THREAD: There have been a number of important developments over the weekend.
Three US soldiers were killed, and several dozen wounded, in a drone attack on a US military/intelligence base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan, the region where the borders of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq meet.
The Jordanian authorities continue to insist that the attack was in fact directed at the US base in Tanf in southeastern Syria rather than Tower 22, because it does not want to draw unnecessary attention to the highly unpopular US military presence on Jordanian territory.
The US deployment is regulated by the 2022 US-Jordan Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Partnership, which gives Washington virtually unlimited rights to use Jordanian territory for US military purposes, and the Jordanian treasury USD 1.45 billion per year for seven years.
The attack is significant for a number of reasons. Although there have been numerous attacks on US bases and forces in the Middle East since 7 October 2023, including in Iraq, Syria, in the Red Sea off Yemen, and according to unconfirmed reports Israel as well,
these are the first confirmed killings of US soldiers in the region since that date. (Two Navy SEALS died off Yemen’s coast recently, but it was reported as an accident). It is also the first confirmed attack on or from Jordanian territory since 7 October.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of groups aligned with the Axis of Resistance, itself a coalition of states and movements in the region opposed to US-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
According to the statement of responsibility the attack, apparently launched from Syrian rather than Iraqi territory, is intended to raise the cost of Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Strip and US support for Israel’s mass killings.
“If the US keeps supporting Israel, there will be escalations. All US interests in the region are legitimate targets and we don’t care about US threats to respond.” The expulsion of US forces from Iraq and Syria is an additional, unspoken objective.
In his own statement about the incident, US President Joe Biden blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq”.
White House spokesperson John Kirby will probably be trotted out to deny any connection whatsoever between developments in Jordan and Gaza, much as he has done in relation to attacks by Ansar Allah off Yemen’s coast, which even more explicitly reference the Gaza Strip.
Given US casualties, Washington is virtually certain to respond to this escalation with a significant escalation of its own. This in turn brings direct conflict between the US and Iran one big step closer, from plausible but unlikely to plausible and possible.
Powerful forces in both the US and Israel have been agitating for such a scenario since 7 October, and will now see a new opportunity to make this a reality.
The broader significance is that US forces are now dying in defense of Israel. Throughout this war Washington has had a clear choice: put an end to Israel’s genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, or engage in conflict with regional forces determined to do so themselves.
Given Israel’s extraordinary level of military and political dependence on the US, so visibly demonstrated these past several months, it would take only a brief phone call to achieve the former. But the Biden administration has consistently chosen for the latter.
In the words of @asadabukhalil : “The US does not want a cease-fire in Gaza and objects to the regional repercussions of its rejection of the ceasefire.”
@asadabukhalil That’s not how the US-Israeli relationship is supposed to work. Israel is the designated proxy, assigned to defend Western interests in the Middle East. A “stationary aircraft carrier”, in the words of former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig.
@asadabukhalil Instead, the US is functioning as Israel’s proxy, now fighting on multiple fronts, its soldiers dying to defend Israel and protect its ability to continue fighting in the Gaza Strip. This is because for more than 100 days, Israel’s longest war since 1948-1949,
@asadabukhalil it has proven incapable of defeating Hamas, a second-order guerilla movement that doesn’t possess a single aircraft, tank, warship, or anti-aircraft defense system. Its long-range missiles basically need to make a direct impact on an individual’s forehead to achieve a kill.
@asadabukhalil As previously argued, Israel’s military incompetence and mediocre performance will have long-lasting consequences for its strategic relationship with its Western sponsors.
@asadabukhalil To put it simply, t-shirts emblazoned with an Israeli fighter jet and the slogan “Don’t Worry America, Israeli is Behind You!” used to popular among visiting tourists. I suspect they can now be obtained at a steep discount.
@asadabukhalil Related to this, a rally was held in Jerusalem today to promote the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and renewal of Israeli settlements in that occupied territory. It was attended by no less than 12 of Israel’s 37 government ministers (almost a third),
@asadabukhalil including several leaders of parties represented in that state’s genocidal coalition. Two of Israel’s most senior leaders, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, addressed the raucous and adoring crowd of several thousand.
@asadabukhalil Ben-Gvir leads Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), a Kahanist party that is Israel’s equivalent of Germany’s Nazis. Bezalel Smotrich is the leader of Tkuma (Religious Zionist Party), also Israel’s equivalent of Germany’s Nazis.
@asadabukhalil One thing that distinguishes these parties (and a few others) from others in Israel is their insistence that Israel is sufficiently powerful to act unilaterally and do as it pleases, and sufficiently independent to give the world, including Israel’s sponsors in the US and Europe,
@asadabukhalil the middle finger. That’s why they convened this meeting within 48 hours of the International Court of Justice session indicating that Israel has plausibly been accused of genocide.
@asadabukhalil The above notwithstanding Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have the mannerisms of spoiled children more than seasoned gangsters. Insufferable kids who feel free to grab or break anything they want at the store because they know Mummy and Daddy are there to take care of things,
@asadabukhalil and clean up any resulting mess. In other words, they talk big but know they can only do so because Biden and Brussels have their back. And on this score they’re right.
@asadabukhalil Which brings me to UNRWA. Several of Israel’s sponsors, including the US and UK, have suspended their funding of the UN refugee agency for Palestine refugees in response to unproven allegations that several of its employees participated in the attacks on Israel on 7 October.
@asadabukhalil It’s a bit like cutting off aid to a foreign country because a dozen of its civil servants have been charged (but not yet tried) for participation in criminal activity.
@asadabukhalil There’s much going on here, including a long-term campaign to liquidate the Palestinian refugee question, in which UNRWA serves as a primary surrogate for US-Israeli hysteria. And a history of previous Israeli allegations against UNRWA subsequently exposed as fraudulent.
@asadabukhalil (For example, a 2014 drone video released by Israel of two UNRWA medics purportedly using an ambulance to transport Hamas missiles was later revealed to be two UNRWA medics transporting a stretcher into an ambulance.)
@asadabukhalil But when it comes to UNRWA, a rush to judgement is obligatory, the agency is guilty until proven innocent, and then still guilty.
@asadabukhalil The Israeli allegations were transparently released to divert from the ICJ ruling. The response of multiple Western governments should also be seen as a response to the ICJ.
@asadabukhalil In their rules-based international order, it is a violation of international law to apply international law to Israel or Western states.
@asadabukhalil South Africa dares to hold Israel accountable for genocide? Let’s see what it thinks when we deliberately intensify hunger and famine in the Gaza Strip.
@asadabukhalil I’ll conclude by citing the comment of @sarahleah1, former head of MENA at Human Rights Watch and currently Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN):
@asadabukhalil @sarahleah1 “It took Blinken about 3 seconds to suspend UNRWA aid based on mere allegations that 12 employees linked to Hamas attack,
@asadabukhalil @sarahleah1 but despite evidence that IDF has indiscriminately & deliberately massacred tens of thousands of Palestinians – plausibly a genocide ICJ said – zero suspension of military aid”. END
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THREAD: On 29 August 2025, Little Marco for a Big Israel announced that the United States will deny and where relevant revoke visas to any member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or Palestinian Authority (PA) seeking to participate in the “upcoming [session of the] United Nations General Assembly”. Only currently serving members of the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations in New York are exempted.
The US move constitutes the most brazen violation of Washington’s treaty obligations under the 1947 US UN Headquarters Agreement since the Reagan administration in December 1988 refused to provide PLO leader Yasir Arafat with a visa to address the General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York.
On that occasion, the US resorted to the extraordinary measure in a transparent effort to sabotage what had developed into yet another Palestinian peace offensive. The previous month, on 15 November 1988, at the height of the 1987-1993 popular uprising or intifada in the 1967 occupied territories, the PLO’s Palestine National Council (PNC) had proclaimed Palestinian statehood.
THREAD: I’ve watched the Adam Friedland (@AdamFriedland) interview with Israel groupie Ritchie Torres twice. It made for utterly compelling viewing.
@AdamFriedland Several aspects stood out for me.
Friedland participates in the discussion not only as an interviewer and an engaged human being but also, and explicitly so, as a Jew. A Jew who is deeply concerned about and visibly horrified by Israel and the Gaza Genocide, not only on account of the horrific suffering imposed on the Palestinian people, but also because of the consequences Israel’s policies are having for Jews everywhere and the future of Judaism.
THREAD: The Hasbara Symphony Orchestra has been playing overtime (tempo: goebbelissimo fortissimo) to legitimize what Israel has confirmed was the pre-meditated assassination of Al-Jazeera’s chief correspondent in Gaza City, Anas al-Sharif, on 10 August 2025.
The justifications being put forward by Israel, its apologists, and flunkies for al-Sharif’s murder fall into several categories:
1. Anas al-Sharif was not a journalist and was merely masquerading as one: Anyone who has been watching Al Jazeera in even cursory fashion since October 2023 will know enough to dismiss this claim as pure fabrication of the first order. On a typical day it would have been impossible to watch the Arabic-language broadcaster for even an hour without encountering a report by al-Sharif or an interview with him. He was probably the hardest working journalist in the Gaza Strip, and certainly in the north of the territory, diligently reporting day in and day out, seven days a week, without fail.
THREAD: The difference between Holocaust denial and Gaza Genocide denial is that Holocaust denial is either illegal or a criminal offence in many countries, and is for the most part the preserve of marginalized and isolated cooks and conspiracy theorists.
No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organization argues that the duty of impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany’s extermination of Europe’s Jews during the Second World War.
Gaza Genocide denial is by contrast a well-organized and orchestrated global campaign that is sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted – without any hindrance whatsoever – by the regime perpetrating the genocide.
THREAD: In a post yesterday I argued that AI assistants like Grok are unreliable for resolving questions which require judgement and interpretation, and can be useful only when the question posed to such assistants concerns matters of settled fact that have one, and only one, correct answer. I gave the example of “In what year did Napoleon invade Russia?” versus “Why did Napoleon invade Russia?” to illustrate my point.
That, at least, was my view until several people responded with examples in which Grok is unreliable even with respect to matters of settled fact, because it provided multiple, contradictory, and incompatible responses to what are essentially “yes or no” questions. So I stand corrected.
Returning to my initial point about AI assistants being unreliable for questions where interpretation is required, I experienced a relevant and telling example today.
THREAD (also available as a single text on my substack mouinrabbani.substack.com): Now that France and Britain, both members of the United Nations Security Council and G7, have indicated they are prepared to recognize the State of Palestine, the dam has burst. Today Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney indicated his government too intends to recognize Palestine during the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly in New York, and a growing number of Western states are adopting or preparing similar positions.
It is far from certain whether any of these governments will actually follow through on their statements of intent, and by attaching various conditions to their plans they have already provided themselves with an escape clause should they find it necessary to use it.
Given that a two-state settlement has been the official position of every one of these governments for several decades, and that a majority of states already recognized Palestine years if not decades ago, the question arises as to why these Western states have waited so long to recognize the state without which their proclaimed strategic objective is an impossibility.