Israel expects Gaza hostage releases at 6-7 a.m. on Monday, coordinator says - Amichai Stein

 

by Amichai Stein

Sharren Haskel stated that the hostages may be released earlier than expected.

 

A massive banner has been unfurled at Hostages Square during the two-year rally with a direct appeal to President Trump: “It’s Now or Never”

(photo credit: AVIV ATLAS)

 

Israel is “aware” of reports that the release of Gaza hostages could take place as early as Sunday, but the assessment remains that it will begin early on Monday, the Coordinator for Hostages and Missing Persons Gal Hirsch told Israeli reporters in a Sunday briefing.

According to Hirsch, “6 or 7 a.m.” on Monday is when it is most “realistic” for hostage releases to begin.

An Israeli government spokesperson also said on Sunday that the release of all 20 living hostages held in Gaza will begin early Monday morning, according to Reuters.

Sharen Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told Sky News earlier on Sunday that Hamas “might start even releasing them tonight, so earlier than expected.”

Israeli authorities, as well as its military forces, concluded preparations in anticipation of the hostages’ arrival on Friday evening. However, Hirsch noted, “Israel is preparing with various parties,” including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in the case that the releases are brought forward.

The returning hostages will be brought to Israel in a convoy of eight to 10 Red Cross vehicles, including an ambulance for emergency purposes.

“The Red Cross received everything they asked from us,” Hirsch said, adding he is in “direct contact with the ICRC’s coordinator in the region.

Upon their arrival in Israeli territory, the hostages will first meet privately with a dedicated team of psychological experts who also assisted in previous hostage releases in late 2023 and early 2025.

Following the aforementioned meetings, the hostages will arrive at Re’im camp, where they will reunite with their families for the first time since their kidnapping during the October 7 massacre.

In addition, the returning captives will undergo medical examinations in a specialized room at the Re’im complex, which has been significantly expanded since they are expected to be released in larger batches than in previous releases.

“Everyone will be there, and each family will have the privacy needed with their loved ones,” Hirsch reiterated.

After leaving the Rei’m camp, the hostages will be transferred to hospitals across the country for active monitoring and further treatment by medical officials.

Some 10 hostages are set to be hospitalized at Sheba Medical Center, with five set for Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus and five more to be received at Sourasky Medical Center’s Ichilov Hospital.

“The goal is to create a hermetic seal of protection for the hostages to be able to receive anything they would need,” an Israeli source said, adding that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the hospitals over the past few days” to give notes and hand further instructions to teams on the scene.”

Israeli authorities are further prepared to transfer hostages in need of emergency treatment to nearby hospitals, such as Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba and the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, if necessary.

Israel is prepared to receive the remains of 28 deceased hostages

After bringing the 20 living hostages to Re’im, the Red Cross convoy is set to return inside the Gaza Strip in order to collect the remains of some 28 captives thought to be deceased.

“Adjustments will be made to the vehicles to bring the victims to Israel for burial,” Hirsch told reporters. “A number of slain hostages are expected to return to us tomorrow; we are not saying the number.

Some families of deceased hostages have received notice that their loved ones may not return to Israel tomorrow, according to two Israeli sources.

“They will arrive to us, be wrapped in the Israeli flag, and receive the honor, and [we will] say prayers in a respectful manner,” the coordinator said. “The convoy will then depart [to Abu Kabir Forensic Institute] for identification.”

Hirsch also reaffirmed that Israel is in contact with the families of foreign workers taken hostage on October 7. Hamas did not send Israel a list of the captives it is holding, but was working off a list sent by Hirsch, he said.

Some hostages whose status remains unknown were not named in the list of deceased hostages. These include Bipin Joshi and Tamir Nimrodi, Hirsch said. “We have not yet gotten to argue with Hamas about whether they know or do not know if they are buried,” he said.

On the issue of a joint Israeli-US-Qatari-Egyptian force tasked with locating missing remains of hostages, Hirsch said that the task force would commence its operation “as soon as the deceased captives are brought to Israel.

“We will allow for the entry to experts and engineering equipment where needed,” Hirsch said, as Israel plans to “act quickly” in order to retrieve all slain hostages who will not be returned by Hamas on Monday.

“[Strategic Affairs Minister Ron] Dermer made clear that Israel is demanding 100% effort on the part of Hamas” on the issue of retrieving remains of deceased hostages, Hirsch added.

The Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Amichai Stein

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-870226

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The Palestinian Campaign to Undermine Relations between Christians and Israel - Amit Barak

 

by Amit Barak

The events listed [below] are not accidental. They are part of a sweeping campaign run well by the Palestinian Authority, BDS organizations and anti-Semitic elements in global religious institutions, aimed at harming Israel's relations with the Christian world

 

• In recent months, we have witnessed a well-timed campaign led by the Palestinian Authority, civil society organizations and anti-Israel Christian elements – some of them declared anti-Semitic – to undermine the relations between the State of Israel and Christian communities around the world, especially evangelical and pro-Israel Christians whose long-standing support for Israel is not self-evident.

• Four notable events this year indicate the tremendous power of this campaign: The blood libel falsely alleging the burning of the Church of St. George in Taybe; an episode of the Tucker Carlson Show with an American nun who presented a series of anti-Semitic claims without any factual, historical or theological basis; the Declaration of the World Council of Churches in June 2025; a Palestinian food advertisement mocking Christianity.

• The World Council of Churches over the years has tried to wear the mask of a supposedly "neutral" organization. In light of the campaign, it seems that in this statement, the WCC has dared to say openly what it always wanted but previously did not dare to say.

• This group uses clear anti-Semitic messages, and... the expected response from the Israeli government was therefore to declare a ban on entry into Israel to any person who is a member of the WCC or to any activist in the illegal EAPPI program, which the WCC has been operating in Israel since 2002. But the government did not declare such a ban.

• While the Christian population is persecuted under the Palestinian Authority, outwardly it conveys a completely opposite image.

• This anti-Christian campaign in the PA areas did not reach the wider world or the international media.

• The events listed above are not accidental. They are part of a sweeping campaign run well by the Palestinian Authority, BDS organizations and anti-Semitic elements in global religious institutions, aimed at harming Israel's relations with the Christian world, weakening the support of Christians for Israel, and, through the churches, isolating Israel in the international arena.

Pictured: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is led on a tour of the Church of Saint George in Taybe, by the village mayor, Suleiman Khourieh (L), and others, on July 19, 2025. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyyeh/AFP via Getty Images)

From Taybe to Tucker Carlson, Palestinians are trying to drive a wedge between the Christian world and Israel, while Israel's government appears to be asleep on guard duty.

In recent months, we have witnessed a well-timed campaign led by the Palestinian Authority, civil society organizations and anti-Israel Christian elements – some of them declared anti-Semitic – to undermine the relations between the State of Israel and Christian communities around the world, especially evangelical and pro-Israel Christians whose long-standing support for Israel is not self-evident.

This campaign includes fake plots, media attacks, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel messaging, and incitement under the guise of religious discourse or human rights. Four notable events this year indicate the tremendous power of this campaign:

• The blood libel falsely alleging the burning of the Church of St. George in Taybe;
• an episode of the Tucker Carlson Show with an American nun who presented a series of anti-Semitic claims without any factual, historical or theological basis;
• the Declaration of the World Council of Churches in June 2025;
• a Palestinian food advertisement mocking Christianity.

The plot of a church fire in Taybe

In July 2025, media outlets around the world claimed that "Israeli settlers set fire to an ancient Byzantine church" in the Christian village of Taybe in the Binyamin area. Jerusalem's Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, Jerusalem Latin (Catholic) Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and other senior officials in the churches held a press conference condemning the alleged arson, which was widely reported all over the world and in Christian communities in particular.

Foreign ambassadors and various elements who joined the condemnation added fuel to the fire, and the culmination was probably the words written by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee:

"Taybeh is a quiet Palestinian Christian village south of Jerusalem w/ a lot of American citizens that has been vandalized-including fires set at ancient church. I visited there today. Desecrating a church,mosque or synagogue is a crime against humanity & God."

Social networks and international media did not drop the issue for weeks, but slowly the cracks began to emerge: an independent investigation by the Press Service of Israel (TPS-IL) revealed that the fire was actually in an adjacent field and did not even touch the church, and featured videos in which Jewish shepherds run to put out the fire with blowers and other firefighting equipment. The report adds:

"Furthermore, separate fires on July 7, 8, and 11 were documented in areas of pastureland dozens of meters away from the church compound. In all cases, a Jewish farmer whose farm is next to the church compound complained to the police that someone had torched the area where his shepherd was grazing. TPS-IL has obtained time-stamped documentation of these reports."

In the end, the Israel Police announced that the church was not damaged at all, and following the findings and the investigation, Huckabee retracted his remarks and even attacked the international media's conduct in the affair.

Such a case requires the use of government spokespersons skilled in "ecclesial diplomacy" that will appeal to church leaders, publish documentation in English and Arabic translations, and brief Christian writers. The resources exist, the personalities, the organizations, but in this case Israeli government ministries were silenced, and the lack of orderly action can be applied to Christian support bases in the United States and other countries. The individuals who did act to expose the truth were civil society organizations such as Regavim, TPS-IL and independent Christian Israeli activists who worked behind the scenes, as well as the Binyamin Council.

Tucker Carlson: How do American Christians support the Israeli oppression of Christians?

On August 11, Tucker Carlson released an 80-minute-long episode on his podcast, interviewing Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos, an American Greek Orthodox nun. Stephanopoulos claimed that Israel was practicing apartheid, persecuting Christians, and committing crimes against humanity, with a clear message: Christians should stop supporting Israel. The allegations in the interview also included theological distortions such as "Biblical Palestine" and "Palestinian Jesus" -- long invalidated by historians and archeologists as well as countless Christian churches and organizations.

This episode was watched by millions of people; the damage has been done, especially among American evangelical Christians. Here, too, instead of providing a fact-based rebuttal with the cooperation of Christian Israelis and supporters of Israel around the world, the Israeli government did nothing.

Declaration of the World Council of Churches

In June 2025, the World Council of Churches (WCC), representing about 349 churches from various streams around the world, issued a statement at the closing of its conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. The declaration, along with praise it gave the South African government "on appealing to justice and responsibility through the International Court of Justice", the World Council of Churches for Sanctions on Israel, included recommending an arms embargo, to remove the "blockade" from Gaza, announced its support for the "right of return", the "resistance" of Christian Palestinian communities, and the investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for "crimes against humanity" and falsely accused the State of Israel of apartheid.

The WCC over the years has tried to wear the mask of a supposedly "neutral" organization. In light of the campaign, it seems that in this statement, the WCC has dared to say openly what it always wanted but previously did not dare to say.

The WCC uses clear anti-Semitic messages, and the Entry into Israel (Article 2D) makes it clear that this is a valid reason for prohibiting WCC members into Israel.

The expected response from the Israeli government was therefore to declare a ban on entry into Israel to any person who is a member of the WCC or to any activist in the illegal EAPPI program, which the WCC has been operating in Israel since 2002. But the government did not declare such a ban.

The only body that responded to the matter was the "Jerusalem Initiative" (full disclosure: the writer is one of its founders), which works to integrate Arabic-speaking Christians in Jerusalem into Israeli society and consists of Christian and Jewish activists, clerics and academics. The Jerusalem Initiative published a public letter in English in response to the WCC's declaration. The letter exposed the hypocrisy, ignorance and anti-Semitism behind it, and showed that it should be considered in violation of various laws prohibiting the boycotting of Israel in many of the countries that the WCC represents.

Zero Tolerance

From the Palestinian Authority, we can learn a lot about marketing messages to the world. While the Christian population is persecuted under the Palestinian Authority (such as here and here), outwardly it conveys a completely opposite image. Unlike official Israel with half a department (the Ministry of Religions that is responsible for all religions), an anachronistic approach at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and another half department in the Ministry of Interior, the Palestinian Authority invests considerable resources in messaging for the Christian world under the "Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine," which operates from Bethlehem and Ramallah.

In June 2025, Al-Qasrawi Food Products, a major snack manufacturer from Hebron, posted the "Last Snack" campaign: a poster with the "Last Supper" image in which the characters of Jesus and his disciples were replaced by sheep and the table was covered with the company's products. Following a broad protest (including the burning of the company's products) by Christians living under the PA and by Israeli Christians, the company deleted the content and issued an apology for "unintentional harm."

This anti-Christian campaign in the PA areas did not reach the wider world or the international media. But it is clear to all of us that if the opposite were the case, the Palestinian Authority would know how to use it well to its advantage. Israeli government ministries are probably unaware of the matter or don't think out of the box.

Systemic failure to deal with the anti-Israel campaign in Christian cloak

The events listed above are not accidental. They are part of a sweeping campaign run well by the Palestinian Authority, BDS organizations and anti-Semitic elements in global religious institutions, aimed at harming Israel's relations with the Christian world, weakening the support of Christians for Israel, and, through the churches, isolating Israel in the international arena. The lack of an effective government response by the Ministry of Diaspora and the fight against anti-Semitism and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a large-scale anti-Israel campaign harms Israel's strategic ties with Christian communities around the world, especially among evangelicals.

Our failure is clear: lack of awareness, unwillingness, lack of tools and speakers, zero use of church language (ecclesial diplomacy), and ignoring the Christian partners themselves. The human resources exist – in Israel and around the world – but they simply are not mobilized. The ignorance and lack of acquaintance with the international and local Christian world -- with the actors, the messages and the facts -- creates an explanatory and diplomatic vacuum in front of Christian target audiences -- and this space is easily perceived and filled by anti-Semitic and anti-Israel narratives.

One Israeli Christian remarked:

"Israel acts as if we do not exist. While others write her story, she sometimes does not write anything, or, when she does, it is hastily disparaged and swept aside by people who prefer their own misinformation to such inconvenient facts."

Amit Barak is a veteran activist and expert in Israel and the Christian world.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21971/palestinian-undermine-relations-christians-israel

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Witkoff blindsided during Tel Aviv speech by Netanyahu opponents turned Trump supporters - Alex Traiman

 

by Alex Traiman

The Hostage Forum movement wanted to be able to say, over and over again, that Netanyahu failed to "bring them home." Once it became clear that the hostages were coming home, the Forum needed someone else to credit with the stunning achievement.

 

U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff speaks at the celebretory rally at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Oct. 11, 2025. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

On Saturday night, the crowd at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square cheered U.S. President Donald Trump for his role in securing the return of the hostages, but jeered when Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, publicly thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Witkoff appeared to be surprised by the reaction.

“Let me just finish my thought. Guys, lemme just finish my thought,” he pleaded.

In his oft-interrupted-with-boos statement, a stunned Witkoff refused to back down. “I was in the trenches with the prime minister. Believe me, he was very important here,” he said.

“The prime minister and his staff, [Strategic Affairs Minister] Ron Dermer included, have both sacrificed so much for this country and devoted their lives to the service of Israel. Their dedication to the history and destiny of this nation stands out tonight,” he added.

“They’ve given everything—their time, their energy and their hearts—to building a safer and stronger future for the Jewish people. Their commitment to this country has never wavered and it never will. We thank you. The president thanks you. Thank you,” he concluded.

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Witkoff and his fellow presidential envoy, Jared Kushner, who also addressed the forum, should not have been the least bit surprised by the anti-Netanyahu boo birds.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which organizes the weekly rallies at that very venue, is run by the same heads of the anti-government campaigns that have ravaged Israel since Netanyahu ran for re-election in November 2022.

These campaigns have exchanged one campaign slogan for another, castigating Netanyahu as a “Crime Minister” when Israel’s state prosecution was leaking contents of criminal investigations against Netanyahu to the press during consecutive inconclusive elections cycles.

Yet, as Netanyahu finally formed a strong right-wing coalition to end the elections standoff, and as the prosecution proved to be generating more headlines than substance, the movement pivoted to protesting Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms. During the anti-reform protests in the weeks leading up to Oct. 7, 2023, the movement threatened to tear Israel apart, suggesting the protests would erupt into civil war.

With the horrific Hamas massacre that saw 1,200 murdered, thousands injured and 255 living and dead taken hostage, the protest group quickly changed tactics, rallying behind the cause of the hostages. The movement did so for two key reasons: First, because they needed to restore some semblance of public trust after their destructive behavior before Oct. 7; and secondly, because they hedged that Netanyahu would never succeed in returning the hostages.

In fact, the campaign slogan “Bring them home” was intentionally created to put the burden of securing the hostages’ release on the government rather than on Hamas, the terror organization that took them and held them in deep underground tunnels. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum movement wanted to be able to say, over and over again, that Netanyahu had failed to “bring them home.”

Of course, once it became clear that the hostages were indeed coming home, the Forum needed to find someone else to credit with the stunning achievement. Netanyahu, and his key associate, Dermer, can never receive any credit from the Forum for negotiating any of the deals to get the hostages free, because the Forum was set up specifically to oppose Netanyahu’s continued leadership.

For those who believe that the protest movement will end once the hostages are back on Israeli soil, guess again. The slogans will change, likely calling for “elections now” or some other focus-tested message the movement hopes will bring thousands out to weekly protests. New, expensive and well-funded signage will appear across the country signaling the movements next call to protest.

Enter the Hostage Forum’s hero: Donald Trump.

Trump deserves all the credit in the world for finally pushing Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world to put pressure on Hamas to release the all of the remaining hostages. And the Forum, and the families who visited a gracious president many times in the White House, are correct to praise him.

But, it should be made clear that several key organizers of the rally who were shouting “Thank you, Trump” on Saturday night have been castigating him as a “Nazi” and “threat to democracy” since his first presidential run in 2015.

Consider Ronen Tzur, who founded the Forum on Oct. 7, 2023.

On Aug. 17, 2017, Tzur—who later served as a political adviser to opposition politician Benny Gantz—tweeted: “Barack Hussein Obama is gone and Donald Adolf Trump has arrived. I’m dying to see who follows him.”

Tzur was later replaced as head of the Forum by Lior Chorev, another top left-wing political consultant. Chorev’s X feed bio says that in addition to his role as “chief strategist-campaign manager for the Hostages Family Forum,” he is an “expert in the field of public perception and influence.” Chorev has expressed similar sentiments regarding Trump (and his children), calling him an American version of Netanyahu and his family.

On Jan. 7, 2021, Chorev tweeted: “’This isn’t the Republican Party; this is the Trump Party,’ screamed Donald’s son. And in my mind’s eye I saw [an obscene expression the Israeli left uses to mention Netanyahu’s son Yair Netanyahu].”

On Oct. 16, 2022, Chorev tweeted: “Think of the fact that everything that came out today about Trump in the Congress [from the Jan. 6 Committee] and the real threat he poses to the well-being and security of the United States has been known about Bibi for years.”

At a demonstration in Tel Aviv in March 2023 that gathered many of the same anti-Netanyahu political activists as Saturday night’s rally did, protest organizers graphically merged their campaign against Netanyahu with the American left’s campaign against Trump.

The crowd called for the overthrow of the Netanyahu government under a massive banner that portrayed him, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in orange prison jumpsuits and called for them to be arrested.

Yair Golan, the head of the far-left “Democrats Party,” who has repeatedly praised Trump in recent days, has a long history of statements attacking the president as a threat to democracy and to all the values of good people.

On Nov. 7, 2020, Golan tweeted: “’I will be the ally of the light, not of the darkness’—that’s what Biden said a few weeks ago. The time has come for Israel to come out of the darkness into the light, and the light doesn’t shine from the right. If we want to live, we must cling to the values of progress, of mutual responsibility, of self-confidence and hope. The era of dread is over. The era of hope has come; the time has come for renewal and building.”

His statement was written over a red-and-white banner that read, “Liar, liar, you are fired!”

In an anti-Trump conference at UCLA organized by the far-left Haaretz newspaper ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, Golan said, “Donald Trump represents something which is very negative to all democracies on Earth,” adding that Trump threatens “the most valuable and the most precious values.”

The Forum organizers routinely compared Trump and Netanyahu to one another. And certainly, the two leaders have been the targets of similar attacks from weaponized prosecutions, deep states and media that all work toward their respective ousters.

While the Forum rally organizers suddenly changed their stripes regarding Trump, there is zero chance that they can credit Netanyahu, for taking the steps necessary to bring all of the hostages home or for any of the other dramatic war gains, including the dismantling of Hezbollah to Israel’s north as well as Iran’s nuclear program.

Yet, in the latest polls, Netanyahu’s approval rating is higher than that of all of his possible rivals combined. The Likud, which he heads, is polling more than double the seats of its closest rival, (34-16), and Netanyahu’s coalition has retained its solid 64-seat majority in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset.

It is hopeful that Witkoff and Kushner will recognize that the crowds at Hostages Square represent the views of an extremely vocal minority. They are now embracing Trump, despite their longstanding hatred for him, at least in part, in the hopes of driving a wedge between him and Netanyahu. 

Alex Traiman is the CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) and host of “Jerusalem Minute.” A seasoned Israeli journalist, documentary filmmaker and startup consultant, he is an expert on Israeli politics and U.S.-Israel relations. He has interviewed top political figures, including Israeli leaders, U.S. senators and national security officials with insights featured on major networks like BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, Fox and Newsmax. A former NCAA champion fencer and Yeshiva University Sports Hall of Fame member, he made aliyah in 2004, and lives in Jerusalem with his wife and five children.

Source: https://www.jns.org/witkoff-blindsided-by-netanyahu-opponents-turned-trump-supporters-during-tel-aviv-speech/

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The Physics and Politics of Peace: Trump’s Triumph in the Middle East - Roger Kimball

 

by Roger Kimball

Trump’s latest triumph—brokering peace between Israel and Hamas—echoes Bagehot’s truth: civilization advances only when strength learns the art of deliberate restraint.

 

Peace in the Middle East was impossible—until it wasn’t. Donald Trump started to traverse that impassable domain in his first term with the Abraham Accords. Then, just a few days ago, he managed another impossible passage when he brokered peace between the irreconcilable forces of Israel and Hamas. Almost as impressive, Trump solicited and received the support of Muslim countries from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt. Amazing.

How did he do it? Well, in part, it was “the art of the deal” in practice. But stepping back, Trump’s forceful yet patient endeavor on behalf of peace reminded me of Walter Bagehot’s insights in his neglected masterpiece, Physics and Politics. First published in 1872, this curious book is partly a contribution to political history and partly an exploration of the often forgotten truism that not all things are possible at all times and in all places. If political liberty is a precious possession, Bagehot saw, it is forged in a long development of civilization, much of which is distinctly, and necessarily, illiberal.

The notion that human beings—and, by analogy, advanced human societies—had developed out of more primitive forms had been in the air for decades by the time Bagehot began Physics and Politics. Evolution—often called “descent with modification” or simply “development” in the early nineteenth century—was an Enlightenment idea par excellence. Darwin’s theories about the place of natural selection in biological evolution, published in 1859 in On the Origin of Species, gave the idea of evolution new scientific authority. But the basic idea of evolution—minus the explanatory motor of natural selection, which Darwin adopted from Thomas Malthus’s Essay on Population (first published in 1798)—was part of the mental furniture of the age. Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, published in 1844, was one of several books on the subject that influenced Bagehot. The crudities of “Social Darwinism,” put forward most famously in the writings and speeches of Herbert Spencer and T. H. Huxley, were a natural outgrowth of these ideas.

The long subtitle of Physics and Politics—“Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of ‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Inheritance’ to Political Society”—certainly suggests that it belongs to that unpromising genre of muscular Darwinism. As always with Bagehot, however, things are not as straightforward as they at first seem. To be sure, by “physics” Bagehot meant “science,” more particularly “Darwinism.” He approvingly quoted various works by Spencer and Huxley, and indeed, such passages are among the most dated in the book. He referred on and off to the “transmitted nerve element” and other Lamarckian museum pieces (Gregor Mendel’s recent discoveries in what we have come to call genetics were unknown to Bagehot and Darwin alike). But Bagehot early on made it clear that in invoking the idea of natural selection, he was merely “searching out and following up an analogy.” As he put it at the end of his last chapter, the great theme of Physics and Politics concerns “the political prerequisites of progress, and especially of early progress.” How far Bagehot’s use of the term “natural selection” is from Darwin’s is shown by the way he links its operation to the operation of Providence—an agency conspicuously missing from any orthodox Darwinian account of evolution.

“By a law of which we know no reason,” Bagehot wrote, “but which is among the first by which Providence guides and governs the world, there is a tendency in descendants to be like their progenitors, and yet a tendency also in descendants to differ from their progenitors. The work of nature in making generations is a patchwork—part resemblance, part contrast.”

Bagehot puts forward two main ideas. The first concerns the enormous difficulty our forefathers must have faced in establishing any political order or rule of law whatsoever. “What this rule is,” Bagehot remarks, “does not matter so much. A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none.” His second idea concerns the similarly difficult task that later ages always face in advancing beyond the order that made their own existence possible.

The first step—inaugurating law, custom, and habit—is the hardest, but history proper begins with the next step: “What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting fixed law, but of getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing . . . a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.”

In his second chapter, “The Use of Conflict,” Bagehot sums up “the strict dilemma of early society.”

Either men had no law at all, and lived in confused tribes, hardly hanging together, or they had to obtain a fixed law by processes of incredible difficulty. Those who surmounted that difficulty soon destroyed all those that lay in their way who did not. And then they themselves were caught in their own yoke. The customary discipline, which could only be imposed on any early men by terrible sanctions, continued with those sanctions, and killed out of the whole society the propensities to variation which are the principle of progress.

Bagehot traces the vicissitudes of this dialectic through various stages from “The Preliminary Age”—that is, the rude time of prehistory when “the strongest killed the weakest as they could”—to modern times and “The Age of Discussion,” the age to which Donald Trump is beckoning the warring tribes of the Middle East. Along the way, Bagehot discusses the civilizing—or at least order-inducing—effects of violence (“The Use of Conflict”) and the hard road any population faces in forging a national identity (“Nation-Making”). The perennial problem—and the admonitory theme of Physics and Politics—is that man, the strongest and smartest of the animals, “was obliged to be his own domesticator; he had to tame himself.” Consequently, “history is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it.”

There is a great deal in Physics and Politics to shock readers inclined to a pacific view of human development or a politically correct understanding of life. About philanthropy in general, Bagehot shared the suspicions of many nineteenth-century conservatives:

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy they can do much by rapid action—that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings.

Bagehot was even more controversial in other areas. “Let us consider,” he writes in an infamous passage toward the end of Physics and Politics,

in what sense a village of English colonists is superior to a tribe of Australian natives who roam about them. Indisputably in one, and that a main sense, they are superior. They can beat the Australians in war when they like; they can take from them anything they like, and kill any of them they choose. As a rule, in all the outlying and uncontested districts of the world, the aboriginal native lies at the mercy of the intruding European. Nor is this all. Indisputably in the English village there are more means of happiness, a greater accumulation of the instruments of enjoyment, than in the Australian tribe. The English have all manner of books, utensils, and machines which the others do not use, value, or understand.

In fact, the importance of military prowess in binding a population into a society is a leitmotif in Physics and Politics. In “The Use of Conflict,” Bagehot notes that the progress of the military art is the “most conspicuous, I was about to say the most showy,” fact in human history. “Civilization begins,” he writes, “because the beginning of civilization is a military advantage.” Moreover, Bagehot is undeceived about the exigencies that face a nation at war. “So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism—despotism during the campaign—is indispensable. Macaulay justly said that many an army has prospered under a bad commander, but no army has ever prospered under a ‘debating society.’”

The point is, Bagehot argues, that “war both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, and the habit of discipline.” In other words, war and the marital virtues it requires make certain valuable things possible—an idea that many will find shocking. Even more shocking is that Bagehot makes a similar argument about slavery. “Refinement,” he writes, “is only possible when leisure is possible; and slavery first makes it possible.” “Slavery, too, has a bad name in the later world, and very justly. We connect it with gangs in chains, with laws that keep men ignorant, and with laws that hinder families. But the evils that we have endured from slavery in recent ages must not blind us to, or make us forget, the great services that slavery rendered in early ages.” Perhaps the only thing more difficult than accepting this contention is coming up with convincing arguments against it.

All such “hard” observations constitute, as it were, the strophe of Bagehot’s argument. The antistrophe, the opposite movement—the movement toward which Physics and Politics as a whole tends—is that “the whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first and deadly afterwards.” Slavery is one such institution. Might the martial sensibility be one as well?

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings. The mistake of military ethics is to exaggerate the conception of discipline, and so to present the moral force of the will in a barer form than it ever ought to take. Military morals can direct the axe to cut down the tree, but it knows nothing of the quiet force by which the forest grows.

Savages, Bagehot writes with cool dispatch, prefer “short spasms of greedy pleasure to mild and equable enjoyment.” Thus it is that progress in civilization is measured by increasing deliberateness. Government—the institutional distillate of progress in civilization—is valuable not only because it facilitates action but also, and increasingly, because it retards it:

If you want to stop instant and immediate action, always make it a condition that the action shall not begin till a considerable number of persons have talked over it, and have agreed on it. If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity.

It is naturally “the age of discussion”—the age of “slow” government and political liberty—that Bagehot ultimately extols in Physics and Politics. But he is ever at pains to remind his readers of the harsh prerequisites of civilization, which include war, slavery, and gross inequity. Government by discussion, Bagehot is quick to acknowledge, is “a principal organ for improving mankind.” At the same time, he insists that “it is a plant of singular delicacy.”

The question of how best to nurture this delicate plant is Bagehot’s final problem. Part of the answer is in facing up to the unpalatable realities about power that make civilization possible. The other part lies in embracing what Bagehot calls “animated moderation,” that “union of life with measure, of spirit with reasonableness,” which assures that discussion will continue without descending into violence or anarchy. It seems like a small thing. But then, achieved order always does—until it is lost.

I rather doubt that Donald Trump has Physics and Politics on his bedside table. But it pleases me to think that he would agree with Bagehot that “government by discussion” is a noble goal worth striving for. It is, at any rate, the goal towards which his long and painstaking labors on behalf of peace have tended.

Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterion and the president and publisher of Encounter Books. He is the author and editor of many books, including The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press), The Rape of the Masters (Encounter), Lives of the Mind: The Use and Abuse of Intelligence from Hegel to Wodehouse (Ivan R. Dee), and Art's Prospect: The Challenge of Tradition in an Age of Celebrity (Ivan R. Dee). Most recently, he edited and contributed to Where Next? Western Civilization at the Crossroads (Encounter) and contributed to Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order (Bombardier).

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/12/the-physics-and-politics-of-peace-trumps-triumph-in-the-middle-east/

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Jay Jones and the Left’s Ressentiment - Stephen Soukup

 

by Stephen Soukup

Jay Jones’s vile texts expose more than personal depravity—they reveal the left’s deeper creed: that pain, not principle, is the true engine of political change.

 

Over the last week or so, observers—mostly on the right—have made a great deal of noise about the musings of Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in Virginia. Jones, as I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, openly and enthusiastically discussed killing a political opponent—the former Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates—and, more disturbingly, hoped this opponent’s children would die so that he could watch their mother suffer as she held them in her arms.

Understandably, most of the commentary on Jones and his ghoulish desires has focused on his crass exhortation to violence and the ghastly cruelty of his repeatedly expressed desire to watch children die while relishing their mother’s pain. Jones is, almost inarguably, a twisted man with a moral compass that points straight downward. That he remains his party’s nominee and that no high-profile members of that party have withdrawn their endorsement of him tells you all you need to know about the moral condition of the nation’s ruling class.

All of that said, for me, the most interesting part of Jones’s exposed texts is the justification he gives for wanting Todd and Jennifer Gilbert to suffer as they hold their dying children. When confronted about that statement, he replies, “Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

Everything else in Jones’s rant can be dismissed as the overheated rhetoric of a disturbed man, the bizarre fantasies of someone unfit to mingle with normal people in civil society, much less serve them as their chief law enforcement official. It is, as I said, twisted.

By contrast, Jones’ explanation that only pain can create the necessary changes in perceptions that affect policy prescriptions is different. It is, in a sense, rational. It is an expression of purpose. Moreover, it is an expression of purpose that is so clear and so lucid that it belies the idea that the rest of his tirade is merely an emotional outburst. In other words, it demonstrates that his embrace of violence and cruelty is intentional, deliberate, and calculated. Jay Jones knew what he was saying, knew what it meant, and connected it all to a broader political philosophy: Only pain can create change among the enemy; therefore, creating pain is good, and inflicting it on one’s enemy is the sole means of achieving progress.

What’s most disturbing about this is that Jones is hardly the only person who thinks this way. He may be the only one stupid enough to put it in print (or 1s and 0s, as the case may be), but he’s not alone in believing that the application of pain to political opponents is both good and productive. Indeed, this is—and always has been—the defining motivational principle of the political left.

Now, to be clear, I think that, historically, “the left” has been largely absent from American politics. With a few exceptions (the Progressives and the radical New Dealers), even most Democrats in this country have, traditionally, been anti-leftist. The economics of Marxism never caught on here the way it did in Europe, and, for the most part, Republicans and Democrats have a shared disdain for collectivism.

At the same time, however, as I have noted repeatedly (here and elsewhere), in the West, economic Marxism largely died after World War I and collapsed completely in the 1960s. And what replaced it—cultural Marxism, the cultural left—has made far greater inroads among this nation’s governing elites. Whereas most Democrats would, even today, deny any affinity for leftist economics, many of them—perhaps a majority of them, especially among the ruling class—share the cultural left’s beliefs about current and historical social conditions and the “inequity” they embody. They are cultural Marxists and, thus, inheritors of the left’s pain-and-envy-based approach to change.

The left today is, in many ways, perfectly Nietzschean. That’s not to say that it embraces his vision or shares his beliefs (although it does both to some extent, in some cases). Rather, the left exemplifies much of what Nietzsche found loathsome and self-destructive in Western civilization.

Nietzsche disliked the left. “Socialism,” he wrote in Human, All Too Human, “is the visionary younger brother of an almost decrepit despotism, whose heir it wants to be.” He continued:

Thus, its efforts are reactionary in the deepest sense… it secretly prepares for reigns of terror, and drives the word “justice” like a nail into the heads of the semieducated masses, to rob them completely of their reason (after this reason has already suffered a great deal from its semieducation), and to give them a good conscience for the evil game that they are supposed to play.

In this sense—and especially in his dismissal of the left’s false notion of “justice”—Nietzsche is equating socialism with religion and comparing its morality to the “slave morality” that he saw as the defining characteristic of the Western religious tradition. In short, Nietzsche viewed slave morality as the result of ressentiment, the deep-seated emotional response to powerlessness that blames an external “enemy” for all suffering and manifests as envy, jealousy, and revenge. Whereas Aristotle defined “anger” in largely heroic terms, encapsulating man’s desire to seek retribution for legitimate reasons and in response to “belittlement that is undeserved,” Nietzsche defined ressentiment as a weak emotion, the response of life’s losers to their self-inflicted suffering and the transference of their self-loathing to an external actor, a scapegoat.

For Christians, it is possible to dismiss Nietzsche’s critique of their supposed slave morality by pointing to the victory of the Resurrection and to note that the fulfillment of their conception of justice is other-worldly and, therefore, does not require the temporal moral inversion Nietzsche condemns. As an atheist, he just doesn’t “get it.” He can’t possibly get it without belief in the afterlife.

For leftists—whom Nietzsche (and countless others) saw as heretical, Millenarian Christians—such a dismissal is not so easy. His depiction of their ressentiment is largely undeniable. It is painfully accurate.

Ressentiment can, on occasion, be acted upon. In most cases, however, “slaves”—those who are noble neither by birth nor temperament—are unable to act. They wallow in their frustration and their hatred, often creating imaginary incidents of revenge and the infliction of pain. They threaten. They bluster. They try to cause small-scale suffering and infliction of pain in the hope that that pain will undermine the moral codes and empower them. In short, they believe that “only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”

The left is, in this sense, quite small and petty, angry but impotent, and willing to undertake vain acts of vengeance instead of real acts of justice, of which it is incapable. Nevertheless, it redefines justice to serve its purposes, to enhance its self-perception, and to justify its ressentiment. 

Stephen R. Soukup is the Director of The Political Forum Institute and the author of The Dictatorship of Woke Capital (Encounter, 2021, 2023)

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/11/jay-jones-and-the-lefts-ressentiment/

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Why Iran's Oil Sales Must Be Stopped - Majid Rafizadeh

 

by Majid Rafizadeh

At the heart of the problem is Iran's largest oil export market: China. Nearly four-fifths of Iran's exported oil ends up in China.... Iranian officials have openly admitted that even if UN sanctions are reactivated, oil exports to China would continue.

 

• As long as the Iranian regime finds avenues to export oil, it will continue to survive and expand its power.

• At the heart of the problem is Iran's largest oil export market: China. Nearly four-fifths of Iran's exported oil ends up in China.... Iranian officials have openly admitted that even if UN sanctions are reactivated, oil exports to China would continue.

• The key is not only sanctioning Iran, but also enforcing consequences against those who enable its oil exports. That means sanctioning third-party entities, shipping companies, and refineries that knowingly violate sanctions. China, as the largest buyer of Iran's oil, must face the full weight of international scrutiny and penalties if it continues to bankroll the Iranian regime.

• Beijing can import oil from alternative sources such as Saudi Arabia, the US, Iraq and the UAE, among others. Its continued purchase of Iranian oil is a political choice, not an economic necessity.

• The United States cannot and should not act alone in this effort. The European Union needs to take a much stronger stance as well.

• Finally, the argument comes down to one undeniable fact: as Iran continues to export oil, its regime will continue to survive and expand its power.

• If the West is serious about trying to "reform" the Iranian regime, it must focus on cutting off the oil that feeds it. This means coordinated US and EU pressure, real accountability for China, and relentless enforcement of sanctions against buyers and middlemen.

• "Reforming" the Iranian regime -- enticing them into the Abraham Accords under Trump's magnificent vision of "peace and prosperity" -- may not be possible. Iran's rulers appear to have an explicit agenda, which, as by now should be clear, does not involve either prosperity or peace for its citizens. If the US is intent on making only Iran's ruling class rich and prosperous, it is consigning the Iranian people to misery in perpetuity. One hopes that the US would not be as cruel as that.

• Only if Iran is seriously weakened will the Iranian people have a real chance to taste the freedom that so many in the West cavalierly take for granted, and only then will the world see genuine peace and security in the Middle East.

As long as the Iranian regime finds avenues to export oil, it will continue to survive and expand its power. Pictured: The oil tanker Fortune, one of five Iranian-flagged tankers that brought Iranian gasoline and oil derivatives to Venezuela in May 2020, is shown docked at the El Palito refinery in Carabobo, on May 25, 2020. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

The reimposition of UN "snapback" sanctions on Iran is a welcome development, but, alas, insufficient. For years, Tehran has operated with relative impunity, ignoring restrictions and continuing to build its nuclear and ballistic missile programs while funding proxy terrorist groups across the Middle East. The renewal of these sanctions signals a recognition that the Iranian regime remains one of the gravest threats to regional stability and international security.

While the sanctions are symbolically important, however, on their own they are not nearly enough. Just putting sanctions on paper does not set back Iran; what truly weakens it is cutting off its most vital revenue stream: oil. As long as the Iranian regime finds avenues to export oil, it will continue to survive and expand its power.

Oil is the Iranian regime's lifeblood, the artery that sustains its power structure and keeps its oppressive machinery running. Around 80 percent of the regime's revenue comes from oil sales. Iran's then President Hassan Rouhani candidly admitted years ago that the regime could not survive without oil exports. The billions of dollars generated from oil, however, do not flow into the hands of ordinary Iranians, who continue to face economic decline, high inflation, and high unemployment. Instead, oil revenues are funneled into the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its elite Quds Force, and the sprawling web of proxy groups such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas and militias in Iraq. These groups extend Iran's reach and destabilize the region, launching attacks on US allies and threatening global shipping routes. Oil money is not just revenue; it is the fuel for Tehran's repression at home and aggression abroad.

Iran continues to channel its oil revenues into its nuclear weapons program and into expanding its arsenal of ballistic missiles and attack drones. The nuclear program requires a steady flow of capital to acquire technology, procure materials on black markets, and pay scientists and engineers. Ballistic missile development and production are also enormously expensive undertakings. Without oil exports, the regime would be forced to prioritize survival over expansion, significantly slowing or even halting the progress of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Every barrel of oil exported is another dollar available to enrich uranium, build missile silos, or finance terror operations abroad. This is why limiting Iran's oil exports is not just about economics — it is about preventing Iran from becoming an even greater global security threat.

At the heart of the problem is Iran's largest oil export market: China. Nearly four-fifths of Iran's exported oil ends up in China. Beijing has become the lifeline that keeps Tehran afloat despite international sanctions. Iranian officials have openly admitted that even if UN sanctions are reactivated, oil exports to China would continue. Iran's oil minister himself declared that sanctions would not stop Tehran from selling to China. This admission underscores the futility of UN sanctions that fail to target buyers. As long as Beijing continues to purchase Iranian oil, Tehran will find ways to skirt restrictions and funnel money into its destructive activities. In other words, the sanctions regime collapses without firm and coordinated pressure on Beijing.

The solution lies in replicating the strategy that worked once before. During President Donald Trump's first term, his administration significantly reduced Iran's oil exports through a "maximum pressure" campaign. By targeting not only Tehran but also buyers, shippers and insurers, Washington made it extremely difficult and risky to purchase Iranian oil. This campaign forced Iranian oil exports down to historic lows, depriving the regime of billions in revenue.

The key is not only sanctioning Iran, but also enforcing consequences against those who enable its oil exports. That means sanctioning third-party entities, shipping companies, and refineries that knowingly violate sanctions. China, as the largest buyer of Iran's oil, must face the full weight of international scrutiny and penalties if it continues to bankroll the Iranian regime.

The United States cannot and should not act alone in this effort. The European Union needs to take a much stronger stance as well. Europe should halt all trade with Tehran, close Iranian embassies, and expel regime diplomats who often double as intelligence operatives. The EU should also support cases against China at the UN and align itself with Washington in holding Beijing accountable for sanctions violations.

A united front of the United States and the EU would send a powerful message to China: buying Iranian oil is not merely a commercial transaction but a direct violation of international law and a threat to global peace. Beijing can import oil from alternative sources such as Saudi Arabia, the US, Iraq and the UAE, among others. Its continued purchase of Iranian oil is a political choice, not an economic necessity. Raising the costs of that choice would force China to reconsider.

Another critical step is to address Iran's tactics of evading sanctions through the art of disguising its oil shipments by ship-to-ship transfers, re-flagging vessels, falsifying cargo documents, and mixing crude oil with other shipments to obscure its origin. The West needs to respond with more aggressive maritime monitoring, increased cooperation among customs agencies, and enforcement mechanisms that penalize ports, refineries and companies that knowingly accept disguised Iranian oil. By targeting not just the buyers but also the enablers — the insurers, middlemen and financial institutions — sanctions can close the loopholes that Iran exploits to sustain its oil trade.

Finally, the argument comes down to one undeniable fact: as Iran continues to export oil, its regime will continue to survive and expand its power. Cutting off oil revenues does more than weaken Tehran financially; it empowers the Iranian people. By depriving the regime of its resources, it creates opportunities for domestic dissent and protest movements to challenge the ruling elite. The Iranian people have repeatedly risen up against their government, only to be crushed by the IRGC and its vast security apparatus, funded by oil money. Without that revenue, the regime would be far less capable of suppressing its population and exporting instability abroad.

Without oil export revenues, Iran's regime weakens, its proxies wither, and its nuclear weapons and missile programs stall. With oil export revenues, all sanctions and negotiations become empty gestures. If the West is serious about trying to "reform" the Iranian regime, it must focus on cutting off the oil that feeds it. This means coordinated US and EU pressure, real accountability for China, and relentless enforcement of sanctions against buyers and middlemen.

"Reforming" the Iranian regime -- enticing them into the Abraham Accords under Trump's magnificent vision of "peace and prosperity" -- may not be possible. Iran's rulers appear to have an explicit agenda, which, as by now should be clear, does not involve either prosperity or peace for its citizens. If the US is intent on making only Iran's ruling class rich and prosperous, it is consigning the Iranian people to misery in perpetuity. One hopes that the US would not be as cruel as that.

Only if Iran is seriously weakened will the Iranian people have a real chance to taste the freedom that so many in the West cavalierly take for granted, and only then will the world see genuine peace and security in the Middle East.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a political scientist, Harvard-educated analyst, and board member of Harvard International Review. He has authored several books on the US foreign policy. He can be reached at dr.rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21968/iran-oil-sales

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Iran’s Apocalyptic Vision Transcends Diplomacy & Finance - Yoram Ettinger

 

by Yoram Ettinger

Khomeini’s aggressive legacy includes the Twelver concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Velayat-e Faqih), which stipulates that all aspects of life must be governed by Shia clerics until the reappearance of the Mahdi (the Shi'a Muslim Messiah).

 

*47 years of US negotiation with the Ayatollah regime suggest that US policy makers have been impressed with the, supposedly, pragmatism of Iranian negotiators. However, while the US considers agreements with the Ayatollah regime and its proxies (e.g., the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah) a step toward reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, the Ayatollah regime considers negotiation as a step toward the realization of its ideology – a global domination of all walks of life by Shia Islam, headed by Shia clerics.

*While US policy makers tend to take history, ideology and religion lightly, assuming that Money Talks, the Ayatollah regime is determined that Ideology Walks. Furthermore, as documented by its 47-year-old track record of rogue exportation of the Islamic Shia Revolution, the Ayatollah regime’s ideology transcends financial and diplomatic accords and benefits.  

*The ideology-driven rogue conduct of the Ayatollah regime has been vindicated by the surge of Iran from a secondary/tertiary power in 1979 to a global power in 2025, with strategic footprint from the Persian Gulf to Latin America and the US homeland.

*Iran’s Ayatollah regime has been fully inspired by the Islamic Shia ideology, which was expounded by the leader of the 1979 Islamic Shia Revolution, and the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini is considered by the Ayatollah regime and Shia Muslims as The Sublime leader and the role model of governance in accordance with the Twelver Shia, which is embraced by a vast majority of Shia Muslims (e.g., a 60% majority in Iraq, 35% minority in Lebanon and a 12% minority in Saudi Arabia, mostly in the oil region). The Twelver Shia holds that the “infallible” 12th Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi), who disappeared in 939 AD, will return in a violent apocalyptic context, severe suffering by Shia Muslims, stained in “infidel’s” blood, as a savior to establish global justice, dominated by Shia Islam, which is, ostensibly, divinely ordained as the sole legitimate religion.

*Khomeini’s aggressive legacy includes the Twelver concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Velayat-e Faqih), which stipulates that all aspects of life must be governed by Shia clerics until the reappearance of the Mahdi. The Khomeini legacy also dictates that the attempts to bring the “infidel” West to submission provide a tailwind to the reappearance of the Hidden Imam al-Mahdi.  Also, Khomeini was influenced by the founder and the leading ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, in addition to the annually commemorated 680 AD Battle of Karbala (the origin of the Sunni-Shia rift and Shia vengeance and martyrdom), the Twelfth Imam, and the 1501 AD recognition of Shia Islam as the official religion of Iran. While martyrdom has always been celebrated by Islam, with martyrs promised a place in heaven (Quran 3: 169-171 – “Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead; they are alive with their Lord, well provided for….), the Khomeini legacy has promoted deliberate-martyrdom (Istishhad), heralding “the great martyr Imam Husayn ibn Ali,” who was killed in Karbala.  

*Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has fully integrated the Mahdist ideology into Iran’s domestic and external conduct. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which coordinates Iran’s cooperation with its terror proxies throughout the globe, incorporates Mahdist ideology into its training programs, preparing the ground for the Mahdi’s return, and confronting The Great American Satan and its Middle East Vanguard, Israel.  

*Thus, while the Ayatollah regime has underscored skilful negotiation and peaceful talk, its anti-US walk – domestically and internationally – has been driven by a 1,400-year-old apocalyptic ideology, which has been embedded in Iran’s 1979 Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media, transforming Iran into the chief global epicenter of wars, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and the proliferation of advanced weaponry.

The bottom line

Underestimating the intensity of the apocalyptic zeal of the Ayatollah regime, and sacrificing the volcanic, bleeding and frustrating ideology-driven Ayatollah apocalyptic reality on the altar of a pragmatic, peaceful and convenient business-driven alternate reality, may yield a short term geo-strategic accommodation, but would trigger a long term wave of wars and terrorism, paving the road to the first ever apocalyptic nuclear power. 

Amb. (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Source: https://theettingerreport.com/irans-apocalyptic-vision-transcends-diplomacy-finance/

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Key chairmen in Congress want to declassify evidence in suspect Ukraine impeachment case - John Solomon

 

by John Solomon

Six years after Democrats pursued the impeachment case, many of the allegations have crumbled in the face of two convictions, the pardons of Hunter Biden and others, as well as new evidence uncovered by Congress from the FBI, the Justice Dept and the CIA.

 

Two powerful committee chairmen in Congress tell Just the News it is time to declassify evidence submitted by an alleged intelligence community whistleblower that prompted the first impeachment trial against President Donald Trump for his efforts to investigate the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine. 

Six years after Democrats pursued the impeachment case over a call that Trump made to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, many of the allegations have crumbled in the face of two convictions and pardons of Hunter Biden and new evidence uncovered by Congress from the FBI, the Justice Department and the CIA.

The latest evidence was released this week by CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealing that Joe Biden‘s vice presidential staff suppressed an intelligence community report from being published that revealed that Ukrainian officials believed Hunter Biden‘s work for the corrupt Burisma Holdings energy company undercut U.S. efforts to fight corruption in that former Soviet republic. 

“Declassify everything. Let's be transparent. Let's release all the documents,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told the Just the News, No Noise television show. “That's what needs to happen. The American people need to see the true reality of what was going on.

“The Democrats colluded with the liberal media, who were in cahoots with the deep state government agencies to try to create false narratives that Trump did something wrong, that he was trying to dig up something untrue about the Biden family, when it was very true and it was very serious,” he said.

So-called whistle-blowers capable of damage

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., chairman of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, said he too believes the complaint that prompted the 2019 impeachment probe and eventual acquittal of Trump should be made public, including confirming the alleged whistleblower's identity and his possible connections to Biden.

"That's not a whistleblower," Johnson told the same TV show. "I've always said, you know, that not all whistleblowers are created equally. That's right, you know, some whistleblowers, corruptly and maybe even criminally, have an axe to grind and use that whistleblower status to do real damage, I mean, for really evil purposes."

"And I would say that describes this guy. So this isn't a whistleblower. This is somebody who is sabotaging the administration with duly elected president," he added. "The name should be exposed."

The Democrat-led impeachment efforts against Trump in 2019 were prompted by a complaint filed with the intelligence community inspector general by an unnamed CIA officer who claimed that Trump used a call with Zelenskyy to pressure the Ukraine leader to investigate allegations the Biden family had a corrupt relationship with an energy company called Burisma Holdings and that Trump tried to tie U.S. foreign aid to the request.

Though the transcript of the call eventually was released showing Trump did not tie U.S. aid to his request, House Democrats proceeded to impeach Trump before the Senate acquitted him at trial.

During the case, Democrats presented evidence alleging there was no reason to investigate the Bidens' relationship with Burisma and Joe Biden's effort to withhold $1 billion in foreign aid to force the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden's energy company employer. Witnesses claimed Joe Biden as vice president was simply following U.S. policy, and Hunter Biden's relationship with Burisma did not affect U.S. policy.

The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine even testified she had no contact or dealings with Burisma except what she was briefed on before she took the job in 2016. Democrats claimed Trump's efforts were simply a political smear job orchestrated by one of his lawyers, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But in the years after the acquittal, evidence emerged to contradict most of the Democrats' case. IRS agents showed Hunter Biden had failed to pay U.S. taxes on some of the money he earned from Burisma, and eventually the first son was convicted on related tax charges. 

Biden's team hid crucial facts from law enforcement and public, CIA says

Memos were unearthed by Just the News showing State Department officials, including the ambassador who became the Democrats' star witness, had numerous conversations and meetings related to Burisma, were warned the company may have been engaged in bribery and believed Hunter Biden's role at Burisma undercut U.S. efforts to fight endemic corruption in Ukraine,

And Congress ultimately concluded that Joe and Hunter Biden engaged with other family members in a corrupt scheme to trade on the family's powerful name to collect millions from foreigners, including from Ukraine, a claim backed up by some of Hunter Biden's former business partners.

The latest blow to the Democrats' discredited narrative was delivered this month when Ratcliffe, the current CIA director, released a long-hidden memo revealing that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s team intervened in February 2016 to prevent the CIA from disseminating an intelligence report to policymakers about the perceptions senior Ukrainian officials held about his son’s business dealings.

“I just spoke with VP/NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated,” the vice president’s Presidential Daily Brief briefer told the CIA. “Thanks for understanding.” 

The report, reviewed by Just the News, compiled the reactions of senior Ukrainian government officials to the December 2015 visit of Vice President Biden to Kyiv. 

In the aftermath of the country’s Maidan Revolution and the Russian seizure of Crimea, Biden had been appointed President Barack Obama’s point man to manage U.S. policy towards the fledgling, pro-Western government.  

Evidence of a double-standard

The document shows that the Ukrainian officials in the government of then-President Petro Poroshenko, were disappointed with the vice president’s visit to their country for his lack of substantive discussions with their leader. Those same officials “privately mused” about the U.S. media’s scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, the report shows. 

“These officials viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power,” the CIA relayed.

The intelligence report also shows that the Ukrainian officials “expressed bewilderment and disappointment” about the vice president’s visit because he did not engage in any of the expected discussions about substantive matters with Poroshenko or other senior officials.

You can read that report here.

Ukraine _Redacted_Final.pdf

Comer: "Weaponized" intelligence community under Biden

Comer said the report was a bombshell that was kept wrongly from the public and likely would have changed the outcome of Trump's impeachment case had it been turned over in 2019. He accused top Obama-Biden administration officials of a coverup and said the new document exposed "the despicable behavior and the weaponized past of the intelligence community. 

"The deep state was covering up for what the Biden family did. Of course, they were concerned about the relationship that the President, the then Vice President's son, had with this corrupt energy company. Of course, they knew that Joe Biden leveraged the foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for firing that prosecutor. Everyone knew it. But yet no one had the decency to come forward in the intelligence community and blow the whistle," he said.

"I'm glad that we finally know the truth there was a coverup," he added. "And I hope that this isn't the end. I hope there's some accountability, and I'm going to do everything in my power to see that we can help hold these people accountable for the wrongdoing."

Comer played a leading role in dismantling the 2019 impeachment narrative the Democrats built.

His final investigative report in 2024 showed that, in fact, Biden changed official U.S. policy in a way that benefited Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where his son Hunter served on the board. Biden and his surrogates have repeatedly denied those allegations.

After more than a year of investigation, the evidence showed then-Vice President Biden changed official policy by calling an “audible” on a flight to Kyiv, linking a $1 billion loan guarantee for the struggling country to its firing of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. This finding confirmed several Just the News reports.

You can read the final impeachment report here and below:

Joe Biden calls an "audible," shifts from official policy

During the 2019 impeachment of President Trump, government witnesses and Congressional Democrats widely repeated the same claim: that Joe Biden did not change U.S. policy and that the Ukrainian prosecutors were not investigating Burisma.

Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified that calling for Shokin’s firing was “official U.S. policy,” former Trump envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volkert said the firing "was widely understood internationally to be the right policy,” and another former diplomat, David Holmes, testified that Shokin "was not at that time pursuing investigations of Burisma or the Bidens.”

Last year, House Oversight Committee Ranking Member, Jamie Raskin, D-Md., also said the theories that Joe Biden changed official U.S. policy or that Burisma was under investigation by Shokin were “debunked.”

USA Today, FactCheck.org, and CNN, among dozens of other media outlets called the allegations "debunked" and The Washington Post opined that "This is smoke without a fire."

Just a month before Thanksgiving in 2015, a task force of top State, Treasury and Justice Department officials had decided that Ukraine and its new top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, had made enough progress on anti-corruption reforms for the country to receive a new $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee, Just the News previously reported.

They drafted a term sheet for the delivery of the new aid to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during Biden’s December 2015 trip to Ukraine, and were making plans to invite Shokin’s top staff to Washington in January for a high-level meeting. Shokin himself even got a letter from the State Department declaring it was “impressed” with his reform efforts.

Two Nov. 22, 2015, memos—while demanding Shokin’s ouster—urged the vice president to offer the $1 billion loan guarantee during his trip, according to the documents reviewed by Just the News.

Diplomacy or extortion?

By the time Biden got to Kyiv on Dec. 8-9, 2015, he had altered the plan, deciding to threaten to withhold the loan guarantees until Poroshenko fired Shokin, something he would brag about in a 2018 broadcast on C-SPAN.

The reporting on these memos by Just the News spurred Washington Post fact-checkers to revise the central narrative around Biden’s December 2015 visit to Kyiv, now reporting through interviews with former Obama administration officials that then-Vice President Biden “called an audible”—or changed the plan—to link Viktor Shokin’s firing with the $1 billion loan guarantee.

Before this change in policy, the report notes, there was no indication that Joe Biden would link Shokin’s firing with the loan guarantee. Instead, the committees argue that a December 2015 phone call Hunter Biden made to his father on behalf of Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, may have “sparked” the change.

In his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Devon Archer—the longtime business associate of Hunter Biden and fellow Burisma board member—told Congress that Burisma Holdings was pressuring Biden to deal with the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

Biden showed no indication of this policy change before his son’s phone call

During a Dec. 2015 Burisma board meeting in Dubai and just days before then-Vice President Biden’s trip to Kyiv, Zlochevsky and Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi asked Hunter Biden to “call D.C.,” according to Archer’s testimony about the event. “The request was I think they were getting pressure, and they requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure,” Archer said.

“What did Hunter Biden do after he was given that request?” the committee asked Archer. “Listen, I did not hear this phone call, but he—he called his dad,” Archer responded. He said Pozharskyi told him that’s what the call had been about afterward.

The committees believe this series of events makes it likely that Biden was influenced by his son’s call, since he “unilaterally” decided to impose a new condition on the loan guarantee with little warning.

“Evidence demonstrates that Hunter Biden called his father, then-Vice President Biden, to help alleviate the pressure that Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky faced from Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin’s investigation into the company,” the committees wrote in the report.

“This phone call appears to have sparked Vice President Biden to condition a third $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee on Prosecutor General Shokin’s firing,” they add.

Burisma was under active investigation

The House Oversight Committee attempted to refute the narrative by saying that Biden could not have improperly changed U.S. policy towards Ukraine to benefit his son because Shokin was not actually threatening Burisma. For example, one former diplomat, David Holmes, testified during Trump’s 2019 impeachment that Shokin "was not at that time pursuing investigations of Burisma or the Bidens.”

However, testimony and documents gathered by the impeachment inquiry show that Burisma at least believed that Shokin’s probe was active and that they expressed feeling threatened by the investigation.

In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt gave a speech in Odessa criticizing the prosecutor general’s office for failing to pursue corruption allegations against Burisma in the period before Shokin became the head of the office. The speech galvanized the prosecutor general’s office to launch an effort to seize assets of Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, which was carried out in February 2016.

In addition, the speech later prompted U.S. news media to inquire about Hunter Biden’s role with the company. 

After the media scrutiny ramped up, Hunter Biden recommended that Burisma hire Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-connected firm. On Nov. 2, 2015, Vadim Pozharskyi—the Burisma executive and associate of Hunter Biden—emailed the team questioning the scope of the work that Blue Star would perform. 

He made abundantly clear the real purpose for hiring the firm. “The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay's issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” Pozharskyi wrote the team.

This email was released to the impeachment inquiry committees by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who led a tax investigation into Hunter Biden but came to Congress after what they claimed was favorable treatment of the first son by the Justice Department.

In a media interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on X, Devon Archer expanded on his prior testimony, making clear that Burisma viewed Shokin as a threat.

“And so, at the end of the day, Shokin was taking a look and again, I wasn’t involved in Shokin or any of this, but he was a threat,” Archer told Carlson. “He ended up seizing the assets of, of, Nikolai (Mykola Zlochevsky)… house and cars, a couple of properties and, and Nikolai actually never went back to Ukraine after Shokin seized all of his assets,” he continued. 

John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/satkey-chairmen-congress-want-declassify-evidence

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