Sunday, July 05, 2026

Washington is subsidizing Israel’s booming global arms trade

 

Iron Dome

Despite the world’s frustration over its conduct, Tel Aviv is increasing market share and locking states into strategic relationships

Reporting | Military Industrial Complex

Stavroula Pabst

Jul 01, 2026

Even as frustrations mount over Israeli military campaigns across the Middle East, governments keep buying weapons from Israel — making it one of the world’s largest arms exporters.

As experts tell Responsible Statecraft, Tel Aviv uses these weapons sales to lock countries into long-term, strategic relationships that make recipients less likely to hold Israel accountable for their behavior in Gaza and Lebanon or in its West Bank policies. They stress that sustained U.S. support, including billions in military grant aid each year and the co-development of many Israeli weapons systems, helps make this all possible.

A weapons exports boom

Following October 7, Israel’s defense industry has exploded: the number of startups there nearly doubled, from 160 in July 2024 to 312 in April 2025. Its arms exports, which account for 75% to 80% of all Israeli weapons production, have grown in tandem. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data published in March, Israel was the world’s seventh-largest arms exporter between 2021 and 2025, surpassing the United Kingdom.

Tel Aviv raked in a record $19.2 billion from arms exports in 2025, a jump up from the $14.8 billion it made the previous year.

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Arms sales as political leverage

As Seth Binder of the American Committee for Middle East Rights (ACMER) told RS, “arms deals are expensive and often create a long tail to negotiate, complete, and fulfill over the life of [a given] contract.”

Over time, these contracts provide Israel a way to build relationships that other governments have strong incentives to preserve. Exports can “entrench relationships that constrain others’ ability to hold [Israel] accountable,” Daniel Levy, the president of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), said.

A growing global demand for weapons is playing to Israel’s advantage. A case in point is Europe. Spurred by fears of Russia and U.S. pressure to increase defense spending, some European countries are buying Israeli weapons to supplement their fraught rearmament efforts. The purchases continue despite disquiet across the continent over Israel’s actions in the Middle East, which have led some European Union countries to pursue arms embargoes or suspend export licenses to Israel.

Germany signed multi-billion euro deals for the Israeli-made Arrow-3 missile defense system, Heron drones, and Spike anti-tank missiles last year. Greece spent about $740 million on 36 Precise & Universal Launching System (PULS) rocket artillery systems in December. Romania signed a deal worth about $2.3 billion for Spyder air defense systems earlier this week and is now set to acquire its own version of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

Outside the EU, the value of U.K. arms- and ammunition-related imports from Israel skyrocketed from just $508,343 in 2020 to nearly $7.97 million in 2025 — a nearly 1,500% increase. A senior Israeli defense official told Reuters in early June that European countries are expected to order more air and missile defense systems soon.

But depending on Israel for critical defense needs may prove risky. “A government that might otherwise respond to public demands for sanctions or arms embargoes [against Israel] now faces the prospect of degrading its own air defense…if it does so,” Levy told RS.

Similar dynamics are playing out among Abraham Accords nations; Israeli exports to those countries jumped fivefold between 2023 and 2025.

“No one has any illusions that Israel is popular right now in [the Abraham Accords] countries,” an Israeli diplomat told The Economist last fall. “But their governments have made long-term investments in their defense ties with Israel, and they’re not about to change course.”

More broadly, continued prospects for arms sales turn Israel’s controversial military actions — in which Israeli defense technologies are being used against civilians — into a commercial selling point. As Omar Shakir, the executive director of DAWN, told AP last month, Israeli defense and technology companies have been “able to parlay the use of their products in Gaza to attract more business.”

Israel’s arms exports blitz: fueled by Washington

Israel’s weapons industry is booming in part because “the U.S. has long subsidized it,” Binder told RS.

Israel receives Foreign Military Financing from Washington, which provides funds for acquiring American weapons equipment, training, and adjacent services. The support is even more direct through what is called Off-Shore Procurement (OSP), which Binder said allows Israel to “use a portion of its Foreign Military Financing provided by the United States to pay for [its own] arms.”

Although OSP is set to phase out by 2028, Binder told RS that “Israel’s arms industry has arguably established itself as a competitor” to America’s weapons sector through the program.

Meanwhile, Israeli firms have gained a competitive edge, thanks to what former State Department official Josh Paul calls a “larcenous” approach toward U.S. intellectual property. “Many technologies developed by U.S. industry are [simply] re-developed and re-packaged by Israeli companies,” he told RS.

American support is often evident in the export deals themselves, where, for example, the Arrow-3 system Germany bought from Israel was co-developed with the U.S., which helped fund its development. Because of Washington’s role in the program, U.S. approval was required before the initial sale could proceed.

Altogether, the International Trade Administration observed that U.S. assistance has “turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide.”

Currently, a series of congressional proposals under consideration — including one that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed as his “personal plan” — stands to give Israel’s defense sector a deeper foothold in the U.S. market.

Indeed, section 219 (previously section 224) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2027 would move to more closely integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries. The provision would further incorporate Israeli technologies and companies into U.S. supply chains, likely creating more opportunities to sell its weapons.

As Paul told RS, Israel being positioned “to become a supplier to the U.S. military is just a further example of [it] using [its arms] sector as a tool of influence.”

Stavroula Pabst

Stavroula Pabst is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

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Saturday, July 04, 2026

Is America Truly Becoming a “Zionocracy?”

New legislation could kill the freedom to criticize the Jewish state

Philip Giraldi • July 4, 2026

• 1,900 Words • Leave a CommentQ&A

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The country that once was the United States of America is now, in its 250th year, led by a president whose ignorance of history and policy is so profound that almost anything goes, including the initiation of wars fought for a foreign nation that is widely regarded as manifestly evil. I am of course speaking of the power that Israel has over US foreign policy in particular, though that leverage has been increasingly also impacting on the running of the economy and the elimination of fundamental liberties like freedom of speech. One has to ask, what kind of independence does America actually have when it allows another country, supported by domestic Jewish and Christian Zionists, to drain resources stolen from taxpayers through endless wars and a managed foreign policy that doesn’t benefit American citizens in any significant way. Above all, it is a “policy” driven by false religious beliefs that the former Palestine should become a wholly Jewish state that is “chosen” to expand and become “Greater” through wars initiated throughout the Middle East.

And pretty much the same elite Zionists that control the White House and Congress largely manage the other elements in the federal government while also controlling central banking through the Federal Reserve, which is privately operated and has less than 5% of money in “Reserve.” Most Americans are unaware that this financial runaway train will soon bring bankruptcy to the nation by way of a current $39.4 trillion in Federal government debt (122.1% of GDP), which amounts to $356,620 per taxpayer.

And there is more bad news! President Donald J Trump might rightly be regarded as the most pro-Israeli in the history of our nation, which is saying quite a lot, and it comes as no surprise that when one of his most ardent Jewish supporters Mark Levin recently described him as the “First Jewish president!” Trump responded “That’s true!” Whether that was confirmation of the reality of the assertion or merely agreement that Levin had said that can perhaps be in dispute, but it does reflect a certain reality. In a speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd Trump went on and on about purging the country of its “communists” but what he was really talking about was its liberals who are critics of Israel such as the New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congressman Ilhan Omar!

Trump has been fighting a totally pointless and extremely unpopular war with a non-threatening Iran due to Israel convincing him to do so and he has tolerated a horrific genocide in what was once Palestine while also making the US complicit in the slaughter by providing the weapons, money and the political cover to permit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get away with the war crimes. And now there are reports that Trump has ordered the US military to begin preparations to engage in Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah, which is no threat to American though an enemy of Israel.

That is the current reality. Our America, a victim of the powerful domestic Israel Lobby which has corrupted Congress with money and which controls most of the mainstream media, is truly a slave of what Israel regards as its national security policy. This has led some American critics of what is taking place to begin to refer to the USA as the “Zionization of America to create a Zionocracy” a name that has a certain resonance as it reflects a certain reality in that maintaining Jewish/Israeli dominance of the United States has stripped the nation of what once were basic constitutional rights.

Consider for example what already exists to favor Israel and what is impending that will make the US a virtual client state of the ruthless apartheid entity that has taken control of both the White House and Congress. It is often noted how the US Congress gave war criminal Netanyahu 58 standing ovations when he addressed that body in 2024. And there is already in the State Department a Bureau that exists to counter what it describes as antisemitism worldwide. It is called the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS), which was created to advance US efforts in addressing antisemitism globally. It was established by the Global Antisemitism Review Act of 2004 and is led by a special envoy with ambassador status who reports directly to the Secretary of State. It is currently headed by a Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun. It accepts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to include verbal or written criticism of the behavior of Jewish groups or of Israel as ipso facto evidence of antisemitism, which it regards as a crime. By way of comparison, no other country except Israel has an office that goes around the world with a mission to root out what it chooses to regard as antisemites.

So all right, let us accept that it is really bad, but there are some new initiatives that have surfaced that are about to make things worse at a time when we have a president who is prepared to give the Israelis and the Jewish domestic lobby anything they ask for. Some of the legislation coming out of Congress will dramatically strengthen Israel’s ability to interfere directly with the policies that might be supported by the US government. There is in fact serious discussion going on concerning several bills passing through the House of Representatives and Senate that will dramatically reshape the relationship with “best friend and greatest ally” Israel. The debate relates to section 224 of the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) for 2027, and section 622 of the National Intelligence Act for the same year. There is also a proposed re-configuration and granting of American military veteran benefits to citizens who choose to fight for the Israel Defense Force, requiring amendment of title 38 of the United States Code as well as of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. All the relevant bills are currently circulating in Congress including the questionable sections and, though there is growing resistance to them, they are at this time expected to pass.

NDAA Section 224, entitled the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” reads in part: “The Secretary of Defense shall designate an executive agent, as such term is defined in Department of Defense Directive 5101.01 (relating to 6 DoD Executive Agent, issued February 7, 2022), responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation, by… identifying jointly developed or Israeli-origin technologies with operational utility for potential integration into United States systems and programs of record.”

As one can easily discern, the arrangement is very broadly conceived and exists to greatly benefit Israel. It is already being mooted that the “executive agent” of the program will be an Israeli. If all of the legislation passes into law, which is almost certain, and is signed on by Trump, who has been seeking a “new security cooperation framework” with Israel, it would bind Israel to the United States in a way that is unique. Its broad commitment is not one shared even by NATO allies, and is well-nigh irreversible, something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly has been seeking to accomplish. When he is speaking in Hebrew to a Jewish audience, Netanyahu even grins and takes credit for having covertly manipulated an acquiescent White House and Congress to incorporate the sections of the bills on Defense and Intelligence. Netanyahu has said he wants America’s elected officials, whom he largely owns and has even thanked for their subjugation, to ram the broad new “partnership” arrangement through over the next two years before Trump leaves office.

And even worse is being contemplated! In May and June, a bipartisan coalition of 15 House Republicans and 14 Democrats led by Congressman Dan Goldman of New York formally sponsored the Jewish American Security Act (JASA), a piece of legislation that if passed would possible constitute one of the most devastating attacks on the First Amendment in American history. It would also, uniquely, make Jews as a group and the state of Israel deserving of special treatment and protection by the federal government. The bill is supported by nearly all Jewish non-profits and Zionist activist groups and is headed “To strengthen Federal efforts to counter antisemitism in the United States and protect the Jewish community.”

The bill includes the appointment of an Anti-Semitism commissar to run the Department of Education’s already existing program to eliminate pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses, a $1 billion dollar cash fund to “secure” Zionist and Jewish properties, mandatory government monitoring of online social media to compel the censorship of “anti-Semitic” political speech or writing on their platforms, and recasting the law enforcement missions of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterintelligence and Security Center to prioritize the targeting of critics of Jews and Israel as “foreign enemy actors and domestic terrorists.” Ironically, in addition to the $1 billion proposed in the bill to protect Jewish properties, those properties already get more than 90% of the discretionary security spending by the Department of Homeland, amounting to more than $300 million per year!

The act will also reinforce and make permanent Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14188 (“Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism”), which included making Israelis a “protected class above criticism” under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Eric Striker observes how “Under executive orders signed by Joe Biden and Donald Trump, this interpretation of the law has been used to weaponize access to federal subsidies to American higher learning institutions in order to shut down pro-Palestinian and anti-war activism among students. In addition to having an ‘Antisemitism Coordinator’ micro-manage this ongoing war on dissent, JASA calls for a ‘public awareness campaign’ that will plaster propaganda posters in ‘high-traffic public places, such as a cafeteria, gymnasium, or student center, and digital posting on 1 or more high-traffic institution web pages, such as a web page for a student services department’ warning students and professors about the consequences of partaking in speech and activism that offends Jews or singles out Israel.”

Interestingly, 37 states already have laws or rules that deny jobs or services to anyone who supports boycotts or otherwise seeks to damage Israeli interests, so the concept of punishing presumed “antisemites” is already on the table. But a federal mandate takes it to a new and much higher level. Striker comments how “Such a law, if passed, would treat figures as prominent as Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly, Thomas Massie, Ana Kasparian, Ilhan Omar and Candace Owens, as well as many smaller critics that have arisen in recent years, as terrorists and enemies of the state.” The move to criminalize any criticism of Israel or the collective behavior of Jewish groups, if pursued aggressively at a national level, would have a devastating impact on the freedom of Americans to speak openly and honestly on issues like war and peace, for example. And of course that it what it is intended to do and you can count on the Jewish billionaires who have corrupted congress and bought the media to do what is wanted by monsters like Netanyahu to bring about that result. And it is all also just one part of the deliberate murder of American democracy. It is a major step to arrive at the “Zionocracy.”

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

 

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Gaza genocide: How many UN findings will the West ignore?

 

Hossam Shaker

MEE, 3 July 2026

Successive United Nations investigations have documented Israel’s genocide, yet western regimes still refuse to name it or deliver the accountability their own institutions demand

 

Chris Sidoti of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory speaks at a press conference in Geneva on 16 September 2025 (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

Chris Sidoti of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory speaks at a press conference in Geneva on 16 September 2025 (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

Once again, the United Nations reminds us that genocide is taking place in the Gaza Strip.

A report issued on 23 June 2026 by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory documented what Israel has committed against the Palestinian people, especially children.

This followed an earlier report from the same commission on 16 September 2025, which found that genocide was taking place, as well as the report of the UN special rapporteur issued on 20 October 2025.

But what can meticulously documented international reports do in the face of those who have insisted on averting their eyes from declared Israeli intentions to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, comprehensive destruction and horrific starvation – not to mention the torrent of live images transmitted around the clock to mobile devices from the field of atrocities over the course of two full years?

Specialised UN reports, testimonies by international rapporteurs and experts, assessments by the most prominent global human rights organisations, and even Israeli testimonies have followed one another, all confirming the reality of the genocide committed by Israel under the eyes of the world since October 2023.

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In contrast, most European and western states have clung to a rigid position that ignores this glaring truth, despite genocidal intentions being openly expressed in advance by senior Israeli leaders, who continued to boast of what their army and authorities were doing on the ground.

Official western comments on those reports were often absent, unlike what would have happened in other cases

Official western comments on those published reports were often absent, unlike what would have happened in other cases.

Is it not worthy of condemnation that senior European and western officials have persistently avoided using the term “genocide” in relation to these systematic and horrific Israeli practices?

It is as though the word were a firmly established taboo in European and western political, media and cultural discourse whenever Israel is concerned.

This taboo exerts its power over those officials and commentators who, in this way, give reason to suspect that acknowledging genocide depends on the identity of the perpetrator and the status of the victims.

Double standards

It is entirely understandable that the allies of a regime of occupation and genocide, or those who consider themselves Israel’s partners and friends, would avoid issuing a clear condemnation of conduct they themselves helped support and encourage, directly or indirectly, even if only through silence and denial of its atrocities.

Throughout this prolonged season of horrors, the Israeli side has enjoyed military and political backing, as well as propagandistic cover, through carefully crafted formulas uttered by senior European and western officials.

These amounted to evasive justifications for whatever war crimes and grave violations an occupying authority and its military forces might commit against a population left utterly exposed to continuous bombardment.

Those who still deny the Gaza genocide are complicit in Israel’s atrocities 

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This may be inferred from the phrase that has become a staple of western speeches: “Israel has every right to defend itself” – words that Israeli leaders understand simply as advance legitimation for a policy of mass killing and comprehensive destruction on the ground.

Naturally, no mention is made in this context of any right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves, for example, or of their right under international humanitarian law to resist the military occupation entrenched on their land.

States, governments and political leaderships – joined by elites in the fields of thought, culture and media – insist on ignoring the reality of genocide against the Palestinian people, or conceal it through a tendency toward genocide denial, as though all the serious international efforts of documentation and investigation had no value for them.

Denying a genocide that has unfolded before everyone’s ears and eyes simply means minimising its confirmed atrocities. It also entails direct or indirect encouragement of this pattern of horrific violations, so long as they are met with such shocking laxity.

Moreover, clinging to outright denial encourages the perpetrators to resume committing appalling war crimes, so long as these crimes are not named as such. Which western leaders – apart from a handful, such as Spain – have described what the Israeli leadership and its army have committed as “genocide” or “war crimes”?

It must be recalled that the centres of western decision-making, including the European Union and its leading bodies crowned with slogans of noble values and human rights, became implicated in a sweeping display of bias when they chose very mild or evasive terms to describe Israeli war crimes that the entire world followed in images, sound and live broadcasts.

Leaders and spokespersons resorted to cold expressions such as the ploy of “expressing concern” and voicing “sorrow” over the victims, often without naming the perpetrator, because the perpetrator was the Israeli leadership and its army, whose brutal policies and measures were visible to all.

Observers around the world have noted how the charge of “double standards” clings to European and western political discourse.

Follow Middle East Eye’s live coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza

This is precisely what the former vice-president of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, warned his EU colleagues against – in full view of a world that notices the grave moral gap between European positions on Ukraine and Palestine. He issued that warning days into the war, at a Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 23 October 2023.

One would not be exaggerating to conclude from these contradictory positions that they place some human beings above others in status, degree of concern and human dignity, so that the lives, safety and security of Palestinians are placed lower in rank than those of others.

Thus comes the tolerance of the crushing of children, mothers, the sick and the elderly in the Gaza Strip, without serious positions being taken to restrain the machinery of genocide.

The margins, not the centre

Those faltering positions gave the strong impression that they were conferring moral immunity on the perpetrator, namely the Israeli leadership and its regular army.

Prevailing European and western criticism was limited to only two reckless ministers from the Israeli government, which amounts to little, since Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are already constantly criticised within Israeli circles.

The narrative has been shifted into familiar terms about a ‘humanitarian crisis’, as though the programmed genocide were merely a natural disaster

Meanwhile, the government and the political leadership more broadly continue to escape direct criticism, even after the accumulation of filmed atrocities and the issuance of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself.

This evasion becomes even clearer when criticism, along with some sanctions of limited effect, has been confined to settler gangs and their leaders, without any verbal reproach or punitive gesture directed toward the Israeli army. The latter not only sponsors and protects settlers on the ground but also directly commits grave violations, appalling war crimes and campaigns of ethnic cleansing within the context of a horrific genocide.

This contradiction betrays a firmly rooted European and western position intent on exempting the state, its leadership and its regular military and security apparatuses from any clear criticism, explicit condemnation or accountability, while merely formal positions are issued concerning the margins rather than the centre: some settlers instead of the army, and only two ministers instead of the government.

Political Europe, and many elites in public life across western states, have even evaded confronting a simple question: does what Israel has committed against the Palestinian people constitute genocide?

Denying the genocide committed in Gaza requires wilful disregard.

It begins by brushing aside these war crimes and behaving as though they merit no attention. The adopted narrative has been shifted into familiar terms about a “humanitarian crisis” and “alarming” conditions, or a show of concern for “civilian suffering” – as though the programmed genocide, reinforced by declared intentions to commit it, were merely a natural disaster that befell the place.

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The states and governments that boast of their commitment to moral positions, human values, international law and human rights were supposed to honour those commitments. They should have warned against the campaign of genocide in its earliest stages, stripped it of political and propagandistic cover, and supported the enforcement of international justice and the cases filed over genocide against the Palestinian people.

Foremost among these is the case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice, on the basis of Israel’s violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Instead, campaigns of moral targeting, incitement, intimidation and even the imposition of unjust sanctions on prosecutors have escalated, affecting international justice bodies and their personnel, as well as UN rapporteurs.

Thus, it becomes clear that complicity with the genocide committed against the Palestinian people goes ever further in undermining international law and threatening the foundations of international action and the protection afforded to its institutions and authorities.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Hossam Shaker is a journalist and an author who has extensively covered the topic of migration in Europe.

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Friday, July 03, 2026

War Crimes, War Powers, and American Sovereignty

 From war crimes and genocide abroad to moral, constitutional, and debt crises at home: Why Congress must reject the NDAA’s U.S.-Israel military and intelligence merger.

by Dennis Kucinich | Jul 3, 2026

Against the horrific high- and low-tech butchery of Palestinians and Lebanese by Israeli ethno-nationalist psychopathic killers, this week there will be an effort in Congress to formally merge or integrate the military of Israel and the United States at the most advanced levels.

Section 219 (formerly Section 224) of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, provides for an unprecedented unification. The nearly $4 billion in the NDAA for Israel’s offensive efforts pales next to Israel having direct access to determining use of $1.5 trillion in annual military resources of the United States.

Money can be appropriated one year and withdrawn the next. Institutional integration is permanent.

Section 219 creates permanent mechanisms through which military planning, intelligence sharing, weapons development, procurement, research, artificial intelligence, and strategic coordination become increasingly intertwined between the United States and Israel.

It is a proposal to embed another nation’s military establishment within the long-term planning and strategic architecture of the United States government.

Our own government – House, Senate and Administration – is in moral collapse, placing overwhelming emphasis on militarism instead of adequately funding America – housing, education, food, health, safety, and retirement security. Americans are standing at freeway exits, begging for food, while our tax dollars flow to weapons manufacturers.

While carrying a national debt approaching $40 Trillion, the Administration is increasing spending for its newly dedicated Department of War by 67% to upwards of $1.5 TRILLION per year. Simultaneously, with more than 42 million Americans unable to feed themselves, the administration is cutting federal food programs.

The practical implications extend far beyond dollars. With NDAA Section 219, Congress the legislation would create enduring institutional relationships affecting how those extraordinary military resources are developed, coordinated, and potentially employed.

No Congress has ever before considered legislation of this nature with any foreign nation.

If the Administration’s “America First” claim were to mean anything, it must first mean that America’s Constitution comes first. It must mean that American families, farmers, workers, veterans, and children come first. Section 219 turns that claim into a farce.

Section 219 of the NDAA would cause the United States to become dependent upon Israel making decisions about war, peace, military strategy, intelligence, and U. S. national security. This is the consequence of permanent institutional integration.

One week ago, a UN Commission of Inquiry determined that Israeli security forces deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children, sometimes as a game, torturing them, subjecting children to sexual violence resulting in “unprecedented death, injury and trauma.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, the IDF has been instrumental in the deaths of as many as 800,000 Palestinians, including children, emergency health care workers, doctors, nurses, journalists, and educators.

UN investigators and human rights observers have documented the killing of Palestinian children and have accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the children of Gaza.

These findings are reinforced by dehumanizing statements from Israeli political figures who have portrayed Palestinian children as future terrorists, so children are targets.

Essential civilian infrastructure has been devastated. Water systems, hospitals, schools, electrical networks, and sanitation facilities have been damaged or destroyed, eacerbating a man-made, humanitarian catastrophe.

In the occupied West Bank, armed “settlers” have been widely reported to have attacked Palestinian communities, burned homes, uprooted olive groves and other crops, destroyed property, and killed livestock, further displacing civilian populations.

Israel has used starvation as a weapon, setting food as a trap and, gunning down Gazans as they rush desperately to feed themselves and their children. Water supplies have been poisoned, wells filled with cement.

Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are testing ground sfor increasingly sophisticated military technologies, destroying entire villages with increasingly powerful munitions, and using precision, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting systems. Human rights organizations have raised serious concerns about the speed of targeting decisions, civilian casualty rates, and the implications of delegating life-and-death decisions to algorithmic systems.

White phosphorous and other weapons banned by international treaty are in use.

The conduct of the IDF has earned world-wide condemnation. Twenty-nine UN member states do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The Israel newspaper Haaretz recently reported that the ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “Gaza must be destroyed entirely.” and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Givr, who has said: “All of Lebanon must burn.” Will these be our new partners? If so, the fundamental question becomes: Who are WE?

What is to be lost further in an Israel-U.S. military merger?

If the U.S. combines our military capabilities with the twisted occupation and expansionist ethic of Israel’s use of military technology against civilian populations, will it be long before our own government militarizes the high -tech surveillance infrastructure already in place to use state violence against our own citizens who protest abuse of basic rights?

The First Amendment has already been taken down on college campuses, and in cities and states where Israel critics are sanctioned.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) officials have trained in Israel. The lessons learned there have come to America in terms of deportation, detention, and in some cases, physical abuse, injury and death at the hands of ICE government agents.

Israel kills Arab children so they will not commit crimes in the future. Will Americans, as in the movie Minority Report be pitched into a dystopian world where predictive algorithms enable Israel-U.S. collaborators to hunt down, prosecute and even punish Americans for crimes not committed?

As a Member of Congress, I questioned Benjamin Netanyahu during a hearing which took place prior to the 2003 Congressional vote on going to war against Iraq. He admitted he wanted not only Iraq to be attacked by the United States, but also Libya and Iran. It is widely known that the Israeli Prime Minister pushed President Trump into the disastrous war against Iran.

It is inevitable that as Israel’s aggression is maximally empowered, once placed inside the U.S. war-making establishment, the U.S. will be dragged into the Zionists’ expansionist designs on Iran, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. A greater Israel means a lesser United States. Congress, heavily influenced by the Israel lobby, is unable to reclaim its constitutionally based war power

Since the merger is to be voted on, this week, before America celebrates the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us be reminded by Thomas Jefferson’s July 4, 1776 characterization of George III, King of Great Britain: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws….”

Our forefathers did not fight for freedom and for independence at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, nor sacrifice American blood and treasure in battles in World War I and World War II to arrive at July 4, 2026, having willingly forfeited our sovereignty to a foreign nation, losing control of our future and putting in doubt “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”

Call your congressperson today and tell them to stand for America’s independence and vote for the Massie-Khanna Amendment to remove Section 219 from the NDAA.

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Israeli jets entered Iran to attack negotiator plane after Islamabad talks, NYT reports

 Washington warned Tehran that Israel could target Araghchi as Ghalibaf’s plane made an emergency landing

 

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi aboard a flight to Zurich ahead of negotiations on 21 June 2026 (AFP)

MEE staff

Published date: 3 July 2026

Israeli fighter jets entered Iranian airspace as Tehran’s top negotiators were engaged in diplomatic efforts with the United States, according to a New York Times report that says American officials feared Israel was plotting to kill two senior Iranian officials involved in peace negotiations.

US officials became increasingly concerned that Israel could target Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on their return to Iran after peace negotiations between Washington and Tehran in Pakistan, the report published on Wednesday said. 

According to the New York Times, Washington was concerned that an Israeli assassination attempt could derail the talks and it asked regional countries to warn Iran about the potential threat.

“Any attempt to kill the Iranian leaders would end the talks and reignite the fighting,” American officials told the newspaper.

While Washington increasingly focused on securing a ceasefire and a diplomatic framework, Israel remained sceptical of negotiations that fell short of its broader war aims. 

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The New York Times reported that concerns peaked during negotiations that began in earnest in April, when Araghchi and Ghalibaf emerged as key interlocutors in talks aimed at securing a ceasefire and laying the groundwork for a longer-term agreement.

A US official and a Middle East official told the newspaper that the Trump administration learned that Ghalibaf was on an Israeli targeting list and asked Israel to refrain from any action against him.

Iranian officials quoted by the newspaper said Tehran also sought assurances from Washington, through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that Israel would not target members of the Iranian negotiating team.

The concerns were deepened during an April trip to Islamabad, where Ghalibaf was scheduled to meet US Vice President JD Vance.

According to the report, Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian delegation’s aircraft to and from Islamabad because of fears that Israel could attempt to assassinate senior Iranian officials. 

On the return journey, Iranian security services informed the aircraft carrying Ghalibaf that intelligence indicated Israel was preparing an attack and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace from the western border near Iraq, the newspaper reported, citing Iranian officials.

Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Ghalibaf who accompanied the delegation, confirmed the account on social media.  

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The aircraft subsequently made an emergency landing in Mashhad, and members of the delegation completed the journey to Tehran by land, travelling for approximately eight hours, the newspaper said.

“Today Mr. Ghalibaf and Mr. Araghchi, and other members of the negotiating team, have put their lives on the line knowing the grave security risks and this is called a real sacrifice, not political manoeuvring,” Iranian lawmaker Mohsen Zanganeh told local media in April. 

The newspaper reported that while the United States pursued negotiations that ultimately led to a framework agreement in June, Israeli officials viewed the emerging deal as insufficient because it did not achieve objectives such as regime change in Iran, dismantling Tehran’s regional allies and significantly degrading its missile capabilities.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment to the newspaper on the allegations.

Asked about the reported warnings to Iran, a US official told the New York Times that President Donald Trump wanted the peace process “to play out” and noted that talks between American and Iranian delegations were continuing.

Despite the reported threats, Araghchi and Ghalibaf continued travelling for negotiations, including meetings in Qatar and a subsequent round of talks in Switzerland in June with Vance and other members of the US delegation, according to the report.

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Thursday, July 02, 2026

Iranians believe Israel will restart war before its October elections

 

Benjamin Netanyahu

Whether the Trump admin is coordinating with Israel remains unclear to Tehran. But suspicions surrounding Marco Rubio run particularly deep.

 

Trita Parsi,  Jul 01, 2026

Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.

Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep — and not entirely unwarranted — suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.

From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran — one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.

That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.

Part of it was because of Israel’s much higher pain tolerance compared to the GCC states. Tehran was aiming to reach the most accessible pain threshold to pressure the U.S. to end the war. But part of it was the critical role Hezbollah played in the war, contrary to much of the press coverage at the time. It played a critical role in stretching Israel’s defenses, complicating its targeting decisions, and forcing it to divide resources across multiple fronts.

That role, however, was poorly understood because Israel imposed near-total military censorship during the war — far stricter than the censorship regime in June 2025 — which sharply limited public visibility into Hezbollah’s operations and their impact. As a result, the degree to which Hezbollah shaped the course of the war has been significantly underestimated.

Unlike the MOU, the current Israeli-Lebanese agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Since that outcome is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Israel is poised to retain its positions inside Lebanon, enabling it to renew the war with Iran without facing the same pressure from its northern front that constrained it during the previous conflict.

Netanyahu’s motivations are clear. Beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favourable to Israel, he now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war.

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The MOU has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu. His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position — undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.

And of course, if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as Prime Minister and face trial over corruption charges.

Whether the Trump administration is coordinating with Israel on such a strategy remains unclear to Tehran. But suspicions surrounding Secretary of State Marco Rubio run particularly deep, given his role in brokering the Israeli-Lebanese agreement, his support for the war, and his perceived opposition to the MOU.

From Tehran’s perspective, there are three plausible scenarios. The first is that the White House is aware of Israel’s plans and helped broker the Lebanese agreement in part to facilitate them. The second is that Washington is unaware of Netanyahu’s intentions but would nonetheless come to Israel’s defense — and perhaps even join the offensive — once Netanyahu resumes the war. The third is that the administration is caught by surprise, chooses not to restrain Israel, but also refrains from direct military involvement in the conflict.

Tehran does not believe Israel’s advantage in Lebanon will prove decisive. Iranian officials remain confident they can impose severe costs on Israel and deny it its broader strategic objectives. But a renewed war could still achieve Netanyahu’s most immediate aim: killing the MOU. Given his mounting political and legal pressures, Netanyahu may be desperate enough to be willing to challenge Trump directly to ensure precisely that outcome.

The question is, once again, not how Trump will react, but if Trump will prevent Netanyahu from deliberately shaping and limiting Trump’s options. This is the test Trump has repeatedly failed.

This article was republished from Trita Parsi’s substack

Trita Parsi

Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

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The U.S. oligarchy’s crime boss: Trump pocketed $2.2 billion in 2025

 Barry Grey, WSWS. ORG, 2 July 2026

 

President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference, Monday, March 9, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein]

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump released his mandatory financial disclosure for 2025. It showed that he more than tripled his personal income during the first year of his second term, from $622 million in 2024 to at least $2.2 billion last year.

The scale of Trump’s self-enrichment renders the great corruption scandals of American history almost quaint by comparison. The Teapot Dome affair of the 1920s, which stood for a century as the byword for political criminality, centered on roughly $400,000 in bribes—about $8 million in today’s dollars—accepted by Interior Secretary Albert Fall in exchange for leasing naval oil reserves. Fall went to prison. Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in 1973 over kickbacks totaling perhaps $250,000, collected in envelopes of cash from Maryland contractors. By Trumpian standards, small potatoes.

The report provided some indications of the flagrant self-dealing and corruption that enabled the real estate swindler and media huckster-turned-US president to massively expand his fortune and that of his family. By last September, the collective wealth of the Trump family stood at an estimated $10 billion, having nearly doubled since the November 2024 election. Donald Trump Jr.’s wealth went from $50 million to $300 million, and that of Eric Trump rose tenfold to $400 million.

In the same year, labor’s share of the national income fell to its lowest level since records began. In the third quarter of 2025, labor’s share fell to 53.8 percent, down from 70 percent in 1947. These statistics translate in real life into poverty wages, impossibly high rents and living costs, and longer working hours for tens of millions of workers.

An annual income of $2.2 billion is equivalent to the incomes of 37,931 US autoworkers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ estimate of the average autoworker’s wage, based on a 40-hour workweek. An annual income of $2.2 billion computes to $251,000 per hour. At that rate, someone takes in $70 per second, more than twice what a UAW autoworker earns in an hour.

No wonder that at an Oval Office event this week Trump defended his refusal to sign a bill to increase low-income housing, demanding that Congress first pass his plan to disenfranchise millions of working class voters and calling the housing bill a “big yawn.”

In his first term, between 2017 and 2021, Trump broke with the practice of modern presidents who put their financial affairs in blind trusts. He refused to divest from his businesses and placed them in a trust he could still access. He used his Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. as a cash cow, encouraging foreign delegations, lobbyists and Republican officials to spend money that flowed into his personal bank accounts. He granted his daughter Ivanka multiple Chinese trademarks while she served as a White House adviser, at the same time that US-China trade talks were underway.

That, however, pales in comparison to Trump’s second term. He refused to sign the ethics pledge he had taken in his first term, rescinded Biden’s presidential ethics rules, and fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics early in 2025, leaving it without a permanent director.

Trump made the bulk of his 2025 income from his cryptocurrency businesses, which accounted for some $1.4 billion. According to an analysis in the New York Times, his crypto venture World Liberty Financial, which sells a digital currency called $WLFI, took in $799 million last year, compared to $57 million in 2024.

Three days before his second inauguration, Trump helped launch a memecoin, $TRUMP, which has generated another $636 million. He made $77 million from Mar-a-Lago last year, compared to $50 million in 2024, and $122 million from his Trump National Doral golf club, an increase of $11 million. He holds shares in his Trump Media & Technology group worth $875 million. At the end of 2025, Trump had investment assets of at least $857 million, compared to $236 million the prior year.

Trump’s crypto businesses directly benefited from his policy decisions as president. In January 2025, three days before his inauguration, an investment firm tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates bought a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, generating $23 million in profits for the Trump family. Soon after, the Trump administration struck a deal for the US to export computer chips that power artificial intelligence to the UAE.

Trump’s memecoin business directly benefited from a February 2025 Securities and Exchange Commission statement notifying the industry that such tokens would no longer be subject to the agency’s oversight, reversing the position of the agency’s chairman during the Biden administration. And Trump signed legislation last July to promote a form of cryptocurrency called stablecoins four months after his family-backed firm introduced its own stablecoin.

Last October, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, the richest man in crypto, who had pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws and served four months in prison. Binance has since become a critical business partner to the Trump family’s own crypto venture.

Crypto, however, is by no means the only area where Trump has used the White House to promote his business ventures and increase his personal wealth. He has licensed the Trump name to properties in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Those two deals alone generated more than $14 million for Trump in 2025.

Last Sunday, the New York Times published an exposé about a multi-billion-dollar deal between the US and Kazakhstan for the development of tungsten mines in the former Soviet republic. The project directly involves the sons of Trump and his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Billions in loans from the U.S. Commerce Department and the Export-Import Bank are being allocated to finance a venture that stands to generate untold millions in profits for the two families, as well as other billionaire cronies of the president.

Then there are the millions being made by members of the financial elite from bets in predictive markets on oil prices based on advance notice of White House announcements of bombings and/or peace talks with Iran. In a world dominated by oligarchs and their gangster representatives such as Trump, the lives of countless thousands become the stuff of profiteering from manipulated markets. Investigative reports have documented how Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has used his role in negotiations and Middle East policy to secure massive sums from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies for his private investment vehicles.

This is all in addition to the more mundane corruption of the Trump administration, including no-bid contracts to donors with business before the government for projects such as the White House ballroom and the Reflecting Pool.

Trump is not merely breaking the rules; he is rewriting them so that his enrichment ceases to be legally classifiable as crime. Corruption raised to the level of state policy—the legalization of the loot as it is looted.

These are not the crimes of a single individual. The staggeringly wealthy and parasitic financial oligarchy has installed Trump, a fascistic product of the New York real estate and gambling mafia, as the head of state. Nothing reveals the mores of this new aristocracy more than the Epstein scandal, which implicates the heights of official society and whose cover-up unites Trump, the corporate media and virtually the entire political establishment.

As for the nominal opposition party, the Democrats, they wring their hands and complain but do nothing to stop the plundering or hold the criminals accountable, because they are controlled by the same class of oligarchs and defend their system based on the private ownership of the means of production and production for profit.

This entire class must be expropriated, and the wealth produced by the working class must be used to meet social needs.

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