Why Is the Trump Administration Determined to Arm Hostile Jihadist States That Will Outlast It? - Pierre Rehov

 

​ by Pierre Rehov

The real plan, as can be seen from Saudi Arabia's recent moves, seems to be to avoid joining the Abraham Accords, and instead position themselves in Gaza, right on the border of Israel, to be able to attack it after Trump leaves office.

 

• An institution built around one person, such as US President Donald J. Trump, carries the expiration date of that person's term in office. The states that join it do not.

• The real plan, as can be seen from Saudi Arabia's recent moves, seems to be to avoid joining the Abraham Accords, and instead position themselves in Gaza, right on the border of Israel, to be able to attack it after Trump leaves office. No one will have his determination to make sure that any agreements are enforced.

• Early on, Saudi Arabia came up with a "poison pill": the kingdom conditioned joining the Abraham Accords on the creation of a Palestinian state. Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has since reached an agreement with the US that reportedly allows Saudi Arabia to develop domestic uranium enrichment capabilities under safeguards that fall short of the stringent standards previously demanded by Washington, rather than importing nuclear fuel as other Gulf countries do. The uranium enrichment would, of course, be supposedly "for peaceful purposes." However, these enrichment centrifuges could also be used to make nuclear weapons -- the same kind Iran is not allowed to have.

• Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed the nuclear framework before Trump, to his great credit, the next day presented his own "poison pill": first, Saudi Arabia would have to normalize its relations with Israel and join the Abraham Accords. This requirement seems to have been, revealingly, a dealbreaker.

• Instead, Saudi Arabia organized the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Turkey, which has a vast military, and Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons. Based on the Middle East's frequent schoolyard excuse that "it all started when he hit me back," the three countries could, for instance, provoke or attack on Israel, then when Israel responds for its own self-defense, claim that all three of them had been attacked and "forced" to retaliate: Turkey with its conventional military, Pakistan with a nuclear weapon, and Saudi Arabia by financing the expedition.

• [T]he most senior levels of the Israeli security establishment that concluded that Turkey is still financing Hamas. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan holds a seat on the Gaza Executive Board, the body charged with implementing the disarmament of Hamas.

• When the White House named the executive board for the Board of Peace in January, its members included Fidan, senior Qatari official Ali Al-Thawadi and Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated publicly that the composition had never been coordinated with Israel and ran contrary to its policy.

• The Board of Peace itself, 28 countries operating under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, released an interim report to the UNSC that identified Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States as the four mediating states. The 15-point roadmap that now governs Hamas's disarmament was drafted by those four "guarantors"... What, though, will they actually be guaranteeing?

• A former senior Shin Bet officer with three decades in the service has argued that the parties actually driving developments inside the board are Qatar and Turkey, assisted by Egypt. The arrangement amounts to the Muslim Brotherhood supervising the supposed disarming of its own Palestinian branch, Hamas.

• Turkey has been strengthening its hold on Syria and positioning its military there, potentially for a pincer attack on Israel: from Syria on Israel's east and Gaza on Israel's west.

• Senior Israeli officials trace the Iranian money reaching Hamas and Hezbollah along a route running through Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's implicit permission.

• Money often settles what communiqués leave open. Eight governments -- among them Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco -- signed the founding donors' declaration behind roughly $17 billion in reconstruction pledges... Whoever pays the contractors, the suppliers and eventually the policemen, will decide who governs the streets they patrol.

• The political alignment already exists on paper. On August 3, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey published a declaration in their capacity as mediating countries, condemning Israeli operations in Gaza and calling on the international community to compel Israel to stop.

• Trump's term of office ends in January 2029. He personally chairs the Board of Peace and will pass on that position to whoever succeeds him. Every month of delay moves the supposed complete disarmament of Hamas closer to Trump's successor, and to the states that will still be seated at the table when he or she arrives.

• [T]he US State Department informed Congress that Turkey has not met the statutory conditions... which require Ankara to give up its Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missiles. Although Turkey tested the S-400 following its delivery and has not returned it to Russia, the Turkish government claims that the system is in storage — presumably until it is taken out of storage.

• Erdogan has made no secret of his intentions regarding Israel, as well as Syria, Cyprus and Greece. As recently as March 30, 2025, he stated, "May Allah, for the sake of his name ... destroy and devastate Zionist Israel" He also reportedly prayed for "mercy upon the martyrs" of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a "speedy recovery" for their wounded terrorists. Previously, Erdogan stated, "Jerusalem is our city," and "Patience brings victory," and that "We are determined to not give up on our rights on Jerusalem." This is the country to which Trump wants to supply stealth fighter jets?

• The Saudi nuclear file runs on an identical clock. The draft nuclear cooperation agreement reported to Congress does not contain a Saudi commitment to forgo enrichment and reprocessing, a commitment Washington spent two decades calling the gold standard for nuclear nonproliferation. The Agreement refers instead to additional "safeguards" in the most sensitive areas of cooperation, which is diplomatic phrasing for enrichment centrifuges on Saudi soil.

• Even if the S-400 batteries have been shipped off from Turkey to another country, and Hamas offices in Istanbul are shuttered and independently verified as closed, no F-35 stealth fighter jets should be supplied to Turkey. After all, the S-400 missile batteries could always find their way back.

• In addition, no uranium enrichment centrifuges should be allowed in Saudi Arabia, even if a binding Saudi renunciation of enrichment and reprocessing were written into the operative text, not a side letter. As we have seen with Iran, no one but Trump can be counted on to enforce international commitments.

• Not one dollar for Gaza reconstruction should be disbursed through channels controlled by governments that Israel has identified as financing Hamas, the organization the money is meant to displace.

• What Turkey and Saudi Arabia want from Washington is hardware, and those F-35s will still be flying and those centrifuges will still be spinning, long after the people that vouched for them have left office.

An institution built around one person, such as US President Donald J. Trump, carries the expiration date of that person's term in office. The states that join it do not. Nothing better explains the conduct of Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the past eight months — and nothing in current American policy appears to be taking the countless danger signals from them seriously. Pictured: Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman shakes hands with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, on June 22, 2022. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

An institution built around one person, such as US President Donald J. Trump, carries the expiration date of that person's term in office. The states that join it do not.

Nothing better explains the conduct of Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the past eight months — and nothing in current American policy appears to be taking the countless danger signals from them seriously.

The real plan, as can be seen from Saudi Arabia's recent moves, seems to be to avoid joining the Abraham Accords, and instead position themselves in Gaza, right on the border of Israel, to be able to attack it after Trump leaves office. No one will have his determination to make sure that any agreements are enforced.

Early on, Saudi Arabia came up with a "poison pill": the kingdom conditioned joining the Abraham Accords on the creation of a Palestinian state. Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman has since reached an agreement with the US that reportedly allows Saudi Arabia to develop domestic uranium enrichment capabilities under safeguards that fall short of the stringent standards previously demanded by Washington, rather than importing nuclear fuel as other Gulf countries do. The uranium enrichment would, of course, be supposedly "for peaceful purposes." However, these enrichment centrifuges could also be used to make nuclear weapons -- the same kind Iran is not allowed to have.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed the nuclear framework before Trump, to his great credit, the next day presented his own "poison pill": first, Saudi Arabia would have to normalize its relations with Israel and join the Abraham Accords. This requirement seems to have been, revealingly, a dealbreaker.

Instead, Saudi Arabia organized the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Turkey, which has a vast military, and Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons. Based on the Middle East's frequent schoolyard excuse that "it all started when he hit me back," the three countries could, for instance, provoke or attack on Israel, then when Israel responds for its own self-defense, claim that all three of them had been attacked and "forced" to retaliate: Turkey with its conventional military, Pakistan with a nuclear weapon, and Saudi Arabia by financing the expedition.

On August 17 in Jerusalem, Shin Bet director David Zini and military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder briefed Jared Kushner and a Board of Peace delegation on conditions inside Gaza and on Hamas's reconstruction of its military capabilities. Their presentation included an assessment from the most senior levels of the Israeli security establishment that concluded that Turkey is still financing Hamas. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan holds a seat on the Gaza Executive Board, the body charged with implementing the disarmament of Hamas. Both facts sat in the same room on the same afternoon and produced no visible consequence.

When the White House named the executive board for the Board of Peace in January, its members included Fidan, senior Qatari official Ali Al-Thawadi and Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated publicly that the composition had never been coordinated with Israel and ran contrary to its policy. The Board of Peace itself, 28 countries operating under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, released an interim report to the UNSC that identified Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States as the four mediating states. The 15-point roadmap that now governs Hamas's disarmament was drafted by those four "guarantors," together with High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov. What, though, will they actually be guaranteeing?

Israelis who have spent careers on this file do not treat the result as an accident. A former senior Shin Bet officer with three decades in the service has argued that the parties actually driving developments inside the board are Qatar and Turkey, assisted by Egypt. The arrangement amounts to the Muslim Brotherhood supervising the supposed disarming of its own Palestinian branch, Hamas.

The Board describes itself as an objective mechanism. Its operational majority consists of governments historically hostile to Israel, which have spent two decades keeping the Hamas solvent and trying to lend it political respectability.

Turkey has been strengthening its hold on Syria and positioning its military there, potentially for a pincer attack on Israel: from Syria on Israel's east and Gaza on Israel's west. On August 18, Israeli aircraft struck an airbase near Aleppo to stop a Turkish military deployment against which Jerusalem had warned Damascus for weeks.

At its inaugural summit in February, the Board of Peace denied Turkey a place in the International Stabilization Force, instead awarding troop slots to Albania, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Morocco, and giving Egypt and Jordan stewardship of police reconstruction. That arrangement left Turkey with logistics.

Hamas nevertheless keeps offices and personnel on Turkish soil, where it recruits, raises money and plans terror attacks. Senior Israeli officials trace the Iranian money reaching Hamas and Hezbollah along a route running through Istanbul with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's implicit permission.

Money often settles what communiqués leave open. Eight governments -- among them Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco -- signed the founding donors' declaration behind roughly $17 billion in reconstruction pledges, against a World Bank estimate of $71.4 billion over a decade. A senior Board of Peace official, describing the three-year mechanism capped at $400 million for debts inherited from Hamas rule, said the outside money would come from regional partners rather than from Washington. Whoever pays the contractors, the suppliers and eventually the policemen, will decide who governs the streets they patrol.

The political alignment already exists on paper. On August 3, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey published a declaration in their capacity as mediating countries, condemning Israeli operations in Gaza and calling on the international community to compel Israel to stop.

Thirteen days later, a joint statement signed by Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia accused Israel of disrupting peace efforts and urged the Board of Peace to take concrete measures against any party obstructing implementation. The guarantors have a shared position on how this war ends, and it has nothing to do with security for Israel, to say the least.

The resource they are actually managing is time.

Kushner left the Jerusalem meeting predicting that weapons from Hamas could begin coming out of Gaza within 30 days and that tunnels might be filled within 60-90 days.

Seven months after the ceasefire took effect, the International Stabilization Force has still not deployed, and the Palestinian "technocratic" committee built to administer Gaza cannot physically enter it. Trump's term of office ends in January 2029. He personally chairs the Board of Peace and will pass on that position to whoever succeeds him. Every month of delay moves the supposed complete disarmament of Hamas closer to Trump's successor, and to the states that will still be seated at the table when he or she arrives.

Two decisions now before Washington would outlast the arrangement entirely. Standing beside Erdogan in Ankara on July 7, Trump signaled willingness to for sell US F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey. Erdogan told reporters he had been promised five aircraft, a claim Trump neither denied nor corrected.

Two weeks later, the US State Department informed Congress that Turkey has not met the statutory conditions set by Section 231 of CAATSA and Section 1245 of the 2020 defense Authorization Act, which require Ankara to give up its Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missiles. Although Turkey tested the S-400 following its delivery and has not returned it to Russia, the Turkish government claims that the system is in storage — presumably until it is taken out of storage.

While praising Turkey as a founding member of the Board of Peace, the State Department also voiced concern about the relationship with Hamas.

Erdogan has made no secret of his intentions regarding Israel, as well as Syria, Cyprus and Greece. As recently as March 30, 2025, he stated, "May Allah, for the sake of his name ... destroy and devastate Zionist Israel" He also reportedly prayed for "mercy upon the martyrs" of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a "speedy recovery" for their wounded terrorists. Previously, Erdogan stated, "Jerusalem is our city," and "Patience brings victory," and that "We are determined to not give up on our rights on Jerusalem." This is the country to which Trump wants to supply stealth fighter jets?

The Saudi nuclear file runs on an identical clock. The draft nuclear cooperation agreement reported to Congress does not contain a Saudi commitment to forgo enrichment and reprocessing, a commitment Washington spent two decades calling the gold standard for nuclear nonproliferation. The Agreement refers instead to additional "safeguards" in the most sensitive areas of cooperation, which is diplomatic phrasing for enrichment centrifuges on Saudi soil. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said for years that the kingdom would pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran obtained one.

Once submitted, the US-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement takes effect unless both chambers of the US Congress adopt resolutions of disapproval within 90 days.

Congress is the only American institution whose calendar runs longer than a presidency, and the remedies to the current administration arming terrorist-supporting, jihadist, long-term enemies of Israel are unglamorous but effective.

Even if the S-400 batteries have been shipped off from Turkey to another country, and Hamas offices in Istanbul are shuttered and independently verified as closed, no F-35 stealth fighter jets should be supplied to Turkey. After all, the S-400 missile batteries could always find their way back.

In addition, no uranium enrichment centrifuges should be allowed in Saudi Arabia, even if a binding Saudi renunciation of enrichment and reprocessing were written into the operative text, not a side letter. As we have seen with Iran, no one but Trump can be counted on to enforce international commitments.

Not one dollar for Gaza reconstruction should be disbursed through channels controlled by governments that Israel has identified as financing Hamas, the organization the money is meant to displace.

The Board of Peace was created by an executive decision and can be undone by one. What Turkey and Saudi Arabia want from Washington is hardware, and those F-35s will still be flying and those centrifuges will still be spinning, long after the people that vouched for them have left office.

Pierre Rehov, who holds a law degree from Paris-Assas, is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of six novels, including "Beyond Red Lines", "The Third Testament" and "Red Eden", translated from French. His latest essay on the aftermath of the October 7 massacre " 7 octobre - La riposte " became a bestseller in France. As a filmmaker, he has produced and directed 17 documentaries, many photographed at high risk in Middle Eastern war zones, and focusing on terrorism, media bias, and the persecution of Christians. His latest documentary, "Pogrom(s)" highlights the context of ancient Jew hatred within Muslim civilization as the main force behind the October 7 massacre.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22814/trump-administration-determined-to-arm-hostile-jihadist-states

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Specter that Haunts America - Amir Taheri

 

​ by Amir Taheri

The gospel of American neo-communists is riddled with contradictions.

 

• After the crushing failure of European revolutions in 1848, many communist leaders... sought refuge in the US to escape European police. Though some morphed into capitalists, they gave local politics a leftist accent that is still there.

• The gospel of American neo-communists is riddled with contradictions. They want to defund the police and virtually abolish the armed forces, while all communist systems so far did the opposite by creating a police state backed by a huge military machine.

• They also talk of collective ownership of "the means of production and exchange." Yet those "means" are owned by 58 percent of Americans who hold stocks and won't be happy to be dispossessed in the name of "collective control."

• And that's not to mention countless Americans who own small- and medium-sized businesses.

(Image source: OpenAI)

"A specter is haunting America; the specter of communism!"

Until recently this re-writing of the opening of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels might have sounded like a sour joke. Now, however, we have in the United States politicians who describe themselves alternately as the Democratic Socialists of America or straight communists.

Their morale boosted by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City and the nomination of Abdul El-Sayed as a candidate for a Senate seat from Michigan in the upcoming elections, they openly talk of seizing control of the Democrat Party and reshaping it as an instrument for creating an "egalitarian" system in the US. One of their stars, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is even putting out teasers about a possible presidential run in the 2028 elections.

This is not the first time that the Democratic Party, which is based on a coalition of ethnic, religious and cultural minorities, is taking a sharp left turn. In 1972, the party nominated George McGovern for presidency on a platform inspired by European social-democrat parties. In those days, however, it was Scandinavian social democracy that was hailed as the ideal form of government.

Though communism never became a major force in the United States, it often lurked in the background like the specter drawn by Marx.

A case could be made for an older history of communism in America.

In his 19th century "ancient society" theory, the American ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan wrote of confederations created by Native Indian tribes in parts of the US and Canada.

In the Iroquois Confederacy, there was money, farmland was managed collectively by clans and food was shared, and a concept similar to "from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her needs" was applied.

Benjamin Franklin admired the unity of the Iroquois Confederacy, and in 1754 he suggested the 13 colonies form something similar.

After the crushing failure of European revolutions in 1848, many communist leaders, among them Friedrich Adolf Sorge, sought refuge in the US to escape European police. Though some morphed into capitalists, they gave local politics a leftist accent that is still there.

Nevertheless, Communism never became a major force in American politics.

Some historians suggest that this was due to the America's success in portraying communism as a military-security or even an existential threat illustrated by the "reds under the bed" witch-hunt of the 1950s rather than a rival view of the world. Thus, paradoxically, the USSR by its very existence helped the US avoid communism.

While communism was a taboo word until now, some American politicians used code words such as "social" and "collective" instead.

Fast forward: President John Kennedy's "ask not" rhetoric, perhaps inspired by Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book," designated the individual as one who ought to do something for the state rather than query what the state does for him.

President Bill Clinton's election slogan "It's the economy, stupid!" was a rehash of Marx's belief that the economy provides the infrastructure of society with politics as the superstructure.

In his 780-page autobiography, President Barack Obama praises "the collective spirit, a thing we all wish for, a sense of connection that overrides our differences."

He adds: "The 'regulatory state' conservatives complained so bitterly about had made American life a hell of a lot better." Some might compare this to Benito Mussolini's declamations about the big corporatist state that redistributes the fruits of national endeavor.

The gospel of American neo-communists is riddled with contradictions. They want to defund the police and virtually abolish the armed forces, while all communist systems so far did the opposite by creating a police state backed by a huge military machine.

American neo-communists talk of collective ownership of land while the federal government owns almost 30 percent of the total territory. Add to that land owned by the 50 states, and you already have a collective ownership similar to the Iroquois Confederacy.

They also talk of collective ownership of "the means of production and exchange." Yet those "means" are owned by 58 percent of Americans who hold stocks and won't be happy to be dispossessed in the name of "collective control."

And that's not to mention countless Americans who own small- and medium-sized businesses.

Mamdani's housing officer, Cea Weaver, suggests a freezing of rents and the creation of "powerful blocs of tenants", a recipe to deepen the great city's housing crisis. In such a situation, who would want to invest in building housing for rent?

The neo-communists' internationalist profile consists of unconditional support for Hamas, sympathy for the Khomeinist regime in Tehran and systematic opposition to the United States' projection of power, regardless of the context.

Various forms of crypto-communism have been present in many US elections. This autumn's midterm elections may be the first in which cryptos discard their masks. And that is good news. Cryptos base their hopes on Marx's prophecy about the "law of history," under which primitive communism leads to advanced communism after passing through feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.

However, don't tell anyone: there is no law of history, only tendencies, circumstances, contingencies, accidents, and good and bad luck.

Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat.

 

Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22820/communism-specter-haunts-america

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Repeating the Tea Party Takedown Process on the America First Coalition - Stu Cvrk

 

​ by Stu Cvrk

Same playbook, same coalition.

 

In 2009, a grassroots revolt against bailouts, bureaucratic overreach, and a bipartisan Washington consensus was met—within a few short years—by a coordinated squeeze from four directions at once. The squeezers included the Democrat Party and Obama White House, their legacy media sycophants, the Republican establishment, and the trade associations and consultants who depend on both parties maintaining the status quo.

The Tea Party didn’t die of old age. It was out-funded, out-litigated, and out-narrated by a coalition that had far more to lose from its success than from its failure.

Fifteen years later, a strikingly similar coalition—Democrat officials and strategists, most of the legacy media, a bloc of Senate and House Republicans still oriented toward the pre-2016 political order, and a subset of online right-wing commentators who’ve concluded the project is either failing or captured—is running a comparable playbook against the America First/MAGA/MAHA coalition.

The methods have modernized, with X threads and Substack in place of cable news panels, court injunctions in place of some IRS forms, but the underlying logic is the same. Both movements threatened the machinery—earmarks, revolving-door contracts, regulatory capture, “electability” consulting feeds, and agribusiness and pharmaceutical lobbying arrangements—that both parties’ permanent power structure and their allied industries are built on.

The analysis below compares the two campaigns tactic by tactic.

THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT: FUND THE “ELECTABLE” OPPONENT, STARVE THE INSURGENT

Then:  After Tea Party victories in 2010 rattled the party establishment ahead of the 2012 Senate elections, particularly through candidates Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle, GOP strategist Karl Rove launched the Conservative Victory Project in 2013 explicitly to steer money away from grassroots-backed nominees toward establishment-vetted ones—a move so contentious it triggered what The Washington Post called an “internal GOP clash.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce followed in 2014, publicly pledging tens of millions to back “pro-business” candidates against Tea Party challengers in primaries, largely over the Chamber’s disputes with fiscal hawks on trade, the Export-Import Bank, and the federal budget.

Now: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and allies, including Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), have been characterized in conservative press as slow-walking Trump priorities—from ICE/Border Patrol funding in the reconciliation package to President Trump’s Ken Paxton endorsement over incumbent Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary—while Cassidy broke with the administration to back a War Powers resolution limiting the president’s authority on Iran.

Establishment-aligned money is again flowing to “electability”-branded candidates in contested 2026 primaries even where the MAGA base has coalesced around someone else, echoing the Rove/U.S. Chamber model down to the justification.

THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY AND COURTS: SLOW-WALK IT, LITIGATE IT, OR QUIETLY GUT IT

Then: Starting in 2010, IRS staff in Cincinnati began systematically flagging nonprofit applications from groups with “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” or “9/12” in their names for extended delays and invasive questionnaires. An internal email from exempt-organizations director Lois Lerner called the issue “very dangerous” as early as February 2011. IRS leadership denied any targeting to Congress for two years before Lerner publicly apologized in May 2013.

Nonprofit paperwork, not indictments, was the weapon used, and it worked by attrition, tying up volunteer-run groups in compliance costs and uncertainty through an entire election cycle.

Now: MAHA’s food and pesticide agenda has run into a parallel headwind of court rulings and internal reversal rather than an IRS-style paper trail. A leaked second MAHA Commission report dropped the pesticide restrictions and ultraprocessed-food limits the first report had flagged after the White House reportedly assured agriculture lobbyists those lines wouldn’t be crossed, which prompted even sympathetic voices like Fox’s Laura Ingraham (“Behold the power of Big Ag and Chemical Companies”) and commentator Jeffrey Tucker to accuse administration officials of being “in the pay of Big Food [and] Pharma.”

The mechanism differs—industry capture from inside rather than IRS obstruction from outside—but the effect is the same. A popular policy gets slow-walked into irrelevance by the political machinery it threatened.

THE MEDIA: MOCK IT, THEN PAINT IT AS EXTREME

Then: When Rick Santelli’s February 2009 CNBC rant sparked the first Tea Party protests, media outlets including MSNBC, Talking Points Memo, and The Huffington Post treated it—per the Columbia Journalism Review’s own retrospective—with derision (using the “tea-bagger” epithet and mocking cable-panel humor) before pivoting to a second-phase narrative casting the movement as covertly funded and extremist. CJR’s own conclusion was this: “neither strategy—derision or conspiracy theory—worked,” largely because the mockery read as condescension to the people attending the rallies.

Now: The derision-to-extremism arc has compressed into just the second half. Coverage of MAGA over the past two years has centered on the “threat to democracy” framing that Joe Biden made explicit in public statements calling MAGA Republicans an “extremist threat.” This framing is being amplified by the legacy media into 2026 midterm coverage, arguing that MAGA messaging itself constitutes disinformation.

Where the Tea Party got laughed at first and demonized second, the campaign against MAGA—already a well-known quantity to the legacy media from Trump’s first term and 2024 campaign—mostly skipped straight to the demonization framing.

DEMOCRAT OFFICIALS: NATIONALIZE IT AS AN EXTREMIST THREAT, NOT A POLICY DISAGREEMENT

Then: The Obama White House and DNC treated the Tea Party less as a policy movement to rebut than a fringe to be delegitimized, dismissing it publicly, while privately, the IRS scrutiny described above proceeded on a parallel track.

Now: The rhetoric has escalated from dismissal to explicit “threat to democracy” language, deployed by Biden as president and carried into current DNC-aligned midterm messaging. Democrat campaign committee chairman Sean Patrick Mahoney has said Republicans and Democrats are “in agreement” that the MAGA agenda is “extreme.”

The strategic logic is the same as 2010-2014: reframe a policy and personnel fight over spending, immigration enforcement, and federal agency power as a question of legitimacy, which forecloses the need to engage the underlying grievances at all.

RIGHT-WING GATEKEEPERS AND DISILLUSIONED INSIDERS: THE COALITION EATS ITSELF

Then: Establishment conservative media was more muted in publicly savaging the Tea Party than the left-wing legacy media were, though figures aligned with the establishment Rove wing provided air cover for the “unelectable” narrative used to justify the Conservative Victory Project.

But the more corrosive insider threat was financial rather than editorial. Insider-led national groups and super PACs that claimed to represent the Tea Party—such as FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, and various related fundraising vehicles—rapidly professionalized and commercialized the originally grassroots fiscal-conservative uprising by relentlessly soliciting small-dollar donations from ordinary supporters through emotional direct-mail and email appeals that promised to back “true” candidates and causes.

In practice, the vast majority of the tens of millions raised went to overhead, high consultant and vendor fees, lucrative salaries, media promotion deals, and further prospecting rather than to actual candidates, local organizing, or policy advocacy. A Politico analysis of 33 such PACs found that they raised $43 million from small donors but spent only $3 million on ads and candidate support against $39.5 million in operating expenses.

This diverted resources from authentic Tea Party chapters, eroded donor trust and grassroots energy, and ultimately fragmented and hollowed out the Tea Party into irrelevance. FreedomWorks, which raised over $23 million in the 2012 election cycle, had just $117,000 on hand by mid-2018, and Tea Party Express raised nothing at all in that cycle.

Now: This is where the current campaign has a genuinely new front the Tea Party era lacked at scale: a cohort of formerly pro-Trump online figures—Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, and Nick Fuentes among them—publicly breaking over Iran policy, the handling of the Epstein files, and unmet campaign promises, with Fuentes going so far as to declare “MAGA is dead” in November 2025 and Owens calling for invoking the 25^th Amendment in April 2026.

Whatever their individual motives, the practical effect mirrors what the establishment Republican achieved through funding in 2013–14. It fractures the coalition’s public face and hands the “even conservatives agree” line to hostile media coverage without the Democrat or the GOP establishment having to lift a finger.

INDUSTRY AND K STREET: DEFEND THE ARRANGEMENT, NOT THE PARTY

Then: The Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 primary spending wasn’t ideological; rather, it was a direct response to Tea Party fiscal hawks threatening the Export-Import Bank, trade deals, and appropriations riders the Chamber’s members relied on.

Now: MAHA’s threat to agribusiness, ultraprocessed food, and pharmaceutical revenue models that were facilitated outside public scrutiny by the federal bureaucracy produced the same reflex from the same class of institutional actors. The difference this time is that the influence campaign came from inside a friendly administration rather than through an outside super PAC, which arguably makes it harder for the America First/MAGA/MAHA base to see or resist.

WHY THE TWO CAMPAIGNS?

In short, to protect the automatic federal spending that was being threatened by both grassroots movements.

Both the Tea Party and America First/MAGA/MAHA movements arrived after Washington had spent fifty years building a spending machine specifically engineered to run on autopilot, insulated from any single election. Each posed a direct threat to a different load-bearing piece of it.

The Shift to Omnibus Spending Bills

The starting point is the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, passed to formalize congressional control over spending. The process it created has been broken almost from the start. Congress has passed every required appropriations bill on time in only four of the last nearly fifty years (FY1977, 1989, 1995, and 1997). In 13 of the last 15 fiscal years, lawmakers passed not a single spending bill by the 1 October statutory deadline. Since 1998, it has taken an average of 117 days into the fiscal year to get final spending law, and in 12 of the last 15 years every appropriations bill was folded into an after-deadline omnibus rather than debated individually.

A 2,000-page bill negotiated by a handful of leadership staff in the final 48 hours and passed on a take-it-or-leave-it vote is functionally immune to line-item scrutiny by rank-and-file members, let alone interested voters, which is exactly why “something for everyone” omnibus packages became the default vehicle rather than the emergency measure they were meant to be.

Enter Continuing Resolutions

Continuing resolutions do the same work from the other direction. They auto-renew last year’s numbers and remove any occasion to debate whether a given program should exist at all. Meanwhile, the debt ceiling has become a recurring, choreographed showdown in which a routine increase is treated as inevitable rather than as an actual check on borrowing (currently more than $40 trillion).

Add Political Bribery and Its Protection Racket

Layered on top of all that is the money that financed the political class who benefit from that process. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002—McCain-Feingold—banned unlimited “soft money” contributions directly to parties and, in doing so, pushed the same money into 501(c)(4) nonprofits and, after the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in 2010, into super PACs that don’t have to disclose their donors. These PACs are “dark money” by statutory design rather than by accident!

The FEC—split evenly 3–3 by party—was structurally built to deadlock rather than aggressively enforce campaign spending laws. And it does so routinely on the exact question of which non-PAC groups should have to disclose their donors, which the Brennan Center has called “Probably the single greatest proximate cause of the ongoing surge in dark money in federal elections.”

A commission engineered to tie is not an oversight failure; it is oversight that was never supposed to happen.

Integrate the Federal Bureaucracy into the Spending Machinery

That dark money machinery increasingly runs through the administrative state’s own grantmaking apparatuses, not just election campaigns. Congressional testimony gathered in 2025 identified more than 35,000 nonprofits that receive a majority of their funding from federal agencies, with State Department and USAID grant pipelines singled out for funding NGOs that critics say recycle money back into the same political and personnel networks that authorized it. Officials who approve grants later join the NGOs they funded at high salaries while NGO-linked donors fund the campaigns of the officials who appropriate the next round of funding.

A funding stream that never has to win a floor vote is largely shielded from appropriations riders and rewards insiders on both ends of the rigged process. This is exactly the kind of “automatic” spending that both the Tea Party and America First/MAGA/MAHA movements were built to interrupt, if not terminate outright.

This is what motivated the creation of DOGE. Unfortunately, the NGO and grant funding pipelines were vigorously defended by lawsuits and federal agency resistance such that DOGE essentially ran out of political gas after making headlines in exposing around $215 billion of the targeted cuts of $2 trillion. Fortunately, the President’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud carries on the mission of DOGE.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

None of the spending mechanisms described in the previous section are particularly exotic or secret. Each was built, amended, or left unreformed by both parties over five decades, and each converts a piece of the public’s money into something closer to a fixed cost that no single election can touch (which adds to the public’s frustrations by design).

That is the throughline: the Tea Party took aim at the omnibus/CR machine and the agency (the IRS) enforcing compliance from the grassroots up. America First/MAGA/MAHA has taken aim at the NGO/grant pipeline and the federal agencies like the State Department, USAID, and the EPA that are funding compliance from the top down.

Both movements threatened to gum up the works and convert “automatic” spending back into spending someone has to justify through regular order and fiscal debate in Congress—which is exactly why the same institutional coalition assembled to stop both. Both movements represent existential threats to the interests feeding freely at the trough that is continuously being filled by U.S. taxpayers.

The ongoing campaign to stop the America First/MAGA/MAHA coalition can only be thwarted by U.S. taxpayers’ attention to this matter. 

Stu Cvrk

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/28/repeating-the-tea-party-takedown-process-on-the-america-first-coalition/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign in Europe is escalating - Nicholas Ballasy

 

​ by Nicholas Ballasy

Research cited by CRS found that reported Russian hybrid attacks in Europe quadrupled between 2023 and 2024.

 

Russia’s campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks, political interference and other covert operations across Europe is increasing in frequency and severity, according to a new Congressional Research Service report.

The assessment comes as German authorities investigate an explosives-laden drone discovered near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport. 

A U.S. intelligence official told ABC News that the device and explosives were consistent with those used by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU.

The CRS report, Russian Hybrid Warfare Activities in Europe: Considerations for Congress, examined a growing series of Russian-linked operations since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

"Russia has multiple foreign intelligence agencies tasked with conducting traditional espionage operations to collect political, economic, and scientific/technological intelligence," the report reads. "These agencies also conduct Russia's hybrid warfare activities, in addition to their traditional espionage missions."

The report also identified assassination plots and airspace violations among the tactics attributed to Russia.

“These attacks have been increasing in number and severity,” the report also reads.

Research cited by CRS found that reported Russian hybrid attacks in Europe quadrupled between 2023 and 2024. 

Another assessment identified at least 151 reported Russian operations from February 2022 to March 2026.

The activity has extended well beyond Russia’s immediate neighbors. 

European governments have reported suspected attacks on critical infrastructure, cyber networks and transportation systems, as well as GPS interference and attempts to influence political processes.

The CRS report said Russia’s intelligence services have adapted their operations in response to increased European counterintelligence efforts, including the expulsion of Russian intelligence personnel. 

It described Russian intelligence activity as becoming “more aggressive,” while relying increasingly on methods designed to make attribution more difficult.

The Leipzig airport incident illustrates the potential security risks.

On Aug. 4, German authorities discovered the drone, which was carrying explosives and a detonator near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft. The device failed to detonate, but the discovery prompted a security response and temporarily disrupted airport operations. 

Leipzig/Halle is a major European cargo hub and is used by the United States and NATO allies for logistics supporting Ukraine, according to ABC News.

A U.S. intelligence official briefed on the investigation said that the drone’s construction and explosives were characteristic of equipment used by the GRU. German authorities have not publicly made a final determination.

The incident comes amid broader concerns about Russian activity in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has described the country as increasingly subject to hybrid attacks, while European governments have continued to investigate suspected Russian sabotage and intelligence operations. 

For European governments, the challenge is determining responsibility and responding to operations that often fall between traditional categories of espionage, crime and military activity.

The CRS report warned that the continuing campaign has implications for U.S. and European security interests, concluding that “continued Russian hybrid warfare activities” raise questions about the long-term threat posed by Moscow. 

Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/russias-hybrid-warfare-campaign-europe-escalating

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

NY prosecutor claims Letitia James’ office pushed him to target Trump-linked entities - Nicholas Ballasy

 

​ by Nicholas Ballasy

Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld made the allegations in an agency-wide email Friday, claiming his supervisor instructed him to “find and pursue crimes” involving Trump

 

A prosecutor in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office accused agency leaders of directing him to pursue President Donald Trump and other Trump-linked individuals and organizations without a legitimate basis.

Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld made the allegations in an agency-wide email Friday, claiming his supervisor instructed him to “find and pursue crimes” involving Trump, Truth Social and other entities despite what he described as a lack of credible justification.

The email was quickly removed from the inboxes of thousands of employees, according to the Times Union. 

Wiesenfeld was later placed on administrative leave with pay.

A spokesperson for James strongly rejected the allegations, saying the attorney general’s office remains committed to enforcing the law regardless of political beliefs and calling the matter a personnel issue.

Wiesenfeld could not immediately be reached for comment. The accusations added another chapter to the long-running political and legal feud between James and Trump. 

Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/ny-prosecutor-claims-james-office-pushed-him-target-trump-linked-entities

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Virginia Attorney General creates unit to challenge federal actions - Shirleen Guerra

 

​ by Shirleen Guerra

Jones’ office said the unit will give the Attorney General’s Office permanent staff dedicated to identifying federal actions, responding to them and pursuing litigation.

 

(The Center Square) -

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones is creating a four-attorney unit dedicated to challenging actions by the Trump administration that his office says exceed federal authority or threaten the commonwealth’s interests.

The Federal Accountability Unit will work across the Office of the Solicitor General and Civil Litigation Division and will be led by Deputy Solicitor General Megan Keenan.

Jones’ office said the unit will give the Attorney General’s Office permanent staff dedicated to identifying federal actions, responding to them and pursuing litigation.

“I have a fundamental responsibility as Attorney General to defend the Commonwealth and protect Virginians when the federal government exceeds its authority,” Jones said.

The unit will focus on issues including federal funding, elections, health care, immigration, environmental protections, consumer issues, constitutional rights, tariffs and other economic policies.

Jones also pointed to federal workforce reductions tied to the Department of Government Efficiency as an area the unit could address.

The team will be able to bring lawsuits on Virginia’s behalf, defend the commonwealth’s interests and work with attorneys general in other states on multistate litigation involving federal policies and actions.

State job postings show the Attorney General’s Office is recruiting for the new unit.

An assistant or senior assistant attorney general position for the Federal Accountability Unit carries a hiring range of $105,000 to $148,000.

A separate posting for a deputy or assistant solicitor general assigned to the unit lists a range of $117,000 to $148,000. Both postings list Sept. 8 as the application deadline and allow applicants to work from Abingdon, Fairfax or Richmond.

Jones, who took office in January, has made challenges to federal actions a focus of his first months as attorney general.

Since taking office, Jones has participated in cases involving tariffs, federal control over elections, conditions placed on emergency and counterterrorism funding, access to voter information, commercial driver data and federal housing funds.

His office has also challenged multiple rounds of Trump administration tariffs and joined litigation over executive actions affecting state election authority.

“We understand the weight of this work and the stakes for Virginians,” Keenan said. “We will move quickly, defend the Commonwealth, and meet unlawful action with the full force of the law.”

Jones’ office said it has joined dozens of multistate cases and pursued litigation involving federal workers, public funding, essential services, economic issues and constitutional rights since he took office. 

Shirleen Guerra

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/virginia-attorney-general-creates-unit-challenge-federal-actions

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

North American immigration to Israel surges as 1,100 arrive in August - Pesach Benson

 

​ by Pesach Benson

North American immigration to Israel has surged this summer

 

North American immigration to Israel has surged this summer, with more than 1,100 immigrants arriving in August alone.

According to Nefesh B’Nefesh, more than 2,200 North Americans are expected to immigrate to Israel between June and September on nearly 100 organized flights from the United States and Canada.

Approximately 2,700 North Americans have immigrated to Israel since January, and Nefesh B’Nefesh projects that more than 4,000 will make aliyah by year’s end, potentially making 2026 one of the organization’s strongest years since its establishment in 2002. 

Pesach Benson

Source: https://www.jns.org/live/breaking-news#000001a0-50c6-d401-afb9-5ddf88300000

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Bennett, Eisenkot draw the battle lines in race to lead Israel’s next coalition - analysis - Anna Barsky

 

​ by Anna Barsky

Bennett is offering soft-right voters an alternative to Netanyahu, while Eisenkot is seeking to hold the political center while persuading right-wing voters that he is not dependent on the Left.

 

Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot at a march for conscripting haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews into the IDF, in Jerusalem, January 15, 2026; illustrative.

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

 

B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett and Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot are no longer waiting for candidate lists to be finalized and have begun competing directly as both seek to define their political camps and coalition paths ahead of the coming election.

Speaking at an event in Rishon Lezion, Bennett drew a clear right-wing line against Eisenkot, saying he supports E1 construction between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim and that “anyone who opposes a Palestinian state should support settlement in E1.”

He also made clear that he opposes a Palestinian state “under any constellation.”

Regarding haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription, Bennett positioned himself against both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Eisenkot.

“Bibi is talking about a 50% exemption, Gadi is talking about a 30% exemption, I am talking about 0 exemption,” he said, stressing that any framework that leaves 30% outside the draft would ultimately collapse into a much broader exemption.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Knesset vote, July 16, 2026. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Bennett also hardened his security stance, stating, “Anyone who launches terror balloons into Israel deserves death,” while noting that, as prime minister, he ordered the purchase of munitions intended to help Israel contend with Iran’s air defense system as part of preparations for a strike.

He also proposed targeting the Iranian regime with a sustained military, economic, diplomatic, and cyber campaign.

Eisenkot aims to lead governing coalition

Eisenkot, for his part, has sought to present himself as a candidate who can translate his polling advantage into a governing coalition.

In Maariv’s weekend poll, his Yashar party received 25 seats, compared with 15 for Bennett’s B’Yachad and 20 for Likud. Eisenkot also led Netanyahu in the question of suitability for prime minister, 48% to 37%, while Bennett led Netanyahu 45% to 40%.

Eisenkot has spoken of a target of 63-65 seats for his camp and attacked Netanyahu’s approach, which he described as “victory through not losing.”

He has also hardened his position on conscription, setting a goal of at least 10,000 haredi recruits in each cycle, most of them to the IDF and some to national service, alongside personal sanctions against those who do not serve.

Eisenkot pledged that if his camp failed to reach a 61-seat majority, he would work to expand his coalition rather than default to another election.

In doing so, he is leaving himself the option of trying to assemble a majority even after the election if the results do not give his camp 61 seats.

Eisenkot also claimed that when he was IDF chief of staff, Netanyahu asked him to appoint Ofer Winter as military secretary. The request was made in part because of the importance of having someone who wore a kippah at his side.

Eisenkot said he refused because he was unwilling to make a military appointment based on political or sectoral considerations.

THE DIFFERENCES between Bennett and Eisenkot have become sharper as the two continue to campaign for overlapping groups of voters.

Bennett is offering soft-right voters an alternative to Netanyahu without moving closer to the Left. Eisenkot is seeking to hold the political Center while persuading right-wing voters that he is not dependent on Yair Golan.

E1, the conscription law, and the approach to the Palestinians have highlighted the clear dividing lines between Bennett and Eisenkot, with the conscription issue emerging as one of the primary tests facing the next government.

Shas has already raised the stakes, as MK Yoav Ben-Tzur said the party would demand that a conscription law be passed before the next government is formed.

“If we have to enter a coalition, a conscription law will pass before the government is formed. Unequivocally,” he said.

Netanyahu, therefore, faces conflicting demands even before coalition negotiations have begun.

Bennett and Eisenkot are competing over who can present the stricter conscription framework; Shas is demanding that the issue be settled as a condition for joining the government; and Likud is already signaling that it is prepared to discuss that demand even before the government is sworn in.

Liberman keeps his distance

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman has once again maintained his independence and has not declared support for any prime minister candidate.

In Maariv’s weekend poll, Yisrael Beytenu received nine seats. Regarding the question of suitability for prime minister, Netanyahu led Liberman 40% to 37%.

Separately, Yair Golan is operating from the other end of the political spectrum.

The Democrats have invested in a campaign aimed at young voters and in consolidating an independent left-wing camp, while Golan, for now, is also maintaining his political independence ahead of what comes next.

The Zionist opposition’s advantage still does not automatically produce a majority for an alternative government.

The Arab parties received a combined 13 seats, eight for the Joint List of Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad, and five for Ra’am.

The Zionist opposition’s advantage still does not automatically produce a majority for an alternative government.

Eisenkot could emerge as the leader of the largest party and still discover that the numbers do not add up to a coalition.

Bennett wants to remain an independent alternative. Liberman does not want to become an appendage to another candidate. Golan wants to preserve his party’s independence.

Benny Gantz and Gilad Erdan, meanwhile, are preoccupied, first and foremost, with their own political survival.

The battle for the premiership has already begun, even though the composition of a potential alternative government to Netanyahu remains far from settled.

This is how the political system looks on the eve of the new week: on the Right, parties are trying to prevent votes from being lost; in the Center, parties are trying to assemble lists that will be able to clear the electoral threshold; and among the larger parties, the battle over leadership of the respective camps is already underway.

The approaching deadline for submitting candidate lists will force the parties to finalize their alliances, but the question of coalition formation will remain open even afterward.

Even before Election Day, several questions that will directly affect the result will be decided: which lists will clear the electoral threshold, how many votes will be lost below it, and which party leaders will reach the ballot box with a plausible path to a 61-seat majority. 

Anna Barsky

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-906999?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=August302026

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Arab-Israeli parties unite after Palestinian Authority involvement—report - JNS Staff

 

​ by JNS Staff

The concern in the P.A. was that running separately might have led Hadash, Balad and Ta’al to each fall short of the 3.25% threshold of votes needed to enter the Knesset.

 

Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, delivers a speech regarding the Middle East peace plan at P.A. headquarters in Ramallah, Jan. 28, 2020. Credit: Flash90.

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and other P.A. officials were involved in the process that led to the unification of three Arab-Israeli political parties into a technical bloc ahead of the Oct. 27 national election, in an effort to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming the next government, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Saturday.

The P.A. exerted “heavy pressure” on the parties, the report stated.

The concern in the P.A. was that running separately might lead to the failure of the parties to pass the 3.25% threshold of total votes to enter the Knesset. The three parties in question are the Communist and supposedly secular Hadash Party (with a minority Jewish presence), and the Arab nationalist parties Balad and Ta’al.

The Arab parties announced on Aug. 19 their unification into the Joint List, but without Ra’am, also known as the United Arab List, led by lawmaker Mansour Abbas, which is expected to run on its own.

The four parties have run together in the past as the Joint List, garnering 13 Knesset seats in 2015 following the raising of the threshold the previous year from 2% to 3.25%. It was the third-largest faction in the Knesset at the time, but has since dissolved.

“The decision to establish the Joint List was made for the benefit of the Arab public and at its request, and we say that we will do everything to bring down Netanyahu, regardless of pressure from any other element,” sources in the Joint List said in response to a Channel 12 request for comment.

Most P.A. efforts to finalize a joint bloc focused on Ta’al chairman Ahmad Tibi, according to Channel 12. Contacts were made with Tibi in an attempt to persuade him to agree to the compromise formula proposed for allocating seats on a united bloc candidates list, after previous talks had reached an impasse.

“We must not repeat the mistakes of the previous election and allow Netanyahu to return to power. You are missing a historic opportunity for our people because of internal disputes,” a senior P.A. official was quoted in the report as saying.

Following the unification announcement, Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh told Channel 12 that the three parties would not serve as a “tool” for any candidate for the premiership, neither Netanyahu nor main opposition candidate (according to polls) Gadi Eisenkot, who heads the Yashar Party.

A technical bloc can be disbanded after the election, with each party maintaining its respective number of seats gained separately according to the bloc’s agreed candidates list.

Culture and Sports Minister and Likud Party member Miki Zohar reacted to the report on X on Saturday, writing in Hebrew, “Israel’s enemies are saying explicitly they are working to make us lose the election. What more is left to convince Israel’s citizens to vote only for Netanyahu and the right?” 

JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/palestinian-authority-urges-arab-israeli-parties-to-unite-to-block-another-netanyahu-govt-report

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Sciolistic and Treadless: The Democrats’ Rough 2026 - Roger Kimball

 

​ by Roger Kimball

Suffering from an acute, and possibly terminal, case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Democrats have been assiduous in shredding their credibility since the 2024 election.

 

 

So how is it going? In the Republic, I mean. Pretty well, I’d say. President Trump just announced the Mother of All Oil Deals with Venezuela, the country he liberated from its narco Chinese puppet Nicolás Maduro at the beginning of 2026. (Was it only at the beginning of January 2026 that President Trump extracted Maduro and his wife from their heavily guarded palace? Yes. Time flies when you are having a good time.) “BREAKING NEWS,” the president reported on social media,

The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! At my direction, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working closely with Highly Respected Interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, and, through a partnership with private business, have secured majority U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer. This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course toward Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity. This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States! Thank you for your attention to this groundbreaking matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

This is good—nay, great, which is to say GREAT—news for America and ordinary Americans (if any Americans can be said to be “ordinary”). It is bad news for Democrats. Why? Hearken to what President Trump said. The deal not only “greatly increases our Oil Supply,” it will also “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future.” As Jeeves might have observed when he heard that, rem acu tetigisti. Suffering from an acute, and possibly terminal, case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the Democrats have been assiduous in shredding their credibility since the 2024 election. To an extraordinary extent, they have thrown their lot in with all the many varieties of America haters, from the so-called Democratic Socialists of America to the mouth-frothing, Sharia-law-spouting lunatics who want to turn the United States into another Muslim hellhole.

The Trump administration has been on a tear since noon on January 20, 2025. The border. Energy. Foreign policy. The economy. The toxin of so-called “DEI”—i.e., invidious discrimination masquerading as higher virtue. The weaponization of “gender dysphoria.” The administrative state and its chief export: stifling over-regulation whose only real purpose is to employ regulators and stymie innovation. Anti-semitism on college campuses and sundry municipalities. On all those fronts and more, Trump 2.0 has been like a whirlwind, aiding the good, hindering the bad. It has made the Democrats punch drunk. Their tires are treadless. Wherever they touch reality, they spin out. They can’t get traction. President Trump revitalizes American manufacturing. How can the Democrats be against that? Because—turn the amp up to 11—TRUMP! President Trump tackles rising anti-Semitism at elite universities. What can the Democrats say about that? The best they have come up with is Rep. Jamie Raskin’s pathetic effort to say that the Trump administration is using anti-semitism as a “pretext” to punish or “retaliate” against those noble repositories of “progressive” fatuousness, elite universities.

No, the Democrats open their cupboards and find them nearly bare. Just about the only issue they managed to salvage was “affordability.” The United States has pulverized the Iranian military and is in the process of strangling it economically. A temporary side effect is slightly higher gas prices, which means higher prices for many consumer items. “Please, please, please let the prices stay high,” the Democrats beg as the midterm elections heave into view.

As I write, most polls say that the Democrats are likely to win back the House and possibly the Senate in November. I have never thought that likely. As for the polls, remember what those fake partisan megaphones said about Francesca Hong and Karen Bass. But now that President Trump has put the United States in charge of Venezuela’s huge petroleum reserves, gas prices will plummet and the Democrats will wave their magic wand of “affordability” only to discover that the magic is gone.

I almost feel sorry for the Democrats (emphasis most decidedly on the adverb). Reality just won’t give them a break these days. For the last several years, they have been able to hornswoggle the public with their insanity about boys being girls and girls being boys, climate hysteria, racial hypertrophy, and quite astonishing economic illiteracy. I think that Trump’s present Cabinet is about the best Cabinet since George Washington found himself chewing the fat with Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. In fact, when I ponder the performance of Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Pete Hegseth, and Howard Lutnick, among others, I incline to the belief that Trump’s Cabinet might be the best in history.

That is a subject for another day. For now, I will leave you with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s deliciously devastating missive to the skirling squaw from Massachusetts, Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Responding to an August 13 letter from Senator Warren (or her staff), Secretary Bessent took an acetylene torch to the grandstanding anti-Trump huckster. “I am in receipt of your August 13 letter,” Sec. Bessent began,

which unfortunately reveals that you know even less about foreign exchange markets than you do about banking. Terrifyingly, the opening paragraph is wrong about where the money came, what the transaction was, and whether there was even a borrower. What is equally shocking, but not surprising: not a single member of your media mob has a rudimentary-enough level of financial market literacy to spot your remedial error.

Treasury exchanged existing Exchange Stabilization Fund foreign-currency assets for yen. No new congressional appropriation was involved, and no credit was extended to Japan. Japan owes Treasury nothing. There is therefore no risk that Japan will fail to repay a debt that does not exist.

You state that it is “not clear” how preventing disorder in Japan benefits the United States. As your letter notes, Japan is a major holder of U.S. Treasuries. It is also a critical trading partner and a treaty ally. Disorderly yen markets can trigger forced unwinds, which could destabilize global markets and ultimately raise borrowing costs for American families and businesses. For a fuller explanation, I recommend any entry-level course in international finance for you and your staff, or I can give you a tutorial on Foreign Exchange for Dummies.

Ouch.

I would like to propose that every member of the Senate sit for a viva voce examination administered by Scott Bessent on that book, Foreign Exchange for Dummies. Sec. Bessent’s post was the cause of considerable hilarity when it appeared on X. I was happy to see that, in addition to supporting financial literacy, he is doing his bit to strengthen Americans’ vocabulary. In the text accompanying his letter on X, Sec. Bessent continues his scorched earth treatment of the Squaw. “In her latest sciolistic letter to me, @SenWarren made it clear that she knows even less about foreign exchange markets than she does about banking.” The internet was abuzz with appreciative comment about the word “sciolistic.” I am glad to see it. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “sciolism” as “A pretentious attitude of scholarship; superficial knowledgeability.” I first encountered the word in the writings of William F. Buckley Jr. It is, indeed, a Buckley sort of word: Latinate and deflationary, recondite and precise. It is probably too kind for Elizabeth Warren and whoever gins up her complaints, but it is a nice addition to the general rhetorical armory. 

Photo: Markey wins Democrats' endorsement at party convention, easily topping Moulton in Senate primary fight Worcester, MA - May 30: US Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Massachusetts Democratic Party convention on May 30, 2026. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) 

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/2026/08/30/sciolistic-and-treadless-the-democrats-rough-2026/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter