Middle East Press On: Saha Expo 2026, Turkiye, Iran, Us, Palestine’s Christians, Gaza, Israel, Trump’s Iran Fiasco, America’s Suez Crisis, New Age Islam's Selection, 12 May 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
12 May 2026
SAHA Expo 2026 revealed Türkiye’s growing defense power
Iran refuses to kneel: Why the US cannot dictate peace
Palestine’s Christians being written out of history
Saudi Arabia’s quiet push for peace in the Gulf
The Gaza Genocide: When the End Comes, Who Will Be Sorry for Israel?
Empires Rise and Fall: Could Trump’s Iran Fiasco Be America’s Suez Crisis?
Do Not Surrender to Despair or Hope: Reality is Not Inevitable
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SAHA Expo 2026 revealed Türkiye’s growing defense power
BY DENIZ İSTIKBAL
MAY 12, 2026
The SAHA 2026 expo, which hosted nearly 1,800 companies from 120 countries, concluded last week with export agreements exceeding $8 billion. From ammunition contracts to decisions to produce next-generation land vehicles, the fair reflected the Turkish defense industry's image and capabilities through multi-sectoral exports. More than 200 new products were also introduced during the five-day exhibition that took place in an innovative atmosphere and attracted significant international attention.
At a time when global defense expenditures are at a record high, fairs, events and panels related to the Turkish defense industry are drawing major global interest. This attention and strong global demand are driven by the ecosystem that has emerged within the defense sector, offering a more favorable model in terms of technology transfer, joint production and cost efficiency than its counterparts. With current geopolitical conditions in the mix, SAHA 2026 hosted ministerial-level participation from 55 countries.
Battle-tested systems and examples of buyers gaining operational superiority have further increased interest in what has become one of Türkiye’s most successful industries.
One of the major attractions at this year's fair was the Güçhan jet engine, which is believed to have been developed for the Kaan fighter aircraft. As one of the most powerful jet engines in its class, Güçhan represents the “Made in Türkiye” brand on a global scale.
But the biggest surprise at this year's expo was "Yıldırımhan," Türkiye's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). With a range of 6,000 kilometers (3728.23 miles), Yıldırımhan stands among the largest and most advanced missile systems of its era and represents one of the most sophisticated weapon systems developed by the Turkish defense industry yet. At a time when tensions and conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran continue, Türkiye’s decision to unveil the Yıldırımhan long-range missile system should not be viewed as a coincidence.
In addition to an air defense system designed to deter, Türkiye's potential enemies will now face the possibility of their own territories becoming targets. This dual deterrence model, combining both defensive and offensive capabilities, has become one of the most demanded outputs of modern defense industries. Türkiye has emerged as an actor capable of offering some of the most advanced solutions of the era in both fields. Furthermore, the Turkish defense industry’s emphasis on joint production and technology-sharing models has generated greater opportunities for cooperation and increased demand, compared to alternative suppliers.
A closer look at the agreements and sales deals signed during the fair reveals that countries such as the U.S., Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Nigeria, Brazil and Japan stood out prominently. In particular, ammunition sales agreements were signed with the U.S., Romania and Bulgaria. While cooperation opportunities based on a joint production model were discussed with Japan, it is possible that new agreements may be announced in the near future.
Baykar Technology, Aselsan, Roketsan, and Havelsan were among the companies that secured the highest number of contracts and cooperation agreements during the exhibition, while unmanned aerial vehicles remained the main focus. Kızılelma, Akıncı, TB2 and TB3 accounted for some of the most notable export deals. In addition to air systems, land vehicles and naval platforms were also among the fair’s centerpieces. A total of 182 agreements were signed, and 164 signing ceremonies took place during the event, which was also attended by groups of military technical experts from various countries.
The sales agreements signed with Ukraine and Poland represented continuations of previous cooperation frameworks, while new procurement commitments were made for future deliveries. Canada, meanwhile, emerged as one of the countries attracting the greatest attention. Despite imposing sanctions on Türkiye during military operations such as Operation Peace Spring, Operation Olive Branch and Operation Euphrates Shield, Canada signed production and supply agreements with Turkish companies in areas such as missile systems, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence-supported software.
Having undergone a major transformation between 2016 and 2026, the Turkish defense industry has entered the ranks of global defense giants by turning sanctions into opportunities and strengthening its domestic production capacity. Drawing significant lessons from crises, urgent operational requirements and ongoing conflicts, Türkiye has therefore attached increasing importance to indigenous production.
Having transformed self-sufficiency into a strategic reality, the country does not hesitate to engage in joint production with allied actors and seeks to establish long-term partnerships through training and cooperation programs. This approach has also made service exports possible, contributing significantly to Türkiye’s transformation into a global-scale defense industry power. The geographical distribution of the countries signing agreements during the exhibition further demonstrates the validity and accuracy of this analysis.
The planned establishment of joint production facilities in the Baltic states can be regarded as an example of the issue mentioned above. The preference for the Baltic region as a production hub for defense industry products needed on European soil should also be carefully analyzed. At a time when the war in Ukraine continues, the Turkish defense industry is being preferred as a guarantor of security and as a supplier capable of equipping armed forces.
It is also emphasized that a similar production model is being designed with Indonesia and that cooperation agreements may be concluded with other countries as well. Expanding its production lines and supply chains from West Asia to Southeast Asia and Europe, the Turkish defense industry may close 2026 with record-breaking export figures. Current estimates suggest that exports will exceed $11 billion, while the industry’s production capacity is being strained by the rapid pace of new orders. Such development would mean that Turkish defense exports, which stood at $1.67 billion in 2016, would surpass $11 billion by 2026. As a country aiming to increase high-technology production and exports, Türkiye therefore places great importance on the defense industry and continues to strengthen global cooperation.
In conclusion, SAHA Expo 2026 evolved into a global-scale exhibition that featured many firsts. Serving as an opportunity to demonstrate the level reached by the Turkish defense industry and to promote the “Made in Türkiye” brand, the fair attracted thousands of visitors and numerous countries. The next edition of the exhibition, which will be held in 2028, is likely to generate even greater international interest.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/saha-expo-2026-revealed-turkiyes-growing-defense-power
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Iran refuses to kneel: Why the US cannot dictate peace
May 11, 2026
by Ranjan Solomon
War rarely ends when one side declares victory. It ends when both sides conclude that continuing the conflict costs more than compromise. The current confrontation between the United States and Iran has now reached precisely that dangerous threshold. What began as a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Tehran is slowly turning into a test of endurance, political legitimacy, and strategic patience. Beneath the rhetoric of ceasefires, missile strikes, and diplomatic manoeuvring lies a deeper reality: the United States seeks a settlement on its own terms, while Iran insists that peace without justice is merely another form of surrender.
Diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Iran have hit a critical impasse, with both sides trading fire and accusations while attempting to manage a fragile, contested ceasefire.
Despite a two-week ceasefire starting 8th April 2026, tensions have escalated in the Strait of Hormuz. The US Navy reported disabling Iranian flagged tankers attempting to breach a blockade. Concurrently, Iran claimed its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) fired missiles at US destroyers, alleging they caused damage and forced a retreat, a claim downplayed by the US as a “trifle”.
Iran has rejected a recent US proposal as a demand for “surrender,” demanding an end to sanctions, war reparations, and full control over the Strait of Hormuz.
An online, technological “meme war” has emerged, with AI-generated imagery depicting attacks on ships and mocking leaders, further poisoning the diplomatic atmosphere.
There are core issues and counter positions involved with both sides unwilling to yield grounds. Donald Trump has expressed that while talks are “going very well,” it is hardly the truth. Why else would he threaten “great damage” to Iran if a deal is not signed?
The US aims to permanently end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and roll back Iran’s nuclear program. This aim has no give-and-take in it. Trump’s my way or the highway would have worked if Iran were limping in pain and was hurt and/or damaged severely. Consequently, the situation remains “extremely fragile,” with expert warnings that the stalled negotiations could trigger a larger, direct military confrontation if a breakthrough is not achieved.
Iran stands firm resolutely and will only give in if the peace deal has clear prospects of justice and permanence in it. Iran will not any longer stand for a haphazard deal which allows the USA and its ally Israel to start surprise attacks again. Iran’s vigilance and agility is iron-clad.
Iran has set out its demand in no uncertain terms and has pledged its non-negotiable determination to stand by the conditions it has set. These include:
Acceptance of Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment.
Compensation for damages caused by U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Binding international guarantees to prevent future attacks.
Continued Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Lifting of primary and secondary sanctions.
Removal of U.S. military bases from regional nations
Tehran is demanding the lifting of sanctions and is refusing to curb its missile program, citing a need for “mutual respect”.
Trump has multiple compulsions for why he must find a swift peace deal. The military conflict reached the 60-day limit allowed by US law, restricting Trump’s authority to continue action without Congressional approval, which is uncertain.
The conflict has resulted in a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, causing significant disruption to global energy markets and bringing the US closer to a direct clash with Iranian forces, which Trump aims to avoid through a swift deal.
President Trump is pushing for a rapid conclusion to the 2026 Iran war -despite claims of positive negotiations—due to a combination of political pressure, military stagnation, and a desire to avoid a prolonged entanglement. While Trump has maintained that a deal is “very close” and that Iran is in a “weakened position”, several factors indicate a desire to end the conflict quickly.
Despite initial claims that “80 percent of Iran’s missile launchers” were destroyed, the war has become a high-stakes, high-cost, and unpredictable conflict. Reports suggest the war has yielded few clear gains for the USA.The administration faces pressure to show a quick victory ahead of other diplomatic events, such as meetings with China, and to avoid negative political repercussions in the US from a prolonged war.
Trump has dismissed Iran’s peace proposal calling them “totally unacceptable,” and rejecting a deal that does not meet US requirements. The USA refuses to even countenance a deal that allows Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, with threats to destroy any efforts at uranium enrichment.
The US is enforcing a siege on Iranian ports and demanding security in the region, aimed at stopping the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has heightened economic and domestic demands. He has implemented new tariffs of at least (10 percent) on most foreign goods to cut the trade deficit, with Chinese imports potentially facing a (60 percent) tariff. Promises include making tips tax-free, eliminating taxes on Social Security payments, and further reducing corporate taxes. Executive actions compel federal agencies to prioritize American-made products, closing loopholes in federal procurement.
Trump has been leaning on Beijing to use its influence to force Tehran into a deal with Washington. Tehran has reported that the U.S. has continued to demand more than just a ceasefire, aiming for total submission in the conflict. Tehran maintains a defiant stance, believing its military and economic resilience can withstand pressure from the United States, even as it engages in, and at times disrupts, negotiations to end the ongoing 2026 conflict.
While maintaining a hardline, Tehran is participating in negotiations, viewing a potential deal as a way to “win” by normalizing its status and ending the war, even if President Trump declares a victory.
Iran continues to utilize its navy to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to pressure global energy markets and the US into concessions while Washington seeks to break Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions.
Iranian media and officials often frame the negotiations as forcing the US to accept their terms, viewing the continuation of their leadership as a success, regardless of the rhetorical, political, or economic costs. Trump frequently frames his approach as forcing Iran to the table, and often declares any movement toward negotiations or partial concessions by Iran as a victory for his “maximum pressure” campaign. It is a bitter pill to swallow for Trump to settle on Iran’s terms, but the logic of war plus the gathering storms in US politics as the midterms loom large leave him with no real alternative but to negotiate.
It may seem the US sanctions are the main hurdle to a deal. Not really. Of course, it is the irreducible minimum for Tehran.
The real obstacle to peace is therefore not merely sanctions, uranium enrichment, or the Strait of Hormuz. It is the refusal of both powers to recognize that durable peace cannot be built on humiliation.
Peace will only become possible when power gives way to realism, and realism finally makes room for justice.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260511-iran-refuses-to-kneel-why-the-us-cannot-dictate-peace/
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Palestine’s Christians being written out of history
DR. RAMZY BAROUD
May 11, 2026
The video is horrifying, though it is the kind of horror that is now synonymous with the behavior of Israel, its military, its armed settlers and a society that has been conditioned to see the “other” as subhuman.
Yet, this was not the typical viral video that emerges almost daily from the Occupied Territories. The victim, this time, was not a Palestinian. She was an elderly French nun.
On May 1, footage surfaced from Jerusalem showing a 36-year-old Israeli man running up to the nun — a researcher at the French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research — from behind and shoving her violently to the ground.
In a chilling display of cruelty, the assailant did not simply hit and run. He walked away a few paces, then returned to the fallen woman to kick her repeatedly and mercilessly as she lay helpless.
What was most astonishing was the sense of normality that followed. The assailant remained on the scene, conversing with another man who appeared entirely unperturbed by what should have been a devastating event in any other context.
The video briefly imposed itself on the mainstream media scene, garnering perfunctory condemnations. Many explained the event as part of the larger landscape of Israeli violence, highlighting the ongoing genocide in Gaza as the most obvious example of this unchecked aggression.
But even the context of general violence does not fully explain why a French nun was targeted. She is not dark-skinned, she is European, she is Christian, and she holds no historical or territorial claims that would typically trigger the “security” paranoia of the Zionist state.
Still, the incident was anything but “isolated,” despite the rush by Israeli officials to label it a “shameful” exception. On the contrary, the nun was attacked specifically because she is Christian.
This raises the question: why?
To answer this, we must acknowledge how Palestinian Christians have been systematically written out of the history of their own land.
Palestinian Christians are not merely present on the land; they are among the most historically rooted communities in Palestine. They are anything but “foreigners” or “bystanders” caught up in a supposedly religious conflict between Jews and Muslims.
In fact, the Christian Arab presence in Palestine predates the Islamic era by centuries. They are the descendants of historic tribes that shaped the region’s identity long before the advent of modern political labels.
The marginalization of Palestinian Christians is a relatively new phenomenon, deeply linked to Western colonialism. For centuries, European powers used the pretense of “protecting” Christian communities to justify their own imperial interventions.
Consequently, this framed the native Christian not as a sovereign Arab with agency but as a ward of the West — a narrative that effectively stripped them of their indigenous status and alienated them from their own national fabric in the eyes of the world.
Zionism added a lethal layer to this erasure. It has often projected itself as a “protector” of Christians to avoid raising the ire of its Western backers. In reality, Palestinian Christians have been subjected to the same policies of ethnic cleansing, racism and military occupation as their Muslim brothers and sisters. How else can we explain the catastrophic dwindling of the Christian population?
Before the 1948 Nakba, Palestinian Christians made up about 12 percent of the population. Today, that number has plummeted to a mere 1 percent. During the Nakba alone, tens of thousands were expelled from their homes in West Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa, their properties looted and their communities dismantled.
A quick look at a map of Jerusalem and Bethlehem today tells the story of an ongoing erasure. Jerusalem is being systematically emptied of its native population, both Christian and Muslim. Christian properties and houses of worship are restricted and the “Little Town” of Bethlehem has been swallowed up by a ring of illegal settlements and an 8-meter-high apartheid wall that has transformed the birthplace of Christ into an open-air prison.
Yet, despite this, we rarely hear about the struggle for survival of Palestinian Christians. Instead, the world occasionally glimpses “incidents” — like the common habit of Jewish extremists spitting on foreign pilgrims and clergy in Jerusalem. This behavior has become so normalized that Israeli government ministers, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, have defended the act as an “ancient Jewish custom” that should not be criminalized.
The reason the Palestinian Christian story is rarely told is that it fails to factor neatly into the convenient narratives used by Western governments. They are keen on presenting the conflict as being between a Jewish state fighting for its identity and a monolithic Islamic threat. Israel is heavily invested in this “clash of civilizations” trope, positioning itself as the vanguard of “Western civilization” against Arab extremism.
But some Palestinians — Muslim and Christian alike — are, to a lesser degree, also guilty of falling into this trap. The former often frame the Palestinian resistance as an exclusively Muslim struggle; meanwhile, some Christians participate in the very discourse that led to their marginalization in the first place.
The Gaza genocide, however, has proven this logic not only erroneous but unsustainable. Throughout the slaughter, Israel has destroyed more than 800 mosques, but it also has not spared the Christian sanctuaries.
On Oct. 19, 2023, an Israeli airstrike targeted a building within the compound of the Church of Saint Porphyrius — one of the oldest churches in the world. In that massacre, 18 Palestinian Christians were killed, their blood mixing with the dust of a sanctuary that had stood for 1,600 years. It was a devastating reminder that the Israeli missile does not distinguish between a mosque and a church, nor between the blood of a Muslim and a Christian.
The story of the French nun is worth every bit of the attention it received, as is the targeting of pilgrims. But as the headlines move on, we must remember that Palestinian Christians endure a suffering that is collective and rooted in the soil of Palestine. They are now an endangered community and Israel is the culprit. Without them, Palestine is not the same.
The Palestinian homeland is only whole when it is the cradle of religious coexistence. And Palestinian Christians sit at the heart of that history, dating back two millennia. Their survival is not a “minority issue” — it is the survival of Palestine itself.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2643155
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Saudi Arabia’s quiet push for peace in the Gulf
HASSAN AL-MUSTAFA
May 11, 2026
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs broke its silence on May 5 with a pointed call for de-escalation, restraint and an end to provocation across the Arabian Gulf. In the same statement, Riyadh threw its weight behind Pakistan’s mediation effort and the wider diplomatic drive for a political settlement — warning that the region could ill afford to drift any further toward instability. The Kingdom also pressed for the full restoration of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, insisting that ships be allowed to pass freely and safely, without conditions.
This message tracked closely with the line Riyadh has held since the regional crisis ignited on Feb. 28. Saudi Arabia was never a combatant in the war that pitted Israel and the US against Iran, yet it absorbed the blows all the same. Iranian ballistic missiles and drones struck Saudi territory during the fighting and Iraqi militias loyal to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit critical infrastructure inside the Kingdom, briefly knocking out segments of the energy supply. Saudi engineers restored operations within days — a response that quietly underscored just how prepared the state had become for precisely this kind of pressure.
Riyadh’s posture throughout the war has been one of strategic patience. It declined to enter the fight offensively, leaned on its air defenses to absorb Iranian salvos and rerouted oil flows from the Eastern Province through the East-West pipeline to Red Sea terminals. Other ports along the western coast kept goods, food and essential supplies moving into Gulf states whose trade had been choked off by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Behind the scenes, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan worked the phones. He kept lines open to Gulf, Arab and Western capitals, stitching together what amounted to a regional safety net — one designed to keep the war from metastasizing. At its peak, the conflict threatened to drag in Turkiye and Azerbaijan, an escalation that would have meant a wider, bloodier regional war and the kind of chaos in which extremist groups, sectarian militias and extremist movements traditionally thrive — a landscape in which states erode and sectarian conflict fills the vacuum.
Even under Iranian fire, Riyadh refused to slam the diplomatic door. Iran’s ambassador to the Kingdom, Alireza Enayati, remained in his post throughout the war. Once a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire took hold, Prince Faisal and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, spoke by phone on multiple occasions in publicly disclosed calls. Saudi airports continued to receive Iranian pilgrims arriving for the Hajj without incident — a deliberate signal that Riyadh treats religious obligation as a duty distinct from political grievance.
Pakistan’s role was central and Saudi Arabia made sure it was supported. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif flew to Jeddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while the two countries’ foreign and defense ministers maintained tight coordination. Those efforts paid off in the truce President Donald Trump announced for both the Gulf theater and Lebanon, alongside the temporary halt to “Operation Freedom” inside the Strait of Hormuz; a pause engineered, in part, to give diplomacy room to breathe.
On May 6, Sharif posted publicly on X to acknowledge the efforts of Saudi Arabia and the crown prince, which “will go a long way toward advancing regional peace, stability and reconciliation during this sensitive period.” A phone call between Prince Faisal and Araghchi followed while the Iranian foreign minister was on a visit to Beijing.
What Saudi Arabia is now pursuing is narrower in name but ambitious in scope: lower the temperature across the Middle East, from the Gulf to Lebanon; reopen the Strait of Hormuz to safe navigation; clear the sea mines; and shut down any attempt by Tehran to dictate unlawful terms over the waterway.
Riyadh wants a permanent ceasefire locked in place and a framework agreement that closes off any military path for Iran’s nuclear program. In exchange, Tehran would see sanctions, the embargo and its frozen assets eased in stages — confidence built one verified step at a time, paired with binding guarantees against future Iranian aggression against Saudi Arabia or its Gulf neighbors. The same framework would force a reckoning with the armed militia question: weapons surrendered to national armies, fighters brought under the rule of law and threats to Arab neighbors taken off the table.
The endgame Riyadh is working toward is not complicated. Saudi Arabia wants peace in the Gulf to get on with the rest of its agenda — Vision 2030, economic diversification, the hardening of its borders and critical infrastructure, and the steady build-out of its military. What it is asking of Iran is straightforward: respect international law, stop the strikes, stop arming proxies and stop nurturing the violent actors that destabilize the neighborhood.
Stability would serve the people on both sides of the Gulf, provided Tehran is bound to commitments that actually hold. If that threshold can be cleared, Iran may find, in time, that development — its own and the region’s — is the better bet.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2643159
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The Gaza Genocide: When the End Comes, Who Will Be Sorry for Israel?
May 12, 2026
By Jeremy Salt
A Jewish settler wearing the uniform of an occupying army crouches on a hill outside the occupied West Bank village of Mughhayir and sprays bullets at a school.
Aws al-Nasaan, 14, and Jihad Abu Naim, 30, a construction worker nearby, are shot dead. Teachers and students take cover in their classrooms. Some students bravely rush outside to take their mortally wounded classmate away.
Other occupation forces arrive. They do nothing to restrain the gunman but fire tear gas into students and villagers gathering outside the school. They follow this up by disrupting the funeral procession and firing tear gas into the mourners.
The murderer is not arrested or charged, but suspended and has his gun taken from him. That is the extent of his punishment and no more will be heard about it. The London ‘Guardian’ refers to the killer not as a murderer or terrorist but as a ”militant.”
Aws’ father, Hamdi, was murdered by a settler in 2019. Such is the fate of untold thousands of Palestinian families. The violence and humiliation heaped on them seems to have no limits, as indicated by the depravity of using dogs to rape Palestinians in an Israeli prison.
Needless to say, dogs don’t naturally sexually assault human beings. They have to be trained. The evidence of this particularly sick crime is abundant but the media is not interested. Israel denies it, so it can’t be true; thus, there is no need to investigate.
In Gaza, rats feed off human feet because Israel has deliberately reproduced the conditions of a medieval plague. It has turned Gaza into a rat breeding ground, where life flourishes for lice and the scabies mite, not human beings. Israel has massacred and maimed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with bullets, missiles, and tank shells, but they can also be killed by denying them everything needed to live.
About 80 percent of Palestinian families are now living in tents. With 90 percent of sanitation and water infrastructure destroyed or damaged, with sewage pooling on the open ground, and with no fuel available for water pumps, sanitation is a critical issue.
There might be one lavatory for hundreds of people and they have to queue to use it. Some tents have makeshift lavatories or portable alternatives provided by aid agencies.
About 150,000 pregnant women and nursing mothers have been forcibly ‘displaced’ into tents and makeshift shelters in southern Gaza.
The UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA) says the lack of menstrual products, clean water, and soap for Gaza’s 700,000 women and girls makes it impossible for them to manage their periods.
Aid blocked by Israel includes sanitary pads. Less than a quarter of the 10 million pads needed every month are not available so women and girls, UNFPA reports, “are using torn clothes, sponges or old rags, often without proper cleaning.” UNFPA is distributing two-month supplies of sanitary pads as well as post-partum kits for new mothers.
With only 12 of 35 hospitals even partly functioning, all are overcrowded. There has been an unprecedented rise in congenital ‘anomalies’, a 140 percent rise in stillbirths, and at the Nasser hospital in Gaza, a 41 percent fall in births, along with maternal deaths.
Physicians for Human Rights says Israel is deliberately intending to prevent Palestinian births, with its attacks on medical facilities, including the December 2023 destruction of 5000 embryos and samples of sperm and eggs at the Basma fertility clinic. These actions are genocidal under the terms of the 1948 convention,
Skin diseases, watery and bloody diarrhea, and chickenpox are spreading among children, while an outbreak of polio in 2024 was the first in more than 25 years.
This is Israel’s ‘year zero,’ the genocide not just of people but of their landscape, their culture, and their history. The records of human life in Gaza over thousands of years are being obliterated.
This tidal wave of zionist anti-humanity is gradually engulfing West Asia without anyone stopping it, and with many supporting it. In the past year, scores of villages in southern Lebanon have been wiped off the map or destroyed to the extent that they are no longer inhabitable.
This is a replay of 1948-9, when the Zionists destroyed hundreds of villages and hamlets across Palestine, with the same intention as now in Gaza and southern Lebanon, which is to create nothing to come back to. The media calls the depopulation by an invading army in Lebanon “evacuation,” when it is again large-scale ethnic cleansing, a sub-unit of genocide.
The US/Israel have (or ‘has’, seeing they operate as a single unit) massacred 3468 people in Iran and wounded 26,500 since launching their attack on February 28, 2026. The dead include 4000 women and more than 1000 children. In Lebanon, 2702 civilians have been killed and 8311 wounded in Israeli attacks.
The UN’s Office for the Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHRA) says that in just three weeks from March 2, 2026, invading Israeli forces killed 1029 people in Lebanon and wounded 2768. One million people were “displaced,” when again the accurate phrase is ‘ethnically cleansed.’
On the occupied West Bank, settlers are licensed to kill, burn, vandalize, and drive out as they wish. Many have been inducted into the army as an untrained but murderous auxiliary force. The head of the occupying forces on the West Bank says matter-of-factly that they are “killing like we haven’t since 1967.”
This state-sanctioned murder of unarmed people is accompanied by the expulsion of thousands from their villages and even their complete abandonment. The settlers are jubilant. They have ‘returned’ to the land in which none of their forebears ever lived.
The Israeli-born scholar Omer Bartov has just published a book on the theme of ‘what went wrong’, when Zionism did not go wrong but was wrong from the start and is working out just as its architects had planned.
Israel’s annihilationist intentions are now proclaimed openly and brazenly by Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Katz, Smotrich, and many others. They are summed up by Jonathan Pollard, the Jewish American spy who stole enough classified documents to fill the bedroom of a suburban home, and was released in 2015 after 28 years in prison.
He is now seeking election to the Knesset on an open ticket of genocide. “I personally prefer the forcible removal of all current residents of Gaza and the annexation of Gaza and its repopulation by us.”
This is his campaign ticket. Note the similarity between the temporary “current residents” and Arthur Balfour’s “existing non-Jewish communities” in Palestine, as if the time will come when they won’t be “current” or “existing” any longer, which is precisely what Balfour had in mind and what the Zionists have always had in mind.
Israel is the most dangerous state on the planet. This is a swollen colonial settler regime of about 10 million people, insignificant numerically on a global demographic basis, but very significant when its lawless nature and possession of nuclear weapons are taken into account. It has let it be known that the day might come when it is crazy enough to use these weapons, and it would be folly not to take it at its word.
Zionism is a kin ideology to Nazism and should be outlawed for the same reasons. Nazi ideology gave rise to the Nazi regime and its crimes, and Zionist ideology gave rise to a Zionist regime and its crimes. The two are linked by the same inhumane instincts.
Yet, armed and indulged by ‘western’ governments, Israel’s time is finally running out. The favored child of the 1950s and 1960s is now recognized globally as the monster it always was.
Gaza will turn out to be the greatest mistake Israel ever made. It flaunted the crimes it was committing. It boasted about them. It filmed the humiliation of its victims and lied about its massacres. It raped, imprisoned, and tortured as if it wanted the world to know that there was no crime it was not prepared to commit in defense of the Jewish state.
Is there a humane solution to this, a settlement without further wars and mass destruction? At this point, the clear answer has to be ‘no.’ Israel’s choices center not on peace but on conquest and the complete extinguishment of the Palestinian people.
Some will say there must be a peaceful solution, but there are times in life when dialogue and negotiations run out of steam, and nothing is left but to run away or stand up to the bully. Western and Arab governments are running away. Hamas, Hizbullah, Yemen, Iran, and pockets of resistance elsewhere are standing up to the bully.
If there is hope, it lies in the rising opposition to Israel in the US. A young generation is coming into power and will want to shake this parasite from America’s back.
After Gaza, it is no longer fanciful to imagine US arms and economic embargoes against Israel, accompanied by threats of suspension from the UN and complete diplomatic isolation, as the tide gathers momentum. The good days for Israel have gone for good.
Without the steroids of US money and weaponry, Israel will be stuck. No one else is likely to step up as the replacement benefactor for a racist, genocidal state. The choices before it will then be stark, but by this time, it will be too far gone to make the choices it could have made decades earlier. It will realize it has boxed itself into a corner and can’t get out. Who but itself will feel sorry for it?
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-gaza-genocide-when-the-end-comes-who-will-be-sorry-for-israel/
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Empires Rise and Fall: Could Trump’s Iran Fiasco Be America’s Suez Crisis?
May 12, 2026
Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but similarities in the larger context suggest that the United States is facing the same kind of “end of empire” moment that the British Empire faced in that historic crisis.
In 1956, the British Empire was still resisting independence movements in many of its colonies. The horrors of British Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya and Britain’s brutal guerrilla war in Malaya continued throughout the 1950s, and, like the United States today, Britain still had military bases all over the world.
Britain’s imperial domination of Egypt began with its purchase of Egypt’s 44% share in the French-built Suez Canal in 1875. Seven years later, the British invaded Egypt, took over the management of the Canal and controlled access to it for 70 years.
After the Egyptian Revolution overthrew the British-controlled monarchy in 1952, the British agreed to withdraw and close their bases in Egypt by 1956, and to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt by 1968.
But Egypt was increasingly threatened by Britain, France and Israel. Through the 1955 Baghdad Pact, the British recruited Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan to form the Central Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet, anti-Egyptian alliance modeled on NATO in Europe. At the same time, Israel was attacking Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip, and France was threatening Egypt for supporting Algeria’s war of independence.
Egypt’s President Nasser responded by forging new alliances with Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries in the region, and, after failing to secure weapons from the US or USSR, Egypt bought large shipments of Soviet weapons from Czechoslovakia.
Upset with Egypt’s new alliances, the United States, Great Britain and the World Bank withdrew their financing from Egypt’s Aswan Dam project on the Nile. In response, Nasser stunned the world by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company and pledging to compensate its British and French shareholders.
British leaders saw the loss of the Suez Canal as unacceptable. Chancellor Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary, “If Nasser ‘gets away with it’, we are done for. The whole Arab world will despise us… and our friends will fall. It may well be the end of British influence and strength forever. So, in the last resort, we must use force and defy opinion, here and overseas”.
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden hatched a secret plan with France and Israel to invade Egypt, seize the Canal, and try to overthrow Nasser. The US rejected military action against Egypt, and President Eisenhower told a press conference on September 5, 1956, “We are committed to a peaceful settlement of this dispute, nothing else.” But the British assumed that the US would ultimately support them once combat began.
Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and then Britain and France landed forces in Port Said at the north end of the Suez Canal, under the pretense of protecting the Canal from both Israel and Egypt.
But before Britain and France could fully seize control of the Canal, the US government intervened to stop them. The US began selling off its British currency reserves and blocked an emergency IMF loan to Britain, triggering a financial crisis. At the same time, the USSR threatened to send forces to defend Egypt and even hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons against Britain, France, and Israel.
The UN Security Council used a procedural vote – which Britain and France could not veto – to convene an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly under the “Uniting for Peace” process. Resolution 997 called for a ceasefire, a withdrawal to armistice lines, and the reopening of the Canal, and was approved by a vote of 64 to 5.
Four days later, Prime Minister Eden declared a ceasefire. British and French forces withdrew six weeks later, and the Canal was cleared and reopened within five months. Egypt subsequently managed the Canal effectively and did not block British or French ships from using it.
The Suez Crisis was the pivotal moment when the British government finally learned that it could no longer use military force to impose its will on less powerful countries. Like Americans today on Iran, the British public was way ahead of its government: opinion polls found that 44% opposed the use of force against Egypt, while only 37% approved. As Prime Minister Eden dithered over the UN’s ceasefire order, 30,000 people gathered at an anti-war rally in Trafalgar Square.
Eden was forced to resign and was replaced by Harold Macmillan, who withdrew British forces from bases in Asia, expedited independence for British colonies around the world, and repositioned Britain as a junior partner to the United States. That new role included arming British submarines with U.S. nuclear missiles, which is now a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But Macmillan’s successor, the Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, would later keep Britain out of Vietnam.
Britain charted a successful transition to a post-imperial future through its relationships with the United States and the British Commonwealth–an association of independent states that preserved British influence in its former colonies. On the domestic front, there was broad political support for a mixed capitalist-socialist economy that included free education and healthcare, publicly owned housing and utilities, nationalized industries, and strong trade unions.
Macmillan was reelected in 1959 with the slogan, “You’ve never had it so good.” When a cartoonist mockingly dubbed him “Supermac,” the nickname stuck.
Britain’s Tories were dyed-in-the-wool imperialists, much like Trump and his motley crew today. But they did not let their imperial worldview blind them to the lessons of the Suez Crisis. They could see that the world was changing, and that Britain had to find a new role in a world it could no longer dominate by force.
Most Americans today have learned similar lessons from failed, disastrous US wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But like the British people who opposed Eden’s invasion of Egypt, Americans have been repeatedly dragged into war by the secret scheming of leaders blinded by anachronistic, racist, imperial assumptions.
Trump is now encountering the same kind of international pressure that forced Britain and France to abandon the Suez invasion. Another Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly and a new “Uniting for Peace” resolution might also be helpful.
But ultimately, the resolution of this crisis, and the future of the United States in today’s emerging multipolar world, will depend on whether US politicians are capable of making the kind of historic policy shift that Macmillan and his colleagues made in 1956 and the years that followed.
Macmillan was not an opposition politician, but a senior member of Britain’s Conservative government, up to his neck in the Suez fiasco. The secret plot with the Israelis was his idea. President Eisenhower personally warned him at the White House that the US would not support a British invasion of Egypt. But unlike the British Ambassador who sat in on the same meeting, Macmillan assumed that, when the chips were down, Eisenhower would stand by his old World War II allies.
Maybe it was the shock of getting it all so wrong that persuaded Macmillan and his colleagues to take a fresh look at the world and radically rethink British foreign and colonial policy.
The crisis with Iran is at least as catastrophic for US imperialism as the Suez Crisis was for the British Empire. The question is whether anyone in Washington today is capable of grasping the gravity of the crisis and making the required policy shift.
To follow Britain’s Suez example would mean closing US military bases around the world; renouncing the illegal threat and use of military force as the main tool of US foreign policy; and relying instead on multilateral diplomacy and UN action to resolve international disputes.
But where is the Macmillan in the Trump administration or the Republican Party? Or the Harold Wilson in the Democratic Party, whose leaders have never even tried to formulate a progressive foreign policy since the end of the Cold War? Obama’s belated outreach to Cuba and Iran in his second term were their only flirtation with a new way forward.
The silver lining in the current crisis is that it may mark the final collapse of the neoconservative imperial project that has dominated US foreign policy since the 1990s and now cornered Trump into a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” choice between an unwinnable war with Iran and a historic diplomatic defeat.
Americans must insist that this crisis spark the radical rethink of US politics, economics and international relations that neocons in both parties have prevented for decades. Trump’s dead end in the Persian Gulf must also be the final end of this ugly, criminal neoconservative era, and the beginning of a transition to a more peaceful future for Americans and all our neighbors.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/empires-rise-and-fall-could-trumps-iran-fiasco-be-americas-suez-crisis/
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Do Not Surrender to Despair or Hope: Reality is Not Inevitable
May 12, 2026
By Alain Alameddine
German philosopher Karl Marx analyzed the dynamics by which employers profit from workers’ labor, predicting that this exploitation would inevitably spark a revolution. A logical conclusion, it would seem—yet most workers have not revolted over the past hundred years, nor are they revolting today.
Marx also predicted that European societies with the highest proportion of workers, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, would move toward socialism. Yet they turned to fascism, while the socialist revolution took place in Russian society, which had a low proportion of workers.
This contradiction preoccupied the leader of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci. He spent his years in Mussolini’s prisons analyzing it and concluded that authorities exercise not only coercive, material, violent hegemony but also cultural hegemony. They shape and propagate a system of values and beliefs that portrays reality as common sense—And once society comes to view reality as inescapable, it accepts it.
If we realize that a class has imposed a system to exploit us, we realize that the solution lies in confronting that class and dismantling that system. But if we consider what is happening to be inevitable, why waste our energy trying to change it?
Societies in Palestine, the Global South and even the world are captive to the cultural hegemony of inevitabilities and the spirit of resignation it fosters. The colony is killing and expanding; Lebanon is powerless; Syria has gone from bad to worse; Iran was unable to stop the genocide—or did not even try; China and Russia, like the United States and Europe, pursue their own interests. Normalization is underway, society is sectarian, and decisions are imposed from above. With so many absolutes, how can there be hope?
But hope, too, is part of the hegemony of inevitabilities. “Right will prevail”; “nothing can uproot the indigenous”; and “the colony is gasping its last breath”. As if Africa has never been enslaved, Turtle Island has never been genocided, and Palestine has never been occupied! The champions of inevitable victory seek reassurance: they recite verses about the victory of the faithful, seek desperate voices in the Hebrew media, soothe themselves in the accomplishments of the past. But hope has this in common with despair, that it locks us in inaction.
If it is inevitable Palestine to be occupied, or to be liberated—note the verb: “liberated,” as if the act of liberation happens on its own!—then why waste time and effort on the matter? In the presence of absolutes, why would there be action?
But a closer look at reality reveals something entirely different: that there are no inevitabilities at all.
Political decision-makers are fully aware of this, as they bear the burden of making choices in a world devoid of any inevitability. They realize that the systems presented to people as solid, cohesive blocs are the negotiated product of the contradictions among various interest groups—capitalist, identity-based, media, labor, and others. They realize that the balance of power among these conflicting blocs is in constant flux. They therefore realize that every choice is a gamble based on calculations and assessments of the balance of power and its possible shifts. Yes, those bearing the burden of decisions know there are no absolutes, even if they might suggest otherwise to get us to shift that burden to them.
Let us, then, examine reality as well. Take, for example, the most powerful political actor on the planet today: the United States. It defeated Nazi Germany and Japan, then the Soviet Union, and today imposes its language, currency, and rules on the planet, bombing whom it wills and capturing whom it wills. A colossal machine indeed. But colossal can be fragile.
Economically speaking, the United States did not produce the value it needs to dominate the world—it borrowed it. A quarter of its debt (which exceeds its entire GDP) is owed to other countries. And the value of its currency is not based on production but on global acceptance—an acceptance it has worked to impose over decades, yet one that is fading today. The BRICS system, for example, is based on trade in local currencies, not the dollar. Iran threatened to use this weapon in March 2026 when it stipulated that those seeking to purchase oil through the Strait of Hormuz would need to pay for it in yuan or crypto.
Furthermore, its bombing of Gulf facilities has created a rift between Gulf capitalists and their ruling families, prompting these regimes to consider withdrawing their investments—which amount to trillions of dollars—in the United States. The value of the dollar, like despair and hope, is an illusion.
Militarily, a small technological edge—or even a single technological advance—could shift the military balance in favor of the United States’ rivals or enemies. Moreover, its society is undergoing intense fragmentation. For example, a 2022 poll showed that nearly half of voters believe it is time for the United States to split in two based on views on abortion—a “two-state solution” modeled on the states.
The logic of identities that colonialism weaponized to dismantle the societies it targeted is now returning to dismantle the societies it founded. A growing number of studies show that the American state is losing its legitimacy—that is, its raison d’être—in the eyes of its fractured society, where secessionist rhetoric is becoming commonplace.
Added to all this is the United States’ failure to counter China, which it acknowledged in its November 2025 “National Security Strategy”, and the numerous risks associated with its new policies in this regard. Just as the Soviet giant fell suddenly, the American giant could fall as well.
This is by no means a cause for hope. The fragility of the United States, as an example of the fragility of existing systems around the world, is an argument for resisting the inevitability of defeat, not for submitting to the inevitability of victory. Moreover, “politics abhors a vacuum”; power relations do not fade away without being automatically replaced by other power relations.
Therefore, recognizing the fragility of existing systems is a call to action—specifically, to organized action. Al-Sinwar and Al-Deif could not have unleashed the Al-Aqsa Flood without Hamas, nor could Netanyahu have carried out genocide and expansion without the Likud, nor could Sharaa have seized power without Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, nor could Trump, Putin or Xi have held the power they have without having joined political parties.
Reality, then, is not inevitable; rather, it is the product of the balance of power among those who have organized to impose their agendas. We face a choice: either watch them decide our fate, or organize to be at that negotiation table. Let us not surrender to despair or hope, but rather organize and act.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/do-not-surrender-to-despair-or-hope-reality-is-not-inevitable/
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