RUTHFULLY YOURS

As Israel embarked on its bold mission, Iran was on the doorstep of achieving a nuclear weapon. The Wall Street Journal warned that Iran is moving in defiance of the IAEA:

The IAEA board of governors passed a resolution finding Iran in noncompliance with its Safeguards Agreement, a crucial part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that has done much to stop the spread and use of nuclear weapons. Treaties are no substitute for American deterrent power, but the NPT has been among the more successful.

In reply Iran announced a major expansion of its nuclear-breakout capability—revealing more NPT violations—which would make it harder to detect or stop an Iranian move to enrich uranium to weapons-grade. Tehran is calling the world’s bluff on whether it takes non-proliferation seriously.

The IAEA finds that Iran has been hiding nuclear material. Accordingly, “the Agency is not able to verify that there has been no diversion of nuclear material required to be safeguarded under the Agreement to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices,” it writes.

Iran covered up its nuclear weapons sites amidst negotiations with the U.S.:

Then there are Iran’s attempts to cover all of this up. Consider its Marivan site. The IAEA assesses that Iran conducted four tests there in 2003 of “full-scale hemispherical implosion systems” for nuclear weapons. It was also preparing for a cold test that would have contained nuclear material and planned to make neutron initiators there. When the IAEA asked to inspect Marivan in 2019, Iran promptly razed the site’s support area. It didn’t allow inspectors to visit the control bunker, which it also subsequently demolished.

The IAEA concludes that Marivan and at least two other sites were “part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme,” and that Iran kept nuclear material or equipment from this program at another location, Turquzabad, from 2009 to 2018, with current whereabouts unknown.

https://www.theeditors.com/p/five-early-lessons-from-israels-strikes-against-iran?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2110503&post_i

Last night’s attack by Israel on Iran is just the beginning of what the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, said is a “long haul” that “will be measured in days, not in hours.”

Yet it is not too soon to draw some preliminary conclusions.

First, the show of strength positions Israel as the regional superpower. Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times June 10, 2025 of Israel in a situation where “the Jewish state is a pariah state — a source of shame, not of pride.” This operation puts Israel in the opposite position. The same way that the Hezbollah pager operation won Israel respect, the technical military feat of carrying out a long-range strike with surprise against high-value targets with minimal Israeli casualties will also translate into admiration.

This was visible even in President Trump’s comments, where he associated U.S technology with Israel’s breathtaking achievements: “the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it.”

As former Pentagon analyst Harold Rhode put it, “Now, in Muslim world, they are in total shock and awe at the power and will/determination of the Jewish State. What Israel is accomplishing in this war totally negates the Muslim narrative that the Jewish people (and the Christians) are at best ‘2nd class citizens’ and abandoned by G-d.”

Rhode went on, “In the Middle East and the Muslim world in general, two things are respected: the ability and the will to win. And that is exactly what Israel is demonstrating.”

Israeli author and analyst Hen Mazzig reports that Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, and the UAE all “participated in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones attack against Israel.” Some of that reflects Sunni Muslims siding against Shiite Muslim Iran, but some of it reflects realpolitik respect for Israeli military, economic, and scientific power, which its neighbors want to benefit from. Medium- to long-term, as David Wurmser has explained in some of his pieces for us here, a diminished Iran may allow the rise of Turkey and Qatar as a kind of Sunni Muslim Brotherhood threat, so a defeated Iran would not mean a total regional “all clear” for Israel or American interests, but that is for another day.

Second, the Iranian people, with Israeli help, will have to decide if this is a moment for regime change. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have oscillated between calling for a “free Iran” and emphasizing the need to keep the current regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has been doing some of both, and it may ultimately be up to Iran and Iranians which direction this goes. Last night, Netanyahu spoke to the Iranian people, saying, “The day of your liberation is near….we roll back a murderous tyranny.” By far the best outcome is a regime change in Iran rather than a setback to the nuclear program and ballistic missile program that stops short of a regime change. Israelis understand that from the example of Gaza, where, between 2007 and 2023, Israel repeatedly went in and “mowed the lawn” with strikes against Hamas. Each time, Hamas rebuilt until, with Iranian backing, it ultimately launched the October 7, 2023, attack.

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ultimate-deception-how-trump?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

They died in their own beds. Hossein Salami and Ali Shamkhani—Iran’s most senior military officers and the stewards of Iran’s nuclear weapons program—had spent years threatening Israel with destruction. They issued taunts, organized terrorist attacks, and orchestrated, since October 7, the encirclement of the Jewish state in a ring of fire of their terror proxies. And they knew—without the slightest illusion—that Israel had the capability and resolve to kill them.

This cohort saw the Israeli air force bury Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah in his bunker, hundreds of meters beneath the streets of Beirut. They saw Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vaporized in a presidential guesthouse—in Tehran, no less. Yet on Thursday night, they came home as usual and went to sleep—unguarded, unworried, carefree. Like insurance salesmen and bank tellers following their daily routines, it never occurred to them that they might not wake in the morning.

But they didn’t.

In 1967, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser made a similar mistake. He moved forces to Israel’s border, declared war in all but name, and left his MiG fighter jets parked in neat rows. Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol hesitated publicly—then struck with speed, ferocity, and total surprise. By the time Nasser understood what had happened, his air force was already in ruins.

History just repeated itself. But why did these seasoned Iranian officers—veteran warriors, intelligence chiefs, regime survivors—lower their guard so completely? How did Israel achieve strategic surprise?

The simple answer: Benjamin Netanyahu read Donald Trump better than the Iranians.

Beginning around April 12, Trump gave Iran a 60-day deadline, which ended near June 11. The Israeli strike that killed Shamkhani came on June 13—just after the deadline expired. In that interval, Trump repeatedly warned Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons infrastructure or face violent consequences. In an early May interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, the American president offered Iran’s leaders two stark options for dealing with their nuclear facilities: “blow them up nicely”—meaning under international supervision—or “blow them up viciously.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-strikes-back/

On Thursday evening, the long-anticipated Israel strikes began, targeting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear sites and other key military facilities. The objective of Operation Strength of a Lion is to end the Iranian nuclear threat once and for all, as well as to destroy, as much as possible, the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue to wage war against the Jewish state via its proxies, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis. The entire state of Israel was on emergency alert; the Israeli Home Front Command issued instructions to all Israeli citizens to comply with guidelines that would be issued as part of “preparations for a significant threat.”

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/06/12/breaking-israel-bombs-iran-in-preemptive-strike-n4940748?utm_source=breakingemail&utm_medium=email
The Israel Defense Forces [IDF] confirmed that it has bombed Iran’s nuclear assets in a preemptive strike against the Islamic regime that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

The Israeli Air Force launched its attack, dubbed “Operation Rising Lion,” late Thursday on Iran’s nuclear program. According to The Times of Israel. “Home Front Command spokesman says Israel could experience ‘heavy missile attack’ in coming hours, but no fire from Iran as yet and no need to go to bomb shelter.” 

Israel has declared a state of emergency, according to the Jerusalem Post, and has closed its airspace. 

It appears that an all-out war could be beginning between Iran and Israel rather than the unending wars by proxy in which Iran has been engaging. 

The Post reported, “Iran developed a plan with Hezbollah and Hamas and other proxies to destroy the State of Israel, potentially including attempts to attack via all borders, including Egypt and Jordan. This was the point of no return, according to the IDF.”

The Times of Israel stated:

The IDF confirms it has launched an aerial campaign against Iran’s nuclear program.

Dozens of targets across Iran related to the nuclear program and other military facilities are being struck by the Israeli Air Force, it says.

In a statement, the IDF said, “A short while ago, following the directive of the political echelon, the IDF launched a preemptive, precise, combined offensive based on high-quality intelligence to strike Iran’s nuclear program, and in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21683/abbas-condemn-hamas

In all his speeches in Arabic since October 7, 2023, Abbas has very carefully avoided condemning the attack and the murder of a large number of Israelis and foreign nationals.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, which regularly reports on Abbas’s meetings, statements, and diplomatic events, also did not report about the letter, including Abbas’s alleged condemnation of the October 7 massacres against Israel.

If Abbas actually did condemn October 7 in his letter, he did so only to appease France and encourage it to recognize a Palestinian state. The Palestinian public knows absolutely nothing about the letter or Abbas’s supposed “condemnation.”

If France really wanted a condemnation of the October 7 atrocities, they should have asked Abbas to issue a statement in Arabic to his own people, and not send a letter (in French) to French President Emmanuel Macron. Such a statement should have been issued by Abbas’s office in Ramallah, not the Élysée Palace in Paris.

Macron and his government are…. are apparently trying to show the world that Abbas deserves a Palestinian state because he has purportedly “condemned” the Hamas-led massacres. Unfortunately, however, this is the same Abbas, however, who still pays salaries to families of convicted terrorists who murder Jews, and who consistently glorifies terrorists by calling them heroes and martyrs.

France and the European Union are actually planning to reward the Islamist jihadists who slaughtered hundreds of Jews by giving them a terrorist state funded and armed by Iran’s mullahs.

This conference, to recognize a genocidal terrorist state, is evidently Macron’s way of appeasing the Muslim jihadists who are now rioting on the streets of French cities. The same holds true for other European leaders: they are willing to sacrifice Jews to placate their Muslim communities.

France claimed this month that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas had condemned the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 by Hamas, the Iran-backed terrorist group. During the attack, Hamas terrorists and other Palestinians murdered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, wounded thousands. They kidnapped another 251 people to the Gaza Strip, where 52 – dead and alive – remain in captivity.

Paris said in a statement that the purported condemnation was included in a letter Abbas sent to France on the eve of a United Nations conference in New York, scheduled for this month, to push for recognizing the establishment of a Palestinian state. The conference is to be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/11/why-privileged-israelophobes-cant-handle-azealia-banks/

We live in an age of grotesque double standards and cloying fakery from celebs. The overwhelming majority seem to think that their job is not to entertain us, but to strike fashionable poses and shove hypocrisies down our throats.

And then there’s Azealia Banks. She is, as the kids say, a real one.

The 34-year-old rapper from Harlem has been controversial for quite some time, sounding off on social media on a variety of topics. But last week she outdid herself by bluntly standing up for Israel at a time when pretty much all of the luvvie class has gone the other way.

‘I’m a Zionist’, she posted last Wednesday. Unsurprisingly, this unleashed a torrent of largely hostile commentary. Many young, privileged Westerners now unthinkingly loathe Israel. For them, a black rapper’s refusal to toe the ‘progressive’ line just doesn’t make sense.

It’s been particularly difficult for woke, finger-snapping white girls. They’re normally only too eager to shout ‘yaaas queen!’ when a black woman speaks. But on this occasion, they’re struggling, as Banks has not stuck to the script.

It should be said that, at points, Banks’s Israel commentary has veered off into dodgier, identitarian territory. ‘BITCH DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FUCKING BLACK CHILDREN HAVE BEEN MURDERED AT THE HANDS OF ARABS?’, she tweeted last week. Then there was this: ‘I do not support the expansion of genocide of any more peoples of the world at the hands of Arab Muslims.’ Banks, it seems, was referring to the the centuries-long Arab slave trade, which involved the enslavement of millions of Africans right up until the 20th century.

No wonder Banks got progressives’ knickers in a twist. We know that blaming anyone other than the bad white / Jewish man for slavery and genocide is enough to trigger a mass-casualty event at Columbia University.

We live in an age where female celebrity takes mainly two forms: Meghan Markle’s grandiose self-delusion and manufactured virtue, or hectoring harpies with pronouns in their bios. But here comes Banks to shred her opponents openly, and with the most inventive use of swear words I have ever heard. And I grew up in Brooklyn!

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/recalling-a-clear-case-of-genocide/

Last month, Megha Vemuri, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology class of 2025, denounced the “genocidal Israeli military” and contended that the MIT community “would never tolerate a genocide.” Such proclamations, widely repeated on Ivy League campuses, invite a look at the actual genocide going on 50 years ago.

In April, 1975, troops of the communist Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia’s capital of Phom Penh. One of the last correspondents to leave was David Aikman of Time magazine, author of  “Cambodia: An Experiment in Genocide.” As Aikman recalled:

After a few hours, the black-uniformed troops began firing into the air. It was a signal for Phnom Penh’s entire population, swollen by refugees to some three million, to abandon the city. Young and old, the well and the sick, businessmen and beggars, were all ordered at gunpoint onto the streets and highways leading into the countryside.

Among the first pitiful sights on the road, witnessed by several Westerners, were patients from Pnomh Penh’s grossly overcrowded hospitals, perhaps 20,000 people all told. Even the dying, the maimed and the pregnant were herded out stumbling into the streets. Several pathetic cases were pushed along the road in their beds by relatives, the intravenous bottles still attached to the bedframes In some hospitals, foreign doctors were ordered to abandon their patients in mid-operation. It took two days before the Bruegel-like multitude was fully under way, shuffling, limping and crawling to a designated appointment with revolution.

With almost no preparations for so enormous an exodus —how could there have been with a war on?—thousands died along the route, the wounded from loss of blood, the weak from exhaustion, and others by execution, usually because they had not been quick enough to obey a Khmer Rouge order. Phnom Penh was not alone: the entire urban population of Cambodia, some four million people, set out on a similar grotesque pilgrimage. It was one of the greatest transfers of human beings in modern history.

The slaughter was soon to follow. The Khmer Rouge executed victims by blows to the head with hoes, clubs and other blunt instruments. The Communist soldiers killed infants and children by smashing their heads against trees. They cut victims’ throats with knives, bayonets and scythes. Some were poisoned or suffocated with plastic bags.

The Khmer Rouge also maintained 189 interrogation centers, including S-21 in a former school now called Tuol Sleng. The Communists tortured prisoners with electric shocks and beat them into forced confessions. Of the 14,000-17,000 prisoners held there, only 12 survived.

http://New report debunks ‘settler violence’ narrative https://www.jns.org/new-report-debunks-settler-violence-narrative/ David Isaac

The “settler violence” campaign, which claims that violence against Arabs by Jewish “settlers” spiked post-Oct. 7, 2023, is based on fraudulent numbers, according to a report published on Sunday.

The campaign’s goal, according to the report, is to defame not merely the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria, but the Israeli army and by extension the entire State of Israel.

The 125-page report, “False Flags and Real Agendas,” produced by Israeli NGO Regavim, describes the “settler violence” smear as a “modern-day blood libel.”

The report dissects the narrative and the numbers behind the slander, which went into overdrive following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. A flurry of news items appeared in the liberal mainstream press in the United States and elsewhere about escalating “settler violence” in Judea and Samaria.

These reports claimed that Jewish violence had increased in retaliation for the Hamas massacre. “The breadth and intensity of the violence has revived memories of the ‘nakba,’ or catastrophe, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their homes, never to return,” reported The Washington Post on Nov. 9, 2023.

In February 2024, the Biden administration, for the first time, sanctioned Israelis it claimed had engaged in violence against Arab civilians, citing “high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages and property destruction.” It would sanction more Israelis in subsequent months, along with certain pro-Israel NGOs, including Regavim.

The Biden White House justified its interference in another country’s internal affairs by claiming that Israel’s government had not done enough to “hold accountable extremist settlers who commit acts of violence,” in the words of then-State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.