Senior Director @Avaaz - Work on MENA, fighting disinformation, alternative energy, human rights and a lot more. Views are my own & retweets=interesting.
Every year when the world commemorates the courage of Tank Man in China, I’m reminded of 14-year-old Tank Boy Fares Odeh, may he rest in power.
His bravery in the face of Israel/i tanks barging into Gaza deeply inspired my generation. It ripped the fear out of our hearts. (1/8)
The pattern so far has been that when Trump seeks a diplomatic off-ramp (Gaza ceasefire, Iran talks, Qatar mediation, Lebanon ceasefire) Netanyahu often escalates militarily shortly after him and Trump speak, even when leaks show a strong “disagreement”.
That’s why leaks of “their disagreement” more often signal a surprise escalation is in play on one of the fronts - most often against Palestinians.
Whether this is coordinated deception or something else, the pattern is unmistakeable.
@GiorgiaMeloni@Marianhouk Maybe ban illegal produce from Ben Gvir and Co.’s illegal settlements - and ensure the EU isn’t complicit in these crimes.
Summoning the ambassador is useless.
This internal rift illustrates the two faces of modern Israeli politics: one side seeks to exercise ruthless cruelty behind closed doors, while the other insists on flaunting it on the global stage.
The debate is not about the brutal cruelty, just whether to make it public.
WOW!
@Theintercept reviewed more than 12000 print articles and 5000 TV segments to check for biases on Israel-Palestine.
I thought it would be bad.
I had no idea it was THIS bad.
No wonder Gaza killed what little credibility mianstream media had.
In NYT, Israel's right to defend itself was invoked 99 times. Only once for Palestine.
On CNN and MSNBC, it was invoked 755 times for Israel. But only 8 times for Palestine.
Emotive words such as slaughter and massacre were used frequently when Israelis had been killed. They were NEVER used in print when Palestinians were killed.
In Ukraine, 262 children were killed in the war, and it was mentioned 4223 times.
In Palestine, more than 10,000 children were killed, but it was mentioned only 3632.
The full article is in the subtweet. It's a MUST READ:
This is a hard article to read, but I hope you'll do so. I've spent some time reporting on widespread rape and other sexual violence of Palestinian male and female prisoners by Israeli authorities, and the article is now published. The assault victims were warned not to give speak of what they endured -- they were sometimes told they would be killed or raped if they gave interviews -- but they found the courage to do so. One man described being raped three times in a single day in Israeli prison, the third time after he tried to protest. A young woman said the guards would come in at the beginning of each shift and strip her naked and abuse her. Another reported that she was shown photos of herself being raped and warned they would be released unless she cooperated with Israeli intelligence. Even three children who had been detained told me they had been sexually abused. Look, whatever our position on the Middle East, we should be able to agree on being anti-rape. Sexual assaults were horrific when Israeli women were targeted on Oct. 7, and they're equally horrific when Israeli authorities use them against Palestinians day after day after day. We should be able to find common ground in opposing rape. Here's a gift link to the article: https://t.co/aMMHId49OO
You are the Board of Genocide.
You’re allowing the war criminals who killed thousands of kids to now profit from aid to those they starved to death. You’re using aid as a tool of subjugation - and you lie through your teeth. If you cared about Gazans, why don’t you let the people of the world feed them and help them rebuild? It’s simple - it’s because you want Gaza to be controlled by Israel through your proxies - instead of it being free.
أكثر من نصف مساحة غـ،ـزة مهددة بالضم إلى أراضي الاحتـ،ـلال.
إيكاد وفي أكبر تحقيق ميداني بعد وقف إطلاق النار، تكشف كيف حوّل الاحتـ،ـلال الهدنة إلى غطاء لتنفيذ إستراتيجية رباعية الأركان تحاول فرض واقع حدودي جديد.
❓فما أركان هذه الإستراتيجية؟ وكيف أسهمت في ابتلاع غـزة ميدانيًا؟
Agree - this cowardliness and blind bias is one of the core reasons for the breakdown and grave violations of international law.
The EU has been more complicit in the gravest of these grave violations, than a protector of international law.
So today, at the Security Council, High Representative Kaja Kallas has lamented the gravest violation and breakdown of international law since the Second World War, evident, I quote "in today’s two pre-eminent global crises — Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the war in the Middle East."
Quick quantitative analysis of her speech:
Mention of Russia: 11
Mention of Israel: 0
Mention of the USA: 0
Mention of Iran: 1
Her unwillingness, her deliberate failure, to mention the two actors (in addition to Russia) responsible for the greatest violations of international law, is not just coward. It is criminal. It explains the repeated violations of international law, the breakdown of the UN Charter, the global regime of impunity.
The failure is counted in acts of aggressions, in a genocide, in deliberate or disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians, in thousands of civilians deaths, including children, in unlawful occupation and de facto annexation.
The double standards inherent in Ms. Kallas speech are destroying international law.
https://t.co/r5fV7rnP2U
The debate around Netanyahu’s next moves is too often framed as “restraining Israel.” That’s the wrong frame.
The more effective frame to think through is: how do you structure an escalating cost matrix so that every provocation makes Israel’s strategic position worse, not better?
The tools are already there:
1. The EU can initiate trade sanctions — starting with individual member states, building momentum for bloc-wide action.
2. Gulf states can walk back Abraham Accords normalization — the most potent leverage they’ve barely used.
3. The US domestic debate can sharpen the MAGA vs. MIGA fault line, every escalation further fractures Israel’s base of bipartisan support and is framed as threatening American national security.
4. Egypt can maximize pressure at the Rafah crossing — turning access into a strategic instrument, not just a humanitarian afterthought.
The logic is simple: sabotage the Iran ideal and regional stability, escalate in Palestine or Lebanon, and face diplomatic isolation.
Right now, Israel operates in an environment where escalation is cost-free. That’s the variable that has to change.
Not restraint. Cost imposition. Make every lash-out more expensive than the last and the political calculus shifts on its own. It’s time to end Israeli impunity.
Netanyahu’s Iran gambit failed to deliver - pulling the US into the jaws of strategic defeat.
The question now is how he reconstitutes a political survival strategy. Three likely trajectories - and the necessary response:
1. Sabotage the US-Iran diplomatic track — through provocations, false flags, or calibrated escalation. The Lebanon escalation we’re watching is instructive - 150 air strikes in 2 hours taking the lives of hundreds is an example of Israel’s cruel provocations.
2. Accelerate de facto annexation across the West Bank: settlement expansion, enabling settler violence, creating irreversible facts on the ground - pushing forward pogroms.
3. Engineer a pretext to resume large-scale military operations in Gaza.
The objective is political continuity - not just of Netanyahu but of Israel’s apartheid and hegemonic framework for the region.
The response needs to be:
I have been deliberately silent on social media for a while. I use all my social media platforms to promote education & make dreams come true for young minds. I rarely post anything about family or politics.
This morning, Israel demolished the building I have an apartment in. It took 22 years of my work here & 20 years of my wife’s work to own this apartment. This madness has to stop.
Joseph Kent, a top counterterrorism official under Trump, just resigned.
Kent and I don't agree on much, but he is right:
"Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC.
May God bless America.
This isn’t a surprise - the same genocidal pilots and soldiers and politicians who committed one of the worst travesties of the 21st centuries are not just free, they’re still running Israel and leading and serving in its army.
These crimes only end when these criminals face justice.
They were out with their parents buying Eid clothes - imagine Christmas shopping.
Excited for the gifts, their dad drove them back. Then the Israeli army ambushed their car.
They saw their mother, father, and two little brothers Othman and Ali (5 and 6) being murdered.