The Arab-Islamic Formula for 'Peace': Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Do the Arabs and Muslims — or the Europeans — really believe that creating a Palestinian state would automatically produce peace?

 

• The foreign ministers of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt accused Israel of "violating" international law and undermining efforts to implement the Board of Peace's recently published "Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump's Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza." They also called for those responsible for "grave violations" to be held accountable.

• The ministers forgot to mention that Hamas, by refusing to disarm and continuing to hold on to power in the Gaza Strip, is the party committing "grave violations."

• If accountability is important, why does it apply only to Israel?

• Where is the demand that Hamas be held accountable for bringing death and destruction upon the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip by launching its invasion of Israel?

• Why not issue a clear demand that Hamas surrender all its weapons? The omission is especially disturbing because three of the countries represented in the statement – Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan – are members of Trump's Board of Peace and are supposedly helping to bring security and stability to the Gaza Strip.

• Do the Arabs and Muslims — or the Europeans — really believe that creating a Palestinian state would automatically produce peace? Who would prevent Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from taking over such a state? Who would confiscate their weapons? Who would prevent Iran or Turkey from supplying Palestinian proxies with weapons, money and training? Who would guarantee that a future Palestinian state would not be used to launch more October 7-style attacks against Israel?

• Israel withdrew every soldier and expelled every Jewish resident from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Palestinians subsequently had an opportunity to demonstrate what self-rule could look like. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian Authority parliamentary election and seized full control of the Gaza Strip the following year.

• Instead of turning the Gaza Strip into a model of prosperity and coexistence, Hamas transformed it into a base for terrorism against Israel. Why should Israel be expected to repeat this "experiment" on a much larger and more dangerous scale — either in Gaza or in the West Bank, overlooking major Israeli population centers?

• Peace will not come from ignoring Hamas, demonizing Israel and Jews, or repeating slogans about a "two-state solution" as though October 7 had never happened. It will come only when the international community — including Arab and Islamic countries — makes it clear that armed jihadist organizations cannot be allowed to control Palestinian territory, possess private armies, or determine the future of Israelis and Palestinians through terrorism. That would be a far more useful message for Arab and Islamic governments to deliver than yet another communique condemning Israel.

Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic countries gathered in Jordan on August 5 and 6 to issue yet another series of condemnations of Israel. Reading their statements, one could easily conclude that there is only one party responsible for violence, instability, and suffering in the Middle East: Israel. Pictured: The foreign ministers pose for a photo on August 5, 2026 in Amman, Jordan. (Photo by Salah Malkawi/Getty Images)

Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic countries gathered in Jordan on August 5 and 6 to issue yet another series of condemnations of Israel. Reading their statements, one could easily conclude that there is only one party responsible for violence, instability, and suffering in the Middle East: Israel.

Hamas? Barely relevant. The Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre? Apparently not worth mentioning. Palestinian terrorism and incitement against Israel? Not on the agenda. The need to dismantle Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups? Evidently not a priority.

What about Iran, the principal sponsor of Islamist terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East? What about Hezbollah, which joined the war against Israel immediately after October 7? What about the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have launched missiles and attack drones into Saudi Arabia and Israel, and attacked international shipping?

Evidently, they too are not worthy of the ministers' attention.

There was no condemnation of Iran and its network of terrorist proxies, even though they have all played, and continue to play, a major role in destabilizing the Middle East and turning several Arab countries into arenas for Tehran's regional ambitions. There was no demand that Hezbollah surrender its weapons to the Lebanese army. No demand that the Houthis halt their attacks. No demand that Iran stop funding, arming, and supporting terrorist groups dedicated to attacking Israel and undermining Arab states.

Instead, once again, the messaging coming from Arab and Islamic countries was clear: the problem is Israel.

This selective outrage is not merely hypocritical; it is dangerous. By concentrating their attacks on Israel while largely ignoring Iran and Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, Arab and Islamic governments are reinforcing the extremists' narrative that Israel, rather than jihadist terrorism and Iranian interference, is the principal source of instability in the Middle East.

The foreign ministers of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt accused Israel of "violating" international law and undermining efforts to implement the Board of Peace's recently published "Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump's Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza." They also called for those responsible for "grave violations" to be held accountable.

The ministers forgot to mention that Hamas, by refusing to disarm and continuing to hold on to power in the Gaza Strip, is the party committing "grave violations."

If accountability is important, why does it apply only to Israel?

Where is the demand to hold Hamas accountable for the October 7, 2023 massacre, when Hamas terrorists and other Palestinians invaded Israel, murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped 251 men, women and children, dragging some of them into the Gaza Strip as hostages? Where is the demand that Hamas be held accountable for bringing death and destruction upon the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip by launching its invasion of Israel?

The ministers warned that Israeli actions could undermine the second phase of US President Donald J. Trump's 20-point peace plan for the Gaza Strip. According to their own statement, this phase includes provisions concerning the collection of weapons from Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

Why not issue a clear demand that Hamas surrender all its weapons? The omission is especially disturbing because three of the countries represented in the statement – Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan – are members of Trump's Board of Peace and are supposedly helping to bring security and stability to the Gaza Strip.

How can anyone be expected to trust these countries when their governments participate in meetings and statements that condemn Israel while failing to demand that Hamas disarm unconditionally?

If Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan want to play a constructive role in the Gaza Strip, they should start by telling Hamas publicly: "The game is over. Hand over your weapons, dismantle your military and security apparatuses, and relinquish control of the Gaza Strip."

Instead, their statements send Hamas exactly the opposite message: that Israel, and not the terrorist group that initiated the October 7 war, remains the principal culprit.

The August 5 meeting in Amman was even more revealing. Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic states condemned what they described as "Israeli policies and measures aimed at altering the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem," accused Israel of "violations at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif [the Temple Mount]," and referred to Jews peacefully visiting the Temple Mount compound as "incursions by extremist settlers."

Such language in this region is not just totally inaccurate, it is a threat.

Jews — who have lived in the area for nearly 4,000 years, as opposed to Muslims' 1,400 years — have a profound religious and historical connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Portraying Jewish visitors collectively as "extremists" and their presence as an "incursion" is precisely the type of inflammatory speech that Palestinian terrorist organizations have repeatedly — and dishonestly — used to incite violence against Israel and Jews.

The foreign ministers warned that Israeli policies concerning Islamic holy sites constitute a provocation against approximately two billion Muslims and could lead to a religious conflict.

Instead of lowering the flames, such fabrications pour fuel on them.

What, in fact, do Jews do when they visit the Temple Mount? They enter through designated gates under Israeli police supervision and walk along specified routes around the outdoor compound. They do not enter Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock. They do not arrive armed to attack Muslim worshippers or seize the mosques.

There is nothing inherently anti-Muslim about allowing Jews and other non-Muslims to visit the Temple Mount. For decades, non-Muslims – including Christian tourists and Jews – have been permitted to visit the Temple Mount during designated hours. A Jewish civilian walking peacefully around a site that is sacred to Judaism is no more an "incursion" than a Muslim visiting a holy site outside the Muslim world.

Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations have long attempted to portray their conflict with Israel as a religious war over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. When Arab and Islamic governments employ similar lies, they reinforce the false narrative used by extremists to recruit terrorists and justify attacks against Jews.

The Arab and Islamic governments also repeated their support for the establishment of an "independent, sovereign Palestinian state" and described a "two-state solution" as the only path toward peace.

Nearly three years after October 7, 2023, this formula deserves rather more scrutiny. Do the Arabs and Muslims — or the Europeans — really believe that creating a Palestinian state would automatically produce peace? Who would prevent Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from taking over such a state? Who would confiscate their weapons? Who would prevent Iran or Turkey from supplying Palestinian proxies with weapons, money and training? Who would guarantee that a future Palestinian state would not be used to launch more October 7-style attacks against Israel?

The experience of the Gaza Strip should instead have led to serious reflection. Israel withdrew every soldier and expelled every Jewish resident from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Palestinians subsequently had an opportunity to demonstrate what self-rule could look like. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian Authority parliamentary election and seized full control of the Gaza Strip the following year.

Instead of turning the Gaza Strip into a model of prosperity and coexistence, Hamas transformed it into a base for terrorism against Israel. Why should Israel be expected to repeat this "experiment" on a much larger and more dangerous scale — either in Gaza or in the West Bank, overlooking major Israeli population centers?

Peace will not come from ignoring Hamas, demonizing Israel and Jews, or repeating slogans about a "two-state solution" as though October 7 had never happened. It will come only when the international community — including Arab and Islamic countries — makes it clear that armed jihadist organizations cannot be allowed to control Palestinian territory, possess private armies, or determine the future of Israelis and Palestinians through terrorism. That would be a far more useful message for Arab and Islamic governments to deliver than yet another communique condemning Israel.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on X (formerly Twitter) 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22782/arab-islamic-peace-ignore-hamas-blame-israel

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Netanyahu spokesman to JNS: Hamas must disarm before Gaza pullout - Joshua Marks

 

by Joshua Marks

The Islamist group is “just as committed to terrorism today” as it was on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Doron Spielman.

 

Israeli soldiers operate amid rubble in the Gaza Strip. Credit: IDF.

 

Israel will unequivocally reject any Gaza Strip ceasefire framework that fails to require the total disarmament of Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new international spokesperson said on Monday, warning that the terrorist group must be completely stripped of its arsenal before Israel considers withdrawing it troops.

“The prime minister is not going to do anything that is going to put the Israeli people at risk,” Doron Spielman told JNS, emphasizing that Netanyahu is “aware of Hamas’s intentions” and that the group is “just as committed to terrorism today” as it was when it led the Palestinian massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023. “The only thing they’re lacking is the ability” to carry out another atrocity, he added.

Netanyahu insists the terrorist group must “truly disarm” before any agreement moves forward, the spokesperson said. “By truly disarming, I mean all of their weapons are going to be handed over and removed from the area, from Gaza,” Spielman said the premier told him.

Doron Spielman, vice president of the City of David Foundation and author of “When the Stones Speak,” addresses attendees at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem on Dec. 9, 2025. Photo by Matt Kaminsky/JNS.

Netanyahu on Sunday announced that Jerusalem rejects the roadmap on Hamas disarmament announced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace on July 30.

If all of the weapons are not removed, it “would enable Hamas to reconstitute itself,” Spielman, appointed to the position on July 1, said in a phone interview from Ma’ale Adumim. “And therefore the 15-point plan is not accepted by Israel because it removes the teeth from the 20-point plan, which is that Hamas has to disarm before anything moves forward.”

Trump introduced the 20-point plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in September of last year, requiring Hamas to lay down its arms, and Jerusalem accepted the framework. The recent 15-point plan was reached with Hamas terrorists through Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, and Jerusalem is not a party to it.

However, Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for the Strip, told Channel 12 on Sunday that the 15-point roadmap does not require an IDF pullback from the Yellow Line until Hamas’s disarmament is verified “sector by sector” under American-led oversight. Stressing that the framework relies on proof rather than trust, Mladenov said that weapons—including personal firearms—would be collected and tunnels systematically destroyed before military withdrawals occur, adding that the plan’s goal is “to make sure that Gaza is never again a threat to Israeli security.”

Shift in national security doctrine

Spielman outlined a historic pivot in Jerusalem’s approach to the northern front in Lebanon, returning to the defense principles of Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. To protect its citizens, the military is holding a critical buffer zone and engaging Hezbollah threats preemptively rather than waiting for attacks on Israeli soil.

“Ben-Gurion specifically said that Israel should not be fighting wars in its own territory. It should be fighting wars in the enemy’s territory,” Spielman said. “It is a fundamental shift in Israel’s security outlook, which is Israel is not responsive. Israel at this point is very much willing to initiate in order to protect Israeli citizens.”

Tehran only respects threat of force

Regarding the Iranian threat, Spielman pointed out that Tehran deepened its ties with Turkey and Pakistan over the last month, a dynamic that tested the trilateral Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed by Ankara, Islamabad and Riyadh on Aug. 7.

He noted that after Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis fired missiles at Saudi Arabia over the weekend, the regime in Tehran would see any lack of a military response from Riyadh as a sign of weakness.

By contrast, Spielman said the Jewish state maintains its security through overwhelming deterrence and a clear willingness to act against the Islamic Republic.

“There’s only one country that Iran’s not shooting against, which is Israel,” he said. “Why aren’t they shooting against Israel? Because they know, as the prime minister said, we will deal them a blow that they will never forget.”

He praised the unique relationship between Jerusalem and Washington, noting that both nations have demonstrated the necessary resolve to respond forcefully to regional aggression.

“Iran understands one thing. One thing. The threat of force,” Spielman said. “And that is what’s keeping Israel safe.”

Warnings on Saudi nuclear program

Addressing broader Middle East developments, the spokesperson expressed grave concern over Saudi Arabia’s push for a civilian nuclear program. He confirmed that Netanyahu has discussed this issue directly with Trump, stressing the danger such a program could pose to regional stability.

“Every military nuclear program began with a civilian nuclear program. Every one,” Spielman said. “There have to be safeguards and guardrails in place that have to be clarified.”

Challenge to NATO regarding Turkey

Spielman delivered a sharp rebuke of Ankara, condemning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “duplicitous” foreign policy and regional expansionism. He noted that Turkey has taken over an enormous swath of territory in Syria and continues to occupy more than a third of Cyprus while concurrently deepening its alliance with the Iranian regime.

“They support terrorism, they fund terrorism, they fund extremism,” Spielman said. “You can’t be duplicitous and on one hand turn to the West and say you’re a member of NATO, and on the other hand turn to Iran and continue supporting terror. ... I would leave the question at NATO’s doorstep.”

Resilience of the Abraham Accords

Despite the ongoing multi-front war and hostility from nations such as Pakistan, Spielman said there are “serious prospects” for expanding the Abraham Accords. He emphasized that existing normalization agreements have endured what he called “the most trying time the Middle East has faced, perhaps ever.”

“It shows that these are not just on paper. These are real agreements that have practical implications, security implications, intelligence implications,” Spielman said. “It’s a very positive thing and we look forward to expanding it.”

Joshua Marks

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/netanyahu-spokesman-hamas-must-disarm-before-gaza-pullout

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Made in India: Inside the India-Israel weapons alliance Amnesty wants dismantled - Alex Winston

 

by Alex Winston

A report by Amnesty International targets Indian arms exports to Israel, but the data also reveals how New Delhi has evolved from one of Israel’s biggest customers into an important partner.

 

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi leave after a press conference in Jerusalem on February 26, 2026.

(photo credit: Gil Cohen-Magen/pool/AFP via Getty Images)

 

For decades, the basic equation in Israeli-Indian defense relations was straightforward. Israel had the military technology, expertise, and weapons that India wanted, and India had one of the world's largest defense markets.

In 2026, however, that equation is changing.

A new 42-page investigation by Amnesty International, Made in India: The Supply of Weapons and Ammunition to Israel, argues that Indian weapons exports to Israel could expose New Delhi and Indian companies to responsibility for alleged violations of international law in Gaza.

However, within its shipment records, corporate structures, and descriptions of artillery parts, machine-gun components, and drone warheads, there is also a detailed picture of how far the bilateral defense relationship has come.

India is increasingly manufacturing for Israel, supplying Israeli companies, jointly developing systems with them and embedding Indian factories within international defense supply chains. A relationship once dominated by Israeli exports to India has become significantly more reciprocal.

The flags of Israel and India flutter as Narendra Modi makes a state visit to Israel, outside of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, February 25, 2026 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

For Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, senior national security expert, director of the South and East Asia Center at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and CEO of Indivade, this is a strategic shift that Israel itself was slow to understand.

“I have severe reservations regarding the validity of this report,” Birvadker told The Jerusalem Post. “Even Amnesty acknowledges the limits of its own findings, admitting an inability to verify the end-use of the shipments in question. From my perspective, the empirical data presented here demonstrates only one clear reality – Israel and India maintain a legitimate defense and commercial partnership between two democracies.”

That partnership, however, is changing in character.

“For years, defense contractors and policymakers favored maintaining the status quo, treating India primarily as a buyer,” Birvadker stated. While Israeli companies entered joint ventures in India, she said, much of that process was driven by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ policy rather than by any Israeli vision of India as a future supply base.

October 7 and the subsequent years of war and international pressure that followed changed the calculation, she argued.

“It took an event of apocalyptic proportions coupled with growing international isolation, arms embargoes, and shipment delays from Israel’s closest ally, for the Israeli defense establishment to fully recognize India’s strategic weight,” Birvadker said.

Dr. Oshrit Birvadker, senior national security expert, director of the South and East Asia Center at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and CEO of Indivade. (credit: Courtesy Dr. Oshrit Birvadker)

“Two years later, that shift is underway. The defense establishment now signs major MOUs and recognizes India as an essential pillar of Israel’s security doctrine, realizing that ‘Make in India’ provides the necessary scale and rapid delivery pipelines required for Israel’s long-term security.”

What Amnesty found: Thousands of shipments from India to Israel

Amnesty’s investigation is substantial in scale. Using commercially available shipment-level trade data, researchers examined exports between October 7, 2023, and November 30, 2025, under customs categories covering weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles. In total, Amnesty identified 2,596 shipments from India to Israel.

The organization says those shipments included at least 390,516 parts for military-grade small arms, 564,970 parts of explosive ordnance – including artillery-shell components and drone warheads – and 298 military-vehicle components.

Amnesty described those numbers as conservative. It deliberately excluded shipments for which it could not distinguish civilian from military use and removed products that appeared likely to be destined for anti-missile defense systems.

Of the 2,596 shipments examined, Amnesty said it could determine that at least 788 contained items with military uses, excluding equipment intended solely for air defense. Another 1,838 shipments fell within a customs category for pistol and handgun parts, where civilian and military applications can overlap. Of 354 shipments classified specifically as parts for military weapons, 39 involved interceptor components for Rafael missile-defense systems, which Amnesty excluded from its offensive-weapons count.

Amnesty also acknowledged that shipment-level data cannot in every case establish the final end-user or prove that an item was transferred directly to the IDF rather than an Israeli defense company or subsequently re-exported.

Birvadker argued that this distinction is crucial when evaluating the conclusions Amnesty draws from the data.

“The report presents no evidence of intent or official policy by India to facilitate unlawful combat operations or human rights violations,” she told the Post. “Deducting complicity in genocide from routine maritime shipping logs represents an unfounded analytical leap, suggesting a predetermined agenda.”

Amnesty, however, says the nature of some of the products and their recipients establishes a much clearer military connection.

Its report names PLR Systems, a joint venture between India’s Adani Group and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), as an exporter of components for IWI’s Negev machine gun. Amnesty identified 10,571 feeding-tray components and 33,033 bolt carriers and related assemblies exported by PLR to IWI during the period examined.

The report says manufacturer Indo-MIM exported more than 59,600 automatic sears – components enabling automatic fire – to IWI, with another two shipments measured by weight rather than individual units. It recorded 1,273 Indo-MIM shipments of weapons parts to Israel after October 7, although Amnesty classified only 54 as demonstrably military because many components can serve both civilian and military weapons.

Further up the weapons chain, Kalyani Strategic Systems, part of the Bharat Forge Group, allegedly exported 9,600 bodies for 155mm artillery rounds, while the state-owned Munitions India Limited sent a shipment of 1,000 finished 155mm high-explosive shells to Elbit Systems, according to the trade data Amnesty reviewed.

Amnesty also identified a December 2025 shipment by Alpha Elsec Defence & Aerospace Systems – a joint venture involving Elbit – of 122 five-kilogram warhead assemblies. The organization linked that specification to Elbit’s SkyStriker loitering munition, examples of which have been identified among debris in Gaza.

These are the transactions on which Amnesty builds its accusation that Indian companies have become part of the supply infrastructure supporting Israeli military operations. They also illustrate precisely why the relationship is so important to both countries.

INDIA AND ISRAEL only established full diplomatic relations in 1992, and defense ties initially followed the conventional exporter-client model. Israel became particularly important to India after the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan.

Over time, however, New Delhi began insisting that foreign defense companies do more inside India itself.

The expansion of the “Make in India” policy, introduced in 2014, under Modi accelerated domestic production, joint ventures and technology transfer. The Adani-Elbit partnership established what Amnesty describes as India’s first private military-drone manufacturing factory, while perhaps the most prominent example of bilateral development is the Barak-8 air-defense system, jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and India’s Defense Research and Development Organization.

This transformation forms part of a much wider Indian strategy. New Delhi has set 2047, the centenary of independence, as the horizon for its ambition to become a developed and substantially more self-reliant global power, with domestic manufacturing, technological capability and exports central to that project. Defense is increasingly being treated as part of the same national effort.

Indian defense exports reached $4 billion (390 billion rupees) in the financial year 2025, while New Delhi is increasingly seeking future weapons procurements on terms that include technology transfer and greater Indian control over avionics, electronics and guidance systems. The Jerusalem Post was invited to visit India this year and witness firsthand its defense sector in action. Yet its defense production and modernization remain uneven, with continued dependence on foreign technology in important areas and the persistent strategic challenge of preparing for possible conflict with both Pakistan and China.

That combination, rapidly growing industrial capability alongside continuing technological requirements, is where Israel becomes particularly valuable.

Birvadker said India has moved beyond manufacturing solely for its own armed forces and is explicitly seeking a place among the world’s leading defense exporters.

“This sharp trajectory reflects growing global acceptance of Indian manufactured defense systems and the country’s seamless integration into international supply chains,” Birvadker explained.  “Over the years, New Delhi has aggressively pursued the production of everything from small arms and drones to fighter jets and submarines, either independently or through strategic foreign partnerships.

“This partnership with Israel is particularly vital,” she stated. “Unlike traditional defense suppliers that resist technology transfer, Israeli companies demonstrate a high willingness to invest in joint research and development, a factor critical to India’s defense sector growth, as best exemplified by the Barak 8 air defense system. Furthermore, Israeli firms are increasingly outsourcing the production of sub-components to Indian suppliers, elevating industrial standards across the broader Indian market.”

There is another benefit that is harder to quantify.

“Ultimately, having the IDF, which is widely regarded as one of the world’s most technologically advanced militaries, deploy Indian-manufactured systems serves as a powerful seal of quality that boosts global market confidence,” Birvadker said.

“In the context of active combat, real-time operational deployment also provides invaluable field-tested feedback to refine and validate these capabilities.”

For Israel, meanwhile, Indian production offers cost advantages and, increasingly, supply-chain resilience.

Western governments have become more politically divided over defense exports to Israel. Amnesty’s report itself cites restrictions or suspensions imposed in parts of Europe and argues that India continued expanding cooperation during the same period.

Birvadker believes that makes India an increasingly valuable alternative manufacturing base.

“Serving as a critical alternative to Europe in manufacturing and ammunition, especially amid export restrictions and overt or quiet arms embargoes by European nations, India has emerged as an essential industrial fallback,” she said.

There are limits, however. India cannot replace Washington in areas such as fighter aircraft, heavy precision-guided munitions or direct strategic military assistance, she stressed, but the growing two-way flow of weapons, components, technology and capital means the relationship is increasingly one of “mutual interdependence rather than unilateral dependence,” Birvadker said.

AMNESTY IS asking New Delhi to go considerably further than imposing additional checks on exports.

It called for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel and a comprehensive embargo covering weapons, components, technologies, technical assistance and training. It also recommended that Indian companies terminate business relationships, including joint research and development, with Elbit Systems, Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries.

“Israeli systems currently form the technological backbone of India’s security architecture along its sensitive borders with China and Pakistan,” Birvadker told the Post, on what possible consequences implementation would have for India’s own military.

“Companies like Elbit, Rafael, and IAI are not standard import suppliers,” she said. “They are India’s premier partners in building a domestic defense industry.”

Birvadker went further, arguing that severing the relationship could set back India’s objective of technological self-reliance “by decades.”

“India would once again find itself dependent on other global powers, a resurgence of defense colonialism,” Bivadker stated. “Who benefits from such an outcome?”

The legal argument: The controversy lies in what is not publicly visible

Amnesty’s challenge is also directed at India’s export-control system itself.

India is not a party to the Arms Trade Treaty, although it is a party to the Geneva Conventions and Genocide Convention. Amnesty argues that those existing obligations are sufficient to require India to halt transfers where there is a clear risk that weapons could contribute to serious violations. 

Indian arms exports are not unregulated. Military and dual-use goods are controlled through the SCOMET system and require authorization from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade. Applications are reviewed through an inter-ministerial process involving the foreign, defense, and home ministries, and official guidelines require consideration of the end user, declared end use, chain of transmission, and whether an export could conflict with Indian national security or foreign policy.

The controversy, according to Amnesty, lies in what is not publicly visible.

The inter-ministerial deliberations are confidential, leaving no public record showing whether international humanitarian law or India’s treaty obligations were specifically assessed when licenses for exports to Israel were approved.

Amnesty filed a Right to Information request seeking details of specific export licenses and any human rights assessments undertaken by the government, but said it had received no reply before publication.

Birvadker’s position is that New Delhi should resist external pressure rather than allow NGOs to determine its strategic relationships.

“New Delhi must categorically reject the pressure to suspend defense exports, fiercely guarding its principle of strategic autonomy and its sovereign right to conduct relations in alignment with its national interests,” she said.

“Yielding to Amnesty’s demands would severely undermine India’s credibility as a reliable defense partner on the global stage,” she told the Post.

India’s concept of strategic autonomy predates the Israel controversy. It was visible, for example, when New Delhi resisted Western pressure over Russian oil purchases following the invasion of Ukraine, prioritizing energy security and its freedom to maintain relationships across competing geopolitical blocs.

The relationship with Israel increasingly fits into that same model. India remains a major purchaser of Israeli technology while becoming a supplier in its own right. Israeli companies gain an enormous manufacturing base and access to Indian industry; India acquires technology, domestic production and exposure to global defense markets. The greater the integration, the harder it becomes to describe the partnership simply as one country selling weapons to another.

That is another revealing aspect of Amnesty’s report. Its authors see the hundreds of thousands of Indian-made components flowing to Israeli companies as evidence that the relationship should be curtailed. Birvadker cites the same supply chains as evidence that the relationship has become strategically indispensable.

The argument over Gaza will remain bitter and unresolved, particularly when the charge of genocide is treated as settled despite the substantial legal arguments against it. The industrial shift beneath that debate, however, is already taking shape.

India is no longer merely buying Israeli weapons. Increasingly, some of Israel’s weapons begin their journey in India. 

Alex Winston

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-905095

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JNS EXCLUSIVE: State Dept official ‘failed to do his homework’ before working with terror-tied charity, senior US official says - Mike Wagenheim

 

by Mike Wagenheim

“World Vision is severely compromised by ties to Islamist terrorists and a radical left wing climate change agenda,” the senior Trump administration official told JNS. “Why is he funding them?”

 

The Harry S. Truman Building of the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., July 2, 2025. Credit: Isaac D. Pacheco/U.S. State Department.

A senior Trump administration official told JNS that he is concerned about the U.S. State Department’s decision to work with a charity with ties to terrorism, after the department denied to JNS that the organization in question, World Vision, which is based in the United Kingdom, has troubling associations.

JNS reported that Foggy Bottom was working with World Vision as part of what it called a “historic” $2 billion distribution of global health foreign assistance. It made the announcement despite an Israeli court convicting World Vision’s Gaza operations manager of funneling up to $50 million to Hamas in 2022.

The Senate Finance Committee probed World Vision in 2019 and found that the Christian charity transferred $125,000 to Islamic Relief Agency, which the U.S. Treasury Department sanctions for terror ties, in 2014 as a sub-grantee for a U.S. Agency for International Development-backed humanitarian project in Sudan. The Senate panel called World Vision’s vetting procedures “borderline negligent.”

A senior Trump administration official close to the White House Office of Management and Budget told JNS that the State Department working with World Vision is a concern and that the one to blame is Jeremy Lewin, acting U.S. undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs and religious freedom since July 2025.

“Similar to his obsession in funding communist U.N. agencies, Jeremy Lewin failed to do his homework, yet again,” the senior U.S. official told JNS. “World Vision is severely compromised by ties to Islamist terrorists and a radical left-wing climate change agenda. Why is he funding them?”

Lewin’s planned move to the White House in the summer to serve as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council has been delayed. The delay, reportedly, owes to criticism from conservative activist Laura Loomer.

A State Department spokesman told JNS that “any implication that the Trump administration is permitting the diversion of U.S. foreign assistance to organizations with ties to terrorism is baseless.”

“No administration has held Hamas and other radical Islamist terrorist organizations more accountable than the Trump administration,” the spokesman said.

A senior administration official denounced Lewin and claimed that he strained ties with the Office of Management and Budget by allocating $3.8 billion to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Politico has reported. Tom Fletcher, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator who leads OCHA, has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump over the Iran war and the Board of Peace and has shared anti-Trump views for years on social media.

Fletcher has also repeatedly accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, spread debunked accusations that the Jewish state intentionally starves Gazans and told the BBC that 14,000 more babies in the Strip would die in 48 hours if Israel didn’t increase aid deliveries dramatically. He later said that he needed to be more “precise” in his comments.

“World Vision and its consortium of faith-based and community partners submitted a proposal that demonstrated their deep technical expertise, trusted community relationships, extensive government partnerships and decades of experience working closely with local faith-based and community organizations to deliver integrated health services across the world,” the State Department spokesman told JNS.

The U.S. contribution to World Vision does not include funding for World Vision in Gaza, the Foggy Bottom spokesman told JNS. World Vision suspended its operations in the Strip in 2016 after it was accused of terror funding ties.

World Vision dissolved its Israel branch in September 2024 in an agreement with the Israeli Registrar of Nonprofits, after the Israeli Justice Ministry cited audits that alleged financial deficiencies and asset transfers.

World Vision has said that neither it nor its Gaza operations manager committed wrongdoing and that its agreement with Israeli authorities included no findings of personal or systemic wrongdoing.

“We are confident in the vetting process that informed this partnership and remain committed to ensuring that U.S. assistance reaches the people it is intended to help,” the State Department spokesman told JNS.

A World Vision spokesman asked JNS to send questions via email. The questions were unanswered at press time. 

Mike Wagenheim

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/exclusive-state-dept-official-failed-to-do-his-homework-before-working-with-terror-tied-charity-senior-us-official-says

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FBI opened probe into AG Jeff Sessions at Democrats’ request even after he updated his testimony - Steven Richards

 

by Steven Richards

Probe was ignited by a letter from Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee and later a news article.

 

The FBI opened a probe into sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May 2017 for potentially making false statements to Congress about Russian contacts even though he had already updated the disputed testimony, newly declassified documents show.

The evidence to support the probe -- codenamed MARCH TOLL and opened one day after FBI Director James Comey was fired by President Donald Trump -- was a weeks-old letter from Democrats and an article from a liberal news site, the memos show.

The bureau’s investigative files into the Sessions matter were declassified by President Donald Trump and made public Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.

The investigation was predicated on evidence contained in a March 20, 2017, letter to Comey from two Democrat senators on the Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Al Franken of Minnesota. 

The senators argued that Sessions made false statements in his confirmation hearing earlier that year when he testified about communications with members of the Russian government.  

A Trump administration official told reporters the timing of the investigation raises concerns because it was opened right after Comey’s firing and more than a month and a half after the Democratic senators wrote to the FBI.

Just the News reported last week that the FBI also opened another investigation – codenamed “Oxferd Comma” – the following week into President Trump, alleging the newly elected president may have been acting as a Russian asset when he fired Comey. 

The FBI’s probe into Sessions for possible false statements has been public since 2018, when Session’s lawyer told the media that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team had interviewed the Attorney General and decided not to move forward. Mueller, who was appointed to investigate allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia shortly after Comey’s firing, concluded in his final report that his office could not prove Sessions was “willfully untruthful.”

Sessions told lawmakers that he “did not have communication with the Russians”

Mueller's Trump-Russia collusion probe has since been discredited. An investigation by Special Counsel John Durham – released by the Biden Justice Department in 2023 – concluded there was no basis for the FBI to even open the original Crossfire Hurricane investigation into allegations of Russia collusion, for example. 

In January 2017, Sessions told lawmakers that he “did not have communication with the Russians” when asked whether anyone affiliated with Trump’s campaign communicated with that country’s government. Later reporting showed that Sessions met with the Russian ambassador to the United States on at least two occasions during the Trump campaign and while he represented Alabama in the Senate.  

Sessions sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6 to supplement his prior testimony, confirming that he did, in fact, meet with the Russian ambassador twice during the campaign season, but that his answer, “I didn’t have–did not have communications with the Russians […]” was truthful because Franken asked about a “continuing exchange of information during the campaign” between agents of the campaign and the Russian government. 

“I did not mention communications I had had with the Russian Ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote in the letter. 

The supplementary testimony was not enough to satisfy Leahy and Franken, who then wrote to Comey raising concerns about Sessions’ statements to their committee and accusing him of possibly committing perjury.  

“We are concerned by Attorney General Sessions’ lack of candor to the Committee and his failure thus far to accept responsibility for testimony that could be construed as perjury,” Leahy and Franken, members of the Judiciary Committee, wrote to Comey on March 20, 2017.

MARCH TOLL - Opening and Predicate - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26 PII.pdf

Comey “violated long-standing department practice and protocol” IG says

However, the FBI did not act on the letter until the day after President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, citing a Justice Department belief that Comey mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The department’s own independent Inspector General would later conclude that Comey “violated long-standing department practice and protocol” with his conduct in the Clinton case. 

The FBI’s opening memo shows that the investigation into Sessions was first opened at the FBI’s Washington Field Office at the direction of headquarters solely predicated on the March 20 letter from Sens. Leahy and Franken. The file also noted that Comey notified then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on April 28 that the case would be opened. 

Not until May 23 was Sessions' supplementary testimony added to the investigative file, in which the Attorney General argued that he had been truthful to the committee about his contacts with Russian government officials. 

That same day, agents added two open source articles – one from the Huffington Post and another from The National Interest magazine – as evidence of an alleged third meeting between Sessions and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. That meeting allegedly took place during an event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. hosted by the Center for the National Interest. Then-candidate Trump delivered a foreign policy speech at the event.   

The Trump campaign had nothing to do with the seating arrangement

The Center for the National Interest released a public statement on March 8 about the event, clarifying that they invited the Russian ambassador and that “the Trump campaign did not determine or approve the invitation list.” FBI agents added this statement to the investigative file.

“We regularly invite ambassadors and other foreign representatives to our events to facilitate dialogue. Ambassador Kislyak was one of four foreign ambassadors who attended the speech that day. We seated all four in the front row during the speech in deference to their diplomatic status. The Trump campaign had nothing to do with the seating arrangement,” the center said. 

By March 2018, Special Counsel Mueller’s office had decided to close the investigation into Sessions for “potential false statements or perjury,” according to an email contained in the declassified documents release. 

The FBI filed the official closure on May 8, 2018, nearly one year to the day after opening the probe. “The Special Counsel’s Office concurs with the request to close the investigation and provided written notification reflecting as such on May 8, 2018,” the closing memo reads.

MARCH TOLL - CLOSING - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26.pdf

MARCH TOLL - Special Counsel - Closing Email - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26.pdf

The memos of the FBI’s probes into President Trump and his allies are being released as prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Fla., are reportedly investigating whether government agencies, including the FBI, DOJ, and intelligence agencies, engaged in a conspiracy to violate their civil rights through criminal investigations that lacked solid evidence of wrongdoing.

A federal grand jury sent out more than 30 subpoenas last November in the investigation. 

President Trump and supporters were targeted by four consecutive FBI code-named counterintelligence investigations over the last decade, Just the News has previously reported. 

FBI Director Kash Patel has personally led the effort to review the operations code-named Crossfire Hurricane, Round River, Plasmic Echo and Arctic Frost that stretched from summer 2016 to January 2025, uncovering evidence of a far-reaching dragnet that in some cases may have been predicated on false, misleading or uncorroborated justifications, officials previously told Just the News.  

Steven Richards

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/6am-mon-fbi-opened-probe-jeff-sessions-alleged-perjury

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Judge dismissed DOJ suit seeking a full, unredacted copy of DC's voter registration data - Joseph Weber

 

by Joseph Weber

The department said the request was part of a larger effort to ensure that states were properly maintaining their voter rolls and removing ineligible voters.

 

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department seeking a full, unredacted copy of the District of Columbia's voter registration data.

The suit was dismissed Thursday in a  23-page ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss. He rejected the agency's attempt to use a 1960s-era civil rights law as part of what he called an “unprecedented effort to collect sensitive information about voters,” according to the news outlet NOTUS. 

The department about a year ago requested full copies of voter-registration lists – including voters’ full names, dates of birth, addresses and either driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers – for the district and almost every state in the country.

The department said the request was part of a larger effort to ensure that states were properly maintaining their voter rolls and removing ineligible voters.

D.C. election officials turned over only a limited voter list, arguing that privacy laws precluded them from producing personally identifiable information like driver’s license or Social Security numbers.

In December 2025, the DOJ sued D.C. and 30 states for declining to turn over the full, requested information, NOTUS also reports.

Twenty-one judges have thus far ruled against the requests. 

Joseph Weber

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/judge-dismissed-doj-suit-seeking-full-unredacted-copy-dcs-voter

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Issue of whether Paul can get Fauci contempt referral to DOJ centers on nexus of Hill rules, fed law - Just the News

 

by Just the News

Issue is further complicated by the role of the Senate president, who is now Vice President JD Vance. Whether Vance Vance would certify the contempt referral without a vote by the full Senate is unclear.

 

The answer to whether a Senate committee leader indeed has the legal authority to send a so-called "criminal contempt referral" to the Justice Department for Dr. Anthony Fauci declining to answer questions at a recent committee hearing on the COVID pandemic appears centered on the intersection of federal law and congressional practices.  

The leader, GOP Sen. Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is attempting to send the referral to the department without a full Senate vote. 

Such a move sidesteps a longstanding congressional practice that generally calls for the full vote before a contempt citation is formally referred for prosecution.

Following a party line vote Thursday by the committee in favor of Paul's plan, the Kentucky senator said he intends to transmit the committee’s referral directly to the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia rather than first seeking approval from the full Senate. 

Democrats on the committee have condemned the move as a violation of Senate procedure and an unprecedented attempt to bypass the chamber. 

At the July 29 hearing on the federal response to COVID-19 and the virus' origins, Fauci, as the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times.

One possible outcome regarding the referral is that federal prosecutors might not even decide to consider it, much less whether to bring charges, until the Senate settles the procedure dispute.

Another less likely scenario is that Paul puts the referral to a full chamber vote, considering if all 53 Senate Republicans voted in favor, they would still help from the Senate Democratic Conference to overcome the 60-vote filibuster, unless the parties reach an agreement to consider the matter under different procedures.

“This way we don’t sit a month waiting to determine whether or not to bring [the referral] the Senate floor,” Paul told reporters after Thursday’s committee vote. “It will immediately be referred over, and I think it’s important for [the DOJ] to look at.”

Paul has argued that the committee’s action is sufficient to initiate the referral because criminal contempt proceedings are not ordinary legislation and the governing statute does not expressly state that the full Senate must vote.

Statutory Framework

Criminal contempt of Congress is governed principally by 2 U.S.C. § 192, which makes it a misdemeanor for a witness to willfully fail to comply with a subpoena issued by either chamber or one of its committees. The statute provides for a fine and imprisonment of not less than one month nor more than 12 months.

The referral mechanism is set out in 2 U.S.C. § 194. Under that provision, when a committee reports a witness’s failure to comply with a subpoena, the facts are to be presented to the President of the Senate or the SPeaker of the House. The presiding officer then has a duty to certify the matter to the appropriate U.S. attorney, who presents it to a grand jury.

The statute does not expressly say that the full Senate must approve a contempt citation before the referral can be made. But for decades, congressional practice has generally treated a vote of the full chamber as an important step in the criminal contempt process, particularly in the Senate.

That history creates the central legal question facing Paul’s effort: whether the committee can exercise a power that the Senate has traditionally reserved for the chamber as a whole.

A Test of Senate Procedure 

The issue is further complicated by the role of the President of the Senate. The resolution adopted by Paul’s committee contemplates certification by Vice President JD Vance, who serves as president of the Senate. It remains unclear whether Vance would certify the contempt referral without a vote by the full Senate.

The statute contains provisions addressing congressional action when Congress is not in session, but those provisions do not clearly establish that a committee may independently trigger the criminal referral process without involvement from the full chamber. Legal experts have therefore characterized Paul’s approach as occupying a significant procedural gray area. 

Fauci Invokes the Fifth Amendment

A future prosecution would also raise questions beyond the referral procedure itself. The Justice Department retains prosecutorial discretion even after receiving a congressional contempt referral and is not automatically required to bring charges. Prosecutors would have to evaluate both the legal sufficiency of the referral and whether the evidence supports a criminal prosecution.

Fauci’s actions at the July 29 hearing would likely be central to that analysis. Beyond repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and saying he was concerned that the hearing could be used to create a “perjury trap,” he also pointed to a preemptive pardon issued by President Joe Biden that covered certain official conduct during the Biden administration through early 2025. 

Paul rejected Fauci’s reliance on the Fifth Amendment and argued that the pardon eliminated any potential criminal exposure for the conduct under examination. He also ordered Fauci to answer the committee’s questions and warned that continued refusal could result in contempt proceedings.

The effect of the pardon on Fauci’s Fifth Amendment privilege could itself become a major issue if prosecutors pursue the matter. 

The privilege against self-incrimination generally protects a witness from being compelled to provide testimony that could be used against him in a criminal case. Whether a pardon eliminates the basis for asserting the privilege depends on the scope of the pardon and the nature of the potential criminal exposure.

The committee’s contempt resolution accuses Fauci of willfully refusing to comply with the subpoena and seeks to invoke Congress’s criminal contempt authority. 

Next Steps

Some Senate Republicans have expressed support for using the contempt power but have indicated that the traditional process may still warrant a vote by the full chamber. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said the contempt tool “ought to be available,” while stopping short of committing to bring Paul’s resolution to the Senate floor or change existing Senate procedures.

Paul, meanwhile, has left open the possibility of a later Senate vote but has emphasized the need for immediate action rather than waiting for the matter to work its way through the chamber.

The controversy therefore presents a test not only of Congress’s power to enforce its subpoenas but also of the relationship between statutory text and longstanding legislative practice. Section 194 provides a relatively straightforward mechanism for transmitting a contempt matter to federal prosecutors, but decades of congressional precedent may complicate an attempt to use that mechanism without approval from the full Senate.

The Justice Department’s response could ultimately determine whether the procedural dispute becomes more than an academic one. If prosecutors decline to act, the immediate consequences may be limited to a congressional dispute over procedure. But if prosecutors pursue charges, Fauci could challenge the referral in court, potentially putting the Senate’s historical contempt procedures, the committee’s authority, the scope of its investigation and the effect of the Biden pardon squarely before a federal judge.

For now, Paul’s effort places those unresolved questions at the center of an unusually high-profile confrontation between Congress and one of the most prominent figures associated with the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Just the News

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/issue-whether-paul-can-get-fauci-contempt-referral-doj-centers-nexus-hill-rules

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Jason Arday, Barack Obama, and the Making of Myths - Stephen Soukup

 

by Stephen Soukup

Obama faced hardships no one else could possibly imagine, which is strange because he did, in fact, imagine them.

 

 

Yesterday in these pages, the inimitable Roger Kimball recounted the tall tale of Jason Arday, the youngest black professor at the University of Cambridge. As Kimball noted, Arday has been shown over the last few weeks to be more than just your average modern academic charlatan. With every passing day, it appears more and more that he’s a full-throated fabulist in the contemporary sense, which is to say that he made up almost everything about his life and public persona and plagiarized the rest. All his lies and deceptions were, however, uttered in the service of a larger purpose: to undermine the establishment and force its members to reckon with their hatreds and prejudices. Arday overcame more obstacles and barriers than the average man could ever even imagine, and therefore his struggle must be admired and applauded, while his “scholarship” is celebrated. Because of his bravery and courage, in the face of both fate and societal bigotry, he is owed a certain amount of deference and gratitude, irrespective of any perceived defects in the results of his professional endeavors. In short, he’s a better man than the rest of us, so we should, therefore, listen to him carefully and do as he says.

Now, my initial reaction upon reading about Arday’s remarkable achievements was to think of a few of our own American social and political pioneers, some who, like Arday, could manipulate time like plastic (to borrow Roger’s metaphor) and others whose life experiences closely mirrored more famous experiences of others. Hillary Clinton, for example, claimed that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the first Western man to scale Mt. Everest. Mrs. Clinton, of course, was born in 1947, while Sir Edmund scaled the mountain in 1953. But then, what is a mere six years in the hands of one as profoundly gifted as the twice-failed presidential candidate? Likewise, Kamala Harris, also a failed presidential candidate, once told a story about how she, as a toddler, fell out of her stroller at a civil rights march and told her parents—and then the whole world—that all she wanted was “fweedom.” Interestingly, Martin Luther King Jr. had rather famously recounted a remarkably similar story about a young girl at a march in Birmingham, Alabama, who told the whole world that all she wanted was “feedom.” The difference a “w” can make, I guess.

Of all the American politicians whose extraordinary lives—and fabrications—parallel Jason Arday’s, however, none come close to the successful two-time presidential candidate, Barack Obama. Obama’s penchant for the dramatic is well known, as is his profoundly plastic memory. Like Arday, Obama faced hardships no one else could possibly imagine, which is strange because he did, in fact, imagine them. As I have noted before in these pages, David Maraniss’s 2012 biography of the 44^th President of the United States—Barack Obama: The Story—is one of the greatest political biographies of this century, largely because it shows that its subject was a figment of his own imagination. Maraniss—the associate editor of The Washington Post, one of the nation’s most respected journalists, a renowned biographer, and an avowed fan of Obama’s—called Obama’s famous autobiography a work of “literature.” In reviewing Maraniss’s book, Conn Carroll, a senior editorial writer for the Washington Examiner, was a touch more candid: “President Obama was born in Hawaii and is an American citizen. That much is true. But…it appears that almost everything else in Obama’s supposed autobiography, Dreams from My Father, is complete fiction.”

Maraniss notes, for example, that Obama wrote about a friend named “Regina,” who, to him, represented the true African-American experience. Having been raised, in large part, by lily-white Kansas transplants to Hawaii, Obama didn’t have that experience and desperately wanted it. Regina was his ticket. Unfortunately, as Maraniss points out, she didn’t exist. She was “based” on a girl named Caroline Boss, whom Obama met when he was a student at Occidental College. Oh, and Caroline Boss was white. How she helped Obama get in touch with his inner-black self is anyone’s guess. Obama now claims Regina was a “composite” of three people, but given the role “she” supposedly played in his life, that’s hardly a minor technicality.

More consequentially—and laughably—Obama claimed that his Indonesian step-grandfather, Soewarno Martodihardjo, died fighting Dutch colonizers and was a hero of the Indonesian independence movement. Maraniss, however, calls this “a concocted myth in almost all respects” and reports that Martodihardjo “fell off a chair at his home while trying to hang drapes, presumably suffering a heart attack.” Details, shmetails, I always say. Nevertheless, I concluded the following based on this reassessment of Obama’s “life story”:

Maraniss’s biography is not, as Ben Smith suggests, merely a “debunking” of the “core narrative” of Obama’s book. Rather, it is a debunking of the core narrative of Barack Obama, the man—as sold to the American public. The thoughtful, post-racial politician, shaped by the experiences of his exotic Indonesian youth and his Hawaiian adolescence; the inquisitive Ivy League intellectual, informed by the diverse experiences of his white mother, his white grandparents, his colonially oppressed grandfather, and his absentee yet misunderstood intellectual father; the brilliant, yet sensitive populist whose sense of self was forged through a black identity crisis and the realization of his responsibilities to those whose skin color he shares, despite his unique and inimitable background: none of these exist in any real sense of the word. All of them were fabricated. All were created completely out of whole cloth. None has any foundations in reality at all. Which is to say that the American electorate voted in 2008 for a candidate who was simply “made up.”

The similarities between Barack Obama and Jason Arday don’t end with their shared “creative” memories. Neither man crafted his public persona and captured the imagination of his contemporaries and the media in a vacuum. Both were part of the long, slow process of institutional ideological capture, driven largely by identitarian fervor, resulting in a system that both wanted and needed a mythological hero who had overcome all manner of hardships to emerge as its redeemer. Arday in academia and Obama in politics were exactly what the dysfunction in their respective systems inevitably demanded at the time of their appearance. Both delivered, and both caused otherwise normal and sensible people to lose any sense of proportion or reality as a result. Professor Hilary Cremin, the head of the faculty of education at Cambridge, embarrassingly called Arday “the best in the world in terms of the research that you do,” despite there being almost zero evidence of this. At the time, Arday had only a few publications to his name, and he apparently plagiarized at least some of them. As for Obama, the praise was similar, albeit even more embarrassingly over-the-top. Old political hands gushed at the crease in his pants or claimed that he sent a thrill up their legs. And of course, there was this:

Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway….

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

Of course, the key difference between Arday and Obama is that when the former was caught mythologizing himself and plagiarizing from others, he was forced to resign. The latter, by contrast, dismissed charges of plagiarism as no big deal and has never been forced by anyone, anywhere to account for his biographical fabrications. Political commentator Ben Smith—also an Obama fan—blamed Obama’s opponents for enabling his self-mythologizing. “That the core narrative of Dreams could have survived this long into Obama’s public life is the product in part of an inadvertent conspiracy between the president and his enemies,” Smith wrote. “Obama’s young life was basically conventional, his personal struggles prosaic and later exaggerated….[R]ace, central to Obama’s later thought and included in the subtitle of his memoir, wasn’t a central factor in his Hawaii youth or the existential struggles of his young adulthood.” Nevertheless, Republicans took the bait and helped Obama turn the country into a racial powder keg.

I’m not sure that I agree with Smith’s assessment in its entirety, but between them, Obama and the political establishment that swallowed his bait broke American politics in a profound and thus far irreparable way.

I’d warn that Arday could have the same effect on academia, despite his resignation, but I doubt that very much, if for no other reason than academia was profoundly broken long before he appeared in the hallowed halls of Cambridge. Roger Kimball concluded his column yesterday, noting that “Cambridge has a lot more than Jason Arday to worry about.” He’s right. More to the point, as Kimball has shown with his own incredibly impressive body of work, dating back almost four decades, academia as a whole has a lot more than Jason Arday to worry about. Indeed, American politics was so readily breakable because of the influence of Western academia.

As hard as it may be to believe, the fraud and treachery in academia may be even greater than that in politics. Whether either can be saved from its myths and mythologizers remains to be seen.

Photo: Former US president Barack Obama speaks at the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois, on June 18, 2026. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski / AFP) 

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

Source: https://justthenews.com/world/middle-east/iran-sets-conditions-strait-hormuz-reopening-calls-us-correct-its-behavior

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