Latest Analysis and Commentary
by Gordon G. Chang • June 23, 2025 at 5:00 am
[E]xpect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks. Xi fully backed Iran and its three main proxy terrorist groups — Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthis — against Israel, with Beijing providing economic, diplomatic, propaganda, intelligence and weapons support. For a time, Beijing looked as if it was driving events with its sly proxy war conducted by Iran. Now, China's Iranian proxy, and its proxies in turn, are being decimated, and Beijing cannot respond other than by cutting and running. The mighty People's Republic of China is bugging out of the Middle East. But China is not entirely out of the fight. In addition to the renewed air campaign against Taiwan, Beijing has upped the pressure against the Philippines in the South China Sea. On June 19, the same day China started its most recent air campaign against Taiwan, the Philippine Coast Guard announced that more than 50 of China's maritime militia vessels moved close to Iroquois Reef in the South China Sea, a feature within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines. A Philippine Coast Guard spokesman correctly called the Chinese action an "illegal swarming." China claims most of that crucial body of water, including features such as Iroquois, which are far from recognized Chinese shores. This we learned on June 21: The United States is truly a great power — and China is not.
China's President Xi Jinping fully backed Iran and its three main proxy terrorist groups — Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthis — against Israel, with Beijing providing economic, diplomatic, propaganda, intelligence and weapons support. Now, China's Iranian proxy, and its proxies in turn, are being decimated, and Beijing cannot respond other than by cutting and running. Pictured: Xi meets with Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on January 23, 2016, in Iran. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
China apparently tried to protect Iran, its client state, with a threat against Taiwan in the days preceding America's destruction of Iranian nuclear sites on June 21. Beijing's gambit failed. President Donald Trump, from all indications, stared down Xi Jinping. Nonetheless, expect Xi to up the pressure on Taiwan and others in coming weeks. Beginning late June 19, China sent 74 warplanes near Taiwan's airspace. Sixty-one of the craft crossed the median line, the unofficial boundary running down the middle of the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese provocation came after a long period of quiet in the skies over that contested body of water. Then, on June 21, the Pentagon told Reuters it had sent B-2 bombers to Guam. At the time, many saw the development as a final warning to Iran.
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by Nils A. Haug • June 22, 2025 at 7:30 am
The fiction of a "Palestinian people" was admitted by a late Palestine Liberation Organization senior official Zuheir Mohsen in an interview for the Dutch Newspaper Trouw: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons...." — Zuheir Mohsen to James Dorsey, "Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden", Trouw, March 31, 1977. None of the nations that vehemently supported the irrationality of a Palestinian state ever mentioned the slaughter by Hamas of Israel's innocents; the 54-59 hostages still held by Hamas, only 21 of whom are believed to remain alive, or that Hamas, not Israel, had started the war, or that the war could end immediately if Hamas returned the hostages, which they had no business kidnapping in the first place, and laid down its arms. The short reply of the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to Macron was: "No Palestinian state likely in our lifetime." "Britain is choosing to appease its own Islamists, while treating as an enemy the country that is not only fighting the same existential foe but is vital to help the United Kingdom defend itself against it." — Melanie Phillips, JNS, June 5, 2025. It is a choice: the West is allowing its hard-won freedoms, primacy of individual rights and freedom of expression to be compromised.
France's President Emmanuel Macron, true to his predictable outlook, declared that "[t]he existence of a Palestinian state 'is not just simply a moral duty but also a political necessity,'" The short reply of the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to Macron was: "No Palestinian state likely in our lifetime." Pictured: Huckabee at his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The mass campaign to "Globalize the intifada" essentially means "Globalize Jew-hate" -- a short step to the stated intent of some Islamists to ultimately eradicate Jews globally. This outcome is what many demonstrators seem to seek when they use supporting the cause of the so-called Palestinian people as a subterfuge, a Trojan horse, to hide their homicidal aims against the Jews, starting with Israel.
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by Amir Taheri • June 22, 2025 at 4:00 am
I think the overall mood in Iran, including in the ruling circles, is against Khamenei's "to the last drop of blood" posturing, if only because people know this is posturing from a leader who is personally secure in his hideout. None of the 12 full generals -- active or in retirement -- that the regime still has, have adopted Khamenei's end-of-times posture. Nor is there any sign of the countless number of pot-bellied one-star generals whose boastful presence polluted Iranian airwaves and screens for decades.
After a week in purdah, "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei broke his silence on Wednesday with a brief and enigmatic message (pictured) recorded in his current secret location. (Photo by Iranian Supreme Leader's Press Office via Getty Images)
After a week in purdah, "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei broke his silence on Wednesday with a brief and enigmatic message recorded in his current secret location. Well, the location may be secret to most of us but not to Israel and its US ally, who claim they know where the "Guide" is hiding. This was a strange message. At no point did the "Guide" admit that Iran was facing a major crisis. He spoke of "an imposed war" without specifying who imposed it and how, while implicitly claiming that Iran had no part in provoking it. In other words, if he doesn't know why the war was imposed, he can't pretend to have any idea how to end it. Instead, he seemed to wish the war to continue ad infinitum by pretending that the US was demanding Iran's "unconditional surrender," something that, he boasted, the Iranian nation shall never accept.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • June 21, 2025 at 5:00 am
This tiny country [Israel], by itself, has begun putting an end to a "forever war" that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging on the West for 46 years. The potential success of such a David-vs-Goliath endeavor would not be possible without the strength, determination, and leadership of US President Donald J. Trump. America finally has a president willing to act against terrorism. This moment also makes clear that Trump's actions are not provoking World War III, they are preventing World War III – which Iran has been threatening for almost half a century. Now, once again, when Israel needs a true ally — not just someone to offer sympathetic words then threaten to withhold weapons — Trump has offered consistent support. "Israel has to do what they have to do," he said. This kind of Churchillian clarity does not cause chaos—it stops it, just as the allies stopped it in the last century in Germany and Japan. Trump and Netanyahu deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for taking one of the world's greatest terrorist states off the table. This kind of Churchillian clarity does not cause chaos — it stops it, as the WWII allies did in the last century in Germany and Japan. Trump and Netanyahu deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for taking one of the world's greatest terrorist states off the table. Strength does not invite war—it deters it. "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse," observed the late esteemed psychologist, Osama bin Laden, "they will naturally want to side with the strong horse." The Middle East is safer today not because of handshakes and summits and signed pieces of paper that usually one side disregards. Russia disregarded the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Russia, the United States and Ukraine agreed that Ukraine's borders would be respected in exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons it had at the time. And half a ton of documents showed that Iran had been cheating on its JCPOA "deal." The Middle East is safer today because Israel struck after... Israeli intelligence determined that Iran was on the brink of assembling a bomb -- and because the United States stood behind Israel. To those who still criticize, who still think diplomacy alone can solve everything, the answer is simple. As the great Secretary of State George Shultz noted, "Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table" -- in short, diplomacy works best when the enemy knows that it is backed up by force. Iran's leaders did not take Trump's 60-day warning seriously, probably because they did not believe he and Netanyahu had the courage to act. They also may be assuming that they can absorb a few blows and build back their nuclear weapons program after that – and precisely why it is crucial to destroy Fordow: to make sure no one can resuscitate it later. The time for appeasement is over. For this, we owe our gratitude to three pillars: Trump, the USA under his leadership, and the brave people of Israel who refuse to be victims.
What the world witnessed this past week was not merely a military operation. It was the courageous act of a free nation — Israel — taking one of the bravest and most humane steps in recent memory to stop evil in its tracks. This tiny country, by itself, has begun putting an end to a "forever war" that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging on the West for 46 years. The potential success of such a David-vs-Goliath endeavor would not be possible without the strength, determination, and leadership of US President Donald J. Trump. Pictured: Israel Air Force F-15 fighter jets. (Photo by IDF Spokesman's Office)
What the world witnessed this past week was not merely a military operation. It was the courageous act of a free nation — Israel — taking one of the bravest and most humane steps in recent memory to stop evil in its tracks. This tiny country, by itself, has begun putting an end to a "forever war" that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been waging on the West for 46 years. The potential success of such a David-vs-Goliath endeavor would not be possible without the strength, determination, and leadership of US President Donald J. Trump. While many global leaders have stood by passively, hedging their words and calling for "restraint," Trump showed what true leadership looks like. He did not waver. He did not equivocate. He supported Israel in its fight on behalf of all of us in the Free World -- not just in words, but in action, strategy, and unwavering moral clarity.
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by Nils A. Haug • June 20, 2025 at 5:00 am
For those Jewish scholars and experts from abroad, often invited by the local community in Australia to visit and share their views and expertise, there is news: you might not be permitted to enter Australia. Your visa, even if approved at some earlier stage, could be revoked and you might be silenced. If, however, you are a dedicated Palestinian from Gaza, you are most likely welcome in Australia -- little vetting required. In France, Jew-hatred is on the rise again.... French President Emmanuel Macron, possibly to please his growing Muslim constituency, intended to recognize "steps toward" a borderless, atrociously governed, terrorist State of Palestine – contrary to the interests of Israelis, the Middle East, and especially the Palestinians. "If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I've got a suggestion for them: Carve out a piece of the French Riviera, and create a Palestinian state. They're welcome to do that... but they're not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign nation." — US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, i24 News, June 1, 2025. Are Macron's government and others not only denying Israel, and its majority Jewish population, the necessary arms to defend itself, but also seeking to recognize a hostile Islamist state inside another country's borders? What is the word for "chutzpah" in French?
Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke (pictured) revoked the entry visa for Hillel Fuld, an American-Israeli tech columnist and advisor to Google and Microsoft, who was scheduled to speak in front of thousands of people at a fundraising event for Australian Friends of Magen David Adom (the official Israeli ambulance and medical emergency service devoted to saving lives of all people). Burke gave as his reason for revoking Fuld's visa a false accusation of "'islamophobia rhetoric' which risked inciting discord against Australia's Muslim population." (Photo by Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images)
Pro-Palestinian activists at Sydney University, Australia, a recent investigative report revealed, have been freely disrupting university lectures, shouting antisemitic slogans and carrying banners declaring "Jews not allowed." According to the report: "Jewish workers and students experienced antisemitism daily whilst on campus, creating a workplace of fear, anxiousness and a fear of retribution towards Jewish workers and students because they were Jewish people."
As has become typical in the West, the report's recommendations were ignored and a full investigation of the university not undertaken.
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by Lawrence Kadish • June 19, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Pictured: A satellite image from Planet Labs PBC from March 19, 2025, showing the aboveground part of the Fordow nuclear site, in Iran. (Graphic by Clea Peculier, Sabrina Blanchard, Fred Garet, Frederic Bourgeais/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald J. Trump has a problem. If he leaves Iran's major nuclear research and centrifuge sites, such as the Fordow uranium enrichment plant or Natanz, under their protective mountains, the countless centrifuges sheltered there will remain a permanent temptation -- an "attractive nuisance" -- for the Iranian regime to resurrect to terrorize its neighbors with again. What Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to want -- and what Iran's regime has said it wants since the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini put it in 1979 – is: "We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but God' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle."
— Quoted on p. 42 of Shireen T. Hunter's The Foreign Policy of Iran: Ideology and Pragmatism (Praeger, 1984).
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by Alan M. Dershowitz • June 19, 2025 at 5:00 am
Under Article 3 of the United States Constitution, judges are supposed to play a critical role in checking and balancing the excesses of the other branches. Their central responsibility is to enforce the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights, most particularly those assuring due process, equal protection and the right of dissent. They have no legitimate business interfering with the substantive policies of the executive or legislative branches. Judges look harder to find procedural objections to policies and actions of which they disapprove. [Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis] consistently voted to uphold laws and practices with which he had strong substantive disagreements, so long as they did not clearly violate express provisions of the Constitution. That is the proper role of unelected judges in a democracy. The people -- not the judges -- should rule the land.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis consistently voted to uphold laws and practices with which he had strong substantive disagreements, so long as they did not clearly violate express provisions of the Constitution. That is the proper role of unelected judges in a democracy. Pictured: Brandeis in 1930. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
The Book of Ruth begins with an ominous warning: "In the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in the land." History shows that judges make poor leaders. Thomas Jefferson understood this when he tried to limit the influence of the "midnight judges" appointed by John Adams. Andrew Jackson refused to implement a Supreme Court decision that he believed undercut his policy toward Native American tribes. Abraham Lincoln responded to what he regarded as the overreaching of judges by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court when the justices tried to dismantle his congressionally-enacted New Deal. Now, many district court judges are determined to thwart the policies of President Donald Trump. Judicial efforts to thwart executive and legislative actions have occurred frequently in our history, as have executive and legislative responses to such judicial activism.
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Israel Acted for All of Us
Special Thanks to President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Great IDF
by Amin Sharifi • June 18, 2025 at 5:00 am
Often lost in the media frenzy is the fact that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel. The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. Since its establishment nearly five decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as "unbelievers," has a right to exist. Full stop. No other issue, domestic or foreign, was as consistent, prioritized or systematically pursued as Tehran's hostility toward Israel, the country blocking its way to destroying the United States. To that end, Iran spent decades preparing "forward bases" across the Middle East and in South America, especially Venezuela. Then US President Barack Obama's JCPOA "nuclear deal" failed to address the fundamental nuclear threat from Iran, and focused on temporary technical limits while ignoring the regime's long-term ambitions. Obama actually agreed to a "sunset clause" that would have allowed Iran legitimately to have as many nuclear weapons as could get, starting in October 2025. The Biden administration unfortunately repeated Obama's errors., perhaps under the illusion that if it were nice to Iran, Iran would be nice back. Instead, Iran seized on its good luck to escalate its uranium enrichment to 60% by April 2021 and to 83.7%, near weapons-grade, in 2023. In his first term, President Donald Trump wisely pulled the U.S. out of Obama's deal – which, it turned out, had not only been fraudulent but totally illegitimate. Does the world really want a terrorist state to have nuclear weapons? If you look at the damage Iran has been doing without nuclear weapons, imagine the damage it could do with them. A nuclear-armed, ideology-driven Islamist regime threatens everyone. Right now, Israel is on the front line doing what others --whose lives and countries Israel is saving -- criticize it for doing. Israel's actions are not about starting a war; they are about stopping a war that has been underway for 46 years, before the theocratic tyranny that initiated it can enlarge it further. Netanyahu and Trump's resolve is not only creating the opportunity for a new, golden age for the Middle East but possibly also providing a deterrent -- remember deterrence? -- to other enemies of the West that have expressed wishes for its demise. Trump's Churchillian defense of the Free World will place him at the forefront of history. Both he and Netanyahu -- as well as the extraordinary Israeli military -- deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for rescuing the world from one of the most toxic regimes since the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Failure by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award them the prize would tell us more about them than about one of the greatest triumphs for freedom of all time.
Often lost in the media frenzy is the fact that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel. The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. Since its establishment nearly five decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as "unbelievers," has a right to exist. Full stop. Pictured: People watch the Shahran oil depot burn, in the outskirts of Tehran, following an Israeli airstrike on the facility, on June 15, 2025. (Photo by Stringer/Getty Images)
Often lost in the media frenzy is the fact that Iran, unprovoked, initiated hostilities against Israel. The seeming dispute was not about territory, policy or any disagreement that states normally have. It was about ideology. Since its establishment nearly five decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies have waged a war against Israel and the United States, calling for their destruction. From their point of view, neither country, as "unbelievers," has a right to exist. Full stop. For nearly five decades, Iran's theocratic regime, while denying the Holocaust, has been funding terror groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis, and for over 30 years has had a nuclear weapons program.
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by Lawrence Kadish • June 18, 2025 at 4:00 am
Pictured: A makeshift memorial for Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman at the Minnesota State Capitol building on June 16, 2025 in St. Paul. (Photo by Steven Garcia/Getty Images)
Let us speak clearly and as one. The people of the United States view as repugnant and hateful any attempt to assassinate our elected officials, regardless of their political affiliation, race, color, creed or opinions. It is more than simply destructive to our democracy. Assassinations have the means to infect our national "body politic" with a poison that can be fatal. Consider the destructive forces that have been unleashed over the course of our nation's history. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated as the Union restored America as one. James A. Garfield was murdered by a disgruntled office-seeker. President William McKinley was shot at point-blank range by an anarchist. And President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while he sat in a motorcade in Dallas. His brother Robert would die in a Los Angeles hotel as he launched his presidential bid.
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by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 17, 2025 at 5:00 am
If US President Donald J. Trump wants actual long-term peace in the Middle East, like it or not, there is no alternative other than allowing the departure of Iran's theocratic terrorist dictators and liberating the Iranian people – just as, after World War II, the US liberated Germany and Japan to enable the election of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Germany and the highly successful democracy in Japan. More negotiations are just the usual stalling tactic of the Iranian regime. Interminably negotiating some "deal" -- which, based on their track record, Iran will cheat on, no matter how vigilant its guardians are -- just allows Iran's regime a 24-karat opportunity to resupply, regroup and terrorize the region again. The last thing Trump needs is "help" from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The US urgently needs to spearhead not another porous, fake "nuclear deal" but real security, stability and freedom -- not only for millions of Muslims, Christians and Jews, but also for the great people of Iran who have been forced to suffer under vicious psychopathic despots long enough. For real peace, Trump needs to be the Churchill of our time. Let Israel finish the job. It is for us.
For real peace, President Donald Trump needs to be the Churchill of our time. Let Israel finish the job. It is for us. Pictured: Trump bids farewell to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, after a meeting on April 7, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Israel-Iran war erupted as Palestinians were marking the 18th anniversary of the Hamas coup against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip. On June 14, 2007, the Iran-backed terror group staged a violent coup that lasted for a few days and resulted in the death of hundreds of PA loyalists, some of whom were lynched in public squares, while others were thrown from the top floors of high-rise buildings. Human Rights Watch reported on June 12, 2007: "In internal Palestinian fighting over the last three days, both [the PA's ruling] Fatah faction and Hamas military forces have summarily executed captives, killed people not involved in hostilities, and engaged in gun battles with one another inside and near Palestinian hospitals...
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by Gordon G. Chang • June 16, 2025 at 5:00 am
"There were some very, very relieved people in the Gulf as the sun rose this morning.... The Saudis know that China had armed their enemy Iran with nukes and lesser weapons and fully backed the Houthis, who have been waging war on the Kingdom for years." — Jonathan Bass, Chief Executive Officer, Argent LNG, to Gatestone Institute, June 13, 2025. "The Chinese state is only as strong as its main energy provider, and that main energy provider, which so far has not been able to counter Israeli strikes, is unlikely to survive this war in its current form." — Brandon Weichert, author of The Shadow War: Iran's Quest for Supremacy, to Gatestone Institute, June 13, 2025. "With the loss of Syria and Hezbollah, Iran no longer has a command and control center in Damascus, only a two hour drive from Beirut. That means China can no longer manipulate events there." — Jonathan Bass, to Gatestone Institute, June 13, 2025. China has a Trump problem in the wider region as well. With the exception of Iran, almost everybody, including Iran's partner Qatar, seems to love the American president. Trump took the Gulf by storm in his three-nation — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — trip in May.
Narratives will change as the fighting between Iran and Israel continues, but one conclusion is already evident: China, Iran's long-time backer, is a victim of the fighting. That is a quick reversal of fortunes. Only last year, the Chinese looked ascendant in the region. Pictured: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (C), Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov (L) and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazeem Gharibabadi meet on March 14, 2025 in Beijing. (Photo by Getty Images)
Israeli air and drone strikes during the early hours of June 13th crippled Iran -- and severely set back Tehran's regional ambitions. The Israel Defense Forces hit nuclear weapons development facilities and ballistic missile sites, and killed senior military officers, including Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the armed forces chief of staff, and Major General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iranian media announced the death of Ali Shamkhani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top adviser. Tehran said that Israel's action was a "declaration of war." This war is continuing, and Iran has struck back with ballistic missile and drone attacks. Narratives will change as the fighting continues, but one conclusion is already evident: China, Iran's long-time backer, is a victim of the fighting. That is a quick reversal of fortunes. Only last year, the Chinese looked ascendant in the region.
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by Raymond Ibrahim • June 15, 2025 at 5:00 am
In the opening days of April, Muslim Fulani terrorists slaughtered more than 60 Christians in Plateau State, in what Plateau Gov. Caleb Mutfwang termed an ongoing "genocide." According to a local source, "More than 1,000 Christians were displaced during the attacks, and 383 three houses were destroyed by these bandits." — Morning Star News, April 8, 2025, Nigeria. "Eyewitnesses said the attack lasted more than an hour, leaving 103 households destroyed and the entire village displaced. Frustration mounted as residents reported a delayed military response and accused security forces of bias, disarming local Christian youth but not Fulani attackers." — Morning Star News, April 14, 2025, Nigeria. On Good Friday, Apr. 18, a Muslim judge sentenced a Christian to death for "blasphemy".... Among these critics was the Rev. Ghazala Shafique, a Karachi-based rights activist: "The court has convicted a Christian for allegedly carrying out the alleged blasphemous act, but what about those people who burned our churches and homes and are now roaming freely on bail? Why didn't the police and prosecution investigate those cases with the same zeal that they have shown in Masih's case?" — Morning Star News, April 22, 2025, Pakistan. On Apr. 30, a Muslim judge sentenced Sabry Kamel, a 79-year-old Christian man to life in prison on the charge that he molested a five-year-old Muslim child at the school where the accused volunteered. He did so, critics allege, on very little evidence and merely to placate an angry Muslim mob that was growing outside the court house and calling for the instant execution of the elderly Christian.... Essam Mehanna, the complainant's lawyer... stated: 'The case was flimsy and would have collapsed were it not for the mob shouting outside the courthouse.' Several legal experts and independent attorneys—both Copts and Muslims—who reviewed the case files expressed shock at what they described as a wholly unjustified ruling." — Coptic Solidarity, April 30, 2025, Egypt.
According to an April 6 report, Zimnako Salah, a 45-year-old Muslim man, "planted fake bombs across four churches in Arizona, California, and Colorado and worked separately to construct a real one:" Michele Beckwith, US Attorney for the Eastern District of California, said, "Planting a hoax bomb at the Roseville church was not an isolated incident or a prank for this defendant... His actions were designed to threaten and intimidate the congregation because he disagreed with their religious beliefs." Pictured: Saint Clare Catholic Church, in Roseville California. (Image source: Always dreamin/Wikimedia Commons)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of April 2025. The Muslim Slaughter of Christians Nigeria: In the opening days of April, Muslim Fulani terrorists slaughtered more than 60 Christians in Plateau State, in what Plateau Gov. Caleb Mutfwang termed an ongoing "genocide." According to a local source: "More than 1,000 Christians were displaced during the attacks, and 383 three houses were destroyed by these bandits. These attacks began on Wednesday, April 2, at about 3 p.m., when these armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen invaded our communities in large numbers; they came on motorcycles and attacked us."
On Apr. 7, Muslim Fulani slaughtered another three Christians in Central Nigeria, where 19 had been slaughtered the previous month. According to Joseph Chudu Yonkpa, a youth leader from the area,
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by Amir Taheri • June 15, 2025 at 4:00 am
What became the United States was the fruit of a rebellion against a system in which concentration of power contained the threat of tyranny. George Shultz, one of the wisest American politicians of the last century, noted that no political battle in the US is ever won or lost forever. The American system is designed to slow down decision-making to avoid both tyranny and anarchy. The ideal government in that model is one that doesn't do anything, thus allowing individuals who make up the society to shape their lives in a framework of laws that guarantees freedom. [O]nce the revolutionary mood ebbs, reality strikes back with people who wish to light the chimney without setting their home on fire.
While President Donald Trump prepares for G7 and NATO summits this month, political circles and media in Europe are busy trying to cut him down to size before the two events. Pictured: Trump and other heads of state deliberate at the G7 summit on June 9, 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada. (Photo by Jesco Denzel /Bundesregierung via Getty Images)
While President Donald Trump prepares for G7 and NATO summits this month, political circles and media in Europe are busy trying to cut him down to size before the two events. "Trump will come empty-handed," says one commentator. "None of the things he announced with fanfare has been achieved." Other commentators use such phrases as "deflated balloon" and "bogged down in the mess he created." At first sight, it looks certain that he has not scored big on any of the dramatic goals he announced. His tariff campaign is stalled in a maze of zigzags. His peace-making gambit in Ukraine has led to him humiliating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and labelling Russian President Vladimir Putin as "quite mad". Worse still, scores of US judges have lined up to block some of his dramatic measures, including the crackdown on illegal immigration.
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by Majid Rafizadeh • June 14, 2025 at 5:00 am
These empty threats [to Hamas in January and Iran in March], more than anything, seem to have reinforced Iran's belief that it could stall, maneuver, and harden its position while the U.S. scrambled, desperate for a leverage it appeared to have dropped. The U.S. appeared afraid of escalation. The U.S. seemed to want a deal more than Iran did. Iran's negotiators dragged their feet, demanded more concessions, and eventually made it unmistakably clear that they would not halt uranium enrichment. Khamenei, in a rare address, explicitly stated that uranium enrichment was Iran's "sovereign right" and "not subject to foreign dictates." Instead of walking away, Trump did something that most likely stunned even Iran's most skeptical officials -- he reached out to Russia. He asked Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran's closest global ally, to help mediate a deal. After drawing red lines and watching them crumble, after declaring enrichment a non-negotiable issue, the U.S. turned to Russia -- the same Russia that Iran is arming in the Ukraine conflict -- for help. For Iran, this was not just weakness. It was a full display of incompetence. In Tehran's calculus, this moment confirmed everything it had suspected: that the U.S. was willing to crawl, plead and negotiate on its knees to get Iran to... sign a piece of paper! They saw Trump's pivot to Putin as a validation of their strategy -- stall, resist, and wait for Washington to blink. Meanwhile, Israel had been sounding the alarm for years. Its intelligence services repeatedly uncovered secret Iranian sites, hidden stockpiles and covert operations.... Time had run out.
Pictured: Smoke rises from a location In Tehran, Iran that was targeted in Israel's wave of strikes, on the morning of June 13, 2025. (Photo by SAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The Islamic Republic of Iran was no longer hiding its ambitions or disguising its defiance. It was openly confronting the United States, discarding every red line and ultimatum Washington drew in the sand. At the center of the regime's defiance lay one uncompromising reality: Iran would not stop enriching uranium. U.S. President Donald J. Trump made it clear: if Iran wanted a deal, enrichment had to stop. Period. Iran repeatedly came back with "no." Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top nuclear negotiators declared again and again that enrichment was off the table. In fact, they escalated it. Iran's leaders mistook Trump's preference not to use crushing military force for a lack of resolve to stop them.
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by Nils A. Haug • June 13, 2025 at 5:00 am
The ANC's National Democratic Revolution strategy compels dominating the Judiciary; it reads: "judicial independence to be undermined, in part by vesting most appointments to the bench in an ANC-dominated Judicial Service Commission." It was therefore not unexpected that the Constitutional Court might rule in support of the slogan, "Kill the Boer". Sadly, what Ramaphosa actually intends, despite his grand terminology, is that there will be a redistribution of wealth and asset ownership in the form of either expropriation without compensation and/or a mandatory transfer of equity in businesses held by minorities to the black majority. NDR policies allow for this, and in fact the ANC Constitution mandates such actions.... A partial solution might be, as suggested by the commentator Rob Hersov, is that the US and other Western nations should bypass the ANC and instead support the Democratic Alliance (DA) -- the official opposition at one stage (now part of the coalition) and the 2nd largest political party. The DA is a centralist-conservative entity which runs the Western Cape Province – a state thriving in every way. Perhaps when it becomes known how successful the Western Cape under the DA has become, particularly with US and other outside investment, then demand for structural changes elsewhere might arise. In the interim, ominous dark clouds hang over the future of beautiful South Africa and its vibrant and amazing people.
Pictured: US President Donald Trump meets with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
There was a moment with a glimmer of hope for beleaguered South Africa. That moment appeared on May 21, 2025, with a meeting at the White House between US President Donald J. Trump and his South African counterpart, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The purpose of the meeting was to 'reset' the relationship between them after violently racist and anti-Western policies adopted by the largest political party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC), which heads a coalition government, were criticised by President Trump.
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