In August, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated the long known but rarely acknowledged fact: “During WW I, Turkey committed genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, killing roughly 1.5 million Armenians, and another 1.5 million Assyrians and Greeks,” (Israel HaYom, here).
Why now? Why not in earlier?
Continue readingOn June 26,2026 Yechiel Leiter and Nada Hamadeh Moawad, the Israeli and Lebanese Ambassadors to the United States, signed an agreement with the United States outlining a framework for security and joint cooperation between the countries. (US Dept of State, here, AP Here)
History was made.
Beneath the surface, this demonstrates the loss of power and influence that the Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced since October 7, 2023.
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Source: Google Maps
Jon Stewart, on the Daily Show, recently made a joke comparing Israel and with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and suggesting that Israel was worse. Stewart should know that while Israel started fighting back in 2024, Iran has been threatening Israel since 1979 and and attacking Israel via proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and the so-called “West Bank” since the early 1980’s.
So to offer reasonable and accurate comparisons, Iran is roughly the size of Alaska, and roughly 2.4 times the size of Texas. Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey.
Iran is a nation of 90 million people, 88 million of whom are Muslim, none of whom are free.
Israel is a nation roughly the size of New Jersey of 9 million people, including 2 million Arabs, all of whom are free. (Including the Druze of the Israeli Golan Heights and excluding the Arabs of Gaza or the area between Israel and Jordan, who are not citizens of Israel.
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Somaliland, in red, NW of Somalia, NE of Ethiopia, on the Gulf of Aden
As reported in the BBC, here, Israel has recognized Somaliland as an independent country. While appearing “radical,” and opposed by Turkey, Russia, and China, this is actually recognizing the facts on the ground. Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991.Since then Somaliland has governed itself as an independent state. Israel is the third state, after Ethiopia and Taiwan to recognize Somaliland. And UAE has informally recognized Somaliland. (OrfOnline, here).
Following recognition Ethiopia and Taiwan, recognition by Israel should encourage other nations to follow suit, increasing Somaliland’s diplomatic credentials and giving it greater access to international markets.
For more information: Business Standard, here.
As Alex Stein wrote, in Love of the Land, on Substack, here,
The strategic reasons for Israel’s recognition of Somaliland are clear. It will provide the country with a forward base for countering the Houthis in Yemen and Turkish expansion into Somalia, while deepening its own alliance with the United Arab Emirates.
Somaliland’s President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has promised that his country would join the Abraham Accords, in a step toward regional and global peace.
Relations between Israel and Somaliland obviously benefit both countries, Europe, and the Americas as Somaliland’s proximity to Yemen – south across the Gulf of Aden – provides cover and protection of ships from Houthis and Somali pirates as they sail into or out from the Red Sea.
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Benjamin Netanyahu (center), Nikos Christodoulides (left) and Kyriakos Mitsotakis (right) in Jerusalem on December 22, 2025. (Abir Sultan / Pool / AFP)
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu, flanked by Greece’s PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cyprus’ President Nikos Christodoulides said, “To those who fantasize they can reestablish their empires and their dominion over our lands, I say: Forget it. It’s not going to happen. Don’t even think about it.”
(Times of Israel, here).
They are talking to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
This is chutzah.
Erdogan is dreaming that he can recreate the Ottoman Empire.
This is hubris.
And when it’s chutzpah v hubris, bet on chutzpah.
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As noted on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, here, Kazakhstan joining the Abraham Accords is partly symbolic. Kazakhstan recognized Israel and has maintained diplomatic ties with it since gaining independence from Russia and the Soviet Union in 1991. But this begs the question
Why did the Muslim majority nation recognize and seek ties with Israel in 1991?
Look at the map. Kazakhstan is south of Russia, west of China, and while separated by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, north of Iran and Afghanistan.
Ah-ha. But by this logic a rational person would expect Azerbaijan, India, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to have ties with Israel. And they do.
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Writing in the NY Times, here, Tom Freidman says “This Israeli Government [Netanyahu’s] is not a good ally of the United States.” But is the Trump administration, is this United States, a reliable ally to Israel? or any country?
Netanyahu and the Israelis, and everyone on the planet, can see what Trump has done regarding Ukraine. They see him threatening Canada, a NATO ally, and Greenland, part of Denmark, another NATO ally. They hear what he is saying. They know the United States can not be trusted.
They see Trump accepting the gift of a 747 worth $400 Million from Qatar. They see that he can be bought.
They hear him saying “I don’t know” on “Meet the Press,” here, on national – on global – television, when asked if he has an obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and they are all gobsmacked, flabbergasted, and in the Kremlin, smiling.
Continue readingPresident Biden spoke eloquently in Normandy, remarks by President Biden on the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, Normandy, France, honoring those who fought to free the world of the scourge of Nazism.
However, I believe he should have added four (4) observations.
Yesterday, February 10, 2024 was four months since Hamas invaded Israel.
The Gaza Metro, according to CNN, 10/28/23. 500 km, 311 miles of tunnels. Where is the outrage that $Billions of Aid that was supposed to go to schools, clothing, homes, hospitals, food, etc. was diverted – stolen – and used for tunnels and weapons?
If you want to help the people of Gaza then help them get rid of Hamas. Of course, they need to want this help.
And, rescue the Israelis and others held hostage by Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and Iran).
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February 10, 2024 was four months since Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza, killing 1200 people, raping and brutalizing women, beheading babies, kidnapping 240 people. We know that Hamas tortured some, probably all of the hostages they freed. We know that they killed some of the hostages; we don’t know how many.
HAMAS IS ATTEMPTING GENOCIDE.
This picture, an Israeli Jew praying, holding a Torah scroll in his hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is believed to have been the trigger, the provocation, but not the cause.
“For Hamas, Israel’s mere existence is a provocation,” – Avi Shavit.
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Qatari Emir Hamad al-Thani with Ismail Haniya, Oct. 2012, Photo NY Times.
In October, 2012, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, as reported in the NY Times, here, “pledged $400 million to build two housing complexes, rehabilitate three main roads and create a prosthetic center, among other projects” in Gaza.
The $400 Million could have built 133 MW of offshore wind or 100 MW of PV Solar electricity generation capacity.
In “The World Will Not End and Other Predictions for 2012,” I developed a set of predictions for 2012, the accuracy of which were described by me in 2012 Revisited. Here are my predictions for 2013. As noted last year, I am extrapolating from patterns that I see – also known as reading tea leaves.
For an overview of the details see below.
The America that inspires people all over the world is the America of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Ben Afleck’s “Argo.” It is a place where people can rise from humble origins to run companies or become President. It is the country of Carnegie, Ford, and Edison, of Warren Buffet, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Steve Jobs, and Meg Whitman and the country of Lincoln, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. These men and women inspired and continue to inspire people here in the United States and also in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, including Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs and Persians. They inspire people who want freedom and opportunity, a better life for themselves and their children.
This is “American Exceptionalism.” It is not that Americans are better, but that America is better.
And Israel, Palestine, and the Arab Spring …
Iranian Pres. Achmadinejad at Natanz.
Focusing on “Operation Olympic Games,” the US efforts behind the Flame and Stuxnet cyber attacks, Mischa Glenny, in “A Weapon We Can’t Control,” an op-ed in the NY Times, 6/24/12, says the U.S. has “fired the starting gun in a new arms race … cyberweaponry.” However, Mr. Glenny ignores efforts by hackers in China and from the former Soviet Union.
Images from IHH showing "Peace Activists" with daggers and sliced Israelis, cropped for "effect" by Reuters
Question: What do you call a “Peace Activist” with a dagger?
Answer: A supporter of the Palestinians.
Popular Logistics joins Camera, YNet, Fox News, and the NY Post in documenting Reuter’s “Fauxtography”, or propaganda by doctoring photos.
To look at the Israeli blockade of Gaza and not ask:
To look at the Israeli blockade of Gaza and not ask these questions is to look with the mind’s eye closed.
A Joke: