The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
A major new report documents how Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) has been transformed from a medical humanitarian organization into one of the most aggressive institutional promoters of anti-Israel messaging, most notably the canard that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
[L]ike other powerful groups
in the NGO industry, MSF has become a major platform for political and
ideological propaganda campaigns that often accompany wars and terror
atrocities.
A major new report by the NGO Monitor research institute...
documents how MSF has been transformed from a medical humanitarian
organization into one of the most aggressive institutional promoters of
anti-Israel messaging, most notably the canard that Israel is committing
genocide in Gaza.
This is far from the only example of MSF's participation in
demonization campaigns that are entirely inconsistent with the
humanitarian agenda.
On October 7, while Hamas terrorists were still murdering and
raping civilians in Israel, dragging hostages into Gaza, and
live-streaming their "conquests," MSF officials were accusing Israel of
war crimes.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, an MSF-affiliated anti-Israel activist,
participated in a grotesque press conference organized by the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, to promote the libel.
In a massive understatement, the text acknowledged that MSF
lacked the legal expertise to determine genocidal intent – the central
element of the crime under international law. But that disclaimer did
not stop the organization from running with the libel. At least 272
times.
In parallel, MSF was deafeningly silent on Hamas' real war
crimes: embedding of military (terrorist) infrastructure in hospitals
(documented by NGO Monitor), schools, and civilian neighborhoods; the
theft of humanitarian aid; and the continued holding of Israeli civilian
hostages. Across MSF's international social media feeds, hostages were
scarcely mentioned – appearing as the primary subject of only three
posts out of hundreds.
By embracing false and defamatory accusations, Doctors Without
Borders and all who are associated with this NGO have undermined
fundamental moral and humanitarian values. They have traded white coats
and medical missions for hate slogans and lies.
A major new report documents how Doctors Without Borders
(Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF) has been transformed from a medical
humanitarian organization into one of the most aggressive institutional
promoters of anti-Israel messaging, most notably the canard that Israel
is committing genocide in Gaza. Pictured: People walk past an MSF clinic
in Gaza City on January 11, 2026. (Photo by Omar Al-Qataa/AFP via Getty
Images)
For half a century, Doctors Without Borders enjoyed an enviable
reputation. They were known and respected for their work in war zones
and disaster areas, where volunteers and employees treated the wounded
and sick. Known globally as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, the NGO
built its credibility on the principle that doctors are there to save
lives, not to wage political campaigns.
That reputation is now largely gone, and like other powerful groups
in the NGO industry, MSF has become a major platform for political and
ideological propaganda campaigns that often accompany wars and terror
atrocities.
A major new report
by the NGO Monitor research institute, which I founded and lead,
documents how MSF has been transformed from a medical humanitarian
organization into one of the most aggressive institutional promoters of
anti-Israel messaging, most notably the canard that Israel is committing
genocide in Gaza.
Since Hamas' October 7, 2023 massacre, MSF and its regional
affiliates have falsely accused Israel of "genocide" at least 272 times
on social media. This disturbing fact should speak for itself – genocide
is not a minor rhetorical flourish. The term was coined by
Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin to describe the deliberate
destruction of a people in the gas chambers and killing fields of the
Holocaust. Genocide carries extraordinary moral weight. Historically,
and until recently, responsible institutions and individuals have used
the term with great caution.
This is far from the only example of MSF's participation in
demonization campaigns that are entirely inconsistent with the
humanitarian agenda. On October 7, while Hamas terrorists were still
murdering and raping civilians in Israel, dragging hostages into Gaza,
and live-streaming their "conquests," MSF officials were accusing Israel
of war crimes. This NGO's first statement reduced the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust to a vague "escalation between Israel and Gaza."
That framing defined MSF's activities throughout the conflict and
continues to this day, accompanied by blatantly false accusations.
For example, on October 17, 2023, an explosion occurred near Gaza's Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. MSF immediately issued statements
describing the incident as a "massacre" and promoted physician Ghassan
Abu-Sittah as a key witness blaming Israel. Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, an
MSF-affiliated anti-Israel activist, participated in a grotesque press conference, organized by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, to promote the libel.
Assessments by the United States, Canada and France, and an investigation by The New York Times,
concluded the damage was caused by a misfired rocket launched by
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but the MSF-led campaign never retracted the
lie, spread among millions of cumulative social media followers.
That failure matters because MSF's authority rests on public trust.
When doctors on the ground speak, journalists, diplomats, and
policymakers listen. And when the organization's statements promote the
opposite of the humanitarian principles it purports to support, the
consequences extend far beyond a single news cycle.
In Gaza, MSF's role in demonization and false accusations against
Israel expanded. In December 2023, MSF's international president
Christos Christou accused Israel of "incessant and indiscriminate warfare" and collective punishment. In October 2024, MSF described Israeli operations as "unmitigated slaughter."
These attacks were the prelude to the genocide canard.
In December 2024, MSF published a report
titled "Life in a Death Trap," joining the hate-filled chorus alleging
that Israel was carrying out ethnic cleansing and genocide. In a massive
understatement, the text acknowledged that MSF lacked the legal
expertise to determine genocidal intent – the central element of the
crime under international law. But that disclaimer did not stop the
organization from running with the libel. At least 272 times.
In parallel, MSF was deafeningly silent on Hamas' real war crimes:
embedding of military (terrorist) infrastructure in hospitals (documented
by NGO Monitor), schools, and civilian neighborhoods; the theft of
humanitarian aid; and the continued holding of Israeli civilian
hostages. Across MSF's international social media feeds, hostages were
scarcely mentioned – appearing as the primary subject of only three
posts out of hundreds.
The tragedy is that MSF did not need to choose between treating
patients and becoming a partisan actor. Humanitarian groups can deliver
aid while maintaining discipline, precision, and moral seriousness. Many
do.
MSF chose the opposite path.
By embracing false and defamatory accusations, Doctors Without
Borders and all who are associated with this NGO have undermined
fundamental moral and humanitarian values. They have traded white coats
and medical missions for hate slogans and lies.
Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg is founder and president of NGO Monitor.
IDF officials told lawmakers that UNIFIL personnel gathered intelligence on Israeli troops, with information allegedly reaching Hezbollah.
UNIFIL forces in Lebanon Yossi Zeliger/TPS
The IDF officially admitted that UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)
forces operating in southern Lebanon have been collecting intelligence
on IDF soldiers.
Military representatives revealed the disturbing
information during a confidential session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee.
According to the representatives at the
committee session, the intelligence collected by the UN forces flows
directly to the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
The flow of
sensitive information to terrorist entities in Lebanon severely
threatens the lives of IDF troops operating in the region.
In
recent months, IDF officials have been warning that the forces have been
working against the IDF and exceeding their authority on the ground.
In
an interview with Ynet several months ago, a senior military official
in the Northern Command voiced fierce criticism of UNIFIL's conduct and
did not hold back from using strong language against the "peacekeeping"
force.
"We find them documenting IDF forces, and not documenting
the border and things that are under their authority," the official
stated. "We sent blunt and clear messages in protest of their spry and
unusual activities. We understand that they are not a helpful force, but
a foreign force that does suspicious and unusual things beyond their
authority."
It should be noted that UNIFIL numbers approximately
13,000 troops and was first deployed in southern Lebanon in 1978. In
August of last year, the United Nations Security Council extended
UNIFIL’s mandate in the area through the end of 2026. Under that
decision, the UN force is scheduled to withdraw from Lebanon in 2027.
The U.S. military said Iran launched several ballistic missiles toward regional neighbors in the Middle East, which all failed to hit their targets of Bahrain and Kuwait.
The United States Central Command said Tuesday night
that U.S. forces have successfully defended itself against aggressive
Iranian behavior and countered with self-defense strikes on Qeshm Island
in the Persian Gulf.
The U.S. military said Iran launched several ballistic missiles
toward regional neighbors in the Middle East, which all failed to hit
their targets of Bahrain and Kuwait.
American forces also shot down three one-way attack drones that were
launched toward civilian mariners in regional waters and conducted
self-defense strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on
the island.
"No U.S. personnel were harmed," CENTCOM said in a post on X.
"CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and ready to defend against unwarranted
Iranian aggression during the ongoing ceasefire."
The attacks come after reports emerged
this week that Iran had suspended peace negotiations with the U.S. due
to the continued fighting in Lebanon, which Tehran said was included in
the ceasefire.
President Donald Trump has denied the reports, stating that negotiations had continued uninterrupted.
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.
The justices overturned a lower court ruling that the redistricting plan approved by the Legislature intentionally discriminates against black voters.
The U.S. Supreme Court handed another win to Republicans on Tuesday
night, allowing Alabama to use a GOP-friendly congressional map in this
fall’s election that will decide control of the Congress.
The justices overturned a lower court ruling that the redistricting
plan approved by the Legislature intentionally discriminates against
black voters. In so doing, it cleared the way for a map first approved
in 2023 that is likely to give Republicans a 6-1 advantage in its
congressional delegation.
“At this preliminary stage, the State has shown that it is entitled
to interim relief from the District Court’s injunction,” the justices in
the majority opinion wrote.
“The State has also made a strong showing of irreparable harm and
that the equities and public interest favor it,” they added.” We have
repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the
election rules on the eve of an election.’”
The court’s three liberal justices all dissented.
The ruling is the latest win for President Trump and Republicans in a
redistricting battle both parties have pursued in hopes of gaining an
advantage in the November elections.
As Republican-led states enjoy budget surpluses, a new trend of eliminating property taxes is emerging in red states.
As home values skyrocket, taxpayers grow increasingly frustrated with
"dinner table issues" such as confidence in a secure financial future
and anxiety over "affordability." Republican-led states enjoy budget
surpluses, as a new trend of eliminating property taxes is emerging in
red states.
On Tuesday, the Florida State Legislature approved a November ballot
measure that would abolish property taxes for most primary homeowners
across the sunshine state.
The vote came after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the state legislature
to a special session, citing rapidly rising property values, local tax
collections surging from $32 billion in 2019 to a projected $60 billion
currently (and $83 billion by 2032), and inflation burdens on
residents.
Moves for property tax relief on primary homes becomes more frequent
Several states
are already moving toward major property tax relief for primary
homeowners, mirroring Florida’s push to raise the homestead exemption to
$250,000 and eventually eliminate non-school taxes on homesteaded
homes.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has prioritized eliminating
school-district property taxes for homeowners in 2026, using state
surpluses to replace lost revenue while capping local spending growth.
Wyoming
lawmakers are debating full elimination of residential property taxes,
offset by sales-tax increases, subject to voter approval.
Indiana’s lieutenant governor has called property-tax repeal a top
legislative goal, while Ohio features grassroots campaigns for a
constitutional ban and ballot initiatives in Nebraska and Oklahoma
target homestead exemptions or outright abolition.
"70% of voters believe their taxes are too high," poll says
The trend is emerging at a time when historic numbers of Americans are angry about the amount of taxes they pay.
A Fox News survey in April found a record 70% of voters believe their taxes are too high, up 11 points from the previous year. Gallup polling
similarly shows 59% of Americans saying the amount of federal income
tax they pay is too high, a level that has remained elevated since
2023.
Pew Research
indicates 41% are bothered “a lot” by the personal amount they pay,
while 60% now feel they contribute more than their fair share relative
to government services received—up from 56% in 2023. WalletHub’s March 2026 survey echoes this, with 66% viewing their current tax rate as too high.
If Florida’s plan succeeds at the ballot, it will prove that states
can fund core services (police, fire, schools) without treating
homeowners as perpetual renters. Success stories might inspire copycat
legislation and referendums across the country, pressuring even blue
states — so far, addicted to a high tax-and-spend cycle — to follow and
redefine true homeownership
nationwide.
Budget surplus makes the move less risky
Red-state budget surpluses have provided critical fuel for ambitious property tax relief efforts. Texas stands out with a roughly $24 billion surplus entering the 2026-27 biennium, drawn from strong revenue growth, conservative budgeting, and a healthy Rainy Day Fund.
Lone Star lawmakers have directed billions of this into school tax compression, homestead exemptions, and rate reductions.
Florida maintains robust reserves as well at $15.7 billion in its FY2025-26 budget, with a stabilized fund at its legal cap, enabling ongoing tax restraint and homeowner protections.
Other Republican-led states
like Wyoming, Indiana, and Ohio have leveraged post-pandemic revenue
windfalls and energy/economic growth for similar moves, funding
exemptions, credits, and caps while building rainy-day reserves.
Another reason to flee
Americans are increasingly migrating
from blue (Democrat-leaning) states to red (Republican-leaning) ones,
voting with their feet amid policy and economic differences. Property
taxes, or lack thereof, could exacerbate the trend.
From 2020–2025, blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts saw massive net domestic out-migration, with these five alone losing nearly 3.7 million people cumulatively.
In 2024–2025, blue states lost about 478,000 to net internal migration,
while red states gained over 399,000. Top destinations include Texas,
Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arizona.
One of the most often cited reasons to move to red states is lower
taxes, but affordable housing, cost of living, crime, and regulatory
environment are frequent reasons as well.
This shift has already cost blue states congressional seats via
decennial reapportionment based on Census data. After the 2020 Census,
California lost 1 seat, New York lost 1, and Illinois lost 1 (among
others), while Texas gained 2 and Florida gained 1.
Projections for the 2030 Census
suggest further blue-state losses—potentially California losing up to
4, New York and Illinois 1–2 each—shifting power to growing red states
like Texas (+4) and Florida (+3–4).
Post-Holocaust guilt, once a brake on Jew-hatred, has been inverted: many of the descendants of the perpetrators and bystanders now project their unresolved shame onto the surviving Jews and their state. The "oppressed" Palestinian has replaced the oppressed Jew as the object of European moral narcissism. The Europeans, who never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz, are finally free of guilt.
What was once known as the
"Country of Anne Frank," a nation that had learned from its own role in
the Holocaust... and quietly delivered critical military aid during the
1973 Yom Kippur War, now leads the charge at the EU in Brussels to
punish the Jewish state for the apparent crime of Jewish survival....
The Jetten government coalition... has now also taken the lead in pushing sanctions against Israel....
The Dutch pro-Israel parties -- Geert Wilders' PVV, BBB, JA21,
ChristenUnie, and the Christian-Zionist SGP -- were deliberately
excluded from the governing coalition.
The Jetten minority government therefore governs on parliamentary life support from the very parties that despise Israel.
The Dutch betrayal mirrors a broader European sickness. Mass
immigration from Muslim countries has imported a virulent strain of
antisemitism that now crosses all political boundaries. Politicians
realize only the electoral ramifications: Jewish populations are
dwindling and Muslim populations are exploding. Post-Holocaust guilt,
once a brake on Jew-hatred, has been inverted: many of the descendants
of the perpetrators and bystanders now project their unresolved shame
onto the surviving Jews and their state. The "oppressed" Palestinian has
replaced the oppressed Jew as the object of European moral narcissism.
The Europeans, who never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz, are finally
free of guilt.
Europe, which cannot, or does not wish to, protect its own Jewish
communities from daily harassment and assault, now presumes to dictate
to Jews where they may and may not live in the Land of Israel.
The hypocrisy and moral rot are bottomless. It was Europeans who
exiled the Jews from their heritage and cradle of civilization. It was
Europeans who subjected "their" Jews to more than a millennium of
discrimination, expulsions, mass deportations, and pogroms, culminating
in the Holocaust. It was Europeans as well, who, at the Evian Conference
of 1938, refused to open their doors to Jews fleeing Hitler. It was the
British who issued the 1939 White Paper without a single protest from
the other European democracies, and thereby slamming shut the gates of
Palestine as a place of refuge as the extermination of the Jews began.
It was Europeans (Polish, British, and Dutch) who devised the
"Madagascar Plan" to deport Europe's Jews to a remote and uninhabitable
island where they would surely perish.
Yet the Jews do not forget where they came from. Jews have lived
in the Land of Israel continuously for millennia; and many of the
descendants who had been forcibly dispersed, returned.
It is precisely this return that triggers such fury. Dutch
authorities and many Dutch politicians now eagerly repeat the modern
blood libel of "settler violence," -- all while ignoring the unrelenting
terrorism committed by Arabs against the Jews of Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem and the rest of the Land of Israel for more than a century
until today.
Established and thriving Jewish cities, towns, neighborhoods, and
infrastructure exist in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Golan. These
"facts on the ground" will most certainly remain in the future and
likely grow into a home for hundreds of thousands of Jews now planning
to leave a Europe that is collapsing as we speak. Israel will celebrate
its restoration in the Land of Israel long after the Netherlands will
have been destroyed by the Muslim and African invasions it invited in,
and the remnants of what was once a great and moral country have
returned to their natural state: a swamp.
[T]he Netherlands -- governed by a conspicuously childless
political elite that includes Prime Minister Rob Jetten and Deputy Prime
Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz (VVD) -- stumbles along... effectively
outsourcing its survival to a mass immigration that has apparently not
come to Europe just for economic opportunity but to transform it
fundamentally into its own image.
The Jews have returned home. The Dutch, it appears, are determined to leave theirs up for grabs. History will record the result.
The Dutch government coalition under Prime Minister Rob
Jetten leads the charge at the EU in Brussels to punish the Jewish state
for the apparent crime of Jewish survival and has taken the lead in
pushing sanctions against Israel. The pro-Israel parties -- Geert
Wilders' PVV, BBB, JA21, ChristenUnie, and the Christian-Zionist SGP --
were deliberately excluded from the governing coalition. The Jetten
minority government therefore governs on parliamentary life support from
the very parties that despise Israel. Pictured: Wilders addresses the
Netherlands House of Representatives in The Hague on July 3, 2024.
(Photo by Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP//AFP via Getty Images)
The Dutch government's descent into open hostility toward Israel has
recently accelerated further under the minority coalition of Rob Jetten
that was sworn in on February 23, 2026. What was once known as the
"Country of Anne Frank," a nation that had learned from its own role in
the Holocaust[1], that faithfully represented
Israel's and Jewish interests in the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1990,
and quietly delivered critical military aid during the 1973 Yom Kippur
War[2], now leads the charge
at the EU in Brussels to punish the Jewish state for the apparent crime
of Jewish survival and sovereignty in the Jewish homeland.
This is not policy. This is pathology.
The Jetten government coalition (consisting of the left-leaning
liberal and anti-religious Democrats of D66, the Christian Democratic
CDA, and the center-right conservative-liberal VVD) has now also taken
the lead in pushing sanctions against Israel within the EU-Israel
Association Agreement framework. It has championed measures targeting
so-called "violent settlers" and their "excessive violence," parroting a
narrative that a devastating June 2025 report
"False Flags & Real Agendas: 'Settler Violence' — A Modern Blood
Libel", by the Israeli group Regavim, dismantles as a fabricated,
foreign-funded smear.
This harebrained Dutch obsession with Israel reeks of dark
motivations, especially considering that the Netherlands is drowning in
an escalating immigration crisis that is fueling civil unrest. In the
first quarter of 2026 alone, asylum applications surged by 33%
year-on-year, with Palestinian Arabs forming the single largest group
at around 1,100 first-time claims, the top nationality for asylum in
January and February 2026. This influx comes on top of already strained
housing, welfare systems, and social cohesion, amid repeated
anti-migration protests that have turned violent in places all over the Netherlands.
Not having been entirely successful on the EU track in punishing the Jewish state, however, the Jetten government recently announced unilateral Dutch sanctions:
a trade ban on products from Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, East
Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The Jetten government stated:
"The expansion of illegal settlements and excessive
violence by settlers are causing an ever-deteriorating situation, in
which a two-state solution is moving further and further out of reach."
[...] "We want to prevent Dutch society from contributing, through our
economic activities, to an unlawful occupation and the maintenance of
illegal settlements."
The decision can best be read as "Kauft nicht bei Juden" ("Do not buy
from Jews"), and its small print formally even prohibits Dutch passport
holders living in Israel from trading with Jews that live in the wrong
place -- according to the Dutch government, that is.[3]
This "political sentiment" has rapidly built up since the violent
collapse of the already existing "two-state solution" on October 7,
2023, with hatred of the Jewish state and everything that it stands for
metastasizing to almost every sector of Dutch society, even uniting
ideological arch-enemies. Israeli Ambassador to the Netherlands Zvi
Vapni recently captured that moment on X:
"A dangerous coalition formed in the Dutch parliament
yesterday between the radical left and the antisemitic extreme right to
pass motions against Israel. No moral qualms whatsoever! Shameful!".
The mask is off.
The ultimate logic of this position is to expel Jews. The Dutch
government, by labeling every Jewish city, town, and village beyond the
1949 armistice lines "illegal," is demanding that more than 900,000 Jews
be forced out of Judea and Samaria -- the cradle of Jewish
civilization, where Abraham walked, David ruled, and the prophets spoke
-- the Golan Heights, the Old City of Jerusalem, and the adjacent Jewish
neighborhoods, and additionally the high ground that protects Israel's
densely populated coastal plain from being attacked by long-time
bellicose neighbors to its east.
Let that sink in.
Jerusalem was already the political and spiritual capital of the
Jewish people for a thousand years when the territory that would become
the Netherlands was still a swamp inhabited by nomadic and illiterate
semi-Neanderthals. The current Dutch arrogance is not merely political,
it is civilizational and existential -- and it reflects what is manifest
in most of Europe.
The Netherlands' increasingly hostile government policy did not
emerge in a vacuum. It rests on a parliamentary majority that is now
structurally anti-Israel. The left -- made up of the Socialist Party,
Pro (the GreenLeft-Labor merger), the Animal Party, the pro-EU party
Volt, and the Muslim Denk party -- has since October 7, 2023 never
missed an opportunity to relentlessly peddle the false accusation that
the Jewish state is an "apartheid state" involved in "mass murder",
"deliberate starvation", "genocide" and even "infanticide". This is
Goebbels' tactic of 'repeat a lie until it becomes ambient noise',
updated for the Dutch Parliament (and many Dutch media as willing
accomplices). On the right of the political spectrum, the
ever-more-fascist and antisemitic Forum voor Democratie (FVD) has boarded the same demonization train. In April 2026, as Ambassador Vapni noted, this unholy alliance passed motions against Israel with no moral hesitation.
The Dutch pro-Israel parties -- Geert Wilders' PVV, BBB, JA21,
ChristenUnie, and the Christian-Zionist SGP -- were deliberately
excluded from the governing coalition.[4]
The Jetten minority government therefore governs on parliamentary life support from the very parties that despise Israel.[5]
The VVD, once nominally pro-Israel, has proven itself an amoral,
cynical power broker willing to sacrifice the Jewish state for coalition
arithmetic. The result is guaranteed: an anti-Israel parliamentary
majority that rubber-stamps the government's agenda.
The D66 party, largest in Parliament and the true engine of this
government, has long specialized in Israel-hatred dressed as "human
rights." Its prominent figures have moved seamlessly between parliament,
government ministries and anti-Israel NGOs. Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, now
Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, exemplifies the
type: a polished former diplomat who served at the Dutch Representative
Office at the PLO/PA in Ramallah, long-time D66 foreign affairs
spokesman, and relentless advocate who treats the Jewish state's right
to defend itself and to exist in its ancestral heartland as negotiable
at best. He has repeatedly pushed for recognition of a Palestinian state
-- never mind that it would be committed to Israel's destruction --
settlement import bans, sanctions-style pressure on Israel, and
criticism of its military operations, while downplaying or ignoring
Hamas's role and the "diversion" of aid".
"It was good to meet the Palestinian Representative @ammarhijazi1
today. We spoke about the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,
the increasing settler violence and expansions of illegal settlements in
the West Bank. I outlined the Dutch humanitarian commitment in Gaza and
the ban on trade in goods originating from the illegal Israeli
settlements. The Netherlands values its good relationship with the
Palestinian Authority and I look forward to continuing it."
I outlined the Dutch humanitarian commitment in Gaza and
the ban on trade in goods originating from the illegal Israeli
settlements. The Netherlands values its good relationship with the
Palestinian Authority and I look forward to continuing it. 2/2
"What a pity you had no time left to discuss the
thousands of PA-funded acts of terror against Israelis, the barbarous
sexual violence committed by the PA's brothers in Gaza or the Pa's
incessant violations of international law that the EU and the Dutch
government support."
Other D66 politicians have, for years, populated the same ecosystem
of malicious lawfare and delegitimization. One of the most prominent is a
former government minister and former UN diplomat, Sigrid Kaag, a
staunch anti-Israel activist with intimate ties to the Palestinian
cause. Married to Anis al-Qaq, a Palestinian Arab who served as a deputy
minister under Yasser Arafat, the couple wed in Jerusalem in 1993, and
have been photographed with the terrorist leader as a family. Already in
a 1996 interview, Kaag branded Benjamin Netanyahu a racist and Israeli
settlers as "illegal colonists on confiscated land" -- never mind that
the land was repeatedly promised to the Jews not only by biblical
covenants, but also, in modern times, by the Balfour Declaration (1917),
the San Remo Resolution (1920), and the League of Nations Mandate for
Palestine (1922).
At the UN, as Gaza Humanitarian Coordinator and later Middle East Peace Process chief, Sigrid Kaag relentlessly condemned
Israel, demanded open aid flows to Hamas, portrayed the Gaza crisis as
Israel's deliberate creation, and pushed hard for Palestinian statehood
-- cementing her role as a key figure in the international
delegitimization and lawfare campaign against the Jewish state.
The CDA's trajectory is even more grotesque. As a party that still
claims a Christian identity, it has abandoned any recognition of the
moral and biblical rights of the Jewish people to their ancestral
homeland. Former CDA Minister of Justice and Prime Minister Dries van Agt, who committed suicide in 2024, spent his later years building "The Rights Forum,"
a vehicle for Israel-hatred that attracted other former CDA bigshots to
its board. Van Agt's earlier record -- including his attempts to shield
Adolf Eichmann's local henchmen from justice in the Netherlands and his
repeated antisemitic slurs -- casts a long shadow over any claim of Christian conscience.
The VVD's collapse into expediency completes the picture. A party
that once understood the strategic and moral case for Israel has
apparently decided that throwing the Jewish state under the bus is a
small price for remaining in power.
The Dutch betrayal mirrors a broader European sickness. Mass
immigration from Muslim countries has imported a virulent strain of
antisemitism that now crosses all political boundaries. Politicians
realize only the electoral ramifications: Jewish populations are
dwindling and Muslim populations are exploding. Post-Holocaust guilt,
once a brake on Jew-hatred, has been inverted: many of the descendants
of the perpetrators and bystanders now project their unresolved shame
onto the surviving Jews and their state. The "oppressed" Palestinian has
replaced the oppressed Jew as the object of European moral narcissism.
The Europeans, who never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz, are finally
free of guilt.
The European Union's recent sanctions against Israeli organizations
and individuals under the banner of "settler violence" -- including the
targeting of Regavim itself, the very NGO that exposed the data fraud
behind the narrative -- represent the same moral inversion. As one
observer put it, Europe is sanctioning the critic of its own documented
acts.
Europe, which cannot, or does not wish to, protect its own Jewish
communities from daily harassment and assault, now presumes to dictate
to Jews where they may and may not live in the Land of Israel.
The hypocrisy and moral rot are bottomless. It was Europeans who
exiled the Jews from their heritage and cradle of civilization. It was
Europeans who subjected "their" Jews to more than a millennium of
discrimination, expulsions, mass deportations, and pogroms, culminating
in the Holocaust. It was Europeans as well, who, at the Evian Conference
of 1938, refused to open their doors to Jews fleeing Hitler. It was the
British who issued the 1939 White Paper without a single protest from
the other European democracies, and thereby slamming shut the gates of
Palestine as a place of refuge as the extermination of the Jews began.
It was Europeans (Polish, British, and Dutch) who devised the
"Madagascar Plan" to deport Europe's Jews to a remote and uninhabitable
island where they would surely perish.
After the Holocaust, when the surviving Jews -- against all odds --
returned en masse to rebuild their ancestral state, the same Europeans,
now sanctimoniously lecturing the Jewish state about "international
law," moved to ban them from the very territories that are central to
Jewish history, identity and heritage. This campaign of exclusion is
reinforced by semantic warfare. The territorial names "Palestine" (an
invention of the Roman Empire designed to erase Judea) and "West Bank"
(a Jordanian invention following its illegal occupation in 1948 of
Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem) are still deliberate tools to
sever the Jewish people from their origin and undermine their claim to
their ancestral homeland.
Yet the Jews do not forget where they came from. Jews have lived in
the Land of Israel continuously for millennia, and many of the
descendants who had been forcibly dispersed, returned.
It is precisely this return that triggers such fury. Dutch
authorities and many Dutch politicians now eagerly repeat the modern
blood libel of "settler violence," -- all while ignoring the unrelenting
terrorism committed by Arabs against the Jews of Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem and the rest of the Land of Israel for more than a century until today.
Even as their own policies and rhetoric actively fuel incitement and
violence against the Jews in the Netherlands, they continue to
delegitimize the Jews in Judea and Samaria. Jews were chased in the streets of Amsterdam, Jewish students experience exclusion, bullying and intimidation at Dutch universities, Jewish schools and synagogues have been repeatedly attacked,
even with explosives. Mayors of major Dutch cities such as Amsterdam
and Utrecht have taken to commemorating the "Naqba" with the passion of
weeping crocodiles, shamelessly trampling the historical record of the
Arab-Israeli conflict and placing the blame for everything but climate
change squarely on the Jews. But the very authorities who piously claim
to fight antisemitism are in reality among its chief enablers, fueling
and participating in the very campaign that produces it.
Amanda Kluveld, a non-Jewish professor in Holocaust studies at the University of Maastricht, wrote:
"Words are offered, but protection is withheld.
Definitions are endlessly debated, but violence goes unanswered. Jews
are once again left vulnerable, isolated, and demonized -- this time in
the heart of a democratic Europe that claims to have learned from its
past."
Kluveld is a frequent target
of threats, institutional intimidation and concrete violence, because
of her brave, consistent, but lonely pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish
positioning.
So, we arrive at the final, cynical logic of the current Dutch Israel
policy. The government of the country of Anne Frank effectively insists
on the expulsion of every last Jew from the heartland of Israel. So
will the Dutch authorities one day come to arrest, disown, and deport
the Jews of Israel's heartland the way they arrested, disowned, and
deported the Jews of Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands during
the Holocaust?[6] Of course not. The (Israeli) Jews have an army now.
Established and thriving Jewish cities, towns, neighborhoods, and
infrastructure exist in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Golan. These
"facts on the ground" will most certainly remain in the future and
likely grow into a home for hundreds of thousands of Jews now planning
to leave a Europe that is collapsing as we speak. Israel will celebrate
its restoration in the Land of Israel long after the Netherlands will
have been destroyed by the Muslim and African invasions it invited in,
and the remnants of what was once a great and moral country have
returned to their natural state: a swamp.
It is the height of irony that the Jewish people of Israel maintain
the developed world's highest fertility rate of nearly 3.0 children per
woman, thereby securing their demographic future, while the Netherlands
-- governed by a conspicuously childless political elite that includes
Prime Minister Rob Jetten and Deputy Prime Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz (VVD)
-- stumbles along at a catastrophic 1.4, effectively outsourcing its
survival to a mass immigration that has apparently not come to Europe
just for economic opportunity but to transform it fundamentally into its
own image.
The Jews have returned home. The Dutch, it appears, are determined to leave theirs up for grabs. History will record the result.
Wim Kortenoeven, a political scientist, is a former member of the Dutch Parliament.
[1]
Approximately 102,000 to 104,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in the
Holocaust, out of a pre-war Jewish population of about 140,000 (roughly
73-75%). Dutch authorities and civil institutions showed a high degree
of cooperation with the Nazi occupiers during the Holocaust,
contributing significantly to the high death toll among Dutch Jews
(around 102,000-104,000 out of ~140,000, or ~73-75%).
[2] This was unilaterally and secretly initiated
by Minister of Defense Henk Vredeling (a former resistance fighter),
who later said that he had once witnessed the Jews being taken away and
that he could not let that happen again.
[3]
"The decision concerns measures relating to the trade in goods
originating from unlawful settlements in the territories occupied by
Israel (the Palestinian territories and the Syrian Golan Heights). The
decision includes both a customs measure (import ban), various market
supervision measures (purchase ban, sales ban, and the prohibition on
providing intermediary trade services), as well as a prohibition on
circumventing these bans. The measures apply to every natural or legal
person located in the Netherlands (including the public bodies of
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) and to all Dutch natural or legal
persons outside the Netherlands."
[4]
As of late May 2026, in the Dutch House of Representatives (150 seats
total), the pro-Israel caucus consists of the PVV with 19 seats,
Groep-Markuszower (led by Gidi Markuszower, which split from the PVV in
January 2026) with 7 seats, BBB with 3 seats, JA21 with 9 seats,
ChristenUnie (CU) with 3 seats, SGP with 3 seats and Mona Keijzer with
one seat, for a combined total of 45 seats. The Pensioner Party 50+ with
2 seats is not counted here, but is not per se anti-Israel.
[5]
As of late May 2026, in the Dutch House of Representatives (150 seats
total), the anti-Israel caucus consists of the Party for the Animals
(PvdD) with 3 seats, the Socialist Party (SP) with 3 seats, GL-PvdA (the
GreenLeft–Labor merger, often referred to as Pro) with 20 seats, the
Muslim DENK party with 3 seats, Pro-EU party Volt with one seat, and the
fascist Forum for Democracy (FVD) with 7 seats, for a combined total of
37 seats.
[6] Dutch police played a major role
in arrests, roundups, and guarding Jews. They assisted the Nazis in
deportations to transit and detention camps like Westerbork and Amersfoort.
While not all police officers were enthusiastic, many complied, and
some received bounties for capturing hidden Jews. The Henneicke Column
(Dutch bounty hunters) alone delivered thousands.
As Jerusalem seeks greater defense independence, supporters see a path to strategic autonomy while critics warn against weakening a vital alliance.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the roof of the Kirya in Tel Aviv. Credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO.
In early May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
announced that Israel is preparing to begin reducing its dependence on
U.S. military aid.
Speaking on CBS‘s
flagship news program, “60 Minutes,” Netanyahu told correspondent Major
Garrett that he wanted to “draw down to zero the American financial
support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we
have,” over the next decade.
“I said, ‘Let’s start now and do it
over the next decade, over the next 10 years, but I want to start now. I
don’t want to wait for the next Congress,’” he said.
The
statement consolidated a position Netanyahu had been advancing since at
least February 2026, when he told the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations that Israel sought to “move with the
United States from aid to partnership.”
For decades, Washington’s
roughly $3.8 billion in annual military assistance symbolized the
strength of the bilateral relationship. But the multi-front war
triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre exposed what many Israelis
view as vulnerabilities created by dependence on U.S. political
approval, foreign supply chains and American production timelines.
Supporters
of Netanyahu’s proposal argue that it does not represent a rejection of
the alliance, but rather an effort to transform it from an aid-based
relationship into a partnership between sovereign allies.
Critics
counter that the move could weaken Israel’s military preparedness while
doing little to reduce its reliance on American weapons systems.
“Do
I think that Israel can manage without the financial aid? Certainly,
it’s realistic in the long run, not right now and not immediately,” Dr.
Tomer Fadlon, a research fellow in economics and national security at
the Institute for National Security Studies, told JNS.
“Do I
believe that Israel can manage without buying American military
equipment and without getting any military assistance from military
industries in the United States? No, I don’t think that Israel can
survive that.”
The current framework
The existing relationship is governed by a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016, covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028.
Under
the agreement, the United States committed $38 billion in military
assistance, including $33 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants
and $5 billion for joint missile-defense programs, such as Iron Dome and
Arrow.
The aid is not unrestricted.
As Netanyahu noted in
February, the funding is “largely spent in the United States on
equipment,” tying much of Israel’s procurement to American defense
contractors and production schedules.
Historically, Israel enjoyed
a unique exemption known as Off-Shore Procurement (OSP), allowing it to
spend about 26.3% of annual U.S. military assistance on Israeli-made
equipment. No other recipient enjoyed that privilege.
However, the 2016 agreement began phasing out OSP in 2024, with the program scheduled to end entirely in 2028.
“We
are already gradually reducing the amount of money that we can convert
from U.S. dollars to Israeli shekels to buy domestically, so some
industries already feel the effect,” Fadlon said.
The effort to
reduce dependence on U.S. aid has historical precedent. The first
10-year agreement between the two countries, covering 1999-2008, phased
out U.S. economic assistance while preserving military aid.
In a
1996 address to a joint session of Congress, Netanyahu himself first
proposed ending economic aid as part of a transition toward what he
described as a more mature partnership.
According to Fadlon,
Israel’s economic position today is vastly different from what it was
when large-scale U.S. assistance began.
“The current aid is around
$3.8 billion per year, which is approximately half a percent of
Israel’s GDP,” he said. “It’s still a lot of money, but it’s not
irreplaceable.”
By comparison, U.S. aid accounted for roughly 2.5% of Israel’s GDP in 1999.
The costs of dependence
The debate intensified during the current war.
In
May 2024, amid concerns over Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, the
Biden administration paused a shipment of heavy munitions, including
2,000-pound bombs.
Then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the move before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
“We paused one shipment of high payload munitions,” Austin said.
Although
Washington remained broadly supportive throughout the war, the incident
highlighted the degree to which critical wartime supplies could become
subject to political considerations.
Even when no formal
restrictions are imposed, Israeli military operations—from ceasefire
negotiations to strikes in Beirut and operations against Iran—have often
required close consultation with Washington.
The dependence extends beyond politics.
When
the United States approved a $20 billion arms package for Israel in
August 2024, deliveries of some systems were not scheduled to begin
until 2026, while new F-15 aircraft were not expected until 2029.
Meanwhile,
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman reported in May 2026 that Israel
entered the war with weakened domestic production capabilities,
shortages in key stockpiles and no comprehensive strategy for sustaining
wartime manufacturing.
According to Englman, years of prioritizing cheaper foreign procurement had damaged domestic production capacity.
“The lack of attention to the issue harmed Israel’s independence in producing weapons during the war,” the report concluded.
A changing political landscape
The debate over aid is unfolding as American public opinion toward Israel shifts.
According
to a Gallup survey conducted in February 2026, Americans expressed
greater sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis for the first time since
the poll began tracking the issue in 2001.
Forty-one percent of respondents said they sympathized more with Palestinians, compared to 36% who favored Israelis.
The shift has been reflected in Congress.
While
Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2025 resolutions seeking to block arms sales
to Israel failed overwhelmingly, growing numbers of Democratic lawmakers
have supported such measures.
Jonathan Rynhold, a professor at
the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University,
believes Netanyahu’s recent statements may be partly intended to get
ahead of what could become a difficult political battle when the current
MOU expires in 2028.
“It’s much better to say that we voluntarily want to reduce aid than to lose it all at the negotiations,” he told JNS.
Still, Rynhold cautioned against overstating the risks.
“The
biggest supporters of Israel in America are the American military,” he
said. “They don’t have another ally like Israel. What Israel can do and
what Israel does is more than any other American ally in the world.”
Independence—with limits
Regardless of what happens after 2028, Israel has already begun investing heavily in domestic defense production.
In
December 2025, Netanyahu unveiled a decade-long plan to invest 350
billion shekels ($98 billion) in strengthening Israel’s
defense-industrial base.
Since then, the Defense Ministry has
signed a series of major contracts with Elbit Systems, covering air
munitions, artillery shells and domestic manufacturing infrastructure.
According
to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Israel has ordered more
than $3 billion in domestic defense procurement since the start of 2026.
“If
you take the U.S. money out of the equation, you don’t have to spend
the $3 billion in the United States, but you still need the military
equipment, so now you can buy in-house,” Fadlon said.
Still, both supporters and skeptics acknowledge there are limits to what Israel can produce independently.
“We
cannot manufacture F-35s,” Fadlon noted. “We cannot manufacture some
kind of missiles that are manufactured in the U.S. We will still have to
buy them.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, the United States accounted for 68% of Israel’s arms
imports between 2021 and 2025.
“The idea that Israel can, or that it makes sense to, fully decouple from America is just nonsense,” Rynhold said.
Instead,
he argued, the goal should be to expand Israel’s ability to act
independently for limited periods if circumstances require it.
“For now, the best case is if America says, ‘Stop now,’ we can go on for a little longer,” he said.
Shimon Sherman is a columnist covering global security, Middle Eastern affairs, and
geopolitical developments. His reporting provides in-depth analysis on
topics such as the resurgence of ISIS, Iran’s nuclear ambitions,
judicial reforms in Israel, and the evolving landscape of militant
groups in Syria and Iraq. With a focus on investigative journalism and
expert interviews, his work offers critical insights into the most
pressing issues shaping international relations and security.
"The COVID cartel’s cover-up continues," Senate investigations Chair Ron Johnson says. FDA's advisers have repeatedly complained about the Biden and Trump administrations withholding data when they evaluate new COVID jabs.
Two days after CBS News broke the informal media blackout
of COVID-19 vaccine "safety signals" suppressed by the Biden
administration's Food and Drug Administration, the outside advisers to
the Trump administration's FDA voted to recommend updated COVID vaccines
despite receiving no safety data, as one adviser had requested.
It's déjà vu all over again for the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which similarly complained about the prior administration hiding data sought by advisers to make informed decisions about COVID vaccine recommendations.
The committee recommended targeting the "JN.1-lineage XFG" of SARS-CoV-2 in next season's vaccines at its six-and-a-half hour May 28 virtual meeting.
The FDA's summary said advisers reviewed data on manufacturing,
circulation of variants, current vaccine effectiveness and both human
and animal "immunogenicity data," not mentioning safety.
Vaccine injury lawyer Aaron Siri trashed the advisers
for "shamelessly" recommending a new vaccine, "ignoring its incredible
trail of harm," after giving a three-minute comment asking the committee
to make an "evidenced-based and not belief-based decision." Siri's new
book Vaccines, Amen portrays jabs as a religion shielded from scientific scrutiny.
"The COVID cartel’s cover-up continues," Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said after the vote, sharing Siri's testimony.
His subcommittee exposed the Biden FDA silencing whistleblower Ana Szarfman
when the data-mining expert told officials including Peter Marks,
then-director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, that
its surveillance was "masking" dozens of "statistically significant
safety signals for adverse events" following COVID vaccination as early
as March 2021.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 30, 2026
'FDA keeps the lane narrow' and early warning system 'effectively disabled'
Former FDA regulatory review officer Jessica Adams and CEO David Wiseman of Synechion, which specializes in "products for preventing postsurgical adhesions," separately observed that safety wasn't even on the VRBPAC agenda and that only member Hayley Gans, a Stanford pediatrics professor, asked for "continued safety data" for the committee to review.
"I think that there is some misinformation in the public,
and it would be nice actually to see those" data, whether provided by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the vaccine makers,
Gans said, according to Adams' transcript of the exchange.
CDC representative Natalie Thornburg responded with an
apologetic "non-answer." The Immunization Safety Office collects that
data, but it didn't send a rep to the virtual meeting, and it has not
presented to VRBPAC "in years past," Thornburg said.
"Even if safety was not formally part of today’s agenda, is
it really asking too much for CDC to have someone present who can speak
to ongoing vaccine safety questions if committee members raise them?"
Adams wrote on X.
Unlike flu vaccines, COVID vaccines are "newer products
with ongoing" post-marketing requirements and conditions, "evolving
risk-benefit discussions, and an entirely different level of public
attention and controversy," she said. The FDA should "make room
elsewhere" to address safety if it wants to limit these meetings to
"strain selection."
Adams elaborated on the limitations in the committee's mandate,
which was "not re-approving the vaccines," yet some members have
nonetheless "spent years raising broader questions beyond a purely
narrow strain-selection role," including safety surveillance, new safety
signals and requests for "underlying data" on the "overall benefit-risk
profile."
"FDA keeps the lane narrow," she lamented. "There is no
established annual committee process for a comprehensive benefit-risk
reassessment here."
Exchange from today’s FDA VRBPAC meeting:
VRBPAC member Hayley Gans, MD:
“I did have some questions for the CDC if the representatives or any of the manufacturers have continued safety data. I think that there is some misinformation in the public and it would be nice actually…
VRBPAC should have been told that "the US early vaccine
safety warning system is effectively disabled because safety signals for
all vaccines are masked by COVID-19 vaccine reports" in the
government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, Wiseman wrote in a short paper prior to the meeting based on the absence of safety in the agenda.
The committee should ask Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a "corrective action plan within 30
days" that includes why VRBPAC and the CDC's Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices weren't informed of the "safety signal
imbalances" and why the FDA didn't tell them "it was aware of the
masking issues," he wrote.
Wiseman's recommendations got a boost from Sen. Johnson, who accused federal health officials
of still using the FDA's "flawed algorithm," as exposed by
whistleblower Szarfman, "apparently [...] to hide all vaccine injury
safety signals."
"No dedicated vaccine safety presentation occurred. No CDC
Immunization Safety Office representative appeared. No Vaccine Safety
Datalink update was presented. No V-safe [survey-based safety
surveillance] review was conducted. No detailed discussion of
post-marketing safety surveillance occurred," TrialSiteNews summarized.
The CDC asked Just the News for "a few days" to
look into why it didn't send anyone with safety data to the May 28
VRBPAC meeting and has not historically sent anyone, and whether it was
ever previously asked to provide safety data for the meetings.
The vaccine injury cover-up continues…
Federal health officials used a flawed algorithm they were warned was hiding COVID injection injury safety signals, and apparently they are now using it to hide all vaccine injury safety signals.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 28, 2026
Trump adopts drug director's report after her unexplained firing
The recommendation of updated COVID vaccines came a day before President Trump's executive order to the CDC and its advisers
to "realign" the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with those of
developed peer nations, which generally recommend far fewer vaccines and
doses and use "public trust and education" more than mandates.
"Nice to have our vaccine report recognized by" the president, former acting Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Tracy Beth Hoeg wrote Monday night, referring to the HHS scientific assessment now formally adopted as a "guiding resource" for the feds.
"Less nice to have just been fired [...] & not know why or who fired me," she wrote, sharing a lengthy essay on her accomplishments
in the agency and CDER specifically and the "lack of transparency about
the details behind my firing," which closely followed Commissioner
Marty Makary's resignation.
Hoeg told medical scientist-turned-journalist Maryanne Demasi that two FDA officials ordered her to choose between resignation and termination and that Hoeg refused resignation.
As a participant in ACIP meetings, Hoeg highlighted a
"safety signal that has largely escaped public attention," post-flu
vaccine febrile seizures in ages 6 months through 4 years.
🙏Nice to have our vaccine report recognized by @POTUS
Less nice to have just been fired as head of CDER @ FDA & not know why or who fired me But I valued my time @ FDA & am proud of our work
— Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) June 2, 2026
Siri adopted a cynical note in his testimony to VRBPAC,
citing "the prior statements made by some members of this committee" as
reasons to wonder if they can "objectively consider the data and
evidence regarding these products."
He urged members not to ignore the "tens of thousands of
individuals" contacting his law firm about what they said were their
"serious" COVID vaccine injuries, the 40,000 injured in the widely censored victim group React19,
and the legal fights by the CDC and FDA to hide data suggesting COVID
vaccine injury is far more common than their surveillance suggests.
Pfizer's COVID vaccine trial had more deaths in the
vaccinated group despite the placebo group being larger, and victims
"have been abandoned" because of the liability shield in the PREP Act
and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program having been
"designed to deny compensation" and grossly underfunded in any case, he
said.
"Until this immunity is lifted and the harms actually
accounted for, this committee should decline to recommend any further
Covid-19 vaccines," Siri said.
A month ago, he asked Kennedy and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, on behalf of ICAN, to make several revisions to the CDC's Contraindications and Precautions page, to make medical exemptions to vaccinations easier to get.
The proposed revisions would add adverse events from a
given vaccine's package insert, which are limited to those with "some
basis to believe there is a causal relationship between the drug and the
occurrence," to the CDC's contraindications and precautions list.
Siri called it a "truly minimum step toward protecting the
public from vaccine harms" the day after VRBPAC recommended the updated
COVID vaccine. HHS and NIH didn't answer Just the News queries for their
response to the ICAN request.
With coca production at record highs and U.S.-Colombia ties strained, a June 21 runoff between a Trump-aligned populist and a leftist could determine the future of the hemisphere's drug war.
Colombia’s upcoming runoff presidential election pitches a
conservative-populist candidate who promises to crack down on crime and
the drug trade and a left-wing acolyte of the current executive who
promises to continue the policies that have rankled the Trump
administration.
The result of the showdown later this summer
could have profound implications for the Trump administration’s
relationship with Colombia, especially its effort to stem the flow of
illicit narcotics in the hemisphere.
Though historically a close ally of the United States,
especially in combating the drug trade, the relationship has grown icy
under the presidency of Gustavo Petro, a leftist politician who has
presided over a surge in illegal cocaine production in the country.
The populist Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist senator
Iván Cepeda emerged as the top two vote-getters in Colombia's
presidential election Sunday. Neither earned more than 50% of the vote,
and therefore will compete in a runoff election on June 21.
De la Espriella earned 44% of the vote in the first round,
just six points shy of a majority. Most polls in Colombia had shown the
far-left Cepeda, the son of a Marxist senator assassinated in 1994, with
a comfortable lead. Cepeda, however, received 41% in the first round.
“More than 10 million Colombians placed their trust in the
tiger, joining the herd,” said de la Espriella, referring to himself by
his nickname. “We will change the history of Colombia forever.”
The success of de la Espriella, a lawyer who has promised
to target the armed groups that plague the country and the cartels that
supervise its thriving cocaine industry, is a blow to Colombia’s traditional conservatives, who did not make it to the second round.
Cepeda, on the other hand, has similar policies to Petro,
including promoting negotiations with guerrilla groups and cartels,
rather than cracking down on their organized criminal activities and the
cocaine trade in the country.
“U.S. interests, and a strong US-Colombia relationship,
would be better served with Abelardo de la Espriella winning the runoff
election,” Daniel Batlle, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute who focuses on Latin America, told Just the News.
“Iván Cepeda reflects many of the worst instincts of the
Gustavo Petro government, and would bring more strategy and discipline
to efforts to reshape Colombia, including through a possible constituent
assembly that might rewrite Colombia’s constitution," he also said.
“Abelardo de la Espriella is far from ideal, but he is far
more aligned with the United States, especially on the security issues
which are so central to the US-Colombia relationship."
Under Petro, U.S.-Colombia relations have reached a low point. Petro, a leftist and former member
of an armed insurgent group in his country, has presided over an
explosion in coca production – the key component in the manufacture of
cocaine. His signature policy is negotiating with the armed groups and
cartels, which studies have shown resulted in strengthening those groups, rather than reducing their influence.
The Colombian president has also strongly opposed the Trump administration’s military strikes
against suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and the
Pacific. He argues that Trump’s strikes against the vessels violate
international law and the human rights of Latin Americans. Last year,
Petro shockingly called for criminal proceedings against the U.S.
president over the strikes.
As tensions mounted, Petro suggested that Colombia could
team up with Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela to resist the United States’
encroachment. The same day, Petro also cut intelligence sharing with the
United States over the drug boat strikes – threatening the reliable and
longstanding U.S.-Colombia alliance that has been vital to the United
States’ counter-narcotics and counterterrorism operations in South
America.
Just months later, President Trump approved a U.S. military
operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Maduro on drug charges. In a
shot across the bow, Trump warned Petro that “he’ll be next” if the Colombian president didn’t do more to combat the cocaine trade in his country.
Colombia's cocaine crisis has deepened significantly under the Petro administration.
In a 2025 report,
the United Nations found that coca cultivation rose from 230,000
hectares in 2022 to 253,000 in 2023, while cocaine production potential
climbed to a record 2,664 metric tons – even as Petro touted record seizures. The Congressional Research Service concluded that “the Petro administration's de-emphasis of coca eradication has coincided with record cocaine production.”
Last September, the United States officially designated Colombia
as a country that has "demonstrably failed" to uphold obligations to
control drug trafficking during an annual certification process. The
Trump administration cited the surge of cocaine production under Petro
for the decision.
Cepeda, a Petro acolyte, has campaigned on continuing the
current president’s policies, especially regarding Colombia’s cocaine
problem. If he is victorious in June, this could lead to a greater
strain on the relationship.
Hudson’s Batlle told Just the News that a Cepeda victory could certainly be an “obstacle” to the administration’s policy for Latin America.
“Iván Cepeda would not be helpful on most of the Trump
administration’s policies in the region, and in many cases would be an
obstacle, whereas de la Espriella would be an enthusiastic supporter of
Trump policies,” he said.
On de la Espriella, Batlle said he “would expect him to
move quickly to change key aspects of Colombian foreign policy,
including aligning with the US on Venezuela, joining US security
initiatives, and distancing from the regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua.”
For example, de la Espriella expressed support during the
campaign for joining Trump’s Americas Counter Cartel Coalition,
colloquially known as the Shield of the Americas. He has promised to
adopt a strict approach to drug trafficking and production, including employing military strikes on targets and killing coca plants through chemical fumigation.
He has also called for the construction of at least 10 megaprisons,
modeled after those of El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele built
during the crackdown on gang violence in that country. Like Argentinian
President Javier Milei, de la Espriella has promised to shrink the size of Colombia’s government by 40%, cutting taxes and attracting foreign investment to Colombia’s hydrocarbon industry.
However, if Cepeda is successful this summer, Trump’s allies believe it would be a relationship-defining incident.
"This is the election where the Colombian people are going
to decide which way they're going to go," Sen. Bernie Moreno, a
Republican from Ohio who was born in Colombia, said during a panel hosted by the Atlantic Council last week.
"We've seen one way, and we just had to take military
action in Venezuela to fix that. And we've seen other ways where you
have unlimited prosperity, unlimited security, unlimited opportunities,”
he also said. "If Colombia, heaven forbid, goes the wrong way, what
you're going to see is all the bad actors that are currently in Cuba,
Venezuela, Nicaragua, flow through to Colombia. That would be an abject
disaster for Latin America."
Colombia’s President Petro and Cepeda both immediately cast
doubt on the authenticity of the election results, an alarming
development in a country that is increasingly wracked by armed groups
and political violence.
“The so-called transmitted count has no binding force,” Petro posted to X on Sunday. He blamed a software company for adding individuals to the country’s census.
“The already impugned polling stations demonstrate that
hundreds of thousands of votes were added without the existence of
voters,” the president alleged.
De la Espriella has called on both the president and his opponent to acknowledge the results.
“Petro and you have to face the people, because you’re carrying out a plan to steal the elections,” de la Espriella wrote to Cepeda on social media. “Acknowledge the result; stop stoking a coup.”
