A Cease-fire for Israelis and a War for Palestinians

Why should Gaza interest anyone when Israelis aren’t being killed? When the blare of sirens dies down in Israel, that’s considered a cease-fire

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 18/1/2026

Mikail Çiftçi, Türkiye

 When Israelis aren’t being killed there’s a cease-fire. When Israelis aren’t being killed but over 400 in Gaza are, including 100 children, that too is called a cease-fire. When Israel demolishes 2,500 houses in Gaza in the middle of a cease-fire, and Defense Minister Israel Katz praises IDF soldiers for their operations, that is still called a cease-fire.

When hundreds of thousands of Gazans are freezing to death and wallowing in mud, that comes under the definition of a cease-fire.

When thousands of seriously ill people are dying because Israel denies them life-saving medical attention or the possibility of leaving their cages and going elsewhere for treatment, this a cease-fire. When an educated Israeli woman asks during a Sabbath meal whether there are still Israeli soldiers in Gaza at a time when over one half of the enclave is occupied by the IDF, that is a quintessential indicator of the existence of a cease-fire, at least as Israelis define it.

When life in Israel returns to normal, with cooking and song contests in full swing, and with in- depth discussions of the fateful issue of the leak to Bild magazine in Germany, that is the be-all and end-all of cease-fires. Only when a Hamas squad emerges from its hole and tries to plant an improvised explosive device in the rubble of Gaza, that is a grievous infraction of the cease-fire.

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When Israelis aren’t being killed, all the rest is of no interest. Why should Gaza interest anyone when Israelis aren’t being killed? When the blare of sirens dies down in Israel, that is a cease-fire. The fact that Gaza is still being bombed, but lacks sirens, is irrelevant. The world too is already showing signs of weariness with regard to Gaza, despite this weekend’s news of the establishment of a "Board of Peace," which will not save a single dispossessed person in Gaza from their bitter fate.

When Israelis are not being killed, a return to routine is declared, meaning that the war is over and that one can return to the victimhood stance of October 7, to the endless retelling of the stories of the hostages, to getting mired down in yesterday’s grief, being stunned every time there is a desperate attempt from Gaza to remind people of its existence. When Israelis aren’t being killed, Gaza doesn’t exist, nor does the entire Palestinian problem.

When Israelis aren’t being killed, everything is good. When they aren’t being killed one can resume denying and forgetting Gaza. When Israelis aren’t getting killed in the West Bank, life is even more wonderful. The fact that dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the cease-fire took effect is even less interesting than the hundreds of Gazans killed in the same period.

News of the existence of a cease-fire in Gaza has not reached the West Bank or the IDF’s Central Command. All the draconian restrictions imposed in the West Bank at the beginning of the war in Gaza remain in place, not one of them having been rescinded or eased.

If those restrictions were imposed because of the war, why weren’t they lifted when the war ended? Nine hundred roadblocks set up during the war? Nine hundred roadblocks remain after the cease-fire took effect. Iron gates at every Palestinian community, opening and closing intermittently since the war began? The same thing continues after the war ended. Pogroms during the war? Even more so after it ended. When Israelis are not being killed, there’s no problem.

The decision to impose on Israel the signing of a cease-fire agreement turned out to be the deal of the year. This is the first one-sided cease-fire in history. Israel is permitted anything while the other side is not allowed to breathe. All the hostages were returned except for one body, and the promise to evacuate Gaza once the hostages were returned evaporated instantly, forgotten as if it were never made. Remember? The hostages were returned, and Israel is in Gaza, since then and forever.

The cease-fire also subdued the world outcry against Israel. Some in the world waited for an opportunity to return and embrace Israel, and a unilateral cease-fire is that opportunity. The world has moved on to Venezuela and Iran.

Trump can continue disseminating his idea of the invented peace he brought to the Middle East, and Israelis can continue telling themselves that the war in Gaza was justified and achieved all its objectives. Now it’s over. There is a cease-fire. The main thing is that Israelis are not getting killed in Gaza. All the rest is of no interest.

The Greatest Historical Error of Palestinian Leaders

Ricardo Mohrez Muvdi, 16/1/2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

Ricardo Mohrez Muvdi is Palestinian, born in Beit Jala, Palestine (1952). A refugee in Colombia, he is a business administrator and president of the Palestinian Union of Latin America (UPAL), established in 2019 in San Salvador, El Salvador. He is also president of the Colombo-Palestinian Cultural Foundation.

The greatest mistake Palestinian leaders have made over decades of failed negotiations has been making concessions to Zionism in the belief that surrendering fundamental rights would bring peace, justice, or genuine recognition. History has shown precisely the opposite.

From the beginning of the modern conflict, the demand should have been clear: one single, democratic State with equal rights for all its inhabitants throughout historic Palestine. Accepting—and continuing to defend—the idea of “two States” was not only a poor strategy; it has been a progressive surrender of Palestine, legitimizing colonization, territorial fragmentation, and covert ethnic cleansing.

The so-called “two-State solution” was born already mutilated. It was not a proposal of justice, but of managing dispossession. Every Palestinian concession was met with more settlements, more walls, more checkpoints, and more racial laws. Negotiating under occupation was never negotiating: it was accepting the rules of the occupier. Persisting today in the fantasy of two States is not only naïve but politically suicidal. On the ground, there is no territorial continuity, no real sovereignty, and no control over borders, water, or resources.

What is being offered to the Palestinian people is not a State but fragmented, dependent, and surveilled reservations. Meanwhile, the Zionist project has been consistent: advancing without retreating, consolidating faits accomplis, and demanding international recognition without granting equality. In this sense, continuing to speak of two States is de facto endorsing the permanence of the occupation and accepting the transformation of territorial theft into international legality.

The only ethically, historically, and legally sustainable proposal is a single State in which Palestinians, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, live with equal rights, free from ethnic or religious supremacy. A state where the right of return, equality before the law, and historical justice are non-negotiable.

This is not utopian; it is a matter of consistency. Apartheid regimes are not to be reformed—they are to be dismantled. And liberation does not arise from concessions to the oppressor but from steadfastness in principles. The Palestinian people have not survived decades of expulsion, exile, and resistance to settle for crumbs. Dignity is not negotiable—it is exercised.

 

UPAL: Gaza depois do fogo after the fire después del fuego après le feu غزة بعد النار

📌Editorial da União Palestina da América Latina - UPAL

Gaza Depois do Fogo: Reconstrução ou Reconfiguração Forçada?

(em português, inglês, espanhol, francês e árabe)

Com o anúncio do início da segunda fase do cessar-fogo, tenta-se apresentar Gaza como se estivesse entrando em uma nova etapa: uma administração palestina tecnocrática e de transição, reconstrução, calma e um discurso regional e internacional que sugere o encerramento do capítulo da guerra. No entanto, a realidade demonstra que este não é um processo genuíno de recuperação política e humanitária, mas sim uma nova forma de gerir a crise.

Israel afirma isso com absoluta clareza: não haverá retirada completa, nem abertura total das passagens de fronteira, nem reconstrução antes do desarmamento da resistência. Em outras palavras, a intenção é implementar o acordo a partir do seu fim. Para Israel, a segunda fase não é política, mas estritamente uma questão de segurança: desmantelar a resistência, mantendo o direito de intervir militarmente quando julgar necessário, sem prazos ou garantias para o levantamento do bloqueio.

Nesse contexto, não há disposição para reconhecer a genuína soberania palestina. O que se propõe é uma administração de serviços palestina, subordinada ao controle israelense. Assim, a reconstrução deixa de ser uma obrigação ética e humanitária e se torna um instrumento de pressão e chantagem política, onde a vida cotidiana é garantida em troca da renúncia aos direitos nacionais.

A posição americana, apesar de sua linguagem “moderada”, não difere em essência da israelense. Reconstrução, retirada e qualquer solução política são condicionadas ao desarmamento da resistência, como se a Palestina não fosse um povo sob ocupação, mas um problema de segurança. Nesse contexto, ressurgem fórmulas de tutela internacional ou “estabilidade”, que na prática significam a transição da ocupação direta para uma administração internacional sob a hegemonia americana e a lógica sionista, adiando mais uma vez a soberania palestina.

E o que isso significa para Gaza?

Significa ajuda humanitária limitada, uma reativação parcial da vida e melhorias nos serviços, em troca de uma paralisia política total: nenhum Estado, nenhuma soberania e nenhuma visão nacional. Gaza está passando de uma guerra aberta para uma trégua frágil, perpetuamente suscetível a colapsos, com a constante ameaça de novas agressões.

Gaza precisa de mais do que apenas cimento e aço. Precisa de uma visão política clara e de garantias reais de que o sangue de seus mártires não se tornará uma mera moeda de troca em negociações de segurança.

Será esta segunda fase um caminho para a recuperação e uma paz justa?

Ou um novo mecanismo para gerir a crise e remodelar Gaza pela força, após o fracasso da subjugação militar?

União Palestina da América Latina – UPAL

16 de janeiro de 2026

Editorial from the Palestinian Union of Latin America - UPAL

Gaza After the Fire: Reconstruction or Forced Reconfiguration?

With the announced start of the second phase of the ceasefire, an attempt is being made to present Gaza as if it were entering a new stage: a technocratic and transitional Palestinian administration, reconstruction, calm, and a regional and international discourse that suggests the closing of the chapter on war. However, reality demonstrates that this is not a genuine process of political and humanitarian recovery, but rather a new way of managing the crisis.

Israel states this with absolute clarity: there will be no complete withdrawal, no full opening of the border crossings, and no reconstruction before the disarmament of the resistance. In other words, the intention is to implement the agreement starting from its end. For Israel, the second phase is not political, but strictly a matter of security: dismantling the resistance while maintaining the right to intervene militarily when it deems necessary, without timelines or guarantees for lifting the blockade.

Within this framework, there is no willingness to recognize genuine Palestinian sovereignty. What is being proposed is a Palestinian service administration, subordinate to Israeli control. Thus, reconstruction ceases to be an ethical and humanitarian obligation and becomes an instrument of pressure and political blackmail, where daily life is granted in exchange for relinquishing national rights.

The American position, despite its “moderate” language, does not differ in essence from the Israeli one. Reconstruction, withdrawal, and any political solution are conditioned on the disarmament of the resistance, as if Palestine were not a people under occupation, but a security problem. In this context, formulas of international tutelage or “stability” reappear, which in practice mean moving from direct occupation to international administration under American hegemony and Zionist logic, postponing Palestinian sovereignty once again.

And what does this mean for Gaza?

It means limited humanitarian aid, a partial reactivation of life, and improvements in services, in exchange for total political paralysis: no state, no sovereignty, and no national vision. Gaza is transitioning from open war to a fragile truce, perpetually susceptible to collapse, with the constant threat of renewed aggression.

Gaza needs more than just cement and steel. It needs a clear political vision and real guarantees that the blood of its martyrs will not become a mere bargaining chip in security negotiations.

Will this second phase be a path toward recovery and a just peace?

Or a new mechanism for managing the crisis and reshaping Gaza by force, after the failure of military subjugation?

Palestinian Union of Latin America – UPAL

January 16, 2026

📌Editorial de la Unión Palestina de América Latina - UPAL

Gaza después del fuego: ¿reconstrucción o reconfiguración forzada?

Con el inicio anunciado de la segunda fase del alto el fuego, se intenta presentar a Gaza como si estuviera entrando en una nueva etapa: una administración palestina tecnócrata y transitoria, reconstrucción, calma y un discurso regional e internacional que sugiere el cierre del capítulo de la guerra. Sin embargo, la realidad demuestra que no se trata de un verdadero proceso de recuperación política y humanitaria, sino de una nueva forma de administrar la crisis.

Israel lo dice con total claridad: no habrá retirada completa, ni apertura total de los pasos fronterizos, ni reconstrucción antes del desarme de la resistencia. Es decir, se pretende aplicar el acuerdo comenzando por su final. Para Israel, la segunda fase no es política, sino estrictamente de seguridad: desmantelar la resistencia manteniendo el derecho a intervenir militarmente cuando lo considere necesario, sin calendarios ni garantías para levantar el bloqueo.

En este marco, no existe voluntad de reconocer una soberanía palestina real. Lo que se propone es una administración palestina de servicios, subordinada al control israelí. Así, la reconstrucción deja de ser una obligación ética y humanitaria para convertirse en un instrumento de presión y chantaje político, donde la vida cotidiana se concede a cambio de renunciar a los derechos nacionales.

La postura estadounidense, pese a su lenguaje “moderado”, no difiere en esencia de la israelí. Reconstrucción, retirada y cualquier solución política quedan condicionadas al desarme de la resistencia, como si Palestina no fuera un pueblo bajo ocupación, sino un problema de seguridad. En este contexto reaparecen fórmulas de tutela internacional o de “estabilidad”, que en la práctica significan pasar de una ocupación directa a una administración internacional bajo hegemonía estadounidense y lógica sionista, posponiendo una vez más la soberanía palestina.

¿Y qué significa esto para Gaza?

Significa ayuda humanitaria limitada, una reactivación parcial de la vida y mejoras de servicios, a cambio de una parálisis política total: sin Estado, sin soberanía y sin horizonte nacional. Gaza pasa de una guerra abierta a una tregua frágil, permanentemente susceptible de estallar, con la amenaza constante del retorno de la agresión.

Gaza no necesita solo cemento y acero. Necesita un horizonte político claro y garantías reales de que la sangre de sus mártires no se convierta en una simple variable dentro de negociaciones de seguridad.

¿Será la segunda fase un camino hacia la recuperación y una paz justa?

¿O un nuevo mecanismo para administrar la crisis y reconfigurar Gaza por la fuerza, tras el fracaso de someterla militarmente?

Unión Palestina de América Latina – UPAL

16 de enero de 2026

📌Éditorial de l’Union palestinienne d’Amérique latine (UPAL)

Gaza après le feu : reconstruction ou reconfiguration forcée ?

Avec l’annonce du lancement de la deuxième phase du cessez-le-feu, on tente de présenter Gaza comme entrant dans une nouvelle ère : une administration palestinienne technocratique et transitoire, la reconstruction, le calme et un discours régional et international suggérant la fin de la guerre. Or, la réalité démontre qu’il ne s’agit pas d’un véritable processus de redressement politique et humanitaire, mais plutôt d’une nouvelle manière de gérer la crise.

Israël l’affirme avec une clarté absolue : il n’y aura ni retrait complet, ni réouverture totale des points de passage frontaliers, ni reconstruction avant le désarmement de la résistance. Autrement dit, l’intention est d’appliquer l’accord en commençant par sa fin. Pour Israël, cette deuxième phase n’est pas politique, mais strictement sécuritaire : démanteler la résistance tout en se réservant le droit d’intervenir militairement lorsqu’il le juge nécessaire, sans calendrier ni garanties pour la levée du blocus.

Dans ce contexte, aucune volonté de reconnaître une véritable souveraineté palestinienne n’est envisagée. Ce qui est proposé, c’est une administration palestinienne des services, subordonnée au contrôle israélien. Ainsi, la reconstruction cesse d’être une obligation éthique et humanitaire pour devenir un instrument de pression et de chantage politique, où la survie quotidienne est garantie en échange de l’abandon des droits nationaux.

La position américaine, malgré son langage « modéré », ne diffère pas fondamentalement de la position israélienne. La reconstruction, le retrait et toute solution politique sont conditionnés par le désarmement de la résistance, comme si la Palestine n’était pas un peuple sous occupation, mais un problème de sécurité. Dans ce contexte, les formules de tutelle internationale ou de « stabilité » refont surface, ce qui signifie en pratique passer de l’occupation directe à une administration internationale sous l’hégémonie américaine et la logique sioniste, reportant une fois de plus la souveraineté palestinienne.

Et qu’est-ce que cela signifie pour Gaza ?

Cela signifie une aide humanitaire limitée, une reprise partielle de la vie et des améliorations des services, en échange d’une paralysie politique totale : pas d’État, pas de souveraineté et pas de vision nationale. Gaza passe d’une guerre ouverte à une trêve fragile, constamment menacée d’effondrement, sous la menace permanente d’une nouvelle agression.

Gaza a besoin de bien plus que de ciment et d’acier. Elle a besoin d’une vision politique claire et de garanties concrètes que le sang de ses martyrs ne soit pas instrumentalisé dans les négociations de sécurité.

Cette seconde phase sera-t-elle un chemin vers la reconstruction et une paix juste ?

Ou un nouveau mécanisme de gestion de la crise et de remodelage de Gaza par la force, après l’échec de la soumission militaire ?

Union palestinienne d’Amérique latine – UPAL

16 janvier 2026

تحرير اليوم؛ الاتحاد الفلسطيني لأمريكا اللاتينية (UPAL) 📌

غزة بعد النار: إعمار أم إعادة تشكيل بالقوة؟

مع بدء الحديث عن المرحلة الثانية من وقف إطلاق النار، يُروَّج بأن غزة تدخل مرحلة جديدة: إدارة فلسطينية تكنوقراطية انتقالية( منزوعة الإرادة الوطنية، تحت سقف الاحتلال)، إعمار، تهدئة، وترحيب إقليمي ودولي يوحي وكأن صفحة الحرب قد طُويت. غير أن الواقع يكشف سريعًا أن ما يُطرح ليس مسار تعافٍ سياسي وإنساني، بل إعادة إنتاج للأزمة بأدوات مختلفة.

إسرائيل تعلن موقفها بلا مواربة: لا انسحاب كامل، ولا فتح كامل للمعابر، ولا إعمار قبل نزع سلاح المقاومة. أي إن الاتفاق يُطلب تنفيذه من نهايته. فالمرحلة الثانية، في الرؤية الإسرائيلية، ليست مرحلة سياسية، بل أمنية خالصة، هدفها تفكيك قوة المقاومة مع الإبقاء على حق التدخل العسكري متى شاءت، ومن دون أي التزام بجدول زمني أو ضمانات لرفع الحصار.

في هذا السياق، لا حديث عن سيادة فلسطينية حقيقية، بل عن إدارة خدمات فلسطينية تعمل تحت سقف السيطرة الإسرائيلية. وهكذا يتحول الإعمار من التزام أخلاقي وإنساني إلى أداة ابتزاز وضغط سياسي، تُقدَّم فيها الحياة اليومية مقابل التخلي عن الحقوق الوطنية.

أما الولايات المتحدة، فرغم خطابها “الناعم” حول الاستقرار، فإن موقفها لا يختلف جوهريًا عن الموقف الإسرائيلي. فالإعمار، والانسحاب، وأي حل سياسي، جميعها مشروطة بنزع سلاح المقاومة، وكأن القضية الفلسطينية ليست قضية شعب تحت الاحتلال، بل ملف أمني يجب ضبطه. وفي هذا الإطار، تُعاد صياغة أفكار الإدارة الدولية أو مظلة “الاستقرار”، بما يعني عمليًا الانتقال من احتلال مباشر إلى وصاية دولية بطابع أمريكي وروح صهيونية، وتأجيل جديد للسيادة الفلسطينية.

ماذا يعني ذلك لغزة؟

يعني مساعدات محدودة، تشغيلًا جزئيًا للحياة، وتحسينات خدمية نسبية، مقابل جمود سياسي كامل: لا دولة، لا سيادة، ولا أفق وطني. انتقال من حرب مفتوحة إلى هدنة هشة قابلة للانفجار في أي لحظة، حيث يبقى القصف احتمالًا دائمًا بفعل سياسة إسرائيل في صناعة الأزمات.

غزة لا تحتاج فقط إلى إسمنت وحديد. غزة تحتاج إلى أفق سياسي وضمانات حقيقية بأن دماء الشهداء لن تتحول إلى بند تفاوضي في مقاربات أمنية عقيمة.

فهل تمثل المرحلة الثانية طريقًا للتعافي والسلام العادل؟

أم صيغة جديدة لإدارة الأزمة وإعادة تشكيل غزة بالقوة السياسية بعد فشل إخضاعها بالحرب عسكريا؟

الاتحاد الفلسطيني لأمريكا اللاتينية (UPAL)

16 كانون الثاني / يناير 2026

‘Palestine 36’, The Historical Film by Annemarie Jacir on the Great Arab RevoltDOSSIER

Fausto Giudice, 14/1/2026

Audio  summary

It began its public journey last September at the Toronto Film Festival, then opened the Carthage Film Festival last December. Nominated for Palestine for the Best International Film Oscar in coming March, Palestine 36 is beginning its theatrical run these days in Tunisia, France, and other countries, following its Palestinian premiere in Gaza on December 22, and Egypt and Great Britain, where it was screened as early as late December.

Annemarie Jacir's film is a true event. It is the first film about the Great Palestinian Revolt, which saw a confrontation between the Palestinian people and the British occupiers, aided by armed Zionist settlers, for three long years, from 1936 to 1939. Its most impressive sequence was a general strike that lasted six months. 100,000 British soldiers, the largest military force deployed in that empire “on which the sun never set,” fought by all means an organized population resorting to a thousand forms of resistance.

As in all anti-colonial struggles, a dialectical combination of various forms and levels of struggle was witnessed. The general strike launched from Jaffa on April 21, 1936, lasted 174 days, until October 11. Approximate toll: 5,000 Palestinians killed and 2,000 detained, 200 British and 500 Jews killed.

The meaning and lessons of this historical moment for Palestine and the world today are strikingly evident.

To tell this page of Palestine's history, a mirror of the world today as it was yesterday, Annemarie Jacir had the required background: A Christian Palestinian born in Bethlehem in 1974, she now lives in Haifa after studying and working in the USA and France. She has built a “portfolio” of cinematic works that enabled her to make her “magnum opus” possible. The film was financed by about ten countries and produced by a dozen producers, from the BBC and Denmark to Qatar, including foundations from wealthy Palestinian families. Filming was an ordeal: it began in the West Bank before October 7, was interrupted after, continued in Jordan, then resumed in Palestine. The boundaries between historical fiction and contemporary reality were very fluid. For instance, in a scene filmed in Nablus, British soldiers use a young Palestinian villager as a human shield in front of their jeep. On the same day, Israeli soldiers were filmed in reality tying a wounded Palestinian to the hood of their jeep in Jenin.

The challenge for the director was: how to tell, almost a century later, in an effective, convincing, and humanly plausible way, a foundational historical period for a Palestinian, Arab, and global audience? Jacir made choices:

1- Only two of the three collective protagonists are shown in detail: the Palestinians and the British. The Jews – immigrants and Zionist settlers – are only evoked, seen through the eyes of the natives, for whom the kibbutzniks settling in their fortified farms appear as alien invaders.

2- While the British characters – High Commissioner, general, war criminal captain – are reconstructed versions of real historical figures with their real names, the Palestinian characters are fictional compositions based on real historical figures.

3- The contradictions within each camp are not avoided, be it the betrayals on the Palestinian side or the disagreements on repression on the British side.

4- As in all Annemarie Jacir films, women and children are full-fledged characters, as far from the patriarchal machismo of some Arab films as from the wokally correct rosewater Hollywood feminism.

5- Finally, the film is and remains a fictional reconstruction, avoiding didactic aspects and translating ideological and political aspects through images, postures, attitudes, retorts, glances.

Questions and answers

The two characters that struck me the most are:

1- that of the Palestinian journalist from Al Qods, Khulud Atef, played by Yasmine Al Massri, a magnificent actress born in Lebanon to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother, whom we discovered in Nadine Labaki's Caramel (2007)

2- that of Captain Wingate, played by British actor of Basque father Robert Aramayo

Khulud is a fictional character. Wingate is a real historical figure. What is their relationship with historical reality?

Read more

Iran: Destabilizing by Strangulation Notes on the new protest wave in Iran

Joachim Guilliard, Nachgetragen, 9/1/2026
Translated by Tlaxcala

Joachim Guilliard (b. 1958) studied physics, works professionally as an IT consultant, and is active in the German peace movement. He has long been engaged with the Middle East, with a focus on Iraq, and is the author of numerous specialist articles as well as the co-editor and co-author of several books on war-affected countries in the region. Since 2009, he has run the blog “Nachgetragen”.

The strong wave of protest that spread in Iran at the end of 2025 against economic misery did not come as a surprise. The economic blockades steadily intensified over the course of the year and the direct military aggression by Israel and the USA in June have significantly exacerbated the country’s economic problems. The embargo Iran faces is as comprehensive and brutal as the one against Cuba.

While the country manages to somewhat cushion the effects by expanding trade with Russia, China, and its Asian neighbors, the financial losses and supply problems are still considerable. Among other things, they lead to a steady devaluation of the Iranian currency, growing loss of purchasing power, and persistently high inflation, which soared to over 50 percent after the blockades were reinstated by the US President in 2018 and has since averaged 35 percent. Other domestic crises are also exacerbated by the embargo. Millions of people, including from the middle class, are thus increasingly being driven into poverty. [1]

This is precisely the openly proclaimed goal of Trump. Iranians are to be driven to despair by a drastic deterioration in living conditions to the point where they rise up against the regime. This is in itself also the general calculation behind economic sanctions [2] and is also pursued by Berlin, Paris, and London. The UN and EU economic sanctions reactivated by them via “snapback” further devalued the exchange rate and drove inflation to almost 50 percent.

The trigger for the current protests was ultimately an extreme plunge in the exchange rate of the rial against the dollar. Merchants in Tehran’s bazaar consequently closed their shops and took to the streets. The rial had lost another 10 percent of its value within a few days. As this was exceptional even for an Iran accustomed to currency crashes, its leadership sees the “hand of the enemy” behind it. [3]

Although demonstrations spread to wide parts of the country, the hopes of the USA and its European allies have not been fulfilled so far. Even if Western media seek to convey a different impression, the protests are not aimed at overthrow the regime, but are predominantly directed against inflation, insecure employment, precarious living conditions, and the government’s inadequate measures to counter them.

In the tense situation, the government is reacting more restrainedly than in previous protests.[4] It declares the demands to be justified, seeks dialogue, and made initial concessions, such as tax relief for merchants and higher subsidies.[5] President Masoud Pezeshkian also admitted, however, that the government currently lacks the means to solve the economic crisis.[6]

Evidently, armed groups also endeavored to escalate demonstrations. In several provinces, there were violent riots, buildings were set on fire, and police stations attacked. Iranian security forces responded with corresponding severity. They also suspect, certainly not without reason, foreign interference.

Surveillance, charges, and arrests had increased since June, after drone attacks, assassinations, and sabotage from Iranian territory had shown the extent to which sensitive areas of the country had been infiltrated by Israeli and US intelligence services. Pro-Western opposition figures thus came under increased suspicion. As always, attacks, destabilization efforts, and economic blockades drastically narrow political spaces for the civil society .

But the Western strangulation measures and the massive support for anti-government forces in the country have nothing to do with efforts for freedom and democracy. They are also not primarily aimed at the Iranian nuclear program. The goal is the elimination of a regional power which, with its resource wealth, high level of education, and technological prowess, has enormous development potential. And which – similar to Venezuela – maintains strategic alliances with China, Russia, and other adversaries of the West, conducts trade bypassing the dollar, and due to its geographical location is a multipolar hub.

As there are no sufficiently strong forces within the country itself to install a pro-Western regime, the USA, Israel, and the EU aim to bring Iran down to the level of Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon.

Notes

[1] Iran nach dem Zwölf-Tage-Krieg, UZ vom 26. Dezember 2025

[2] Joachim Guilliard, Arsenal des Faustrechts: Wirtschaftsblockaden, Menschenrechte und der Widerstand des Südens, IMI-Studie 2024/4, 24. Mai 2024

[3] Sayyed Khamenei links currency devaluation to ‚enemy hand’, Al Mayadeen, 3 Jan 2026

[4] Tehran adjusts its public tone as protests return, Iran International, 1.1.2026

[5] Iran President Moves to Calm Protests With Vow to Fix Budget, Bloomberg, 30.12.2025, Iran Offers Citizens $7 a Month in a Bid to Cool Protests, New York Times, 5.1.2026

[6] Iran’s Pezeshkian urges unity as protests over economic woes turn deadly, Aljazeera, 31/12/2025

Run, Renee, run, they're going to kill you!The murder of an USAmerican poetess by Trump and his gang

 Reinaldo Spitaletta, January 9, 2026
Translated by Tlaxcala

Renee Nicole Good, poetess murdered by ICE (Photo RNZ News)

They murdered the poetess, with gunshots, in cold blood, as if she were a cockroach, or perhaps like a piece of pork that must be fried in the fat of immigration police. They killed her for no reason, because women must be killed, women who write, women who raise their voices, who speak with exploited foreigners, with the persecuted. She had to be killed. And that’s what the automatic agents did, assassins by nature, trained for that purpose: to kill and nothing more. Ah, and if the victim is a poetess, even better. We don’t want anyone to sing, or to tell any truth, in verse, or in prose, to the little president who looks more and more like Hitler.

They shot and killed Renée Nicole Good, thirty-seven years old. They say she wrote “like someone opening a window in a besieged house.” She surely knew, before receiving that hail of bullets in a “country bathed in blood,” as Paul Auster described it, that she was destined to be a victim of Trumpesque repression, of the Corollary of the new filibusterer, of the New National Defense Strategy, of the pedocriminal, reincarnation—so the bandit president believes—of James Monroe, and who also represents Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick. The poetess knew they were going to kill her.

She has been another victim of the system that has been bombing for years, sometimes with atomic bombs, sometimes with other bombs—deadly, indeed—civilian targets, entire populations, that murders people like those in the village of My Lai, or Iraq, or Syria, or Libya, also Venezuela. And it kills poets. Just like that. Perhaps as if imitating the one who murdered García Lorca in Granada, for being a faggot, or a poet, or because he was against oppression.

They shot her, just like that, at point-blank range and with confidence, a young girl, yes, she was still a young girl in bloom, who wrote poems. Her verses had to be erased, the cop, the servant of the system, the licensed assassin, would think. A voice had to be silenced, a pencil, some stanzas, some lines... We don’t need poets, but thugs, bombers, criminals. Such is the vulgar prose of imperialism, of Trump and his henchmen, of those who applaud not only the bravado of the bloodthirsty pirate, but also his criminal actions throughout the universe.

Killing a poetess can be insignificant. Besides being easy, besides everything can remain unpunished. She was just a woman, a young girl who wrote, who greeted immigrants, who told them how to unite, how to embrace, how to stay alert in the face of repression. That was it, so worthless, so meaningless for a subject like the president. Trump’s Gestapo murdered her.

What can happen to an empire, or to a delinquent who shelters himself by being president of a superpower (in decline), for the crime of a woman who wrote, for example, "” want my rocking chairs back” and knew “cicada tercets” (like the cicada, so many times they killed me, so many times I died, yet here I am resurrecting...), who had “donated bibles to second-hand stores,” who knew—she was a poetess—that between her pancreas and her large intestine, “lies the insignificant stream of my soul.”

The soulless ones disembodied her. The assassins erased her words, her desire for justice, the irrepressible wishes to sing against injustice, to bless the encounter between the ovum and the spermatozoon. They tore out her soul with gunshots.

But the thing, as they say, is that no police officer, no bullet, no rifle, ends poetry. It continues living beyond the poet. Renée’s poetry now flies higher, goes from Minneapolis to Chicago, from Los Angeles to Texas, from the country of dead freedoms, of destroyed democracy, to beyond the blue planet. It was the afternoon of January 7, 2026, when a police officer from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), fired ferociously at a young girl who wrote verses and who from that moment flies, like that butterfly which, with its wing flap, is capable of causing an earthquake in Beijing or bringing forth a tear somewhere in the world where there are people who sing.

Renée Nicole is now fire. She is not ash. She is a powerful voice crying out for justice in the world and for utopia to keep living, or, at least, to keep many people walking.

The poetess murdered in Minneapolis

Fatal Motorcycle Accident Leaves Israel's Most Serious Security Corruption Case in Limbo

Judge Benny Sagi was set to deliver the verdict regarding a suspect in the submarine and naval vessels affair, which concerns two deals with a German conglomerate for the acquisition of submarines and missile boats to defend the natural gas fields off Israel's coast

Chen Maanit, Haaretz, 7/1/2026

Amos Harel, Josh Breiner, Yael Freidson and Meirav Arlosoroff contributed to this report.

The death of an Israeli district judge in a motorcycle accident earlier this week may delay the legal proceedings in the 2016 submarine and naval vessels affair.

According to information obtained by Haaretz, Be'er Sheva District Court President, Judge Benny Sagi, was scheduled to announce his verdict on February 26 in a case connected to the affair.

In the case, media consultant Tzachi Lieber is accused of mediating bribes between Michael Ganor, who was the representative of the German industrial engineering company ThyssenKrupp in Israel, and David Sharan, who served as the head of Prime Minister Netanyahu's bureau.

 

Judge Benny Sagi. Photo Tomer Appelbaum

Lieber has denied all charges against him.

The submarine and naval vessels affair concerns two deals with ThyssenKrupp: one for the acquisition of two submarines, and one for the purchase of missile boats to defend Israel's natural gas fields off the coast. Netanyahu also wanted to include anti-submarine ships in the deal, but defense officials opposed this idea, which was shelved.

The main allegation against the prime minister was that he pushed to buy additional submarines for the navy despite defense officials' objections. Netanyahu, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon were not questioned under caution in "Case 3000," which investigated the affair.

Lieber's case was separated from the main trial of Sharan and Ganor, which is being held at the Tel Aviv District Court. The prosecution had been waiting for Lieber's trial – ongoing since May 2021 – to conclude before calling him to testify in the trial of Ganor and Sharan.

In most cases, a defendant does not testify against another defendant in the same case to rule out a conflict of interest, seeing as a defendant might try to incriminate an accomplice in exchange for leniency.

Michael Ganor in court, in 2019. Photo Moti Milrod

Beyond its impact on the submarine affair, Sagi's death just before the verdict raises a complex dilemma regarding how Lieber's trial should proceed and be brought to a conclusion. Section 233 of the Criminal Procedure Law addresses situations where a judge is unable to complete a criminal case.

The section states that when "evidence has been heard and, for any reason, the judge is unable to complete the trial, another judge may continue the trial from the stage reached by his predecessor, and may, after allowing the parties to present their arguments on the matter, treat the evidence collected by his predecessor as if he had collected it himself, or may choose to rehear any or all of the evidence."

However, there is no known precedent for a judge dying or becoming unable to continue with a case at such a late stage, just as he was preparing to deliver a verdict.

The dilemma now facing the system is complex. On one hand, allowing a new judge to deliver a verdict based solely on the protocols and evidence submitted is problematic, as a criminal verdict should be based on the judge's direct impression of the witnesses and the defendant, and their credibility.

On the other hand, having another judge rehear the witnesses, or some of them, is also problematic and would mean the case would drag on for years. As mentioned, this would also delay Lieber's required testimony in the main case against Sharan and Ganor.

Apart from this trial, Sagi was presiding over several other ongoing cases, which will now be transferred to other judges.

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit (in tie, right) and Justice Minister Yariv Levin (in tie, left) at Be'er Sheva District Court President Benny Sagi's funeral, Tuesday. Photo Tomer Appelbaum

Overall, Sagi's death has left the Be'er Sheva District Court in a difficult position. Sagi, who was appointed as district president only two years ago, was an outstanding administrator and a respected and well-liked judge, leaving a significant void behind.

Six judges in the court are set to retire in the coming year. The paralysis Justice Minister Yariv Levin imposed on the Judicial Appointments Committee, combined with Sagi's death, have left the Be'er Sheva District Court in dire straits.

The justice minister and court administration will have to quickly find a replacement for Sagi, but Levin continues to boycott his counterpart, and without communication between them, this will be a complex task.

Lieber's attorney, Liran Zilberman, said he is "deeply saddened and pained by the death of the honorable Judge Sagi. The manner in which the case against Lieber will proceed is not up to us, and we will await the court's decision on this matter before determining our next steps."

The prosecution said, "Further proceedings regarding Lieber will be determined by the court in accordance with the law," adding that he is not expected to testify in the submarine affair trial in the near future, "and in any case, there is no obstacle to hearing his testimony."

Netanyahu climbs out after a visit inside the Rahav, the fifth submarine in the fleet, after it arrived at the Haifa port, in 2016. Photo Baz Ratner / Reuters