Middle East Press On: Egypt, Syria's Mental Health Crisis, Islamic NATO, Zionism, US Gaza Master Plan, South Africa's Coal Exports to Israel, Minnesota, Palestine, Iran, New Age Islam's Selection, 27 January 2026
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
27 January 2026
Why did Egypt's January uprising fail, and what remains of it?
Humanitarian warnings amid Syria’s growing mental health crisis
“Islamic NATO” or imperial tool? Zionism, unity, and collaboration
US’ Gaza ‘Master Plan’ clashes with reality
South Africa’s Coal Exports to Israel: When Profit Trumps Principle
Minnesota, Palestine – Life Under Occupation
Why Israel’s Drive to Destroy Iran is Ultimately about Palestine
------
Why did Egypt's January uprising fail, and what remains of it?
Taqadum al-Khatib
26 January 2026
Fifteen years have passed since Egyptians last mounted an uprising against the military regime that continues to rule them.
That uprising was not an isolated event, but part of a long sequence of popular revolts, from the Urabi Revolt and the 1919 Revolution to the student protests of the early 1970s and the 1977 bread riots, culminating in January 2011.
What all these uprisings and revolutions share is that Egyptian society has continued to pose the same fundamental questions that erupted more than a century ago, without finding answers.
January 2011 was not a fleeting moment of protest. It was an earthquake that struck the depths of the deep state's institutions, producing fractures that have yet to heal. This helps explain the unprecedented level of repression exercised by the current Egyptian regime against its citizens, especially those who played an active role in January 2011 or left a clear mark on it.
For the military establishment in Egypt, January 2011 represented a danger that could strip it of its authority and potentially lead to civilian rule - something it fears, as it dominates the economy and now controls nearly everything in the Egyptian state.
At the time, no one in Egypt truly grasped this danger except the military institution and the presidency, which feared that the army might seize power. Meanwhile, the opposition was lost in its slogans and fantasies that "the army and the people are one hand".
During that period, I was responsible for the political communication file at the National Association for Change. Contacts with the presidency were continuous. His inner circle was making overtures, looking for a way out. The association's position, however, was a complete rejection of any dialogue with the regime until Mubarak stepped down.
Yet the most dangerous message we received at the time, from Omar Suleiman, Egypt's then-vice president and intelligence chief, was this: if there were no negotiations at the dialogue table to agree on a political solution, a military coup would occur. At that moment, the opposition did not see the military institution as a threat but as an ally.
When I speak of the opposition here, I mean the Egyptian opposition in all its different strands, from the far right to the far left, without distinction - except for those who, from the outset, opposed the equation of freedom and democracy and worked consistently to undermine it, or who called for the use of arms and violence as a tool for change.
What is meant here is explicit, clear violence - not the regime's practice of accusing everyone, even those who were once in its camp, of belonging to groups seeking to undermine the state and overthrow the system of rule. That accusation has become worn out and lacks any evidence.
In the end, January 2011 failed to achieve its goals because the opposition could not turn revolutionary momentum into a shared political project, with seven mistakes outlining how that leverage slipped away and enabled the military regime to reassert itself.
The missed moment
The Egyptian opposition misjudged the situation from the very first moment the revolutionary uprising erupted in January 2011.
The first of its grave mistakes occurred immediately after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, with the passage of a soft coup against power. This mistake lay in abandoning Tahrir Square without agreeing on future steps, and without recognising the value and effectiveness of the square itself.
Squandering that value was tantamount to firing the first bullet at the revolution. Had people remained in the square for just one week after Mubarak's fall, the entire scene would have been different. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces would not have been able to stand in the face of the millions who forced Mubarak to relinquish power.
I still recall, when I was responsible for political communication at the National Association for Change, how, during various meetings, the different political forces called for evacuating the square and launching the political process without agreeing on a future vision.
Foremost among them was the Muslim Brotherhood, followed by others from traditional parties historically allied with the deep state - though my point here is not to single out any one party.
The key is that this position reflected the opportunism that characterised the political opposition, regardless of orientation, and its rush to inherit Mubarak's regime and divide the spoils among themselves.
This was one of the loopholes exploited by those managing power at the time, who deepened political divisions and ignited a political war among all parties. That division continues to this day, and the regime has become adept at exploiting it to prolong its survival.
No shared vision
The second grave mistake was failing to formulate a project that everyone could feel invested in, one that offered a vision for the post-Mubarak era. The opposition, represented by the National Association for Change, possessed a project known as the Seven Demands - the very demands raised by the January 2011 uprising when it began.
Yet after Mubarak stepped down, these forces found themselves in an intellectual vacuum, lacking a vision for the new phase.
This led to the third mistake: the vacuum regarding goals and a vision resulted in an overconcentration on ideology as a substitute for a political project. Everyone turned away from fundamental issues such as democracy and freedom, instead building their visions on ideological foundations. Leftists saw the solution in leftist ideology. Islamists saw it in Islamic ideology.
The core demands - freedom and democracy - faded from the scene as the foundation of political discourse.
This absence, in turn, led to a fourth error: the lack of a political discourse capable of persuading the masses. The absence of a project meant the absence of the structure from which discourse is formed. Moreover, shifting into a reactive rather than proactive role made the discourse dependent on immediate events as they arose.
To this day, much of what emerges from civil forces is merely a reaction to the growing repression exercised by the regime. It is also a traditional discourse, devoid of new creative methods, founded on the same old approaches long known to - and thoroughly studied by - the security apparatus, rendering it ineffective.
Coup against democracy
The fifth mistake was forming alliances with the deep state in order to eliminate the "other" - the political rival. The National Salvation Front played this role skilfully. It possessed no political project beyond toppling the Muslim Brotherhood. The composition of the Front, which included remnants of the Mubarak regime and allies of the deep state, was one reason for this.
This amounted to once again inviting the army to stage a coup against democracy. Here, there remains confusion among followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, who continue to conflate the right to peaceful protest with the coup carried out on 3 July 2013 by the military regime. Demonstrations had called for early presidential elections. Regardless of differing views on that demand, the regime chose to overthrow everyone and seize power without holding early elections, in addition to removing the elected president, Mohamed Morsi.
The sixth mistake was acquiescing to the dispersal of the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in without opposing it or offering even minimal resistance. Instead, slogans such as "those who sent them killed them" were repeated, and the opposition submitted to the regime's narrative that the sit-in threatened the state's existence, contrary to reality.
Had the Muslim Brotherhood possessed such power, its leaders could not have been removed from office. This propaganda was merely a prelude to justifying mass killing. The live broadcast of the dispersal, before the eyes and ears of all, paved the way for every future act of killing the regime would commit against anyone who defied it or attempted to stand in the opposing camp - including peaceful opposition.
The effects of the Rabaa dispersal will linger for a long time within both society and the state. After it, latent violence within society accumulated more intensely, and a state of gratuitous violence spread, to use the Frankfurt School's expression.
The seventh mistake is the continued inability to acknowledge error and to make the demand for freedom and human rights universal, applying to everyone regardless of political or ideological position. This necessitates redefining concepts distorted over the past five years, such as political solidarity, which should be based on equality, freedom, and justice for all, rather than ideological or political affiliation.
Over the past five years, the opposition has contributed to its own defeat and to deepening political divisions among its various components - divisions that have become part of its vision and practice.
This indicates its inability to overcome its internal crisis, or to reposition itself around broader, more inclusive issues capable of offering solutions to the current crisis.
In the same context, the opposition appears unaware of its need for a new phase founded on national reconciliation - meaning dialogue among different parties that advocate peaceful political action as a tool for change.
Without constructive dialogue leading to a shared vision grounded in freedom and democracy, the opposition cannot once again present itself as an alternative to a regime that has violated everything to remain in power.
Neither triumph nor defeat
All of these factors, along with others, led to January 2011's failure to achieve its goals. Yet one point must be emphasised: January 2011 cannot be viewed merely as a revolutionary event with limited results, but as a revealer of political and social structures.
The uprising exposed society's inability to fully absorb what happened. It revealed a deep generational gap, the absence of an organised middle class, and the illusions of organisation through social media.
It also highlighted the geographic disparity between urban centres and rural areas, as well as the deeply entrenched psychological structure of the state that remained intact even after revolutionary shocks.
When compared to Eastern European revolutions, the structural difference becomes clear. There, organised and mature elites possessed institutional accumulation, experience confronting the state, and a vision for the aftermath of rupture.
In Egypt, by contrast, street momentum was greater, but institutional accumulation was weaker. This was not a moral failure, but a difference in context and in the composition of political society.
Thus, reducing January to a binary of success or failure is a misleading simplification. It succeeded in breaking eternal assumptions, returning politics to the public sphere, and proving that fear is not a natural law.
Yet it failed to transform into a sustainable institutional project, not solely because of its own mistakes, but also because of society and its elites.
Perhaps the true tragedy is that January 2011 was more honest and more youthful than reality could bear. It was not fully defeated, nor did it triumph as its makers hoped. It remains suspended between a historic moment of rupture and a time not yet mature - a lingering question about generation, time, and the limits of what is possible in societies that move slowly while their youth dream quickly.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-did-egypts-january-uprising-fail-and-what-remains-it
-----
Humanitarian warnings amid Syria’s growing mental health crisis
January 26, 2026
by Nihal Shafik
In January 2026, senior officials from UNHCR, UNICEF and the World Food Programme publicly reaffirmed their commitment to coordinated support for Syrian refugees and internally displaced people, following a regional mission to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. In a joint statement, the agencies stressed that refugee returns and continued displacement require sustained humanitarian assistance, including access to health and protection services, and warned that return should be understood as a long process rather than a single event.
This renewed commitment comes as humanitarian needs inside Syria remain severe. UN agencies have repeatedly highlighted that millions of Syrians still rely on aid for basic services, while funding shortfalls limit the reach of critical programmes, including healthcare provision across the country and in refugee-hosting states. UN briefings in late 2025 and early 2026 cautioned that unmet basic needs, such as housing, food security and healthcare, are key drivers of long-term psychological distress, particularly for people affected by repeated displacement and protracted uncertainty.
While international agencies continue to engage and coordinate efforts, psychosocial support remains under-resourced, as large-scale displacement, returns and economic hardship compound trauma among Syrian civilians, especially children and survivors of conflict.
The hidden crisis of mental health
One year after the fall of the Assad regime, Syrians continue to live with the aftershocks of more than a decade of war, violence, displacement, and loss. Daily life is shaped by intermittent access to water and electricity, shortages of basic goods, and persistent insecurity. A 2026 scoping review in Conflict and Health examining Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon found that repeated adversity contributes to persistent emotional and cognitive distress that often extends beyond formal diagnosable disorders.
Mental health professionals in Syria describe a psychological landscape shaped by cumulative effects resulting from prolonged exposure to threat, loss, and deprivation. “This type of trauma is much more difficult to address than a single traumatic event,” said Romyza Al-Sheikh, Mission Specialist Activity Manager at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Syria. In neighbourhoods where drones and armed groups are part of the everyday backdrop, children born during the conflict have never known a world without violence.
Meanwhile, a less visible form of suffering weighs heavily on many Syrians, one that is harder to measure or treat. Thousands of families are living with what mental health experts describe as ambiguous loss: the pain of not knowing whether a loved one is dead or alive. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented tens of thousands of Syrians arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared during the conflict — around 136,000 known cases, of whom some 24,000 were released and over 112,000 remained unaccounted for as of 2024. Other estimates range even higher, with some experts suggesting the number of missing persons could fall between 120,000 and 300,000 when combining incomplete datasets and survivor reports.
This form of loss, experts say, is particularly corrosive. This state of uncertainty whether a person is dead, alive, or somewhere in between can freeze the grieving process and cause prolonged emotional stress that conventional Western diagnostic frameworks may not fully capture.
“The inability to bury loved ones and carry out cultural and religious practices around mourning makes healing extremely difficult,” explained Romyza Al-Sheikh, Mission Specialist Activity Manager at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Syria.
Humanitarian response amid scarcity
Humanitarian organizations have expanded mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services in response to these needs. MSF, which has been operating in Syria for years, significantly expanded its reach in 2024 after gaining access to previously unreachable areas, providing mental health support alongside general healthcare across multiple governorates. UNICEF and other actors provide targeted psychological first aid and support for displaced families in shelters. Yet, access remains limited, and the need for care continues to far outstrip what is available. particularly in remote and hard-to-reach areas.
According to Al-Sheikh, Syria’s health system has been devastated by years of conflict. Nearly half of hospitals and only 37 per cent of primary healthcare centres are fully functional, leaving access to general and specialized care severely limited. Meanwhile, 14.6 million people are food insecure, including almost 3 million in severe need, and 14.4 million require assistance with water, sanitation, and hygiene, further compounding daily stress. Severe funding shortfalls further strain humanitarian programs, leaving mental health and psychosocial support under-resourced even as needs continue to grow.
Beyond diagnosis: Recognising complex trauma
Al-Sheikh emphasises that access alone does not fully capture the complexity of psychological suffering. Many Syrians do not show obvious emotional symptoms but remain deeply affected. Somatic complaints, strained family relationships, and community stress often mask deeper distress. Services that rely heavily on formal diagnoses may unintentionally exclude those who most need support. “If we focus only on diagnosis, many people may not meet the criteria of psychological symptoms required to receive the care they need,” she said.
Al-Sheikh also emphasised that communities themselves possess effective ways of healing and supporting one another. “We have consistently observed these practices,” she said, “and our role is to learn from them and build on them in ways that provide meaningful and effective support.” She highlighted the need of more locally grounded approaches informed by culture, history, and existing coping strategies.
MSF and other organisations continue to advocate for mental health as a national public health priority, emphasising that psychosocial well-being is closely tied to access to food, shelter, education, and security. “Access to basic needs and physical security remains among the most immediate and powerful forms of mental health support,” Al-Sheikh said.
A persistent, under-reported crisis
Across Syria, the psychological effects of prolonged conflict continue to shape daily life, affecting families, schools, and communities. As international attention gradually shifts toward reconstruction and recovery, the mental health impact of chronic crisis remains a pressing and often under-reported aspect of humanitarian response.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260126-humanitarian-warnings-amid-syrias-growing-mental-health-crisis/
-----
“Islamic NATO” or imperial tool? Zionism, unity, and collaboration
January 26, 2026
by Junaid S. Ahmad
Every empire perfects a favourite trick: persuading its victims that participation is influence and obedience is maturity. The latest refinement is the so-called “Islamic NATO” — a Sunni Axis of Resistance designed chiefly to reassure Western capitals that Muslim anger can be processed, outsourced, and safely neutralised. It is unity without risk, resistance without cost, and sovereignty performed entirely in quotation marks.
Let us dispense with illusions. If such an axis existed in any meaningful sense, Gaza would not look the way it does.
Israel’s destruction of Gaza was not subtle. It was televised, livestreamed, meticulously documented — atrocity administered with the calm professionalism of a bureaucracy trained to convert horror into routine. Hospitals flattened. Universities erased. Starvation weaponised. Children shredded with industrial efficiency. This was no accident or misjudgement; it was a moral audit conducted in public — and every regime now parading under the Islamic NATO banner failed it with such uniformity that one almost admires the discipline. Almost.
Not one of these states — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkiye, Pakistan — was willing to impose sustained, structural cost on Israel and its patrons. Turkiye did sever diplomatic relations; it also exposed the limits of symbolic rupture when deeper architectures of trade, security coordination, and Western leverage remained intact. Others substituted statements for sanctions, rhetoric for rupture, televised grief for consequence. Red lines were not merely crossed; they were designed to be erasable. Palestine was mourned as spectacle, not defended as obligation.
And yet, having collaborated through inaction — or perfected action that changes nothing — these same regimes insist they will tame colonial violence by joining Trump’s grotesquely named “Board of Peace.” This is not naïveté. It is insult: the political equivalent of watching an arsonist strike a match and being told the fire brigade has arrived because his associates now supervise the ashes.
The Board of Peace is not a neutral forum awaiting virtuous participants. It is structurally colonial — engineered to bypass international law, neutralise resistance, and convert genocide into governance. To imagine authoritarian clients of Washington can reform this machinery from within is to believe prison guards become abolitionists by attending sentencing hearings — or that adding “ethics” to an app description changes what the code was written to do. Spain declined participation. These regimes did not. That alone ends the argument.
Why the charade? Because the Islamic NATO’s real function is not resisting Zionism; it is disciplining Muslim populations. It is a containment strategy for oligarchies and monarchies that fear their own streets more than they fear Tel Aviv. It tells angry publics: relax, your rulers are “inside the room.” Translation: remain passive while we manage your outrage on behalf of those killing your co-religionists. Consent by sedation. Solidarity by delegation. Politics as customer service.
Israel sits atop this architecture like a parasite that has convinced the host it is an organ. Zionism’s contemporary brilliance lies less in conquest than in converting atrocity into inevitability: kill first, negotiate later; destroy, then administer; exterminate, then demand applause for “stabilization.” Resistance becomes pathology; submission becomes realism. Gaza is not an exception. It is a prototype.
The United Arab Emirates grasped this logic early and enthusiastically. Where others hesitated, Abu Dhabi normalised. Where others whispered, it invested. The UAE’s Axis of Secessionists — ports, islands, mercenaries, surveillance nodes — functions as Zionism’s offshore service provider. Israel supplies ideology and technology; the UAE supplies geography and deniability. Colonialism franchised: modular, exportable, and content to burn states into “opportunities” so long as leverage compounds.
Yet as dangerous as this overt alignment is, the covert Zionism of the Islamic NATO is worse. Overt Zionism provokes backlash; covert Zionism produces compliance. It pacifies resistance without triggering the immune system. It offers Muslim faces to imperial projects. It replaces opposition with “engagement,” betrayal with “pragmatism,” surrender with “responsible leadership.” This is Zionism without Hebrew — less theatrical, more efficient, and therefore more lethal.
Pakistan’s role is especially grotesque. A nuclear-armed Muslim state with overwhelming popular support for Palestine has been reduced to a subcontractor of imperial optics. Its rulers sit on the Board of Peace while jailing lawyers, abducting activists, and sentencing dissenters under digital sedition laws. Repression at home, collaboration abroad —
a symmetry too consistent to be accidental. Foreign policy becomes the domestic security state translated into another language: obedience as strategy, coercion as governance, silence as virtue.
This is why Imran Khan remains disruptive even from prison. His refusal to normalize Israel — overtly, covertly, or via backchannel theatre — violated the imperial operating system. His insistence on unconditional Palestinian solidarity, and his linkage of Kashmir and Gaza as moral questions rather than bargaining chips, threatened the premise that Muslim publics can be managed indefinitely through symbolism. So he was removed.
The April 2022 regime change was not merely domestic engineering; it was regional discipline. The Epstein email labelling Khan “dangerous” was not gossip but a memo. Zionism does not tolerate charismatic defiance from the Global South. It demands examples. It demands that sovereignty be punished until it becomes unfashionable.
And yet the punishment misfired. Pakistan’s rulers assumed fatigue and produced fury. The refusal of Khan’s supporters to perform liberal appeasement rituals is not coltishness. It is clarity.
Revolution is measured by context. In a country where sovereignty is auctioned, dissent criminalized, and foreign approval elevated above popular will, insisting on dignity is revolutionary enough.
Meanwhile, the Islamic NATO postures nervously against regime change in Iran — not from principle but from fear. A war would detonate the Gulf’s hydrocarbon economy and expose regime fragility. Their opposition is actuarial: they fear instability, not injustice.
Trumpism merely clarifies what liberal empire once obscured — loyalty over law, deals over rights, strongmen over people. ICE terror at home mirrors pacification abroad. Gaza and American streets share a doctrine: security as supremacy, order as violence.
And so the terminal irony: the Islamic NATO presents itself as Muslim unity, yet it has never been weaker. It could have killed the Board of Peace through collective refusal. It chose participation. It could have imposed costs for genocide. It chose statements. It could have stood with its people. It chose Washington — and demanded applause for maturity.
History will not be kind. Israel will continue to kill and call it defence. The UAE will monetise and call it modernisation. The United States will discard and call it leadership. Pakistan’s rulers will repress and call it stability. The Islamic NATO will issue communiqués, mistaking motion for movement.
But beneath this architecture of betrayal, something else is forming: the recognition that sovereignty cannot be subcontracted, solidarity cannot be simulated, and peace administered after annihilation is merely violence with better lighting.
Empires fall when their lies stop anesthetising. When “peace” is heard as domination, and participation as submission. The Islamic NATO was built to manage rage, not answer it — and that machinery is cracking. What follows will not be negotiated. It will be reckoning.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260126-islamic-nato-or-imperial-tool-zionism-unity-and-collaboration/
------
US’ Gaza ‘Master Plan’ clashes with reality
CHRIS DOYLE
January 26, 2026
Anyone who saw Jared Kushner’s PowerPoint presentation in Davos last week without knowing the topic would have struggled to identify the territory to which he was referring. Many might have thought this was for North America, with shiny new office and residential blocks and a certain space-age or Hollywood sci-fi feel to the slides of the “Master Plan.”
The vaulting ambition of the speaker may have impressed his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, who is certainly familiar with the world of real estate. No doubt Trump, the freshly minted chairman of the Board of Peace, was the premier target of the messaging. It reflected much of what was released at the announcement of Trump’s “Gaza riviera” plan last February, which envisaged the Strip being entirely emptied of Palestinians. Even this version treats Gaza as a tabula rasa to impose whatever architectural fantasies its authors can conjure up. It treats the enclave as being devoid of any culture, tradition or history.
Others have been more sceptical — and with good reason. First of all, Israel has not even adhered to the Oct. 10 ceasefire and is bombing and shelling with intensity. Second, the full entry of aid, as referenced in the Trump peace plan, has not yet been achieved. Third, the plan presumes the disarmament of Hamas, something that is far from imminent. Finally, no international stabilization force is on the horizon.
Those are the significant near-term impediments. Delivering this plan, at a time when the conflict still rages, will be nigh on impossible. Just clearing the 60 million tonnes of rubble, which is peppered with unexploded ordnance and a host of toxins, will take an age and cost a fortune.
One major element Kushner did not address was how the land would be acquired and whether owners would be compensated. According to a 2015 study, about half of the land in Gaza is privately owned. Much of the land is unregistered because owners did not wish to pay tax. What is clear is that the companies lining up to fill their coffers have no claim to the land at all.
But progress also presumes the Israeli leadership will be comfortable with this. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still smarting from the invitation that was extended to Turkiye and Qatar to join the executive committee of the Board of Peace. Many members of Netanyahu’s Cabinet and right-wing Knesset members have dreams of inhabiting these plush new riviera residences themselves.
Israel will have to consent as the occupying power. For starters, it will have to allow in all the construction materials and abandon its restrictive dual-use list.
Throughout Kushner’s presentation to world leaders and the business elite, it was clear that Palestinians have had no input into these plans — and not just because the Arabic on the slides was all wrong. He did not outline how the local Palestinians in Gaza would be won over by the project or where they would go during reconstruction. Kushner said Gaza would be run on free-market principles, as opposed to how Palestinians might wish to shape their economic future.
Do Palestinians want tourism, given the beachfront is all labelled for coastal tourism? Who decided on the importance of data centres at this stage? And how many of the companies making a fortune out of this dreamworld will be Palestinian and how many will be rich businessmen with no link to Gaza at all?
The Palestinians in Gaza I have spoken to largely see this all as a sick joke. “Who is going to live in these villas and flashy apartments? Certainly not us Palestinians,” sighed one woman. Another said: “What will stop Israel from bombing them again? Where will our security come from? We need that before rich houses.”
But there is also the issue of who will pay for it. The experts at the UN, those who actually have experience of such situations, calculate that post-war reconstruction will cost about $70 billion. This is without the high-end infrastructure of Kushner’s presentation. The UAE has reportedly expressed an interest in funding the first planned community on the outskirts of Rafah in the south. Beyond that, it is not clear.
More alarming is who might make money out of it. This is a war zone profiteering racket. US companies are lining up at the trough.
This is all premised on the naive and ill-founded belief that the entirety of Gaza’s problems can be resolved with bulldozers, cranes and cement. The plan has echoes of earlier economic roadmaps for peace, but even those were not so divorced from reality. At no stage did the presentation reference a viable peace process or even mention that Gaza would be the western segment of an independent state of Palestine. It did not address a single one of the underlying causes or drivers of this 100-year-plus conflict.
On this occasion, the last word goes to French President Emmanuel Macron, who was reported as saying: “Peace is not a real estate transaction. You cannot build stability on the erasure of a people’s history and the privatization of their tragedy.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2630669
-------
South Africa’s Coal Exports to Israel: When Profit Trumps Principle
January 27, 2026
By Iqbal Jassat
For many, including trade unions and progressive forces, until a halt is placed on fuelling Israel’s war on Palestinians, the elephant in the room will remain South Africa’s economic lifeline to the Zionist regime.
And the consensus will be that South Africa’s proclaimed opposition to Israeli apartheid and genocide, “collapses the moment profit is placed above principle”.
The reality of the current status quo conflicts with the fact that while the government correctly argues genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South African exports continue to feed the Israeli economy.
Coal, diamonds, and strategic commodities flow uninterrupted, sustaining an occupation and war economy that Pretoria publicly condemns. This is not policy incoherence. It is deliberate political theatre masking economic collaboration.
Trade figures drawn from customs data, shipping records, and international trade monitoring show that South Africa has quietly deepened its role as a strategic supplier to Israel since late 2024.
When Colombia cut coal exports in protest against Israel’s assault on Gaza, South African producers stepped in. By 2025, South Africa was supplying more than half of Israel’s thermal coal needs, a lifeline for electricity generation during the regime’s genocide in Gaza and ethnic-cleansing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This reality is absent from official speeches. It is reduced to footnotes in parliamentary replies. Instead, government officials invoke World Trade Organization technicalities to justify inaction, insulating private corporations, ports, and logistics operators from accountability.
The message is clear. Moral outrage is acceptable so long as it does not interrupt revenue streams.
Predictably, a biased counter-narrative will come from Zionist aligned lobby groups and corporate apologists. Sanctions, they will argue, will cost South Africa revenue and jobs. This argument is neither new nor honest.
Market analysts inform us that South Africa has already demonstrated that export markets are not fixed.
They remind us that when faced with punitive tariffs under the Trump administration, exporters adapted by diversifying markets and rerouting supply chains. Coal, minerals and agricultural products found alternative buyers.
Did the economy collapse? No. Surely the same mitigation logic applies here.
Instead of aiding the Zionist regime’s destructive war against Palestinians, alternative economic pursuits in line with South Africa’s principled position at the ICJ are not out of bounds.
They do exist. Coal destined for Israel can be redirected to energy-hungry markets across Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe.
Indeed, diamonds already circulate through global hubs with ease, and agricultural exports are inherently flexible.
The idea that Israel is an irreplaceable market is a manufactured myth designed to paralyse political will.
Investigative reports to establish who truly benefits from trade with Israel will have no difficulty identifying mining companies, commodity traders, shipping intermediaries, and port authorities.
Opponents of South Africa’s genocide case, such as the Democratic Alliance (DA), will obviously remain muted. To expect them to lift the lid on corporations profiting from Israel’s energy insecurity is foolish. Their moral outrage lacks principle. Selective silence cannot be condoned.
South Africa knows this script. Apartheid did not end because it was debated “politely” behind closed doors. It ended because sanctions made the system economically unsustainable. Capital withdrew. Trade routes closed. Labour movements applied pressure where governments hesitated.
You cannot prosecute apartheid abroad while sustaining it through trade at home. Claims of unavoidable revenue loss are excuses, not analysis. Markets can be diversified. What cannot be mitigated is moral failure.
Indeed, to pretend otherwise makes a mockery of South Africa’s groundbreaking legal case.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/south-africas-coal-exports-to-israel-when-profit-trumps-principle/
-----
Minnesota, Palestine – Life Under Occupation
January 27, 2026
By Dr. M. Reza Behnam
Israel has come home to roost in Minnesota. The people of Minneapolis and St. Paul have become the Palestinians of Minnesota. The residents of the Twin Cities are experiencing the loss of sovereignty and civil rights that Palestinians have suffered for over eight decades.
L’Etoile du Nord (the Star of the North) state has been besieged by thousands of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents. The Twin Cities are now occupied communities, surveilled and under attack from their own government.
The militarism, violence, and terrorism Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in occupied Gaza and the West Bank have reached into America’s heartland and bled into the nation’s political system.
The tactical and ideological similarities between ICE and the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) are easily recognizable. These similarities are rooted in decades of joint training programs, shared technology, and surveillance. Thousands of federal agents have participated in Israeli “security” training programs.
Simulating the reality of occupation in Palestine, militarized federal agents patrol American neighbourhoods, abducting residents. Without warrants, unidentified men armed with assault rifles conduct raids, drag people from their homes, pull them from vehicles, detain and even kill them, as evidenced this month in the deaths of US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Masked agents treat protestors as threats, using chemical and sublethal weapons against them.
Thousands have been forcibly detained and held in ICE detention centers without due process. Since the beginning of 2026, six deaths have been recorded. And in 2025, ICE’s deadliest year in two decades, 32 people died.
As of January 2026, over 9,350 Palestinians are being held, most without charges, in Israeli prisons and detention centres; approximately 350 are children. And since October 7 2023, at least 98 Palestinians (with the toll likely higher) have died in Israeli custody.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general, said it best, “This is tyranny… Nobody ever thought America would look like this. We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside the door.”
Our America was bound to look like this. All pretense of humanity was discarded when avowed Zionist President Joe Biden, after October 7, 2023, green-lighted the massacre of Palestinians and devastation of Gaza, which he continued to do until he left office on January 20, 2025.
By throwing America’s financial, military, and political weight behind genocide and failing to respect international and humanitarian laws, the Biden administration set the stage for the domestic and international lawlessness of his convicted felon successor. A nation that condones the “crime of crimes,” the ultimate human atrocity, fosters a culture of violence that inevitably turns inward.
Ineluctably, the Zionist ideology of violence and force has found a home in America, where in black, brown, and indigenous communities, quasi-military policing has always been an actuality. Thuggery has now gained ground in mostly white communities, like Minneapolis.
Gaza awakened the nation to the reality that all is not well; that America is a country of laws, but little justice, something minority groups have long known. A nation that upholds human rights and justice, as the United States proclaims, would have defended and vigorously supported the people of Palestine.
From Palestine to the streets of America, the objective appears to be submission—to terrorize immigrants and those who protect them; and to silence dissenters who oppose the “world order” envisioned by the military, industrial, political, media, and digital complex (MIC plus).
The United States has entered the grave new world that President Dwight D. Eisenhower foresaw in his January 1961 Farewell Address to the nation.
As the Trump administration tramples on the US Constitution, the relevance of Eisenhower’s warning against the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex” and his plea to never let it “endanger our liberties or democratic processes” cannot be overstated:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, and even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government….Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society… The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”
War has been central to the MIC plus, as it has been to the United States and Israel. It has been foundational to the settler-colonial ideology of Israel, with expansion justified as defense. Also, it has been pivotal in America’s pursuit of global dominance, with economic hegemony camouflaged as defense of democracy and freedom.
In Israel, the Zionist project to destroy an ancient culture and eliminate its people is disguised as “defense” of the nation. And in the United States, the Trump regime uses the “securing the country” trope against undocumented immigrants to justify its cruelty and suffocation of freedoms and rights. He has also employed the formulaic “antisemitism” cudgel to detain and deport those who oppose Israel’s genocidal war and who support a free Palestine.
The MIC plus has also had a powerful influence in shaping and manipulating societal thinking.
Washington’s partnership with Israel has promoted America’s drift toward proto-fascism. Zionist Jewish supremacy, demonization of Palestinians, national unity built on external threat narratives, and the fetishization of military culture have found fertile ground in the Trumpian landscape.
The union of the US-Israeli regimes has engendered in America a receptive environment for white supremacy and the demonization and scapegoating of immigrants, minorities, and leftists.
Many of the measures Israel has used to terrorize Palestinians are now employed by federal agents against Americans; for example, detention and imprisonment without due process, home invasions, kidnapping, separation of children from families, and children used as human shields.
Trump’s mass deportation agenda is a tool for social control; a way to erode basic civil liberties and terrorize vulnerable populations. Like their Palestinian counterparts, however, the people of Minnesota have remained unbowed despite the danger. In reaction to the military occupation of their towns and cities, they have defiantly mobilized an effective opposition, giving life to resistance movements.
The Gaza rebellion of October 7, 2023, has altered Americans’ perception of Israel and their own government. By putting the interests of Israelis above the well-being of Americans, US administrations, particularly Biden and Trump, have ruptured the social contract.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence, with its message of inalienable rights and resistance to tyranny, echoes the struggle of Americans in 2026, and the eight-decade-long quest by Palestinians for self-determination.
The usurpations and abuses in Minnesota and in occupied Palestine require that we remember, in the words of Thomas Jefferson:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government….when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/minnesota-palestine-life-under-occupation/
------
Why Israel’s Drive to Destroy Iran is Ultimately about Palestine
January 26, 2026
By Robert Inlakesh
Pro-war think tanks, media outlets, social media influencers, and rights groups have not relented in their blatant disinformation campaigns, designed solely to manufacture consent for a war of aggression against Iran.
The number of protesters that regime change advocates claim were killed by the Iranian authorities appears to grow by the day. First, it jumped from thousands to just over ten thousand. Now, you may be seeing the claim that 43,000 were killed, while 350,000 are injured and 20,000 await execution.
So where are these figures coming from? The 43,000 figure comes from a group called the “International Center for Human Rights” (ICHR), based in Toronto, Canada. On its website, it presents itself as a “non-governmental, non-profit international organization dedicated to promoting and defending human rights and democratic values.” However, it is a group that focuses almost entirely on Iran and celebrates the importance of the alleged “growing friendship between Iran and Israel.”
Unlike human rights groups like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch (HRW), it uses extremely biased language, such as labeling the Iranian government the “terrorist regime” or a “criminal regime occupying Iran.” It is also explicitly in favor of regime change.
Its executive director, Ardeshir Zarezadeh, even praised Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, posting a photo of himself and his colleague, Ahmad Batebi, drinking what appears to be wine, with Israeli and Iranian opposition flags behind them. For context, that Israeli strike killed around 300 civilians.
Without having to go into any more depth on this Canada-based human rights center, it suffices to say that it is far from a neutral source. The reason for pointing out where these figures come from is to say that those repeating such extreme and unsubstantiated claims are not doing their due diligence.
The blind acceptance of such ridiculously high casualty numbers, which exceed the casualty tolls from some wars and major battles in the region, is what gives way to a free-for-all of ridiculous atrocity propaganda. Take, for example, regime change advocate influencer Sana Ebrahimi, who recently claimed that over 80,000 protesters were killed, citing “someone who is in contact with sources inside the government.”
When we cite casualty numbers as journalists, it is incumbent upon us to check our sources. The refusal to check sources is precisely how the “300 babies thrown out of incubators by Iraqi forces in Kuwait” and “40 babies beheaded by Hamas” hoaxes spread.
As of now, there are no internationally verified numbers of how many protesters, rioters, and armed militants were killed during the recent round of unrest in Iran. Tehran has produced its own figures, which it backs up with names and documentation, but in terms of impartial “international investigations,” there is simply no evidence for any of these figures being circulated.
It’s All About Palestine
It is no secret that the Israeli government is backing and allied with the Iranian opposition and is seeking regime change. It has been revealed by a Haaretz investigation that Israel has used bots and paid Persian-language speakers to promote the Shah’s son as the alternative leader of the country. It is also no secret that the excuse for bombing Iran has shifted from “eliminating the nuclear threat,” to “eliminating their ballistic missile program,” and now to “they are killing their own people.”
But why are the Israelis so invested in destroying Iran? The reason is very simple: Iran’s government is the only one on earth that provides military assistance to the Palestinian resistance.
Iran is allied with every Palestinian political faction that uses violent resistance against the Israelis. It arms Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), but also Marxist groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and nationalists like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades—an unofficial armed wing falling within the fold of the Fatah movement. It does so without requiring anything in return. It trains armed resistance groups and helps in the development of Gaza’s tunnel infrastructure.
The Islamic Republic also supports Yemen’s Ansarallah, which played a key role in fighting on the side of Gaza during the entire course of the genocide. It also supports Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Every armed force that Iran supports in the region is opposed to Israel, including Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), components of which repeatedly fired drone and cruise missiles at Israel.
Some argue that the Iranians do this for strategic reasons. The counterargument is that if this has been the primary driver of support for the Palestinian cause, why then have the Iranians refused to use this as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States? Another counterpoint offered is that Iran is punished because it supports Palestine, not the other way around.
Regardless of whether you take the viewpoint that Iran’s support for resistance against the Israelis is born of moral concerns, strategic concerns, or both, there is no denying that the support exists. No other country, except Ansarallah’s government in Yemen, has directly fought the Israelis.
If Iran’s government is toppled and replaced with a pro-Israel puppet dictator, this would lead to the total collapse of the entire support infrastructure behind the regional players resisting Israel. In other words, this outcome would give the Israelis a free hand in Lebanon and enable them to do with the Palestinian people whatever they choose.
Therefore, it is a contradiction to claim you support toppling the Iranian government and also support Palestine. It would be like claiming you support the overthrow of the Soviet Union and a plot to install a German puppet regime during World War II, while still claiming to oppose the Nazis. These positions are irreconcilable.
Does this mean you need to blindly support the Islamic Republic? Evidently not. Rather, simply consider your stance using the above-mentioned analogy.
The US-Israeli effort to cause regime change in Iran has nothing to do with the people of Iran. It is all about destroying the resistance groups fighting against them. Therefore, the end of the Islamic Republic means the end of the Palestinian resistance and total Israeli domination of the entire region.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/why-israels-drive-to-destroy-iran-is-ultimately-about-palestine/
------
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism