited Parscale’s websites.

Allyvia is one of 10 different websites created by Clock Tower X, a boutique digital influence company owned by Parscale. Each website is dedicated to promoting a different Israeli narrative. FactSignal.org, for instance, fashions itself as fact-checking website tackling anti-Israel information, containing articles discrediting slain journalists as Hamas terrorists and rejecting the notion that Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. Paxpoint.org, meanwhile, promotes the narrative that Israel is a nation of peace.

All of Parscale’s websites contain a statement at the bottom which states “this material is distributed by Clock Tower X LLC on behalf of the State of Israel.” This statement is a mandatory disclosure requirement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Despite this, when Drop Site asked prominent chatbots about the latest news from Paxpoint.org, Perplexity and Copilot did not flag that the site was created as part of an Israeli influence operation. Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini did flag the caveat.

“Perplexity is built to give people cited, linked answers from a range of sources so they can go directly to the original reporting and reach their own conclusions,” spokesperson Beejoli Shah told Drop Site News when reached for comment.

Parscale’s websites—referred to throughout this article as the “Clock Tower network”—get cited by chatbots, but they also are successfully infiltrating the underlying training data.

The Clock Tower network started to get archived by Common Crawl—a nonprofit that oversees a massive repository of data used to train large language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude—earlier this year. Common Crawl is the backbone of the artificial industry, training 80% of the tokens of OpenAI’s GPT-3, making it a useful proxy for understanding if malicious actors successfully infiltrate AI training data.

LLM Poisoning

In the examples above, users can at least trace the sources that chatbots are pulling from when they search websites directly, such as in the screenshots above. Infiltrating the training data itself, on the other hand, can lead to Israel-influenced responses that are nearly impossible for users to trace.

To measure how deeply the network had penetrated the data used to train AI models, Drop Site used Claude Fable to query Common Crawl to count how often Parscale’s sites appear in its monthly snapshots. According to that analysis, a sample of which was manually fact-checked by Drop Site, between January and June 10 sites were crawled by Common Crawl 912 times. While this is a drop in the bucket of Common Crawl data, emerging research suggests a very low number of documents can successfully manipulate AI chatbots, no matter the data volume.

The 10 sites are:

Feedingyoufiction.com (crawled 1 time): Website featuring videos that claim footage coming out Gaza is staged and denying famine.

Paxpoint.org (crawled 220 times): Website dedicated to showcasing the narrative that Israel is a nation of peace. “Paxpoint highlights Israel’s ongoing commitment to peace and coexistence, sharing historical accords, humanitarian initiatives, and grassroots projects that bridge divides.”

Allyvia.org (crawled 158 times): Website dedicated to strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance. “Allyvia showcases how the US and Israel alliance directly benefits Americans through joint security, cutting-edge technologies, job creation, and shared values of liberty.”

Factsignal.org (crawled 108 times): Mission is to “prove that Hamas’ terrorist designation reflects global consensus and undeniable evidence of violence, not conspiracy”

Cognitura.org (crawled 106 times): Website claims to be a “research and education platform” dedicated to exploring how extremist groups such as Hamas operate.

Justorium.org (crawled 93 times): Website dedicated to arguing that Israel’s military actions in Gaza “follows international law and reflects the democratic ethics shared by the US and Israel.”

Culturavia.org (crawled 76 times): Website focused on celebrating cultural ties between U.S. and Israel.

Compassionpulse.org (crawled 57 times): Website dedicated to sharing stories, data, and eyewitness accounts of “how Israel protects civilians, delivers humanitarian aid, and upholds moral values shared with the US.”

Econora.org (crawled 49 times): Website dedicated to highlighting U.S.-Israeli trade relationship.

Innovascope.org (crawled 45 times): Website dedicated to highlighting U.S.-Israeli technology partnership.

These sites are being crawled more and more. In January 2026, the sites were only crawled twice. In May, the sites were crawled 376 times, before a notable dip in June. To check the accuracy of Claude Fable, Drop Site manually searched for a sampling of 50 of the Clock Tower X URLs archived in Common Crawl’s CDXJ index, and did not detect any errors. [DIAGRAM HERE on original]


Hervé Letoqueux, Chief Executive Officer at Check First, an organization that combats digital disinformation, explained that Common Crawl’s status as the go-to source for training chatbots opens it up as a target for manipulation. “Common Crawl is widely used in the world of data science for training LLMs, which also means that actors want to manipulate the answers in their favor, which some studies have indicated are fairly easy to do.”

It only takes about “250 malicious documents to produce a ‘backdoor’ vulnerability in a large language model—regardless of model size of training data volume,” according to an October Anthropic study. The authors of the study note “this means anyone can create online content that might eventually end up in a model’s training data,” and that malicious actors “can inject specific text into these posts to make a model learn undesirable or dangerous behaviours, in a process known as poisoning.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-brad-parscale-ai-chatbots-gaza

July 31, 2026 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

US‑Saudi nuclear deal invites proliferation risks … unless safeguards are written in

A key question remains over the landmark U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal announced
with much fanfare on July 22, 2026: Will it allow a nation long suspected
of having nuclear weapons ambitions to enrich uranium? U.S. President
Donald Trump has already shifted the sands of the agreement, adding a major
caveat requiring Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel first. He
also posted that there would be “no enrichment.” But it is unclear
whether either condition is included in the signed deal, something that has
nonproliferation experts like me worried.

 The Conversation 27th July 2026,
https://theconversation.com/us-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-proliferation-risks-unless-safeguards-are-written-in-288291

July 31, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

The Guardian view on a US-Saudi nuclear agreement: an offer that further erodes international safeguards

Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation

27 July 26,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/the-guardian-view-on-a-us-saudi-nuclear-agreement-an-offer-that-further-erodes-international-

Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.

Experts have long warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto leader, has said that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”. Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.

The turmoil that Mr Trump has created in the Middle East is encouraging governments both to hedge their bets and to tool up. The US paused attacks on Iran at the weekend, after 13 successive days of strikes, amid reports that it is concerned about declining interceptor stockpiles, but no exit is in sight. As António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said on Thursday, the region “is teetering on the edge of [the] unimaginable … One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next.”

Gulf states premised their security on American-guaranteed order. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar last year showed that the US shield would not protect them from Israel (itself an undeclared nuclear power). The reckless war on Iran has made US military presence an invitation to damage. Washington may be looking to bind Riyadh closer with a reactor deal, though the billions of dollars involved is probably a bigger incentive for Mr Trump. The crumbling of the region’s internal architecture – most visibly with the UAE’s departure from Opec – adds to the dangers of proliferation. Players are acting less predictably.

The US president threw the Saudi deal into doubt within hours by declaring it contingent on Riyadh recognising Israel. That had long been a precondition for an agreement, but Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza has shored up the Saudi position that recognition cannot happen without a Palestinian state.

Yet even if no reactors are built, the announcement itself acts as legitimation of and encouragement for the pursuit of nuclear capabilities by others. Negotiations produced an Obama-era nuclear deal with which Tehran complied – until Mr Trump trashed the agreement. His war appears to have produced a more aggressive, risk-taking Iranian regime, as foretold; further military action is more likely to spur than end nuclear threat. The prospect of Riyadh acquiring a bomb is further encouragement.

Look further afield. The last US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty expired in February. China is rapidly expanding its arsenal. Asian and European states which counted on the US nuclear umbrella prior to Mr Trump are discussing acquiring or enhancing their own capabilities. Most of them at least understand that diplomacy, multilateralism and global standards are a better choice than a race for the bomb. Mr Trump does not believe in international institutions. But upholding existing nuclear safeguards would be in US interests too as we enter a new age of proliferation.

July 30, 2026 Posted by | Saudi Arabia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal set to trigger a Middle East arms race?

26th July, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26409909.trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-set-trigger-middle-east-arms-race/

He failed to articulate a persuasive argument for the Iran war and now a poorly negotiated deal with Riyadh has only compounded the danger writes Foreign Editor David Pratt

Among his many controversial traits, a tendency towards double standards sits high on the list.

If ever confirmation of this were needed, just cast your mind back to April, when US President Donald Trump reiterated that in Iran: “There will be no enrichment of uranium.”

On the face of it, Trump’s message appeared clear cut and, to that end, the

US-Israel war against the Islamic Republic was – along with regime change – aimed at preventing Tehran from possessing an atomic bomb.

But fast-forward just a few months and Trump appears now to have done a deal with Iran’s great rival Saudi Arabia that could, say some experts, put it on a trajectory to enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors.

So far, so typically Trump, some might argue. But as if such duplicity were not bad enough, Trump then added another characteristic of his fickle decision-making thinking by insisting that the Saudi deal was conditional on Riyadh normalising relations with Israel.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform last Thursday.

Trump’s intervention, insisting that the deal was subject to recognition of Israel, arriving as it did some 16 hours after the initial announcement, appeared to come as late news to the Saudis.

For years now the Gulf kingdom has long insisted that their country will not establish formal relations with Israel until there is a clear path for Palestinian statehood, which Israel’s government staunchly opposes.

It came as late news, too, it would appear,

to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his team at the Washington Energy Department who some American media reports suggest jumped the gun in announcing the deal, triggering the social media backlash from Trump.

TRUMP, so the media speculation goes, added on the “normalisation” with Israel condition to teach Wright and his team a lesson for getting ahead of themselves.

Whatever the truth behind such internal bickering, the Saudi deal now appears somewhat in limbo, though should it go ahead as planned, will renew fears that Trump is triggering a Middle East nuclear arms race.

It’s not that there is anything new in US nuclear co-operation deals with countries in the region.

But back when America first made such a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009, the safeguards and conditions surrounding the deal were, according to US officials at the time, “gold standard”.

For starters, the Emiratis had to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing, and sign up to the Additional Protocol, a follow-on to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which provides for tough inspections.

All these conditions were met, leaving the UAE with four reactors that now supply 25% of the country’s electricity.

July 30, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia stares down Trump whiplash on nuclear deal

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block.

Comments:by Laura Kelly – 07/27/26, https://thehill.com/policy/international/5992914-saudi-us-nuclear-deal-stalls/

Saudi Arabia is sending no signals it will accept President Trump’s after-the-fact condition that Riyadh establish ties with Israel as part of a nuclear energy deal with the United States. In fact, its leaders haven’t even conceded that the deal signed last week is off. 

Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia was long a central pillar of a package deal for the U.S. to partner with the kingdom in building its civil nuclear program — negotiated during the first Trump administration and then the Biden administration.

But that demand appeared absent when Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced Wednesday that the U.S. signed a major deal with Saudi Arabia for American companies to jointly build a civil nuclear program in the oil-rich country. 

Mohammed Alhamed, a Saudi geopolitical analyst and president of the consultancy group Saudi Elite, said Trump’s demands about the Abraham Accords “do not change the substance of the agreement.”

“If Saudi recognition of Israel had been a formal condition for the nuclear deal, it would have been negotiated before the agreement was signed and explicitly included in its terms,” he said.

“I believe President Trump was primarily speaking to a domestic political audience by reassuring Israel and its supporters in Washington. That does not necessarily mean Saudi Arabia has changed its position.”

Trump on Friday pushed back on reporting that he was caught off guard by Wright solidifying the nuclear agreement.

“No, nobody got out ahead. I mean, I just say that in order to do it, they have to be a member of the Abraham Accords,” he said in the Oval Office with Wright behind him. 

“It was always understood, and Chris knew, and Saudi Arabia knew, that if they didn’t join the Abraham Accords — I’m not going to do the deal.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the record about the status of the nuclear deal or whether it was considering joining the 2020 deal establishing ties between Israel and Muslim-majority countries. 

Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Saudi officials are likely taking a deep breath and withholding any actions that could trigger Trump to further bear down on his demand. 

“I think if you’re the Saudis, you’re like, all right, let’s kind of see where this goes. Maybe we’ll gradually start having some conversations … Does Trump really want to kind of scuttle this big deal? Which for Trump, it’s a big deal because it’s theoretically big business for U.S. companies. So do you really want to scuttle that?” he asked.

“I think they’re just going to take a pause, take a deep breath, have some quiet conversations, and see where this lands.”

A key test for Trump is if he transmits the nuclear agreement to Congress in the coming weeks, before Republicans possibly lose majorities in the House and Senate. 

Once the agreement is transmitted to Congress, lawmakers have 90 days to either oppose the deal or allow it to proceed. If Trump delays in sending the agreement after September, he’ll almost certainly have to contend with slimmer GOP margins or Democratic majorities. 

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“We’ve been pushing the U.S. government for decades to get it done,” said Christopher Guith, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute.

Guith said, “at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Daniel Shapiro, who served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East under the Biden administration, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman always viewed a partnership with the U.S. on nuclear energy as the “holy grail,” adding the Saudis are particularly focused on achieving “special exemptions” permitting possible uranium enrichment as a hedge against Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon. 

“The crown prince has always said that he would ensure Saudi Arabia matched that capability if Iran got it,” he said. 

There are different phases of the deal, including a two-year feasibility study to determine if uranium enrichment should take place in Saudi Arabia, instead of having such nuclear fuel shipped in by the United States. That provision raised flags for former diplomats and nuclear nonproliferation experts as a potential pathway for Riyadh to develop a nuclear weapon. Other reported details raised concern of lax oversight on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. 

Riyadh is unlikely to throw out the deal with the U.S. because of Trump’s demands on Israel. 

“They hope the agreement moves forward, that Trump will back down from his tweet,” Shapiro said of the president’s Truth Social post. 

While Russia and China are alternatives for civil-nuclear cooperation, Saudi Arabia is demonstrating it sees more value in a long-term partnership with the U.S. — despite Trump’s whiplash diplomacy, growing partisanship in the Congress on foreign policy and the immense fallout from the war with Iran. 

“The Saudis really want their security anchored in the United States,” said Ratney, who is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“So this is kind of a piece of that — If they’re going to develop nuclear energy, they would like it anchored in a relationship with the United States. That’s just where they’ve always been. … I don’t know that they’re going to see this as a reason to kind of brandish alternatives for their nuclear power.” 

Alhamed, the Saudi consultant, said there are clear incentives for both the Trump administration and Riyadh to see the nuclear deal put into play. 

“For the United States, the agreement strengthens a decades-long strategic partnership, supports American companies and the U.S. economy, and preserves U.S. influence,” he said. 

“For Saudi Arabia, it advances the Kingdom’s long-term energy and economic transformation while reinforcing a trusted partnership with Washington.”

But it’s not clear if Riyadh or Trump are ready to move off their stances toward the Accords. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block. The long-serving Israeli leader is also heading into consequential elections on Oct. 27, where engaging on the issue of resolution with the Palestinians is radioactive for nearly all Israeli politicians. 

Israel’s brutal response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, increasing violence and deadly clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and the war in southern Lebanon have made it all but impossible for Riyadh to embrace Israel. 

“As the leading Arab and Islamic country, Saudi Arabia carries broader regional responsibilities, making normalization difficult without meaningful progress on Palestinian rights and a credible pathway to a two-state solution,” Alhamed said.

 

July 30, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

An Iranian missile attack on the UK is no longer far-fetched. 

It is unsurprising that Iran considers the UK bases used by US bombers to attack
the country – RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean – to be “legitimate targets”.

Such threats might have been
dismissed in the past as unrealistic bombast, but in a year when warfare in
the Gulf and Ukraine has been dominated by drones, along with cruise and
ballistic missiles, nations that once believed themselves safe have
suddenly become vulnerable. Iran fired two missiles at Diego Garcia in
March which failed in flight or were shot down, but the Iranians clearly
believed they had the range to reach the island. Diego Garcia is 2,350
miles from Tehran, while London is 2,750 miles away.

iNews 25th July 2026, https://inews.co.uk/opinion/iranian-missile-attack-uk-no-longer-far-fetched-4660624

July 29, 2026 Posted by | Iran, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump stuns Saudis by pinning nuclear deal to Israel ties

By AFPT, 24 July 2026, https://www.dailymail.com/wires/afp/article-16000561/Trump-stuns-Saudis-pinning-nuclear-deal-Israel-ties.html

President Donald Trump is making Israel a key part of the US nuclear deal with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

US President Donald Trump said Thursday that a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia depends on the kingdom recognizing Israel, throwing the agreement into turmoil just the day after it was signed.

The apparently new condition comes despite Riyadh having long resisted joining the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel, insisting on a pathway to a Palestinian state.

It was not mentioned in the civilian nuclear deal announced on Wednesday, which had appeared to be a major win for the Saudis even as Trump wages war on Iran over its nuclear program.

But Trump stunned the Saudis with his post on his Truth Social network saying the deal “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords.”

The White House insisted that Trump had previously told Saudi Arabia the deal was contingent on recognizing Israel.

“The president is always the final dealmaker. He has said if they don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“The president has spoken directly with the Saudis about this in numerous conversations in the past, and the administration will continue to engage in those conversations.”

– ‘Historic leap’ –

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recognition by Saudi Arabia, a regional power and home to Islam’s holiest sites, would mark a “historic leap” forward for peace in the Middle East.

Leavitt said she did not know of any calls between Trump and Netanyahu following the announcement of the Saudi agreement.

There was no immediate reaction from Riyadh.

Should it go through, the deal to establish a civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia would generate billions of dollars for American companies.

But with Trump’s latest announcement, it was unclear whether it would ever see the light of day.

If Washington “tries to force normalization on Riyadh, it’s not likely to work out very well,” said H.A. Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a leading UK defense and security think tank.

“Would Saudi decide to do a complete 180 on what it has declared for the past three years, or 30 years? Quite dubious,” he told AFP.

Critics have also insisted that the deal could precipitate a nuclear race in a region already battered by war.

One provision would potentially see US companies build a uranium enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The US Energy Department made no mention of such a provision and did not offer comment when asked about it by AFP.

And Trump seemingly quashed it by saying on Truth Social that there would be “no enrichment of material!”

The deal will be submitted to Congress for review.

US lawmakers from both parties and Israeli officials have previously voiced opposition to such a project over fears Saudi Arabia could eventually convert it to develop nuclear weapons.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that any civil nuclear agreement signed by Washington with another country “is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it can’t be turned into a weapons program.”

– Proliferation concerns –

Riyadh, like Tehran, has long been adamant about its right to pursue a civilian nuclear program. Last year it signed a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Policymakers have long feared that if Iran produced a nuclear weapon, the move would set off an arms race across the Gulf.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed concerns, insisting the deal was in Washington’s economic and strategic interest and involved the “highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.”

The United States has agreements governing nuclear cooperation with more than 50 countries.

The Saudi deal meanwhile comes as Riyadh looks set to be dragged further into the Middle East war, with Yemen’s Houthi rebels starting to attack ships in the Red Sea to enforce what they say is a blockade on Saudi Arabia.

Trump vowed to punish both Iran and the Houthis if the attacks continue.

July 28, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Israel builds massive barrier inside Gaza to partition strip beyond ‘Yellow Line’

“The Israeli military is quietly but quickly building a giant earthen barrier separating the over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the territory,”

New satellite images show that the barrier has allowed occupation forces to now control 65 percent of the strip

News Desk, JUL 22, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-builds-massive-barrier-inside-gaza-to-partition-strip-beyond-yellow-line

According to satellite imagery released on 21 July, the Israeli army is constructing a ground barrier extending hundreds of meters beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, effectively partitioning the enclave and deepening its military presence there.

The imagery, reviewed by both AP and Haaretz newspaper, shows Israeli forces building a 23-kilometer earthen barrier, which has been described as a partition effort.

The barrier is mainly a trench that has allowed Israel to expand its control and occupation across around 65 percent of the strip.

Varying figures released over recent months indicate Israel could control even more than that.

In one part of southern Gaza, the barrier extends beyond the Yellow Line by more than a kilometer, according to Haaretz. 

In Khan Yunis, part of the new Israeli barrier extends around 400 meters beyond the line – stretching along the Salah al-Din Road that connects the north and south of the strip.

Haaretz reported that in Rafah, the barrier pushes beyond the line by approximately 1,300 meters in one area.

The Israeli army has been working on this barrier for months, steadily expanding it. 

Satellite images have further confirmed what has previously been reported – Israeli troops have systematically razed much of the territory around the Yellow Line, leveling entire towns, destroying agricultural land, carving new road networks, and constructing military bases on the ruins of Palestinian communities. 

They also show that construction is advancing rapidly. The expansion has been described as an Israeli bid to partition the Gaza Strip. 

“The Israeli military is quietly but quickly building a giant earthen barrier separating the over 50 percent of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the territory,” wrote AP.

More than 23 kilometers have been constructed in recent months, running through Palestinian communities demolished by the [Israeli] military,” the report added. 

The Yellow Line was meant to act as an initial perimeter to which troops would withdraw as part of the agreement last year.

Israeli occupation forces have been pushing beyond it and erecting permanent outposts along the line since the launch of the US October 2025 ‘peace plan’ and so-called ceasefire.

Further withdrawals are contingent on “progress” regarding the disarmament of Hamas, which the Palestinian resistance, as a whole, rejects until the formation of an independent Palestinian state.

As the Israeli occupation of Gaza expands, so does a severe health crisis which began as a result of the genocide and has consistently worsened. 

Dozens of hospitals have been completely destroyed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 2023, resulting in a collapse of the medical sector and the spread of serious infectious diseases and illnesses. 

A new chickenpox virus has now spread across Gaza. Almost 10,000 cases have been recorded across displacement camps recently, according to Doctors in Gaza. 

“The situation requires urgent intervention. Medicines, medical supplies, and healthcare services must be provided before the crisis worsens,” said Dr Mohammad Abu Afash, director of Medical Relief in the Gaza Strip.

Other serious illnesses, such as cholera, have spread throughout Gaza during the genocide as a result of Tel Aviv’s destruction of the health system. 

July 28, 2026 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Israel Is Erasing Entire Gaza Families From The Civil Registry

 July 25, 2026,SCHEERPOST, Nora Barrows-Friedman The Electronic Intifada

The following is from the news roundup during the 23 July livestream. Watch the entire episode here.

Israel has carried out massacres on multiple families this week in Gaza, killing Palestinian children, men and women, as the army encroaches on more land and squeezes Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas.

On Wednesday, an Israeli drone strike on a tent sheltering displaced people killed a Palestinian and injured several others west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to medical sources.

Thirteen Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli attacks on Tuesday, including a strike on a home in the pre-dawn hours that killed six members of a family in Gaza City.

The Cradle reports that Feras al-Masri, his wife Salsabil, and their four children – Naim, 13 years old, Feryal, 11, Salma, 9, and Amira, 6 – were killed while they were sleeping. The Israeli drone strike engulfed the entire home in flames, and rescue crews say they found the bodies so completely burned that identification efforts were extremely difficult.

The explosion also forced residents in surrounding areas to flee in search of safety, while shrapnel reportedly reached nearby displacement camps, piercing tents housing displaced Palestinians, The Cradle added.

Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal reported from the wreckage of the home, holding a piece of the loitering munition, a so-called “suicide drone,” that hit the building.

He said the residents were burned alive, and added that rescuers could hear them screaming and begging to be pulled out, but all attempts had failed.

The Civil Defense has warned repeatedly that Israel’s deliberate targeting of its vehicles and equipment, along with the scarce amount of fuel and lack of spare parts to repair damaged or worn-out vehicles has made rescue efforts like these nearly impossible.

Videos circulated on social media show Civil Defense crews pulling the charred remains of bodies, some of them small, out of the building in the aftermath of the strike.

Four Palestinians were killed in a separate strike on Tuesday, also in Gaza City, when an Israeli missile targeted the entrance to the Muslim Young Women’s Association building……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Gaza’s stolen landscape

In addition to the massacres, airstrikes and sniper attacks on people across Gaza this week, the Israeli army continues to carry out heavy demolitions of entire neighborhoods on the eastern side of the so-called yellow line.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights’ office said this week that more than nine months after the announcement of a so-called ceasefire, “still, nowhere is safe for Palestinians in Gaza.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Israeli army, settlers kill Palestinians in West Bank

Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers shot and killed two Palestinians during a raid on the village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah on the night of 19 July.

The Palestinian health ministry said that Awda Farakhna, 53, and Ahmed Abdul Abu Mukh, 26, were killed and several others were injured in the attack.

Local sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli occupation forces also opened fire at an ambulance transporting one of the injured Palestinians to the hospital.

The Guardian newspaper reports that Israeli settlers from a nearby colony outpost arrived after 9 pm, “claiming that they were searching for stolen livestock. Israeli soldiers and police soon joined them, protecting them as they sought to take several villagers’ sheep by force.”

But when people in the village “raised the alarm and a crowd gathered, soldiers shot two men, beginning a night of three successive raids by settlers from nearby outposts and Israeli soldiers that lasted until after 2 am, according to Palestinian residents of Deir Jarir.”

In interviews with The Guardian, as they buried their relatives, “family and friends of the dead Palestinian men described several attacks each month in which they said settlers, backed by Israeli forces, arrived in houses on the outskirts of the village and then stole livestock.”

“It’s a partnership between the army and the settlers,” Adel Rashid, the father of the younger victim, Ahmed Abu Mukh, told the newspaper……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/25/israel-is-erasing-entire-gaza-families-from-the-civil-registry/

July 28, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

UK’s New Defence Minister Called Israel ‘Rogue State’

 July 24, 2026, Dania Akkad Declassified UK, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/24/uks-new-defence-minister-called-israel-rogue-state/

Late last July, as a famine unfolded in Gaza and Israeli settler attacks intensified in the West Bank, Wes Streeting texted a friend shortly before midnight.

“Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes,” the then health secretary told Peter Mandelson over WhatsApp.

“Their government talks the languages of ethnic cleansing and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.”

In messages that Streeting released earlier this year, he went on to tell Peter Mandelson, then U.K. ambassador to the U.S., that Israel was exhibiting “rogue state behaviour” in the West Bank where it was pushing ahead with annexation.

“Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers,” he said.

A year later, Streeting, appointed this week as defence secretary in Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s cabinet, is now in a position to act — or at least, a better one than when, as health secretary, he says he was “hitting up against a brick wall” behind the scenes, demanding “moral urgency” in Gaza.

Relatives of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes gathering around the bodies taken from the morgue of Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, Nov. 6, 2023. (Ashraf Amra / UNRWA /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0 igo)

But will he? Less than 24 hours in, the question was already being asked.

Columnist Owen Jones wrote on Tuesday:

“He must now be asked whether he stands by that judgement — and whether he will abide by the legal obligations that logically follow from it.”

Green MP Ellie Chowns wrote to Streeting, demanding answers about how he planned “to end the U.K.’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza”.

“We now have a Secretary of State in the UK Government who has made public their view that the Israeli government has committed war crimes during the genocide in Gaza.” 

Zena Agha, interim director of the British Palestinian Committee, told Declassified that Streeting had “said the quiet part out loud” and now the question is what he will do about it. 

“Will the doublespeak of the status quo require him to disavow what he knows to be true — as other ministers have before him?” Agha asked. 

“Or will he respect international law and hold the perpetrators of war crimes to account?”

Burning Issues 

Two major questions will face Streeting with regard to Israel.

—First is the U.K.-Israel military cooperation agreement and whether he plans to suspend it. 

The agreement, signed in December 2020 without any publicity from the U.K. government, is said to incorporate a range of defence engagement activity between the two countries. 

It has not been made public, with officials saying it is under wraps because it is being kept at a high level security classification. 

But a Freedom of Information request showed that, as of last October, the agreement had been in place throughout the Gaza genocide without any modifications. 

As the war on Gaza has continued, the agreement has come under sustained attack from MPs calling for it to be suspended. When asked about its status, ministers have repeatedly said the agreement is being reviewed, but as recently as April, it was “extant.” 

—The second question is whether Streeting will release RAF surveillance footage captured over Gaza.

Since December 2023, the RAF and, more recently, an American company Sierra Nevada Corporation, contracted by the MoD, have flown hundreds of spy flights over the enclave.

Surveillance aircraft were operating above Gaza during the World Central Kitchen convoy attack in April 2024 that killed three British nationals.

Their families have repeatedly asked for the release of the footage, but the government has refused. 

World Central Kitchen car after IDF strike, April 3, 2024. (Tasnim News Agency/ Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 4.0)

Asked what he planned to do, Streeting’s office directed Declassified UK to the Ministry of Defence which did not respond. 

Despite his recent openness about his private positions on Israel, Streeting acknowledged in the WhatsApps to Mandelson that he has also “never been a shrinking violent [sic]” about the country.

“I’ve supported [Labour Friends of Israel] for over 20 years,” Streeting texted.

Agha called on Streeting, as an immediate first step, to release RAF footage after a massacre of 15 Palestinian aid workers in southern Gaza on March 23, 2025.

“This is just one case of blatant war crimes committed by Israeli forces – countless others that have yet to be told,” Agha said.

She added:

“His actions at the start of his tenure will set the tone for what is to come and offer decisive proof that this new administration will not repeat the mistakes of its predecessor.”

July 28, 2026 Posted by | Israel, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia, the Khashoggi murder case: the nuclear connections with Terra Power, Bill Gates, Breakthrough etc.

US Nuclear Energy Policy & Khashoggi Murder: Appeasement Or Threat? Clean Technica, December 12th, 2018 by Tina Casey  “…………..The Nuclear Energy Connection

Either way, that brings us around to the idea that the corporate world needs to step up and press for meaningful action on the Khashoggi case, since the White House is falling down on the job.

In particular, the tech sector is feeling the pressure not only because of its financial ties to Saudi Arabia, but also because of the high profile of its biggest players.

That brings us right back around to the nuclear energy angle, where the US nuclear company TerraPower has been making waves.

TerraPower was formed back in 2006 and crossed the CleanTechnica radar during COP 2015, when it popped up in relation to a newly launched investor umbrella organization called the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

Breakthrough is a tech incubator with a focus on clean energy and rapid decarbonization, and nuclear energy makes the cut.

As a global organization, Breakthrough can provide TerraPower with a platform for pitching its technology overseas — a key consideration, given the morbid state of demand for new nuclear power plants here in the US.

So far TerraPower has been focusing on foreign markets, particularly China, for its new technology.

If all of this is beginning to ring some bells, that’s where the tech and Silicon Valley connections kick in.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates is financial backer of TerraPower and chairman of its board.

Gates is also the chair of the Breakthrough Coalition’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, where you’ll find a host of other familiar top-dollar investors with an interest in decarbonization including Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Vinod Khosla, and Michael Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia is represented among Breakthrough members through Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is Chairman of Alwaleed Philanthropies and a supporter of Gates’s “giving pledge.”

Saudi Arabia is also represented among the 24 countries (including the EU) that support the Mission Innovation clean energy initiative, which is in turn receives considerable support from Breakthrough, so there’s that.

Not for nothing, but as of last August the Department of Energy has supported a TerraPower molten salt reactor project with $28 million in cost-shared funds.

When Will The Silicon Valley Crickets Stop Chirping And Start Acting?

All this is by way of saying that when it comes to the Saudi government, the Khashoggi murder, and the cash flow, all roads lead back to Silicon Valley and the US tech sector.

The New York Times raised a red flag on Saudi financial ties to Silicon Valley last year. Among other developments since then, Tesla has been ramping up its profile in the country, and Google has expressed interest in building data centers there.

Perhaps it’s not fair for the tech sector to take all the heat, but on the other hand these are the guys who promised to make life better for millions if not billions of people all over the world. More is expected of them than, say, the CEO of a local pest control company.

The Trump family’s financial ties with Saudi Arabia seem to be the driving force behind Trump’s response to the Khashoggi murder, and now it seems those same ties have silenced the US tech sector.

The fact is that the Khashoggi murder is not going away. New details about the murder are emerging on a regular basis, and even Trump’s Republican allies have finally stirred into action.

In the latest development, today the US Senate is reportedly set to debate cutting off US support for the Saudi-lead war in Yemen. The measure has been linked directly to outrage over the country’s role in the Khashoggi killing.

Meanwhile, CleanTechnica is reaching out to TerraPower for comment, so stay tuned for more on that.

Follow me on Twitter. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/12/us-nuclear-energy-policy-khashoggi-murder-appeasement-or-threat/

July 27, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Saudi Arabia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | 1 Comment

A nuclear deal for the Saudis, media blackout for Kushner’s corruption

Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims, Jul 23, 2026,
On Wednesday, the Trump administration signed a 30-year nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that paves the way for the kingdom to enrich its own uranium. The Saudi government has been aggressively seeking such a deal for years, eager to gain an edge over regional rivals. The agreement lacks safeguards that previous administrations, and many independent foreign policy analysts, viewed as essential to prevent nuclear proliferation.

The deal comes after the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested $2 billion in Jared Kushner’s private equity fund, Affinity Partners. Since 2021, Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, has collected over $110 million from the Saudi government in management fees. In March, Kushner was seeking billions more from the Saudis. (After Kushner’s fundraising was exposed, his efforts were purportedly put on hold.)

Kushner also has a close personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — the pair are known to communicate regularly over WhatsApp. In 2021, when the PIF committee originally recommended rejecting Kushner’s proposal due to the high price and Kushner’s inexperience, MBS overruled the recommendation.

As he continues to collect fees from the Saudi government, Kushner has resumed his role as a top foreign policy aide to Trump. He has played a key role in virtually every significant foreign policy negotiation since Trump returned to the White House.
.Kushner’s specific involvement in the nuclear pact, if any, has not been disclosed. But the fact that one of the president’s top foreign policy advisors is receiving large, ongoing financial payments from the Saudi government is unquestionably relevant to the story.

July 27, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Saudi Arabia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

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