Archives: Articles

By Michael Brenner

The Epstein affair is the greatest scandal of modern times. In its dimension, in the scope of participants representing a cross-section of elites here in the US and abroad, in the intersection of multiple criminal and crassly unethical activities: sex trafficking and rape of minors, blackmail, financial duplicity, espionage, treason, abuse of their powers by public agencies and private institutions, establishment coverups that span decades, perjury – among others. There is not a sinful action missing from its multifaceted violation of law and human morality.

These features of the scandal make it unique and distinctly ‘post-modern.’ It could not have occurred in past historical periods. For there did not exist the transcendence of class and vocational differences, the looseness of transactions among a wide mix of elites (including two U.S. Presidents, Prime Ministers of Israel and Norway and a Prince of the English royal family), the globalization of contacts and communication among the denizens of the celebrity world, the nihilistic culture that suppresses all manner of behavioral restraint and inhibition. Those were necessary/permissive elements. The sufficient factor was the willful, ruthless individuals who seized the opportunity to spin an intricate web of criminality, malevolence, maliciousness and mendacity.

How to characterize this odd beast? It is not a secret society, or a cult, or a camarilla of a power-seeking clique, or an organized mafia, a fraternity, or any other type of recognizable entity. What we see is the interlacing of elite networks with Epstein at the hub. It’s the world of power and celebrity whose members are aware of each other, but whose connective tissue is of varying strength and extent. They share one critical trait: each already commands enough respect and/or influence that the objective rarely was to achieve that status; rather, it was to reap the benefits of their status whether it be an enlargement of existing privileges – financial, access to the most influential and celebrated power-brokers, fantasy sex, or the pleasure of mixing with other elites in salubrious settings. It served no cause. It was ecumenical – entry observed no ascriptive or social requirement. In this sense, diverse egalitarian and inclusive.

These elites accepted Epstein and Maxwell as reputable members of high society worthy of status by virtue of their money, her pedigree, his conman’s charm and the lure of erotic adventure; some partaking of his ‘hospitality’ with the self-justification that everyone does it/they are consenting/we the elite are above conventional morality and above the law; making the ‘realpolitik’ judgment that Intelligence agencies’ exploiting of criminal activity for their own higher ends is legitimately in the national interest Epstein himself played the key role. He had a brilliant talent for manipulating this world of huge egos, gluttony, greed and amorality. However, he was no evil genius. His personality was not mesmerizing, his intelligence unremarkable. So, how was the network conceived, planned, and able to generate tens of millions in its start-up phase? Here, we enter the murky waters of political connection. There is good reason to believe that these crucial ingredients were provided by Mossad. Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, was the daughter of Robert Maxwell – the prominent London news mogul who was a fixture at the highest levels of the British Establishment. It was well-known that he headed a loose network of Zionists and Israel sympathizers who pooled multiple forms of Intelligence for the Israelis.@ After his untimely, mystifying death by drowning off his yacht, he was memorialized at a Jerusalem service attended by two former Mossad Directors and a former Prime Minister – Shimon Peres.

It is entirely reasonable to think that the Epstein enterprise received inspiration and early financial support from those same sources as represented by his soul mate Ghislaine. The connection doubtless continued throughout – likely, providing political cover and helpful oversight. Epstein rendered a range of service to the Israeli government: as go-between in deals with some small African states, expediting various financial transactions of dubious legality, and hosting meetings between Israeli officials and targeted members of the global elite. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was an especially close associate who collaborated with Epstein on a number of ventures of both a personal and Israeli interest. Indeed, he spent weeks at a stretch in the notorious Manhattan mansion. In addition, the Israelis (if not the FBI) might have provided the equipment and the technical know-how for installing there, and on the island, hidden cameras for recording the proceedings. That material, in FBI hands before and after 2006, had enormous blackmail potential which could be used to extract ransoms or as leverage by state agencies (Israeli or American) on persons of interest. All that evidence has disappeared into the maw of the all-time coverup of the all-time scandal in London and Washington and Jerusalem.

For it is also certain that American authorities were conversant with the scheme and that they drew their own benefits from it. The exceptional treatment that Epstein received at the time of his 2006 conviction on orders from Washington, according to the Florida prosecutor, supports that contention. Moreover, let’s bear in mind that all the documents recently exposed, albeit with large deletions, along with the notorious ‘black book’, have been in the hands of the FBI for 8 years at least. Yet, authorities have taken no action to investigate and to indict – other than the belated conviction of Ghislaine. She has been relocated to a salubrious country club facility after a secret meeting with Trump’s personal lawyer – her denial of Trump’s palship with Epstein over 15 years doubtless the price for those privileges. Even now, the DOJ has stated that further legal actions are unlikely – even while justifying the total deletion of victims’ testimony from the massive document drop on the grounds that it could compromise future criminal proceedings.

“Who was Jeffrey Epstein – this nonpareil hustler?” That is the puzzling question that challenges our understanding of human behavior. A non-descript secondary school teacher who becomes the ringmaster of a global spectacular of money, sex and power featuring the high & mighty from every sphere of endeavor, from every corner of the celebrity world. This outwardly ordinary man produced the extraordinary. Since there was nothing truly special about Epstein, other than his mastery of the conman’s art and manipulator supreme of post-modern society’s peculiar ways, a post-hoc psychological analysis would have produced only limited results in terms of comprehending the phenomenon that he embodied. We can say with confidence that he was not a ‘monster’ or some other sort of fiend. His conventional interactions with persons within or outside his circle appear quite normal. His language was uniformly casually colloquial – distinctive only in its sloppy spelling. There is no indication that he was mentally impaired; he would pass a psychiatric examination by any standard measure. This makes his conduct all the more perplexing: his total lack of a moral sense, his living without an evident superego.

The same holds for his accomplices, his enablers, his collaborative friendships with the many persons of fame and consequence who valued his company whether or not they participated in the sexual bacchanalias. Did he or they know right from wrong? – that’s the question posed in determining the sanity of somebody who committed extreme criminal acts. In one sense, they obviously did. Surely, they could cite the Ten Commandments or pastoral sermons punctuated by specific examples. They could recite acts that they never would commit or even contemplate. Have they suffered feelings of guilt or shame or contrition? No – zero signs of that. Only a very few were psychotic – the deranged Donald Trump being the outstanding exception. Still, they conducted their lives without a moral gyroscope – or, perhaps, one that was programmed by some means or other to operate only selectively.

So, we have to look elsewhere for clues as to the sources of their behavior: the nihilistic cultural/social setting infused with narcissism. Before shifting our attention in that direction, let us revisit Hannah Arendt’s classic work on “The Banality of Evil.”.

The Banality of Evil
Evil was very much on people’s minds in the post-war era when the horrors of Nazism were still living memory. The capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1966 riveted the world’s attention as nothing had since the Nazi chieftains had been brought to the bar at Nuremburg. The seeming incongruity between the monstrosity of the crimes and the tepid nature of the man in the dock was arresting. Eichmann was not a madman like Hitler; nor even the arrogant bully like Goering and his lot. He was ‘normal’ in clinical psychological terms. Arendt did not aim to explain Eichmann’s blandness per se. It was her forcefully argued contention that ordinary people can commit enormous horrors that created a furor – a blazing fire of argument and recrimination whose embers burned for decades.

Arendt did err in slighting the emotional difference between the actual commission of an atrocity and the process of deciding upon and administering a program of atrocity. The temperament to do the latter, as Eichmann did, need not be as exceptional as that required to perform the act. Still, the portrayal of Eichmann missed the mark insofar as his behavior was not at all that of a robotic clerk. An educated, intelligent man, Eichmann was a passionate believer in the Nazi creed and fully understood its implications. Arendt asserted that Eichmann was in thrall to an ideology that suppressed all humane norms of conduct. But he was not passive in the transformative process. For, in his case, it was not just a question of complying with the dictates of the totalitarian regime since he had volunteered for the job he did and exhibited initiative in carrying it out.

Eichmann should be condemned not because he was intrinsically evil or willfully acted atrociously – according to Arendt. Rather, his main culpability lay in the failure to use his rational intelligence to recognize the implications of binding himself to a diabolical ideology. For Arendt, only the distinctive human faculty to think rationally can remind us of human dignity and to break the servile logic that leads us to behave abominably. Hence, adherence to a depraved ideology suggests that Eichman the rational human is only indirectly accountable for the crimes with which he is associated. Arendt assumed that humans are inherently ‘animals’ who by natural instinct will act rapaciously unless guided by high-grade rationality whether acquired through socialization as embodied in an enlightened creed or achieved through individual reflection.

This conception of our nature is false. Look at other mammals; they have no sadistic streak. Only homo sapiens are capable of committing atrocities. Moreover, it is in our nature to bond with and to protect members of our family, our tribe and even our species as much as it is to compete ruthlessly. All primates exhibit this propensity. An ethic of universal humanism as found in the traditions of all great civilizations would not have developed, been formalized and achieved a measure of success if it had run counter to the very essence of our being.

[Martin Heidegger – Arendt’s intellectual guide, muse and lover – was a proclaimed Nazi supporter who publicly displayed his allegiance – to the extreme of wearing a brown shirt while lecturing and betraying long-time colleagues. He never admitted moral error or made apologies. Belatedly, he did offer lame “explanations” that feebly rationalized his behavior. They were accompanied by outright lies. In this, he can be viewed as a precursor of today’s public persons who never do any wrong that cannot be excused or sloughed off. His philosophy, to the extent that its prolix tangle of ideas are decipherable, also was a harbinger in pointing to the fads of deconstruction, phenomenology, etc. They, in turn, have provided the intellectual cover for the post-modern world’s shallow but not innocuous nihilism that justifies and encourages garden variety egoists to indulge their impulses while eroding any sense of obligation or responsibility. The institutionalization of juvenilia.]

For Heidegger, as for many 20th century philosophers, the ultimate reality is ideational – not natural, or human. The thinker par excellence chose a course that made him an accessory to mass murder. One thing we do know, the ripples of the tradition he represented – as much as the moral consequences of his immoral descent – outlived him. Heidegger foreshadowed the public performances of the present crop of leaders – as well as lesser lights. This is the democratization – and banalization – of the obermensch. Being liberated means never having to say “I’m sorry.” Public expressions of remorse when sins are exposed is not a prelude to acts of contrition; instead, it conveys a sense of regret that they allowed themselves to get into such a mess.

The implications of this analysis for understanding Epstein and his enterprise are these:

1. Ideology was non-existent in the Epstein universe. So, too, was religious passion or patriotic It is true that several of the main protagonists were unqualified devotees of the Zionist cause who viewed his active collaboration with the Israelis in a favorable light. That, in itself, does not mean that it was central to the dynamics of the network. In every other respect it was value-free. They were the product of a society that promotes the principle that individuals have a right to set their own course and implicitly to decide subjectively what is right and wrong, acceptable or unacceptable.
2. High social standing – a compound of money, power and status – heighten the (usually) unstated conviction that I am answerable only to myself, whatever the practical dictates of maintaining the outer appearance of conforming to conventional norms. The consequences are an ingrained sense of entitlement, an imperviousness to any idea of accountability, and a permission slip for brazen behavior.
3. The present culture of permissiveness weakens fear of consequences from baneful The less one fears chastisement and retribution, the less inhibited and the more self-indulgent one is.
4. The Epstein associates typically don’t ponder whether something they do is ethical or not – that’s simply not a They are moved by want and desire.
5. Whatever moral perspective they possess is attenuated. They are capable of moralizing about political matters at home or abroad even while engaging in criminal acts that cause victims severe harm. Or, more commonly, they can hobnob with and exchange favors with a man they know is the impresario of that vile depraved extravaganza. Noam Chomsky is the personification of that unseemly, bizarre tolerance for cognitive dissonance (or, perhaps more precisely, emotional dissonance). Deepak Chopra is another example. Others who demonstrably are morally mute are inter alia: Larry Summers, Harvard Dean Henry Rosovsky, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, the Clintons and a host of luminaries from the worlds of business, politics, and academia.

There is an acute lack of empathy with the victims. By some psychological avoidance mechanism, they are objectified, their identity and their suffering disregarded as they carry on their friendship, collaboration, and scheming with Epstein. The conduct of the Epstein crowd conforms to the recrudescence in contemporary Western societies of a disposition to devalue innocent victims of one’s actions. Witness Palestine.

6. Most striking about this perverse mentality, it not just the casual tolerance for violations of laws and every social norm of moral decency. Rather, it is the suppression/sublimation of the human’s inborn instinct to protect others – especially the innocents – except in rare instances of an expedient reason to subordinate that innate empathy to some compelling survival need.
7. In this state of moral anomie, we enter the realm of psychopathology.

Conclusion
The Epstein affair, a sordid and criminal saga that encompasses 20 years of illicit conduct, epitomizes our contemporary that is the expression and perpetuator of nihilism. Those who acquire the status of celebrity, broadly defined, in the public eye and in their self-regard, form a privileged caste. That grants them license to do pretty much whatever they wish. No distinction is made between fame and infamy.

In that category are the persons who participated in Epstein’s heinous crimes, embraced the man and/or gave Jeffrey Epstein legal cover amounting to immunity from condemnation or punishment.

They all are the spawn of a deformed society – miscreants without honor in a welcoming land.

*Peter Mandelson, in an earlier incarnation, was part of that network. Now, it is revealed that when serving as Business Secretary and then as Deputy Prime Minister under Gordon Brown, he sent ‘real-time’ emails to Epstein from the Cabinet Room within minutes of a decision taken on the monetary crisis or Middle East politics. Jamie Dimon, chief honcho at Morgan Chase, was another recipient of this choice information. Mandelson’s US counterparts are numerous.

Michael Brenner is professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), contributor to research and consulting projects on Euro-American security and economic issues.

16 February 2026

Source: transcend.org

By Brad Reed

“We found nothing of Saad. Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”

10 Feb 2026 – An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera based on evidence collected by the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip has concluded that nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been “evaporated” by Israel through the use of thermal weapons—some of them supplied by the US.

As reported by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, the investigation found that 2,842 Palestinians were killed due to Israel’s “systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit].”

The heat generated by these weapons is so intense, investigators noted, that they leave behind almost no detectable human remains other than blood stains or pieces of flesh.

Israel’s use of such weapons was flagged last year in a social media post by Omar Hamad, a Gaza pharmacist who posted a video purportedly showing a thermobaric bomb being detonated in Beit Hanoun.

[https://twitter.com/OmarHamadD/status/1944513320935096795]

Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, said hat the investigation was not a mere estimate of Palestinians incinerated by thermal and thermobaric weapons, but the result of painstaking forensic work.

“We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered,” Basal explained. “If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps.”

Unlike the explosions caused by traditional bombs, the thermobaric weapons used by Israel in Gaza first disperse clouds of fuel in a given area that are then ignited to create an enormous and intense fireball.

The investigation found that the fuel typically used in Israeli thermobaric weapons was tritonal, a mixture consisting of 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder often found in US-manufactured weapons such as the Mark 84 aircraft bomb.

Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the heat generated by these weapons is so intense that any living creatures’ bodily fluids will immediately boil.

“When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly,” al-Bursh explained. “The tissues vaporize and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable.”

Gaza resident Yasmin Mahani told Al Jazeera that her son, Saad, was incinerated by a 2024 Israeli strike that hit a school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.

“We found nothing of Saad,” Mahani said. “Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”

______________________________________________

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

16 February 2026

Source: transcend.org

By Juan Cole

15 Feb 2026 – The Israeli authorities are still not permitting journalists into Gaza, even months after a supposed ceasefire. The big Western news corporations are taking this prohibition as an excuse not to report on Gaza, since they don’t trust brown Arab stringers inside the Strip. In contrast, Al Jazeera English reports daily on the situation, and it can be watched on YouTube, or its own smartphone or Firestick app. The UN also issues reports based on communications from their staff on the ground.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that “UNICEF noted that children continue to be affected by airstrikes and the disruption of essential services, with 37 children reported killed since the beginning of the year . . . between 28 January and 11 February 2026, 109 Palestinians were killed, 252 were injured, and 10 bodies were recovered from under the rubble . . .”

The Israelis are still bombing the bejesus out of Gaza on a daily basis. People in the Middle East joke darkly that their definition of a cease fire is, you cease, we fire.

The health care situation is dire.

Here is an interview with a British physician who has gone to Gaza as a volunteer 40 times and is in close contact with current volunteers there. He reports that because of a lack of medicine, gruesome situations are unfolding, such as fungus eating people’s faces.

Al Jazeera English: “British doctor exposes how Israel’s Gaza blockade is turning medicine shortages deadly” :

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU6t6Iowscs]

British doctor exposes how Israel’s Gaza blockade is turning medicine shortages deadly

Here is the computer-generated transcript of the interview, which I had ChatGPT clean up for readability:

Al Jazeera

Dr. Graeme Groom is an orthopedic surgeon. He has volunteered in hospitals across Gaza over forty times . . . Can you talk to us about your experiences when you were in Gaza?

Dr. Groom:

Most recently in May, I was based at the Nasser hospital with my colleagues, and during our visit, the hospital pharmacy was bombed. We are very very familiar with the shortages, and as the pharmacy store was bombed, they became more acute. The problem with shortages of medicine is it sounds almost benign, but we have colleagues who are in Gaza every month. And last night a colleague sent an urgent request for an antifungal drug called amphoterasin.

Now she wanted this for an 18-year-old girl who had a very rare fungal infection, a mucosis, as a consequence of diabetes, multiple comorbidities, poorly treated because of the shortages. And her very last message was this is an emergency, the fungus is eating her face. So that is when we talk about shortages of medicines and we talk about lists that are at zero stock, both medicine and surgical equipment, it doesn’t sound quite as dramatic, but the individual impact is absolutely huge.

Al-Jazeera:
Now Israel is supposed to be allowing in aid and medicines because of the ceasefire. Are you able to compare to us the situation as you understand it now in Gaza compared to what it was like before the start of the ceasefire?

Dr. Groom:
… I can’t speak for this supply of medicines because we’re more concerned with the supply of surgical equipment. What has happened before the ceasefire and has continued since it is there has been a tighter and tighter squeeze so that when we travel from Amman through Allenby Bridge and Kerem Shalom, we were earlier before the ceasefire allowed to take a certain amount of equipment with us. We are now allowed to take nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean an anotist had his stethoscope confiscated on the basis that he wasn’t going to listen to his own heart, was he?

There is, as with everything in Gaza, there’s a tightening and relaxing of the rules. So that that was at its tightest. We’re now told that with sufficient advanced warning, we can take two small boxes of equipment in at each visit. That is very unclear. The definition of what that means is unclear. And of course, there’s this immense problem of dual use items. Anything that is defined as dual use is prohibited.

And you may know or you may not know that tents are defined as dual use because they have poles.

Al-Jazeera
Just very briefly sir, it was reported that around 20,000 people were in need of urgent medical care in Gaza. The Rafa crossing has now of course opened with the purpose of allowing people out to get that treatment. What is your assessment of how effective that is going to be? Just briefly sir if you don’t mind.

Dr. Groom:
Yeah at the moment the number who are evacuated is a trickle. There is a much larger number of between 20 to 25,000 who need long-term treatment and that is our specialty. What is required is first those who cannot be treated within Gaza are allowed out, but more importantly that we are allowed in with our equipment.”

The partial reopening of the Rafah crossing in the far south of the Gaza Strip, bordering on Egypt, has resulted in a tiny number of medical evacuees being allowed to leave. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports, “Between 2 and 10 February, the UN and partners supported the medical evacuation of 142 patients, alongside companions, including 91 patients (64 per cent) via Rafah Crossing and 51 patients (36 per cent) via Kerem Shalom Crossing. During the same period, UN teams in Gaza received 223 Palestinian returnees.”

OCHA continues, “At the current pace, Save the Children estimates that evacuating those in need could take over a year. Thousands of patients remain without access to specialized treatment unavailable in Gaza, and more than 18,500 people, including 4,000 children, remain in urgent need of medical evacuation.”

The UN points out that staff shortages and damage to infrastructure continue to leave the Gaza health system in ruins.

The Israeli authorities deliberately destroyed all the universities and medical schools in the Gaza Strip, even though these were not military targets. It also destroyed or degraded most medical facilities. The medical students who had been about to get their MDs haven’t been graduated because their universities lie in rubble. The UNDP and the remnants of the local universities (the people are still there even if the buildings are not) are supporting 470 nearly-finished medical students to complete their training and get certified.

The conditions in the strip remain unsanitary. People are living in tents with no sewage. 77% of water samples come back contaminated, including with fecal matter. Hepatitis A outbreaks are widespread, with nearly 6,000 cases reported in 2025, and the situation actually worsened after the so-called ceasefire. OCHA says, “In addition, over 496,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea were reported, of which about 47 per cent were among children under five.” The rate doubled in 2025 over 2024. Diarrhea doesn’t sound dangerous, but it is a killer of infants. Those nearly 250,000 children under 5 who contracted it almost certainly experienced a big spike in deaths.

It should be remembered that this humanitarian disaster is not “war.” There is no war. It is Israeli policy to impose unlivable conditions on the people of Gaza, in hopes of thinning their ranks. It is deliberate genocide.

__________________________________________

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment.

16 February 2026

Source: transcend.org

By René Wadlow

19 February, in countries influenced by Chinese culture, is a day devoted to honoring Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion for the Taoists and a Bodhisattva for the Buddhists, “She who hears the cries of the world and restores harmony.” A Bodhisattva is one who has reached enlightenment but chooses to be reborn to help others who are suffering. In Chinese culture, on 19 February, offerings of incense are made to Kuan Yin, along with tea for wisdom and fruit for prosperity. She awakens and enlightens. Thus, those who offer gifts obtain blessings and drive away adversities.

Today, at a time when humanity is increasingly working together to meet ecological challenges and to overcome ideological-led strife, the spirit of Kuan Yin presents us with an important call for a cultural renaissance based on the concept of harmony with visions of a better future.

First, we must look carefully at the present. As the Taoist philosopher Huai Nan Tsu wrote,

“The sage responds to everything with an unbiased mind, with a mind free from suppositions. He approaches all events and investigates the laws which govern them.”

Kuan Yin’s spirit leads to harmony, which includes tolerance and forgiveness of past pains and conflicts. Kuan Yin embodies the virtues of karuna (compassion) and metta (loving kindness). In this way, she strengthens the broad currents moving toward gentleness, kindness and inner peace. Kuan Yin, aware of the suffering caused by hateful speech encourages loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve them of their suffering.

Thus, on this 19 February we rededicate ourselves to the spirit of Kuan Yin. We strive to listen to the crises of the world and to find the ways to develop harmony.

____________________________________________

René Wadlow is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

16 February 2026

Source: transcend.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares

The Middle East stands at a crossroads between endless war and comprehensive peace. A framework for peace does exist. Will the US finally seize it?

9 Feb 2026 – History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s February 7 address in Doha, Qatar (transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His important and constructive remarks responded to the US call for comprehensive negotiations, and he laid out a sound proposal for peace across the Middle East.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for comprehensive negotiations: “If the Iranians want to meet, we’re ready.” He proposed for talks to include the nuclear issue, Iran’s military capabilities, and its support for proxy groups around the region. On its surface, this sounds like a serious and constructive proposal. The Middle East’s security crises are interconnected, and diplomacy that isolates nuclear issues from broader regional dynamics is unlikely to endure.

On February 7, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi’s responded to the United States’ proposal for a comprehensive peace. In his speech at the Al Jazeera Forum, the foreign minister addressed the root cause of regional instability – “Palestine… is the defining question of justice in West Asia and beyond” and he proposed a path forward.

The Foreign Minister’s statement is correct. The failure to resolve the issue of Palestinian statehood has indeed fueled every major regional conflict since 1948. The Arab-Israeli wars, the rise of anti-Israel militancy, the regional polarization, and the repeated cycles of violence, all derive from the failure to create a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel. Gaza represents the most devastating chapter in this conflict, where Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine was followed by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and then by Israel’s genocide against the people of Gaza.

In his speech, Araghchi condemned Israel’s expansionist project “pursued under the banner of security.” He warned of the annexation of the West Bank, which Israeli government officials, as National Security Minister Ben Gvir, continually call for, and for which the Knesset has already passed a motion.

Araghchi also highlighted another fundamental dimension of Israeli strategy which is the pursuit of permanent military supremacy across the region. He said that Israel’s expansionist project requires that “neighboring countries be weakened—militarily, technologically, economically, and socially—so that the Israeli regime permanently enjoys the upper hand.” This is indeed the Clean Break doctrine of Prime Minister Netanyahu, dating back 30 years. It has been avidly supported by the US through 100 billion dollars in military assistance to Israel since 2000, diplomatic cover at the UN via repeated vetoes, and the consistent US rejection of accountability measures for Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law.

Israel’s impunity has destabilized the region, fueling arms races, proxy wars, and cycles of revenge. It has also corroded what remains of the international legal order. The abuse of international law by the US and Israel with much of Europe remaining silent, has gravely weakened the UN Charter, leaving the UN close to collapse.

In the concluding remarks of his speech, he offered the US a political solution and path forward.

“The path to stability is clear: justice for Palestine, accountability for crimes, an end to occupation and apartheid, and a regional order built on sovereignty, equality, and cooperation. If the world wants peace, it must stop rewarding aggression. If the world wants stability, it must stop enabling expansionism.”

This is a valid and constructive response to Rubio’s call for comprehensive diplomacy.

This framework could address all the interlocking dimensions of the region’s conflict. The end of Israel’s expansion and occupation of Palestine, and Israel’s return to the borders of June 4, 1967, would bring an end to outside funding and arming of proxy groups in the region. The creation of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel would enhance Israel’s security as well as that of its neighbors. A renewed nuclear agreement with Iran, strictly limiting Iran to peaceful nuclear activities and paired with the lifting of US and EU sanctions, would add a crucial pillar of regional stability. Iran already agreed to such a nuclear framework a decade ago, in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was adopted by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2231. It was the US during Trump’s first term, not Iran, that withdrew from the agreement.

A comprehensive peace reflects the foundation of modern collective security doctrine, including the United Nations Charter itself. Durable peace requires mutual recognition of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and equal security guarantees for all states.

Regional security is the shared responsibility of all states in the region, and each of them faces a historic obligation. This comprehensive peace proposal is not new, it has been advocated for decades by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (57 Muslim‑majority countries) and the League of Arab States (22 Arab States). Ever since the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, all of these countries have endorsed, on a yearly basis, the framework of land-for-peace. All major Arab and Islamic states, allies of the US, have played a crucial role in facilitating the latest round of US-Iranian negotiations in Oman. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has clearly reminded the US that it will normalize relations with Israel only on the condition of the establishment of a Palestinian State.

The United States faces a moment of truth. Does it really want peace, or does it want to follow Israel’s extremism? For decades, the US has blindly followed Israeli misguided objectives. Domestic political pressures, powerful lobbying networks, strategic miscalculations, and perhaps a bit of blackmail lurking in the Epstein files (who knows?) have combined to subordinate American diplomacy to Israel’s regional ambitions.

The US subservience to Israel does not serve American interests. It has drawn the United States into repeated regional wars, undermined global trust in American foreign policy, and weakened the international legal order that Washington itself helped to construct after 1945.

A comprehensive peace offers the US a rare opportunity to correct course. By negotiating a comprehensive regional peace grounded in international law, the United States could reclaim genuine diplomacy and help to establish a stable regional security architecture that benefits all parties, including Israel and Palestine.

The Middle East stands at a crossroads between endless war and comprehensive peace. The framework for peace exists. It requires first and foremost Palestinian statehood, security guarantees for Israel and the rest of the region, a peaceful nuclear deal restoring the basic agreement adopted by the UN a decade ago, lifting of economic sanctions, the unbiased enforcement of international law, and a diplomatic architecture that replaces military force with security cooperation. The world should rally behind a comprehensive framework and take this historic opportunity to achieve regional peace.

_____________________________________________

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Sybil Fares is a specialist and advisor in Middle East policy and sustainable development at SDSN.

16 February 2026

Source: transcend.org

The aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford will join the Abraham Lincoln carrier, several guided-missile destroyers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft that have been moved to the Middle East in recent weeks.

WASHINGTON: The United States military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the US and Iran.

US and Iranian diplomats held talks in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy over Tehran’s nuclear programme, after Trump amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action.

US officials said on Friday (Feb 13) the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.

The carrier Gerald R. Ford will join the Abraham Lincoln carrier, several guided-missile destroyers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft that have been moved to the Middle East in recent weeks.

The Gerald R Ford, the US’ newest and the world’s largest carrier, has been operating in the Caribbean with its escort ships and took part in operations in Venezuela earlier this year.

Trump, speaking to US troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, said it had “been difficult to make a deal” with Iran.

“Sometimes you have to have fear. That’s the only thing that really will get the situation taken care of,” Trump said.

Asked if he wanted regime change in Iran, Trump responded that it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.”

He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people”.

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he added. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk. Legs blown off, arms blown off, faces blown off. We’ve been going on for a long time.”

The US targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in strikes last year and when asked what was left to be targeted at the nuclear sites, Trump said the “dust”.

He added: “If we do it, that would be the least of the mission, but we probably grab whatever is left.”

Asked for comment on the preparations for a potentially sustained US military operation, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has all options on the table with regard to Iran.”

“He listens to a variety of perspectives on any given issue, but makes the final decision based on what is best for our country and national security,” Kelly said.

RISKS INCREASING

The planning underway this time is more complex, the officials said.

In a sustained campaign, the US military could hit Iranian state and security facilities, not just nuclear infrastructure, one of the officials said. The official declined to provide specific detail.

Experts say the risks to US forces would be far greater in such an operation against Iran, which boasts a formidable arsenal of missiles. Retaliatory Iranian strikes also increase the risk of a regional conflict.

The same official said the US fully expected Iran to retaliate, leading to back-and-forth strikes and reprisals over a period of time.

The White House and Pentagon did not respond to questions about the risks of retaliation or regional conflict.

Washington wants nuclear talks with Iran to also cover the country’s ballistic missiles, support for armed groups around the region and the treatment of the Iranian people.

Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions, but has ruled out linking the issue to missiles.

Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached and on Thursday, he warned the alternative to a diplomatic solution would “be very traumatic, very traumatic”.

Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war as the US amasses forces in the Middle East.

The US maintains military bases throughout the Middle East, including in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

The US sent two aircraft carriers to the region last year, when it carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

However, last June’s “Midnight Hammer” operation was essentially a one-off US attack, with stealth bombers flying from the US to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, while Iran staged a very limited retaliatory strike on a US base in Qatar.

14 February 2026

Source: channelnewsasia.com

The speech delivered by H.E. Dr. Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran at Al-Jazeera Forum 17 in Doha on 7 February 2026 as follows:

Excellencies,

Distinguished colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

السلام علیکم

It is a privilege to address you at this distinguished forum and discuss the profound question of our region: PALESTINE.

Let me begin with a fact that the region has learned through decades of painful experience, and that the world is learning again at a terrible human cost:

“Palestine is not one issue among many”.

Palestine is the defining question of justice in West Asia and beyond. It is the strategic and moral compass of our region. It is a test of whether international law has meaning, whether human rights have universal value, and whether global institutions exist to protect the weak—or merely to rationalize the power of the strong.

For generations, the Palestinian crisis was understood primarily as the consequence of an illegal occupation and the denial of an inalienable right: the right of a people to self-determination. But today, we must recognize that the crisis has moved far beyond the parameters of occupation alone. What we are witnessing in Gaza is not merely war. It is not a “conflict” between equal parties. It is not an unfortunate byproduct of security measures. It is the deliberate destruction of civilian life on a massive scale. It is genocide.

The human cost of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza has wounded the conscience of humanity. It has torn open the heart of the Muslim world—and it has also shaken millions beyond it: Christians, Jews, and people of all faiths, who still believe that the life of a child is not a bargaining chip, that starvation is not a weapon, that hospitals are not battlefields, and that the killing of families is not self-defense.

Palestine today is not simply a tragedy; it is a mirror held up to the world. It reflects not only the suffering of Palestinians, but also the moral failure of those who had the power to stop this catastrophe—and chose instead to justify it, enable it, or normalize it.

But Palestine and Gaza is not only a humanitarian crisis. It has become the platform for something larger and more dangerous: an expansionist project pursued under the banner of “security.”

This project has three consequences—each of them profound, each of them alarming:

The first consequence is global. The Israeli regime’s conduct in Palestine, and the impunity granted to it, have deeply damaged the international legal order. We must say this clearly: the world is moving toward a condition where international law no longer is respected and governs international relations.

What is perhaps most dangerous is the precedent being established: that if a state has sufficient political cover and protection, it may bomb civilians, besiege populations, target infrastructure, assassinate individuals across borders, and still demand to be regarded as lawful.

This is not merely a Palestinian problem. It is a global problem.

We are witnessing not only the tragedy of Palestine, but the transformation of the world into a place where the law is replaced by force.

The second consequence is regional. Israel’s expansionist project has had a direct and destabilizing impact on the security of all countries in the region.

The Israeli regime now openly violates borders. It breaches sovereignties. It assassinates official dignitaries. It conducts terrorist operations. It expands its reach in multiple theaters. And it does so, not discreetly, but with a sense of entitlement—because it has learned that international accountability will not come.

Let us be candid: if the Gaza issue is “settled” through destruction and forced displacement—if that becomes the model—then the West Bank will be next. Annexation will become policy.

This is the essence of what has long been called the “Greater Israel” project.

The question therefore is not whether Israel’s actions threaten Palestinians alone. The question is whether the region will accept a future in which borders are temporary, sovereignty is conditional, and security is determined not by law or diplomacy, but by the ambitions of a militarized occupier.

The third consequence is structural—and perhaps the most dangerous.

Israel’s expansionist project requires that neighboring countries be weakened—militarily, technologically, economically, and socially—so that the Israeli regime permanently enjoys the upper hand.

Under this project, Israel is free to expand its military arsenal without limits, including weapons of mass destruction that remain outside any inspection regime. Yet other countries are demanded to disarm. Others are pressured to reduce defensive capacity. Others are punished for scientific progress. Others are sanctioned for building resilience.

Nobody should be confused: This is not arms control. It is not non-proliferation. It is not security.

It is the enforcement of permanent inequality: Israel must have a “military, intelligence and strategic edge,” and others must remain vulnerable. This is a doctrine of domination.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is why the Palestinian question is not only a humanitarian issue. It is a strategic issue. It is not only about Gaza and the West Bank. It is about the future of our region and the rules of the world.

So what must be done?

It is not enough to express concern. It is not enough to issue statements. It is not enough to mourn. We need a coordinated strategy of action—legal, diplomatic, economic, and security-based—rooted in the principles of international law and collective responsibility.

First, the international community must support legal mechanisms without hesitation.

Second, there must be consequences for violations.

We call for comprehensive and targeted sanctions against Israel, including:

an immediate arms embargo
the suspension of military and intelligence cooperation
restrictions on officials

AND

banning trade

Third, we need a credible political horizon grounded in law. The international community must affirm:

the end of occupation
the right of return and compensation in accordance with international law

AND

the establishment of a unified and independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital
Fourth, the humanitarian crisis must be treated as a matter of urgent international responsibility. Collective punishment must never be normalized.

Fifth, regional states must coordinate to protect sovereignty and deter aggression. The principle must be clear: security cannot be built on the insecurity of others.

AND

Finally, the Islamic world, the Arab world, and the nations of the Global South must build a united diplomatic front.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, and regional organizations must move beyond symbolism toward coordinated action: legal support, diplomatic initiatives, economic measures, and strategic messaging.

This is not about confrontation. It is about preventing the region from being reshaped by force.

Dear colleagues,

Let no one miscalculate: a region cannot be kept stable by allowing one actor to act above the law. The doctrine of impunity will not produce peace; it will produce wider conflict.

The path to stability is clear: justice for Palestine, accountability for crimes, an end to occupation and apartheid, and a regional order built on sovereignty, equality, and cooperation.

If the world wants peace, it must stop rewarding aggression.

If the world wants stability, it must stop enabling expansionism.

If the world believes in international law, it must enforce it—consistently and without double standards.

And if the nations of this region seek a future free from perpetual war, they must recognize this fundamental truth:

Palestine is not merely a cause for solidarity; it is the indispensable cornerstone of regional security.

Thank you.

7 February 2026

Source: srilanka.mfa.gov.ir

By Quds News Network

Gaza (QNN)- Al Jazeera has aired exclusive footage revealing the direct involvement of Israeli intelligence in the assassination of a senior security official in the Gaza Strip, using armed local collaborators operating under real-time supervision.

According to the investigative report, Israeli intelligence directed an assassination attempt on the morning of December 14, targeting a prominent security leader in Gaza. The operation relied on gunmen affiliated with a local militia and was carried out under live audio and visual supervision from Israeli intelligence officers.

The investigation identified the target as Ahmad Abdul Bari Zamzam, known as Abu al-Majd, the deputy director of the Internal Security Service in Gaza’s central governorate.

[https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/2019862765201215829]

Two gunmen from a militia led by Shawqi Abu Nuseira, a former officer in the Palestinian Authority, carried out the operation. Israeli intelligence selected and trained the assailants, according to testimony and video evidence obtained by Al Jazeera.

The investigation revealed that Abu al-Majd directly supervised efforts to dismantle Israeli-founded armed groups during and after the genocide. He successfully infiltrated several of these groups inside the so-called “Yellow Line” and persuaded multiple members to surrender.

The video recordings were obtained from a camera worn by one of the gunmen during the attack. The footage shows that the assailants received training in areas under Israeli military control, beyond the Yellow Line.

One image placed the second gunman inside the militia’s headquarters at al-Azmi School in al-Mazraa area of central Gaza. Investigators said this confirmed that both men entered Gaza from zones still controlled by Israeli forces.

The detained gunman stated that on December 10 he met Abu Adham Nuseira, who selected him and another gunman for the mission. Israeli forces then transported them through the Kissufim crossing to meet an Israeli intelligence officer identified as “Abu Omar.”

Inside an Israeli military site, the officer trained them to use a Glock pistol and a suppressor. Israeli quadcopter drones later scanned the route and guided the attackers toward the victim.

During the attack, the Israeli intelligence officer monitored a live video feed transmitted from a camera attached to one of the gunmen’s clothing.

The investigation revealed that a technical malfunction nearly caused the mission to fail. Despite the disruption, the assassination proceeded. Communication then collapsed between the attackers and the Israeli officer during their escape.

After contact was lost, the resistance arrested the gunman carrying the camera. He had been recruited only one month earlier. The second gunman escaped to areas under Israeli military control.

The detained gunman admitted his membership in the militia. He said the group includes around 50 armed members and works to locate resistance tunnels, carry out assassinations, and hand over Palestinians to Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet.

He also admitted that the militia raids aid trucks, lures targeted individuals, and abducts the bodies of slain Palestinians, subjecting them to abuse. According to the investigation, Israeli forces and drones provide protection during these operations.

Israeli and international media reports have confirmed Israel’s involvement in funding and arming armed groups inside Gaza. These efforts aim to create local alternatives to the resistance and impose control over specific areas after Israel failed to achieve decisive military dominance.

Haaretz reported that the Israeli army and Shin Bet coordinated directly with Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, providing money, weapons, and intelligence. Israeli military analyst Ronen Bergman described the project as “full of problems,” warning of weak oversight and the risk that these groups could become future threats to Israel.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Israel funneled tens of millions of shekels into these militias. Israeli outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth, cited the report, which said Israel supplied weapons, military equipment, medical treatment in Israeli hospitals, and armed protection when the groups came under attack.

According to the report, Israel focused in southern Gaza, especially in Rafah, on recruiting individuals with criminal backgrounds. In other areas, Israeli intelligence attempted to engage large clans to manufacture a local security alternative.

7 February 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Beirut – The Israeli army’s spraying of chemical substances over vast agricultural areas in southern Lebanon and Syria is deeply alarming. The deliberate targeting of civilian farmland violates international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition on attacking or destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival. Large-scale destruction of private property without specific military necessity amounts to a war crime and undermines food security and basic livelihoods in the affected areas.

On the morning of Sunday, 1 February 2026, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) received notice from the Israeli army of planned aerial activity near the Blue Line and was asked to remain inside shelters. The alert disrupted the mission, leading to the cancellation of more than 10 field activities and the suspension of routine patrols along one-third of the line for over nine hours.

During the period in which international forces were forced to remain inactive, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented Israeli aircraft spraying chemical substances over extensive agricultural areas, particularly in the town of Ayta ash-Shaab and its vicinity in southern Lebanon. This raises the risk of consequences beyond immediate crop damage, posing a serious threat to the rights to health and a safe environment through potential long-term contamination of soil and water resources.

The announcement by Lebanese Environment Minister Tamara Elzein that specialised teams had been dispatched to collect samples from the targeted sites for laboratory analysis reflects official concern about the possible use of internationally prohibited or highly toxic substances.

This incident cannot be viewed in isolation from the scorched-earth policy pursued by the Israeli army. It forms part of a pattern of systematic destruction of agricultural land, including the burning of approximately 9,000 hectares during recent military operations using white phosphorus and incendiary munitions.

The deliberate targeting of the means of life violates the laws of war and appears intended to undermine the living security of residents in the south and render their areas uninhabitable, thereby forcibly displacing them.

Euro-Med Monitor also documented Israeli aircraft spraying pesticides of unknown composition over farmland in the countryside of Quneitra in southern Syria on Monday and Tuesday, 26 and 27 January 2026. The direct targeting of civilian objects caused widespread crop destruction, posing a serious threat to economic and food security and violating farmers’ rights to work and to an adequate standard of living by destroying their primary sources of income without military justification.

The breach of territorial sovereignty and cross-border targeting of agricultural land constitute violations of the United Nations Charter and the principles of international law. The use of chemical substances of unknown composition, given their destructive effects on vegetation and their direct threat to public health, constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law, which prohibits methods or means of warfare that cause indiscriminate harm, unnecessary suffering, or widespread, long-term damage to the natural environment.

Such practices expose their perpetrators to international criminal accountability. Under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, intentionally attacking civilian objects or destroying property without imperative military necessity constitutes a war crime. The use of chemical substances to devastate agricultural land satisfies the material elements of these crimes by inflicting widespread, long-term harm on the natural environment and the foundations of civilian life.

This conduct reflects a systematic operational pattern long implemented by Israel in border areas east and north of the Gaza Strip, where aerial spraying of lethal chemicals has been used to enforce buffer zones by destroying vegetation and dismantling the food basket, despite repeated international warnings about the catastrophic consequences for food security and public health.

Euro-Med Monitor previously documented similar attacks through a comprehensive evidentiary archive supported by laboratory analyses and expert testimony. The findings showed that the substances used were not conventional pesticides but highly toxic chemical compounds with destructive effects that are difficult to contain. The harm extended beyond seasonal crop loss to long-term contamination of soil and groundwater, damage to livestock, and the dismantling of environmental infrastructure, rendering the restoration of agricultural activity nearly impossible. Such conduct constitutes a compounded violation that strikes at the core of the rights to life and to a healthy environment.

Read within the broader context of continued military targeting of agricultural land with various munitions, these incidents reveal a systematic policy of destruction that exceeds any legitimate military objective. The approach appears intended to render agricultural areas uninhabitable by dismantling economic infrastructure and depriving residents of their fundamental means of livelihood. It amounts to collective punishment prohibited under international law and constitutes an unlawful method of pressure designed to create a coercive environment that drives forced displacement by stripping populations of the means necessary for stability and survival.

The international community, particularly the United Nations, must act immediately by establishing an independent fact-finding mission to collect samples from affected soil and crops in southern Lebanon and the countryside of Quneitra, subject them to thorough laboratory analysis, determine the chemical composition of the substances used, assess their toxicity, and evaluate any potential violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention or relevant international environmental protocols, thereby removing doubt about the nature of this targeting.

States Parties to the Geneva Conventions whose national legislation permits the exercise of universal jurisdiction must fulfil their legal obligations by initiating criminal investigations and prosecuting Israeli officials responsible for ordering environmental destruction and the use of weapons with indiscriminate effects. Such acts constitute war crimes and grave breaches not subject to statutes of limitation and require the activation of individual accountability mechanisms against those responsible, wherever they may be found.

The UN Security Council must issue a binding resolution condemning the grave Israeli crimes and consider the obstruction of UNIFIL’s work and its forced withdrawal during the violations a flagrant breach of Resolution 1701. Euro-Med Monitor stresses the need to guarantee farmers and landowners the right to fair compensation for the economic and environmental losses they have sustained, and to obligate Israel, as the aggressor, to bear the costs of land rehabilitation and the remediation of any long-term ecological damage resulting from this contamination.

The Lebanese and Syrian governments should submit formal declarations to the Registry of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute, thereby accepting the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed on their territories.

Euro-Med Monitor emphasises that this step is now an urgent necessity to halt the continued policy of impunity and enable the ICC Prosecutor to initiate independent investigations into Israel’s attacks on civilian objects as war crimes whose consequences transcend national borders and threaten human security across the region.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

5 February 2026

Source: countercurrents.org

By Julia Norman

While the sheer pomposity, Trumpian megalomania, and painfully paradoxical context surrounding the so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) might tempt some to dismiss it as mere spectacle or farce, its criminal, inhumane, and hegemonic nature makes it far too dangerous to ignore.

Last week, Trump and his new, thuggish boys’ club of heads of state publicly celebrated the launch of the Board at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Its hypocrisy was inadvertently underscored by Elon Musk—Trump’s on-again, off-again ally—when he quipped onstage that one might call it the Board of “p-i-e-c-e,” a venture devoted to claiming “a little piece of Greenland, a little piece of Venezuela,” to which his interviewer, Larry Fink, billionaire CEO of BlackRock, responded with cheer: “We got one.” Only a room filled with the world’s tech and business elite could find this funny.

In the week since, people of conscience around the world have been left to reckon with what may come of this brazen proclamation of a Trumpified world order. In particular, the BoP’s presentation of plans for “New Gaza” offered stark clarity about the greed-driven intentions Trump, his inner circle, and their Israeli billionaire partners seek to pursue, while raising a fundamental question as to how such a project of colonization and land theft could claim any legal basis at all, let alone a moral one.

As it stands, the BoP charter elevates Trump to a position akin to a global dictator for life, unchecked—on paper— by any external mechanisms of accountability or transparency. Acting as permanent chairman, chief executive, and controlling shareholder of the organization, Trump has declared that he holds absolute veto power, while retaining complete discretion over the potential multibillion-dollar slush fund generated through permanent member fees. In keeping with his long record of felonies and fraud, all budgets, financial accounts, or disbursements the BoP deems “necessary” to carry out its sweeping mission are subject only to the so-called “institutions of controls or oversight mechanisms” designed by the very same Executive Board.

A few invited world leaders, mostly from the EU, have done little more than politely decline their invitations. While they have not yet bent the knee to Trump in this mobster’s reality-show version of U.S. imperial power in action, this has not stopped those same governments from endorsing the other “peaceful actions” Trump is poised to pursue under the guise of BoP authority. These include the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the seizure of Venezuelan oil; the execution of dozens of extrajudicial boat strikes that have killed more than one hundred people in the Caribbean; threats of war and the promotion of dangerous regime-change fantasies in Iran and Cuba; and support for his complete takeover of occupied Palestine through U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803. That resolution effectively granted Trump authority in Gaza by endorsing his 20-point Gaza peace plan and welcoming the BoP as a transitional governing body. Thus far, Greenland remains the only red line EU states have managed to articulate.

Despite some rejections, other governments have gone ahead and accepted their invitations for a free three-year membership. The participation of Israel’s wanted genocidaire-in-chief, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, should serve as the clearest red flag that this organization has no interest in even pretending to care about the lives of the Palestinian people or any standard of international law. Netanyahu could not even fly to Davos to attend the BoP’s self-appointed pomp and circumstance for fear of being arrested as a wanted war criminal.

Other beacons of democracy and world peace, eager to lend legitimacy to the BoP, include Trump’s own “favorite dictator,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi; Argentina’s scandal-prone, right-wing President Javier Milei; “Europe’s last dictator,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko; Netanyahu’s idea of a “moral conscience,” Albanian President Edi Rama; and Hungary’s model in authoritarianism, Viktor Orbán. Leaders from Arab states—including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Qatar—have also joined, and will presumably stand alongside Trump and the Executive Board to help oversee, and quietly endorse, “New Gaza.”

Their participation set the stage for Davos, where none other than Jared Kushner delivered the first public presentation of an investment plan contingent upon the ethnic cleansing and erasure of a national Palestinian identity. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a member of the BoP “Executive Board,” has long served as the self-styled “master planner” of transforming Gaza into a prime real estate opportunity. He has a track record of articulating his absolute disregard for Palestinian life, describing the besieged Gaza Strip in February 2024 as “very valuable…waterfront property.”

Kushner began his chilling slideshow by urging skeptical investors to “just calm down for 30 days,” declaring, “the war is over. Let’s work together.” Eager to move on to their real business of “peace,” Kushner appeared wholly willing to ignore the ongoing forced starvation, imprisonment, systemic torture, murder, and displacement of Palestinians across the occupied territories. Since the supposed “ceasefire” in October 2025, the Israeli military has killed at least 477 Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump has also failed to address Israel’s continued ban on dozens of international humanitarian and non-governmental organizations, a policy that has deliberately denied life-saving aid and medical care to the region while newborn babies continue to die of hypothermia. Instead, Kushner outright lied about the current scale of Israel’s designed humanitarian catastrophe, claiming that “100% of the food needs are met” and that “the cost of needs has gone down,” before unironically describing the administration’s role as “the largest humanitarian effort into a war zone that anyone’s been able to tell us about.” Meanwhile, as the conference unfolded, Israeli forces bulldozed the UN Refugee headquarters in East Jerusalem, and the Israeli

Knesset voted by an overwhelming majority to annex the entirety of the West Bank.

Amid the distortions and denials of reality, Kushner did allow the logic of the project to surface when he identified the architect behind the purported $25 billion master plan for Gaza: Yakir Gabay, whom he described as “one of the most successful real estate developers and brilliant people I know.” Gabay is an Israeli billionaire and international real estate tycoon with close familial ties to the Israeli government. Reports also indicate that he has participated in efforts to pressure Columbia University administrators to suppress student protests.

Much like Kushner, a recent article by the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, described Gabay as having been eager to craft a plan for “New Gaza” from the very first weeks of Israel’s prolonged assault on the densely populated region:

“October 7, [Gabay] tends to say, woke him to action. [Gabay] thought: This time, my capabilities can change the face of reality…Other businesspeople heard about his work a year and a half ago. The White House had asked him to develop something even during Joe Biden’s term. He has good relationships with Tony Blair and Kushner, and when Trump won the elections, it became easier to push the issue.”

On the whole, Kushner’s “New Gaza” presentation made no attempt to acknowledge a Palestinian state, recognize Palestinian self-determination, nor address Israeli occupation or the implications of Gaza’s ‘reconstruction’ for the other occupied Palestinian territories. Instead, the eerily bizarre AI-generated slideshow of skyscrapers, oil rigs, and industrial complexes offered only a glimpse into the twisted billionaire fantasy that Kushner’s inner circle—including figures like Gabay—has sought to merge with Zionist imaginaries.

The only part of Kushner’s presentation that even acknowledged Palestinians was a single slide on “Palestinian-led demilitarization.” Beyond this ominous token reference, the narrative repeatedly circled back to framing Gaza as “an amazing investment opportunity” to the room full of multi-millionaires and billionaires.

Recent reporting from Drop Site News has confirmed and expanded upon this language, revealing “Resolution No. 2026/1,” an unsigned State Department document from December 2025 that declares the Board of Peace aims to transform Gaza into a “deradicalized and demilitarized terror-free zone.”

Here, “deradicalization” functions as a catch-all term to delegitimize resistance and criminalize opposition to Israeli occupation—a legal right under international law. Palestinians who maintain their political consciousness, national identity, or will for self-determination, and who refuse to normalize occupation, are almost certain to be labeled “terrorists” or deemed insufficiently “deradicalized.” Those who take up arms to defend their people against some of the world’s most heavily armed and nuclear powers risk being denied existence in their own lands—murdered or turned away by the very architects of genocide who now claim to bring “peace.” Access to basic rights is made contingent on surrendering political and economic agency, including abandoning a historically rooted cultural identity of resistance under occupation, forsaking traditional livelihoods, and subordinating the desire to shape the future of the land to whatever ‘economic opportunities’ BoP members deem investible.

The document further states that only those who “support and act consistently” to establish a “deradicalized, terror-free Gaza that poses no threat to its neighbors” may participate in governance, reconstruction, economic development, or humanitarian assistance. It also bars any individuals or organizations the Board deems to have “supported or demonstrated a history of collaboration, infiltration, or influence with or by Hamas or other terror groups”—a sweeping allegation Israel has long weaponized without evidence.

In practice, such standards mean that anyone who stands in firm solidarity with Palestinians, including international NGOs that seek to hold Israel to even minimal standards of accountability, will likely be barred from operating in Gaza. This has already become an entrenched and worsening reality since October 2023. What the BoP presents as a security framework is, in essence, a blueprint for controlling Palestinian movement, erasing any viable possibility of a Palestinian state, and ultimately, advancing ethnic cleansing, while preventing humanitarian organizations from participating in any meaningful process of reconstruction or the delivery of aid. A framework that insists “no one will be forced to leave Gaza”—as if forced removal were ever legitimate—while simultaneously conditioning access to aid, resources, and even limited political participation on compliance with what Trump and his confidants dictate, is not a framework in which any meaningful shred of freedom or dignity can exist.

In essence, Trump now supposedly wields full legislative, executive, and judicial control over the future of Gaza. He alone, along with his board of resort profiteers—who would hastily clear away the rubble burying the bodies of erased bloodlines and the remnants of mosques, churches, hospitals, and schools—will have complete authority over how surviving Palestinians live, how they are governed, and who may participate in decision-making. Only at the very bottom of the BoP’s tyrannical hierarchy sits a so-called “technocratic committee,” nominally including members of the Palestinian Authority. Its role appears purely advisory, permitted to exist only insofar as it appeases Trump and aligns with his agenda. There is little indication that it will serve, or even slightly represent, the people it claims to speak for.

The development is ultimately so jarring, so rooted in supremacist ideologies, and so flagrantly opposed to basic principles of sovereignty and human rights that it has few historical parallels. The closest comparison seems to be the gruesome reign of Belgian King Leopold II.

Those who participate in this process, including figures such as World Bank President Ajay Banga, lend legitimacy to a project that advances a perverse vision and a chapter of history that is not inevitable. Collaboration in the name of “reconstruction and development of Gaza” for a project so morally and legally corrupt is not a pragmatic compromise—it is active participation in a plan that has no place in the world. The human cost of this complicity is impossible to ignore.

The BoP plan also offers no conception of justice, reparations, or accountability for Israeli terror. Its version of “peace” is imposed through state violence to silence, control, and force Palestinians into submission. It is a project that raises skyscrapers for Western elites atop mass graves, without including, or even acknowledging, the Palestinians, its architects have killed and displaced. It relies too on the pathetic inaction of the overwhelming majority of UN member states.

Much remains unknown about what is immediately required to take a single step toward “peace” in the region: if and when Palestinians may finally find reprieve from Israeli bombardment, whether the Rafah crossing will actually open, what will become of finding and returning the bodies of loved ones buried under the rubble, whether human rights organizations or journalists will even be permitted to document the reality–and work safely–on the ground, if displaced Palestinians will ever be allowed to return to Gaza, and crucially, whether other states will intervene. What is clear, however, is the sheer evil of this project.

Following Kushner’s presentation, many have rightfully said that if this BoP monstrosity were fictional, it would be so dark it would border on being unbelievable. And yet it is profoundly real: a greed-soaked plan dependent on mass murder and land theft, driven by men so wealthy and entitled that they believe they can escape accountability while reaping billions in profit in the process.

World leaders have long entrenched impunity and rewarded the most atrocious US-Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially over the past two and a half years. Yet the Board’s ambitions—laid out in a charter that mirrors the UN and spans what Trump calls “the whole region of the world”—reveal a danger that stretches far beyond Palestine. The very consideration of such an inhumane, corrupt, and cruel project is a threat to humanity. And still—precisely because of the chaos, confusion, and sheer audacity of their plans—this dystopian vision for “New Gaza” is not inevitable. Those with political and economic power must firmly reject and actively work to rein in this Orwellian BoP. If any entity requires immediate disarmament and deradicalization, it is Trump and his so-called Executive Board.

Julia Norman is a member of the CODEPINK Community. She is an independent writer and researcher from Los Angeles, California

5 February 2026

Source: countercurrents.org