John Crowley

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

After the Free Press ran that hit piece on my claiming the State Department was trying to deport me, @TuckerCarlson messaged me to invite me onto his show. He had read my Substack explaining the backstory and wanted to get deeper into both that issue and the war, the negotiations, and Israel's role in US-Iran tensions. We taped it this morning up in Maine, and Tucker put it up on his Twitter and YouTube just a few hours ago.

https://t.co/RZ1HqFkxsd

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

I have fought the neocons and warmongers in Washington for more than 25 years. Throughout, they have tried to silence, discredit, slander, and cancel me. Only recently, however, have they tried to deport me.

At least, that appears to have been the aim of a hit piece in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press, which claimed that Marco Rubio’s State Department was “investigating” me for allegedly seeking to “undermine the U.S.”—presumably because of my opposition to war with Iran.

Yet just hours later, the State Department issued a statement to reporters clarifying that “the State Department has no plans to revoke the green card of Mr. Parsi at this time.” Nor did it provide any confirmation for the central premise of the Free Press story—that an investigation of me existed in the first place.

So here’s what I think happened.

Read the full piece on my Substack: https://t.co/bjh5aEoLnL

[Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha]

Israel killed this child today in Gaza City.

[Mohammad Ali Shabani @mashabani]

There are small but important differences in how Iranian and US actions are approached by mainstream media, giving away underlying value systems.

For example, it's fine and almost encouraged to say that US punitive actions "work", whether on sanctions or the blockade. But with Iran, you'll rarely come across coverage of its respective blockade as "working". The emphasis will instead be on highlighting its unlawful nature, negative impacts etc.

Words matter, especially in an age in which the U.S. president is glued to his phone and highly sensitive to how his actions are framed.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Humbled to share the cover of my forthcoming book.

A project born of heartbreak, urgency, and the unbearable reality of watching Israel’s genocide against Palestinians unfold in real time.

[Scott Horton @scotthortonshow]

@tparsi He did call it. https://t.co/vq6CEZSCEb

[Pedro Sánchez @sanchezcastejon]

Ha llegado la hora de que la UE rompa su Acuerdo de Asociación con Israel.

No tenemos nada contra el pueblo de Israel, al contrario. Pero un Gobierno que viola el derecho internacional y, por tanto, los principios y valores de la UE no puede ser nuestro socio.

NO A LA GUERRA.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

France is on the eve of voting one of the most shameful laws in its history: it would effectively outlaw criticism of Israel and criminalize any speech seen as even remotely sympathetic to whoever the French government chooses to designate a "terrorist group."

In effect this law would turn France's foreign policy into unchallengeable dogma backed by prison time. You could literally be sent for 5 years in prison if you, for instance, call what France says are "terrorists" a "resistance group."

Think for instance Nelson Mandela during the apartheid (the ANC was on every Western terrorist list) or, heck, France's own Résistance against Nazi Germany - designated as "terrorists" by the Vichy regime and the Nazi occupation.

It's frankly absolutely insane.

The new law is called "loi Yadan" after its author Caroline Yadan, a MP who represents French expatriates living in Israel. The U.S. has congressmen paid by AIPAC: France has cut out the middleman entirely, we have MPs whose constituency is literally in Israel.

The law has already passed committee and heads to a full parliamentary vote on April 16th - 3 days from now - under a very unusual fast-track procedure. Seven of eleven parliamentary groups have said they'll vote yes and the law is expected to pass.

What does the law say? Let me quote from it directly (full text here: https://t.co/m03R4z0gX6):

1) Article 1 introduces the concept of "implicit" provocation to terrorism and punishes it with five years imprisonment and a fine of €75,000

That's the one I was speaking about. Under this provision, describing anyone France designates as terrorist as a "resistance movement" - the way France describes its own Résistance against Nazi occupation - could effectively become a crime.

The key concept is what does "implicit provocation to terrorism" mean? Nobody knows. And that's the point. It means whatever a prosecutor wants it to mean: a perfectly good case could be made that, for instance, quoting international law on the right of occupied peoples to resist with respect to Hamas is, in fact, "implicit provocation to terrorism."

France's most famous anti-terrorism judge, Marc Trévidic, says he has never seen anything like it in his entire career (https://t.co/CytQnuK3hS): "Implicit provocation to terrorism: do you realize what that means? Becoming a censor of other people's thoughts, trying to guess what a person really meant."

2) The same article also expands the terrorism apology offense to include "minimizing or trivializing acts of terrorism in an outrageous manner."

This is even crazier: until now, "apology of terrorism" meant actually expressing a favorable judgment of "terrorist acts" (which is already insane because, as we all know, one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter).

Well, under this new provision, a judge could decide that providing context, explaining root causes, or insufficiently condemning an act amounts to "trivializing" terrorism - and that would now be punishable with 5 years in prison.

So, for instance, a history teacher explaining the origins of Hamas or Hezbollah is providing context - but a prosecutor could argue that contextualization is trivialization. The same reasoning could apply to a journalist, a researcher, or anyone on social media who says "yes, it was terrible, but here's why it happened." The "but" becomes a crime, as it is trivialization.

3) Article 4 expands Holocaust denial law

Under current French law, denying the Holocaust is already a crime. This provision extends that crime by specifying that contestation of crimes against humanity now includes, "whatever its formulation, a negation, minimization, or outrageous trivialization" of those crimes.

Again with "outrageous trivialization"! In this instance the very authors of the text - Caroline Yadan and her colleagues - explain their reasoning explicitly in the law's preamble (https://t.co/rIiYQbbk23): "Comparing the State of Israel to the Nazi regime would thereby be punishable as an outrageous trivialization of the Shoah."

So while the provision is written in general terms, its architects are openly saying what it's for: making it a crime to draw any parallel between Israel's actions and those of the Nazis.

4) Article 2 creates a brand new crime: calling for the destruction of a state.

The law adds to an existing 1881 press law a provision punishing anyone who "publicly, in disregard of the right of peoples to self-determination and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, calls for the destruction of a state recognized by the French Republic." Five years imprisonment, €75,000 fine.

The qualifiers about self-determination and the UN Charter are meant to sound reassuring. But what does "destruction" mean? In practice, if you advocate for a one-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians live as equals, you are de-facto calling for the "destruction" of the state of Israel. Well, that would now be punishable by 5 years in prison 🤷

There you go. Absolutely insane: if this new law passes, and it unfortunately very much looks like it will, France - the country that gave the world the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the country whose national identity is built on the Résistance - will have made it illegal to use the word 'resistance' about anyone the government doesn't like. Jean Moulin would be prosecuted. De Gaulle would be prosecuted.

The only people who wouldn't be prosecuted are those who stay silent. Which, of course, is the whole point.

[Explosive Media @ExplosiveMediaa]

You played your last card.
No more aces.

You're DISCARDED.
L.O.S.E.R!

Our latest LEGO-style animation:
𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐑 🎭

[Ghassan Abu Sitta, Chair of Conflict Medicine AUB @GhassanAbuSitt1]

11 years old. 8 hours in the Operating Room. Bilateral fractures of thigh bones. Skull fracture. Severe facial laceration with loss of tissue. Fractured jaw.
More surgeries needed.
Israel did this

[Pedro Sánchez @sanchezcastejon]

Justo hoy, Netanyahu lanza su ataque más duro contra el Líbano desde que empezó la ofensiva.

Su desprecio por la vida y el derecho internacional es intolerable.

Toca hablar claro:

- Líbano debe formar parte del alto al fuego.

- La comunidad internacional debe condenar esta nueva violación del derecho internacional.

- La Unión Europea debe suspender su Acuerdo de Asociación con Israel.

- Y no debe haber impunidad ante estos actos criminales.

[Ghassan Abu Sitta, Chair of Conflict Medicine AUB @GhassanAbuSitt1]

15 story residential building in Beirut. Leveled to the ground.

[Bruno Maçães @MacaesBruno]

Javier, you have to delete this if you want your work to be taken seriously

[Masoud Pezeshkian @drpezeshkian]

To the people of the United States of America

[Jeremy Diamond @JDiamond1]

The IDF took what appears to be unprecedented action against the battalion involved in my team's assault & detention.
In many ways, that's due to our position as US journalists. In too many cases involving Palestinian journalists & civilians, we've seen a lack of accountability.

[Feroze Sidhwa @FerozeSidhwa]

I'm an American trauma surgeon. One year ago today I was volunteering at Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza when Israel fired a missile into the room of my 16-year-old patient, Ibrahim Barhoum. The missile killed him instantly. If it had hit the room 90 seconds later it would have killed me, too. Today the US and Israel are still blocking medical supplies from entering Gaza, and are repeating the assault on hospitals and healthcare workers across Lebanon.

This is nothing but barbarism. It must be stopped.

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

U.S. government says one thing, reality says another
Right as U.S. authorities claim Iran’s air defences r gone, an F-35 gets hit. As they declare Iran’s navy finished, USS Gerald Ford turns back, and USS Abraham Lincoln drifts farther away
Different decade, same “we’re winning”

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

The developments of the past 24h may prove a turning point in this war: Israel and the US's escalation by striking the Qatari-Iranian Pars field, the strikes against Asaluyeh, Iran's massive retaliation against oil and gas installations in Saudi, Qatar and beyond, which shot up oil prices, the near downing of a F35 by Iran and Secretary Bessent's revelations that the US may unsanction Iranian oil on the waters to bring down oil prices.

As I said already on the fourth day, the US has lost control of this war. It had a Plan A, but no Plan B.

Plan A came crashing down after it became clear that the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei neither brought the implosion of the theocracy nor their surrender. As a result, the US is increasingly letting the Israelis drive the bus, by virtue of them having a plan, even though their plan does not serve US interests (the Israelis want to prolong the war to degrade Iran's entire industrial base, regardless of what happens to energy markets, Trump's presidency, and security in the region as a whole.)

The Israeli strike against the Pars field, coordinated with the US, is particularly important because it violated a promise Trump made to Qatar back in September 2025 - Israel would no longer be allowed to strike Qatar.

But that gas field is shared by both Iran and Qatar, hence it was an attack on Qatar as well as on Iran. With US coordination. This - and the impact on energy markets - may explain why Trump took to social media to blame Israel for the attack and publicly forbade them from striking further energy fields.

But Bessent's comments about unsanctioning Iranian oil on the waters are the most important. Though it's primarily done to push down oil prices, it appears that we may have nevertheless entered sanctions relief territory out of necessity.

I wrote several days ago that Tehran is very unlikely to end the war even if the US pulls out and declares victory. Iran has leverage for the first time in years and will seek to trade it in. It has publicly demanded a closing of US bases, reparations, and sanctions relief in order to stop shooting at Israel and open the Straits. The first may happen over time anyway, the second is highly unlikely, but the third - sanctions relief - may become more plausible as the cost of the war rises, and escalation strategies become increasingly suicidal for Trump.

As I have explained, a return to the pre-war status quo is unacceptable to Tehran because it will not only be in a degraded state, but also in a continuously weakening state because its pathways to sanctions relief have been blown up. If Iran weakens further, it will only invite further American and Israeli aggression, Tehran believes, because it was the false perception of Iranian weakness that created the "window of opportunity" to attack Iran in the first place. Sanctions relief is, as a result, a necessity to ensure that the war doesn't restart.

But here is where Iran may miscalculate. Trump may not yet have reached the point at which the cost of continuing the war is so high that he opts to offer sanctions exemptions to select countries to get Iran's agreement to open the straits and end the war. He will likely only reach that point once it's clear that his base is starting to turn against the war in a serious manner.

At that point, Trump will face a time crunch. He will need a narrative in which he declares himself a victor - with his base believing it. Absent the ability to convince his base that he has won, the benefit of ending the war may not outweigh the cost of continuing it. And as soon as his base starts turning against the war, his ability to convince them of his victory starts to wane.

Mindful of the fact that negotiating this end may take an estimated 7-10 days at best, which is different from the 24 hours or so it took to negotiate the unconditional ceasefire in June, Tehran may overplay its hand and only agree to enter these negotiations at a point at which the length of the negotiations may exceed the time Trump has left to convincingly declare victory and provide himself a face saving exit.

Getting the timing of this right will be very difficult for both the US and Iran. Israel will do all it can to sabotage any such off-ramp, including by killing Iranian's negotiatiors. But it will become increasingly clear - if it hasn't already - to Trump that all his escalatory options only deepen the lose-lose situation he has put himself in.

That's why Trump should never have listened to Netanyahu in the first place.

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

Our response to Israel's attack on our infrastructure employed FRACTION of our power. The ONLY reason for restraint was respect for requested de-escalation.

ZERO restraint if our infrastructures are struck again.

Any end to this war must address damage to our civilian sites.

[Seyed Abbas Araghchi @araghchi]

We're only three weeks into this war of choice, imposed on both Iranians and Americans.

This $200b is the tip of the iceberg. Ordinary Americans can thank Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys in Congress for the trillion-dollar "Israel First tax" that's about to hit U.S. economy.