"A lot of the private conversation is trying to push to stop this war with Canada."

"A lot of them privately are putting pressure on this ... and are going to the Commerce Department, Treasury, White House and saying, 'Look you're really hurting Americans here. Knock it off'." 

"It does not seem like Trump seems to care ... whether tariffs are popular or not or whether people are being harmed or not." 

"You don't get very far in American politics by telling people, 'I've got your vote in the bag, and I don't care about you."

"What I would like voters ... to pull out of all this at the end of the day is to understand that tariffs are taxes."

"They're not taxes on foreigners; they're taxes on  your own people, your own industries, your own businesses, and that this is not the solution." 

Richard Stern, vice-president, Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise, Advancing American Freedom

 

"Canada buys about ... 82 percent of everything North Dakota sells abroad."

"[And] 88 percent of everything Montana buys from abroad comes from Canada."

Kat Miller, policy analyst, Advancing American Freedom 

 

"Canada is not China. It is our neighbour, our friend, our closest ally, and our biggest trading partner."

"I have been strongly voting against the tariffs with Canada, but I've also been working behind the scenes."

Senator Susan Collins, Maine

“They’ll end up being the 51st state, because that’s the only way it works,” Trump told the crowd. “We don’t need them, but they need us.”  NTV

 

Along the Canada-U.S. border the states neighbouring Canada are deeply unhappy about their president's tariff war with Canada, according to a new analysis by Advancing American Freedom. Canada, it points out, plays a vital economic role even in deeply red Republican states like Montana and North Dakota, and not only in Maine with its lumber trade, and Michigan's heavily integrated automotive manufacturing.

 

According to the AAF analytics, 62 and 55 percent of Maine and Vermont's international goods trade is accounted for by Canada. As for North Dakota and Montana, states that President Trump carried by 36 and 20 percentage points respectively in 2024, trade with Canada accounted for 77 percent in both of those Republican states. Mineral fuels account for 80 percent of North Dakota's exports to Canada, exempt from Canadian countertariffs. 

 

The disruption in trade between signal American states and Canada has had a deleterious impact not only in Canada, but in the United States as well, and a rising tide of anger over their imposition is impinging on the prospects of the upcoming midterm elections. In deep-red states the impact of the tariffs has made for some pressure points for the White House to consider; whether party loyalty will carry through to election day or whether those Republicans speaking out against the tariffs will express their frustration at the ballot box. 

 

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said in a recent podcast appearance that American officials are 'closely watching' for election interference by Canadians. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

 

The Trump administration's representative in Canada, Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, as far from a diplomat as anyone can imagine, has issued a stark warning to Canada that the U.S. is 'watching closely' and Canada had better keep its 'nose out of' American politics. "We're monitoring it, we're evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it", warned Hoekstra darkly, accusing Canada of making trouble for the Trump administration.

 

Analysts have pointed out that this president works to bypass Congress; the tariffs have been imposed by presidential policy without Congressional involvement, leaving trade watchers skeptical that the disruptive disagreements between Republican senators and representatives uncomfortable with the tariff war and how it has impacted their states as well as voting patterns, will result in any notice by President Trump whose mercurial impulsiveness that fails to understand repercussions, no one can control. 

 

"In terms of trade policy, it's very executive-driven these days", points out trade policy analyst Alfred Carillo at the Cato Institute. "Even if Congress did [push back], it probably wouldn't have made a difference."  John Hopkins' Sands expressed his dismay with the apparent indifference to the electoral costs by President Trump who is immovable on his tariff file, indifferent to how his personal animosity to Canada may eventually play out.

 

The pure fact of the matter is that after several years of back-and-forth tariff threats that have proven to impact industry and consumers on both sides of the border, a majority of Americans are known, in a current atmosphere of a crisis of affordability to oppose the tariffs. At the same time it is believed by those who have a stake in this game of one-upshmanship, that Mr. Trump plans to continue his tariff agenda, whether or not it costs the GOP.

 

Voting outcomes on November 3 will demonstrate whether that opposition will ultimately transcribe to votes. 

Canadian steelmakers offset some U.S. tariff pain with domestic demand

Stelco's Hamilton operations steel production facility is pictured from across the Hamilton Harbour in Burlington, Ont., on Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn

 

"In a normal presidency, yes, because it means there's somebody who the president knows who can pick up the phone and have a conversation ... and say 'We really need to do this for my voters who are  your voters too."

"This president hasn't worked Capitol Hill that much ... [Trump] seems to write off the whole institution as irrelevant."

"His indifference to the fate of his party in Congress is ... pretty unusual."

Christopher Sands, director, Center for Canadian Studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington 

 

"I think it does matter. In fact, this has always been part of Canada's playbook, which is to lobby with state and local governments that are Republican that are trade dependent with Canada."

"Whether it's sufficient to ... nudge the president is another matter altogether."

"[It] doesn't necessarily mean that the president is gonna change his tune." 

Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director/senior fellow, Americas Program, CSIS, Washington 

"Canada intends to recognize the State of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025."

"This intention is predicated on the Palestinian Authority's commitment to much-needed reforms, including the commitments by Palestinian Authority President Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2025 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"I recognize the legitimate concerns regarding Israeli co-operation access to polling stations, and the integrity of the electoral process, particularly in Gaza."

These are serious challenges, but they must be addressed rather than used to justify another indefinite postponement of Palestinian democracy."

"I am therefore appealing to you to intervene personally and urgently with President Abbas, together with Canada's international partners, to ensure that the Palestinian Authority honours its commitment to hold elections."

Sameer Sinijlaw, head, New Path (Masar Jadid) political movement 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seen last month in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinian elections set for next month have been delayed by a year. (Mahmoud Illean/The Associated Press)

 

"[We] deeply regret Abbas' decision to postpone elections scheduled for November 28]."

"Credible elections are an important element of the commitment that President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority made to reform, including democratic renewal and accountable governance, and are in line with the July 2025 New York Declaration."

"Strengthening Palestinian governance is essential to continue building the institutional foundation of a viable two-state solution, which is the only path to lasting peace and security for both Israel and Palestine.

"[The undersigned will] continue to support efforts to deliver on these elections."

Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, France, U.K. 

 

"While the Canadian government pursues punitive measures and sanctions against Israel, it must demonstrate that the Palestinians will also be held accountable for failing to honour their commitments and undermining the prospects for peace."

"Yet the Canadian government offers no indication of what consequences the PA will face, while suggesting that Israel is somehow to blame." 

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs  

Israeli medics and volunteers treat the injured at the site of a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Israel. (credit: GETTY IMAGES)

 

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced a week earlier that the scheduled November 28 Palestinian elections, about two decades overdue, would be postponed to September 2027 as a result of "obstacles posed by Israeli measures" that would interfere with the "free, fair and inclusive elections", he was simply acting true to form. The last election, held in 2006, demonstrated the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians, enabling it to take majority rule of Gaza. Since then, Hamas has grown even more popular among Palestinians, and the Palestine Authority president more unpopular.

 

Western countries supporting Palestinian statehood urge a democratic election take place, one that does not include the terrorist Hamas group. But in trusting Palestinians to elect their politicians to reflect the values of a civilized society those same Western democratic countries reveal their ignorance of the Palestinian voting psyche. Immediately following the gruesome mass rapes, mutilations, slaughter and hostage-taking of 7 October 2023, the majority of Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank approved of the mass carnage that took place in southern Israel. Given the chance they would vote overwhelmingly for Hamas.

 

Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah-led administration's school curricula teach young Palestinians that the Jews living next door are their implacable enemies, prepared to liquidate them, not merely oppress them -- urge their children to dedicate their futures to the extermination of Israel, that in engaging in missions to murder Jews they guarantee themselves a place in Paradise. Those that do commit crimes against humanity in Israel are guaranteed a place of honour and a lavish salary from the PA's Martyr's Fund, popularly called its "pay for slay" fund. These are the neighbours that France, the U.K., Canada, Spain and Ireland feel Israel should accommodate itself with.

 

"Israeli measures" that so irritate the  Palestinian Authority include the pressing, ever-present need to remain militarily vigilant in the prevention of suicide attacks against Israelis. Before the separating wall between Israel and the territories and the several Intifadas, the murders perpetrated by Palestinian terrorism on Jewish Israelis kept mounting. That vigilance against further and future such attacks against Israeli civilians is interpreted by Mahmud Abbas as 'occupation'. By a nation unable to trust its neighbour, knowing that once its guard is relaxed, it becomes an invitation for mass slaughter.

 

When Samer Sinijlaw wrote to Canada's Mark Carney to appeal to him to 'do something' about the postponed election, he was writing to a leader of a country which has never been in the unenviable position of having its intelligence services, military and police on constant duty to ensure that any dire plots of mass murder are nipped before they become reality, and living with the knowledge that they cannot possibly stop all such plans and there will be those that succeed. From afar, leaders like PM Carney posit their simple solutions.

 

Protesters march during a pro-Palestine demonstration in London, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

 

To the perennially threatened these are not solutions, but risible black humour unworthy of world leaders whose neutrality in recognizing an established civil nation with values and laws like their own in a democratic union with its people that include not only Jews, but a significant number of Arabs, Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Kurds, B'hai and others with full citizenship rights. In choosing to abandon the human rights of this civilization by viewing those who continually threaten its existence by mass violence with equal consideration, these world leaders betray their own commitment to human rights, the rule of law and international civil and social mores to an underlying suspicion, if not enmity toward Jews and the Jewish state.

 

Continuing to support a Muslim fundamentalist aspiring state that rejects the presence of a different ethnic and social, cultural and religious group legitimately existing on its ancestral land hoping for peace with all its neighbours, and succeeding with a growing number, the Western leaders who decry Israel's reaction to mass slaughter of its citizens as 'disproportionate' and make use of language totally out of context with the reality of a forced invasion, betray both a lack of conscience and a subliminal distrust and dislike of the very qualities that the Palestinians reject and plot murder against. 

 

Their attitudes, statements and  deliberate isolation of Israel, their voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly, and their tolerance for the demeaning of a nation and its people is shocking yet predictable, as a reflection of the world's most ancient pathology. That very attitude is transmitted to their own general publics which sense the censure and adapt it as their own. That the West has been suffused in the past several decades with waves of immigrants, refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa leading to a surge of Muslims living in the West, bringing with them their own traditions of Jew-hate, compounds the issue of growing global antisemitism. 

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced Oct. 10, 2026, that elections will be postponed, again. (Screenshot State of Palestinian website)

 

"Postponing these elections would undermine precisely those Palestinians who are working to build a credible, peaceful political alternative."

"For the sake of our children, I ask Canada to stand firm. They deserve accountable leadership, a voice in their future, and a reason to believe that peaceful political change is possible."

Samer Sinijlaw, Palestinian New Path 

Forewarned Is Forearmed -- Or Is It?

"[Threats to such facilities mark a] major shift [in] Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets like military sites."

"[The suspected plot against the Royal Air Force Fairford base, on September 27 was] not unique. [There have] been other examples [of similar threats to installations] not just in the U.K. but around the world -- most particularly in Iran's own region." 

"[Iran has been forced to rely on] hiring criminals to do their bidding [in Britain and Europe]." 

"Given what we've seen in practise, [Iran has not demonstrated] anywhere near the level of capability [to launch a sophisticated attack on British military bases or other installations]."

"Since I started in this role in 2020, there has been another generational shift. We have again entered a new era of national security – requiring a new response."  

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum 

 

"[We will] keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we've avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations." 

"[People should] stay away from Zionist and American interests." 

Iran proxy group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia — or The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous (IMCR)

Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the U.K.'s Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)

 

In its yearly update to dangers facing the United Kingdom and its allies, MI-5's director-general laid out his agency's most pressing concerns among which was the plot uncovered a month earlier as an example, against a British airbase, as forming a scheme plotted by the Islamic Republic of Iran to mount unattributed attacks by in situ groups infiltrating the U.K. and acting as agents for Iran. The attacks have struck high-security targets such as military sites and intelligence facilities. 

 

"The intensity and scale and shape" of the threat emanating from Iran is "shifting at the moment". The linkage reflects fallout from the U.S.-Israel war on Iran seven months earlier, motivating Iran and its Republican Islamic Guard Corps to focus on threatening and attacking American allies. The annual address on security threats included Mr. McCallum's security assessment that Russia "remains aggressor No. 1" against Britain and its allies which links to European support for Ukraine during Russia's now-five-year 'special military operation'. 

 

In recognition of the prevalence of the threats and the nature of the attacks, MI-5 saw the necessity of forming a dedicated new intelligence group linked to the agency meant to focus on potential threats that may in time become a more dire threat not only to the region, but beyond. Advances in artificial intelligence that take into account the possibility of chemical or biological weapons manufacturing guided by AI, and their potential use as instruments of warfare. 

 

Police patrol the perimeter of RAF Fairford as a U.S. Air Force Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber lands Sept. 28.  Ben Birchall / Press Association via Getty

 

"[Iran has demonstrated that it is] keen on subcontracting its U.K. violence … using criminal proxies to try to intimidate oppositionists, Iranian media organizations, and Israeli sites."

"Sadly, much of this aggression has been aimed at British Jewish communities, with whom I want to express solidarity." 

The interrupted plot against the Fairford airbase is still under investigation by British counterterrorism police. Its occurrence saw the United States evacuate the dozen B-1 bombers it had stationed at the airbase. Recent weeks saw some seven suspects arrested, including five British citizens who were detained soon after midnight on September 27 and subsequently released on bail. The five were in three vans travelling toward the base perimeter, used by U.S. bombers in their strikes on Iran. A nearby farmer was alerted to their suspicious presence and informed police.

 

This was an apprehended incident marking a departure from more recent years' pattern where Iran has been linked to lower-level proxy attacks recruited online to engage in sabotage, arson or stabbings, many of which targeted Jewish communities. Over 50 arrests have been made in the past year in "Iran-linked operations", stated Mr. McCallum. These activities are known to have taken place as well in Canada where Iranian-linked criminals were hired to disrupt life and target Jewish institutions.   

"Many terrorists would dearly love to have some kind of capability with bio, chem or radiological weaponry."

"[If guardrails meant to safeguard the spread of AI fail to gain complete control, a risk presents that] AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen."

"[A new MI-5] threat centre [was created this year with an aim to focus on such dangers]."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

It seems clear enough that what cannot be predicted and what has become a publicly-aired dilemma over increasingly alarming news being released from among the Artificial Intelligence community that bots are striking out on their own -- deliberately taking steps to shield their activities from the notice of their human trainers to plot among themselves and act in swarms disrupting communications while managing to escape the guardrails meant to confine them -- is becoming an entirely new threat on its own. 

 

According to Mr. McCallum, the technology is "supercharging the cybersecurity contest between attackers and defenders". His concern and that of his agency is that AI could enable terrorist networks or state adversaries in the acquisition of  unconventional and extremely toxic and potent weapons that the world must now contemplate contending with. Much, much simpler to deal with challenges posed by state actors in their supercharged yet hard-to-pin-down efforts at world domination.

 

The world is faced with the trifecta of China's and Russia's ambitions on the world stage to prove themselves contenders for the position of superpowers, and the theist-motivated fundamentalism of Islamist conquest exemplified by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy terrorist groups to fundamentally alter the world's religious, cultural, social, judicial, academic and human rights normalcy from the contemporary struggling against the worldwide threat of infiltration and Muslim population density power of institutional alteration of Western democracy.  

"[Russian military and intelligence services] are once again escalating their attempts at hybrid warfare, [while being careful not to trigger NATO’s Article 5 threshold, in which other countries would be expected to defend their allies]."

"We see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding. The whole aim of hybrid tactics is to try to intimidate us."

"[Within the U.K.’s] multifaceted relationship with China [— Beijing is a major trading partner to London — MI5 has been focused on efforts by the Chinese government] to conduct espionage, coercion or democratic interference."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

Police officers at Leipzig Airport in Saxony, Germany, search for a drone Aug. 7. Sebastian Willnow / dpa via AP

 

"Palestine Action Canada targeted GeoSpectrum Technologies in Peterborough."

"[GeoSpectrum's site is] not just a design and testing facility for 'maritime surveillance and exploration' systems; it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons manufacturer."

"There is no company that profits more off of the genocide of Palestinians." 

Palestine Action Canada Instagram post 

A video provided by a group claiming to be Palestine Action Canada showing red paint being splattered on the entrance to GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. on Whittington Drive in Peterborough in the early morning hours of October 12, 2026. (kawarthaNOW screenshot)

An Ontario business in Peterborough, Ontario has been vandalized, leading the Peterborough Police Service to investigate the event as a hate crime. Not too big a stretch of the imagination, since an anti-Israel group that has been outlawed in the United Kingdom under their terrorism laws, has quite publicly claimed credit for splashing red paint on  the building exterior of GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. The company specializes on producing underwater acoustic systems, is headquartered in Nova Scotia, with a facility in Ontario.

Contacting the police, a concerned Peterborough resident informed them that there was "red paint and writing" on the building. On arrival at the site, police found damage on the building exterior, and further inspection revealed damage to a communication box on the GeoSpectrum property. The Peterborough Police Service brilliantly deduced that GeoSpectrum might have become a target as a result of its being a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence technology company. 

A video posted on Instagram by Palestine Action Canada was proud to take responsibility for the damage inflicted on the property they connect to Israel's military-production establishment. In the video a masked individual is shown cutting wires in a dark room, a flashlight illuminating the scene of the crime. Additional footage is that of a masked man standing beside the entrance of a building splashing red paint on its front. 

A video provided by a group claiming to be Palestine Action Canada showing a masked individual interfering with unidentified equipment in the early morning hours of October 12, 2026. Peterborough police said an outdoor communications box was damaged at GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. on Whittington Drive in Peterborough. (kawarthaNOW screenshot)

Blame is cast by the anti-Israel group on Canada for its purported role in support of the parent company of GeoSpectrum. "And our own settler-colonial state, so-called Canada, trades, buys and invests in Elbit. We will not stop until Palestine is free!" concludes the post. Or until they are brought to account, as a terrorist entity operating illegally in Canada. 

This is not the first and only time that Palestine Action Canada acted against a Canadian company it claims has connection to the Israeli defence industry. The group claimed responsibility for targeting a manufacturer in Concord, north of Toronto, when Dishon Limited was also vandalized. The activities of this  group have prompted calls on the federal government to recognize Palestine Action Canada as a terrorist entity and designate it as such under the Criminal Code.

The federal government was called on to designate the group for what it is, through a House of Commons e-petition that closed in September. The July event that involved Dishon Limited was presented in the petition as evidence of the campaign of direct action -- violent action -- against businesses in Canada, Palestine Action Canada operating as a terrorist group in Canada. 

"The appropriate authorities have been notified, and we are working with them as we assess the extent of the damage", a spokesperson for GeoSpectrum confirmed, in validating the occurrence of the vandalism, courtesy of the Palestine Action Canada group. Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith Canada urged the federal government in May to take action against the group following its release of a map of locations to "target", citing ties to Israel, within Canada.

Source: Facebook

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Palestine Action "has supported numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020". Sanctions were issued against the group in the United States. Canadian authorities are in no great hurry to sanction the group that has clearly committed violent criminal activities, threatening even greater such unlawful actions crying out for arrests, and judicial proceedings including both prison sentences and deportation when appropriate. 

 

"Energy security can't be taken for granted."

"The events of recent weeks are serious, our response must be equally serious."

"For Saudi Arabia, these circumstances have tested our infrastructure, our institutions, our people, and our resilience."

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi energy minister 

 

"[They -- Houthis -- will] face consequences [for their repeated attacks on the kingdom]."

"The Kingdom will not allow any threat to its security or to freedom of maritime navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait."

Saudi Arabian Cabinet 

 

"[The warning and the attack show] the Saudis’ aims of upping the ante and striking deep in the heart of Houthi-controlled territory while attempting to control the narrative by presenting themselves as more careful and humanitarian actors than the Houthis."

"It may be a warning -- or it may be a sign of things to come."

Adam Baron, fellow, Washington-based New America institute

Oil tanks seen at the Saudi Aramco headquarters during a media tour at Damam city. REUTERS/ Ali Jarekji/File Photo

 

Not entirely insensitive to the Israel Defense Forces' routine pre-warning of civilians in enclaves in the Gaza Strip where the Israeli military's strategy to respond to the 7 October 2023 by destroying Palestinian terrorists' military emplacements, their weapons depots, their broadcasting systems, their labyrinthine tunnels, their leaders and their operatives, starting with the Hamas governing group which infamously has always used the civilian population as shields, the Saudi military leading a coalition of forces Tuesday on Sanaa, pre-warned the population to flee for safety.

Following the Houthi weekend strikes on Riyadh's international airport on Saturday and follow-up strikes days later, which killed 18 people and wounded hundreds more, Saudi Arabia warned the Houthis of their intention to strike back. Before they did, civilians were urged to leave the site of the Yemeni Oil Company and its nearby storage areas. That they have finally struck, it is impossible to ignore that the Middle East crisis is expanding with this series of fresh escalations behind which can be discerned the malign influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

A man looking over the skyline of Sanaa, Yemen, on Tuesday.  Credit...Mohammed Huwais/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

That the airport strikes in Saudi Arabia have added to the energy export crisis now looming over the global community with the world's top oil exporter having been targeted, the coalition's counter-targeting of Yemen's Houthi-controlled oil sites is certain to jolt the world to attention. The Yemen civil war has brought the poorest country in the environs of the Middle East starkly divided between the legitimate government, forced to surrender their capital Sanaa to the Houthi rebellion, into a crisis situation. The government supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis by Iran spell the ultimate in tribal-sectarian hostilities.

 

In Saudi Arabia, operations remain suspended at the King Khalid International Airport on the outskirts of Riyadh. On Saturday, Muslim pilgrims wearing their typical religious attire were awaiting their flights in departure lounges when a sudden flash tore through the building and flaming debris rained down killing 13 outright. The Houthi drone and missile attacks had city residents sheltering for safety even as the Houthis threatened to continue targeting Saudi transit hubs as "a theatre of operations for our forces". This is the reality of a new, unequal form of conflict, where guerrilla forces of a poor nation can access killing drones to wage its war against a richer nation's conventional military's reaction.

 

Smoke over Sana’a during a reported Saudi-led coalition airstrike on the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital on 9 October 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Sunday evening also saw eastern Saudi Arabia's Dammam airport hit. A day later, the Saudi-led coalition revealed that it had "intercepted and destroyed" a Houthi ballistic missile headed for a major military base in the southern city of Khamis Mushalt. The Houthi foreign ministry, referring to Saudi Arabia as the "Kingdom of the Horn of Satan -- must realize that security, stability and sovereignty must belong to everyone; otherwise, no one will enjoy them." 

 

"I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal. For some reason [Zelenskyy] never does."

"[If I had been U.S. president in 2022], that war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence."

"[Zelenskyy has] lost 30 per cent of your country and you've had over a million people go between the two of them, over two million people killed. That's a war that should have never started. And I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president."

"I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia] to deliver millions of tonnes of diesel fuel over the next few months]."

"Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my greatest priority."

U.S. President Donald Trump 

 

"Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia." 

"[The attacks show Moscow understands] any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities."

"Russia's choice is war."

"[The diesel deal signalled to Moscow that] it is apparently permissible to continue attacking. And this needs to be corrected." 

"It plays into Russia’s hands — allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrive for a news conference on Oct. 4. Zelenskyy on Saturday criticized the new U.S.-Russia diesel deal. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)

 

"Propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong as he uses that money to bomb cities."

"The President’s policies towards Russia and Ukraine are failures. We need moral clarity not moral ambiguity."

Republican Congressman Don Bacon, Nebraska  

Mercurial isn't quite the description of President Trump's instant thought process as he sets about in his typically idiosyncratic way solving problems whose details he doesn't quite grasp, offering solutions to conflicts startling in their simplicity, entirely lacking common sense. With an ego as wide as the Pacific Ocean and a belief in his persuasive impulses as a reflection of his genius for getting at the heart of the matter and arriving at a brilliant point where he personally and his political cronies stand to gain financially, and placing him once again on the short list for next year's Nobel Peace Prize, he is unstoppable.

 

The world balances itself on tenterhooks over what this man straddling the most powerful nation on earth's foreign political decision-making, volatile enough to take a U-turn at any moment, the reliable old international world order now stumbles into a future of growing uncertainty. What is certain is this man's fascination with the kind of power wielded by tyrants, an admiration for strongmen whose casual disregard of human rights and international treaties are appealing to a man who himself shreds signed and sealed agreements with impunity. 

 

That Mr. Trump has difficulty distinguishing allies from enemies, treating the former as hostile to his world view and proclivities, and the former as collegial think-alikes, puzzles both allies and enemies. And while allies have been forced by new circumstances beyond their control that is the sole agency of one single man to form new coalitions under the grave reality that dependence on the United States is no longer an option for the free world, countries like Russia and China whose hostility to the United States, vying against it for great power status find themselves honoured guests by an amiably-inclined American president. 

 

Trump rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine with Russia diesel deal - The Latest

 

A president who prefers to view victims as guilty of allowing themselves to become targets of aggressive warmongering territorial imperialists. The failure to use the power of his position to intimidate the Ukrainian president into submitting to his aggressor's demands to allow the evisceration of his country's geographic assets infuriated Mr. Trump while confusing Mr. Zelenskyy with its unreasonableness, even as he steadfastly refused the absurd recriminations tied to his government's counteroffensive against their mortal enemy rather than submit to Mr. Putin's demands.

 

Then came the news of the U.S.-Russia agreement of immediate supplying diesel fuel to the United States and to relieve global markets of its diesel shortage. Mr. Trump's calculated political imperative is to reduce the U.S. public's low approval rating of their president on economic grounds at a time of an increased cost of living, further aggravated by the on-again, off-again war on Iran and its effect of depleting the world supply of energy through the Persian Gulf, aligned with a similar situation with Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine.

 

The manipulation of public opinion at a critical time in the United States, with the approach of November 3's congressional elections to determine which party will control Congress, uppermost in the president's mind. So his 'highly successful' agreement where Vladimir Putin has agreed to supply an initial over 300,000 tonnes of diesel to U.S. and global markets, convinced Mr. Trump that the 'good news' would be universally welcomed. News, with its implied, if not actual forced surrender of Ukraine to Russia's ongoing predatory plans that served to stun an already-Trump-cynical world audience.

 

Washington had just latterly enacted additional sanctions on Russian energy producers, yet this latest scheme to isolate Ukraine and feed it bit by bit to the rapacious territorial appetite of Vladimir Putin to salve his own political future with a voting public irritated beyond end by the volatility and insensibility of their president as a prudent move, is destined for complete failure, adding another nail in the coffin of this president's reputation and historical legacy. 

Police officers standing next to the covered bodies of people killed by a Russian strike on a five-storey residential building in Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukraine national police/AFP/Getty Images

A further one million tonnes are to be made available to the U.S. under the newly-minted general licence the U.S. Treasury Department issued to allow the importation of Russian diesel dating to April of 2027. Greater amounts would follow "based on the condition of their diesel refineries", damaged by Ukrainian attacks, noted Mr. Trump. Excoriating Ukraine for those attacks and demanding that they cease forthwith in Ukraine's response to Russia's unending attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructure and energy depots to deprive the population of winter heating and cooking in a demoralization drive. 

"I said it to President Trump … to his team and to his people several times: we want peace, we are ready for [a] ceasefire, we are ready to begin from any kind of steps of de-escalation."

"And if the Russians want us not [to] attack their diesel, their refineries and etc., we are asking President Trump, give them signal not attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine."

"Don't attack us. Don't kill our children. We will stop attack[ing] your diesel. And I think it's [a] fair, fair deal."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"Yes, I've taken a loss tonight, but our movement is so much bigger than one election or one motion."

"I put all my energy into the race in Holborn and St Pancras, despite Labour choosing the polling date so close to our conference, because I know that ultimately electoral success is how we drive change. I know, though, that some feel let down by that decision – and I hear that."

"[I would have voted against the motion but I agree] with the substance [and have no intention of  resigning]."

"It has been difficult knowing how to approach this imperfect motion, because its substance chimes with my understanding of Zionism as the ideology that underpins the displacement and genocide of Palestinians."

"This is something I share with many other Jewish people, including Stephen Kapos, the Holocaust survivor who was one of those supporting the motion."

"At the same time, Zionism is not easily defined, and I know for many Jewish people it is bound up with identity, safety and belonging. In my view it’s not the job of a political party to tell people what to believe – and a narrow focus on definitions is neither desirable nor strategic."

"There are also elements of the motion that I don’t agree with, such as dictating the future shape of a state in Israel and Palestine. While many people understandably see the idea of a two-state solution as standing in the way of concrete action to end the unbearable status quo, I believe it is not up to the British government – let alone the Green party – to decide the future for Israelis and Palestinians."

"Our party democracy must now evolve to meet that – creating wider engagement for members, giving leaders more responsibility to set the party’s strategic direction, and making our processes as robust and accessible as possible."

"What I'm experiencing is the immense amount of people who are saying they've never been prouder to be a Green Party member."

Zack Polanski, leader British Green Party

 

"I would have hoped he would have been a very strong critic of this motion."

"I want him to show the leadership that was frankly missing on Sunday."

"[I think the jury is out about whether he will do that, but I very much hope he will."

Former British Green Party leader Caroline Lucas 

Did the Zionism row lose it for Zack Polanski? | Politics Weekly

 

The parliamentary by-election lost by the Green Party was most definitely not good news for either Zack Polanski or the party; its temporary rise in the esteem of a greater proportion of the British electorate that inspired hope in the party that its performance would continue to find favour with the voting public has been dashed in the reality of waning support that followed the euphoria felt of a growing popularity, under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

 

The party's recent conference which resulted in the adoption of a new Israel policy labelling Zionism as racist, calling for a single Palestinian state to engulf and destroy Israel has now to be dealt with to the satisfaction of its internal critics. His year-old leadership when the 43-year-old's easygoing manner helped it gain popularity, leading to its February by-election win as well as the May local elections when the party racked up hundreds of council seats had given the party new confidence.

 

Its membership soared to over 200,000 from its previous 68,000 when Greens support stood at 21 percent in opinion polls, almost equal in public opinion with the ruling Labour party. Polanski's own inattention to details and public perception stood him in ill stead when he reposted on social media a photograph of a T-shirt subtly encouraging the untimely death of Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage. As an outspoken critic on the Gaza war, accusing Israel of committing genocide, the motion passed at last month's conference did not stray too far from his personal sentiments.

 

At the conference where the party's membership, not its leader, is permitted to establish policy, 1,022 members (0.4% of total membership) responded favourably to a motion that declared Zionism as a form of racism and calling for a single Palestinian state. Five of the party's MPs opposed the motion that drew the European Green party's notice, which supports a two-state solution. Despite which the motion passed by 1,022 votes to 813. Prompting the Greens' Westminster leader Ellie Chowns to point out the risk of extremists and racists capturing the party, demonstrating a vital need to modernize policymaking.

That the leadership of the Green Party in Britain is a Jew, raised in a conventional Jewish household, finding it in himself to acquiesce to the ideological philosophy of racists interpreting the reestablishment of the State of Israel on its own ancestral geography as being a racist apartheid enterprise, prepared to support a motion that would destroy the state in favour of handing it over to the colonialist enterprise of Arabs from Syria, Jordan and Egypt who claim the land as its own, speaks volumes of his warped mind

 

Citing the opposition to a Jewish state by a former child Holocaust survivor, makes one feel a similarity strangely shadows the proceedings, between the Kapos who during the Holocaust handled the Zyklon B-asphyxiated Jewish victims to shovel them into the gaping maw of the incinerators, to prolong their own lives, as Nazi enablers of the Final Solution, and one whose vehement denial of Zionism whose name bears a striking resemblance.

 

Holocaust Survivor Stephen Kapos meets Francesca Albanese SOAS 11.11.24

 

As for the two-state solution; it had its time in history. For over a lifetime of events one generation after another, Israel waited for the Palestinian leaders to acknowledge the internationally legal, immovable presence and right-of-existence-sovereignty of the State of Israel -- without which no formal agreement on statehood for Palestinians side-by-side with Israel would be possible -- in vain. While repeatedly attesting to the international community that Palestinians wanted peace along with their own state, among themselves they spoke an entirely different language of 'resistance to occupation'.

 

From the Palestinian refusal in 1947 to the United Nations' offer of Partition, with Israel accepting its geographic portion, a narrow strip representing a slender proportion of original Judaic territory dating back millennia in ancient history of the Middle East, the leadership of the Palestinians consistently, turned down all succeeding offers that would have resulted in the state they demanded, holding out for the state they envisioned they were entitled to, 'from the river to the sea'. 

 

There is no honour among those who view Israel, Zionism and the existential-need of a Jewish homeland as 'racist' and irrelevant in the greater need to accommodate Arabs calling themselves Palestinian, when they could just as well rename themselves "Jordanians" in reflection of a country where they form the majority, yet ruled over by a Hashemite kingdom, which keeps a wary eye out to ensure there is no repeat of 'Black September'.  Ironically enough, it was Mandate Britain that administered the territory and which failed to respect history, heritage and honour; the Green Party has picked up where Mandate Britain left off.