Middle East Press On: Israel shapes global reality, Hezbollah, Indonesia, Maduro, international community killing Palestinians, Confronting genocide, Gaza, America, Iraq, Al-Aqsa, New Age Islam's Selection, 7 January 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
07 January 2026
With Somaliland recognition, Israel shapes global reality instead of just reacting to it
Israel’s next war with Hezbollah would reshape Lebanon forever
Indonesia must speak loudly: If the US can arrest Maduro, it must arrest Netanyahu
Will the international community stop acting like killing Palestinians is a human right?
Confronting genocide with civil disobedience: The Pine Gap protests and Gaza
America, Israel’s saber: A trail of foreign wars from Iraq to Venezuela
Is Israel poised to take over Al-Aqsa?
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With Somaliland recognition, Israel shapes global reality instead of just reacting to it
By YARON BUSKILA
JANUARY 6, 2026
The duty officer of Google’s information-monitoring division at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, may have been preparing for what seemed like a routine evening shift. Then the screen probably began displaying an unusual trend.
A country that rarely appears in global discourse – one that many internet users would struggle even to spell – was likely climbing steadily in search interest. Queries, articles, mentions, and questions all revolved around a single word: Somaliland.
There was no major war, no earthquake, no sporting triumph. No dramatic global event explained the spike. What the hypothetical surprised employee did not yet know was that, on the other side of the world, Israel had announced its recognition of this state. The algorithms, however, already understood: something new and consequential was moving beneath the surface.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is neither a marginal gesture nor an exotic humanitarian nod toward a distant African entity. It represents a strategic shift. For the first time in years, Israel is signalling that it is rethinking the environment in which it operates – not as a collection of isolated threats, but as an interconnected geopolitical system in which absence and passivity lead to strategic marginalization.
To understand the significance of the move, one must begin with Somaliland itself. Since 1991, it has functioned as a de facto state, complete with governing institutions, security forces, a functioning political system, and regular elections. Compared to Somalia, from which it seceded, Somaliland enjoys relative stability.
But its true importance lies not only in its internal governance. Somaliland sits at a strategic chokepoint: the southern entrance to the Gulf of Aden, near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors. This is a junction where global trade, flowing energy, maritime security, and great-power competition intersect.
Israel recognizes Somaliland at key time as Western powers retreat
THE TIMING of Israel’s recognition is no coincidence. Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, carried out under Iranian patronage, have transformed the maritime arena into a direct threat to Israel’s economy and strategic freedom of movement – as well as to global commerce at large.
At the same time, the vacuum created by the retreat or weakening of Western powers and the collapse of regional regimes has been rapidly filled by assertive actors, foremost among them Iran and Turkey. One is a radical Shi’ite power; the other a Sunni state with pronounced regional ambitions. Both expand influence through overseas bases, ports, arms deals, and economic diplomacy.
Israel, which in its early decades preferred strategic isolation and minimal regional engagement, is now – albeit belatedly – signalling a conceptual shift in response to changing international and regional realities. Unsurprisingly, the recognition of Somaliland has drawn sharp criticism, particularly from Arab states. Yet Israel chose initiative over inertia, shaping reality rather than allowing reality to shape it.
The move opens a range of opportunities: security-related, economic, and civilian. First, it offers the potential to enhance intelligence gathering, monitoring, and control over the maritime space from which the Houthis operate. This does not require permanent Israeli presence; strategic depth can be achieved through cooperation, partnerships, and expanded operational flexibility.
Second, there is a geo-economic opportunity. While Somaliland itself is not a large market, it can serve as a gateway to East Africa, including indirect access to Ethiopia’s vast market via the Port of Berbera. This integration of security, infrastructure, and trade is a model long understood by major powers – and one Israel is beginning to adopt.
Third, there is a civilian-technological dimension: water management, agriculture, energy, digital health, and smart infrastructure. For Somaliland, these are existential needs. For Israel, they are areas of proven expertise.
STILL, RECOGNITION is not an endpoint; it is a starting point. The move will continue to provoke resistance. Turkey, which has entrenched itself deeply in Somalia, views the decision as a direct blow to its interests. Arab states, led by Egypt, warn of a dangerous secessionist precedent. The African Union and the European Union have voiced objections, emphasizing Somalia’s territorial integrity. On the broader international stage – including China – criticism has emerged, while President Donald Trump’s cautious response leaves the move without explicit public backing from Washington, at least for now.
Yet the real question is not who condemned the decision, but what Israel seeks to achieve. If recognition remains symbolic, it will quickly fade. But if it is followed by a coherent security, economic, and diplomatic framework – one that advances regional stability, freedom of navigation, and shared interests with pragmatic actors – it may solidify into a durable strategic fact, positioning Israel as an active and influential player on the geopolitical field.
The deeper significance of the move lies not only in Somaliland but in the post-October 7 shift in Israeli strategic consciousness. Israel is beginning to understand that security is not shaped solely through airstrikes and tactical responses, but through the proactive design of the strategic arena itself. A clear understanding of the environment in which the state operates – and the willingness to take preemptive geopolitical action – offers stability in an era where survival depends not only on military capability, but on presence, partnerships, and strategic foresight.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-882488
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Israel’s next war with Hezbollah would reshape Lebanon forever
By SALEM ALKETBI
JANUARY 6, 2026
All signs indicate that the region is on the brink of a severe turning point, as Israel appears closer than ever to launching another major military operation against Hezbollah. In recent years, a firm belief has taken hold in influential world capitals, especially Washington, that the Lebanese state is fundamentally unable to exercise real sovereignty. It cannot meet its international obligations to control weapons, nor can it limit Hezbollah’s military spread within areas the group completely dominates.
Because of this, there are growing signals that the international community has given Israel a silent green light to target Hezbollah’s very framework – its operational hubs and the storage and protection facilities that form the core of its network. The global view is that letting the current situation continue is no longer an option.
Given this change in the world’s stance, it is crucial to understand the tactic Israel is likely to use in a future fight with Hezbollah. This is known as the “Dahiya doctrine.” It is a method of warfare that uses massive firepower to cause widespread, intentional destruction to the civilian infrastructure that supports and hides the enemy. This idea came into focus after 2006, when the southern suburbs of Beirut were seen not just as a Hezbollah stronghold, but as an essential part of its military machine.
Over time, this tactic has grown into a full theory of deterrence. It argues that hitting the enemy’s support system, meaning its economic and social networks, can change the course of a war faster and more completely than just attacking its fighters.
Current military signals suggest that if a new war comes, this doctrine will be used in a harsher, more total way. Israel sees these suburbs as the central nervous system for Hezbollah’s disguise, secrecy, and supply. Taking this layer out first is seen as the key to breaking the terrorist group’s ability to survive and rebuild.
Studies of city fighting explain that this suburban warfare strategy aims at the structures the enemy uses for cover and support. This includes hiding places, secret routes, and communication centres. The entire community that hosts Hezbollah, therefore, becomes part of the battlefield.
Military experts believe this strategy would not be limited to one spot, but would be applied across the whole zone that forms Hezbollah’s lifeblood. The expected campaign would involve precise, devastating attacks aimed at the complex web of deception the terrorist group has built over the years, exposing it immediately.
It is predicted that this civilian infrastructure would collapse quickly under such intense bombing. The resulting chaos in movement and supply would trigger huge waves of people fleeing, both inside Lebanon at great cost, and in a panicked, disorderly rush across borders.
Hezbollah weaving military forces into civilian life
The responsibility for this path falls directly on Hezbollah’s leaders. For years, they bet on weaving their military forces into the fabric of civilian life, thinking it would protect them. Instead, it has made those very communities a legitimate military target.
Research groups that follow the conflict say this total mixing of fighters and civilians has made the support system a direct part of Hezbollah’s warfighting. This makes it far more likely that the entire area will be hit, promising a cost much higher than in past wars.
Watching Hezbollah now reveals a stark contradiction. The group’s stubborn refusal to consider disarming or stepping back, which it calls strength, is actually what allows Israel to justify using the most extreme version of its destructive strategy. By blocking every path to a political deal, Hezbollah invites a scenario like the one in Gaza.
There, Israel pursued a strategy of total destruction above and below ground, through constant bombing, destroying tunnels, killing leaders, and hitting supply points so thoroughly that Hamas had no room to recover.
This was a profound shock to Hamas, which found that using urban areas for cover could no longer stop the Israeli military. The result was immense damage to Gaza’s foundations, a divided territory, and a historical burden for its leaders, notably Yahya Sinwar.
Hezbollah faces the same cliff edge. By staying stubborn and refusing to change course, the group may end up destroying its own base of support with its own decisions. From southern Lebanon to the Beqaa Valley, its network of hideouts and supply centres could become mountains of rubble. Ruin is forecasted to be the defining story of the next chapter.
Here is the painful twist: the more Hezbollah holds tightly to its choices, ignoring all the warnings, the more it helps its opponents and, strangely, even helps Lebanon. Such a strategy could break the internal deadlock and remove the shadow state that has crippled the country for generations.
Therefore, a coming battle would be the moment Hezbollah pays the bill for making its home territory a part of its war machine. The people living there will pay a terrible price for the actions of a group that acts as Iran’s closest partner, enforcing a model of violence and coercion first on Lebanon, and then on Israel and the Arab region.
Israel’s message, sent clearly in public and in private briefings, is plain and simple: Anyone attacking us will suffer a much heavier blowback, intense enough to deter any repeat.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-882476
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Indonesia must speak loudly: If the US can arrest Maduro, it must arrest Netanyahu
January 6, 2026
By Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat
Indonesia’s response to the United States’ military assault on Venezuela was cautious to the point of invisibility. Jakarta expressed “deep concern,” offered vague warnings about dangerous precedents, and reaffirmed respect for sovereignty. It did not name Washington. It did not condemn the attack. It did not challenge the action. Indonesia does need to revisit the specifics of its response. But what also matters is speaking the broader, uncomfortable truth that this moment demands.
The truth is undeniable: if the United States claims the authority to forcibly capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, it has no moral, legal, or political justification for shielding Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is committing genocide in Gaza.
The contrast could not be starker. Maduro, a controversial but recognized leader of a sovereign state, was seized through foreign military force without international mandate, without judicial process, and with the violation of Venezuelan territory. Washington framed it as defending democracy, restoring stability, and enforcing international norms. Sovereignty was treated as optional because the target was weak and politically isolated in the Global South.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu remains free. He leads a government responsible for the deliberate killing of tens of thousands of civilians, the destruction of hospitals, the starvation of entire neighbourhoods, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid. Scholars, legal experts, and human rights organizations increasingly define these actions as genocide. Arrest warrants have been issued. The International Criminal Court has investigated. The legal mechanisms exist. The only thing missing is political will. Netanyahu is not untouchable because the law is unclear. He is untouchable because he is protected.
This is not a malfunction of international law. It is how international law operates when it is selective, hierarchical, and politicized.
When leaders of the Global South defy Western power, law enforcement is swift, decisive, and uncompromising. When allies commit mass atrocities, the law is slow, cautious, and ultimately ineffective. Justice is no longer blind. It knows precisely whom it serves.
If Maduro can be kidnapped, why is Netanyahu shielded while committing genocide? If sovereignty can be violated in Caracas, why is it inviolable in Tel Aviv? If law can be enforced through military power against the weak, why does it fall silent in the face of the strong?
Indonesia’s warning that military force against Venezuela risks creating a dangerous precedent is correct but incomplete. The true danger is not only the use of force but its selective application. A precedent enforced against some and suspended for others is not a rule. It is domination disguised as legality.
For Indonesia, this is not an abstract moral argument. As a leader of the Global South, a champion of non-alignment, and a consistent defender of Palestinian rights, Jakarta has long insisted that international law must apply to all to be legitimate. Silence now undermines that principle far more effectively than any foreign pressure ever could.
Speaking plainly does not require defending Maduro or endorsing Venezuela’s internal politics. Condemning an illegal capture is not support for the captive. Demanding Netanyahu’s arrest is not radical. It is the consistent application of the standards Washington claims to uphold elsewhere.
There is also a practical reason to abandon ambiguity. Selective justice today becomes selective vulnerability tomorrow. If law can be wielded against disfavoured countries while shielding allies, no nation outside the circle of power is truly safe. Prudence cannot mean permanent silence.
The United States insists it upholds a rules-based international order. That claim collapses when rules are applied only downward. Shielding a leader committing genocide while celebrating the capture of another accused leader does not defend law. It destroys it.
The world is watching, not from press briefings or diplomatic communiqués, but from the rubble, hospitals, and siege-stricken neighbourhoods. Palestinians in Gaza, Venezuelans under foreign force, they understand what polite statements often conceal.
If accountability is enforced in Caracas but ignored in Gaza, it is not law. It is power masquerading as principle. Indonesia should have the courage to say so, clearly, publicly, and without apology. Silence in this moment is not prudence. It is complicity.
It is time for Jakarta to speak the truth. If the world is serious about law, accountability must extend to all. If it is serious about humanity, genocide cannot be protected. If the United States can arrest Maduro, it must arrest Netanyahu. The precedent Washington sets today is not abstract. It is the measure of what the international order truly values. Indonesia, along with the rest of the Global South, must call it out before it is too late.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260106-indonesia-must-speak-loudly-if-the-us-can-arrest-maduro-it-must-arrest-netanyahu/
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Will the international community stop acting like killing Palestinians is a human right?
January 6, 2026
by Ramona Wadi
What levels of normalised violence has Zionism reached, if plans to annihilate Palestinians are not just bordering on, but fall right into the realm of, the horror genre? The more absurd, and the further away, Israel positions itself from the concept of human rights, the more the statements and actions proposed by Israeli ministers fail to raise any serious questioning within the international community.
The Knesset already passed the first reading of a bill imposing the death penalty on Palestinians in November last year. Specifically, the text excludes Israelis from the death penalty, as it partly reads that it would apply to individuals “with the aim of harming the state of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its land.” Palestinians have been extrajudicially killed by Israel for much less. The genocide in Gaza is one example – Palestinians were killed for simply existing on their land. And what happens in the occupied West Bank, where Zionist settler-colonists kill Palestinians with impunity and full backing of the Israeli military?
Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who proposed the death penalty bill, also called for killing Palestinian officials for pursuing diplomacy at the UN. “If they accelerate the recognition of the Palestinian terrorist state, and the UN recognises a Palestinian state, targeted assassinations of senior Palestinian Authority officials, who are terrorists for all intents and purposes, should be ordered,” Ben Gvir asserted.
In December last year, Israeli media reported that the Israeli Prison Services were examining a proposal by Ben Gvir to establish a prison for Palestinians “surrounded by crocodiles”. Ostensibly modelled on the US prison in the Everglades National Park, crocodiles would be the Zionist low-cost solution for any Palestinians attempting to escape.
The world is witnessing an ongoing genocide that Israel is now managing in ways that will not elicit condemnations. Not that the weak condemnations halted Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but no attention is better than weak attention for Israel. An Israeli official openly advocating for the murder of Palestinians for engaging in anti-colonial struggle or diplomacy truly leaves Palestinians with no options for survival.
It is not the deterrent that makes Ben Gvir’s proposal scary. It is entertaining the notion that any Palestinians attempting escape would be devoured by crocodiles. We have seen Palestinians blasted into the air by bombs, torn to shreds and decapitated. Is there no limit to what Zionism can imagine in terms of violence? And has the world not yet reached its limit generating impunity for the colonial manifestation that is Israel?
As for the PA, which has toed the diplomatic line imposed by its donors and Israel, what sort of betrayal is betraying one’s own? The only reason the PA still exists is because Israel needs it for its colonial process, and so does the international community. If Israel does implement Ben Gvir’s suggestion – to kill PA leaders for pursuing state recognition at the UN – how will the international community justify the targeted assassinations of officials that are far removed from Palestinian resistance movements? The masks have already fallen, but the rhetoric has not. However, one can safely say that the UN has created more space for horror that it has for its human rights charter. Will the international community stop acting like killing is a human right?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260106-will-the-international-community-stop-acting-like-killing-palestinians-is-a-human-right/
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Confronting genocide with civil disobedience: The Pine Gap protests and Gaza
January 6, 2026
By Dr Binoy Kampmark
While the secret signals and surveillance facility at Pine Gap in Northern Australia, officially named the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG) is billed as a joint affair between Australia and the United States, it is nothing of the sort. Just as offices direct the callow intern to make the coffee, Australian officials remain America’s permanent interns, helpful, certainly, but never powerful or given challenging roles. The contempt with which Australians are treated is shown by the level of secrecy that continues to enshroud one of the largest signals intelligence centres outside the United States.
It is this secrecy that does, from time to time, make its way into court. For this, we can thank those plucky protestors who have, over the years, sought to expose the role of the base in aiding US military operations against targets in any number of locations unbeknownst to the Australian parliament, and not even the Australian Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Two of those protestors, Carmen Escobar Robinson and Tommy Walker, brought attention to the base’s activities when they blocked Hatt Road, the main access route to Pine Gap in October 2023. On 27 November 2023, a second effort was made that temporarily prevented some 100 Pine Gap employees from entering the facility. Robinson and Walker were part of a group of 50 activists, an eclectic makeup of health workers, community members, and the Arrernte Traditional Owners, all steered by the social justice outfit Mparntwe for Falastin. The action had been enlivened by revelations from an ex-Pine Gap employee that intelligence from the base was finding its way to Israeli sources.
The revelations, published in Declassified Australia by Peter Cronau, came from David Rosenberg, a veteran of the US National Security Agency (NSA) who performed the role of “team leader of weapon signals analysis” at Pine Gap for 18 years till 2008. “Pine Gap facility,” he stated, “is monitoring the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources, and gathering intelligence assessed to be useful to Israel”. Personnel at the base were tasked to gather such signals pertaining to Hamas’s command and control centres in Gaza. “Their aim would be to minimise casualties to non-combatants in achieving their objective of destroying Hamas,” given the proximity of such centres to civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. (This claim proved over time to be aspirational, given the staggering civilian death toll arising from Israeli strikes.)
Cronau had previous obtained evidence of the role played by Pine Gap in supplying geolocation data to the US military for targeting purposes from an NSA document from August 2012 entitled “Site Profile G”, stemming from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and first published in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Background Briefing in 2017. “RAINFALL [NSA’s designation for Pine Gap] detects, collects, records, processes, analyses and reports on PROFORMA signals collected from tasked target entities.”
These signals, writes Cronau, constitute “the communications data of radar and weapons systems collected in near-real time”. Pine Gap, “with its satellites so strategically positioned to monitor the Middle East region, along with its targeting and analysis capability” was bound to be valuable to Israel.
Robinson and Walker were subsequently charged with summary offences for the second action comprising loitering, causing a hazard on the road and blocking the use of a public road. On 23 September 2025, they pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, arguing that the obstruction had been staged to prevent “the offence of genocide in Palestine”.
In his ruling, Judge John McBride found the two protestors “exemplary citizens” in dedication to their cause despite finding them guilty of loitering. (The prosecution dropped the obstruction charges late in 2024.) “I conclude that the conduct of both defendants, deliberate as it was, cannot be accepted by this court as reasonable in justifying their intended commission of a criminal offence.”
The defence made by the duo’s lawyer John Lawrence resorted to the Northern Territory’s Criminal Code Act which stipulates that force – in this case a blockade – can be justified in certain circumstances, one of them being to “prevent the commission of an offence”. Robinson and Walker had committed their acts with intent “because it was their view, their belief, their understanding that what was going on in Pine Gap was an offence.” The Crown was unable to “prove beyond reasonable doubt” that the defendants “weren’t moving in order to prevent genocide.”
Professor Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute, an untiring student of Pine Gap’s cloaked activities, was called upon to give evidence on the facility’s role. This, argued the Crown prosecutor, Machiko Raheem, was not relevant to the defence of applying force to prevent genocide. But the court did hear her rather startling confession that a genocide was taking place. “A blind person can see that since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the UN Partition Plan in 1947 there has been a systematic annihilation of the Palestinian people.” This annihilation had “only recently [been] labelled […] genocide – which is consistent with human history as a whole. That’s not the issue in these proceedings.”
The judge agreed with the prosecutor that “actions taken in Gaza which constituted an offence of genocide” did not excuse the duo’s conduct. Both were given good behaviour bonds lasting six months and made to pay a court levy of A$150.
In remarks made to Guardian Australia, Robinson made the salient point that Australia, in the absence of transparency to parliament or the public, “is hardwired into the US military surveillance complex through Pine Gap. The Australian public should be very concerned… how many countries are we unofficially attacking? How many people is Pine Gap involved in killing in Palestine? Lebanon? Syria? Yemen? Iran?” Most Australian politicians, mutely, subserviently, persist in avoiding the matter. The errand boys and girls of the American empire remain an unquestioning bunch.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260106-confronting-genocide-with-civil-disobedience-the-pine-gap-protests-and-gaza/
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America, Israel’s saber: A trail of foreign wars from Iraq to Venezuela
January 6, 2026
by Jamal Kanj
President Donald Trump is once again surrounded by a cast of political lightweights and constitutionally hollow obedient courtiers on one end, and Israel-first operatives on the other. They run US foreign policy where constitutional restraints are subverted, and American power is used as a blunt instrument to advance agendas that are neither democratic nor American. This is not chaos or mismanagement, its planned.
What is being presented as “drug enforcement” against Venezuela’s president is a premeditated act of war orchestrated, in part, to advance Israeli strategic interests and the profits of multinational oil corporations. It is a manipulation of US power in service of foreign actors, with consequences that threaten global stability and undermines international law.
The most disastrous US foreign policy failures of the past quarter century in Iraq, Libya, and Syria were not driven by American interests. They were Israeli wars, sold to American officials through pressure, cooked intelligence, and a compliant political class.
Iraq war was designed in the dens of the pentagon by Israel-first neocons who fabricated the weapons of mass deception to drag America into a made-for-Israel war. Libya was obliterated under the pretext of humanitarian intervention. Syria was turned into a prolonged proxy battlefield. The promised prosperity, stability, democracy, or security never materialized. One thing materialized: delivering Israel’s objectives with American money and the lives of American soldiers.
Today’s war threats against Iran are following the same script. A war manufactured carefully and cynically by Israel-first American Jewish billionaires such as Miriam Adelson, and journalist advocates bought and employed by Larry Allison. These actors have exerted extraordinary influence over Trump, and even audaciously calling for violating the U.S. Constitution by floating a third term run, all to serve of Israeli strategic interests.
Trump branded Maduro a “drug trafficker” to justify his kidnapping, while pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández, a former Honduran president and a US-indicted cocaine kingpin who ran a narco-state shipping hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.
Could it be because Hernández was pro-Israel, but Maduro was not? Maduro dared to condemn Israeli genocide in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank.
This has nothing to do with American interest. It is another Israeli account to settle with the president of Venezuela. These wishes were expressed by Benjamin Netanyahu—an internationally indicted war criminal welcomed in the White House—during his interview with Fox News just three days before the illegal American operation in Venezuela. Not surprising, Israel was possibly the only country who praised Trump for kidnapping Maduro.
If Trump can be the bully of the “neighbourhood” and topple or coerce regimes that do not comply with his political and financial desires. Why not for Russia or China in their alleys? What stops China from “trumping up” charges in its courts against Taiwanese political leaders? What stops Russia from kidnapping political figures it deems hostile under the guise of law enforcement?
In fact, China has a far stronger historical, geographic, and political claim to Taiwan than the United States has to Venezuela more than 2,500 miles from American shores. Russia, likewise, has greater strategic ties to countries on its backyard than Washington does in Latin America.
Enforcing international law by local courts only leads to the collapse of international norms. Countries should not be able to use its legal system to supersede international law and UN Charter. The International Criminal Court (ICC), is the only body that can indict and issue arrest warrants. Claiming a law enforcement operation does not make it lawful, especially when the White House welcomes a war criminal and refuses to enforce the ICC arrest warrant.
Unfortunately, the attempt to topple Maduro is not a one off in Latin America. Washington has a bloody history of intervening and regime change, propping dictators, and removing democratically elected leaders. Unlike this case, most were done under the CIA clandestine operations. To name just few, and not in any order: The 1964 Brazilian coup d’état, the 1971 coup in Bolivia, Chile military coup in 1973. The CIA coups in Ecuador between 1960 and 1963, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état, 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, and the 1983 invasion of Grenada.
Israel’s influence over US foreign policy has become so pervasive that America is perceived as a rattle saber wielded to settle Israeli scores with other countries, sanctioning the ICC, and even suppressing local dissent against Israel. By conflating American national interests with Israel’s strategic objectives, Washington is inviting international chaos, and serving Israel by diverting global attention from Israeli war crimes in Palestine.
And the American taxpayer is paying for all of it. Since 2001, the US has spent more than eight trillion on made-for-Israel wars. This is enough to give 32 million American families free homes ($250,000 each).
Not passing a judgment on the legitimacy of Maduro or his style of governance, that is for the Venezuelan people alone to decide. But an administration that openly expresses admirations to “friendly” dictators, where free press and elections do not exist, has neither the credibility nor the moral standing to decide on legitimate systems of government.
Kidnapping Maduro from his bedroom is not about democracy. It is an exercise of power on behalf of oil profiteers and Israeli strategic interests. The United States does not advance freedom in Latin America by violating international law, nor does it serve Americans when the US army is outsourced to serve the desires of the Israeli lobby, Zionist implants in the administration, and Israel-first donors.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260106-america-israels-saber-a-trail-of-foreign-wars-from-iraq-to-venezuela/
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Is Israel poised to take over Al-Aqsa?
OSAMA AL-SHARIF
January 06, 2026
Israel is racing to annex occupied Palestinian lands through a systematic plan that involves seizing religious, cultural and historical landmarks, erasing Palestinians’ ties to their native territories.
Last week, the Israeli Civil Administration — a military body overseeing the West Bank — transferred all administrative authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque from the Palestinian Hebron Municipality to the religious council of the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba. The move ends Islamic administration of the site. The municipality condemned the action, noting that it violates UNESCO’s designation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and Hebron’s Old City as endangered world heritage sites.
Unlike Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem’s Old City, the Ibrahimi Mosque is regarded as holy by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike as the resting place of Prophet Ibrahim, patriarch of all three faiths. Until 1967, it was administered by the Muslim Awqaf and Hebron Municipality.
It became a flashpoint when Israeli authorities allowed Jews to pray at the site. In 1994, armed Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the mosque during Ramadan and opened fire on worshippers, killing 29 and wounding more than 120. Following the massacre, a 1997 agreement split control: 63 percent allocated to Jewish worshippers, 37 percent to Muslims.
The site remained contentious, as Jewish zealots provoked Muslim worshippers and Israel oversaw a massive Jewish takeover of Palestinian homes in Hebron’s old quarter. Muslims were barred from accessing the mosque on Jewish holidays, while the call to prayer was banned at least 80 times in September alone.
Last week’s move stripped Palestinians of all administrative privileges. Israeli forces seized planning powers, blocked Palestinian staff from accessing utility systems and padlocked control cabinets to prevent maintenance access.
What began as an interim spatial and temporal division has become full Israeli control. Few countries condemned the move.
The silence over the Ibrahimi Mosque takeover has emboldened radical elements in Israel’s far-right government to eye their next target: Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Since Ariel Sharon’s 2000 incursion of the Al-Aqsa compound — sparking the Second Intifada — successive Israeli governments, especially under Benjamin Netanyahu, have loosened restrictions on Jewish worshippers visiting the exclusively Muslim site. Al-Aqsa is recognized as Muslim under the status quo agreement, administered by Jordan’s Awqaf. King Abdullah has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu over status quo breaches.
Under the current Israeli government, which includes extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Jewish incursions have skyrocketed. Between October 2024 and September 2025, more than 58,000 Israeli settlers stormed the compound, a 14 percent increase from the previous 12 months. Settlers now conduct twice-daily incursions protected by Israeli forces and are permitted to perform religious rites — a clear breach of agreements.
Jordanian and Palestinian officials have warned for years that Israeli extremists aim to demolish the mosque to build a Jewish temple on its ruins, pointing to dangerous subterranean excavations threatening the mosque’s foundations.
Israeli forces have implemented unprecedented multiday closures, restricting Awqaf employees to specific time slots and preventing Palestinian access. The most dangerous escalation came in 2021, when an Israeli court ruled that Jewish silent prayer at Al-Aqsa is not a “criminal act,” effectively transforming it from an exclusively Islamic site to a joint Islamic-Jewish site.
The eastern section, Bab Al-Rahma, has effectively become an undeclared temple, with settlers raising Israeli flags and performing Jewish religious practices.
In a grave departure from decades-old policy, Netanyahu on Sunday publicly backed changes to arrangements at Al-Haram Al-Sharif (which Israelis call Temple Mount), insisting new policies allowing Jewish prayer do not violate the fragile status quo.
“The changes Ben-Gvir is making are not changing the status quo and it is in coordination with me. I decide on the policy,” Netanyahu said. His remarks followed Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon’s warning that Ben-Gvir was unilaterally altering the religious status quo, breaching government commitments to preserve existing worship arrangements, according to Haaretz.
With daily incursions continuing, Netanyahu’s acquiescence to Ben-Gvir’s violations and the Ibrahimi Mosque takeover as precedent, there are real concerns Israel will impose de facto temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa this year.
Meanwhile, Israel is advancing its control over West Bank antiquities, including areas nominally under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. In late 2025, a draft law was presented to the Knesset that seeks to extend Israel’s authority over “antiquities and heritage sites” in the West Bank, explicitly including Areas A and B — which should remain under Palestinian civil administration as per the Oslo Accords.
This followed a government decision to extend the antiquities officer’s authority from Area C to parts of Area B, violating Oslo’s division of powers and granting authority to prohibit, demolish and intervene at any archaeological site.
Weak Arab and Muslim responses to these violations only embolden Israeli religious extremists. Jordan cannot stand alone against these Israeli plans. Urgent joint action is needed, especially from countries that signed up to the Abraham Accords, to clearly object.
The Ibrahimi Mosque case reveals Israel’s strategy: complete administrative control transferred from Palestinian authorities to Israeli settlement councils — a dangerous precedent Palestinians fear will be replicated at Al-Aqsa.
This is annexation by other means, aimed at erasing Palestinian identity and replacing it with an exclusively Jewish one — it is cultural genocide.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2628483
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