Ahmad F. Zuaiter

In search of the truth and in pursuit of justice. Curiosity is the ultimate instigator.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

🎥 Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the absence of a unified Palestinian national movement and national strategy.

He warned the movement cannot rely on anger alone and that without a coherent political strategy, activism risks becoming fragmented and ineffective.

“A clique of people in Fatah or in Hamas will decide for the Palestinian people their future. No. No, I don’t accept that… If they put their program to a democratic vote and that vote leads to a unified position, fine.”

Khalidi also emphasized the role of Palestinian civil society and diaspora activists in shaping global opinion, arguing that official Palestinian leadership has failed for decades to speak with a clear, unified, and persuasive voice to the world.

Source: Shu-Kaman

[John Cusack @johncusack]

There is no universe where this is not an evil act - cold blooded murder of innocents

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

For the first time, the original Pakistani cypher — cable I-0678, the document that triggered the removal of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan — released in full by Drop Site.

The classified document, known as a cypher, shows that State Department diplomats had threatened in 2022 that Pakistan would suffer greatly if Khan remained in office, but that “all would be forgiven” if he were removed in a no-confidence vote.

The Biden administration was infuriated over Khan’s refusal to grant rights for U.S. drone bases in Pakistan, as well as his neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war.

@MazMHussain | @ryangrim | @worqas

🔗 Read the full story at Drop Site News

[Steve Hanke @steve_hanke]

Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that THREE Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli forces.

880 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the ceasefire.

ISRAEL BREAKS CEASEFIRES AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN.

[Muhammad Shehada @muhammadshehad2]

🚨This short film exposes the true story of Israel's creation, entirely through the words of its own founders

For decades, Israel’s lies have been carefully designed to demonize its victims. To ensure that no matter the crimes it commits, the children it slaughters, the world remains incapable of empathy for Palestinians, or at best, treats it with the same apathy that has allowed this to go on for as long as it has

On the 78th anniversary of its creation, it's time the world knew that Israel's past is not different from the brutal present the world is finally seeing

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ The Day After NYT’s Kristof Documented Systematic Israeli Rape of Detained Palestinians, CNN, AP, BBC, and NYT Gave Largely Uncritical Coverage to an Unverifiable Israeli Report

One day after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a meticulously sourced investigation—drawing on 14 survivors, the UN, and several international rights groups—documenting systematic rape and sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Times, along with other major media outlets, published largely uncritical coverage of a new report by the Civil Commission, an Israeli NGO claiming Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7.

The underlying archive behind the Israeli report—which was covered by a wide range of outlets including the AP, CNN, BBC, and NYT—is entirely sealed. Only AP disclosed that its findings “could not be independently verified.” CNN acknowledged that it “has not been able to verify all of the contents of the archive”—though it claimed it has “seen many of the visual materials included in it.”  The NYT noted the archive was closed “to protect the privacy of victims” without clarifying what that means for verification. The BBC likewise made no disclosure about whether it had reviewed or verified the sealed archive, writing only that “its evidence, which is being kept in a secure archive, may aid future prosecutions.”

Not one of the NYT, CNN, or BBC reports stated whether they had independently verified any of the report’s findings that they published in their own articles.

The report was led by Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who is both the founder and chair of the Civil Commission. She has faced serious challenges to her credibility over her previous investigations into claims of systemic sexual violence by Hamas on October 7. In 2024, Israel’s largest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth published a damning exposé in which Israeli government officials said her “methodology was neither good nor accurate” and that “people have disassociated themselves from her because her research is inaccurate.”

Officials were particularly incensed that she spread the debunked claim—originating with Yossi Landau of ZAKA—that a pregnant woman was found with her womb cut open. “Slowly, professionals began distancing themselves from her because she was not reliable,” one Israeli official said. Elkayam-Levy even presented an old image of dead female Kurdish fighters as women sexually assaulted at the Nova music festival during a Harvard talk, in an online video shared by The Grayzone. When confronted with the error, she did not correct the record.

All four outlets also cited the 2023 UN report by Pramila Patten. The BBC described Patten’s visit to Israel, where she met with ZAKA’s Landau and other Israeli groups and officials to “receive information,” as an “investigation”—despite Patten herself explicitly rejecting that characterization and stating her mission was “neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.” Patten also acknowledged her mission did not include gathering or examining “evidence.” At the same time, the outlets ignored the findings of the more authoritative UN Commission of Inquiry — the UN’s highest investigative body — as well as subsequent findings by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, all of which stated they were unable to verify any individual instance of rape on October 7. 

🎥 VIDEO: The New York Times on the rape and sexual violence of Palestinians. Full video and source references in the reply.

[Ahmad F. Zuaiter @azuaiter]

@BillAckman @CNBC Why didn’t you buy PSH at a 30% discount to NAV instead? Still pumping after the dump.

[Ahmad F. Zuaiter @azuaiter]

https://t.co/n9nkAd7DwE

@BillAckman

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is a crucial point on Iran by Chas Freeman, the former US Assistant Secretary of Defense and, relevant to the topic, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (also, incidentally, one of the very rare former senior US officials who's a genuinely thoughtful diplomat as opposed to a sociopathic neocon).

What Freeman explains is that Iran's control of Hormuz, which Trump implicitly admitted is beyond the US's ability to contest (by saying in his speech it's not his problem to solve, that "others" should deal with it), will necessarily lead to a reshaping of the regional order in Iran's favor.

As Freeman says, "the Gulf Arabs have no alternative but to negotiate with Iran because they cannot survive indefinitely with the Strait of Hormuz closed to their exports." Meanwhile, countries like China, India, Japan, and Turkey have already worked out transit agreements with Tehran - de-facto recognizing Iranian authority over the strait.

In effect, Iranian control of Hormuz is now a fait accompli: they control the valve on the single largest concentration of hydrocarbon exports on earth. This is a long-term reality with immense implications.

In fact it's such a massive long-term win for Iran that the way the war may ironically be remembered by history is Trump giving Tehran the ideal casus belli to seize control of Hormuz - something the world would have never accepted had they done it unprovoked.

It remains to be seen how the war ends - if it ends at all - but this may end up proving even more valuable to Iran than nuclear weapons.

For instance, as Freeman points out, one of the conditions Iran set for Hormuz passage is an end to sanctions and hostility toward them. The logical endpoint is the collapse of the entire sanctions regime - Iran trading openly with the world (save, presumably, for the US and Israel), without having to make any guarantees on its nuclear program.

In other words Trump tore up the JCPOA calling it "the worst deal in history," and his war may have replaced it with something infinitely more favorable to Tehran.

Source for the whole video (worth a watch in its entirety as are all of Freeman's talks): https://t.co/ye9h7n44Sz

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

Since the Trump administration launched its war on Iran, critics have accused it of a profound misunderstanding of the country itself. What is Iran's history, and how does it inform the present? I asked the historian @aa51_ansari in Part 1 of our interview:

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 ushered in the regime we see in Iran today. But @aa51_ansari argues that there's another, older revolution that is more vital in understanding contemporary Iran. Part 2 of our interview:

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Brilliant piece @mukulkesavan

[Steve Hanke @steve_hanke]

Distinguished Columbia Prof. Jeff Sachs on the US strikes on Iran:

"The US Congress is owned and operated by the Zionist lobby. That's not an exaggeration. That's just a literal fact."

[Brad Setser @Brad_Setser]

Petrodollars! Nothing produces more heated discussion and, in my experience, less insight. Myths trump facts, because the actual data is a bit obscure --

But here is the most important thing to know. Before the Hormuz crisis, the flow of petrodollars had more or less dried up

1/many

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

Iran: responds to illegal US strike

World: "THIS IS ESCALATION! UNACCEPTABLE!"

US: illegally strikes Iran first

World: "We urge restraint... on Iran."

The restraint: always demanded from the victim. Never from the aggressor https://t.co/DGDN4gEQ4R

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

“For the US – unfortunately – we don’t have good options. Only bad options.”

That’s what @citrinowicz, who served as head of the Iran branch of Israel’s military intelligence, told me as we discussed Donald Trump’s threats to step up US attacks on Iran. Part 1 of our conversation:

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

The war with Iran has entered its third week, and Israel says it will last for at least another three. What is the strategy of Iran's new leadership? I spoke to @CarnegieEndow senior fellow @ksadjadpour and Lisa Anderson, dean emerita of @ColumbiaSIPA:

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

I have waited years for someone to challenge this nonsense phrase on mainstream media. An indictment of the liberal PEP media that it took Tucker Carlson to do it. And he undeniably did it well.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

This is the key point. Carlson is going viral and winning these encounters because his opponents are all stuck on scripts and talking points and have never been challenged on them, even mildly. This is part of a much bigger story of American media decline and collapse.

[Middle East Eye @MiddleEastEye]

Tucker Carlson presses The Economist’s Editor in Chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, on her Gaza stance. Arguing that many people ‘suck up to Israel’ as if they are afraid. Beddoes said she had recently visited Gaza with the Israeli army, describing Gaza as a ‘flattened place,’ but ‘a disaster for the future of Israel’.