Middle East Press On: Iran-US War, Lebanon-Israel Framework, Palestine Action, UK Courts, Iranian Extortion, Palestinian Children Targeted, Gaza Criticism, New Age Islam's Selection, 02 July 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
02 July 2026
Iran-US war: Who won the strategic communication battle?
Beyond a ceasefire: The Lebanon-Israel framework seeks to reorder power in the south
White flag judgments: Palestine Action, protest and the UK courts
Ceasefire, the Memorandum of Understanding, and intermittent exchanges of fire: Can Iran and the US negotiate a permanent peace treaty?
Iranian extortion does not weaken foreign influence in the Gulf. It guarantees it
Why We Need to Shatter Strategic Silence on Palestinian Children Targeted, Killed by Israel
How Israel’s Booming Arms Industry Expands Its Global Influence Despite Gaza Criticism
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Iran-US war: Who won the strategic communication battle?
by Umair Pervez Khan
Jul 02, 2026
Wars are fought on battlefields, but they are won and lost in the minds of audiences. The recent confrontation between Iran and the U.S. demonstrated that military superiority does not automatically translate into narrative dominance. While the U.S. possessed overwhelming military capabilities, Iran appeared to outperform Washington in the realm of strategic communication. The reason lies in a principle often overlooked by policymakers: the most important element of strategic communication is not messaging, media reach or technological sophistication, but credibility.
Strategic communication succeeds when words, images, symbols and actions reinforce one another. Throughout the conflict, Iran demonstrated remarkable narrative discipline. Its political leadership, military commanders, diplomats and state media consistently framed the conflict through the lens of sovereignty, resistance, resilience and national defense. Missile launches were accompanied by carefully crafted imagery, official statements, and diplomatic messaging that all pointed in the same direction. Whether one agreed with Tehran's narrative was almost beside the point. The message remained coherent. The words matched the images, and the images matched the actions.
One of the most striking examples was the symbolic mission of Minab 168, the Iranian diplomatic aircraft that flew to Islamabad in April 2026 for indirect peace talks with the U.S. The aircraft's designation carried symbolic significance, referencing the reported deaths of school children during U.S.-Israeli military operations. Images of the aircraft, widely circulated across traditional and social media platforms, generated a powerful emotional and cognitive effect. Strategic communication is ultimately about shaping perceptions, and in this case, the symbolism proved more influential than subsequent attempts to contest or reinterpret the narrative. Once an image resonates with audiences, it often leaves a stronger impression than official denials or clarifications.
Washington, in contrast, often appeared trapped in a cycle of contradictory messaging. U.S. President Donald Trump frequently shifted between declarations of overwhelming success, threats of escalation, and promises of diplomatic breakthroughs. On several occasions, different narratives emerged from the same administration within hours of one another. Strategic communication requires synchronization across institutions, yet the U.S. projected an image of internal fragmentation. Different agencies appeared to justify military action through varying rationales, while political rhetoric fluctuated between deterrence, punishment, negotiation and regime pressure. The result was not strategic ambiguity but strategic confusion.
Moreover, nothing illustrates this credibility problem more clearly than Operation Midnight Hammer. When the operation was launched in June 2025, it was presented as a decisive strike that had effectively neutralized Iran's nuclear infrastructure. American officials portrayed the operation as a major strategic success, with some narratives suggesting that Iran's nuclear ambitions had been crippled if not effectively eliminated. Yet less than a year later, the U.S. found itself once again confronting Iran over many of the same security concerns. This created an unavoidable credibility dilemma. If Iran's capabilities had truly been neutralized, why was another major confrontation necessary only months later? If further military action was required, audiences were justified in questioning the sweeping claims that accompanied Operation Midnight Hammer. In strategic communication, credibility is not destroyed by failure; it is destroyed by contradictions.
The U.S. has also struggled to gain the confidence of the domestic audience before starting the war with Iran along with Israel. Several surveys have cautioned that the U.S. public was not satisfied with the decision and often referred to the strong Israeli lobby active in the U.S., which has convinced the Trump administration to take this unpopular decision. Case in point is the Quinnipiac University poll that claims that 48% of respondents said the U.S. backs Israel too much and that 60% of U.S. voters, including 93% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans, said this fight was not “worth it.”
Furthermore, the challenge for Washington was compounded by a broader crisis of narrative consistency. For decades, the U.S. has portrayed itself as the principal defender of liberal values, international law and the rules-based international order. Yet controversies surrounding coercive policies toward foreign governments, the treatment of political figures abroad, and actions perceived as violations of sovereignty have increasingly provided adversaries with opportunities to challenge these claims. Equally damaging was the perception that American policies generated friction not only with adversaries but also with partners and allies. Trump's criticism of NATO allies and recurring public disputes, by calling them “cowards,” complicated Washington's efforts to present itself as the anchor of a stable international order.
On the other hand, Iran recognized this vulnerability and exploited it effectively. Tehran understood that strategic communication is ultimately about perception rather than persuasion. It did not need to convince the world that it was right. It only needed to convince audiences that the U.S. was inconsistent. Every contradictory statement from Washington, every shift in declared objectives, and every discrepancy between rhetoric and action strengthened Iran's narrative that American policy lacked coherence and credibility.
This should serve as a lesson for policymakers everywhere. In the information age, strategic communication is no longer a supporting component of military operations; it is a domain of competition in its own right. States can possess unmatched military power and still lose the battle for perception if their narratives are inconsistent. Audiences today are not persuaded simply by official statements. They compare claims against observable actions and judge credibility accordingly.
The recent conflict, therefore, revealed an uncomfortable reality for Washington. The U.S. may have possessed greater firepower, greater resources, and greater global reach, but Iran displayed a clearer understanding of the first rule of strategic communication: Credibility is the foundation upon which all narratives rest. Once credibility begins to erode, even the most powerful messages lose their force. In the contest for perceptions, Iran's greatest advantage was not its missiles or its media apparatus. It was Washington's inability to consistently align its words, images, symbols and actions. In modern warfare, that may be the most consequential strategic victory of all.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/iran-us-war-who-won-the-strategic-communication-battle
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Beyond a ceasefire: The Lebanon-Israel framework seeks to reorder power in the south
July 1, 2026
by Greg Pence
The 14-point U.S.-brokered framework signed in Washington on June 26 is being presented as a way to end the immediate fighting between Lebanon and Israel. Yet its own language points to a much broader ambition. The agreement is not simply designed to stop fire across the border. It seeks to establish a new security order in southern Lebanon in which the Lebanese state becomes the sole authority entitled to use force, Hezbollah loses its military role, and direct Lebanese-Israeli engagement begins to move toward a fuller political settlement.
That is what makes the framework more consequential, and more precarious, than an ordinary ceasefire. It ties three processes together: Israeli redeployment, the disarmament of non-state armed groups, and international reconstruction aid. Each has appeared in previous diplomacy. Joining them in a single sequence, however, turns a border arrangement into an effort to redistribute power inside Lebanon.
The architecture is direct. The Lebanese Armed Forces would gradually restore sovereign authority over the country, beginning with pilot zones in the south. Non-state groups are to be disarmed and their military infrastructure dismantled; successful verification is meant to open the way for LAF deployment, civilian return, reconstruction, and phased Israeli redeployment. In legal language, this looks like a reciprocal bargain. In practice, it makes Israel’s exit dependent on a transformation that the Lebanese state cannot deliver by decree.
Hezbollah is the agreement’s unavoidable center of gravity. The group is named selectively, but almost every operational provision is aimed at ending its armed status: no parallel military structure, no independent security role, and no access to reconstruction funds through affiliated bodies.
Supporters of the framework will argue that there is no durable alternative. Israel wants an enforceable guarantee that armed groups cannot again threaten northern communities. Lebanon needs an army able to exercise real authority and a pathway to return displaced families and rebuild. On this view, the agreement offers a reciprocal path: Lebanese sovereignty is strengthened while Israel eventually redeploys. That argument has force. A state cannot indefinitely share decisions of war and peace with an armed organization outside its chain of command.
But the framework’s weakness is precisely the gap between a legitimate end state and the path proposed to reach it. Disarming Hezbollah is not comparable to closing a weapons depot or deploying a few extra brigades. It involves confronting the country’s most powerful armed political movement inside a sectarian system built on accommodation and balance. The Lebanese government may support the principle of a state monopoly on arms, but it lacks the political and coercive capacity to impose it nationwide without consent, bargaining, or a dangerous escalation. A formula that treats this obstacle as a verification problem risks confusing a political settlement with a security checklist.
The reconstruction package is explicitly conditioned on measurable progress, transparency, and oversight. This gives Washington leverage, but it also turns economic recovery into a means of shaping Lebanon’s internal security order. For a country desperate for investment and reconstruction, that leverage may be effective. It may also be seen by Hezbollah and its allies as external coercion, making accommodation harder rather than easier.
The Israeli side of the bargain carries an equally serious ambiguity. Israel says it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon and that military presence will no longer be necessary once the threat from non-state groups has been removed. Yet the agreement does not offer a fixed timetable for a full withdrawal independent of disarmament. The more implausible that disarmament appears, the easier it becomes for a temporary security zone to acquire an open-ended political life. That is why critics fear the deal could institutionalize a stalemate: Lebanon is asked to meet an enormous internal condition before it can fully recover its territory.
The framework also looks beyond security management. It calls for working groups and direct engagement toward a comprehensive peace agreement, an extraordinary step for two states whose relationship has been framed by the 1949 Armistice Agreement and decades of unresolved conflict. This ambition is not inherently unrealistic; a limited security arrangement can sometimes create space for diplomacy. But normalization cannot be built on an imbalance that one side sees as a mechanism for permanent pressure. Political contact is more likely to endure when it follows a credible reduction in insecurity for both sides, not when it is tied to a condition that may be impossible to fulfil.
The agreement’s real test, then, is not whether the parties can preserve its wording in Washington. It is whether they can create a sequence that recognizes Lebanon’s political reality while still reducing the risk of renewed war. That would require more than pressure on Hezbollah. It would require a believable Israeli redeployment path, a serious plan to strengthen the LAF, reconstruction that benefits communities without becoming a political weapon, and an American role patient enough to manage trade-offs rather than demand instant compliance.
This is why the framework should be understood less as a final peace document than as a bid to reorder power in southern Lebanon. It could reduce violence and give ordinary Lebanese and Israeli families a chance to return home with greater security.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260701-beyond-a-ceasefire-the-lebanon-israel-framework-seeks-to-reorder-power-in-the-south/
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White flag judgments: Palestine Action, protest and the UK courts
July 1, 2026
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
The justice system of the United Kingdom, represented by stout cathedral structures and solemn rituals, tends to resemble a casino rather than a priestly haven of solemn judgment. It’s the justice of the punt, the throw of the dice, not the fairness of judicial deliberation, that prevails. That, at least, has been the prevailing view of Richard Ingrams, a co-founder of Britain’s rapier satirical publication Private Eye.
Since the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to ban Palestine Action in 2025, some 3,000 people have been arrested for doing such unthreatening things as holding placards with the following words: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Over 700 of these, according to Human Rights Watch, “are pending in the courts of England and Wales, with many more at the recharges stage.” This, in a country where free speech is said to be a verdant forest, and the right to protest a sacred right.
In the middle of last month, the Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the High Court regarding the proscription of Palestine Action which had been made under section 3 and schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Palestine Action, described by their founders as “a direct-action protest group aimed at preventing military targets in the UK from facilitating gross abuses of international law”, had made its stock and trade targeting Israeli arms manufacturers such as Elbit Systems and businesses with links to the Israeli arms trade. The proscription followed the group’s break-in at RAF Brize Norton, where two aircraft were spray painted. In the proscribed list, which includes such violent luminaries as Boko Haram and Islamic State, Palestine Action is hysterically assessed as an entity that “prepares for terrorism” and “promotes and encourages terrorism.” Its attacks had included “targets affecting UK national security, and the impact on innocent members of the public.”
Initially, Ammori scored a resounding success, all the more remarkable given the persistent record of courts in Britain to side with the national security apparatus.
The Divisional Court held in February 2026 in R (Ammori)v Secretary of State for the Home Department that the Home Secretary’s approach on proscription had failed to follow her own long-standing proscription policy. These involved five factors intended to constrain the office holder’s discretion. The resort to “other factors” would have to be read with that constraining purpose in mind.
The Court also found that a fair balance between the rights of individuals to free speech (Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights) and freedom of assembly under Article 11 of the ECHR as against the national security and protection of the rights of others (Articles 10.2 and 11.2 of the ECHR) had not been struck. In applying the test of proportionality to the decision the Court held that “the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities, so far as they [comprised] acts of terrorism, [had] not yet reached the level, scale and persistence that would justify the application of the criminal law measures that are a consequence of proscription, and the very significant interference with Convention rights consequent on those measures.”
The government of Sir Keir “Human Rights” Starmer was never going to let things stand, nor should not be forgotten that the High Court decision was hardly brimming with praise for the actions of Palestine Action. The definition of terrorism in UK counter-terrorism legislation is intentionally outrageous in its broadness, encompassing causing or threatening “serious damage to property” that would suggest an intention to influence government policy and advance a political case. The High Court did, at least, note that the act of proscription was based on 385 actions committed over 5 years, of which only three were deemed “terrorist incidents”.
Back to the casino of justice the case went. On June 15, the Court of Appeal handed down its quashing judgment. The national security state could again rejoice at this grand exhibition of judicial abdication before the alleged, and unfounded wisdom, of executive power. The judges found, for instance, that the Home Secretary had, in fact, conducted a proper evaluation of the rights issue in considering the banning of Palestine Action. This analysis was shallow at best, given the Home Secretary’s continual insistence that neither Article 10 nor 11 off the ECHR applied in the case. Article 17 of the Convention – the prohibition of an abuse of rights – was what counted in her mind.
The Home Secretary had been wrong to assume that Article 10 and 11 rights were not engaged, or that no test of proportionality was required. The court even conceded that the ban was “highly controversial” and possibly even “borderline”. But in their own assessment on proportionality, the judges felt reluctant to challenge the vast, self-evident wisdom of the executive, given that the Home Secretary was “invested with the statutory and constitutional authority to make proscription decisions to protect the public where national security is at stake.” It was not for the court to “take over the function of the primary decision-maker, least of all in a case such as this.” Such proscription decisions were part of national security, an area that no UK judges would have thought inappropriate to scrutinise before the Human Rights Act 1998. (How mothballed can judges be?)
The logic of this abysmal abdication before power was guided by the views of Lord Robert Reed made in the UK Supreme Court decision of ABJ, which was decided in February this year: “Although a strict approach is generally taken to restrictions on political speech, the European Court has recognised that states must enjoy a wider margin of appreciation when countering terrorism”. In a rather conflating, muddled manner, Lord Reed thought judicial supervision, be it by UK courts applying the Human Rights Act or the European court applying the ECHR, had “to respect the institutional expertise and constitutional legitimacy underlying the judgment made by those authorities by according them a correspondingly wide margin of appreciation.” This is what surrender by the wigged classes looks like.
With disapproval, they noted the organisation had not “disowned or condemned” such actions. It was therefore “permissible for the Home Secretary (and, therefore, is permissible for us), in considering Palestine Action’s characteristics and activities, not just its activities classified as terrorist.” The rationale for this bumbling reasoning was that proscription was preventative: the Home Secretary had to “assess the risk of future acts of terrorism. All of an organisation’s activities, such as recruitment, fundraising, radicalisation and all terrorist and non-terrorist activities may be relevant to that assessment.”
Veering off into the feral undergrowth of the bizarre, the appeals court also considered the allegedly more sinister nature of the group, mangling the history of British protest along the way. Its activities had been “planned and undertaken secretly with the objective of avoiding detection.” Its members had not shown “sincerity by accepting” the imposed penalties. But most of all, “on a fair analysis, Palestine Action has little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iraq War protest groups.”
With this sort of fair analysis, one rooted in a distorted reading of history, a horrendous refusal to consider a flawed, executive assessment of protest activities, and a general concession to an anti-democratic temper, the only thing left to do is exactly what the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, and previous anti-war activists did: break the law with courage and clog the prisons with effect.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260701-white-flag-judgments-palestine-action-protest-and-the-uk-courts/
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Ceasefire, the Memorandum of Understanding, and intermittent exchanges of fire: Can Iran and the US negotiate a permanent peace treaty?
July 1, 2026
by Dr. Mohammed Nuruzzaman
The post-February 2026 war period marks a new phase in US–Iran relationship, a relationship of strange diplomatic impasse characterized by no war, nor peace, but a rotating cycle of ceasefire announcements, Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), and intermittent exchanges of fire across the Strait of Hormuz. This situation indicates structural problems that both sides are unprepared to address. The absence of a permanent peace treaty, as expected from negotiations, is the logical outcome of incompatible strategic objectives, domestic political constraints, and a shared preference for managed instability.
Recent reporting underscores this structural paradox. The US–Iran MoU, signed on 17th June 2026, is explicitly framed not as a peace treaty, but as a temporary framework to “pause hostilities and open negotiations.” Yet even this limited arrangement has already been strained by renewed maritime incidents and retaliatory strikes in the Gulf, where both sides accuse the other of violating the spirit of the ceasefire, straining peace negotiations.
It explicitly defers hard questions about nuclear capability, sanctions relief, regional proxy dynamics, and maritime security.
Process diplomacy, and no end outcome
Modern US–Iran diplomacy is dominated by what might be called “process without closure.” Negotiations produce frameworks, technical committees, and phased agreements—but no final treaty. The problem is not that diplomacy is absent; it is that neither the US nor Iran has the real intent to drive negotiations to a successful end. MOUs allow both sides to claim progress while avoiding irreversible commitments.
This structure creates a recurring cycle: escalation, emergency de-escalation or ceasefire, MOU or interim framework, partial compliance disputes, and renewed confrontation. Each loop reinforces the next.
Why a treaty is structurally unlikely
A permanent peace treaty is a long process to complete, not a 60-day time frame to achieve lasting peace. Three structural barriers dominate Iran–US negotiations:
The first is the absence of a shared definition of security. For Washington, Iranian nuclear capability is a proliferation risk embedded in a broader regional security challenge, especially for Israel. For Tehran, nuclear capability is a deterrent against regime change and external coercion. These are not negotiable differences in policy, they are incompatible security interests.
The second structural barrier is asymmetric warfare as a substitute for diplomacy. Iran’s regional strategy relies heavily on asymmetric influence: allied militias, maritime pressure points, and strategic depth across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. The US, by contrast, relies on forward military presence, sanctions regimes, and alliance networks in the Gulf and beyond. This asymmetry means neither side can credibly guarantee restraint in a treaty format. Even if the two governments sign agreements, proxy actors complicate enforcement.
The third structural barrier is the credibility gap. A treaty requires trust in long-term compliance mechanisms. But both the US and Iran interpret past agreements as having been violated, reinterpreted, or abandoned depending on political shifts. President Trump during his first term in office threw the JCPOA, negotiated by the Obama administration, under the bus in 2018. The result is a deep credibility deficit that no single agreement can easily repair.
The three structural barriers are buttressed by the two unresolved issues of nuclear conflict and U.S. imposed sanctions regime on Iran. This is further exacerbated by domestic political constraints.
The nuclear issue as the unresolved core tension
At the center of the conflict is Iran’s nuclear program. Even when negotiations appear to focus on sanctions or maritime security, nuclear capability remains the implicit organizing issue.
The absence of a permanent agreement means that even technical progress such as inspections, caps, monitoring remains reversible. And reversibility is precisely what makes both sides cautious – nothing is ever truly settled.
Sanctions as a parallel system of governance
Sanctions are not merely punitive tools; they function as an alternative governance architecture.
For the US, sanctions on Iran regulate financial flows, energy exports, and international investment in lieu of direct political control. For Iran, sanctions create incentives for economic linkages with states unfriendly or hostile toward the U.S., regional trade networks, and strategic adaptation. This produces a paradox: sanctions are intended to pressure behavioral change, but over time they also create a new normal.
As a result, sanctions relief becomes one of the most difficult components of any negotiation. It is not just an economic question; it is about dismantling an entire parallel system that has developed over the last four to five decades.
The regional dimension: everyone else is in the room
Any potential US–Iran treaty is not bilateral in practice. It is embedded in a regional system involving Gulf monarchies, Israel, non-state armed groups, and global energy markets.
For many regional actors, US–Iran rapprochement is not necessarily desirable. Some Gulf states prefer calibrated tension that justifies continued US security presence in the Gulf (the UAE, and Bahrain, for example). Others fear Iranian regional dominance if sanctions collapse (such as Saudi Arabia, and Israel). Israel specifically views Iran’s strategic capabilities – especially missile and nuclear potential – as existential risks that cannot be outsourced to diplomacy.
This external environment constrains negotiation space. Even if Washington and Tehran reach partial alignment, regional veto players can destabilise implementation. This is what Israel did or is doing by continuing the war on Lebanon, despite the Iran–US MOU containing a provision to halt such attacks.
Domestic politics as structural veto points
This creates an incentive to prefer reversible agreements over binding treaties.
In Iran, concessions on nuclear or regional policy are interpreted internally as weakness or erosion of sovereignty. The hardliners are highly vocal against a treaty that makes concessions to the U.S. The political system therefore favors resilience over compromise, even at economic cost.
Why MOUs are replacing treaties
In effect, MOUs are optimized for mistrust. But this optimization comes at a cost – they cannot resolve core disputes, only postpone them. The most uncomfortable conclusion is that both the U.S. and Iran may have adapted to a system of managed instability. This system is characterized by controlled escalation, limited strikes or proxy responses, rapid de-escalation channels, and repeated diplomatic resets. It is not peace, but it is not total war either. It is a calibrated conflict environment.
Some analysts describe recent arrangements as “pauses in escalation rather than pathways to settlement,” highlighting the absence of any credible end state. This system persists because it is, in a narrow sense, functional. It prevents full-scale war while preserving leverage on both sides.
Requirements for a treaty
It cannot skip one’s attention that each of these structural transformations is politically costly. Taken together, they are system-changing. Predictably, the U.S. will remain opposed to the first and third transformations, while Iran would be staunchly opposed to the second and third transformations, though it prefers the dismantling of the sanction regimes.
Why diplomacy without an endpoint
The enduring US–Iran confrontation is not a failure of negotiation skills. It is a reflection of a deeper reality: neither side currently has a politically feasible path to a final settlement. Ceasefires, MOUs, and exchanges of fire are not deviations from diplomacy, rather they are its current form.
Until the underlying security dilemmas, regional rivalries, and domestic political constraints are transformed, the system will continue to reproduce itself: escalation, pause, framework, breakdown, but no permanent peace.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260701-ceasefire-the-memorandum-of-understanding-and-intermittent-exchanges-of-fire-can-iran-and-the-us-negotiate-a-permanent-peace-treaty/
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Iranian extortion does not weaken foreign influence in the Gulf. It guarantees it
Ali Shihabi
July 01, 2026
Iran has acquired an appetite for extortion with this war. Its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz has suddenly opened its eyes to an opportunity where it can hold the Gulf Cooperation Countries and the world to ransom. For particularly the small GCC states that sit directly on the Gulf, the strait is not merely one maritime route among many. It is their only sea-based outlet, the artery through which energy exports, imports, food security and commercial confidence pass. That gives Iranian threats real weight. This extortion has legs to it. But precisely because it has weight, it would be remarkably short-sighted of Iran to use it.
If Iran tries to turn the strait into a tollbooth for political money, reparations or submission, it will not create dependence. It will create urgency. The GCC states will accelerate a race to diversify away from the Strait of Hormuz through pipelines, ports, railways, land bridges and new strategic corridors. Over time, this will make the strait far less relevant than it is today.
Saudi Arabia gives all GCC countries access to the Red Sea. Oman gives them access to the Arabian Sea. Both channels will be used to the fullest. Even southern Yemen and Hadramout will be brought into this equation as further access points to the Arabian Sea, avoiding both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab Al-Mandab Strait where possible. Iran may imagine that geography has handed it a permanent weapon. In reality, abusing that weapon will only convince its neighbors to spend whatever is necessary to blunt it.
Iran also needs to recognize why Gulf states have turned to outside powers. It is Iran’s own threats and revolutionary ambitions that have pushed its neighbors to grant the US and, in some cases, Israel access to their skies, bases, facilities and intelligence networks to deter or strike Iran. Iranian behavior opened the door to Israel’s deeper role with the UAE and Bahrain. Had these states not felt threatened by Tehran, they would have had far less reason to bring Israel into the Gulf security equation.
Tehran should not be surprised. States that feel threatened seek protection and Gulf states may continue to host any power that credibly promises deterrence. If Iran wants fewer hostile foreign forces on its doorstep, more intimidation will only backfire. It must stop giving its neighbors reasons to invite them in.
Iran should see the Gulf states as potential economic partners and investors, not as rich targets to absorb, pressure or plunder. For decades, Iran has watched its Gulf neighbors explode in prosperity while it languished behind. That contrast has fed a strong streak of envy in Iranian political thinking. Yet Iran’s failure to develop was not caused by Dubai, Doha, Riyadh, Kuwait, Manama or Abu Dhabi. It was caused by flawed economic policies, political adventurism, sanctions born from confrontation and a leadership class that repeatedly chose ideology over prosperity and, in many cases, corruption and venality. Iran has only itself to blame for much of the economic isolation it now suffers.
Only if Iran gives up its predatory ambitions and looks inward, toward pushing its people up the human development index, can the Gulf states begin to see it differently. A stable, confident, economically open Iran would be a major regional asset. It could attract capital, trade, technology, tourism and infrastructure partnerships from the GCC. But a revolutionary Iran that threatens shipping, exports militias, demands tribute and uses the Strait of Hormuz as blackmail will remain a threat. The result will be more suspicion, more contingency planning and more cooperation with Iran’s enemies.
This war and the severe economic damage Iran has suffered should force Tehran’s new leadership to recognize the opportunity now before it. The Gulf states have learned that the American security umbrella is neither as impregnable nor as responsive to their interests as they once assumed. Washington’s erratic actions did not give GCC concerns the priority they expected and their interests paid the price.
As a result, Gulf capitals are more open than they have been in years to a durable understanding with Iran that can bring security and stability to the region. That stability could unlock significant GCC investment in Iran, provided the right economic conditions exist and investment can proceed on a free market basis. This is Tehran’s real opening: to move the Gulf states away from fear, suspicion and cooperation with Iran’s enemies toward confidence, cooperation and shared prosperity.
To do that, Iran must resist the temptation to bully its neighbors over the Strait of Hormuz or demand reparations from Gulf states that were not responsible for attacking it. Yes, some of them hosted US military facilities, but that was itself the result of decades of Iranian threats to export the revolution, undermine their governments and threaten their security. If those threats end, the logic behind such contingency planning will gradually weaken as well.
Trust will not emerge overnight but Iran can begin by demonstrating that it sees the Gulf states not as vulnerable targets to be coerced but as sovereign neighbors with whom it seeks genuine security, economic partnership and mutual prosperity.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2649309
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Why We Need to Shatter Strategic Silence on Palestinian Children Targeted, Killed by Israel
July 2, 2026
By Iqbal Jassat
The latest findings of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry expose something far more serious than another chapter in the Gaza conflict. They document what the Commission describes as the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces, conduct it says amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
What stands out is not only the gravity of the allegations, but the muted response from many of the same political and media institutions that routinely demand wall-to-wall coverage when children are victims elsewhere.
The Commission’s report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council, concludes that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted since October 2023.
According to the findings, children account for approximately 30 percent of those killed by Israeli forces during the reporting period.
The Commission states that the repeated use of high payload explosives in densely populated civilian areas demonstrates a pattern that cannot be dismissed as accidental or collateral.
In addition, the report also details the broader destruction of childhood itself. Beyond deaths and injuries, it documents widespread psychological trauma, displacement, starvation, destruction of schools, attacks on healthcare infrastructure, and conditions that have left almost an entire generation of Palestinian children facing long-term physical and mental harm.
The title of the findings captures the reality of Israel’s brutality directed at Palestinian children: “The essence of childhood has been destroyed.”
An interesting observation one is able to make is that absent from much of the local and global media coverage is the significance of a UN Commission using language normally reserved for the gravest crimes under international law.
The story, however, is often reduced to another dispute between Israel and the United Nations, while indeed the evidence presented by the Commission receives less attention than Israeli objections to the findings.
This familiar pattern transforms allegations of mass atrocities into a debate about process, bias or institutional credibility rather than an examination of the underlying evidence. The focus shifts away from dead children and toward political controversy.
The unfortunate result is that such crucial findings fail to dominate public discourse. And political establishments that have provided diplomatic cover, military support and political protection for Israel also benefit in the process.
Equally, let’s not ignore media institutions that have spent years framing Palestinian suffering as background noise while treating Israeli security narratives as the primary lens through which Zionist atrocities are understood.
There is nothing new about this if we consider that from apartheid South Africa to Iraq, from the War on Terror to countless military interventions justified through humanitarian language, the pattern remains remarkably consistent.
The UN Commission’s findings are now part of the public record.
Civil society and human rights activists have to ensure that the allegations contained in it, especially that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and that these actions constitute some of the most serious crimes recognized under international law, are not reduced to mere footnotes.
The latest findings of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry expose something far more serious than another chapter in the Gaza conflict. They document what the Commission describes as the deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces, conduct it says amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
What stands out is not only the gravity of the allegations, but the muted response from many of the same political and media institutions that routinely demand wall-to-wall coverage when children are victims elsewhere.
The Commission’s report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council, concludes that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted since October 2023.
According to the findings, children account for approximately 30 percent of those killed by Israeli forces during the reporting period.
The Commission states that the repeated use of high payload explosives in densely populated civilian areas demonstrates a pattern that cannot be dismissed as accidental or collateral.
In addition, the report also details the broader destruction of childhood itself. Beyond deaths and injuries, it documents widespread psychological trauma, displacement, starvation, destruction of schools, attacks on healthcare infrastructure, and conditions that have left almost an entire generation of Palestinian children facing long-term physical and mental harm.
The title of the findings captures the reality of Israel’s brutality directed at Palestinian children: “The essence of childhood has been destroyed.”
An interesting observation one is able to make is that absent from much of the local and global media coverage is the significance of a UN Commission using language normally reserved for the gravest crimes under international law.
The story, however, is often reduced to another dispute between Israel and the United Nations, while indeed the evidence presented by the Commission receives less attention than Israeli objections to the findings.
This familiar pattern transforms allegations of mass atrocities into a debate about process, bias or institutional credibility rather than an examination of the underlying evidence. The focus shifts away from dead children and toward political controversy.
The unfortunate result is that such crucial findings fail to dominate public discourse. And political establishments that have provided diplomatic cover, military support and political protection for Israel also benefit in the process.
Equally, let’s not ignore media institutions that have spent years framing Palestinian suffering as background noise while treating Israeli security narratives as the primary lens through which Zionist atrocities are understood.
There is nothing new about this if we consider that from apartheid South Africa to Iraq, from the War on Terror to countless military interventions justified through humanitarian language, the pattern remains remarkably consistent.
The UN Commission’s findings are now part of the public record.
Civil society and human rights activists have to ensure that the allegations contained in it, especially that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and that these actions constitute some of the most serious crimes recognized under international law, are not reduced to mere footnotes.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/why-we-need-to-shatter-strategic-silence-on-palestinian-children-targeted-killed-by-israel/
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How Israel’s Booming Arms Industry Expands Its Global Influence Despite Gaza Criticism
July 2, 2026
Record Arms Exports
Despite growing international criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Lebanon and the occupied West Bank, governments around the world continue purchasing Israeli weapons, helping fuel a record-breaking defense industry that analysts say has become a powerful instrument of diplomatic influence.
In an analysis published by Responsible Statecraft, experts argue that Israel increasingly uses arms exports not merely as commercial transactions but as long-term strategic tools that bind purchasing countries to Israeli security interests while reducing their willingness to challenge its regional policies.
The report also highlights the central role played by the United States in financing and strengthening Israel’s defense industry through decades of military assistance and technological cooperation.
According to the analysis, Israel’s defense sector has expanded rapidly since October 2023.
The number of Israeli defense startups nearly doubled, rising from 160 in July 2024 to 312 by April 2025.
At the same time, Israel’s arms exports reached unprecedented levels.
Citing data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Responsible Statecraft reports that Israel ranked as the world’s seventh-largest arms exporter between 2021 and 2025, surpassing the United Kingdom.
Defense exports generated a record $19.2 billion in 2025, up from $14.8 billion the previous year.
According to the analysis, between 75 and 80 percent of Israel’s military production is destined for foreign markets.
Arms Sales as Political Influence
Analysts interviewed by Responsible Statecraft argue that the value of Israeli weapons extends beyond military capability.
Seth Binder of the American Committee for Middle East Rights (ACMER) said arms agreements create relationships that can last for years.
“Arms deals are expensive and often create a long tail to negotiate, complete, and fulfill over the life of (a given) contract,” Binder said.
Those long-term commitments, the report argues, make purchasing governments less inclined to confront Israel over its military actions.
Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project (USMEP), said exports can “entrench relationships that constrain others’ ability to hold (Israel) accountable.”
Levy added that governments dependent on Israeli defense systems face difficult choices if domestic pressure later demands sanctions or arms embargoes.
“A government that might otherwise respond to public demands for sanctions or arms embargoes (against Israel) now faces the prospect of degrading its own air defense…if it does so,” he said.
Europe and the Abraham Accords
The analysis points to Europe as one of the fastest-growing markets for Israeli weapons.
Amid heightened security concerns following the war in Ukraine and pressure to increase defense spending, several European governments have continued purchasing Israeli military systems despite growing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Germany signed multibillion-euro agreements for the Arrow-3 missile defense system, Heron drones and Spike anti-tank missiles.
Greece purchased 36 PULS rocket artillery systems valued at approximately $740 million.
Romania recently signed a $2.3 billion agreement for Spyder air defense systems and is expected to acquire its own version of Israel’s Iron Dome.
Outside the European Union, the United Kingdom sharply increased arms-related imports from Israel, rising from just over $500,000 in 2020 to nearly $8 million in 2025.
The report also notes that Israeli exports to countries participating in the so-called Abraham Accords increased fivefold between 2023 and 2025.
“No one has any illusions that Israel is popular right now in (the Abraham Accords) countries,” an Israeli diplomat previously told The Economist.
“But their governments have made long-term investments in their defense ties with Israel, and they’re not about to change course,” he added.
Gaza as a Marketing Tool
The analysis also argues that Israeli military operations have inadvertently become part of the industry’s commercial appeal.
Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN, told the Associated Press that Israeli defense companies have been “able to parlay the use of their products in Gaza to attract more business.”
According to Responsible Statecraft, battlefield deployment allows Israeli weapons manufacturers to market their systems as combat-tested, enhancing their attractiveness to foreign buyers.
Washington’s Central Role
The report argues that the expansion of Israel’s defense industry would not have been possible without sustained American support. Binder said, “the U.S. has long subsidized it.”
Through the Foreign Military Financing program, Washington provides billions of dollars that enable Israel to acquire American military equipment while also supporting its domestic defense industry through the Offshore Procurement program.
Although that mechanism is scheduled to end by 2028, Binder argues Israel has already established itself as a major global competitor in the arms market.
Former State Department official Josh Paul also argued that Israeli companies have benefited from close access to American military technologies.
“Many technologies developed by U.S. industry are (simply) re-developed and re-packaged by Israeli companies,” he told Responsible Statecraft.
The report notes that many flagship Israeli defense systems—including the Arrow-3 missile defense system purchased by Germany—were jointly developed and financed with US assistance, requiring Washington’s approval before export.
Deeper Integration
Looking ahead, Responsible Statecraft says new legislation under consideration in Congress could deepen military-industrial cooperation between Washington and Tel Aviv.
A provision in the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027 would further integrate Israeli defense companies into US military supply chains, creating additional opportunities for Israeli firms to supply equipment directly to the American military.
According to the report, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed the proposal as his “personal plan.”
Josh Paul argued that the initiative reflects a broader strategy.
Israel being positioned “to become a supplier to the U.S. military is just a further example of (it) using (its arms) sector as a tool of influence,” he said.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/how-israels-booming-arms-industry-expands-its-global-influence-despite-gaza-criticism/
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