Netanyahu at UNGA: Gaza genocide ‘lie of the century,’ matter of time before Iranians topple regime - James Genn, Tobias Holcman, Idan Kweller

 

by James Genn, Tobias Holcman, Idan Kweller

Netanyahu calls out Qatar for spending billions to brainwash youth worldwide • "Tyrant" Erdogan hosts Hamas terror chiefs • "Shame on you, antisemitic mayor of New York," he tells Mamdani.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2026

(photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO)

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the genocide claim against Israel was "the lie of the century, while adding that the Iranian regime's toppling was "only a matter of time," during his Thursday address to the United Nations General Assembly.

One of the main topics in Netanyahu's speech was the different fronts that the country is fighting, with the prime minister explaining that Israel is also fighting on the information front against countries that push for antisemitic narratives and spread lies "such as the genocide claim."

"What genocidal regime gives millions of polio vaccines to the enemy population? What genocidal regime enables the distribution of two million tons of food to Gaza, a ton per person?" Netanyahu asked the assembly, adding that a majority of the fighting was done in the social media sphere.

Netanyahu also said that there were several countries in the region actively financing information campaigns against Israel, with Qatar being the first one to hold these sorts of policies and Turkey being the last one.

"Years ago, Qatar started financing universities and the toxic media outlet Al Jazeera. They did the same in Europe, by the way. And their goal was clear. Brainwash young minds to hate Israel, America, and the West. This is the same Qatar that holds the Hamas' butchers of October 7," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walks to the podium to address the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at UN headquarters in New York City, US, September 24, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID)

"Now the last country to become an antisemitic spreader of lies is Turkey. [Turkish President Recep Tayip] Erdogan is a tyrant who also hosts the Hamas terror chiefs," he added.

Netanyahu also explained that the Turkish leader has "murdered thousands of Kurdish civilians, denies the Armenian genocide, has jailed thousands of journalists, and in fact, he holds the world record for this, and illegally occupies northern Cyprus and regularly trespasses into Greece, a NATO member."

He said that it was no surprise that now Erdogan was "attempting to trespass into Syria, and that's not surprising. Because he called for Israel's destruction almost every single day. He says he is going to be the ruler of Jerusalem. No sir, you won't."

Netanyahu calls out Mamdani for links to Hamas, Hasan Piker

During his speech, Netanyahu also called out to recently elected New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani for his policy, saying that Jews are worried about the state of the city and the safety. "Many tell me that this is not the New York that we know, and that they can't believe how fast it changed," he pointed out.

"It's no wonder if we consider that you [Mamdani] praised criminals convicted of supporting Hamas; you count as friends people like Hassan Piker, who said America deserved 9/11. Some friends you have. You invite into your home a Palestinian journalist who filmed Hamas terrorists beating and torturing Israeli hostages and later admitted that he refused to publish the videos in order to protect the terrorists. Your wife likes a post praising the Oct. 7 massacre, and another saying Tel Aviv shouldn't exist," Netanyahu added.

"Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here; you tried to silence me. Well, you can silence me, you can't silence the truth," the Prime Minister continued, and said: "And here is the simple truth: Israel didn't commit genocide; Israel prevented genocide. And that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done if we hadn't stopped them; they would have killed every last one of us."

Netanyahu refers to West Bank violence, recounts latest attacks against Israelis

In another moment of his speech, Netanyahu recounted the recent rise in West Bank violence, saying that the settler population can't be represented by 150 youngsters who "throw rocks and burn down olive trees."

"I can't stand for vigilantes, and that's why we are looking for them with the Shin Bet," he conitnued, adding that there is no comparison with settler violence and the terror attack perpetrated by Palestinians against Israeli civilians in the West Bank.

"Three days ago, an Israeli-French citizen was shot by a Hamas terrorist in a lake in Judea and Samaria. Two days ago, a reservist was run over by a terrorist while in Judea and Samaria," he recounted, then explaining that the victim of the car ramming was Neria Leiter, an American citizen who serves as an IDF reservist and is the son of Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter.

"In a recent post, before he was attacked, Neria wrote this: We have no country; it is a privilege to defend it. To Neira, and to all the heroes of Israel, I pledge: Your sacrifice won't be in vain. We will continue to fight and to win, because we have no other choice," Netanyahu said.

Starlink, beepers, and people leaving during his entrance

During the speech, Netanyahu also used prompts to explain his points, starting by showing a beeper when recounting how the IDF destroyed the Hezbollah threat with the beeper operation, and also a Starlink antenna receptor when speaking about the Iranian people rising up against the regime.

While talking about Iran, Netanyahu also recalled how the protests seen against Israel in Gaza and the West Bank were not seen when Iran repressed protesters in the streets. "But I have news for you. In Iran, the power of the people will overcome the people in power," he said.

During Netanyahu's address, several delegations walked out and booed the Prime Minister when he was called to the podium. Although several delegations left the plenum, 120 remained in their seats, according to the Prime Minister's Office, which told Walla. 

Additionally, Iran's delegation left a photograph of arch-terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani on the bench.

Danon, allied nations presidents meet with Netanyahu on the sidelines

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife Sara before the PM took the stage.

ברוכים הבאים לאו״ם ראש הממשלה נתניהו ורעייתו שרה!

בקרוב ראש הממשלה @netanyahu ימסור את נאומו בפני העצרת הכללית. pic.twitter.com/Mbvb7xxPii

— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) September 24, 2026

Protests were reported outside the UN Headquarters against Netanyahu's presence at the gathering of world leaders.

Additional footage of an anti-Israel protest in New York held ahead of Netanyahu's address to the UN General Assembly. https://t.co/AxXpo4ngvQ pic.twitter.com/dzkU6cjhe6

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 24, 2026

Several protesters were arrested by the New York Police Department for causing disruptions outside UN HQ.

Among those arrested was anti-Zionist movie star Susan Sarandon, Walla learned.

Several elected officials, or very likely soon to be elected, here and about to be arrested @OsseChi, @DarializaforNY @CMAlexaAviles @EmilyAssembly pic.twitter.com/q9ktAHB6lk

— Henry Rosoff (@HenryRosoff) September 24, 2026

Before his speech, Netanyahu met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on the sidelines of the UNGA.

Netanyahu "emphasized the importance of the strategic partnership between the countries for regional stability and welcomed Greece's selection of Israeli defense systems," the Prime Minister's Office said.

Netanyahu and Mitsotakis discussed "regional developments, energy cooperation, and the advancement of another tripartite summit with Cyprus," the PMO added.

Netanyahu also met with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša on the UNGA sidelines, the PMO confirmed.

He thanked Janša for the opening of the Israeli embassy in Ljubljana and his "steadfast support for Israel, which has led to a turnaround in bilateral relations," the PMO said.

The two leaders "discussed opportunities to deepen cooperation between the two countries in various fields," and Netanyahu invited Janša to visit Israel, the PMO noted.

James Genn, Tobias Holcman, Idan Kweller

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-909619

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White House readmits CNN after court blocks media ban - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Trump had issued the ban after complaining about alleged "fake news" from the networks, which subsequently sued.

 

The White House readmitted CNN to the grounds on Thursday after a federal court blocked the president from barring CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the grounds.

Trump had issued the ban after complaining about alleged "fake news" from the networks, which subsequently sued.

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins confirmed she had been readmitted on Thursday afternoon. MSNOW and Politico also confirmed it had been readmitted at roughly the same time.

The White House Correspondents' Association confirmed the bans and several networks declined to cover the pool in protest. 

President Donald Trump, for his part, seemed to know the court's would rule as they did, fretting on social media after the outlets drew D.C. District Judge Tim Kelly, who previously sided with CNN during Trump's first term in a dispute over the ouster of Jim Acosta.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.

Source: https://justthenews.com/index%2Ephp/government/white-house/white-house-readmits-cnn-after-court-blocks-media-ban

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Trump welcomes Xi to White House for landmark visit - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Trump also noted that the visit made Xi the first Chinese leader to formally visit the U.S. twice.

 

President Donald Trump on Thursday welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House, marking the first time the pair had met at the presidential office.

"President Xi, Madame Peng, and the members of the Chinese delegation, I am delighted to welcome you to the beautiful White House," Trump said. He then thanked Xi for hosting him in China earlier this year.

Trump also noted that the visit made Xi the first Chinese leader to formally visit the U.S. twice. The president then expressed admiration for China and the hope for productive negotiations.

The event also saw Trump invoke Chinese-American cooperation in World War II, explaining that Americans had embraced the phrase "gung ho" from that experience.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/trump-welcomes-xi-white-house-landmark-visit

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Trump’s lifeline to China would create a natural gas boon in US, crushing Iran’s energy revenue - Amanda Head

 

by Amanda Head

For American exporters, the deal translates to market share. For China, it’s insurance against a broken Gulf. For Iran, it is a warning that both time and customers are running short.

 

When President Donald Trump meets Xi Jinping in Washington this week, the headline number to watch is not another vague pledge to “buy more American goods.” It is a potential government-level deal to reopen U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales to China—on top of a commercial contract already signed last week—and the strategic meaning of that move in the conflict with Iran.

U.S. and Chinese officials have reportedly discussed reducing or eliminating Beijing’s 15% tariff on American LNG as part of a broader energy and agriculture package that could be announced around Thursday's summit. 

Speculation that China might be getting a political green light

Sources, according to Reuters, described a possible framework in which each side would cut tariffs on about $30 billion of goods. Nothing is final. But the timing is not accidental. A commercial warm-up already happened: China Gas Holdings signed a 20-year deal with Venture Global for 500,000 tons a year starting in 2030, lifting that buyer’s long-term U.S. commitments with the Louisiana exporter to 2.5 million tons annually. 

What remains is the larger prize—a political green light that would let existing Chinese contracts for U.S. gas actually land in China again. Bloomberg estimates those contracts already total about 14 million tons a year, worth roughly $6 billion at long-term prices. That trade froze after February 2025, when China answered new U.S. tariffs with a levy on American LNG. Direct shipments collapsed from 64 vessels in 2024 to effectively zero in 2025. 

Chinese buyers kept lifting contracted cargoes but diverted them to Europe and other Asian markets rather than pay the duty. Restoring that flow would give Trump a multi-decade buyer commitment while U.S. export capacity is still expanding. It would give Xi a relatively cheap concession that also fills a hole in China’s energy security.

That hole is the point. China is not short of gas because American producers failed. It is short of reliable Gulf supply because the Iran war, sanctions, and the fight over the Strait of Hormuz have wrecked the system Beijing used to depend on. 

Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy noted that in 2025 China imported about one-third of its LNG from the Middle East, with Qatar alone supplying roughly 28 percent. 

After U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, Hormuz was effectively closed and Qatari shipments stopped. Reuters reported that Asia’s LNG imports then fell to a six-year low, while OilPrice.com said Iranian missiles later destroyed 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity. About 15% of China’s natural gas imports had been moving through Hormuz. When that corridor seized up, China had to either buy elsewhere or consume less.

In any event, Iran's exports are not enough to fuel China

Iran itself cannot close the gap. Years of U.S. sanctions blocked the financing, shipping, and liquefaction technology Tehran would need to become a major LNG exporter, even though it sits on some of the world’s largest gas reserves. What Iran can sell in volume is oil, and even that lifeline is fraying. 

China has bought more than 80% of Iran’s seaborne crude, Kpler data cited by OilPrice and others show, but a U.S. naval blockade and tighter sanctions have slashed those barrels. Kpler is a for-profit aggregator and seller of trade data.

Reuters reported the Chinese intake of Iranian crude falling from about 1.4 million barrels a day last year toward half a million at times this summer. Sanctions did not just punish Tehran. They also made Iranian energy a less dependable option for Beijing.

For that reason, a Trump-Xi LNG deal would matter far beyond trade accounting. If China locks in more American gas, it becomes less exposed to a Gulf system Iran can choke and less interested in waiting for sanctioned Iranian petroleum that never arrives. 

Officials have been careful to say the talks are unfinished

The commercial message to Tehran is blunt: China has a substitute. The political message is sharper: if Beijing starts treating U.S. LNG as a hedge against Iranian disruption, Iran loses leverage over its most important remaining customer. A regime that has used Hormuz and discounted energy sales as bargaining chips then has a weaker hand—and more reason to make a deal with Washington rather than assume China will absorb the cost indefinitely.

Officials have been careful to say the talks are unfinished. But the shape of a possible agreement is already visible: scrap or cut the Chinese LNG tariff, revive the $6 billion-a-year contract book, and let last week’s Venture Global sale become the start of a wider return to U.S. supply. 

China's economy may be heading toward worst year since 1991

Despite the unfinished nature, China may be in need of an economic boost. A Washington Post report this week says China’s economy may be headed for its worst year since 1991. That refers to Beijing’s 2026 growth target of 4.5% to 5%, which Bloomberg called the least ambitious since 1991, and to second-quarter GDP of 4.3%, below target and the weakest in more than three years, Reuters reported. 

Official growth was worse in the COVID years of 2020 and 2022, so a fairer line may be that it is the weakest non-COVID year since the early 1990s. Some independent estimates put true growth lower still, citing a property bust, weak consumption, and debt above 300% of GDP. 

Amanda Head

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/trumps-historic-summit-xi

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Nothing Has Changed: Palestinian Authority Trying to Partner with Terrorists - Bassam Tawil

 

by Bassam Tawil

Abbas announced the legislative elections to appease Western donors. He just wants more of their money.

 

• Instead of talking about "reconciliation" with Hamas and other terrorist groups, [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas should be demanding that they surrender their weapons, answer for their actions, and disappear from the Palestinian arena.

• There are several problems. One is that Hamas and PIJ do not accept Abbas's conditions. Another is that Abbas is not at all interested in requiring accountability. A third problem that should not be overlooked is: Who is requiring accountability from the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself? Abbas cannot present Fatah and the PA as the "responsible" alternative to Hamas.

• Hamas is a terrorist organization. Abbas and the PA, however, have their own deeply troubling record, including authoritarian rule, suppression of dissent, and a longstanding system of payments and benefits for Palestinian terrorists and the families of those killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis, known as "pay-for-slay."

• US State Department and Congressional reports have confirmed that the PA continued making millions of dollars in payments to terrorists and their families during 2025 and 2026. In 2025 alone, the PA provided $156 million in payments and benefits to terrorists and their families: $126 million to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and those released from prison, and $30 million to the families of Palestinian terrorists who died while committing their acts of terrorism.

• According to Palestinian Authority television, the prioritization of "pay-for-slay" above all other PA budget expenses has caused the PA healthcare system to be "on the verge of collapse." Without "pay-for-slay" salaries, one released terrorist declared on PA television, it would be impossible to recruit terrorists.

• Abbas announced the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council to appease Western aid donors. He just wants more of their money. The elections will not improve the situation for Palestinians: the choice for them remains between two bad parties: Fatah and Hamas. The United States and the Europeans should demand that Abbas stop paying terrorists and their families. That is more important than holding elections.

• Abbas's proposed "reconciliation" should not be presented as a choice between a supposedly "moderate" Fatah and a supposedly extremist Hamas. That Hamas is simply worse in certain aspects does not make the Palestinian Authority's conduct acceptable.

• If Abbas's conditions are genuine, all the terrorist groups would first have to undergo a fundamental transformation, including the Palestinian Authority itself. This change would include recognizing Israel's right to exist and dismantling the armed wings of Hamas and all the other Palestinian terrorist groups. Only then could they operate under Abbas's stated principle of "one state with one set of institutions and one weapons and without militias." Meanwhile, Abbas gets to retain his multi-million-dollar "pay-for-slay" program.

• Bringing a terrorist group such as Hamas into a political arrangement, however, hardly constitutes reform. For years, Fatah and Hamas have competed for power while Palestinians have paid the price of political division, repression, corruption and armed conflict. The political contest in the PA is not about who will bring democracy and a strong economy to the Palestinians. It is still a contest over power, money and control.

• The Palestinians do not need another photograph of Fatah and Hamas officials shaking hands and hugging each other in Cairo. They need functioning institutions. They need accountability. They need freedom from political repression. They need a political system in which no faction can maintain private armies or militias.

• A Palestinian political system that incorporates Iran's terror proxies – Hamas and PIJ – means that Palestinian leaders still view these terrorist groups as legitimate actors.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, however, have their own deeply troubling record, including... a longstanding system of payments and benefits for Palestinian terrorists and the families of those killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis, known as "pay-for-slay." "[I]f we have only a single penny left," he said in February 2025, "it will go to the prisoners and the martyrs. I will not allow a reduction in our commitments to them." (Image source: MEMRI)

On the eve of the third anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking "reconciliation" (musalaha) with Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist factions, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Instead of talking about "reconciliation" with Hamas and other terrorist groups, Abbas should be demanding that they surrender their weapons, answer for their actions, and disappear from the Palestinian arena.

Instead, during a recent visit to Cairo, Abbas said in an interview with Egypt's Akhbar Al-Yom newspaper that he wanted "reconciliation" with all Palestinian factions and that a "reconciliation conference would soon be held in the Egyptian capital under the umbrella of the PLO and with Egyptian sponsorship."

"I want reconciliation with everyone and I do not exclude anyone. Every Palestinian has the right to participate" in the upcoming legislative elections, scheduled for November 28, 2026, he added.

Abbas then added a series of conditions: the Palestinian factions must agree with the policy of the PLO, recognize what he called "international legitimacy," and accept "one state with one set of institutions and one weapon and without militias." He said Palestinians had already "tried" militias and that he did not want people to "die for nothing."

There are several problems. One is that Hamas and PIJ do not accept Abbas's conditions. Another is that Abbas is not at all interested in requiring accountability. A third problem that should not be overlooked is: Who is requiring accountability from the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself? Abbas cannot present Fatah and the PA as the "responsible" alternative to Hamas.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Abbas and the PA, however, have their own deeply troubling record, including authoritarian rule, suppression of dissent, and a longstanding system of payments and benefits for Palestinian terrorists and the families of those killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis, known as "pay-for-slay."

US State Department and Congressional reports have confirmed that the PA continued making millions of dollars in payments to terrorists and their families during 2025 and 2026. In 2025 alone, the PA provided $156 million in payments and benefits to terrorists and their families: $126 million to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and those released from prison, and $30 million to the families of Palestinian terrorists who died while committing their acts of terrorism. Payments also went to families of 5,000 "martyrs" in Lebanon.

According to Palestinian Authority television, the prioritization of "pay-for-slay" above all other PA budget expenses has caused the PA healthcare system to be "on the verge of collapse." Without "pay-for-slay" salaries, one released terrorist declared on PA television, it would be impossible to recruit terrorists.

Abbas announced the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council to appease Western aid donors. He just wants more of their money. The elections will not improve the situation for Palestinians: the choice for them remains between two bad parties: Fatah and Hamas. The United States and the Europeans should demand that Abbas stop paying terrorists and their families. That is more important than holding elections.

Abbas's proposed "reconciliation" should not be presented as a choice between a supposedly "moderate" Fatah and a supposedly extremist Hamas. That Hamas is simply worse in certain aspects does not make the Palestinian Authority's conduct acceptable.

Hamas has never accepted the Oslo Accords signed between the PLO and Israel in 1993-1995, and the Palestinian Authority has not fulfilled its binding obligations under the Accords. Both the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas do not recognize Israel's right to exist and have continued to reject the political framework established by the Oslo process. Both do not accept the PLO's commitment to United Nations resolutions pertaining to the Israeli Arab conflict. Most importantly, Hamas and PIJ in Gaza have consistently refused to surrender their weapons and dissolve their armed wings.

If Abbas's conditions are genuine, all the terrorist groups would first have to undergo a fundamental transformation, including the Palestinian Authority itself. This change would include recognizing Israel's right to exist and dismantling the armed wings of Hamas and all the other Palestinian terrorist groups. Only then could they operate under Abbas's stated principle of "one state with one set of institutions and one weapons and without militias." Meanwhile, Abbas gets to retain his multi-million-dollar "pay-for-slay" program.

Hamas and PIJ are not just political factions with which Fatah happens to disagree. The United States and several other countries have officially designated both Hamas and PIJ as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

There is another striking feature of Abbas's interview. When asked about the October 7, 2023 massacre and its repercussions, Abbas chose to focus only on the destruction in the Gaza Strip, as if the invasion of Israel by Hamas had never taken place. "After October 7, the result was the complete destruction of the Gaza Strip," he said, referring to the destruction of infrastructure, roads, and buildings. "What happened brought nothing but destruction and ruin."

There is no mention of the murders, kidnapping and torture of thousands of Israeli and foreign nationals that caused the "destruction" he is lamenting.

If Abbas or any other Palestinian leader wants to convince Israelis and the international community that the Palestinian leadership represents a different political path from Hamas and PIJ, all they have to do is say plainly -- and then actually do it. He must declare that attacking Israeli civilians deliberately and taking hostages will no longer be accepted, that Hamas and all the terrorist organizations must surrender their weapons, and that no Palestinian political future will be built on terrorists or terrorism.

Abbas also appears to have forgotten -- or at least set aside -- what happened between his Fatah faction and Hamas in 2007. Hamas members violently seized control of the Gaza Strip, forcibly took over the government from the Palestinian Authority. After days of deadly fighting and extrajudicial executions -- including Hamas throwing Fatah members off tall buildings to their deaths -- other Fatah members fled to Israel.

According to Human Rights Watch:

"For eight days, the fighting was intense, and both sides engaged in serious violations of international humanitarian law, such as torturing and summarily executing captured and incapacitated fighters, including those inside hospitals, unnecessarily endangering civilians by fighting from populated areas, and blocking medical access to the injured. Hamas security forces, including members of the Executive Force and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, shot several captured Fatah security members multiple times in the legs – a practice that continued over the following months."

Since then, Abbas has repeatedly stated that there could be no "reconciliation" talks with Hamas so long as the terrorist group continues to control the Gaza Strip. In June 2007, he also issued a presidential decree declaring the Executive Force and Hamas militias to be "outlawed" due to their armed coup against the Palestinian Authority.

The fundamental problems, however, have not disappeared. Hamas remains an Islamist terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel through jihad (holy war), and while Abbas says that the Palestinians need one state, one government, one set of institutions, and one weapon, Hamas continues to retain its armed wing.

For years, furthermore, Abbas has faced sustained international pressure to reform his own Palestinian Authority and strengthen governance, transparency, and the rule of law.

Recently, Abbas "renewed his commitment to the national reform agenda, including improving governance and transparency, strengthening the justice and security sectors, modernizing public administration, and developing education curricula in line with UNESCO standards," according to the PA's official WAFA news agency.

"He further emphasized efforts to enhance social protection systems, combat corruption, and reinforce accountability and integrity, while working with international and regional partners to implement reforms within set timelines."

Bringing a terrorist group such as Hamas into a political arrangement, however, hardly constitutes reform. For years, Fatah and Hamas have competed for power while Palestinians have paid the price of political division, repression, corruption and armed conflict. The political contest in the PA is not about who will bring democracy and a strong economy to the Palestinians. It is still a contest over power, money and control.

The Palestinians do not need another photograph of Fatah and Hamas officials shaking hands and hugging each other in Cairo. They need functioning institutions. They need accountability. They need freedom from political repression. They need a political system in which no faction can maintain private armies or militias.

Finally, Abbas's proposal raises an even larger question: Why is Palestinian reconciliation always discussed primarily as reconciliation among Palestinian factions, while reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis remains so distant? A Palestinian political system that incorporates Iran's terror proxies – Hamas and PIJ – means that Palestinian leaders still view these terrorist groups as legitimate actors.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple who wish to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22875/palestinian-authority-partner-with-terrorists

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Israel ready to resume strikes on Iran as regime aims to rebuild nuclear program - report - Tobias Holcman

 

by Tobias Holcman

"We will move to strike nuclear facilities and any site belonging to them again if Tehran crosses any of the red lines, whether with or without the participation of the US," an Israeli official said.

 

An F-35 adir from 140 squadron take part in an Israeli air force air show during the graduation ceremony for soldiers who have completed the IAF Flight Course, at the Hatzerim Air Base in the Negev desert, June 29, 2023.

(photo credit: OFER ZIDON/FLASH90)

 

Israeli officials believe that it's only a matter of time until the resumption of strikes against Iran, according to a report by Saudi state-owned news outlet Al Hadath on Thursday.

The official told the outlet that the Israeli intelligence has detected an attempt by Iran to revive and activate its nuclear program in anticipation of a strike, following reports in Israel about the regime transferring its remaining nuclear project to Jabal al-Fas, near the Natanz nuclear facility.

The report also cited the official saying that Israel is "defensively and offensively prepared for the possibility of renewed war on Iran and on other fronts as well, at any time."

"We will move to strike nuclear facilities and any site belonging to them again if Tehran crosses any of the red lines, whether with or without the participation of the US," the official added.

The official also warned that the current economic sanctions taken against Iranian-linked entities are generating pressure in Tehran, causing internal division and domestic pressure. "These factors could push it [the Iranian regime] toward military responses in the region, including against Israel."

SATELLITE VIEW shows vehicles at an entrance to Pickaxe Mountain tunnels, near Natanz nuclear facility, in Iran, June 21. (credit: VANTOR/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

He then insisted that the only way to have a non-nuclear Iran is through a regime change in the country.

Elections don't constitute a decisive variable against Iran

The official also revealed that the elections in Israel, which will be held on October 27, aren't a factor that could influence the decision-making about striking Iran.

He also said that the current sanctions by the Trump administration are having better effects than expected, with current estimates suggesting that a regime collapse could happen sooner than anticipated.

Finally, the official warned Al Hadath that Israel doesn't see much value in the current negotiations between Americans and Iranians, despite the continuation of contacts and mediations, due to Tehran’s procrastination and its bets on political developments in the United States and Israel that could stop an attack from happening.

Iran, US meet on sidelines of UNGA

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicated through mediators on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the first such contacts since an interim ceasefire agreement collapsed in July.

"Steve and Jared had a very productive meeting today with mediators of Iran, merely mediators. Let's see what happens with that," US President Donald Trump said. "They've been mediated for a while, but I think there's a lot of momentum for them to make a deal. It's what we're hearing from everybody."

The Al Hadath report mentioned that no agreement was reached during this meeting, as disagreements continued over several issues, most notably the Strait of Hormuz, in addition to the lack of trust between them.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tobias Holcman

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-909607

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The El-Sayed litmus test cuts both ways - Jonathan S. Tobin

 

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Power-hungry Democrats, as well as Tucker Carlson, regard support for an antisemitic Senate candidate as an imperative. Are liberal Jews ready to normalize hatred directed against themselves?

 

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaks during a press conference in Detroit on Sept. 22, 2026. Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images.

What do Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have in common? In general, the answer is not much. But when it comes to the election of an antisemite to a Michigan U.S. Senate seat, they are very much on the same page.

The same appears to be true for a lot of people like Schumer, who are nominally Jewish but who prioritize the interests of the Democratic Party over their abhorrence of antisemitism, let alone support for the survival of the State of Israel. For them, backing Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a litmus test of their loyalty to the Democrats. It is one that many of them are passing with flying colors, as a recent letter signed by 500 people who claim to identify as Jewish attested.

That poses an interesting question for the rest of American Jewry. Regardless of their partisan affiliations, are they prepared to treat a candidate who is openly antisemitic as a line in the sand they will not cross and, in effect, a litmus test of their Jewish identity, if not also of their decency?

While ardent Democrats know how they stand on the El-Sayed litmus test, the jury is clearly out on whether Jews who don’t treat partisanship as the highest standard to which they aspire feel differently.

Horseshoe politics

Carlson’s extravagant praise for Democratic candidate El-Sayed while bashing his conservative Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, in the crucial Michigan race might surprise some people who are still under the impression that the podcaster is on the political right. That’s no longer the case.

For anyone who has taken the trouble to watch his popular podcast in the last two years, Carlson’s praise for El-Sayed is entirely in line with the core of his message. El-Sayed hates America and all it stands for, and has stated that the Al-Qaeda attacks on targets in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were a natural reaction to U.S. foreign policy. He opposes the war on the Islamist regime in Iran. More importantly, he repeatedly floats blood libels about Israel committing “genocide,” and regards its efforts to defend itself against genocidal terrorists as uniquely evil. He campaigned on conspiracy theories about Jews trying to buy influence and power in Washington. And he continues to demonize the AIPAC lobby and American Jewish participation in the normal business of democracy if it involves support for the Jewish state.

In this way, El-Sayed and Carlson are a perfect reflection of the “horseshoe theory” of politics, in which the far left and far right always find common ground when it comes to Jew-hatred.

The question remains: Why is Schumer, who has spent his interminable political career boasting in Washington that he is the shomer, or “guardian,” of Israel and the Jewish people, backing El-Sayed?

Prioritizing power

The answer is as obvious as it is illustrative of Schumer’s hypocrisy and lack of principle. It’s also the same reason that motivates most antisemites: power.

Schumer is and always has been almost solely motivated by raw ambition and a desire for power. He needs El-Sayed to hold the Michigan seat for the Democrats so the party can win back control of the Senate. That will give him the ability to advance his party’s left-wing ideological goals, as well as hamstring, and maybe even impeach and oust President Donald Trump from office.

That’s why Schumer has not only endorsed someone who opposes the existence of the State of Israel—the very state he supposedly fought for all these years but has doubled down on support for El-Sayed’s candidacy, recently sending him an extra $10 million from the Democrats’ main Senate Super PAC fund.

If that means sacrificing not only the U.S.-Israel alliance and treating antisemitism as a legitimate cause, then so much the worse for Israel and the Jews.

Schumer isn’t the only Jewish Democrat treating power for their party as more important than anything else.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel attracted national attention last month when she said she wouldn’t attend her party’s state convention for fear of being shouted down as Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and other supporters of Israel had been treated when they spoke at a Democratic state gathering earlier this year.

But when faced with the question of whether to prioritize her party loyalty or her Jewish principles, Nessel didn’t hesitate. In a shocking speech to a group of Jewish Democrats, she declared that her party’s cause was more important than Israel or even the safety of American Jews.

Inevitably, that led to her endorsement of El-Sayed on a liberal podcast, where she appeared with him. In it, she anticipated criticism from Jews who don’t agree that their safety or the existence of Israel is either expendable or something that should have to wait until Democrats have saved the world from global warming or AI, saying that she would be called a “traitor to my people” or even a “kapo.” Nevertheless, she made it clear that other issues apparently take precedence over the survival of the Jews. For her, that’s true even amid an unprecedented surge of antisemitism across the United States, which is largely the work of people like El-Sayed, his allies among the Democratic Socialists of America and their liberal media cheerleaders.

Nessel’s disgraceful example is far from unique when it comes to liberal Jewish Democrats who have not unreasonably come to the conclusion that their party has been hijacked by hatemongers, and the only way to continue their careers in politics is to fall in line. Others, like former New York City Controller and likely future member of Congress Brad Lander, came to the same conclusion. He now regularly spouts the same smears about Israel to remain in sync with his party’s increasingly dominant left wing. And he used those haters to unseat incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who, though impeccably liberal and anti-Trump in other respects, refused to go along with the current liberal fashion when it comes to antisemitism.

And then there’s Stevens, who has spent all of 2026 being abused and smeared by El-Sayed and his supporters as a non-Jewish puppet of the supposedly all-powerful Israel lobby before losing the Senate primary to him. She knows that he’s unfit for office and that he is the spokesperson not just for an Arab and Muslim population that wants to chase those who oppose their Islamist beliefs out of the public square. But in a state where El-Sayed’s supporters control her party, the choice after her defeat wasn’t so much whether or not to back him in the general election as it was whether or not to remain in politics as a Democrat. So, of course, she did the pragmatic thing and endorsed him.

2028 contenders flock to Michigan

National politicians with an eye on the 2028 presidential election who only a few years ago wouldn’t have gone near a candidate with radical views like those of El-Sayed are now also embracing him.

Needless to say, the top celebrities of the Democrats’ left-wing faction that hopes to seize control of the party after being shut out of power by its establishment during the last three presidential election cycles is also all-in on El-Sayed. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the left’s unsuccessful standard-bearer in 2016 and 2020, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the ringleader of the progressive congressional “Squad,” have campaigned for El-Sayed. Political observers speculate that AOC is considering a run for president if she doesn’t challenge Schumer for his Senate seat in 2028.

But it’s not just El-Sayed’s DSA allies who are lining up behind him.

In earlier iterations of her political career, former Vice President Kamala Harris presented herself as a strong supporter of Israel and the Jewish community. But she, too, can see which way the wind is blowing among Democrats and is campaigning this week with El-Sayed in Michigan. Rep. Rho Khanna (D-Calif.), who also harbors 2028 ambitions, endorsed and campaigned with El-Sayed during the primary. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who appears to be positioning himself as a moderate as he prepares to run for president in 2028, has already endorsed and campaigned with El-Sayed.

For all of the pious rhetoric about putting principles above partisanship, politics is a team sport. That applies as much to Republicans as it does to Democrats.

El-Sayed, however, is a candidate who made the cause of driving the overwhelming majority of Jews who support Israel out of the public square the centerpiece of his Senate campaign. With him, as was the case with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the American public is dealing with something very different from political business as usual.

It is one thing to speak of “big tents” and creating coalitions that include people with whom one disagrees. But when it comes to El-Sayed, Democrats aren’t just agreeing to disagree civilly. They are normalizing anti-Zionism and antisemitism, which in practice are indistinguishable from each other. Endorsing a person like El-Sayed isn’t just about wanting a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. It’s saying that legitimizing Jew-hatred is an acceptable price to pay for achieving such a goal. And it has now become a Democratic Party loyalty litmus test.

Still, for the majority of American Jews who identify as politically liberal and as Democrats, yet who are also supporters of Israel, the calculations so critical for those in the business of politics need not apply.

Is Jewish security a priority?

Another litmus test—one that involves not only concern for the welfare and security of Israeli Jews, but here in the United States as well—must figure into the equation. As Nessel conceded in her speech, which acknowledged the threat that El-Sayed and his supporters pose to her community, Jews now understand that their synagogues and institutions have been turned into fortresses against antisemitic attackers. Jews who speak up against antisemitism now face possible cancellation. That includes popular singers like Pink, who faces not just public abuse but attempts at cancelation from celebrities like actor Javier Bardem, who opposed her condemnation of rapper Macklemore’s spreading blood libels against Israel and the Jews during his opening act for pop singer Ed Sheeran.

They can, if they like, accept the declarations from El-Sayed and Mamdani that they want Jews to feel welcome in the Democratic Party—provided they agree that one Jewish state on the planet is one too many. In that way, they can agree to discard an essential element of Jewish identity and faith that involves devotion to the land of Israel, as well as the rights of Jews to live there and defend themselves.

Or instead, they can adopt their own litmus test and say they won’t stand with anyone who backs, either implicitly or explicitly, the genocidal goals of Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs.

It was one thing for liberals to say that support for Israel was just one issue among many they cared about and not necessarily at the top of the list before the post-Oct. 7 surge of Jew-hatred. However, at a time when Jews are undergoing a siege from antisemites who no longer dwell in the fever swamps of the far left and right, but are now at the center of public discourse in politics and the media, that tired refrain is no longer relevant or satisfactory.

Democrats are no more required to renounce their basic political philosophies than those on the right who might face the same challenge. That said, if you think the partisan litmus test is more important than one about antisemitism, Jewish safety or decency, then maybe it’s time to reset your moral compass. If not, liberal Jews need to understand that they are placing themselves on the wrong side of a great divide that puts them in league with those who seek not only to marginalize their community, but to threaten their very existence.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, available on all major audio platforms and on YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won 60-plus awards for his columns, commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/column/jonathan-s-tobin/the-el-sayed-litmus-test-cuts-both-ways

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Rand Paul drops Fauci bombshell, says more record destruction and gain-of-function research found - John Solomon

 

by John Solomon

Senator says new revelations on Fauci's phone, computer and diary led his committee to try granting prosecutorial immunity to a former top aide to Fauci. That effort failed. The revelations include undisclosed destruction of documents and knowing attempts at increasing "gain-of-function" that weaponized the virus. Democrats -- and a few Republicans -- seem set on keeping the information from public view.

 

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., tells Just the News his investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci's stewardship of the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered fresh evidence of government-document destruction and more extensive gain-of-function research that enhances the human lethality of viruses.

Paul, an M.D. specializing in ophthalmologic surgery, said the revelations were included in communications on Fauci's phone, computer and diary and were the reason why his committee tried but failed Wednesday to pass a measure granting prosecutorial immunity to a former top aide to Fauci so she could testify freely about the issues.

"More explosive information that comes out in the next week," Sen. Paul says

Instead of helping the public learn who did what and when, Democrats kept the panel from reaching the required two-thirds majority needed to pass the immunity measure.

"We will have some more explosive information that comes out in the next week, though, that some of the communications between Anthony Fauci and his assistant involved some programs that are very worrisome, gain-of-function programs that we didn't know existed until we came across these emails," Paul said during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show Wednesday.

He added: "It is our belief that most of the gain-of-function research that's going on, and probably still goes on, is classified and done in the bioweapons or biodefense category, but they won't tell us." 

Paul said he was frustrated by Democrats on the committee for refusing to help Americans get more answers about COVID and possible dangerous research. But he also singled out a Republican Senate colleague, Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for criticism, exposing a rift in the chamber among majority Republicans over access to classified gain-of-function research.

An internal fight in Congress, not limited to "red vs. blue"

"There's an internal fight in Congress," he said. "So Tom Cotton is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He is doing everything he possibly can to prevent us from getting information about these programs. He has written to the Director of National Intelligence and said that he does not want any information shared with our committee," Paul said.

"If it goes to him, he might condescend if he decides to do so, to let us look at some information," Paul added. "But the problem is what we really need are scientists. And even when I oversee this, I ask the opinion of scientists because it's classified. We have no assurance that any scientists with any kind of skepticism are looking over this and saying whether we should be doing this or not, and if you want to be alarmed by this."

Paul recently summoned Fauci to testify before his committee, but the retired top doc refused to answer most questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Paul's panel referred Fauci to the Justice Department for possible prosecution for contempt of Congress. As Fauci was granted a pardon by President Biden in the waning days of his term, constitutional experts insist that Fauci does not have the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Paul said he has found more evidence of the culture of secrecy inside Fauci's inner circle, including possible destruction of documents mentioned by the assistant. Government emails are generally required to be preserved under the Federal Records Act.

"By looking at Anthony Fauci's logs that he was keeping on a government computer, we discovered that his assistant was bragging to him in one of the emails. 'Hey, Dr. Fauci, I was able to destroy tons of your emails this weekend.' Well, that's illegal," Paul said.

That discovery was a key reason why the committee wanted to grant immunity to the former top Fauci aide, he said.

Senators ask "who gave the orders?"

Your emails between each other for work from the executive branch are considered to be federal records, and so we wanted to ask her about this. We brought her in last Friday, and she brought lawyers, and she pleaded the Fifth Amendment," he explained. "And so once she pled the Fifth, it was never our intention really to try to have her indicted. We wanted to know who gave her the orders."

"We presume Anthony Fauci. How many years she'd been doing this? Whether it was hundreds or thousands of emails? What kind of topics? And so, really, we're more interested in the guy who gave the orders because I think that's where most of the culpability is. And so, we wanted to offer her immunity," he said.

Paul said he remains hopeful he can still reach a deal with the aide and her lawyers to secure that testimony. But if not, the senator plans to refer the matter to the Justice Department.

"Within a week or two, if we don't get that cooperation, what's going to happen is she will be referred to the Department of Justice, and see, they don't have to vote at the Department of Justice. They don't have to vote on indicting someone. They have to say they broke the law, and they don't have to vote on offering someone immunity. 

"It's a typical way prosecutors act is you give immunity to the lower echelon people to get them to give information on who was giving the illegal orders to them, so they do have the ability to do it, and we keep hoping they will," he added.

Fauci has denied wrongdoing, insisting Republican allegations that he withheld certain truths about COVID's origin or kept colleagues from talking about it were false smears. "The accusation being circulated that I influenced the scientists to change their minds by bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false, and simply preposterous," Fauci told Congress.

"The second issue is a false accusation that I tried to cover up the possibility that the virus originated from a lab. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite," he added. Aside from that, Fauci refused to answer substantive questions, and according to PBS NewsHour, "Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during a July 29 hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, citing Paul's previous comments about wanting to incarcerate him."

Paul: "There has to be adults in the room"

Paul said his interest in getting to the bottom of exposing all gain-of-function research is security.

"There is so much classified going on, and there has to be adults in the room. It can't be well, 'China's doing it, so we're going to do it.' That's essentially what the rule of thumb has been. If China does it, we do it, and we do need to be prepared to defend ourselves," he explained.

"But there are certain experiments where you're creating viruses that are more transmissible through the air that are a death wish," he warned. "It's not that I suspect our government's going to release it on purpose. I suspect an accident will happen," he said, noting data on the frequency of lab accidents in America and abroad. 

John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/hldrand-paul-drops-fauci-bombshell-says-more-record-destruction-and-gain

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The Fog Bezmenov Warned About Has an American Address - Jay Rogers

 

by Jay Rogers

The real danger to this country right now is not any single plot.

 

 

Sunday, June 14, 2026. UFC Freedom 250 on the White House lawn. Five men, coordinating over Signal, planned to send explosives-rigged drones over the arena, force a panicked evacuation, and then use sniper positions to cut down fleeing “high-value targets.” One plotter typed the plan out like a game plan: “Position your teams in the purple dots, counter sniper and drones.” A mother in Ohio noticed her son’s behavior had turned dark and made the call authorities wish every parent would make. The FBI got there first, and the indictments later expanded to eight.

That plot makes a good headline. It is not, on its own, the story. The story is what that arrest represents: one save, pulled from a haystack that grows bigger and messier every week. My thesis is simple. The real danger to this country right now is not any single plot. It is that we no longer reliably know who is inside our borders, and the men and women tasked with finding out are stretched thin, doxxed, and increasingly obstructed by their own countrymen while they try.

Start with the scale of the job. According to DHS’s own tally, assaults on ICE officers rose 1,300 percent and vehicular attacks on agents rose 3,200 percent over the past year, with more than 180 vehicle attacks recorded since January 2025 alone. In Minneapolis this January, a woman used her car to wedge federal agents between two vehicles while a crowd threw rocks and pulled agents from their cars. Protesters in New York City barricaded streets with garbage to keep agents from making an arrest. None of that is civil disobedience in the Thoreau sense. It is a bet, made by ordinary Americans who should know better, that following an ICE agent’s car carries no real cost, placed against people doing a legally authorized job under conditions most of us would not last a week inside.

None of that fog assembles itself for free. Following the money is a due diligence habit from thirty years of vetting where capital comes from, not a conspiracy theory. A federal grand jury is examining Neville Roy Singham, an American businessman tied to Chinese state media, for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The House Ways and Means Committee says Singham and his wife, CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans, ran more than $20 million through shell companies and donor-advised funds to a single activist hub, The People’s Forum, from 2017 to 2022, and says the money reaches allied causes overseas as well as at home. CodePink is one of hundreds of organizations that turned out for this year’s “No Kings” demonstrations alongside Indivisible, a group that has drawn long-running grants from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. None of that proves a dollar of foreign or billionaire money bought a single blockade outside an ICE vehicle in Minneapolis, and a fair-minded columnist has to say so plainly.

Cartels do not need to fund a protest movement to profit from the fog. Their financing model already runs on it. Drug and human trafficking pay for the cartel’s guns, boats, and sicarios, and every hour an ICE agent spends negotiating a mob instead of working a smuggling lead is an hour that revenue stream stays open. That is a domestic financial interest as real as any foreign one, and an unresolved financing trail running through the picture, foreign and criminal alike, is exactly the kind of ambiguity a subversion campaign is built to exploit. You do not need proof of a tidy conspiracy for the fog to work. You only need enough real, unanswered questions that nobody can say with confidence who benefits.

ICE agents are not a separate category from the intelligence and law enforcement community. They are the street-level end of the same chain that produced the UFC arrests, the officers who verify the name and make the call on who gets detained. That job has gotten harder because the population they are screening got much larger before anyone finished sorting it. Homeland Security’s own counterterrorism guide has tracked Tren de Aragua cells operating in at least nineteen states, running armed home invasions, kidnapping, extortion, and human trafficking, with one member of Congress calling it “MS-13 on steroids.” Cartel sicarios move through the same smuggling corridors as the men, women, and children being trafficked for labor and sex. None of that requires a foreign spy service. It only requires a country that has lost the capacity to tell friend from enemy inside its own borders, because it stopped bothering to check.

If you want to see that fog dramatized, watch Season 3 of Lioness. The show buries a Russian intelligence operation under Ukrainian double agents, Belarusian contractors, an Iran-aligned militia, and finally a private revenge plot, until nobody, not the CIA, not the audience, can say with confidence who is actually running things. That confusion is the point. Yuri Bezmenov, the Soviet defector who spent the 1980s warning American audiences about ideological subversion, argued that an adversary rarely needs an army when it can flood a country with enough contradictory information that its own institutions cannot agree on what is happening or who is responsible. Analysts call the Lioness version of this the attribution trap: enough true fragments, pointing in enough directions, to make a wrong conclusion look reasonable. Trade the show’s Moscow handlers for a Tren de Aragua cell, a trafficking network, and a mother’s 911 call, and you have the exact same trap playing out in Minneapolis, Ohio, and every city where a crowd calls an ICE team the enemy.

I want to be fair to the other side of this, because a fiduciary who only argues one direction is not doing his job. Most people who crossed the border illegally came for work, not to join a cartel cell, and treating every landscaper or line cook as a suspected sicario is both wrong and beneath us. But risk management has never worked by assuming the best case. My thirty years advising clients on risk exposure taught me the same lesson: you do not get to ignore a tail risk because it is a small allocation of your portfolio. When millions of people entered the country without so much as a name check, the honest answer to “who is here” became “we do not fully know,” and that uncertainty is the actual product Bezmenov’s model sells to an adversary, whether the adversary is a foreign state, a cartel, or a gang.

So here is the uncomfortable ask. Praise the FBI agents who stopped a massacre at the White House, absolutely. Then extend that respect down the chain to the ICE officers doing the dangerous work of finding out who is here, and stop pretending that following their vehicles, publishing their names, or surrounding them is a form of protest rather than an assist to the fog Bezmenov described. A country that cannot agree that its own law enforcement deserves to do its job without being ambushed has already done half of an adversary’s work for it. The rest gets finished by every sicario, trafficker, and sleeper cell that slips through while we argue about who the real threat is. 

Photo: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk a detainee out of the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, California, on July 27, 2026. The Ventura County Government Center has been the site of tense standoffs and confrontations in recent weeks between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, local community observers, and protesters. (Photo by Blake Fagan / AFP)

Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management. He has a BS from Northeastern University and has completed postgraduate studies at UCLA, UPENN, and Harvard. He writes about issues in finance, constitutional law, national security, human nature, and public policy.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/09/24/the-fog-bezmenov-warned-about-has-an-american-address/

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