International Glance
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has branded Britain an "Islamic republic", attacking a country whose governments have armed, protected and assisted Israel throughout its genocide in Gaza and wider regional wars.
During an interview broadcast by Army Radio, Netanyahu complained that the favourable British coverage Israel received during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war had disappeared.
The 1967 war began with Israel’s surprise attack on Egypt and ended with Israeli forces seizing the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
“Try to find that now in Britain, which you could call the Islamic republic of Britain,” Netanyahu said.
When the host responded, “Isn’t all of Europe like that?”, Netanyahu replied: “Yes, but you know, someone said the first Islamic republic with nuclear weapons will be the Islamic republic of Britain.”
Netanyahu brands Britain an ‘Islamic republic’ as it prepares Israel sanctions
German court ruling on Israel-Nazi comparison is a step in the right direction
A German court this month decided that comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is protected legal speech, highlighting a growing conflict between constitutional protections and Berlin’s political commitment to Tel Aviv.
The regional court acquitted a woman convicted in a lower court over social media posts comparing Israel’s conduct in Gaza with the methods of the Nazi regime.
In recent years, Germany’s support for Israel has increasingly shaped policing, administrative decisions and criminal prosecutions.
After 7 October 2023, Germany banned Hamas and Samidoun, a Palestinian advocacy group, while increasingly using laws originally aimed at preventing a Nazi revival to crack down on criticism of Israel.
The recent court ruling, which found that the woman’s use of Nazi imagery in the context of Israel’s conduct in Gaza constituted protected political expression, rejected the prominent notion within German circles that such analogies are inherently criminal in nature.
Emergency Declared in Novorossiysk After Ukrainian Strike on Russian Naval Base
Russian authorities declared a state of emergency in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk on Wednesday following a large-scale Ukrainian attack that damaged infrastructure, disrupted the water supply, and sparked multiple fires.
Novorossiysk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko announced the measure after authorities lifted a drone alert that had remained in effect overnight.
“A state of emergency has been declared in Novorossiysk,” Kravchenko wrote on Telegram.
“After the threat of a drone attack was lifted, I went to the damaged sites to assess the situation and speak with residents.”
An emergency command center was established to coordinate response operations, while crews searched affected areas for drone debris and began clearing damaged sites, Kravchenko said.
Iran’s steep demands for US over Strait of Hormuz threaten to derail reopening
A deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is teetering over steep demands from Tehran for the United States and vice versa.
Iran on Sunday said the agreement to set up new shipping lanes was in its final stages but repeated that the vital waterway would only reopen once Washington met certain conditions. Those stipulations include that the U.S. withdraw its naval blockade, pay Tehran compensation for damages from the war, unfreeze the country’s assets, lift sanctions and permanently end the conflict against the regime and its regional allies.
President Trump, in turn, on Monday demanded compensation from Iran for “all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” as well as to the families of protestors the Iranian government has killed over the past 50 years.
He later amended his demand to insist Iran also be responsible for “the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!”
US accused of meddling in British politics with $500,000 grant for ‘public education’ courses
The US embassy in London is offering grants of up to half a million dollars for new “public education” programmes in what has been criticised as interference in British domestic politics.
Using language that the pro-Trump Maga movement has sought to appropriate, a funding notice identifies a goal of fostering a “national conversation” about “shared civilizational values” underpinning US-UK ties. Priority will go to applicants aiming to celebrate “freedom of speech” and “limited government”.
It comes after senior Trump officials voiced sharp criticism of British authorities and repeated misinformation on a range of fronts including abortion and digital regulation, and allied with European far-right movements in attacks on hate speech and immigration policies.
The grants appear to be separate from other grants of $12m which the US state department is planning to allocate to organisations in the UK founded by the prominent Conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg and Toby Young.
Ukraine mourns 'collector of souls' Oleksiy Yukov, killed recovering war dead
Oleksiy Yukov, a Ukrainian known as the "collector of souls" for his decades-long work recovering the remains of soldiers and civilians on the frontlines of war, was honored in Kyiv on Saturday after being killed by a landmine during a recovery mission in the eastern Donetsk region.
Yukov, 40, was killed on Aug. 5 when he stepped on the mine during an effort to exhume a body, according to a social media post by his friend, Serhiy Hnezdilov. "This is a great loss for me personally and for the people close to me," he wrote in a translation published by Kyiv Post. "[H]e gave names back to the dead."
Thousands of Ukrainians paid their respects to Yukov in an Orthodox Christian service in the capital. Before the service in Kyiv, Yukov was mourned and honored in his hometown of Sloviansk in Donetsk province.
Yukov was known for his tireless efforts to bring closure to the families of those killed in the war. In carrying out that task in 2022, he lost an eye and sustained a leg injury in a mine blast, The Associated Press says, but returned to his work even as he was still recovering.
"For Your Eyes Only": Israel’s Mole Inside the United Nations
On February 20, 2015, an official of the United Nations Population Fund sent two Israeli diplomats an email containing a confidential report about a trip two weeks earlier to Washington, D.C. by Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“For your eyes only. Do not forward,” Yahav Lichner wrote to then-Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor and diplomat Ronny Leshno-Yaar in a meshttps://www.dropsitenews.com/p/for-your-eyes-only-israels-mole-insidesage sent from Lichner’s personal email account, describing the report as a “classified internal summary of Zeid’s meetings in Washington.”
The meetings came at a time when Israel was facing an independent commission inquiry by the UN Human Rights Council over its conduct during the 2014 military offensive against the Gaza Strip.
The document recorded private meetings that Al-Hussein held with White House officials, senators, congressional appropriations staff, AIPAC, J Street, and human rights organizations.
It also revealed a concern inside Al-Hussein’s office: that congressional anger over the UN inquiry could threaten American funding for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Lichner added that Al-Hussein had met with members of Congress including “our friend,” the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, adding that Al-Hussein was “trying to do damage control and distance himself from the report.”
More Articles...
- Ukraine Strikes 6 Russian ‘Shadow Fleet’ Vessels, 10 Energy Facilities in 48 Hours
- Zelensky Orders ‘Special Sanctions Operation’ Plan Targeting Russia's Military Industry
- Iran aims to ban U.S. and Israeli ships from Strait of Hormuz and charge others a toll
- Zelensky Urges Allies to Release Interceptors After Unintercepted Barrage Kills 17 in Kyiv Region
Page 1 of 202
