For those unfamiliar with the intricate machinery of Israeli politics, the unanimous 110-0 vote to dissolve the Knesset on May 20 appears to be an earth-shattering event. On the surface, it looks as if the days of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition of far-right extremists are numbered. The reality, however, is far more complex.

Israel's current political implosion is fundamentally tied to its failure to escape the ghosts of October 7. When the country's military defenses collapsed on that day, Israel was transformed from a state with a formidable reputation as an invincible regional superpower into one trapped with a struggling army, structurally incapable of decisively winning a single war.

Since the launch of the devastating genocide in Gaza, neither the Israeli government nor the military establishment has been able to answer two fundamental questions:

One, how did the world's self-proclaimed "invincible army" collapse in a matter of hours, leaving the entire Southern Command — whose sole job was to keep Gazans besieged — in total shambles?

Two, why has that same heavily funded military machine failed to achieve a decisive victory despite the near-total destruction of the Strip and the unprecedented slaughter and wounding of much of its population?

As the United Kingdom and Ukraine push Germany to prepare for war against Russia, we are witnessing the collapse of a reunified Germany. The country is deeply divided into two distinct peoples. Its identity is now in question. The dissolution of the Federal Republic of Germany is now inevitable. Meanwhile, the peace agreement between Washington and Moscow will lead to the annexation of parts of Ukraine and Transnistria by Russia. And the European Union's abandonment of its values ​​will bring about its demise.

Even if we are unaware of it, the defeat of the Zelensky administration in Ukraine is likely to trigger the collapse of Moldova, Germany, and the European Union. This is the working hypothesis of Russia, China, and the United States. However, we are completely unprepared for this, and our political leaders and media have not, for the moment, even considered the possibility.

Bill Pulte, a close ally of the president with no national security experience, will take over as DNI.

US President Donald Trump has tapped housing finance chief Bill Pulte to serve as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in the wake of Tulsi Gabbard's resignation.

Trump announced Pulte's appointment in a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, describing Pulte as someone with "deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America."

As acting DNI, Pulte will coordinate the work of the US federal government's 18 intelligence agencies, and will be responsible for producing Trump's daily intelligence briefing.

Pulte, however, has no national security experience, having sat on the board of his family's residential construction firm before being appointed by Trump to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chair mortgage groups Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year.

Pulte will continue to work in these roles while serving as acting DNI, Trump stated.

The judge, whom Dhillon identified as U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, allegedly committed judicial misconduct when she attended an event that honored Fulton Count District Attorney Fani Willis.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon filed a memorandum Friday calling for a federal judge to recuse herself from an election integrity case in Georgia after allegedly attending an event that allegedly honored Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Dhillon, in the memorandum, says the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council, the primary governing and administrative body for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, operating out of Atlanta, found an unnamed judge "committed judicial misconduct by attending a "partisan and political event."

Piker took to social media to slam the UK for banning him and revoking his visa 'at the behest of Israel'

Pro-Palestine streamer and commentator Hassan Piker was banned from visiting the UK by the British Home Office, ahead of his planned meeting with former Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn.

Piker was also due to meet with Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

"The UK has revoked my visa as well. All at the behest of Israel. The west is betraying 'liberal values' for a genocidal fascist foreign government. Soon we will all become Israel," Piker said on X on 1 June.

Nations with collective memory do not collapse simply because their enemies misunderstand them.
One of the most revealing aspects of intelligence agencies is that they often tell you more about themselves than they intend to. Not through leaks, defections, or declassified documents, but through moments of self-congratulation. Moments when they believe they are demonstrating strength and sophistication, yet end up exposing the assumptions, fantasies, and misconceptions that drive their strategy.

That was my reaction when I came across an article in Israel Hayom about a secret Mossad branch dedicated to influence operations against Iran.

And I want to begin with a necessary qualification, because the article itself was published in Israel Hayom, a deeply pro-Israeli outlet. Therefore, everything inside it has to be read carefully, not as neutral journalism, but as a window into how the Israeli security establishment wants to present itself, its successes, its failures, and its ongoing war of aggression against Iran. But precisely because of that, the article matters. It reveals the mentality of the people planning this war. It reveals how Mossad thinks about Iranian society, how it understands psychological warfare, how it tries to manufacture political effects through media, scandals, fake accounts, influencers, and pressure campaigns, and perhaps most importantly, how deeply Israel still believes in the fantasy that Iran can be broken from within.

The central revelation in the article is that Mossad created an influence operations branch under David Barnea, who became Mossad director in 2021. Barnea led a broader reform that placed regime change in Iran much closer to the heart of Mossad's mission. According to the article, this branch was designed to understand public moods, media trends, social pressure points, and vulnerabilities inside Iran, and then weaponize them in ways that could weaken the Islamic Republic psychologically, politically, and socially. In other words, this was a complex political warfare disguised as classical intelligence work.

One of the cases used to illustrate this branch's activity was the operation against Rostam Ghasemi, a senior Iranian military and political figure who had served in the IRGC, fought in the Iran-Iraq War, later became influential in strengthening Iranian military capabilities, and remained close to important circles within the state. According to Israel Hayom, Mossad had obtained a photograph of Ghasemi in Malaysia years earlier, where he appeared with a woman who was not his wife and who was not wearing a hijab. The image was allegedly held for years and then leaked through Iran International during the 2022 protests, at a moment when the hijab issue was already politically explosive inside Iran. The objective, from Mossad's perspective, was to remove a seasoned figure from influence while simultaneously feeding the atmosphere of unrest.

The revelation that Israel established secret military bases inside Iraq during the recent war against Iran is far more than another episode in the region's long history of covert operations. It signals a deeper transformation in Middle Eastern geopolitics: the normalization of clandestine cross-border military infrastructures, the erosion of Iraqi sovereignty, and the increasingly blurred line between intelligence operations and open regional warfare.

French television stated that "the United States was, of course, aware" of the operation and that Israel had established two covert positions in the Iraqi desert to prepare for the war against Iran. One base was reportedly located near Najaf, south of Baghdad, and another farther north in Al Anbar Governorate, possibly near Qaem, close to the Syrian border. According to reports first published by The Wall Street Journal and later confirmed in part by the Associated Press, the installations housed Israeli special forces and functioned as logistical hubs for the Israeli Air Force before and during operations against Iran.

Media Theater, Proxy Conflict, and the Death of Continuity.

As the Russia-Ukraine conflict drags deeper into proxy-war reality, Western media institutions increasingly appear less interested in describing events than emotionally framing them. What emerges is not simply journalism, but narrative choreography shaped by elite institutional ecosystems, synchronized moral language, and a civilization trapped inside permanent escalation psychology.

The Proxy War Nobody Wants to Name

For years now, politicians and media institutions on all sides have carefully avoided one blunt word to describe what is happening on the steppes of Russia: war.

Instead, the public has been fed a carefully softened vocabulary of "conflict," "security architecture," "rules-based response," and "strategic escalation management." Yet after hundreds of billions spent, infrastructure sabotage, drone strikes deep inside sovereign territory, NATO intelligence involvement, sanctions warfare, industrial mobilization, and continual escalation rhetoric from all sides, pretending the carnage between Ukraine and Russia remains some isolated regional misunderstanding has become increasingly absurd.

Tehran has warned it could resume direct confrontation if Israel continues its campaign in Lebanon.

US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel's escalation in Lebanon, Axios reported on Monday, citing two American officials and a third source briefed on the call.

Trump allegedly accused Netanyahu of endangering US negotiations with Iran and demanded that Israel halt a planned strike on Beirut, in what Axios described as one of the worst calls between the two leaders since Trump returned to office.

"You're f***ing crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this," one official summarized Trump's remarks to Netanyahu. A second source briefed on the call said Trump was "pissed" and yelled at Netanyahu: "What the f*** are you doing?"

Donald Trump reportedly has a deal on the table to suspend fighting and begin negotiations to end the Iran war and the resulting global economic crisis. But Israel and Iran hawks see it as a disaster and are working to undermine it. Who will win out?

According to available reports, the purported agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran to entrench the current ceasefire was ready to be signed and presented to the public, and Trump was going to retire to his "situation room" to confer with his people and announce it.

If that seemed too good to be true, it turns out it was, at least for the moment.

Eventually, Trump is going to have to decide whether to accept an MOU that will be harshly attacked by Israel and Iran hawks or resume the fighting. Choosing the former is out of character for the beleaguered president, but resuming the fighting will bury him deeper in this quagmire and will intensify the global economic crisis.

What is in the Iran agreement, and what it is not

It's important to recognize that all this MOU would do is formalize and expand the existing ceasefire. In practice, ending the war can only happen if the negotiations stipulated in the MOU come to a successful conclusion.

There's no guarantee of that, from either side.