Middle East Press On: Israel's strategic pivot, Netanyahu ending American military aid, Iran'Israel Narratives, EU'Israel Trade Deal, Victory at Starvation's Edge, UK, US'Israeli Campaign Against Iran, New Age Islam's Selection, 16 January 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
16 January 2026
Israel’s strategic pivot: Why Netanyahu is ready to end American military aid
Iran's crisis will not last forever - Israel and the world have a real opportunity
When old myths about Iran and Israel are dusted off again
EU Left Launch Citizens Initiative Urging Full Suspension of EU-Israel Trade Deal
Victory at Starvation’s Edge: Palestine Action Hunger Strikers Shame the UK
Manufacturing an Enemy: The US–Israeli Campaign Against Iran and the Reality They Hide
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Israel’s strategic pivot: Why Netanyahu is ready to end American military aid
By YARON BUSKILA
JANUARY 16, 2026
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the United States initially appeared to be yet another routine stops in a long series of trips aimed at tightening coordination over Middle East developments and reinforcing the personal bond between the two leaders who make no secret of their mutual affection.
Yet in an interview with The Economist at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu dropped what can only be described as a strategic bombshell: after more than 70 years in which Israel has received American financial support, the State of Israel will not seek to renew the annual $3.8 billion military aid package that is set to expire in 2028.
“I want to reduce military aid over the next ten years,” Netanyahu said, answering in the affirmative when asked whether that meant reaching zero dependence on the United States.
The prime minister explained that Israel has “come of age” and has developed impressive economic capabilities, with its economy projected to reach the trillion-dollar mark in the coming decade. “We want to be as independent as possible,” he stressed, while adding that he would continue to “fight for the loyalty and support of the American people.”
Since the early 1950s, Israel has received American assistance that was critical to its survival and to the building of its military and economic strength, at a time when enemy states were engaged in an advanced arms race aimed at its destruction. In real terms, total US aid to Israel exceeds $300 billion – more than to any other country in the world. How, then, can Netanyahu agree to give up such a significant sum from a country that has consistently been one of Israel’s most loyal and supportive allies?
The answer is not primarily economic. It is a profound geo-strategic move, born of dramatic changes within the United States, the lessons of the Israel-Hamas War, and the maturation of Israel’s economy and national power.
Netanyahu recognizes sentiment from American society
Netanyahu, known for his deep understanding of American society and its internal political processes, clearly recognizes that broad segments of the American public – including within the conservative camp – are no longer willing to finance the security of other countries. Both the Republican movement and progressive currents within the Democratic Party increasingly share the same view: America should invest in America.
In this political reality, US aid to Israel is no longer merely a budgetary burden; it has become a source of domestic political criticism that erodes public support for the Jewish state. As long as Israel is seen as a state funded by American taxpayers, it becomes a target for ideological opposition on the Left and fiscal scepticism on the Right.
Precisely for this reason, Israel’s willingness to wean itself from American aid may be received positively, recasting Jerusalem not as a dependent recipient but as a strong, independent partner that does not drag Washington into external obligations. More than that, Israel can become the prototype of what the Trump administration demands from its allies – from NATO to Taiwan to South Korea: if you want the American umbrella, you must be strong enough to hold the handle yourself.
The decision also carries weight on the liberal-progressive side of American politics. For years, voices on the US Left have argued that because Washington funds Israel on such a large scale, it has the right to intervene in Israeli policy – a claim vividly experienced during the recent war. Ending the aid will not end criticism of Israel, but it will significantly reduce the legitimacy of direct intervention and diminish the available levers of pressure.
During the war itself, the dangers of dependence were starkly exposed. As a senior operations officer in the Gaza Division, I experienced firsthand how limited ammunition supplies and references in the IDF’s situation assessments to US political constraints became operational variables. Dependence on American munitions turned into a tool of leverage for the Biden administration, which sought to impose political and military redlines on Jerusalem.
At the height of the fighting, Israel found itself facing critical shortages due to political considerations and progressive worldviews in Washington. Israelis came to understand that even the closest alliance is, in the end, a contract – one that includes footnotes, clauses, and exit options that certain administrations can invoke to impose their policies on Israel.
Critics of Netanyahu’s decision point to the economic value of US aid and its importance to a small country like Israel. Yet from an economic perspective, a gradual end to the aid would force massive investment in Israel’s domestic defence industries, restoring what was eroded during decades of dependence: manufacturing capacity, independent supply chains, jobs, exports, and technological development. Every dollar that does not come from Washington would be created in Israel – in wages, R&D, and industry – strengthening the Israeli economy and its long-term resilience.
The United States will remain a major and loyal partner. Indeed, it derives enormous benefits from security cooperation with Israel – from its stable strategic foothold in the Middle East and invaluable intelligence to advanced technological know-how that enhances American military capabilities.
Yet the political climate in Washington is turning aid into a liability. This requires not only technological upgrades in weapons systems but a strategic upgrade in the relationship itself: from a model of dependency to one of true strategic partnership between two strong allies.
Reducing American aid to zero over the coming decade is not a risk – it is a necessity. Israel in the third decade of the 21st century does not need charity. It needs freedom of action, industrial sovereignty, and alliances built on strength.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883462
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Iran's crisis will not last forever - Israel and the world have a real opportunity
By YAAKOV KATZ
JANUARY 16, 2026
When airlines start cancelling flights, it usually means something has already happened. This time, they are cancelling flights to Israel because of something that might.
The mere possibility that the United States could strike Iran - and that Iran might respond - has once again frozen the region. Even with the war officially over, the Middle East remains so volatile that anticipation alone is enough to trigger disruption.
For Israel, this volatility carries strategic implications.
The first unknown, as of the time of the writing of this column, Thursday afternoon, is whether President Donald Trump will order military action against Iran.
The range of options is wide. On one end, he could authorize limited strikes against police units, Basij forces, or IRGC elements directly involved in the violent suppression of protesters.
Israel could conduct strikes against the Iranian regime
On the other end, we could end up seeing a far more dramatic move: strikes aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership - senior IRGC commanders, the president, perhaps even the supreme leader himself.
Which path Trump chooses remains unclear. And that uncertainty is precisely what has placed the entire region on alert.
Then comes the next question: how will Iran respond?
Will Tehran retaliate against Gulf states, reviving the playbook it used in its 2019 drone and missile attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities? Will it strike American military assets across the region, as it did when it fired missiles at the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar during the 12-day war in June? Or will it turn its fire directly on Israel, launching long-range ballistic missiles at Israeli cities and air bases?
And if that happens, does one escalation lead to the next one? Does one round lead to another? Or does each side absorb a blow, declare deterrence restored, and step back from the precipice?
These are not theoretical questions; they are exactly what officials are war-gaming right now in capitals across the Middle East and beyond since trump announced aid for the Iranian people is on its way.
For Trump, the impulse to take action comes from a desire to distinguish himself from his predecessors.
Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden faced moments when brave Iranians poured into the streets to protest the regime, and while both offered verbal support, neither took real action.
Years later, Obama expressed regret over his decision not to do more during the 2009 Green Movement.
Trump wants to send a different message: when he speaks, people listen, and when he threatens, he follows through.
Whether that is enough to catalyze regime change, or whether it is meant primarily to project American strength and credibility, remains to be seen.
For Israel, however, the opportunity is twofold.
First, while Israelis watch and hope that the Iranian people succeed in toppling a regime that has oppressed them for decades, the turmoil itself weakens Iran’s ability to recover. Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs suffered devastating blows in June. Continued internal instability makes rebuilding those programs much harder.
There is, of course, a counter-risk: a regime that survives may conclude that nuclear weapons are the exact insurance policy that it needs to prevent any foreign intervention in the future. Nevertheless, developing such a capability while struggling to calm an angry public is not simple.
More broadly, for Israel, this moment exposes a truth Israel has been arguing for years.
Look at Columbia University or Harvard Yard as well as the streets of Paris, London, and Sydney. There are no mass protests calling what the ayatollahs are doing genocide. No one is chanting to “globalize” the protests. There is barely any moral outrage and no marches in support of the innocent Iranians being killed by their own government.
Contrast that with the fury unleashed when Israel defends itself in a war forced upon it. And while the hypocrisy is hard to ignore, it is also clarifying.
For those willing to see it, the true source of instability in the Middle East is undeniable. Behind October 7, behind Hezbollah, and behind Hamas has always been Iran. If that reality was not clear before, it should be now.
Notably, criticism of Israel appears to have declined in recent weeks. Whether this is measurable or anecdotal, the shift is palpable. There is growing recognition that Israel was not the aggressor in this war, but its victim.
That matters. It strengthens Israel’s strategic posture ahead of renewed conflict, which many in the defence establishment believe is inevitable. Hezbollah continues to refuse to disarm in the north and in Gaza; few in Israel believe Hamas will simply disappear without another round of fighting, despite optimism in Washington.
The second opportunity emerges if Iran chooses to retaliate against Israel directly.
At the end of the 12-day war in June, Israeli fighter jets were already en route to Iran when Trump called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and instructed him to turn them back, following an Iranian missile strike that had violated the ceasefire.
Even then, it was clear that significant targets remained untouched - ballistic missile infrastructure, elements of the nuclear program, naval assets, ground forces, and key regime institutions.
If Iran attacks Israel now, it provides Jerusalem with the legitimacy and justification to act decisively and without restraint.
During the June war, Defence Minister Israel Katz openly raised the possibility of regime change, only to be shut down by Washington. This would be a very different moment. Israel has already demonstrated air superiority over Iran. Re-establishing it would not be overly complex.
Which is why, as the region once again stands on the precipice, the West, including Israel, cannot afford to be passive. Crises do not last forever, and the windows they open close fairly quickly. They either translate into strategic gains or become missed opportunities.
As the saying goes, a crisis should never be wasted. The question now is whether the world will recognize this one in time.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-883470
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When old myths about Iran and Israel are dusted off again
January 16, 2026
By Karam Nama
The phrase long used by the Israeli Mossad to describe its relationship with Iran — ‘a friendly enemy is better than a hostile friend’ — sprang to mind as I read Junaid S. Ahmad’s recent Middle East Monitor article, ‘Real men go to Tehran — The Zion-Con fantasy of regime change in Iran’. This phrase was never just an intelligence quip; it encapsulated the truth of the functional relationship between Tel Aviv and Tehran for forty years, preceded by an even closer relationship between Israel and the Shah’s regime. This relationship did not begin with the Shah nor end with Khamenei; it has consistently operated on the principle that Iran is not Israel’s existential enemy, but a tool to be used when needed.
This reality is nowhere to be found in Ahmad’s piece, which reads as if it were written about an imagined Iran rather than the Iran that has shaped the region for decades — an Iran whose project of regional domination has been anything but subtle.
The Iran that Ahmad describes is not the Iran that Israel armed during the Iran–Contra affair; nor is it the Iran that cooperated with Israeli intelligence throughout the 1980s; nor is it the Iran that facilitated the American occupation of Iraq both practically and strategically, and then inherited Washington’s influence in Baghdad through its militias. This is an entirely different Iran: the Iran of slogans, rather than the Iran that turned four Arab capitals into arenas of open Iranian influence.
Ahmad quotes the sentimental line ‘real men go to Tehran’, overlooking the fact that it was Iraqis who confronted Iran — men who fought for eight long years against Khomeini’s project, which marched under the revealing slogan ‘The road to Jerusalem passes through Karbala’. And when Iraq fell under American occupation and then Iranian domination, the true meaning of that slogan became painfully clear: Jerusalem was never the target, Baghdad was.
Iran must have been delighted when Israeli jets bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at the height of the Iran–Iraq War, as if an outside force had intervened to achieve what Iran could not on the battlefield.
While Ahmad speaks of the ‘Zion-Con fantasy’ of regime change in Iran, he ignores the most crucial truth: that Iran is ready to offer every concession to Donald Trump — or indeed any American president — in exchange for one guarantee: the survival of its theocratic regime. The Islamic Republic is not afraid of sanctions, isolation or limited strikes; it fears only a threat to its own existence. Its thunderous anti-American rhetoric is political theatre. When pressure mounts, Tehran returns to the negotiating table on its knees, as it did during the first nuclear deal and every time the regime felt endangered, rather than its regional interests.
The same regime that chants ‘Death to America’ in the streets negotiates with Washington in secret whenever its throne is threatened. Its slogans are loud, but its survival instinct is louder.
The Iran that Ahmad portrays as a victim of ‘Zion-Con fantasies’ is the same Iran whose highest security and intelligence institutions teach the doctrine of ‘Qom as the Mother of Cities’ (Qom Umm al-Qura) — a strategic vision aimed at shifting the centre of the Islamic world from Mecca to Qom and redefining spiritual and political leadership in the region through a Persian-Shi‘i lens that places Iran at the heart of a new ‘sacred capital’. This doctrine is not just academic theory; it is the ideological engine that justifies Iran’s interventions across the Arab world, giving its expansionist project a religious veneer that is reminiscent of old imperial ideologies.
Understanding this doctrine clarifies why Iran does not want to go to war with Israel. What it requires is the dismantling of the Arab sphere and its reconstruction in a manner that aligns with the ‘Qom Umm al-Qura’ vision. Every Iranian intervention, whether in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or Yemen, is part of a single project: the region’s demographic, political and cultural re-engineering. Although Iran has not fired a single shot at Israel from its own territory, it has fired thousands of rockets at Arab cities through its proxies. It has not opened any fronts against Tel Aviv, yet it has opened every front inside the Arab world. It has not threatened Israel’s existence, yet it has threatened the existence of entire Arab states.
Nevertheless, Ahmad writes as if Iran were a besieged nation rather than a regional power that projects influence through militias, exploits chaos and weaponizes sectarianism.
What further weakens Ahmad’s argument is his selective reading of history. He fails to mention Iran–Contra, the intelligence cooperation of the 1980s, Iran’s role in enabling the American occupation of Iraq or the devastation Iran has inflicted on the region. This is not an oversight, but a structural bias that turns his article into a political defence rather than an analytical critique. History is not just a decorative backdrop; it is key to understanding Iran’s deep-seated grievances towards the Arab world since the early Islamic conquests — grievances that the Islamic Republic has never ceased to exploit.
In his article, Ahmad perpetuates the myth that Iran is in an existential confrontation with Israel and that neoconservatives are deluded to imagine regime change in Tehran. However, anyone familiar with the history of the region knows that Iran and Israel are not existential enemies, that Iran’s project is primarily directed against the Arabs, and that the Iranian regime will make every concession to Trump — or any other American president — to guarantee its survival. It is the men in the trenches who matter, not the slogans.
Myths do not survive long when confronted by history, and history in this region spares no one.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260116-when-old-myths-about-iran-and-israel-are-dusted-off-again/
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EU Left Launch Citizens Initiative Urging Full Suspension of EU-Israel Trade Deal
January 16, 2026
A coalition of left parties has launched a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) demanding the full suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, citing Israel’s violations of human rights in Gaza.
“EU citizens cannot tolerate that the EU maintains an agreement that contributes to legitimize and finance a State that commits crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the campaign launched on Tuesday states.
The initiative urges the European Commission “to put forward the proposal to the Council for the full suspension” of the agreement with Israel, which provides a framework for bilateral political dialogue and trade relations between the EU and Israel.
Israel ‘in Breach’ of International Law
The coalition noted in a statement that according to the European Commission, Israel “is responsible for an unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians, a large-scale displacement of population and the systematic destruction of hospitals and medical facilities in Gaza.”
The parties also point out that Israel has implemented a blockade of humanitarian aid “that could amount to starvation as a method of war.”
“Israel is in breach of multiple rules and obligations under international law and fails to prevent the crime of genocide as ordered by the International Court of Justice,” the statement added.
It also stated that the EU’s obligation to act does not stem only from its founding treaties but also from UN treaties and customary international law and the International Court of Justice Orders.
“The EU must immediately utilise all available legal, diplomatic and economic means – among which the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement – to force the Israeli government to cease its human rights violations, uphold international law and to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians,” it noted.
One Million Signatures Required
For a European citizens’ initiative to be valid and considered by the EU, the statement noted, it must obtain at least one million valid signatures and meet the minimum thresholds in at least seven countries. By Friday afternoon, it had reached 198,488 signatures.
The initiative is reportedly led by France’s La France Insoumise, Spain’s Podemos, Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda, and Nordic left parties.
French MEP Emma Fourreau announced the launch of the initiative on X, saying, “Let’s end Europe’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”
Biggest Trading Partners
The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, with more than 33 percent of Israel’s imports originating from the EU, and 28.8 percent of Israeli exports flowing to the EU, according to the campaign’s website. It said total trade in goods between the EU and Israel in 2024 amounted to €42.6 billion.
The EU-Israel partnership extends beyond trade to include scientific and technological cooperation, with Israel having joined Horizon Europe, the EU’s main funding programme for research and innovation, in 2021.
The website also lists several international institutions having given evidence that Israel is in breach of Article 2 of the agreement, which provides that,
“Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”
Partial Suspension
In September last year, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen proposed “a package of measures” against Israel over its ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza, including the sanctioning of extremist ministers and a partial suspension of its trade agreement.
However, the proposal was not fully implemented because they reportedly required “unanimous approval” from EU countries.
It notes that “1.11 billion euros from the EU’s Horizon Europe fund goes to Israeli companies, universities and public bodies,” emphasizing that among the 921 projects with 231 Israeli recipients” are companies that are closely involved with the Israeli military.”
The EU has been criticized for its refusal to suspend a trade agreement with Israel despite an internal review’s findings that Israel is violating human rights obligations under the terms of the Association Agreement.
End ‘European Complicity’
In a statement to Al-Jazeera Arabic, Trine Pertou Mach, the campaign’s representative in Denmark and a member of the Danish Parliament from the Unity List party, said the objective is to end the “European complicity” in the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people.
Mach reportedly emphasized that “Palestinian lives are no less valuable than any other human life,” and that “continuing with an agreement that legitimizes a state committing war crimes is something European citizens will not tolerate.”
Israel has killed close to 71,500 Palestinians and injured more than 171,000 others since it launched its genocidal military operation in Gaza over two years ago. Despite a US-brokered ceasefire implemented last October, Israel has killed 463 Palestinians and injured 1,269 more, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/eu-left-launch-citizens-initiative-urging-full-suspension-of-eu-israel-trade-deal/
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Victory at Starvation’s Edge: Palestine Action Hunger Strikers Shame the UK
January 16, 2026
By Michael Leonardi
In a defiant stand that has shaken the corridors of British power, imprisoned activists of Palestine Action have suspended their gruelling hunger strike after forcing a significant political concession from the UK government.
As of January 14, 2026, the last holdouts — including Heba Muraisi after 73 days without food, Kamran Ahmed at 66 days, and Lewie Chiaramello, who alternated days due to Type 1 diabetes — declared victory.
They ended the protest upon news that Elbit Systems UK, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, was denied a £2 billion Ministry of Defence contract to train British troops.
They joined four others who had already paused their strikes — Teuta Hoxha, Jon Cink, Qesser Zuhrah, and Amu Gib — bringing the total to seven activists who stared down death to expose Britain’s complicity in genocide.
This was no mere pause. It was a strategic victory in the struggle against apartheid’s enablers.
The strikers are part of the “Filton 24,” arrested in November 2024 for allegedly storming and vandalizing an Elbit site near Bristol. Their demands were clear: immediate bail, unrestricted communication, reversal of Palestine Action’s terrorist designation, and the closure of all 16 Elbit UK sites.
They began their action on Balfour Day — November 2, 2025 — a deliberate rebuke to Britain’s colonial crime in Palestine.
Facing pre-trial detention that could stretch 18 months or more, they weaponized their bodies against a system that jails dissenters while arming colonialism and genocide.
Their resolve echoes the ghosts of Long Kesh, where Bobby Sands and his IRA comrades waged a similar battle against British imperialism in 1981.
Sands died after 66 days, his death igniting global outrage and propelling the Irish struggle forward. A previous Counterpunch article drew a direct line between Sands and today’s resisters, framing hunger strikes as the ultimate indictment of the empire’s cruelty.
Here, Heba Muraisi surpassed Sands’ endurance. Her laboured breaths became a testament to unbreakable Palestinian sumud — steadfastness under annihilation.
Like the ten IRA hunger strikers who died demanding political prisoner status, these activists exposed the farce of “justice” administered by the occupation’s allies.
The UK government’s silence was deafening, despite appeals from dozens of global intellectuals, former hunger strikers from Palestine, Ireland, and Guantánamo, and even Human Rights Watch.
Only sustained international pressure fractured the façade.
At the centre of this saga lies an Orwellian absurdity: the UK’s designation of Palestine Action as a “terrorist organization” in July 2025.
Imposed under the Terrorism Act 2000 after activists spray-painted RAF planes at Brize Norton, the designation criminalizes membership, support, or even clothing that might “arouse suspicion.”
It represents a blatant misuse of counter-terror laws to crush nonviolent direct action against genocide enablers.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk condemned the move as “disproportionate and unnecessary,” noting that the broadened definition of terrorism now includes property damage aimed at influencing policy, while Israel’s state terror in Gaza goes unpunished.
A declassified intelligence report even admitted that most of Palestine Action’s activities “would not be classified as terrorism.”
Yet the ban proceeded, backed by 385 MPs against just 26.
Amnesty International, Liberty, and the UN denounced the decision as an assault on free speech. Still, Keir Starmer’s government pressed on, proscribing Palestine Action alongside neo-Nazi groups like the “Maniac Murder Cult,” which has attempted violent antisemitic attacks against the Jewish community.
The International Bar Association has since described the proscription as “a major and dangerous shift in the law.”
Human rights barrister and former Liberty director Martha Spurrier called it an “exaggerated response,” warning that criminalizing targeted property damage connected directly to protest objectives fundamentally alters the legal threshold for terrorism.
Toby Cadman of the IBA War Crimes Committee Advisory Board described the move as a “blunt instrument” designed to silence pro-Palestinian voices at a moment when public opinion and government policy sharply diverge.
Broadening terrorism powers to suppress disruptive but non-lethal protest, he warned, is an alarming precedent that recasts civil disobedience as a security threat.
This farce follows a familiar imperial script: delegitimize resistance.
Palestine Action’s real “crime” is disrupting Elbit’s blood-soaked supply chain — the machinery that arms Israel’s apartheid and genocide.
Meanwhile, those bombing Gaza’s children, razing homes, and starving millions receive billion-pound contracts and diplomatic cover.
The ban has only accelerated political radicalization, eroding trust in a democracy that criminalizes protest while exporting death.
The UK’s decision to block the Elbit contract came after days of intensifying international solidarity and mounting media scrutiny.
Coordinated protests across the globe, explicitly called as part of a global escalation in solidarity with the hunger strikers, sent a clear message: continued complicity would carry high political and reputational costs.
In Italy, hundreds took to the streets in Rome and Milan, including large numbers of high school students.
In Rome, demonstrators gathered outside the UK Embassy near Porta Pia, waving Palestinian flags and denouncing the UK, Europe, the US, and Italy for their ongoing complicity in genocide.
The protest was a direct rebuke to Meloni’s pro-Israel government.
Palestinian student leader Maya Issa highlighted the growing repression against Palestinian activists in Italy, declaring: “We will not be silent in the face of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the continued complicity of the Italian government.”
In Milan, students and workers rallied outside the British Consulate, demanding sanctions and an arms embargo.
These actions, echoed in dozens of cities worldwide, helped tip the balance against the Elbit deal.
Yet the victory comes at a severe human cost.
Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed remain in extremely fragile health. After more than two months without food, the refeeding process carries serious risks, including refeeding syndrome, organ damage, and long-term complications.
Both have moved repeatedly between prison and emergency hospitalization and remain under close medical supervision. Full recovery may take months.
Meanwhile, one striker, Umer Khalid, has resumed his hunger strike and continues on Day 6 — embodying a sumud that refuses to retreat even as others step back from the brink.
From Sands’ cell to Britain’s prisons today, history shows that empires fracture under unbreakable will.
This victory is a crack in the wall — proof that direct action, amplified by global solidarity, works.
But the struggle continues. Elbit still operates. Gaza still bleeds. The West still arms and normalizes genocide.
The call is clear: boycott, divest, sanction, and dismantle the apartheid machine.
As the Palestinian BDS National Committee reminds us: “Our future depends on your solidarity, your organization, your pressure.”
Honor these resisters by making complicity impossible.
Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/victory-at-starvations-edge-palestine-action-hunger-strikers-shame-the-uk/
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Manufacturing an Enemy: The US–Israeli Campaign Against Iran and the Reality They Hide
January 16, 2026
By Dr. M. Reza Behnam
As the current crises mount, so does the quandary among members of its political classes. They all want change. The hardliners want a return to the past; the reformers want a future unburdened by the past, and many moderates want change in any form. The status quo has little or no support. The change that is inevitable will mark a monumental moment, one that could profoundly alter Iran’s trajectory.
Free of external meddling, the outcome will depend on internal dynamics and the balance of power among competing forces. Iran, however, has never been free of foreign meddling. In recent years, it has come primarily from the United States and its Israeli proxy. That Iran has survived nearly five decades of unending hostility is a testament to the character of the nation and its people.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution shifted Iran from a major U.S. ally to a primary adversary. It also led to a realignment of regional partnerships and fundamentally dismantled the security architecture the United States had constructed in West Asia.
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, based on the principles of justice and independence, would forever conflict with the foreign policies of the American empire and Israeli Zionism, which are cemented in land theft, domination, and expansion. Iran’s political reinvention from monarchy to Republic brought the unremitting wrath of the United States government upon it.
Before the Revolution, Washington relied on Iran and Saudi Arabia—the “twin pillars”—to contain Soviet influence and to maintain regional dominance. The overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi deprived the United States of its “regional policeman,” and a key military base it used to monitor the former Soviet Union.
Iran’s transition led Washington to expand America’s military footprint in the Persian Gulf. Today, the US maintains a military presence in nearly every country in the region, positioned there to protect the uninterrupted flow of oil, to shield Israel and Arab dictators, and to threaten those who would oppose its hegemony.
In the midst of a historic transition away from a centuries-old monarchical system, Iran was invaded and ultimately survived a brutal eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, a war supported by the US and its regional allies.
Inheriting a nation wrecked and regionally isolated by war, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, successor to the founder of the Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), faced the daunting task of resurrecting Iran’s fractured economy and society. Khamenei had to manage internal dissent and rivalries within Iran’s complex clerical circles, confront unyielding international economic pressures, all while preserving the revolutionary ideals of sovereignty and independence.
Iran’s unbroken 7,000-year-old recorded historical and political presence in the world has inevitably created friends and foes, none more powerful than today. The combined force of American imperialists, Israeli Zionists, and Arab rivals is positioned to leverage political and economic turmoil in Iran for gain.
Since the 1979 Revolution, Washington and Tel Aviv have sown mischief and discord within Iran. Public anger over an economy that has been strangled by 47 years of crippling US-imposed economic sanctions has fuelled unrest.
Various domestic, regional, and international actors have benefited from the tumult, keeping Iran weak, economically stunted, and unable to project power regionally. Absent foreign interference, it could resolve internal grievances and foster better relations with neighbouring states.
Few countries have faced as much sustained criticism and negative portrayals in the West, most notably in the United States, as Iran. Israel has been the driving force and main beneficiary of casting the country as a regional and global villain.
It is way past time for the truth. The Iranian nation and its people have suffered too long under the weight of Israel’s lies and American economic sanctions. By examining the overlooked accounts of strategic cooperation between the US and Iran, it becomes evident just who could have been and who would be a better regional partner.
After decades of US efforts to destabilize Iran, President Barack Obama, upon entering office in 2009, concluded just that. In March of that year, on the occasion of the Iranian New Year, Nu-Rooz, he addressed the leaders and people of Iran, saying:
“My administration is now committed to diplomacy, … and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran, and the international community. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”
With the signing of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States and Iran seemed intent on moving forward. The agreement inspired hope, especially in Iran, for a better future.
As expected, the beneficiary of the old order, Israel, alarmed by the policy shift, unleashed its disinformation network to dismantle Obama’s diplomatic success and to restore, as well as intensify, the “regime change” policies of old.
If not for the sustained pressure from Israeli leaders and intense lobbying efforts from powerful pro-Israel groups, it is conceivable that a normalized relationship could have emerged during the Obama administration.
The current US-Israeli campaign to create chaos to achieve its aim of bringing down the Iranian government will have horrific, destabilizing consequences. Now more than ever, it is essential to challenge the incessant propaganda that portrays Iran as an enemy nation.
It should be noted that despite the vitriolic rhetoric against it, Iran has come to the aid of the United States on several occasions:
Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991
Afghanistan after 9-11
Iraq, following the US invasion of 2003
in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State (also known as Da’esh)
During the Persian Gulf War, the Iranian government refused Saddam Hussein’s requests for assistance, adhered to international sanctions, allowed the US Air Force to use its airspace, and neutralized Iraq’s air force by impounding aircraft Saddam had flown to Iran in hopes of preserving his remaining fleet.
It is worth noting that then-Secretary of State James Baker recognized Iran for its help in preventing sectarian conflict at the end of the war. And in his presentation before the House Foreign Affairs Committee (6 February 1991), in which he outlined his post-war goals; Baker stated that Iran could play a role in future security arrangements in the Persian Gulf.
A stable Afghanistan has always been important to Iran. The United States and Iran, in 2001, found common foes in al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the 1990s, as Washington ignored the growing presence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Iran was the major supporter of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Tehran cooperated with America to defeat the Taliban, served as a conduit between the US and the Northern Alliance, provided crucial intelligence, and pledged to rescue American pilots downed on its soil.
At a December 2001 meeting in Bonn, Germany, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell credited Tehran with helping establish a peaceful interim Afghan government, following the American invasion. It was former foreign minister, Javad Zarif (at the time, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs), who mediated a compromise over the composition of Afghanistan’s post-Taliban government, ultimately leading to the adoption of the Bonn Agreement. And it was Iran that insisted that the accord include a commitment that the country hold democratic elections.
Rather than recognizing its diplomatic overtures, President George W. Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, branded Iran among the “axis of evil” countries.
Iran’s leaders were aware that Washington had the country in its sights when it invaded Iraq in March 2003. Although it opposed the invasion and could have caused havoc, Tehran chose to re-establish a back channel to the Americans through Geneva and begin the process of normalizing relations with the United States.
Included in its May 2003 proposal, which came to be known as the Iranian “grand bargain,” its leaders offered to aid Washington in the political stabilization of Iraq and help in establishing a democratic secular government.
President Bush chose to ignore the comprehensive initiative and instead continued to pursue the short-sighted policy of regime change. Bush and the pro-Israel war hawks in his administration were blind to the cooperative and consequential role Iran could have played in restoring war-ravaged Iraq. Since then, Iraq has continued to suffer.
Despite American affronts, Tehran was willing to work with Washington to check the expansion of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, especially as it gained strength after the US troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and with the Syrian rebellion that same year.
When Da’esh dangerously came close to capturing Baghdad in 2014, Iran, through its support of Iraqi Shia militias (Popular Mobilization Forces), helped prevent IS forces from toppling the government. And in Syria, in addition to economic assistance, significant numbers of Iranian armed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, fought alongside allied militias, with Iranian deaths numbering more than 2,000.
On the subject of the 2015 nuclear agreement, it is important to note that when Iran entered the JCPOA it did so on the assumption that the United States would honour its obligations. It did not.
In return for economic sanctions relief, the Iranian government agreed to what international bodies and experts considered exceptionally stringent measures. Ironically, restrictions were imposed on Iran’s civilian nuclear program, since it has never had—in contrast to Israel—a nuclear weapons arsenal.
Iran was in full compliance with the terms of the agreement, and it was working as intended when President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimpose “maximum pressure” sanctions.
As we have seen, Iranian officials have entered into negotiations and agreements based on a framework of “mutual respect,” and most often their American counterparts have not.
The most recent instance of U.S. “legerdemain negotiating” occurred while Iran’s representatives were in Rome conducting the fifth round of nuclear talks, when, on June 13, 2025, the US joined Israel in launching a surprise military attack on Iranian military and civilian targets, as well as on three UN safeguarded peaceful nuclear facilities.
Tehran fully understood after the 12-day June war, in which over 1,100 Iranians were killed, that negotiations with the United States were a mere chimera.
Since then, the pressure campaign and propaganda against Iran have increased. Its leaders now believe that the country is in a full-fledged war with the United States, Israel, and some European countries and that Washington seems willing to set West Asia ablaze to save Zionism.
What Western intruders seem unable to understand is that Iran has a millennia-old residence in West Asia, that there is no mythology or illusion around it, and the ancient nation cannot be bullied. Archaeology, history, and Scriptures bear witness to its sustained and important geopolitical presence.
Iran’s global influence is expressed through its rich political culture, which includes language, literature, and arts, large energy reserves, strategic location, and its leadership role in the region.
The US-Israel collaboration has turned West Asia into a dysfunctional menagerie. Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Morocco conduct business and collude—some in the shadows and others openly—with Israel, while the Zionists slaughter and starve their fellow Arabs in Palestine.
Washington, accustomed to dealing with oil-rich ruling families and autocrats, is incapable of understanding a country that sees justice for the Palestinians intertwined with its own interests.
Ayatollah Khomeini declared, in 1979, that Iran’s revolution would be incomplete until the Palestinians had won their freedom. His statement established their cause as a central ideological component of the Islamic Republic’s identity and anti-imperialist foreign policy.
Iran will continue to demand justice for the people of Palestine, an end to genocidal Zionism, and an independent sovereign West Asia. Is this the “threat,” is this what Washington and Tel Aviv want the world to fear?
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/manufacturing-an-enemy-the-us-israeli-campaign-against-iran-and-the-reality-they-hide/
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