TV News LIES

DUBAI – In a bold move, Emirati businessman Khalaf Ahmed Al Habtoor has sent an open letter to US President Donald Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham, expressing his strong opposition to involving Arab states in a potential war with Iran.

Al Habtoor criticized the push from some US officials for Arab countries to attack Iran. He emphasized that the region is being pressured into conflicts without consulting its own leaders.

He stated that Senator Lindsey Graham encouraged Arab nations to strike Iran, but thankfully, countries like the UAE and other Gulf states remain secure.

Al Habtoor warned that risking American lives and soldiers for Israel’s interests is a choice made by Trump and Graham, not by the UAE.

He stated that Senator Lindsey Graham encouraged Arab nations to strike IrAl Habtoor warned that risking American lives and soldiers for Israel’s interests is a choice made by Trump and Graham, not by the UAE.

He also highlighted that Senator Graham, while a US lawmaker, acts more in favor of Israel than the American people. He stressed that the UAE does not need American protection and is capable of making its own decisions.

Al Habtoor warned that risking American lives and soldiers for Israel’s interests is a choice made by Trump and Graham, not by the UAE.“While Iran’s threat is real, using Arab nations as fuel for others’ conflicts is unacceptable,” Al Habtoor wrote. He criticized attempts to control Iranian oil and reshape the Middle East, calling such strategies “dangerous and deceptive.”

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Video released by Iranian media shows what appears to be a Tomahawk cruise missile strike near an Iranian school where up to 175 people were reportedly killed, most of them school-age girls.

As more information about the strike emerged, Iranian officials blamed the United States and Israel. U.S. defense officials said they were investigating the incident. Israel has said it was not aware of an attack in that area and is also investigating what happened. The United States is the only force involved in the conflict that uses this type of missile, according to The New York Times.

Photos of missile fragments that bore the markings of an American cruise missile and described as “the remains of the American missile that landed on the children of Minab school” were posted to Telegram by Iranian media.

We have annotated the video below and slowed it down to make it easier to see the apparent missile and landmarks:

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Yosef, an Iranian Jew who studied history at university, is talking to Middle East Eye about the distinction between Judaism and Zionism.

Part of a small community that now numbers less than 10,000 in a country of 90 million, Yosef – like other Iranian Jews – is trying to stay safe from air and missile strikes that often originate in Israel, a country he is supposed to feel some affinity with.

“It is Zionism that has damaged Israel’s reputation around the world,” he says. “Today there is hardly any influential left-wing movement left in Israel. The competition is between hard-right politicians and even more radical ones.”

Yosef describes himself as a strong critic of Zionism, which he believes has played a major role in destabilising the entire Middle East. 

“What happened in Gaza will remain in history,” he says, referring to Israel’s genocide. “The shame of it will stay with Zionism and those who supported it.”

With Israeli strikes on oil sites now turning the skies above Tehran black, Yosef is frustrated with Iranians who support Israel’s actions.

“When I see some of my fellow Iranians believing Netanyahu’s speeches, it makes me very sad,” he says. “They should listen carefully to his messages to the people of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine to understand who they are dealing with.”

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As the US-Israel war on Iran began last week and Gaza’s crossings were shut, panic spread through the densely populated enclave, raising fears of a famine returning. 

Palestinians rushed to markets to stock up on essentials, as soaring prices and shortages of key items, particularly vegetables, signalled the impact of the closures.

Gaza depends almost entirely on border crossings for the entry of food and essential goods, meaning any sudden closure is quickly reflected in local markets and household budgets.

For Ibrahim Madoukh, a father of eight from al-Sahaba neighbourhood in Gaza City, the price surge has already begun to affect his family’s fragile livelihood.

Since the October ceasefire, Madoukh has been selling falafel from a small stall to support his family. Demand had been steady, he said, largely because he kept his prices low.But rising ingredient costs have forced him to increase prices, while customers - many already struggling financially - are buying less.

“The economic situation in Gaza has been deteriorating since the war,” Madoukh said. “Many people can no longer afford what is available in the market.”

After hearing about the crossing closures, Madoukh rushed to buy supplies before they disappeared. Instead, he found markets crowded with residents trying to do the same.

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Nearly three-quarters of respondents to a new Quinnipiac University poll do not support the U.S. sending ground troops into Iran, as the conflict in the Middle East hits 10 days on Monday.

The survey, released Monday, found that 20 percent of respondents support such a move, while 74 percent oppose it. Just 3 percent of Democrats, 19 percent of independents and 37 percent of Republicans support putting boots on the ground.

More than half of surveyed Republicans, in fact, are against such an action. Some members of President Trump’s MAGA base, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Tucker Carlson, have criticized the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for launching the war.

Trump has left the door open to putting boots on the ground in Iran, telling reporters Saturday he “possibly” could do so.

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It is near impossible to make sense – at least from the justifications on offer – of what US President Donald Trump really hopes to achieve with his and Israel's blatantly illegal war of aggression on Iran.

Is it to destroy an Iranian nuclear weapons programme for which there has never been any tangible evidence, and which Trump claimed just a few months ago to have "completely and totally obliterated" in an earlier lawbreaking attack?

Or is it intended to force Tehran back to negotiations on its nuclear energy enrichment programme that were brought prematurely to an end when the US launched its unprovoked attack – talks, we should note, that were made necessary because in 2018, during his first term, Trump tore up the original deal with Iran?

Or is the war supposed to browbeat Iran into greater flexibility, even though Trump blew up the talks at the very moment Oman, the chief mediator, insisted that Tehran had capitulated on almost every one of Washington's onerous demands and that a deal was "within our reach"?

Or are the air strikes designed to "liberate" Iranians, even though the early victims included at least 165 civilians in a girls' school, most of them children aged between 7 and 12?

Or is the aim to pressure Iran to give up its ballistic missiles – the only deterrence it has against attack, and which would leave it utterly defenceless against US and Israeli malevolent designs?

Or did Washington believe Tehran was about to strike first, even though Pentagon officials have confided to congressional staff that there was zero intelligence an attack was about to happen?

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