Middle East Press On: Iraq's Corruption, Turkey Helped Syria, Iran War, Israel, Palestine, Turkish-Greek Tensions, America’s Origin, New Age Islam's Selection, 04 July 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
04 July 2026
Iraq's corruption crackdown challenges system built over decades
How terror-free Türkiye helped stabilize Syria, kept Kurds out of Iran war
Blue Homeland bill: How EU perpetuates Turkish-Greek tensions
The funeral that reveals a world divided
One thousand days of war: Why Israel failed to defeat Palestine
America 250: How ‘Israel’s’ Official Story Mirror’s America’s Origin Myth
Kill the Negotiators? US Feared Israeli Plot Would Sink Iran Peace Talks – NYT
Iran: When the Veil, the Beard and the Bomb are Stripped away
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Iraq's corruption crackdown challenges system built over decades
BY AMEZ AHMED
JUL 03, 2026
When Iraqi investigators raided the homes of several senior officials just weeks after the new government took office, they uncovered what appears to be one of the country's largest corruption networks in years.
According to Iraqi authorities, the raids led to the seizure of millions of dollars in cash, dozens of properties, luxury vehicles and large quantities of gold. As the investigation expanded, it began to implicate current and former officials, lawmakers and other politically connected figures.
The scale of the operation has drawn widespread attention, but what many Iraqis find even more important is that the investigation appears to be reaching individuals once viewed as beyond the reach of the law, including some who were widely praised for their anti-corruption stance.
High-profile raids and arrests may signal a stronger commitment to tackling corruption, but lasting progress will depend on successful prosecutions, the recovery of stolen public funds and reforms that strengthen transparency and accountability. If those goals are achieved, this campaign could mark the beginning of the meaningful change many Iraqis have been waiting for after years of failed anti-corruption drives.
Corruption's deep roots
To understand why this campaign matters, it is important to understand how corruption became so deeply embedded in Iraq's political system.
The roots of Iraq's corruption problem can largely be traced to the political order established after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, when the country's state institutions were rebuilt.
As ministries and government agencies were restructured, many came under the influence of political parties through the "Muhasasa" quota system, an informal power-sharing arrangement that allocated key government positions among Iraq's sectarian and ethnic groups. While intended to ensure political representation, the system enabled patronage networks to expand, allowing parties to exert greater control over state institutions and public resources.
Data also support the argument that Iraq's patronage-based public sector has become deeply entrenched. According to the World Bank, the number of public sector employees increased from about 900,000 in 2003 to more than 3 million by 2015, while the government's wage bill grew to account for more than 44% of public spending. Audits also uncovered thousands of ghost employees, and hiring in many institutions became increasingly tied to political connections rather than qualifications.
Successive Iraqi governments have pledged to fight corruption, but few efforts have produced lasting results. In 2015, former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi unveiled a broad package of reforms following nationwide protests over corruption and poor public services. Years later, Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also launched major anti-corruption initiatives, yet none succeeded in dismantling the networks that allowed corruption to flourish, leaving many Iraqis skeptical of every new campaign.
Public skepticism remains strong after the 2022 "Heist of the Century," when about 2.5 trillion Iraqi dinars ($1.7 billion) was stolen from tax authority accounts. While some suspects were arrested and part of the money was recovered, many Iraqis still doubt that powerful figures will be fully held accountable.
The scale of these challenges is reflected in international assessments. Iraq ranked 136th out of 182 countries in Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, highlighting that corruption remains a major challenge despite recent improvements.
Within weeks of taking office, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi launched a large-scale anti-corruption operation targeting dozens of current and former senior officials, lawmakers and politically connected figures.
The investigation widened after the arrest of former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, whose testimony reportedly led investigators to a broader network of politicians and senior officials. Raids uncovered about $86 million in cash, 70 properties, 21 vehicles and 3 kilograms of gold. The scale of the seizures has raised hopes that this crackdown could go further than previous anti-corruption campaigns.
Beyond the arrests
Whether this becomes a turning point or just another campaign depends on what comes next; arrests alone will not change a system that has taken decades to build. This could be Iraq's best chance in years to challenge corruption, but it will only matter if the investigations lead to convictions, recovered public funds and reforms that deliver lasting change.
The real challenge begins after the arrests because some of the people under investigation are among Iraq's most influential political figures, and some are believed to have powerful political or armed backing.
Taking on people with that level of influence will require more than public support. It will require strong backing from Iraq's political institutions, but also continued support from international partners, especially the U.S., which still has considerable influence over Iraq's financial system and anti-corruption efforts. International financial oversight has become increasingly important as Iraq works to strengthen banking regulations, combat money laundering and improve transparency in line with global financial standards.
Without that support, political pressure could slow the investigations, and if key political factions refuse to back the process, it could deepen divisions and trigger another political crisis at a time when Iraq can least afford one.
The timing of the crackdown is also significant. Al-Zaidi promised to make fighting corruption one of his government's main priorities, and acting quickly gives him the chance to show Iraqis that his administration intends to do more than make promises. It also comes ahead of his expected visit to Washington later this month.
At a time when Iraq is seeking closer economic cooperation and greater international confidence, arriving with a major anti-corruption campaign already underway could help strengthen its government's credibility both at home and abroad.
The timing of the campaign has also attracted attention because Iraq is facing mounting financial pressure as declining oil revenues strain state finances, while disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz have added uncertainty to oil exports. At a time when the country's economy remains overwhelmingly dependent on crude oil, the crackdown has inevitably prompted questions about whether it is intended solely to restore accountability or also to strengthen the government's position as it navigates growing economic challenges.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/iraqs-corruption-crackdown-challenges-system-built-over-decades
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How terror-free Türkiye helped stabilize Syria, kept Kurds out of Iran war
BY İHSAN AKTAŞ
JUL 04, 2026
All nations go through difficult times. Following World War I, the Ottoman Empire lost the vast majority of its territory, retaining only the land that now forms Türkiye, with a population of just 13 million. After years of continuous warfare, the country had suffered devastating economic losses and a severe depletion of its educated workforce. Conditions had become so difficult that many villages and factories lacked enough workers, while the state itself struggled to find qualified administrators.
At the same time, however, it is also possible to speak of the emergence of a strong administrative class that had withdrawn to Türkiye from across the former Ottoman lands. Statespeople and officials from the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa and the Caucasus largely relocated within the new Turkish borders. They did so because, ultimately, this was their homeland.
By the 1990s, the Republic of Türkiye had made remarkable progress. The single-party era, the transition to multiparty democracy, the economic transformations of the 1970s, and late President Turgut Özal's opening of Türkiye to the world. Each stage represented an important milestone in the country's development. Above all, however, the state succeeded in protecting its stability and continuity – a far greater achievement than is often admitted.
It was always evident that a country with Türkiye's historical depth, strategic importance and civilizational mission would never be left entirely on its own.
Türkiye became a member of NATO and, in effect, one of the respected pillars of the Atlantic Alliance during the Cold War in its confrontation with the Warsaw Pact.
From the late Ottoman period through the Republican era, Türkiye consistently aligned itself with the West and maintained close cooperation with Western nations.
As a result, Türkiye's progress in virtually every field – from democracy and economic development to education and industrial production – has generally been measured against Western standards. This is not necessarily a negative approach. On the contrary, it has often served as a benchmark, encouraging the country to strive for higher standards.
However, following the military coup of Sept. 12, 1980, the terrorist organization PKK emerged in southeastern Türkiye. Despite periods of fluctuation, the group continued its terrorist campaign in the region for decades.
At various times, the PKK imposed an enormous cost on the country. Thousands of soldiers and civilians lost their lives, while the economic and social consequences proved equally devastating.
As a leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gradually strengthened Türkiye's infrastructure and state capacity across virtually every sector – first as prime minister and later as president – transforming the country into a far stronger and more resilient state.
Over the past decade in particular, Türkiye has acquired the capacity to address many of its own strategic challenges independently. And Türkiye has increasingly focused on resolving them through its own means.
Terror-free Türkiye and region
The terror-free Türkiye initiative emerged at a particularly critical moment. Nearly one-third of Syria's territory was under the control of the PKK, albeit operating under different names. At the same time, Türkiye had launched a process aimed at ending the decades-long conflict with the PKK and eliminating terrorism within its own borders.
The PKK's decision to lay down its arms – with its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan taking the lead in the process – also weakened the resolve of the PKK in Syria. It would have been difficult to justify disarming in Türkiye while continuing armed conflict across the border in Syria. As a result, with the support of the Syrian National Army and Türkiye's sophisticated military and political backing, the Syrian state moved significantly closer to restoring its territorial integrity.
During Iraq's years of internal instability, Iran established the Hashd al-Shaabi inside Iraq. Over time, these militias were formally incorporated into the Iraqi armed forces. On various occasions, they also cooperated with the PKK and coordinated their activities.
These developments in Syria also had important consequences once the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict broke out. Under Israel's influence, the U.S. appeared prepared to draw PKK forces into the confrontation. However, following the weakening and military setbacks suffered by the PKK in Syria, it became clear that there was no longer a substantial force capable of fighting a new war "on behalf of the Kurds."
Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani's cautious approach also contributed to this outcome. Meanwhile, the PKK had already announced its decision to dissolve itself, further reducing the prospects of armed involvement.
There was, however, another crucial reason why the Kurds did not become involved in a war against Iran.
As a result, Iran possessed a network of forces capable of intercepting and neutralizing any hostile movement within Iraq long before it could reach Iranian territory. While Israel may not have known this strategic reality, both Iran and Iraq were fully aware of the military balance on the ground.
The central point is this: Through the terror-free Türkiye initiative, the Republic of Türkiye transformed what began as a domestic counterterrorism process into a broader regional stabilization strategy. Beyond counterterrorism, it helped strengthen Syria's territorial unity, reduce the risk of wider regional escalation, and keep the Kurdish people from becoming casualties of the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict – a war that was never theirs to fight, but one driven by the strategic calculations of others.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/how-terror-free-turkiye-helped-stabilize-syria-kept-kurds-out-of-iran-war
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Blue Homeland bill: How EU perpetuates Turkish-Greek tensions
BY YUNUS ÇOLAK
JUL 03, 2026
The source of the most recent tension in Turkish-Greek relations is the "Blue Homeland" draft bill – a piece of domestic legislation in Türkiye that has not yet even been tabled in the Turkish Parliament. Although it is still merely a draft, the tension it has generated once again highlights a cyclical impasse in Turkish-Greek relations that has emerged over the last 30 years, with the EU at its center.
This impasse arose when Kostas Simitis, who came to power in Greece in 1996, abandoned the policy of keeping Türkiye out of the EU and effectively recast the bilateral issues as a Türkiye-EU problem. The shift aimed to offset the power asymmetry with Türkiye, while many assumed the EU's soft power would help resolve the disputes peacefully. This assumption appeared to hold for a short while, but the EU's influence has instead come to entrench the status quo and perpetuate the problems.
The "Blue Homeland" doctrine, which took shape over the 2010s, covers Türkiye's maritime zones – continental shelf, territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – across the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean. It gained prominence after the 2020 EEZ delimitation agreement with Libya and is a major source of tension with Greece, with which Türkiye has unresolved maritime boundary issues.
Despite this doctrine, Türkiye has enacted only the 1982 Territorial Waters Act as the fundamental framework for its maritime zones under domestic law. Presented by Ankara University's National Centre for the Sea and Maritime Law (DEHUKAM), the draft bill appears – though not yet enacted – to establish the domestic legal basis for arguments Türkiye has advanced for years.
Indeed, according to Yücel Acer, a member of the Presidential Council on Legal Policies, the traditional Turkish approach – that territorial waters in the Aegean should be six nautical miles – is maintained.
Even so, this DEHUKAM presentation, short on public detail, drew significant reactions from both the government and opposition in Greece, amplified by the Greek press and looming elections. Members of the government have characterized the move as a unilateral and revisionist act contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Opposition parties have gone even further: Their proposals have ranged from a 12-nautical-mile extension of Greek territorial waters in the Aegean – which Türkiye deemed a "casus belli" in 1995 – to the suspension of all EU programs relating to Türkiye.
The main basis for the Greek side's objections is the provision granting the Turkish president the authority to designate "maritime areas with special status" in zones where an EEZ has not yet been declared. This authority, it is argued, opens the door to unilateral expansion in disputed areas. However, this criticism overlooks the structural nature of the problem: In a sea where no delimitation treaty binds the parties, both states are filling the legal vacuum using means of their own choosing.
While Türkiye does so through domestic codification, Greece, in the same period, has floated unilateral options such as a marine park in the Eastern Aegean. The issue, then, is not that one side is "revisionist" while the other is "status quo"; rather, in the absence of a treaty-based framework, both seek to consolidate their positions through unilateral moves. More tellingly, the draft bill even surfaced in the European Parliament's 2025 report on Türkiye, adopted on June 17, 2026, which called on Türkiye to respect the sovereignty of all EU member states over their territorial waters.
At the root of the disputes lie either differing interpretations of an existing treaty or matters that require the parties to reach a bilateral agreement. The demilitarization of the Aegean islands, for instance, turns on conflicting readings of the 1923 Lausanne and 1947 Paris treaties; EEZ delimitation, in contrast, requires a bilateral agreement that does not yet exist.
Resolving such issues requires mutual concessions, not maximalism. Yet the EU's almost unconditional support for the Greek position is one of the greatest obstacles to Greece abandoning its maximalist stance toward Türkiye, a candidate country.
Greece resisted announcing its maritime spatial plan in the Aegean – which conflicts with Türkiye's claims – for years, until the Court of Justice's 2025 ruling compelled it to do so, triggering a new crisis. Moreover, Greece's strategy of internationalizing the dispute rests on a legal foundation more fragile than it appears.
Almost all of Athens' arguments against Türkiye invoke UNCLOS and the compulsory dispute-settlement mechanisms it provides. But Türkiye is not a party to this convention, so neither its provisions on island rights nor its dispute-settlement procedures bind Ankara.
The position Greece defends as "international law" therefore amounts to imposing on Türkiye a text it has never signed. In fact, both UNCLOS and customary international law point first and foremost to a negotiated bilateral agreement as the method of delimitation – precisely the approach Türkiye has advocated for years.
Consequently, the EU's general stance is one of the most significant external factors perpetuating these disputes, and the EP's criticism of the bill is the most recent instance of this. Mirroring the populist rhetoric of Greece's election season, the criticism shows once again how asymmetric the EU's role in Turkish-Greek relations has become. Just as the EU's pre-referendum assurance in 2004 – that it would admit the Greek Cypriot administration to full membership as the whole island's representative, regardless of the result – was a key reason for the Greek Cypriot "no" vote, such one-sided support today is one of the key factors keeping Greece from the negotiating table with Türkiye.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/blue-homeland-bill-how-eu-perpetuates-turkish-greek-tensions
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The funeral that reveals a world divided
July 3, 2026
by Kurniawan Arif Maspul
A casket draped in black makes its slow procession through Tehran, past millions of mourners whose chests beat in unison against the late-summer heat. Red fists—the funeral’s symbol—rise above a sea of black-clad bodies, fists clenched not in grief alone but in defiance. The slogan is stark: “We must rise”.
This is the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for thirty-six turbulent years, killed in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli war on February 28. It is not merely a religious rite. It is a geopolitical manifesto, a metaphysical referendum on empire itself.
Across five cities in two countries, over seven days, Iran expects between fifteen and twenty million mourners. Delegates from more than one hundred countries are in attendance. Pakistan’s prime minister walks alongside Tajikistan’s president. Armenian and Georgian leaders pay their respects. European anti-imperialist activists arrive without official invitations, declaring themselves on “the right side of history”. The body will journey through Qom, then to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, before final burial in Mashhad, beside the shrine of Imam Reza.
Western capitals observe this spectacle with confusion or contempt. Fox News notes the absence of Western leaders as proof of Iranian isolation. The funeral is dismissed as regime propaganda, as a theocratic state’s desperate grasp at legitimacy.
But this is a catastrophic misreading. For the Global South, Khamenei’s funeral is something else entirely: a collective acknowledgment of a history that the West has chosen to forget. From Operation Ajax in 1953—when the CIA and MI6 toppled Iran’s democratically elected prime minister to restore Western oil control—through the arming of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, through the 2003 invasion of Iraq on fabricated intelligence, through the destruction of Libya and the devastation of Syria, the pattern is not a series of discrete misadventures. It is a continuous architecture of domination.
A former Iranian deputy speaker captures the Global South’s reading with brutal clarity: Khamenei’s “most important legacy was resistance against the global dominance of the United States and Israel, and the fact that this resistance broke that perceived dominance”.
The West frames the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei as a strategic necessity, as the surgical removal of a hostile regime’s head. The Brookings Institution noted that the Iranian leadership is vast and warned against the assumption that decapitation could rapidly paralyse Iran. But this tactical calculation misses the deeper ontological chasm.
Sovereignty is the formal attribute of states recognised by the international community. Justice is procedural, administered by institutions.
Sovereignty is a substantive capacity to resist external domination, a capacity that must be endlessly performed. Justice is historical and redistributive—a horizon never yet reached.
These are not just different interpretations. They are different realities, built on different archives of memory. The funeral crystallises this epistemic asymmetry: for one side, it is propaganda; for the other, it is truth.
The symbolism is unmistakable: America’s celebration of freedom is, in this telling, the anniversary of a different kind of empire.
What makes this funeral genuinely novel is its transformation of grief into geopolitical currency. The West’s precision strikes aim to decapitate; the funeral reveals that the social body can regenerate its head in symbolic form. The population becomes the weapon. Fifteen to twenty million bodies assembling in procession constitute a living statement: the will has not been extinguished.
This is biopolitical warfare inverted. The empire administers death to produce docile populations; the resistance administers collective mourning to produce insurgent populations. Each mourner becomes a carrier of the resistance code. The funeral is a bioweapon of solidarity—not a biological pathogen, but a memetic one that spreads through digital and physical networks.
Consider what this means for the rules-based order. A system that requires consensus on what constitutes a breach cannot function when the very perception of breaches is predetermined by epistemic affiliation. When the Global South increasingly perceives the international system as a rigged game, its institutions lose legitimacy. When the West perceives the Global South’s historical memory as paranoid distortion, it becomes incapable of self-correction.
The result is not dialogue but schism. Each bloc inhabits a closed epistemic universe, performing rituals of justification before its own audience. Khamenei’s funeral is a diagnostic event: it reveals that we no longer share a world, but only a planet.
The military-industrial complex, as Eisenhower warned, has a built-in incentive for permanent conflict. The Middle East has been its testing ground and profit centre for decades. The funeral indictment is that empire needs enemies more than it needs peace, and that Iran under Khamenei played the role of necessary enemy—the antagonist that justified the budgets, the bases, the carrier groups.
By mourning him, the Global South mourns not just a man but the hope of breaking out of this cynical cycle. The moral economy of empire is revealed as profoundly immoral: it transforms human suffering into a balance sheet item and masks this transformation with rhetoric about freedom and security.
Pakistan’s attendance is particularly instructive. Islamabad has played a central role mediating between Washington and Tehran, helping secure a ceasefire in April and a memorandum of understanding in June. Yet here is Pakistan’s prime minister, standing in Tehran, honouring a man Washington killed. This is not hypocrisy. It is the geopolitics of a multipolar world in which the Global South refuses to choose sides.
The funeral’s route through Najaf and Karbala is equally significant. At the request of Iraqi politicians, Khamenei’s body will be carried through Iraq’s holiest Shiite cities. This is not merely religious piety. It is a statement that the Axis of Resistance does not rely on a single centre and will not collapse with the elimination of a single leader. The network endures.
What, then, does this funeral portend? For Iran, it affirms the survival of the clerical system under Khamenei’s son Mojtaba—who remains in hiding, severely injured in the same strike that killed his father. For the Global South, it is a rallying cry against a Western military-industrial complex that feeds on perpetual warfare. For the global order, it is a warning: when two civilisations do not agree on what it means to exist legitimately, the “international system” is a fiction sustained by the inertia of power.
They are not mourning a man alone. They are mourning a world that might have been—a world in which the Middle East was not a crucible for war and empire, a world in which sovereignty meant something more than the permission to exist within someone else’s design.
The red fists rise. The chests beat. The casket moves on. And the global order fractures a little more.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260703-the-funeral-that-reveals-a-world-divided/
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One thousand days of war: Why Israel failed to defeat Palestine
July 3, 2026
by Sayid Marcos Tenorio
July 3 marks one thousand days since the beginning of the genocidal war in Gaza. It also compels us to acknowledge an undeniable reality: despite overwhelming military superiority, Israel has failed to achieve its principal political objective.
The destruction has been immense. The humanitarian catastrophe has reached unprecedented levels, and tens of thousands of lives have been lost.
Since 1948, successive Israeli governments have sought to resolve the conflict through military force. In Gaza, the strategy once again relied on the assumption that overwhelming military superiority would eliminate the Resistance and permanently extinguish the Palestinian national cause.
One thousand days later, that expectation has not materialized.
The war has reduced entire cities to rubble, but it has not destroyed the identity of a people or their aspiration for self-determination. This is perhaps the conflict’s most important lesson.
The war has also called into question one of the pillars of Israeli security doctrine: its deterrence capability.
For decades, technological and military superiority was presented as the guarantee of Israel’s security and regional stability. Yet a prolonged conflict, the persistence of the Palestinian Resistance and the opening of multiple regional fronts have fueled growing debate over the limits of this strategy.
Military superiority remains intact. Israel’s ability to translate military power into lasting political outcomes, however, has become increasingly contested.
At the same time, Israel faces an unprecedented level of international scrutiny. While it continues to enjoy the support of key allies—particularly the United States—its political standing and moral legitimacy have come under sustained global criticism.
Growing criticism in international organizations, expanding legal proceedings, and the mobilization of universities, trade unions and civil society movements all reflect a profound shift in global public perception.
Perhaps this is the greatest political setback produced by the war.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260703-one-thousand-days-of-war-why-israel-failed-to-defeat-palestine/
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America 250: How ‘Israel’s’ Official Story Mirror’s America’s Origin Myth
July 4, 2026
By Benay Blend
In both cases, “pre-emptive self-defense” rests upon the belief that if the Natives are not exterminated, they will annihilate the colonizers.
As the United States prepares to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4, it’s important to remember that when speaking of America’s founding, like that of its ally Israel, not all was as it seemed.
In my neighborhood, the flags are flying, and the firecrackers are going off at night, all marking hyper-nationalism with little knowledge of what the Constitution, much less the holiday, represents.
The same show of ultra-patriotism appears on Israeli Independence Day, a holiday that marks the creation of the state of Israel but with little mention that its founding, like the launch of the United States, coincided with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians who are indigenous to the land.
While Israelis celebrate with picnics, fireworks, and parties, Palestinians mourn their Nakba (catastrophe), the escalation of ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and destruction and/or takeover of their homes.
Israelis celebrate their Independence Day,” states the poet Dareen Tatour, “but it comes with the celebrating of the suffering of our ancestors, the displacement of our people and the memory of the massacres perpetrated against us over the years.”
Appearing on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle discusses her new podcast series called First America, a series that challenges the country’s Official Story by exploring the experiences of Indigenous people who, like the Palestinians, faced extermination, loss of land, and eventual rounding up to be placed on reservations, the forerunners of sovereign Native Nations of today.
In her podcast, Nagle argues that the biggest myth associated with the country’s founding is that the new nation represented a democracy, the first of its kind in the world. Much like Israel, which declares itself the only democracy in the Middle East, this was a false assumption, because what the founders actually created was an empire, and “the two can’t coexist.”
Just as Palestinians continue to experience unending daily Nakbas, Nagle contends that what happened in the past has laid the framework for ongoing oppression today.
“Rounding up people, putting people in detention, even shooting anybody who gets in the way, these are things that our government has done before—not once, not twice, but many, many times.”
In “‘Settler-Defense’ and Native Liberation,” Lakota historian Nick Estes links the genocide of Palestinians to aggression against Indigenous people on Turtle Island.
“The United States supplies more than bombs,” he asserts. “It also supplies the media narrative justifying the slaughter of Palestinians and the colonization of their lands.”
In both cases, “pre-emptive self-defense” rests upon the belief that if the Natives are not exterminated, Estes writes, they will annihilate the colonizers, thus supplying the media with the phrase Israel has a right to defend itself,” a privilege that is never extended to the people being slaughtered by the colonists.
As the longest-held Native political prisoner in the United States, Leonard Peltier (enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians) feels there is little to celebrate this July 4th. Having spent 50 years in prison for a crime that even the FBI admitted there was insufficient evidence, Peltier believes that Native people should use the Fourth as an opportunity to tell the truth.
Peltier called out the Declaration itself. Its final grievance against the King said nothing about unfair taxes, but rather complained that the British had pitted “the merciless Indian Savages” against the colonists, and also denounced “domestic insurrections,” meaning the revolts of enslaved people who sought freedom behind English lines.
“We’re no longer going to celebrate a false government until the truth comes out and they apologize to everybody for what they did,” he said. “Maybe we can start all over and build a real government of freedom and equal justice for everybody.”
His words are very much akin to the desire on the part of some Palestinians to dismantle the illegal Zionist state, followed by the creation of a secular state with equal rights for all.
Writing in 1987, the late historian Howard Zinn contemplated the importance of the Constitution. In the end, he concluded “like other historic documents, the Constitution is of minor importance compared with the actions that citizens take, especially when those actions are joined in social movements.”
Zinn’s words are still highly relevant today. For example, in the documentary Shoot the People, filmmaker Misan Harriman traveled around the world to capture protest movements that are the real drivers of any kind of change.
Much of the film revolves around a quote from Peter Magubane, a South African freedom fighter who, like the late revolutionary/writer Ghassan Kanafani, believed that cultural resistance was an important tool in the struggle for liberation.
Magubane documented the anti-apartheid movement with his camera, and so served as a model for Harriman’s work. “A struggle without documentation is no struggle at all,” Magubane said.
This notion is woven throughout the script. Without documentation—whether through writing or the visual arts—there is no history; without knowledge of the past, there is no struggle, and thus no possibility for future change.
“Resistance is in the soil,” Harriman said of his experience in South Africa, and that is also very much the situation in Palestine. There he documented the gains and ongoing struggles of South Africans who have yet to give up the fight for reparations and equal rights.
In his 1987 essay, Howard Zinn asks, “What about the most vaunted of constitutional rights, free speech?”
Our right to free speech has been increasingly tested both in the US and in Europe, where pro-Palestinian, anti-war and anti-fascist activists have received horrific prison terms because of their work.
As far as First Amendment rights under the Constitution, Zinn claims, that has always been elusive. “Liberties have not been given; they have been taken,” he concludes, to be determined by those who are “courageous enough to speak up at the risk of being jailed or fired, organized enough to defend our speech against official interference,” and capable enough to get their ideas before a reasonably large audience.
A case in point, the British Labour government’s recent ban on Palestine Action has only served to spawn new direct action groups who continue to block suppliers of arms to Israel.”
“Someone took action yesterday, so clearly it hasn’t worked,” said former Palestine Action political prisoner Zoë Rogers as she called attention to a June 15 blockade of the arms company Ultra I&C in Maidenhead, west of London, by a new direct action group People Against Genocide.
She concluded that “people are not afraid and in fact, people are escalating,” thus living out Zinn’s concluding words that there is “no substitute for the energy, boldness and concerted action of the citizens.”
This year, the 4th of July will undoubtedly be met with a slew of fireworks, picnics, parties, and the sanitizing of American history. Because we are in such dire times–US-funding Israeli genocide of Palestinians, rising inflation, rampant US imperialism accompanied by scores of deaths—many people might choose to sit this one out.
Instead, it would be beneficial to reflect on the true history of the country, a nation built on Indigenous land very much like the state of Israel.”
Here the Fourth of the Lie is an annual get-together where activists tell alternative histories, food is shared, and there is an opportunity to feel not so alone in an increasingly hostile world.
Misan Harriman concludes his film at George Floyd Square in Chicago, a site that honors the unarmed man murdered by police in 2020. Since that time, not much perhaps has changed, perhaps it has even gotten worse—in Chicago, in Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon, along with all the places that imperialism continues to dishonor human life.
But people still gather in Chicago to write the names of all the victims of police violence, proving that the spirit of defiance and community lives on.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/america-250-how-israels-official-story-mirrors-americas-origin-myth/
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Kill the Negotiators? US Feared Israeli Plot Would Sink Iran Peace Talks – NYT
July 3, 2026
The United States feared Israel could derail delicate negotiations with Iran by assassinating senior Iranian officials leading the peace process, prompting Washington to warn Tehran through regional intermediaries, according to a report published Thursday by the New York Times.
Citing current and former US officials, the newspaper reported that American concerns centered on Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who were leading Tehran’s diplomatic engagement with Washington during negotiations that began in April.
According to the report, US officials believed that any Israeli attempt to kill either official would almost certainly collapse the negotiations, reignite hostilities and jeopardize efforts to reach an interim peace agreement between Washington and Tehran.
Some officials told the newspaper that the United States went so far as to ask countries in the region to privately warn Iranian authorities that Israel might target the two negotiators.
Diverging War Aims
The revelations shed new light on growing tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv over the objectives of the war.
According to the New York Times, while the United States increasingly sought a negotiated settlement with Iran, Israel remained focused on broader objectives that included toppling the Iranian government and eliminating senior members of its political and military leadership.
The newspaper said Israeli forces prioritized attacks on Iran’s leadership during the opening stages of the war, which began on February 28 with the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials, an operation reportedly based in part on US intelligence.
While American strikes concentrated on Iran’s naval and missile capabilities, Israel reportedly pursued a campaign aimed at removing as many senior Iranian officials as possible.
Among those killed were Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, and former Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, both of whom had participated in contacts with the United States before their deaths.
According to the report, the Trump administration feared that further assassinations targeting officials directly involved in negotiations would destroy any remaining prospects for diplomacy.
Negotiators on the Target List
The report follows earlier claims by the Wall Street Journal that Araghchi and Ghalibaf had appeared on an Israeli target list before being temporarily removed as Washington prepared to launch negotiations with Tehran.
The New York Times reported that US officials later learned at least Ghalibaf remained under consideration and asked Israel not to proceed with any operation against him while talks continued.
An Israeli Embassy spokeswoman in Washington declined to comment on the allegations.
Responding to questions from the newspaper, a US official said negotiations between American and Iranian delegations were continuing and noted that US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential adviser Jared Kushner had recently held productive meetings in Qatar.
The official added that President Donald Trump wanted “the peace process to play out.”
Extraordinary Security Measures
The report also details the extensive precautions Iran reportedly took to protect its negotiating team.
Ahead of talks in Islamabad, Iranian officials feared Israel could exploit the visit to assassinate Araghchi or Ghalibaf, according to senior Iranian officials cited by the newspaper.
Tehran reportedly sought assurances from Washington, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not target the delegation during the trip.
Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian aircraft throughout its journey to and from Islamabad.
On the return flight, however, Iranian security officials reportedly warned that intelligence indicated Israel planned to attack the aircraft after two Israeli fighter jets entered Iranian airspace from the west.
According to the report, the plane made an emergency landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad, allowing the delegation to avoid the perceived threat. The officials then traveled approximately eight hours overland before reaching Tehran.
Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Ghalibaf who accompanied the delegation, later confirmed the emergency diversion on social media.
Diplomacy Continued Despite Threats
Despite the reported security risks, Iran’s senior negotiators continued participating in diplomatic efforts.
Araghchi and Ghalibaf later traveled to Qatar before attending another round of face-to-face talks with US Vice President JD Vance and the American delegation in Switzerland.
Those negotiations ultimately produced the June framework agreement between Washington and Tehran, establishing a roadmap for de-escalation, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and further discussions over Iran’s nuclear program.
According to the New York Times, the episode illustrates the widening gap that emerged between US and Israeli strategies during the joint aggression.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/kill-the-negotiators-us-feared-israeli-plot-would-sink-iran-peace-talks-nyt/
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Iran: When the Veil, the Beard and the Bomb are Stripped away
July 3, 2026
By Dr. M. Reza Behnam
Absorbing the revelations in the book Regime Change by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, I posed a question to my American colleague: why do figures like Donald Trump continue to get elected? With his signature measured calm, he offered a chilling truth.
He suggested that Americans have not felt history’s harsh winds blow with hurricane force since the Civil War, which has left our society dangerously naive and perilously unserious.
On the global front, many Americans are poorly informed about the geopolitical realities of other countries, particularly regarding West Asia. Consequently, they have historically been susceptible to Israeli-aligned narratives, allowing Zionist and pro-Israel influencers to disproportionately shape US public opinion and foreign policy in Israel’s favor.
This dynamic applies especially to Iran, which has been severely impacted by the widespread consumption of a distorted and overwhelmingly negative narrative.
The American understanding of Iran is a triumph of geopolitical minimalism, reduced to a holy trinity of stereotypes: the veil, the beard, and the bomb. This trim, three-item checklist serves as the entire curriculum for a superpower that, despite boasting of the most powerful military on earth, treats one of humanity’s oldest and dynamic civilizations as a one-dimensional cartoon villain.
It is a masterpiece of intellectual efficiency. Decades of propaganda have deeply colored the perception of Iran. Hence, the country is rarely associated with the staggering architecture of Isfahan and Persepolis, the deeply moving poetry of Rumi and Hafez, or with its millennia-old legacy as a sophisticated, culturally vibrant civilization.
Instead, the mind defaults to a monochrome montage of ominous men with long beards and turbans chanting in the streets, anonymous women entirely obscured by black veils and a glowing apocalyptic nuclear weapon waiting to go off.
This reductionist view is not a tragic accident; it is the culmination of decades of headline-driven “diplomacy” and the relentless cable news machine. After all, nuance does not command military budgets, nor does it fit on a 24-hour news ticket. Stereotypes, however, have proven useful tools in relegating a nation of 93 million Iranians to a problem to be removed by force.
For example, the “veil” has operated as a symbol of cartoonish oppression, a one-size-fits-all visual that allows Western politicians to pivot effortlessly to facile reductive rhetoric. The stereotypical “beard” has served as the embodiment of rogue state malevolence, projecting a timeless, medieval fanaticism.
Finally, the “nuclear bomb” rounds out the trinity of tropes. It acts as the ultimate powder keg that has been used to justify escalating sanctions and military attacks. It is a narrative that entirely ignores the complex realities of US Congressional Research Service reports on Iran, which describe Tehran’s strategic posturing as primarily defensive in reaction to US-Israel aggression.
For decades, the public has been served a steady diet of tropes, conditioning the public to view Iran as an ominous monolithic threat instead of a country, like any other, with internal nuances and problems.
When the veil, beard and the bomb are stripped away, the lived experiences of Iranians contradict the comic artificial geopolitical framework that Washington and Tel Aviv have sold the public for generations.
Official Washington and its allies have ensured that public perception of Iran remains stagnant. The three-item checklist has been doing the heavy lifting successfully for decades. It is the perfect American geopolitical souvenir: light to carry, simple to understand, and completely useless for comprehending reality.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/iran-when-when-the-veil-the-beard-and-the-bomb-are-stripped-away/
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