"[Joint statement announcing the signing of the] Mecca Joint Defence Agreement."

"[A] shared commitment to further strengthening collective security and to promoting peace, security and stability in the region and beyond."

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan 

 

"The agreement does not represent an effort to establish a military axis or a sectarian bloc."

"Nor is it linked to any nuclear ambitions or arms race. Rather it is focused on building sustainable capabilities."

"[The agreement] does not constitute a threat to the security of any country in the region."

Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly 

 

"[The alignment] is clearly oriented toward Iran and meant to address Iran's new strategic approach which is geared toward dominance of the broader Gulf region."

"[The fact that Turkey and Pakistan border Iran means they could exercise a different kind of leverage [on Tehran]."

Umar Karim, Saudi foreign policy expert, University of Birmingham, England

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sign a trilateral joint defense agreement Friday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.  Murat Cetinmuhurdar / Anadolu via Getty Images

 

What an alliance. Saudi Arabia, the keeper of the holiest site in Islam; Mecca. Turkey, with its second-largest military within the membership of the North American Treaty Organization. And Pakistan, the sole Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has been confronted by Iran over its custodianship of Mecca. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, should it be attacked by a regional antagonist like Iran, would that bring the NATO alliance into conflict to protect one of its members? As a nuclear power, Pakistan is not exactly the most stable of countries, beset by its own version of the Taliban. 

 

What an alliance of insecure, tribal, sectarian, ancient-antipathies-alive-to-the-present we have here. A trifecta of genuine Islamist Sunni states prepared to confront the Iranian Shi'ite Axis of 'Resistance'. Mind, they do have a lot in common. Each of those Sunni nations view the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East as a grave offence against Islam's most sacred concept, that land once consecrated to Islam can never return to the aegis of another religion. Never mind that Judean ancestral heritage long predated the appearance of Islam by millennia.

 

As though to emphasize that the Sunni alliance is meant for the promotion of peace and stability in the region, only a few days earlier, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, stated that his country considers that "Israel is a threat to the entire Muslim world", calling for "a united military front" against it, just a day after Pakistan signed the joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. "In the context of Israel, all Muslim countries must unite. I have no doubt about this" said Asif.

 

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis attacked a Saudi Aramco refinery on Sunday, two days after Saudi Arabia forged a defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan. The alliance pledges mutual defense, which means an armed attack on any one member counts as an attack on all. But after Sunday’s attack, it was not immediately clear whether Turkey or Pakistan would respond.  Democracy Now

 

Not to be outdone by Pakistan, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan always has an opinion about Israel, with his opinions anything but friendly in the least, despite his sanctimonious statements in support of peace and stability in the region. Obviously peace and stability does not include Israel's presence. The champion of Hamas who celebrates the terrorist group's role in 'resistance', claims that Turkey feels threatened by Israel's attacks on Syria and Lebanon. In the former event, protecting the Syrian Druze community against deadly aggression, and in the latter, fighting back against Hezbollah terrorists sending rockets into Israeli communities in the Golan.

 

But for Erdogan it is Israel that is at fault for "aggression" that poses a threat to the world, and must be stopped. "If the Israeli thuggery is not stopped, the consequences will be borne by the entire region and all of humanity", Erdogan thundered in Turkey's parliament. "Israel must be stopped; this is the duty of humanity and the humanitarian front. History must not be allowed to repeat itself", he righteously spouted.

 

And as though modelled on NATO, the foreign ministry of Pakistan explained the pact would recognize that an attack on any member would be regarded as an attack on all; a rule that was "intended to strengthen collective deterrence". One, however, "not aimed at any particular country". 

 

This image taken from video broadcast by Al-Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled news channel, shows an explosion at the Sanaa International Airport compound during what the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said were several Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, July 13, 2026. (Al-Masirah TV via AP)

 

Saudi Arabia is being attacked anew by the Houthis in Yemen. That terrorist group is yet another Iranian proxy, doing the work for the Islamic Republic, the head of the snake that calls itself the Axis of Resistance. Yet that attack has gone unaddressed by this new coalition. Saudi Arabia has responded to the Houthi attacks by counterattacking them, and not the source of their orders, which is Iran. Iran is the sole source responsible for the agitation, fear and absolute instability wracking the region.

 

Yet the regional powers that have been targeted by the Islamic Republican Guard Corps that really run the country now, while seeking to protect themselves and their geographic installations from the destructive Iranian missiles and drones sent their way, fail repeatedly to go on the offensive and counter-attack, putting an end to decades of insecurity wrought by Shi'ite Iran in its deliberate goal to entirely destabilize the region and ensconce itself as the Persian uber-nation in control of the Arab Sunni Middle East.  

"Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are not trying to replace the United States. They are building the capacity to protect their interests when Washington cannot or will not do so."

"[Riyadh, in particular], wants several layers of security rather than one American umbrella [following the shock of the Iran war]."

Andreas Krieg, King's College London 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accompanied by their ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, pose after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

"[Iranian officials pushed to include a clause in the interim agreement finalized earlier this week requiring Israel to leave] the security zone in Lebanon."

"The prime minister said to the U.S. President: 'We understand the concerns, but this is a critical issue for our national security and we won't pull out'."

Zev Elkin, security cabinet member, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ally 

June 18: Khamenei okays MOU in written statement, says talks with US do ‘not mean accepting its views’

 

The agreement reached between the United States and Iran had no input from Israel. This, despite that the aerial attacks launched on February 28 on the Islamic Republic was a joint enterprise shared by both Israel and the United States in a unified stance against the Iranian regime ever breaking the barrier toward achieving nuclear weaponry through its stealth uranium enrichment enterprise. That partnership broke down when Israel was excluded from negotiations carried on between Pakistan and Qatar as intermediaries between the U.S. and Iran, to achieve a ceasefire deal and end to the conflict.

 

And because Israel was not a member of the negotiations -- even though any such arrangement as was negotiated based on Iran's 'word of honour' that it had no intention of achieving nuclear arms, even while it threatened to destroy Israel, and its terrorist militias, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Yemeni Houthis were all delegated by Iran to take part in a pincer-movement of destroying Israel -- there was no expectation incumbent upon Israel to heed any of the conditions it felt to be inimical to its own survival.

 

President Trump made no secret of his disapproval of Israel's ongoing incursion into southern Lebanon, the stronghold of the Hezbollah-Lebanese terrorist group whose rockets continued to rain down on Israel at the behest of Iran whose proxies tend to respond to commands from the Shiite Islamist fundamentalist state that have been formed, trained and armed by the al Quds arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the power behind the Ayatollahs' throne of command.

 

Trump insists Iran deal will open Strait of Hormuz 'toll-free' as he meets world leaders  BBC News

 

That being so, Israel did not appear to hesitate when rejecting the U.S. request to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, not as long as Hezbollah controlled Lebanon, despite the complications that ensued between the 'partnership' of Israel/U.S. defense coalition. The U.S./Iran agreed-upon interim deal stipulates hostilities must ease on all fronts, including -- at Iran's insistence -- in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting a parallel war ever since Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the joint attack on Iran. 

 

President Trump's dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Netanyahu's ongoing commitment in the face of Israeli security challenged by Iran's proxies and Iran itself, to continue its defensive offences has been publicly stated much to Israel's chagrin; re-stated more emphatically by Vice-President JD Vance in fairly offensive terms verging as close to rabid antisemitism as conceivable, helping to shake Israeli confidence in steadfast American support for Israel's survival.

 

On the other hand, a senior U.S. official stated that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon did not represent a condition of the deal; that Israel, in the opinion of the U.S. administration has the right to respond to any attacks by Hezbollah. Scathing condemnation from JD Vance, aside, which assurances is Israel to pin its decision-making upon? Grin and bear Mr. Trump's truculent insults, and turn aside from his vice's commentary, or put stock in what other Trump officials interpret...?

 

Israel has committed to destroying Hezbollah's capacity to continue lobbing rockets and drones into Israeli territory. So it continues to forge deeper into southern Lebanon, to oust Hezbollah from its perch there. In discussions with the Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Israel has assured him that any territory it clears of Hezbollah's threatening presence, while degrading its weaponry stockpiles and eliminating its leaders, will be turned over to the Lebanese National Army, in 'pilot' zones.

 

Lebanon's President Aoun has accused Tehran of using Lebanon as a bargaining chip. The Hezbollah drone incursions led Israel to bomb Beirut on June 14, enraging President Trump. As insurance, Israel now focuses on new means whereby it can neutralize the threat the drones pose, hoping to be able to sidetrack responses that would once again raise tensions with Washington. According to PM Netanyahu, Hezbollah's pre-war arsenal of 150,000 rockets have been reduced to 12,000; still capable of more than ample damage.  

 

 

 Smoke rises from Israeli bombardment near the village of Kfar Tibnit in southern Lebanon on June 14, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

"We need urgent action by our government to protect all Canadians now. Designate Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization now."

"[The Muslim Brotherhood is a] real and immediate threat [to Canada's democracy]."

"Canada will undoubtedly fall [if the government does not act against] Canadian Islamist organizations connected to the Muslim Brotherhood."

Amir Epstein, Tafsik executive director

 

"Chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood purport to be legitimate civic organizations while, behind the scenes, they explicitly and enthusiastically support terrorist groups like Hamas."

U.S. Treasury Department  

The White House

"The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond.  Relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests. "

"For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel."

"A senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas.  Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners."

The White House  

B'nai Brith and other Jewish groups have called on the government of Canada for years, to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a  terrorist organization. Those calls have increased since the terrorist attack in southern Israel of October 7, 2023, when six thousand Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLFP and Fatah streamed across the border from Gaza in an orgy of sadistic mass rape, torture and slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, along with the  hostage-taking of 250 children, women, the elderly civilians, soldiers and foreign farm workers.  

"Unlike Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved and learned the hard way that the use of violence will be met with superior violence by state actors. The clever thing to do, it now turns out, was to be patient and invest in a bottom-up movement rather than a commando structure that risked being wiped out by stronger forces."

" Besides, the gradualist approach is far more likely to win the prize of state power. All that Khomeini did before he came to power in Iran was to preach the merits of a society based on Islamic law. He did not engage in terrorism. Yet he and his followers took over Iran – a feat far greater than bin Laden ever achieved. In Iran the violence came later."

Ayyan Hirsi Ali, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, Washington 

Policy Alert: New Report Sheds Light on Muslim Brotherhood Terror Ties  Foundation for Defense of Democracies

 

More latterly, members of the Jewish advocacy group Tafsik called on Canada's Liberal government to finally follow the lead of the United States in designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. While the MB does not itself act as a terrorist group, it is the founding enterprise that has launched countless terrorist groups whose violence on display with the hard power of jihad complements the MB's jihadist soft power. Hamas itself is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

By stealth and presenting as a reasonable alternative to democracy's secular rule, the Muslim Brotherhood portrays Islam as a gentle, peace-loving religion, omitting its instructions to the faithful to dedicate themselves to jihad, Islam's deep drive to convert the world to the worship of Islam through a type of proselytism unique to its founder, the Prophet Mohammad who launched countless wars of conquest, a heritage that encompassed the Middle East, stretched into North Africa, India, Spain, France and the Balkans.

 

Originating in the 1920s in Egypt, the century-old movement employs gentle 'suasion, establishing mosques, hospitals and social centres in the non-Muslim-majority countries it enters to extend its goodwill and influence as far as its  tentacles can reach. And they reach the very heart of governments, social welfare, elite society and the news media through operative contacts made by its adherents with key sympathizers.  

 

The U.S. took the step last month of designating the Lebanese, Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, giving them the status of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. A report prepared last year by two French civil servants for the government of France issued a warning that the Muslim Brotherhood movement represented a "threat to national cohesion within the country". France is a country overrun with Muslims, and among them are ample numbers of groups hostile to French values, laws and culture. 

 

Groups linked with and originating from the Muslim Brotherhood, recognized as terrorist organizations, have been listed as such in Canada, including Hamas which, according to the listing identifies Hamas as having "emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987". According to Middle East researcher Thomas Juneau, the Muslim Brotherhood is a complex movement with individual chapters in multiple countries worldwide. Its very complexity in relation to its offshoots makes it difficult to list the MB. 

"[Some of those offshoots are] undeniably [terrorist organizations, but others are not]." 

"Even individual chapters are often more loose movements than unified groups."

"Some Muslim Brotherhood groups are clearly not violent, they are clearly not terrorists."

"They adhere to a fairly conservative and pious version of political Islam, but they are not terrorists."

Prof.Thomas Juneau, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa  

Imam Mohammad Tawhidi/Imam of Peace, while acknowledging the complexity of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity, nevertheless pressed Canada to make the move to identify it formally as a terrorist group as a reflection of its stealth influence, its undeniable links to violent groups that reflect its totalitarian quest for dominance using the hard power of jihadist terror, while behind the scenes as an innocent, well-meaning interlocutor for Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood does its part on the 'diplomatic' front. 

 

 

"Just because they are difficult to put a finger on, and it's somewhat technically challenging to designate the entire organization ... it does not mean that we do nothing about it at all."

"Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood will be designated. The question is, when will the courageous people, the lawmakers, take this stand?"

Mohammad Tawhidi, Imam of Peace 

"The things they said were plausible and they were consistent with more than 15 years of engagement with China, Russia and Iran. [But] not everything that they claimed by showing a satellite image was necessarily proven by that image... It's not nothing, but I don't regard it as a significant 'Ah-hah!"

"Venezuela now for literally more than two decades has been one of the biggest strategic challenges to the U.S. To me the drugs the U.S. is currently going after are only the tip of the iceberg of a broader, longtime, multi-dimensional threat."

Dr. Even Ellis, research professor, U.S. Army War College 

 

"There were several times when I was confounded by what he [Lee Wheelbarger, former U.S. army technology developer] presented to me, and then it  blew my mind when I validated it was accurate: 'Holy crap, OK, cool'."

"One thing I've learned is he's not going to put his word on the line unless he feels he can back it up. He will substantiate everything he has."

Michael Torres, retired U.S. air force colonel

Satellite show images of Trump's strike on Venezuelan neighbourhoods, The Independent 

 

According to Dr. Ellis of the Army War College, military ties that Venezuela has with Russia, China and Iran are of long standing. Venezuela purchased $12 billion in defence materiel from Russia starting in 2006 that was inclusive of a fleet of Sukhoi-30 fighter jets, helicopters, numerous S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and armed vehicles. A Russian fleet of war-vessels visited both Cuba and Venezuela last year. At least 27 of its K-8 fighters have been supplied to Venezuela by China, along with radars and associated equipment, while the Republic of Iran sourced Venezuela with a number of fast-attack boats, trained Venezuelan special forces members and collaborated on the production of drones. 

 

Intelligence experts are mulling over a report arguing that satellite images reveal a launch site in Venezuela that has the potential to aim ballistic missiles at Washington, D.C., produced by a group of amateur intelligence analysts. The report was released just prior to the dead-of-night surprise American military raid that captured Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, taking them back to the United States to stand trial in New York for drugs and weapons charges deemed to be criminal offences in the United States, but not necessarily in Venezuela.

 

Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are seen in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by heavily armed Federal agents as they make their way into an armored car en route to a Federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan. 5, 2026, in New York City. Photo by XNY/Star Max /GC Images

 

According to the group's report, it was in fact, not drugs but military developments in Venezuela alongside Russian, Chinese and Iranian troops stationed nearby that persuaded the Trump administration to make their strike, despite that the U.S. military dismissed that contention as "speculative". "I don't think it [scooping up the Venezuelan president and his wife] has a damn thing to do with the drug boats. I think the drug boats are completely irrelevant. That's an excuse", stated Lee Wheelbarger, who led the group investigation whose findings, including a video compilation of satellite picture were presented to a defence-oriented think tank meeting, the Mackenzie Institute, in Toronto.

 

A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command covering South America contended that the organization makes no comments on "speculative reporting or unverified premises. Our mission remains focused on supporting regional stability, combating illicit activities, and working with our partners to address shared security challenges". Yet according to a Russian lawmaker, Russia considered supplying its new Oreshnik ballistic missiles to Venezuela, requested by Nicolas Maduro along with other equipment from Russia, China and Iran.

 

It has been confirmed that Venezuela has close military ties with the three countries, as well as with Hezbollah out of Lebanon, the Iranian proxy militia. The images collected by Wheelbarger's group and the analyses produced led to conclusions explaining the sudden midnight action by the U.S. against Venezuela. Action culminated from the threatening appearance of American warships, including an aircraft carrier patrolling the region, even as the U.S. destroyed dozens of boats claiming they were carrying drugs to end up in the United States. Deadly incidents decried as extrajudicial executions by those purportedly involved in drug trafficking who would normally face arrest and trial.

 

Wheelbarger, for several years a senior technologist with the U.S. army -- was a contractor developing night-vision equipment, communications gear and an advanced technological protocol enabling battlefield medics to transmit images to military hospitals, and then receive instructions on a video display -- was lauded  with claims that "Wheelbarger's electronic creations have extended the eyes and ears of America's intelligence network", by the History Channel's Modern Marvels program, in 1999. 

 

According to the man himself, he engages in the collection of publicly available images from 28 satellites operated by Maxar Technologies, Planet Labs, Airbus Defence and Space, BlackSky, Capella Space,     ICEYE, SkyFi, European Space Imaging, Apollo Mapping, Satellite Imaging Corp., and L3 Harris Geospatial; also accessing images from ground cameras, along with another video method that remained unexplained, to glean information from global human sources. He possesses three-dimensional  renderings of military hardware that can be placed over satellite images to match shape and size aiding in identifying specific equipment. 

 

A clearing on a mountain near Caracas, Venezuela that a group of private intelligence analysts says shows three rows of missile "tubes" that could be the launch sites for intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Photo by Lee Wheelbarger

 

In his Toronto presentation video he identifies images close to Caracas including a Russian base complete with 94 T-72 and T-74 tanks. Impressively, he points to a mountain hollowed out in the creation of a subterranean military complex with openings cut into the hill surrounded by rebar suggesting creation of a massive concrete facade with "millions of cubic yards" of excavated dirt piled nearby. The mountainside features an area with three parallel, straight lines of holes which Wheelbarger and  his colleagues identify as tubes to fire intermediate-range ballistic missiles from, basing their theory on matching underground launch sites located in Iran.

 

Jeff Nyquist, writer and geopolitics blogger who collaborates with Wheelbarger, notes that intermediate-range missiles could reach north to the U.S. capital. The Cuban airfield images cigar-shaped objects at a runway's end, identified by the analysts as Kitchen missiles. Russian weapons travelling at almost five times the speed of sound that can destroy naval ships, usually fired from aircraft, generally the Tu-22 bomber, not seen in the images, but readily disassembled and smuggled into Cuba on larger cargo planes, according to Wheelbarger. 

 

A stun­ning U.S. raid to cap­ture Venezuela’s pres­id­ent came after a group of ama­teur intel­li­gence ana­lysts argued that satel­lite images reveal a Venezuelan launch site that could send bal­listic mis­siles as far north as Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  National Post

 

There are International Rules of War ... and There are International Rules of Israeli War

"Once a city of 270,000 at the southernmost area of the [Gaza] Strip, Rafah has been the focus of intense combat at various times since October 7, 2023."

"Today, the city lies in ruins. Driving on a newly paved road -- in a convoy of military vehicles with heavy protection -- we passed through piles of twisted rebar, demolished buildings and rubble."

"The intact shell of one building stood, in stark contrast to the desolation."

"After about 15 minutes we arrived at our destination -- a massive humanitarian aid complex that was near completion. The Israel Defense Forces' international spokesman, Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani explained that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S.-based not-for profit, will operate the centre which will have the capacity to provide millions of meals daily to displaced civilians."

Vivian Bercovici, Israeli journalist 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to IDF troops in Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, July 18, 2024. (Avi Ohayon/GPO

 

The location of which she writes is not far from the Egyptian border. Egypt, it should be noted, has recently accused Israel of committing 'genocide'. Egypt, it should also be noted, has steadfastly refused to open its border with Gaza to permit Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Gaza to enter the Sinai. Should that be interpreted as Egypt placing itself deliberately in a position of complicity in genocide? After all, Egypt, until it marched on Israel in 1967, occupied Gaza, and many Gazans of today trace their ancestry to Egypt.

 

Israel is now, once again, fighting for its existence. This time, not against the massed armies of its neighbours, but the terrorist groups that some of its neighbours in the Middle East have supported. Could an existential situation be more complex than that of Israel, when it has finally been able to sign peace treaties with some of its Arab neighbours, while the terrorist groups in Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza along with those in Iraq, all loyal to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and by extension Qatar, seek to demolish the Jewish state? 

 

In responding to the violently lethal threats of Iran's proxy militias and Iran itself, Israel risks alienating its Arab neighbours with whom it has signed those peace agreements. Egypt, a case in point, has assembled its military in large numbers along its border with Israel, as though it is preparing to launch a war against a neighbour it has long since pledged peace with. And nor is Israel's plight one restrained to the Middle East. Its Western allies in Europe and elsewhere now accuse it of disproportional force against its enemies. 

Palestinians carry humanitarian aid that they gathered after an aid drop, as they walk in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on August 18, 2025. (AFP)

 

These are death-cult Islamists whose charters declare their purpose is to destroy Israel and to kill Jews. In responding to the deadly attack of October 7, 2023, where thousands of terrorists crossed into southern Israel to rape and to maim, to plunder and to murder, Israel had little choice but to invade Gaza to hunt down Hamas's leaders and its operatives. In doing so, its northern border with Lebanon saw another terror group, Hezbollah, rain missiles down onto the Golan Heights at Israeli communities.

 

And before long, the Houthi terrorists in Yemen responded as well, attacking shipping in the Red Sea, asserting that any vessels with any connection to Israel would be targeted; in the process upsetting marine traffic internationally. Yet Israel's traditional allies, in the full knowledge that Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Iranian Republic use their own civilian populations as shields to protect the 'mujahadeen' from Israel's military responses to their attacks, focus on the plight of the civilian population in Gaza where a 'moral' military prewarns citizens of attacks and does its utmost to minimize civilian casualties.

 

Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty attends an Arab officials’ meeting in Riyadh on January 12, 2025. (Fayez Nureldine / AFP)

 

During an all-out conflict when a nation is forced to commit itself to a war against those who relentlessly and continually attack its citizens, the internationally acknowledged rules of war affirm that such a nation has the right to defend itself and its population and to counter-attack the offender out for its blood. By concealing themselves among the population for cover, and by using civilian infrastructure for command bases and by firing off missiles from launch sites deliberately placed in crowded civilian areas, Hamas has with intention, placed its civilian population in direct line of danger.

 

It uses the statistics it gathers on casualties among the civilian population, to convince the international community of Israel's intention to commit 'genocide', a charge that is not only a risible slander, but one that reality itself denies. What other country at war in the annals of international conflict through the ages has ever been expected to defend itself and obliterate an enemy sworn to its destruction, while also protecting a civilian population and to feed it, while its enemies are known to hijack humanitarian aid meant to avoid starvation among Gaza's civilians?

 

Hamas has in its possession, the remnants of 250 hostages it originally kidnapped from Israel and took to Gaza to torture and starve and even slaughter, because Jewish bodies, alive or dead are bargaining chips of great value to the Hamas terror machinery knowing full well that Israel attempts to move heaven and earth to rescue its people imprisoned in the underground hellscape of Gaza, including those held for ransom by Palestinian civilians in Gaza, who support the sadistic cruelty of their leaders in savaging Jewish lives.

 

 

"The Muwasi-adjacent site will be operated by GHF and offer ready access to food and other life essentials in a safe, controlled environment."

"Civilians will walk a 500-metre path, flat and secure, far from Hamas fighters or criminal gangs."

"Once inside the complex they will receive food aid to last several days and within minutes return to their temporary shelters in Muwasi."

"To avoid panics and crowd surges the centre would be operational 24/7 if necessary and supplies will be delivered by truck using the same road we took. At a minimum, basic life necessities will be available."

Vivian Bercovici, Israeli journalist 

Canada's Liberal Government, True to Form

"[It was] irresponsible and unacceptable [that Heritage Canada] conducted no research or background checks before they distributed this money]."

"If the government cannot conduct a simple background check on the institutions they distribute money to, they need to reconsider their use of grants and contributions."

"According to Heritage Canada’s own Departmental Reports, in 2020-21 they employed 194 full-time employees and spent $134,607,209 to promote diversity and inclusion. How is it possible with those resources that they did not see fit to evaluate an organization before deciding to grant it $133,000?"

Shadow Minister for Canadian Heritage, MP John Nater

 

"Regardless of the hate and propaganda he promotes, for years [Marouf] was able to sell himself to the government as a legitimate enterprise, regardless of how absolutely offensive his communications were. This is problematic."

"It is profoundly troubling that this individual was supported and enabled in his hate speech, and the government needs to overhaul whatever problem is in these programs."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, director of policy, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies 

Laith Marouf   Photo by Peter McCabe/The Gazette

The man at the centre of this controversy in 2022, Laith Marouf, is a flaming antisemite and all-'round racist. He was the top consultant for the Community Media Advocacy Center (CMAC); in fact its founder and only 'employee'. He was given to referring to Jews as 'bags of human feces' deserving of a 'bullet to the head'. He posted regularly on social media sites such as X, and the quality and quantity of those posts were readily available for viewing in a strictly cursory, casual search. Yet, even though a Liberal MP had flagged the content of these posts to then-Minister of Canadian Heritage Ahmed Hussen, they were dismissed. 

The Community Media Advocacy Center in the six years prior to and including the 2022 revelations, received contracts from the federal government valued at $500 million representing cost support, research and advocacy (for equity and diversity programs) from the Canadian federal broadcasting agency. When the scandal of the absurdity and outrage of the federal government having hired a racist consultant to operate training sessions in anti-racism for government employees led to the contract's withdrawal and attempts to recover the funding given the CMAC, little was heard of this man and his agency again.

Now it has been revealed that he was recently arrested, then released by Lebanon's Military Intelligence Directorate, in an area adjacent to the border with Israel. The restricted area that this took place in was a border town in Lebanon, called Mais al-Jabal. Marouf had evidently failed to present the required media credentials. Held incommunicado under "extensive interrogation" at Lebanon's Defense Ministry's headquarters just outside Beirut, he was released on Tuesday, evidently without charges or conditions. 

 

This man, who was known to refer to Quebecers as 'frogs', Black people as slaves, and characterizing Israelis as 'loud-mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists' who would one day be forced to 'go back to where they came from' had been suspended from X for hateful commentary and advocating violence. He had regularly appeared as a pundit for Iran's Press TV and the Kremlin's Sputnik propaganda platform as a supporter of the Assad regime in Syria. He began his career, in violent 'anti-Zionist' protests at Concordia University decades earlier as the son of a Syrian diplomat in Montreal. 

 

After Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Marouf's Community Media Advocacy Centre collected some $517,480 in Broadcast Participation Fund grants. Once the uproar over his having been hired as an expert anti-racist, prepared to school federal civil servants in equity and diversity had subsided from the public eye and ear, Heritage Canada which had hired him, saw their officials undergoing workshops on identifying antisemitism, with instructions on identifying racists and antisemites among grant applicants.

 

Marouf had busied himself with pro-Hezbollah 'Free Palestine Television' in Beirut, insisting his FPTV is "unaffiliated with any political party or groups", while relying heavily on interviews with fellow 'anti-Zionists', leading to sympathetic coverage of the problems facing Hezbollah after it decided to join Hamas in its conflict with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, post-7 October 2023. Combat videos featuring Hamas, the Mujahideen Brigades and the Al-Qassam (IRGC) Brigades figured large in Marouf's FPTV series.

 

Mais al-Jabal, the border town where Marouf was picked up on Sunday, was a Hezbollah stronghold. The IDF last October destroyed lookout posts and weapons caches and tunnels in the town, mere metres from the Israeli border. On Marouf's arrival in Mais al-Jabal, he was detained at a checkpoint, and informed he lacked authorization to be in the area. Taken to a detention centre, his driver, Hadi Hoteit, a FPTV producer and correspondent for Tehran's Press TV, was released. 

 

View overlooking the Hula Valley and the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.  Alexey Protasov/stock.adobe.com

 

About 20 kilometres from Israel's northernmost city Kiryat Shmona, Mais al-Jabal is in a strategic location, one that Hezbollah used to rain rockets down over the Golan Heights to Jewish communities below. About 22,000 Israelis lived in Kiryat Shmonia before Hezbollah joined Hamas's war on Israel in October 2023. At least fifty percent of the city's buildings had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets, its population evacuated to temporary safety in central Israel. 

 

Israeli reserve soldiers take part in a military drill in the Golan Heights, northern Israel, May 8, 2024

(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

 

"[FPTV launched] with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood — the name Hamas and other Palestinian groups have given to the Oct. 7 massacre. The online station is based out of Lebanon, staffed primarily by students, professors and community members."

"FPTV’s goal is to support the resistance from a media standpoint and to incite free peoples to move and fight Zionism and imperialism wherever they exist."

"Knowing that there is a huge gap left in news programming in English that is supportive of resistance and the right to liberation … we decided to bring together our communities here to start a project, a community television station."

FPTV Website 

 

"The Middle East Forum, an American conservative think tank, published a report that FPTV had links to the Lebanon-based group Al-Tajammu. According to Michael Barak, a researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Reichmann University, Al-Tajammu is “an international pro-Iranian platform to leverage the resistance axis against the U.S., Israel and their allies”."

"Marouf described the attacks on Al-Tajammu as “frivolous” and accused the Middle East Forum of being a “racist organization”."

National Post 

 

Restoring Syria, Stabilizing the Middle East

"[Syria is at a] turning point [as is the rest of the Middle East]."

"If we can now all come together to support the Syrian people and the Syrian government in actually taking charge, and building a prosperous stable secure Syria, that will impact all of the region."

Prince Faisal bin Farhan, foreign minister of Saudi Arabia 

 

"[Gulf countries see an opportunity to] reshape the regional order, [as Syrians devote  themselves to rebuilding lives for themselves out of the rubble of 14 years of civil war]."

"[We still have Yemen that's in trouble -- Sudan, Libya -- but for one time in many years, one story is not one of blood and war and destruction and that's where we want to go."

"A healthy region means a healthy Gulf."

Bader Al-Saif assistant professor of history, Kuwait University 

Ahmed al-Shara and his delegation welcomed in the UAE  Stimson

 

While now-ousted Alawite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was still barrel-bombing and chemical weapons-spraying majority Sunni Syrians, the Arab League which had banished him from their midst, did a U-turn and welcomed him back to be seated amongst them as a member in good standing. This, while Assad continued his loyalty to the Islamic Republic of Iran which sponsored Syria's persecution of its defiant majority Sunni population, when Russia had entered the civil war to aerially bombard Sunni strongholds in Syria.

 

The sectarian violence that internally displaced millions of Syrians, with millions more becoming refugees reflected traditional violent antipathy between the two major branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia. While Iran established its two-pronged 'axis of resistance' by cultivating, training and arming proxy militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza for its long-range aspiration of Shi'ite conquest of the Middle East, its plans also included the destruction of the sole non-Muslim state in the region, the Jewish state of Israel.

 

When Hamas took agency to invade southern Israel with thousands of its terrorist operatives to launch a massive bloodbath among Israeli farming communities near the Gaza border, deliberately and with detailed planning to impose a horrendous savagery of mass rape, mutilation, and widespread carnage that saw entire families burned to death in their  homes -- children, the elderly, women and foreign farm workers violently abducted to serve as hostages, an unprepared Israel while mourning its losses responded by invading Gaza to root out and destroy the Palestinian terror groups to completely neutralize their functionality.

 

Iran's related terror proxies attacked Israel in defence of Hamas; Hezbollah on the northern border, and the Houthis from Yemen. Shia militias in Iraq, and Assad's Syrian forces as well as the Islamic Republican Guard Corps al Quds division driving Iran to send missiles into Israel posed a pincer threat to the Jewish state. The Israeli military fought them all, and decimated both Hezbollah and Hamas, targeting their leaders, their command posts and their weapons caches, leaving them utterly diminished as organized fighting forces. 

 

The Israeli aerial bombardment of Iran neutralized many of the terror state's primary political, scientific and military figures, targeted military bases destroying missile production sites, and bombing the country's nuclear sites and facilities with the intention of destroying its capacity to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade state. Israel, in the course of several years militarily responding to the Hamas imposition of conflict was able to dismantle and neutralize the rabid threat of Islamist terrorism cultivated by Iran.

 

An opportunity that was grasped by a coalition of Syrian 'rebels' comprised of Syrian Islamist groups that were themselves terrorists, events leading to Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia for haven, and a former terrorist linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL, Ahmed al Sharaa, ensconced as Syria's new president, seeking to present as a moderate, a reformer, to take Syria into a new direction and restore it as a fulcrum of the Middle East, taking its place among the other nations with full accreditation. 

"I am 'ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria to give them a fresh start'." 

"It gives them a chance for greatness. The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful." 

"I felt very strongly that this would give them a chance. It's not going to be easy anyway, so gives them a good strong chance. And, it was my honour to do so."

"We made a speech last night, and that was the thing that got the biggest applause from the room."

U.S. President Donald Trump at Gulf Cooperation Council

In this photo released by the Saudi Royal Palace, Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, left, shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump in Riyadh. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace/The Associated Press)

 

Saudi Arabia and Qatar paid off Syria's $15.5 million World Bank debt, a pittance for them, but enabling Syria to be once more eligible for grants to fund reconstruction. The Mediterranean port of Tartus in Syria once handed to Russia as a naval base, is now to be developed by D World owned by the gulf emirate of Dubai. Once an integral part of Tehran's 'crescent of influence' along with Iraq and Lebanon, Syria is now poised to return to the Sunni Islam majority world of the Middle East. 

 

The hostility between the Sunni states and Iran, fearing that the Islamic Republic's brand of Islam could penetrate their own minority Shia populations with its  revolutionary ideology zeal leading to mass instability is being put to rest. As is the fear that Iran could succeed in its conquest aspirations to become the premier influence in the region. Iran's interference in Saudi Arabia, bombing its oil fields, its missiles shot at Qatar to hit American bases there, signed its influence death-warrant.

 

And now that the Arab majority Sunni Muslim states recognize Israel's critical role in vanquishing the aspirations of the Persian Shi'ites, and greater cooperation leading to normalization between them with Israel through membership in the Abraham Accords has been accepted, their mission to restore relations within the Arab League and to establish opportunities for economic development and political stability has sprung into action.  

 

In this photo provided by the Saudi Ministry of Media, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, left, during his arrival at the royal palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (Saudi Ministry of Media via AP)

 

Israel's Relentless Drive to Destroy Hamas

"It is time for the countries of the world to take seriously our unwavering commitment to bring back all our hostages home and defeat the enemy."

"Nothing will stop us from fighting to free our hostages, who have been held in brutal Hamas captivity for 527 days."

"We will show no mercy against our enemies while our hostages languish in Hamas terror tunnels."

Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations

Israeli troops in southern Gaza. Pic: IDF handout

Extensive strikes have been conducted against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military on Monday, negating a ceasefire that had exacerbated the pain of Israel's hostage families in the terrorists' hollow gestures of complying with the rules of hostage return while mocking the process as a generous gesture on the part of the Palestinian terrorists. The 'ceasefire' that had given Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other such groups the opportunity to recruit, rearm and reaffirm their ironclad intention to continue planning and executing attacks on Israel for which the October 7, 2023 invasion and savagery remains their model.

 

In essence, the 'ceasefire' had ended itself when Israeli intelligence analyzed the intention of Hamas leaders to carry on with their death mission for Israel, leading to the inescapable conclusion that the only fitting response to the situation would be a return to Israel's original goal of wiping out the entirety of the Hamas organization; fighters, leaders, weapons stocks, organizational capability. The essentially vital target, the removal of the Hamas leadership.

 

To that end, it was confirmed by the Israel Defense Forces that "the Hamas prime minister and a senior government figure in the Gaza Strip", Essam al-Dalis was among a number of senior terrorists eliminated in the early stages of the campaign. As is usual for the IDF, a vital warning had been issued Tuesday urging residents of Gaza within specific areas to immediately evacuate, as the Israeli forces' operations intensified. 

Civilians were called  upon by IDF spokesperson Avichay Adrace, to relocate to designated shelters located in western Gaza City and Khan Yunis to avoid becoming casualties of the attacks. Citing local Gaza health officials, the Associated Press reported that over 400 Palestinians had been killed in the overnight airstrikes. No one can actually be assured of the veracity of any such claims made by either Hamas or any of its operating arms. Hamas, in any event, reporting on casualties makes no differentiation between civilians and its terrorist operatives.

 

Pic: IDF handout

"[An Israeli official] claimed that in recent days during the ceasefire Hamas has been preparing to carry out new attacks against Israel and has taken steps to rearm."

"The official said the IDF kept the operational plan top secret and within a relatively small circle in order to surprise Hamas."

Axios Report

 

"[The IDF is] attacking targets of the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip in order to achieve the objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased."

"Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office statement

The attack coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Somewhat similar to Egypt and Syria attacking Israel in 1973 on Yom Kippur, the Judaic holy Day of Atonement. There is an interpretation that this could signal a full resumption of the war, incited by Hamas when terrorists invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, thousands of terrorists primed to enact a scene straight out of Hell, complete with mass rape, mutilation, torching of family homes with the residents huddled for safety in their 'safe rooms', where the mostly civilian population of southern Israel's farming kibbutzim were targeted for annihilation.

 

Hamas terrorists stand in formation ahead of a hostage release in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Feb. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Hamas's plans included the hostage-taking of families, the elderly, infants, teens, women, foreign farm workers and Israeli soldiers. Even the dead were considered useful pawns as hostages, bundled off with the terrified living hostages to the extensive tunnel systems of Gaza, to be confined in dark, dank underground cells without natural light, breathing foetid air, and experiencing a lack of adequate food and water and medical supplies. The remaining two dozen hostages believed to still be alive, remain in terrorist hands.

 

"We are shocked, angry and terrified by the deliberate dismantling of the process to return our loved ones from the terrible captivity of Hamas", mourned the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. And one can only commiserate with their anguish, hoping against hope that their loved ones will somehow be returned to them. Hamas enjoys its sadistic cat-and-mouse games with vulnerable and helpless captives.

 

While the United States and Israel have been stepping up attacks across the region this week, the retaliatory campaign against Hamas is being carried out with a view to bringing Israel's goal of eradicating the terrorist group entirely, closer to accomplishment as an end-game goal. In concert with the U.S. launching strikes against Yemen's Houthis spurred on by Iran, Israel has targeted Iran's terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Syria.

 

Israeli soldiers patrol a street in northern Gaza on Wednesday. The Israeli military launched a new ground offensive in Gaza, a day after Israel 'broke a ceasefire' with a punishing series of airstrikes. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

"[U.S. President Donald Trump] has made it clear: Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America will see a price to pay."

"All hell will break loose."

"[All of] the terrorists in the Middle East [should take Trump] very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people ... and our friend and ally Israel."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt