The
United States government announced on Tuesday "Operation South Spear," a
military mission led by Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and ordered by
President Donald Trump, under the pretext of eliminating so-called
"narco-terrorists" and "protecting the Western Hemisphere from drug
trafficking networks." The operation features an unprecedented
deployment, including the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford stationed
in the Caribbean, accompanied by more than 4,000 marines, tactical
aircraft, and warships. According to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,
this operation "defends our homeland, eliminates narco-terrorists from
our hemisphere, and protects our people from the drugs that are killing
them."
The announcement comes amid escalating tensions with
Venezuela, which Washington accuses of being a key hub for these illicit
activities. The operation, part of an offensive launched in August,
involves bombings of suspected vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific
Ocean, actions that have resulted in dozens of deaths. The Pentagon has
reinforced its surveillance capabilities with submarines and fighter
jets off the Venezuelan coast, and has also doubled the reward for the
capture of President Nicolás Maduro, who is accused of leading a drug
trafficking network without concrete evidence. "This deployment will
strengthen our ability to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors,"
said spokesman Sean Parnell.
At the same time, the US
administration has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuelan
territory, intensifying pressure that Caracas denounces as direct
interference.
From Caracas, the rejection has been immediate and
forceful. President Maduro denounced the maneuver as "a smear campaign
to justify a war and steal our immense oil wealth," noting that
Venezuela possesses the world's largest oil reserves.
Foreign
Minister Yván Gil described it as "an attempted invasion that violates
all international principles," while the president of the National
Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, called on the region to defend the Caribbean
as a "zone of peace" in the face of the "incalculable consequences" of
an armed conflict. Venezuelan authorities argue that UN reports rule out
drug trafficking from their country and that the accusations conceal
geopolitical interests, including decades-long CIA conspiracies against
Chavismo.
The international community has expressed concern about
the escalation. Russia, through Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, warned
that these actions "will lead to nothing good" and reflect the behavior
of "outlaw countries."
Russia's representative to the UN, Vasily
Nebenzia, called them a "blatant campaign of political and military
pressure." The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk,
condemned the bombings as "summary executions" that violate
international law, echoing criticisms from Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil.
Meanwhile, Venezuela is preparing legal action in multilateral forums,
in a context where the operation could redefine geopolitical dynamics in
Latin America.
In
wartime military operations rooms, commanders and generals meet to
discuss ways to defend their positions when they anticipate an enemy
attack. The Chief of Staff is tasked with thinking like the enemy and
devising a plan to storm the army's positions—in other words, he must
think like the enemy.
If I were able to plant a spy in the
Israeli Prime Minister's office instead of Benjamin Netanyahu, I would
task this agent with the following: dismantling the Israeli army;
destroying all of the Israeli army's weapons and arsenal; instigating
strife between Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Haredim; concluding a peace
agreement with the Arabs, relinquishing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount,
and withdrawing from the Golan Heights and the West Bank; and
facilitating emigration and encouraging residents to leave in order to
empty the region of its Israeli inhabitants.
Today, let's gather
in an operations room and ask ourselves the opposite question: What
would the Israeli enemy do if it managed to plant a spy in the Syrian
government? And how would this spy-president, controlled by the
intelligence station in Tel Aviv, behave?
The legitimate question
will lead to the following results: the dismantling of the Syrian army;
the dismantling of all security and social stability systems in Syria;
the destruction of all Syrian army equipment; the dismantling of the
Syrian social fabric through massacres against everyone to create a
violent psychological and social rift leading to the separation of Syria's constituent parts; the signing of a peace agreement with Israel;
allowing Israel a military and security presence throughout Syria,
especially in the south; the complete abandonment of the Golan Heights
and Mount Hermon; the impoverishment of the Syrian people to render them
incapable of resisting this devastation and destruction; and then
emptying the region through voluntary migration due to declining living
standards, thus paving the way for settlers to replace the population in
the coming decades.
Everything that al-Julani (named Ahmed al-Sharaa) and the current Syrian regime are doing indicates that we
are dealing with a professional spy, and that we are facing the largest
espionage operation in history and the largest disinformation campaign
in which so many participated, especially given that Robert Ford came out and
told us that he met with the terrorist al-Julani and convinced him to
work for the Americans.
Robert Ford's announcement and the talk about Jonathan Powell's involvement in the training operation with Claire Hajjaj are a smokescreen. It's bizarre that Robert Ford would tell people he met al-Julani and convinced him to change his ways. Now the world parrots this, seeing genius in transforming a terrorist into a statesman.
This defies logic. Sound analytical reasoning suggests that Robert Ford and his British entourage are complicit in a deception, concealing the truth: the man is a dangerous and heavily protected spy. The story of the terrorist they supposedly persuaded to be peaceful and charming is a smokescreen to divert attention from his true identity as a spy who isn't even Syrian.
It's strange that Ford would stage this ridiculous charade of transforming a killer into a peacemaker. It was equally strange that Robert Ford would reveal this secret—which should logically be embarrassing both for Islamists and for al-Julani—that he was secretly dealing with the Americans, despite his public pronouncements and meetings attacking them and the Arab rulers who cooperate with them. The sudden eagerness of the Americans to talk about this operation was a reason to doubt its credibility. It's a smokescreen, designed to convince people that the story of the wolf (i.e. terrorist) who turned into Little Red Riding Hood (Ahmed al-Sharaa) is true. This is intended to distract them from the questions many have begun asking about the identity of this mysterious figure, about his birth certificate, and his enigmatic movements across several countries during his childhood, which was attributed to the Al-Sharaa family.
These questions began to unravel the mystery, creating holes in the narrative and leading to one inevitable conclusion: this man came from Tel Aviv. Western intelligence agencies quickly concocted the story of genetic modification—behavior modification, taming the hyena. His reputation as an Islamic jihadist was sacrificed because saving him from exposure as a spy was more important.
Everything this dangerous spy does only strengthens our conviction that he is an Israeli agent. There are significant missing pieces regarding his birth and upbringing, and the lack of resemblance between him, his alleged brothers, and his father only adds to the suspicions. The father's appearance further fuels these doubts.
The suspicion arises because he was acting as an analyst, not a father. Based on my knowledge of these individuals, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that secret deals and a highly complex intelligence operation came together in the most important project in the world of espionage, in which this man, who claimed to be al-Julani's father, was implicated.
When the spy arrived, the certainty that he was a spy only grew stronger, because all around the world,the doors opened for him, as if he were Netanyahu himself. The courts dropped all charges against him, just like Netanyahu, and the Security Council worked in his service. The process of eliminating Syria required the Security Council's intervention to legitimize it.
Al-Sharaa would go on to enter the White House and donate Syria's vital organs to Israel and America: the heart, liver, lungs—everything. Even its teeth, hair, and nails would be transferred to other entities. Only spies would do such a thing.
In our Syrian home, there is a spy, and anyone who supports him confirms the rule of spies. I challenge anyone to produce conclusive proof that he is a son of the Shar'a family. I will only trust a DNA test, and that the test be conducted in neutral laboratories, beyond the control of Mossad or the CIA. Otherwise, he is a spy—the son of a spy.
The article analyzes how participatory urbanism and architecture produce passive citizens instead of collective actors, exploring family, local, and national connections in the creation of civic space.
Introduction
Contemporary urban planning often adopts an air of democratic modernity. There is talk of citizen participation, open workshops, and the co-construction of public spaces. However, behind these seductive words, the reality is far more unsettling: what is being built is not civic space, but a passive, structured, and disciplined citizenry. Residents are invited to "participate" in order to validate choices already made, as if their role were limited to ticking a box of consent.
This drift did not arise from nowhere. It is the fruit of an ideology inherited from the Enlightenment, where the individual was sacralized as the measure of all things. Urban planning and architecture, by focusing on this isolated individual, have lost sight of reality: a society is never simply the sum of its parts. It is a web of connections, a matrix of solidarities and conflicts that far transcend the individual scale.
Ibn Khaldun had foreseen this with his notion of "asabiyya": the strength of a group lies in the cohesion and solidarity that bind its members. Marx confirmed this by demonstrating that economic and political structures condition the very forms of collective life. Ignoring these truths condemns participatory urbanism to be merely a staged performance, an illusion of democracy that masks the centralization of decisions and the imposition of a single model.
The question is crucial: do we want to create vibrant civic spaces, or continue producing passive citizens, subjected to obedience under the guise of participation?
1. The Illusion of Individualistic Rationality
The observation is blatant: individualism dominates urban planning thought. Even those who claim to be rational are only so within a bubble where the individual is sacralized. This methodological approach confuses observation with scientific truth. It isolates man from his social, economic, and cultural contexts, and then attempts to explain his behavior as if it were a laboratory experiment. However, a real society cannot be dissected into isolated pieces.
2. Society as a Matrix
Society can only be understood as a matrix, in the simplest sense of the term. A matrix is a table of interconnected elements: by changing a single value, the entire system is transformed. Thus, a family, a neighborhood, a nation are not sums of individuals, but networks of interactions, solidarities, and tensions. Ibn Khaldun understood this perfectly with his notion of "asabiyya," the cohesive force that unites human groups. Without it, no society can endure.
3. The Forgetting of the Principle of Coherence (Averroes)
Today, much of mainstream thought has forgotten Averroes' principle that "two truths cannot contradict each other." Instead of seeking coherence, we settle for tautologies. For example, saying that “citizens don’t participate because they are passive” proves nothing. It’s a self-referential phrase, a hollow wheel. Tautology replaces analysis, and urban planning sinks into circular discourses where axiom and conclusion are confused.
4. Participatory Architecture as Obedience
Participatory architecture has become an illustrative example of these contradictions. Presented as a democratic advance, it is often nothing more than a process of “disguised obedience.” Residents are invited to give their opinions, but always within a predetermined framework, where central decisions are never questioned. Participation then becomes a ritual: it reassures institutions, gives the illusion of democracy, but does not generate true social transformations.
5. The Marxist Approach: Beyond Simplification
Marx had already demonstrated that a social group is not simply the sum of its individuals. Society is structured by power relations, inequalities, and material conditions that influence behavior. To think that citizen participation can be "pure" or neutral is to ignore this reality. In every urban project, there are divergent interests, implicit hierarchies, and economic forces that shape the final outcome. Citizenship is not decreed; it is earned.
Conclusion
A civic space is not manufactured through technocratic procedures, nor is a society created by simply adding up isolated individuals. Citizenship is not a backdrop, a slogan, or a checkbox in a participatory workshop. It is the product of a collective history, a shared memory, and interwoven family, local, and national ties that give meaning to coexistence.
To continue thinking about urban planning from the perspective of the sacralized individual is to condemn society to shortsightedness and the reproduction of sterile models. Eternally restarting an old car that never started, under the pretext of participation, leads nowhere.
It is time to abandon this illusion. To think of society as a living matrix, as Ibn Khaldun, Averroes, and Marx each taught in their own way, is to recognize that the citizen only acquires meaning in their relationships with others. It is also to accept that true participation cannot be reduced to obedience, but must become an act of emancipation and collective creation.
The challenge is clear: do we want passive citizens in showcase cities, or active citizens in vibrant spaces? The answer won't come from above. It depends on our capacity to reinvent, together, the very conditions of the commons.
A Forensic Audit of Symbolic Recursion and Methodological Drift
Virology claims that lipid nanoparticles deliver synthetic mRNA
into cells, which then produce the spike protein—a central icon in the
viral narrative. But this claim rests on unverified assumptions, not
contradiction-sealed demonstration. The field does not sequence the
final mRNA, does not isolate the resulting protein, and does not verify
replication or expression in vivo. Instead, it interprets immune
responses and cellular stress as proof of spike production.
This is not empirical causality. It is ritualized misattribution.
I. No Isolation, No Natural Spike
If no virus has ever been isolated in a contradiction-sealed
manner, then no natural spike protein has ever been demonstrated. The
spike is not a biological entity—it is a modeled construct, derived from
annotation and expectation, not extraction or purification.
II. No Verified Replication, No Demonstrated Expression
Virology assumes that synthetic mRNA produces spike protein upon
cell entry. But this process is never directly validated. There is:
No sequencing of the mRNA post-manufacture
No isolation of full-length spike protein from human tissue
No contradiction-sealed demonstration of translation or replication
The claim remains symbolic, not forensic.
III. Toxicity as Artifact: The Breakdown Loop
Lipid nanoparticles are known to cause membrane disruption,
oxidative stress, and cell death. The resulting cellular debris
includes:
Cytoskeletal fragments
Mitochondrial proteins
Nuclear remnants
Stress-response markers
These endogenous proteins can trigger immune reactions, which are
then misinterpreted as evidence of spike protein presence. The
procedures themselves generate the illusion: toxicity masquerades as
expression.
IV. The Distribution Illusion
Reports of spike protein “found throughout the body” rely on:
Antibody reactivity
Fragment detection
Immunohistochemical staining
None of these confirm the presence of a full-length, biologically active spike protein. What’s being detected may be:
Breakdown products
Cross-reactive proteins
Residual contaminants
The spike becomes a phantom relic, invoked wherever inflammation occurs, never empirically demonstrated.
Conclusion: Collapse of Causality
Virology’s claim of spike protein production and distribution is
not grounded in contradiction-sealed science. It is a symbolic
narrative, sustained by methodological drift and institutional
recursion. The field confuses cause and effect, mistaking
nanoparticle-induced toxicity for viral expression.
RELATED: How Virology Created the Illusion of the Spike Protein
For more than two decades, the pharmaceutical industry and its
defenders in government have leaned heavily on a handful of studies to
dismiss the link between vaccines and autism. At the center of that body
of work stands recently-arrested
federal fugitive Poul Thorsen, a Danish scientist whose research is
still repeatedly cited in courtrooms, media reports, and even last week
in a government hearing as evidence that vaccines are “safe.”
But Thorsen’s story reveals a disturbing truth: one of the most
prominent figures used to silence vaccine concerns is himself a
disgraced fugitive accused of defrauding U.S. taxpayers and falsifying documents.
The CDC Connection
From approximately 2004 to 2010, Thorsen was deeply involved in
CDC-funded studies exploring autism, cerebral palsy, genetic disorders,
and fetal alcohol syndrome. While working as a visiting scientist at the
CDC’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, he
helped secure multimillion-dollar grants funneled through Danish
institutions such as Aarhus University and Odense University Hospital.
These studies—particularly those examining a possible link between
vaccines and autism—became cornerstones of the pro-vaccine argument.
When parents raised alarms about adverse reactions, when congressional
hearings grew heated, and when lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers
mounted, officials frequently pointed to Thorsen’s work in Denmark to
declare the science “settled.”
The Fraud
According to U.S. authorities, during this very period, Thorsen was
engaged in an elaborate scheme to steal CDC grant money for personal
gain. By submitting fraudulent invoices on CDC letterhead and directing
payments into his own bank account, he allegedly siphoned off more than
$1 million.
The invoices gave the appearance that the CDC itself was requesting
funds from Danish institutions, but the money was funneled directly to
Thorsen. The charges read like a playbook of corruption: abuse of
position, falsified documents, and brazen theft from a public health
agency entrusted with safeguarding American children. Not once, not
twice… but 22 counts.
The Significance
Thorsen’s alleged criminal behavior should raise serious questions
about the credibility of the research he conducted and the system that
continues to rely on it. How can studies produced under the shadow of
financial fraud still serve as the bedrock of government claims about
vaccine safety?
Even beyond Thorsen’s personal misconduct, his scandal illustrates a
deeper issue: the public is asked to place blind trust in scientists and
institutions whose incentives and oversight are deeply compromised. If
the very researchers tasked with disproving harm from vaccines are also
defrauding taxpayers, how can parents have confidence in the
conclusions?
A New Chapter: An Inconvenient Study
As the credibility of past research crumbles, a newly uncovered study
has rocked the debate even further. Conducted by Henry Ford Health—a
staunchly pro-vaccine organization—the study set out to disprove
journalist Del Bigtree’s suspicions that America’s chronic disease
epidemic might be linked to vaccines.
But the results were so shocking that the institution buried them,
hiding the findings from public view for years. The data suggested a
powerful connection between vaccination and skyrocketing rates of
chronic illness, a revelation that threatened to upend the very
narrative used to assure the public of vaccine safety.
This hidden research has now come to light. The Henry Ford study is
finally available to the public, and it forms the centerpiece of a
groundbreaking new documentary, AnInconvenient Study. The film, set to premiere on October 3rd,
exposes shocking data, and the lengths to which powerful institutions
will go to hide that data, regardless of the cost to public health.
Why This Matters Now
Today, millions of parents worldwide are calling for more independent
research on vaccines and autism—studies free from financial conflicts
and political agendas. Instead, government agencies double down on
citing work like Thorsen’s while suppressing damning evidence such as
the Henry Ford study.
Poul Thorsen’s arrest is more than a personal disgrace. Combined with the revelations in An Inconvenient Study,
as well as independent studies showing an association with harm, it
reveals a deeper crisis: the so-called “settled science” of vaccine
safety rests not on transparency and integrity, but on a fragile
foundation of fraud, suppression, and corruption.
The time has come to demand better—for our children, for our health, and for the future.
The Security Council's backing of the Trump plan
for Gaza ignores international law, punishes the Palestinians, and
rewards those responsible for genocide.
More than two years into the genocide in Palestine, the UN Security
Council has finally acted. But rather than acting to enforce
international law, protect the victims, and hold the perpetrators
accountable, it adopted a resolution
that openly flouts key provisions of international law, disempowers and
further punishes the victims, and rewards and empowers the
perpetrators.
Most disturbingly, it hands control of Gaza and the survivors of the
genocide over to the United States, a co-perpetrator of the genocide,
and provides for the participation of the Israeli regime in decision
making. Under the plan, Palestinians themselves are to be granted no
such participation in decisions on their own rights, governance, and
lives.
In adopting this resolution,
the Council, in effect, has become a mechanism of U.S. oppression, an
instrument for the continued unlawful occupation of Palestine, and a
complicit actor in Israel’s genocide.
Not since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous people, setting the stage for 80 years of Nakba, has the UN acted in such a baldly colonial (and legally ultra vires) way, and trampled so recklessly on the rights of a people.
A resolution from Hell
On Monday, 17 November, the UN Security Council adopted a U.S. proposal
to hand control of Gaza over to a U.S.-led colonial body called “The
Board of Peace” while deploying a proxy occupation force, also
U.S.-directed, called “The International Stabilization Force.” Both will
answer, ultimately, to Donald trump himself. And both will function in
consultation with the Israeli regime.
In what will long be remembered as a day of shame for the UN, while
both Russia and China abstained, they did not use their vetoes, and not a
single member of the Security Council had the courage, principle, or
respect for international law to vote against what can only be seen as a
U.S. colonial outrage, a ratification of genocide, and a flagrant
abdication of UN Charter principles.
The resolution implicitly rejects a series of recent findings
of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), openly denies the
Palestinian right to self-determination, and reinforces Israeli regime
impunity, even as the genocide continues.
Despite the ICJ’s finding
that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination on their
land, the resolution strips that right away, empowering hostile foreign
forces to govern them.
Despite the Court’s finding
that Gaza (as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem) is illegally
occupied and that the occupation must end quickly and completely, the
resolution extends the Israeli occupation, endorses the indefinite
presence of Israeli regime troops, and superimposes a second, U.S. led
occupation on top of it.
And despite the Court’s finding that the Palestinians need not negotiate
for their rights with their oppressors, and that no agreement or
political process can trump those rights, the resolution nullifies those
rights and assigns them to the discretion of the U.S. and its Israeli
and other partners.
Even in the midst of an ongoing genocide perpetrated by an apartheid
regime, nowhere in the resolution is there a single mention of the
crimes of genocide, apartheid, or colonization, of the thousands of
Palestinians still held in Israeli torture and death camps, or of the
principles of accountability for perpetrators or redress for victims.
Nor is Israel required to meet its legal obligations
of compensation and reparations, with that responsibility handed
instead to international donors and international financial
institutions, in what amounts to a multibillion-dollar bailout of the
Israeli regime. In sum, the resolution guarantees the full impunity of
the Israeli regime, in addition to advancing its normalization.
A colonial administration
The resolution even welcomes, endorses, and annexes the widely
discredited Trump plan (September 29 version), and, while not citing all
of its problematic provisions, it calls on all parties to implement it
in its entirety.
It empowers the Trump-headed Board of Peace to serve as the
transitional administration governing all of Gaza, to control all
services and aid, to control the movement of people in and out of Gaza,
and to control the framework, funding, and reconstruction of Gaza, and
it includes the dangerously broadly formulated authorization of “any
other tasks that may be required.” And it grants up-front authority to
the Trump board to establish undefined “operational entities” and
“transactional authorities,” at its own discretion.
The resolution even envisages a quisling body of Palestinian
technocrats taking orders from and reporting to Trump’s Board Of Peace-
on their own land. In clear breach of international law, it rejects
Palestinian control of their own territory in Gaza until Trump and his
collaborators decide that the Palestinian Authority has satisfied the
reform requirements set by Trump himself and by the similarly odious “French-Saudi Proposal.” And it contains no promise whatsoever of Palestinian independence or sovereignty.
Instead, in direct contradiction to the findings of the ICJ, it sets
back the cause of Palestinian freedom and self-determination with a
vague, hyperqualified, and non-committal line that says that AFTER the
Trump-led bodies decide that the Palestinians have met UNDEFINED “reform
and development” criteria, “the conditions MAY finally be in place for a
credible PATHWAY to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
And any shred of hope for progress left within those conditions is finally dashed with the coup de grace
provision stating that any such process toward those ends is to be
controlled by the U.S. itself. In other words, the UN Security Council
has granted a veto over Palestinian self-determination to the U.S., the
Israeli regime’s chief sponsor and co-perpetrator of the genocide.
The resolution does not even offer hope that the systematic
deprivation of the Palestinian people in Gaza will end. While the ICJ
has declared that restrictions on aid must cease, the resolution only
“underscores the importance of” humanitarian aid. It does not demand its
unfettered flow and distribution.
A proxy occupation force
The resolution also mandates an armed proxy occupation force, labeled
the “International Stabilization Force,” to operate under the
Trump-headed Board of Peace. This force is to have a command approved by
the Trump Board, and will explicitly operate in collaboration with
Israel, the perpetrator of the genocide (as well as with Egypt).
Its members are to be identified “in cooperation with” the Israeli
regime, and it is to work with the regime to control the Palestinian
survivors in Gaza.
It will be mandated to secure the borders (i.e., to cage the
Palestinians), to stabilize the security environment of Gaza (i.e., to
suppress any resistance to occupation, apartheid, or genocide), to
demilitarize Gaza (but not the Israeli regime), to destroy Gaza’s
military defense capacities (but not those of Israel), to decommission
the weapons of the Palestinian resistance (but not those of the Israeli
regime), to train the Palestinian police (in order to control the
Palestinian people inside Gaza), and to work for the (nefarious)
objectives of the “Comprehensive (Trump) Plan.”
The force is also mandated to “protect civilians” and assist
humanitarian aid, to the extent that it is allowed by the U.S. (or
inclined) to do so. But that such a force, which is to collaborate with
Israel, would do nothing to stand up to Israeli aggression and attacks
on civilians should by now be self-evident.
And it is to “monitor the ceasefire,” a U.S.-guaranteed ceasefire
that has allowed continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza every day since it
was declared (killing hundreds and causing massive destruction to
civilian infrastructure) but which tolerates no retaliation by the
Palestinian resistance. It is safe to assume that any ceasefire
monitoring by such a force will be focused principally on the
Palestinian side- not on the Israeli regime as the occupying power.
In other words, the mission of this proxy occupation force is to
control, contain, and disarm the population victimized by the genocide,
not the regime perpetrating it, and to ensure security not for the
victims of the genocide but for its perpetrators.
In still another stunning breach of international law, the resolution
authorizes Israeli regime forces to continue to (unlawfully) occupy
Gaza until the U.S.-led Board of Peace and the Israeli regime forces
collectively decide otherwise. And, in any event, the resolution
provides that the IOF can remain in Gaza to occupy a “security
perimeter” indefinitely.
Finally, both the colonial Board of Peace and its proxy occupation
“stabilization force” are given a two-year mandate and the possibility
of an extension in consultation with Israel (and Egypt) but not with
Palestine.
The madness of colonizers
Needless to say, this resolution has been rejected by Palestinian civil society, almost all Palestinian political and resistance factions, and human rights defenders and international law experts from around the globe.
As a matter of international law, the occupation of Palestine is
unlawful, the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, and
they have the right to resist foreign occupation, colonial domination,
and racist regimes like Israel. Not only does this resolution seek to
deny these rights, but it even goes so far as to buttress the illegal
Israeli presence, and to authorize its own mechanisms of foreign
occupation and colonial domination.
What’s more, the Security Council derives all its powers from the UN Charter.
That Charter, as a treaty, is a part of international law- not above
it. As such, the Council is bound by the rules of international law,
including and especially the highest, so-called jus cogens and erga omnes
rules, like self-determination and the inadmissibility of the
acquisition of territory by force. Its blatant disregard for the
findings of the ICJ on these matters reveals the degree to which many of
the terms of this resolution are in fact unlawful and ultra vires (beyond the authority of the Council).
As such, the ramifications of this rogue action by the UN Security
Council will have implications far beyond Palestine. The UN Security
Council, if unconstrained by international law, becomes a dangerous
instrument of repression and injustice. This is precisely what we have
witnessed in this case, as the Council ignored international law and
effectively turned the survivors of Gaza over to the co-perpetrators of
the genocide.
And followers of the Council will be well aware that the veto has
repeatedly been used in the Council to deny Palestinian rights. In this
case, when it could have been used to protect Palestinian rights, the
veto was nowhere to be found. In one minute of voting, the Security
Council has lost all legitimacy.
A path forward
The U.S. attempt to impose a 19th Century form of colonialism on the long-suffering Palestinian people of Gaza, like the French-Saudi colonial scheme
that came before it, is destined to failure. Such schemes are
fundamentally flawed from the outset, as they seek to impose outcomes
without legality (under international law,) without legitimacy (in their
exclusion of Palestinian agency), and without any practical hope of
success (given their near universal rejection both in Palestine and
across the world).
The U.S. may be able to threaten and bribe enough states to support
it in a UN vote, but securing sufficient troops and other personnel to
implement the resolution on the ground, against the will of the
indigenous people, may well be another matter. And sustaining support as
the plan (inevitably) begins to unravel will be even more difficult.
In the meantime, for those committed to justice, human rights, and
the rule of law, the task is clear. This plan must be opposed in every
capital, and at every juncture. Governments must be pressed to end their
complicity in Israeli abuses, U.S. excesses, and in this atrocious
colonial scheme. The Israeli regime must be isolated. Efforts toward boycott, divestment, and sanctions
must be redoubled. A military, fuel, and technology embargo must be
imposed. Israeli perpetrators must face judicial prosecutions in every
available tribunal. And the streets must echo with the righteous roar
for Palestinian freedom of millions through demonstrations, strikes,
civil disobedience, and direct action.
And when this colonial house of cards falls, another, more just
solution is ready to take its place. If the global majority will rise
from its knees before the emperor, and assert its collective power,
acting under the UNGA Uniting For Peace
mechanism to circumvent the U.S. veto, adopt accountability measures to
isolate and punish the Israeli regime, and deploy real protection to
Palestine, then the UN may live to fight another day. If not, it will
almost certainly wither away and die, a victim of self-inflicted wounds,
none deeper than the shameful resolution of November 17, 2025.
Last week, the Milan prosecutor's office opened an investigation into the "human safaris" for millionaires organized during the Balkan War. These were veritable tourist excursions for amateur snipers. Some wealthy individuals paid large sums of money to shoot at the civilian population in Sarajevo from the surrounding hills (1).
The Belgian prosecutor's office may open another criminal case, according to former judge Chris Van den Wyngaert.
The Italian investigation was launched following a complaint filed by journalist and writer Ezio Gavazzeni, who investigated the events.
Several Italian citizens traveled to the Bosnian capital during the siege in the 1990s to join Serbian sniper units and shoot at civilians for sport. The millionaires paid between 80,000 and 100,000 euros to participate in the hunts.
The expeditions were organized by the CIA through a local agent, Jovica Stanišić, who had infiltrated Serbian intelligence (2). According to the newspaper La Repubblica, these were not soldiers, but rather “far-right war tourists.”
Judge Van den Wyngaert, who served for years as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, said he was never aware of such practices during his tenure. “I spent seven years at the Tribunal and had never heard of it until now. The rumors have been circulating for a long time, but no evidence has yet been found,” he added.
Van den Wyngaert emphasized that if the Belgians were involved in the crimes, they could not be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal, as it did not yet exist at the time. However, the Belgian public prosecutor's office could still open its own investigation.
Since the alleged perpetrators were civilians, the acts would not fall under the laws of war. “If it’s a matter of murder, the crimes may be subject to a statute of limitations, but they can also be considered crimes against humanity, and those are not subject to a statute of limitations,” he explained.
Traitor, War Criminal, and CIA Agent
In the 1990s, Stanišić, the organizer of the killings, was the head of Serbia’s State Security Directorate (SDB) and was sentenced in 2023 to 15 years in prison for crimes committed in seven municipalities of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
He is the perfect example of a traitor and double agent. He was the CIA’s main contact in Belgrade. He shared information about the inner workings of Milošević’s government and helped the agency establish a network of secret bases in Bosnia (3).
Although it was already widely known, in 2021 the CIA admitted Stanišić’s role as an infiltrator before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prevent him from being convicted as a war criminal. They were unsuccessful, although his sentence was reduced from life imprisonment to 15 years in prison.
The trial against Stanišić was the longest in the Tribunal's history. It dragged on for 18 years. In one of its sessions, the lawyer repeatedly stated that Stanišić did not belong to a criminal organization but to the CIA.
During the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, Serbian forces committed numerous crimes, but so did the Bosnian forces of Alija Izetbegovic, who fired indiscriminately on the inhabitants of the city's Serbian neighborhoods, a fact that has never been acknowledged.
By the end of the war, more than 100,000 people had died and some two million had been forced to flee their homes. In the capital alone, more than 11,500 civilians died, including 1,601 children.
In March, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte pledged his “unwavering” support for Bosnia's territorial integrity (4). This was the price to be paid for the massacres of the 1990s.
Wealthy “sniper tourists” allegedly paid upward of $90,000 to shoot
people during “human safari” trips to Sarajevo in the 1990s — with an
extra fee to kill children, according to wild claims being probed by
Italian prosecutors.
The investigation was sparked after an Italian writer alleged he had
uncovered evidence that wealthy gun enthusiasts — dubbed “sniper
tourists” — would pay Bosnian Serb forces for the chance to gun down
residents at random during the four-year siege of the city, the Guardian
reported.
More than 10,000 were killed in Sarajevo by snipers and shelling between 1992 and 1996 during the Balkan Wars.
“There were Germans, French, English … people from all Western
countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot
civilians,” said Ezio Gavazzeni, the investigative writer.
“There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich
people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction. We are talking
about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on
safari in Africa.”
Gavazzeni said he first read reports of the alleged tourist-led
shootings in Italian media outlets in the ’90s, but started digging
deeper after watching a 2022 documentary about a former Serb soldier who
claimed foreigners would shoot at residents from the hills in Sarajevo.
He claims a key source was a former Bosnian intelligence officer.
The newly launched probe, being led by prosecutors in Milan, is
seeking to identify any Italians involved in the so-called sniper
tourism.
Gavazzeni said he had already uncovered the identities of some of the
Italians allegedly involved in the massacre and they are expected to be
questioned by prosecutors in the coming weeks.
The Bosnian Consulate in Milan said the Bosnian government would offer “total collaboration” amid the probe.
SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — An
Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon on
Tuesday killed 13 people and wounded several others, state media and
government officials said. It was the deadliest strike on Lebanon since a
ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.
The drone
strike hit a car in the parking lot of a mosque in the Ein el-Hilweh
refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, the
state-run National News Agency said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said
13 people were killed and several others wounded in the airstrike,
without giving further details.
Hamas fighters in the area
prevented journalists from reaching the scene, as ambulances rushed to
evacuate the wounded and the dead.
The Israeli military said it
struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an
attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would
continue to act against Hamas wherever the group operates.
Hamas condemned the attack in a statement saying the strike hit a
sports playground and denying that it was a training compound.
Over
the past two years, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have killed scores of
officials from the militant Hezbollah group as well as Palestinian
factions such as Hamas.
Saleh Arouri,
the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s
military wing, was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of
Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024. Several other Hamas officials have been killed
in strikes since then.
Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed
about 1,200 people. That sparked Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip
that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the Gaza
Health Ministry.
A day after the Israel-Hamas war started, Hezbollah
began firing rockets toward Israeli posts along the border. Israel
responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides
became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war in
late September 2024.
That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah
over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon,
including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.
The
war ended in late November 2024 with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Since
then, Israel has carried out scores of airstrikes in Lebanon, saying
that Hezbollah is trying to rebuild its capabilities.
Lebanon’s
Health Ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850
wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire.
Presented as a spontaneous youth-led uprising against corruption,
violent protests that erupted across Mexico this month were backed by
local oligarchs and an international right-wing network determined to
topple the popular President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Violent demonstrations which erupted
in over 50 cities across Mexico on November 15 were secretly financed
and coordinated by an international right-wing network and amplified by
bot networks, a new report by public fact-checking platform Infodemia
has concluded.
Those findings were amplified by
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has questioned what role
Mexico’s cartel-linked opposition parties and foreign meddling may have
played in inflaming so-called “Gen Z” protests on November 15. The
demonstrations left around 120 people injured – over 100 of them police
officers, according to a statement from authorities.
The opposition in Mexico has entered a new phase, following the same script we’ve seen in places like Venezuela and Bolivia, with provocateurs engaging in a premeditated action to try to destabilize the government through explicitly violent protest. pic.twitter.com/9xAVOeCK76
The Infodemia report
traced the astroturfed movement’s origins to a shadowy nexus of
previously apolitical social media influencers, Mexican opposition
figures, and wealthy oligarchs, who are accused of subsidizing the chaos
to the tune of 90 million pesos (approximately $5 million USD). Among
the chief organizers was a wealthy young influencer named Carlos Bello;
Mexico’s most infamous serial tax cheat, Ricardo Salinas Pliego; and the
operators of anonymous social media accounts which mysteriously
attracted hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter/X, Instagram,
and TikTok in just a handful of weeks.
In early October, the 31-year-old Bello instantly transformed from a lifestyle influencer flashing cash and showing off
sports cars to a political lightning rod after he slammed the Mexican
government and exhorted young audience members to “assert your rights”
during a forum organized by the Chamber of Deputies. In a rhetorical
style clearly aimed at channeling Donald Trump, Bello mixed banal
observations that the government had grown out of touch with the demands
of everyday people with right wing pablum about the need for a
successful “businessman” like himself to reinvigorate the system. The
message was republished by Pliego, who emerged as a vitriolic opponent
of the Mexican government after it ordered his Grupo Salinas conglomerate to pay over 50 billion pesos ($2.6 billion dollars) in back taxes.
Bello insisted he was neither
affiliated with the ruling Morena party nor “PRIAN” – a reference to the
ossified pro-establishment PRI and PAN parties which ruled Mexico for
nearly 90 years before Morena was swept to power in a landslide election
won by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018. Yet just
two weeks later, Bello began to promote Alessandra Rojo, a mayor from Cuauhtémoc who belongs to the PRIAN’s successor party, Strength and Heart for Mexico.
It was Bello who first announced on
October 12 that a “march” was being organized and that the date had
already been set. “They don’t have the power,” Bello declared in a TikTok post,
while displaying video of the Mexican legislature. “All of us have the
power, and Mexico needs us to demonstrate that today more than ever.”
Though his speech had “woken up many
Mexicans,” Bello insisted that “we can’t limit ourselves to words
alone,” and concluded that “now is the time for the next step.”
The very same day, an account with
the name “Mexican Revolutionaries” was opened on TikTok. Four days
later, on Oct. 16th, the Mexican Revolutionaries page published the
first call for demonstrations to take place on November 15th. That same
week, another account which was central to the violent protest, “We Are
Generation Z Mexico,” held a live broadcast promoting the demonstrations
which was immediately shared by Henrique ‘Kike’ Mireles, a spokesman
for the PAN party in the state of Querétaro.
These calls to action were quickly
amplified by a range of accounts which Infodemia researchers singled out
for exhibiting inauthentic behavior. They pointed specifically to
dozens of accounts which had single-digit follower counts and were only
created in October or November of 2025.
The vast majority of the accounts
bore the image of a pirate flag from the Japanese anime One Piece, which
have been a frequent sight at supposedly youth-led anti-government
protests across the globe since the overthrow of Nepal in the summer
2025. The accounts appeared to be following the lead of the Mexican
Revolutionaries and Gen Z Mexico pages, which adopted the logo the same
week they issued calls for an uprising.
“Gen Z uprisings” in Mexico City and Nepal rally around the One Piece Jolly Roger Flag, much as the US govt-sponsored color revolutions of the 2000s did with the fist symbol pic.twitter.com/9WXxc5jAbc
In the days leading up to the
violence in Mexico, the We Are Generation Z Mexico page published a
series of contradictory messages, with one Nov. 12 post insisting protesters not “vandalize” or “destroy,” hours before another post
was made by the same account showing followers how to use angle
grinders and physical force to disassemble the metal barricades
installed to keep demonstrators from reaching the presidential palace.
Generation Z Mexico describes itself
as “non-partisan” in its profile, yet the account has published a
variety of posts clamoring for regime change in Venezuela since 2024.
Though it claims to speak on behalf of the entire generation of Mexican youth, an October 2025 poll
by Bloomberg-tied El Financiero found that Mexican President Claudia
Sheinbaum enjoys the support of two-thirds of the youngest voters in her
country. Nevertheless, Western news outlets have largely adopted Gen Z
Mexico’s narrative, consistently framing the chaos as a mass uprising of young activists against a supposed “narco-government.”
While the original protest materials
focused on demanding President Sheinbaum step down from power,
organizers switched gears following the assassination of a prominent anti-cartel mayor named Carlos Manzo. In weaponizing the killing against Sheinbaum, the protesters ignored her administration’s concerted crackdown
on the local narcotics trade, which has led to tens of thousands of
arrests, dozens of deportations, seizures of vast quantities of illicit
substances and mass disruption to cartel operations.
The “Gen Z” protests have also received wholehearted encouragement from Vicente Fox, the former right-wing Mexican president whose security chief, Genaro García Luna, was convicted of an international drug trafficking conspiracy with the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, and now languishes in the same US supermax prison which houses infamous druglord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. State Department officials later conceded that both they and Fox’s administration knew all about García Luna’s collusion with the cartels, but did nothing because “we had to work with him.”
For her part, President Sheinbaum has alleged
the protests were “promoted from abroad.” Though mainstream media
accounts have largely painted her comments as a wild conspiracy theory,
the president’s claims are not unfounded.
One outlet which promoted the demonstrations and pushed video clips of police brutality, Animal Politico, is among an array of Mexican media outlets and civil society groups funded with huge sums by the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government’s regime change arm.
Animal Politico openly offers
corporations and advertisers the opportunity to place and promote
sponsored content authored by in-house ‘journalists’ in its virtual
pages in exchange for hefty fees. Its sponsors include a variety of Western corporations, including Google parent company Alphabet Inc, Astra Zeneca, the CIA-tied
Ford Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations – not
exactly supporters of the left-nationalist policies of Sheinbaum’s
government.
Some of the most positive coverage
the demonstrations received came from Real America’s Voice, the
right-wing network of former Trump chief of staff Steve Bannon. Bannon
has led the charge for Trump to authorize US military strikes on Mexican territory on the grounds of battling narco-cartels.
A November 15 New York Times report
quoted numerous protest attendees, mostly young, calling for the
government’s overthrow, while expressing no concrete demands beyond
that. A typical interviewee presented by the Times was a 21-year-old
“actor and singer” who explicitly stated, “the goal of this march is
precisely to remove the president.” They were “unsure” what would happen
if Sheinbaum resigned, but believed “getting her out is part of the
beginning of something.”
A 19-year-old student advanced the
insurrectionary spirit, but acknowledged it was highly unlikely the
protests would succeed: “We’re obviously not going to achieve
[Sheinbaum’s] revocation, because that’s too extreme.” Instead, they
said the demonstrations were “about letting the government know that
we’re willing to go that far. Because when those at the bottom move,
those at the top fall.” Meanwhile, a sexagenarian farmer pleaded for US
“intervention” – “the only solution” to the supposed “grip” of cartels
over the country.
The New York Times revealed
protesters organized the mayhem using the Discord messaging app, where
it was noted that “several” users went so far as to advocate breaking
into the Presidential palace. Coincidentally, the violent protests that
toppled Nepal’s government in early September were also coordinated via Discord. Parallels between that unrest, which also bore many of the hallmarks of a US-sponsored color revolution, don’t end there.
As in Mexico, the media framed
Nepal’s upheaval as led by disillusioned local “Gen Z” elements, who
took to the streets waving signs and flags bearing the One Piece pirate
flag. Nepal’s interim leader was also chosen through a vote on Discord, with a widely-shared image
of the vote’s tally showing the country’s new head of state received
just under 4,000 votes – a negligible fraction of the country’s
population of 30 million. Mexican protesters similarly used Discord to
discuss replacements for Sheinbaum.
According to the New York Times,
proposed successors included oligarchs like the “brash billionaire
Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who has become one of the most aggressive
opposition voices.” Pliego is a dedicated neoliberal and among Mexico’s wealthiest citizens, who has been accused by authorities of orchestrating the disruption. In response, he angrily demanded they “present a single piece of evidence for the lies you’re spreading without any scruples about me.”
While the evidence of Pliego’s involvement remains circumstantial, he has not been shy about his support for violent anti-government protests. And he enjoys some notable international connections.
For example, in March 2023
he launched Universidad de la Libertad, to “advance free-market
principles, business development, and innovation” in Mexico, in
conjunction with the Atlas Network. This US corporation-funded organization represents a nexus of hundreds of “free market” think tanks, associated with the US State Department and NED. The Network provides grants
to “pro-freedom organizations” globally every year, totaling millions,
and pushing the right-wing project across Latin America.
Atlas has been implicated in a
variety of US-backed coups in Latin America, including the 2019 effort
to overthrow Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Listed among the recipients of Atlas’ sponsorship is Jhanisse Vaca-Daza, an upper class eco-socialite whom The Grayzone exposed in 2019 as a leading instigator of the 2019 coup that subverted Bolivia’s democracy.
Another recipient of Atlas Network financing is the Caracas-based Center for the Dissemination of Economic Information (CEDICE), which has lobbied for pro-business, capitalist reforms since its founding in 1984. In April 2002, it was a key player in the US-orchestrated coup that temporarily ousted elected President Hugo Chávez, receiving tens of thousands of dollars from NED for the purpose.
If the turbulence that recently
gripped Mexico was attempted regime change, then it likewise failed.
However, it may represent just the initial barrage in a wider war on
Sheinbaum’s administration. Donald Trump expressed dismay at the tumult,
seemingly hinting at future military action. He has previously praised Sheinbaum as a “brave woman”, but claimed the country is “run by the cartels.” Since Trump’s inauguration, rumors have swirled that the CIA and US Army are being prepared for covert deployment in Mexico – an act which its government would view as hostile.
“I looked at Mexico City over the weekend. There’s some big problems there… I am not happy with Mexico,” the US President said in response
to the November 15 protests. “Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop
drugs? It’s OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs.”
The organizers of the chaos have since issued a call for demonstrators to descend on the National Autonomous University of Mexico on November 20.
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