These outlets present themselves as unbiased investigative journalism, but are quietly being financed by Washington through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundation in order to sow discontent across the Caribbean nation, softening it up for a potentially “imminent” invasion by the Trump administration. 

Cuba faces some of its worst energy blackouts in its history, thanks to the U.S. blockade, which is attempting to strange the island into submission. As a Communist state defying U.S. orders, Cuba has, since 1959, been in the crosshairs of Washington, who are attempting to overthrow the government. MintPress sheds light on this shady regime change nexus.

Independent Journalism, Brought To You By The State Department

CubaNet is one of the most influential and well-established news outlets covering affairs on the Caribbean island. Founded by anti-government activists in 1994, the site has become the go-to source of information for corporate media, who regularly cite it, and present it as an objective and unbiased independent media (e.g., The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and The Los Angeles Times). CubaNet reporters have written op-eds in major U.S. newspapers such as USA Today, calling for an immediate change in government on the island. 

But CubaNet is not as independent as it seems. The outlet is bankrolled by the U.S. national security state. CubaNet has received millions of dollars in funding from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as the Open Society Foundation. 

One currently active $500,000 USAID grant, for instance, was awarded to CubaNet to “engage on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism.” While ostensibly a laudable goal, even the grant’s own one-sentence description hints that its purpose is to undermine and attack the Cuban government. It states that it will (emphasis added) “increase the free flow of information to and from Cuba in order to offset the regime’s disinformation campaigns.”

Another news organization receiving huge sums of money from Washington is ADN Cuba. Literally meaning “Cuba’s DNA,” the outlet has amassed a significant following online, boasting over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 200,000 on Instagram, and over 1.3 million on Facebook. It describes itself as “an independent media outlet committed to freedom and democracy in Cuba.” Yet it is actually based in Spain. And it does not seem particularly committed to transparency about its funding. 

What is clear, however, is that ADN Cuba has received millions of dollars from the U.S. national security state. In September 2024, USAID approved a $1.1 million grant to ADN Cuba – a gigantic amount of money for an organization that publishes barely one story per day on its website. This was on top of a $1.5 million allocation for the 2022-2024 period. Indeed, since 2020, ADN Cuba has received in excess of $3 million from USAID alone. This relationship is not disclosed to readers– even in stories directly covering USAID funding Cuban media– and is relegated to the footnotes of obscure U.S. government funding databases. 

Diario de Cuba is another Spanish-based news outlet that publishes a wide variety of stories, all with one thing in common: a deep aversion to the Cuban government. The BBC describes it and CubaNet as key sources for impartial news, run by journalists who “report without censorship and to paint a broader picture on the country’s reality.”

And just like CubaNet, Diario de Cuba has received seven-figure funding from Washington. Between 2016 and 2020, Diario de Cuba received $1.3 million in USAID cash – almost as much as CubaNet over the same period. This generous funding has allowed it to reach a global audience, with over 600,000 followers on Facebook alone. 

Regime Change Networks

The Central Intelligence Agency used to directly (and secretly) sponsor hundreds of media outlets across the world. However, after a series of scandals and more information about its nefarious activities came to public attention, Washington decided to outsource many of its most controversial foreign operations to organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

“It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” Carl Gershman, the NED’s longtime president, said, explaining the 1983 decision to create his organization. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein agreed: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” he told The Washington Post.

Under the guise of democracy promotion and human rights, the U.S. government channels money to political and social groups across the world in order to maximize its strategic goals, including regime change. 

In recent years, the U.S. has used the twin organizations of the NED and USAID to bankroll anti-government protests in Hong Kong, to attempt a color revolution in Belarus, to overthrow the government of Ukraine in 2014, and to organize riots across Iran earlier this year. 

In Cuba, the NED and USAID played a critical role in organizing a (failed) uprising against the government in 2021. USAID in particular spent millions of dollars funding, organizing and promoting the San Isidro Movement – a collective of musicians, artists, and journalists– to lead a counter-revolution on the island. 

San Isidro members were at the forefront of a wave of nationwide protests that July. The demonstrations were immediately signal boosted by Western corporate media, top celebrities, and U.S. politicians, including President Biden. Neitzens were flooded with the astroturfed “SOS Cuba” campaign, that trended across the Internet for days. 

In the end, however, the coordinated efforts of the U.S. failed to convince ordinary Cubans to take to the streets, and the movement quickly petered out. 

Esteban Rodríguez, a key member of the San Isidro movement, is a producer at ADN Cuba.

When U.S. Money Is Paused, “Independent” Media Immediately Collapse

The importance of U.S. government money to the survival and operations of these outlets was underlined early last year when the Trump administration chose to freeze funding to USAID and the NED. Announcing the decision, Elon Musk, then head of the Department of Government Efficiency, described USAID in particular as a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.” 

The effect on Cuban media was immediate. As soon as the money stopped flowing, dozens of organizations faced immediate liquidation. CubaNet published an emergency editorial asking readers to make up the shortfall. “We are facing an unexpected challenge: the suspension of key funding that sustained part of our work.” they wrote; “If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask for your support.” “Without [USAID] funds, it will be extremely difficult to continue,” CubaNet director Roberto Hechavarría Pilia added.

Diario de Cuba was in similarly dire straits. Its director, Pablo Díaz Espí, noted that “aid to independent journalism from the government of the United States has been suspended, which makes our work more difficult,” asking readers to donate.  

Musk’s decision accidentally revealed a sprawling network of over 6,200 reporters and nearly 1,000 outlets worldwide that were quietly being trained, supported, and bankrolled by the CIA front, all under the banner of promoting “independent” media and freedom of information.

Another supposedly independent Cuban outlet plunged into crisis was El Toque (The Touch). Founded in 2014 and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NED, El Toque publishes in Spanish and English, and attempts to manipulate the exchange rates in Cuba. 

The funding cut hit them badly, with editors announcing that they would immediately have to lay off half their staff (15 people) and stop working with dozens of freelancers, while looking for alternative funding sources. 

El Estornudo (The Sneeze), is also generously financed by NED. In 2021 alone, the endowment awarded the investigative journalism outlet $180,000. It also receives copious support from the Open Society Foundation, although it insists that none of this U.S. money comes with any strings attached or affects its output. 

While Western media often portray the Cuban media landscape as a David-and-Goliath fight between plucky independent media facing repression, and a sprawling state-sponsored propaganda apparatus, the gigantic sums handed out to these “underdogs” make them by far and away the best funded outlets on the island.  A 2023 Guardian article, for instance, profiled 24-year-old photojournalist Pedro Sosa, who worked for both El Toque and El Estornudo. It presented the pair as “offer[ing] real reporting over stodgy state media” and journalists as poor and vulnerable truth tellers standing up for “freedom,” and facing a “crackdown” from the state. 

But it also let slip that working for U.S.-backed media is not as bad a career move as portrayed, and is, in fact, an extremely lucrative profession. It casually mentions that salaries at tiny El Toque are ten times that of even the most senior journalists working in Cuban state media. In reality, then, these oppressed free speech warriors are actually some of the richest individuals on the entire island, thanks to the power of the U.S. dollar, which pays them handsomely to produce a constant stream of anti-government news. 

In the end, the U.S.-backed outlets need not have worried, and NED and USAID funding resumed after some restructuring.

Jobs For the Boys

All this, however, pales in comparison to the resources the U.S. has dedicated to Radio and TV Martí. Founded in 1985 by the Reagan administration, the Miami-based network boasts dozens of full-time employees and receives tens of millions of dollars from Washington annually. 

Unlike the rest of the journalism industry, workers at Radio and TV Martí enjoy strong job security and six-figure wages, despite the fact that the Cuban government is able to jam and block many of their broadcasts from reaching Cuba, meaning precious few people consume its content. 

Since its creation, Washington has spent at least $800 million on Radio and TV Martí.

The outlets profiled make up only a small portion of the network of anti-government media being funded by the United States. Most of the recipients of American money remain anonymous – a decision taken in part to hide their identities and preserve their credibility inside Cuba. 

The National Endowment for Democracy considers Cuba a “long-standing priority,” and is currently officially funding 32 separate projects on the island. 

Media related grants include one $80,000 project titled “Strengthening Access to Information,” which promises to: 

“[E]nhance access to information and promote critical thinking, the organization will produce daily reporting and analysis across various formats, providing independent perspectives on issues affecting citizens’ daily lives, including freedom of expression, public safety, human rights, and other pressing social concerns.”

Another $115,000 grant, titled “Expanding Access to Uncensored Media” notes that it will: 

“[P]romote independent information, the organization will provide narrative journalism on censored topics, conduct investigations, and produce in-depth articles, photo essays, and opinion pieces while strengthening the media’s operational capacity.”

Thirty-one of the thirty-two projects hide the recipient’s name and identification, meaning that those groups working with the CIA cutout organization are generally only ever identified if they advertise this relationship, or, like when U.S. money was temporarily halted in 2025, they call for help. 

Anti-government media are only a small portion of the huge array of groups Washington secretly funds and supports. From musicians and academics, to civil society, educational, and religious groups, to think tanks, charities and NGOs, there exists a vast nexus of organizations receiving vast sums of money from the U.S. government. 

Two of these bodies include The Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, or OCDH) and lawyers’ group, Cubalex. 

Both groups produce reports denouncing the Cuban government, and are regularly cited as impartial authorities on human rights on the island in Western outlets, such as The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post. But what readers are not told is that both organizations are bankrolled by the U.S. national security state. 

Records show that USAID has given almost $1.5 million to the OCDH. NED support, meanwhile, was crucial to Cubalex’s inception in 2010, and Washington continues to pay its staff wages to this day. As the company’s executive director, Laritza Diversent said last year, 

“Without the support of National Endowment for Democracy, Cubalex would not have existed; to do the work we do requires resources. For 14 years, NED has been supporting us. Last October, after trying a lot of times, we [also] achieved a state Department grant.” 

Thus, there is barely a corner of the anti-government Cuban opposition that has not been reached by U.S. money, either through government organizations such as the NED or USAID, or through institutions such as the Ford Foundation and Open Societies Foundation, which have historically performed a similar role in promoting American interests abroad. 

Many of these groups are headquartered in South Florida, where U.S. government money is helping to subsidize thousands of jobs for the Cuban-American community. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that a significant part of Miami economy is propped by taxpayer money funding counter-revolutionary forces. Ironic, considering that conservative Cubans often vehemently object to government welfare programs in both the U.S. and Cuba.

Digital Bombardment 

In 2010, a new social media and messaging app, Zunzuneo, took Cuba by storm. From nowhere, it went viral, picking up tens of thousands of users – a very large number for the time on such an internet-sparse island. 

None of its users, however, were aware that the platform had been secretly created by USAID in order to promote regime change. Their plan was to first provide an excellent service that would capture the market, then to slowly drip feed Cubans anti-government messaging, and finally to direct them to join “smart mobs”, aimed at triggering a color revolution.

In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, aimed at getting him to invest in the project. It is unclear to what extent, if any, Dorsey helped, as he has declined to speak on the matter.

Zunzuneo was abruptly shut down in 2012, perhaps because the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (which oversees TV and Radio Marti) had already created a new program called Piramideo. 

Piramideo marketed itself as an app that allowed Cubans to receive world news for free, and without censorship. Almost immediately, however, locals reported being deluged with fake news about anti-government protests that never happened. Piramideo was shut down in 2015, after reporting on U.S. government meddling in Cuba caused a scandal and diplomatic embarrassment. 

Today, however, with Cubans increasingly using American social media apps, this kind of subterfuge is largely unnecessary, as it can be done out in the open. During the 2021 San Isidro protests, apps such as Instagram and Twitter were openly participating in the attempt to overthrow the government, taking no action against a massive boom of clearly fake bot accounts parroting the exact same messages (down to the typos) and using the same astroturfed hashtag. Twitter’s editorial team even placed the protests – which drew barely a few thousand people into the streets nationwide – at the top of its “What’s Happening” for over 24 hours, meaning that every user worldwide would be notified. The failed putsch has come to be known as the “Bay of Tweets.”

Unending War on Cuba

In October, for the 33rd consecutive year, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly (165-7) to call for an end to the American blockade against Cuba. This economic war was established by the Eisenhower administration, in response to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

These illegal unilateral coercive measures, which an internal U.S. government memo states are designed to “decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government,” cost Cuba billions every year, and severely impede its development. 

The U.S. attempted to invade Cuba in 1961, and brought the world to the brink of annihilation during the subsequent Cuban missile crisis. It reportedly attempted to kill its leader Fidel Castro hundreds of times, and carried out waves of terror attacks against the country, including using biological weapons on the island.

Successive administrations continued the economic war against Cuba, which was ramped up after the fall of the Soviet Union. But the Trump State Department, run by Cuban-American Marco Rubio, has taken it to a new level, declaring the island to be one of its top priorities.

Trump himself has declared that Cuba is “next” on the list of countries being targeted for regime change. “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished” with Iran he said last month.

In response, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel said his country was ready to repel any U.S. invasion, as it did during the Bay of Pigs, stating:  

“The moment is extremely challenging and calls upon us once again, as on April 16, 1961, to be ready to confront serious threats, including military aggression. We do not want it, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it and, if it becomes inevitable, to defeat it.”

It is in this context that the U.S. government’s funding of a vast array of media outlets targeting Cuba should be seen; the media attack is just one facet of Washington’s multipronged approach to regime change.

Many of the organizations profiled here publish in English, and nearly all are used as supposedly credible sources of information on Cuba for Western corporate media, meaning that U.S. State Department narratives are laundered into the public consciousness through this network.

Many Cubans and Americans are completely unaware that their news about the island comes largely through a matrix of shady outlets quietly funded by the U.S. national security state via the NED and USAID. Their purpose is to keep up the flow of negative stories in order to soften the public up into accepting regime change on the island. After all, in war, truth is always the first casualty.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Follow Alan on Twitter for more of his work and commentary: @AlanRMacLeod.

The post Revealed: USAID, NED & Open Society Quietly Bankroll Cuba’s “Independent” Media In Push for Regime Change appeared first on MintPress News.

Public scrutiny intensified following a recent report by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times detailing allegations of severe abuse against Palestinian detainees at Sde Teiman prison, including claims involving sexual violence and the use of dogs against prisoners, including minors. Kristof’s report helped push allegations long documented by human rights organizations into mainstream American discourse.

Yet as renewed attention focused on Palestinian detainees, Kershner published new reporting reviving disputed and unverified October 7 rape allegations attributed to Hamas. Critics argue the timing reflects a recurring media pattern: whenever scrutiny intensifies around Israeli abuses against Palestinians, major Western outlets redirect attention toward unverified claims against Hamas to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

At the center of Kershner’s latest reporting is Cochav Elkayam-Levy, one of the most heavily promoted sources behind claims of Hamas sexual violence. Elkayam-Levy and her organization became central to Western media coverage after October 7, with outlets and political leaders worldwide presenting her as a leading authority on the allegations.

However, Israeli media later reported accusations that Elkayam-Levy and her commission had misled donors, exaggerated evidence collection efforts, and spread misinformation related to October 7 claims. The controversy surfaced shortly after she received the prestigious Israel Prize.

Despite repeated disclaimers acknowledging that rape allegations could not be independently verified, outlets including CNN, BBC, Associated Press, and The New York Times amplified the narratives globally. The allegations quickly became central to political messaging used to justify Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Kershner’s own role has fueled further debate about conflicts of interest in Western reporting on Israel and Palestine. Years earlier, she publicly acknowledged that her children had served in the Israeli military, prompting criticism from media watchdogs who argued that major outlets often blur the line between reporting and national alignment in coverage of Israel and Palestine. 

Verified: Israel’s decades long history of sexual violence against Palestinians 

While Nicholas Kristof’s report detailing raping Palestinian hostages (prisoners) and children with dogs inside Israeli prisons shocked many Western readers, the allegations themselves are not new. 

International human rights organizations, Palestinian legal groups, former detainees, and Israeli whistleblowers have documented abuse inside Israeli prisons for decades before October 7.

Reports from groups including Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, Defense for Children International-Palestine, and UN experts have repeatedly accused Israeli authorities of torture, sexual humiliation, rape, beatings, stress positions, denial of medical care, and the use of dogs during raids, interrogations, and detention operations involving Palestinians — including children.

More recently, former Israeli soldier and whistleblower Shaiel Ben-Ephraim publicly discussed the issue during an interview with Piers Morgan, describing the abuse as widely known inside the Israeli system.

“A lot of people in these prisons, both members of the prison service and IDF officers… are completely aware of the use of dogs,” Ben-Ephraim stated.

He further confirmed that dogs had been used to carry out acts of sexual violence against Palestinian detainees, intensifying calls for independent international investigations into Israeli detention practices.

In 2023, additional scrutiny emerged after a former U.S. State Department official, Josh Paul, involved in overseeing arms transfers to Israel stated publicly that Washington was aware Palestinians — including minors — were being subjected to abuse and sexual violence inside Israeli detention facilities. 

The comments added to growing criticism that American officials continued military support despite knowledge of alleged human rights violations.

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Over the weekend, Manama launched a wave of raids, arresting 41 Bahraini Shia clerics in 72 hours, using the initial justification that they maintained ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Later, however, a different charge was invoked to justify the action; “financing terrorism”, without specifying any specific terrorist entity. 

The move, carried out by the sectarian Sunni Khalifa family that rules over a majority Shia Muslim population, has triggered yet another series of public demonstrations throughout the small Persian Gulf nation. In total, over 350 Bahraini Shia nationals have been subjected to arrest since the beginning of the latest US-Israeli aggression on Iran.

Some of the detained scholars are elderly and/or chronically ill, leading to concerns that their health conditions could rapidly deteriorate. In March, 32-year-old Sayed Mohamed Almosawi died in Bahraini custody bearing clear signs of torture, drawing condemnation from human rights groups.

On Tuesday, the Bahraini authorities then sentenced 3 people to life imprisonment, claiming they were linked to the IRGC, while 20 others were given sentences of up to 10 years in prison, ten of whom were sentenced for supporting Tehran by “filming in prohibited locations and disseminating banned statements”. So far, 69 Bahraini nationals have been stripped of their citizenships since February 28, a move that targeted even the family members of those accused of sympathising with Iran.

During the height of the US-Israeli war on Iran earlier this year, Manama even announced it would pursue the death penalty when prosecuting individuals who were accused of supporting Iran. 

“The death penalty is being used as a tool of political suppression”, said Bahraini exile and human rights activist Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha. 

Gulf States Crackdown on Shia Muslims 

Meanwhile, since the imposition of the temporary Iran-US ceasefire, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, have also taken similar steps against Shia Muslims and sought to antagonise the Iranian State. After previously arresting 27 Shias – most of whom were Emiratis – back in April, issuing contradictory statements as to why, Abu Dhabi began arbitrarily deporting Pakistani Shia workers this week. 

Kuwait has also arrested a number of Shia Muslims it accused of maintaining ties to Hezbollah, a charge that the Lebanese group has denied. Stepping up their provocations, the Kuwaiti authorities decided to assault a ship carrying four Iranian citizens, detaining them and accusing the group of working on behalf of Tehran to carry out an infiltration operation. In response, Iran has vowed that it maintains the right to respond to what it calls an “unlawful” escalation.

Furthermore, according to Bloomberg News, the UAE not only carried out multiple strikes against Iranian civilian infrastructure, one of its attacks was coordinated alongside the Israelis themselves. While Reuters has claimed that Saudi Arabia may too have carried out strikes against Iran, there is less evidence to back up this report, especially given the track record of the news outlet when it comes to the question of Iran.

Bahrain’s ongoing crackdown is lining itself deeper into the US-Israeli camp, but is also sparking condemnation from human rights organisations, especially as their suppression tactics are nothing new. 

For example, one of the 41 Shia scholars detained, Sheikh Mohamed Sanqour, was previously arrested in 2023, after simply offering a criticism of the abuse of political prisoners inside the country.

Human Rights Watch’s Niku Jafarnia commented that “at this critical moment, Bahrain authorities should be expanding their efforts to protect people, not arresting them for peacefully demonstrating or posting on social media”. 

Despite there being a series of campaigns throughout Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arab, that have sought to silence critics of the US-Israeli war of aggression, a clear pattern is emerging that shows a targeted attempt to collectively punish Shia Muslims.

Although there is yet to be another large-scale Bahraini uprising against the latest wave of suppression against its citizenry, sporadic protests persist and appear to be escalating, in response to an intensified crackdown.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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Left in disbelief, the Israeli military have suffered around 250 casualties in just over two weeks, largely at the hands of Lebanese resistance drone operators. Having adopted guerilla warfare tactics to confront the invading Israeli army in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is utilising a strategy that no other non-State actor has managed to pull off until this point, but may well be reshaping asymmetric warfare as we know it.

The use of FPV drones, a strategy emerging from the Ukraine-Russia war, has had a deadly effect on advancing enemy forces and is said to be responsible for the majority of battlefield casualties in East Europe’s current major conflict. 

FPV drones come in two separate varieties- one using a fiber-optic cable and the other being a radio-controlled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The fiber-optic cabled drone appears to be favoured by Hezbollah, as its advantage comes in its ability to render Israel’s high-tech air defence systems useless, as electronic warfare and spectral jamming don’t work against it. Meanwhile, the radio-controlled version has been deployed for the purpose of using larger explosive charges.

These small quadcopters proved so consequential in Ukraine, that both Kiev and Moscow began mass producing them. The Ukrainians even claim to have gotten their bulk production costs down to $300 per unit, making them cost efficient.

While The Guardian has alleged that a source claims Hezbollah produces FPV drones at a similar price range to the Ukrainian estimates, two sources familiar with the matter told MintPress News that the cost of locally manufacturing these UAVs could come to as low as $50 for the Lebanese group. It was stressed, however, that the cost depends on the drone’s variation and could cost up to $4,000 in specific cases. 

What does differ from the use of FPV drones in Ukraine and their use by Hezbollah against Israel is that while they were developed as a tool at the disposal of two modern armies, they are now used to wage asymmetric warfare. In the Ukraine war there are clearly defined frontlines, meaning that bringing armoured convoys within 30 kilometers of the enemy is the danger zone. 

In southern Lebanon, or even northern occupied Palestine, there are no front lines. Hezbollah fighters are based throughout southern Lebanese lands, right between Israeli occupied positions, making it impossible to know when an FPV drone will be used as a loitering munition against enemy troop formations or vehicles.

Logistically, managing such a threat has become a nightmare for the Israeli military.

According to Israel’s Alma Research and Education Center think-tank:

 “If the gap is not bridged quickly, hundreds of dollars will defeat millions of dollars, and tactical success will translate into a strategic limitation of Israeli freedom of action.”

Israeli army Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, has told his fellow defence officials to spare no expense on tracking down a solution to the FPV drone threat. There has also been talk of the high-tech Viper Interceptor drone being deployed as a potential solution. However, the technology is simply not yet there, and it isn’t promised that this high-cost solution would work.

The IDF, for its part, has even been forced to admit that “no magic way to stop Hezbollah’s FPV drones”, instead claiming that the US removing limitations of Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon will “lower the threat by 80%”- presenting no evidence to back up this percentage.

Facing the new drone threat has come to such a point that the Israelis weren’t even able to complete advances with their own soldiers inside military vehicles. Instead, the Israelis had advanced to the other side of the Litani River, or at least the portion of it closest to the border, using robots. 

A major hurdle that is now facing the Israeli attempt to permanently carve out an occupation of southern Lebanon, is the sheer cost involved in such a move. On May 7, a Hezbollah FPV drone struck and destroyed an Iron Dome battery stationed on the Israeli side of the Lebanon border. The loss of a $100 million air defence battery, using a drone worth hundreds or even less.

The Lebanese resistance group claims to have struck hundreds of Israeli tanks and military vehicles of all sorts of descriptions, since the beginning of the war. For reference, the latest Israeli Merkava MK.4 Barak tank costs between $9-$10 million, while the cheapest variations of the Merkava’s are around $3.5 million.

While the total cost of Israel’s multi-layered air defence network is estimated to be in the billions, it is a State secret.

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The interview comes amid a dramatic shift in rhetoric from Donald Trump, who moved from threatening to “annihilate” Iran to calling for renewed talks. According to Marandi, who was present during recent backchannel negotiations in Pakistan, the U.S. approach has been inconsistent and ultimately unconvincing to Iranian officials.

“There is a deep lack of trust,” Marandi explains, pointing to Washington’s simultaneous use of threats and diplomacy. “You cannot talk about negotiations while escalating war and targeting a country’s infrastructure.”

Listen to the full Podcast on Spotify, Itunes and on all streaming platforms

That skepticism has extended to Vice President JD Vance, who recently returned to Islamabad for further discussions. Marandi publicly dismissed the visit, arguing that Iranian leadership sees little value in engaging under current conditions.

Adding to tensions, calls from U.S. policy circles to assassinate Iranian officials have further eroded any remaining confidence.

A recent op-ed by American Enterprise Institute fellow and former White House speech writer Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post openly calls for assassinating members of Iran’s negotiating team — a move Marandi describes as “extraordinary” and indicative of the broader hostility shaping Washington’s posture.

Under these circumstances, Marandi questions whether negotiations serve any real purpose.
“When one side is openly discussing eliminating the other’s leadership, it raises serious questions about intent,” he says.

Despite the pressure, Iran appears to be consolidating its position both domestically and internationally. Marandi notes that, rather than fracturing Iranian society, the war has strengthened public resolve. “People are rallying,” he says. “There is anger, but also a sense of unity in the face of external aggression.”

Regionally, the conflict is exposing deeper fractures. Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates have publicly presented themselves as neutral, but reports suggest a more active role in supporting U.S. and Israeli operations — a contradiction that has not gone unnoticed in Tehran.
At the same time, Iran’s growing ties with China and Russia signal a broader geopolitical shift. The war is increasingly seen not just as a regional conflict, but as part of a larger struggle over global influence and economic power, particularly as tensions rise around the Strait of Hormuz and global energy markets.

For Washington, the consequences may be significant. “The United States risks undermining its own position,” Marandi argues, suggesting that aggressive policies could accelerate the erosion of U.S. influence and strain alliances.

Beyond Iran, the conflict continues to reverberate across the region. In Lebanon, Israeli military operations have met sustained resistance from Hezbollah, raising questions about the limits of Israeli power and the potential for further escalation.

As the war drags on, Marandi’s assessment is clear: the strategy pursued by Washington and its allies is not only failing to achieve its goals, but may be reshaping the regional and global order in ways that ultimately work against them.

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Despite presenting itself on the international stage as a victim, the UAE is quietly participating and aiding the US and Israel in its war against Iran. Yet, Abu Dhabi has enforced draconian censorship laws that carry lengthy prison sentences for those posting or even privately forwarding videos of Iranians munitions impacting targets in the UAE.

This week, the UAE’s State Security Department announced the arrest of 27 individuals, described by state-run WAM media as members of a “Shia terrorist group” allegedly linked to Tehran. Yet despite the severity of those accusations, none of the detainees appear to be facing formal terrorism charges.

Instead, those arrested are accused of spreading “misleading ideas,” maintaining “foreign allegiances,” and forming a secret organization — vague allegations that critics say are often used to justify political repression. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, rejected the arrests outright, calling them “baseless and unfounded.”

Even Emirati state media reporting reveals inconsistencies. While headlines such as “UAE dismantles terrorist cell and arrests members” suggest a major security operation, the details within those same reports make no mention of terrorism-related charges, focusing instead on loosely defined political and ideological offenses.

However, within the article itself, there is no mention of any terror related charges, only that they were detained for spreading “misleading ideas”, have “foreign allegiances”, in addition to being accused of establishing a secret organisation and managing its activities.

The case has also raised concerns of a sectarian dimension. Among the 27 detained are prominent members of the UAE’s Muslim Shia community, including cleric Ghadeer Mirza Al-Rustam of the Jaafari Endowments in Dubai and as well as Seyed Sadiq Lari who had served as the Imam of the Grand Mosque in the Zayed area of ​​Abu Dhabi, fueling suspicions that the crackdown may be targeting religious identity. 

Furthermore, those arrested were all Emiratis, Saudis or Bahraini, none were Iranians. The alleged link made to the Islamic Republic of Iran is through Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), a concept within Shia Islam of adherence to a qualified Islamic leader. Emirati Shia publicly follow Ayatollah Sistani as their religious authority, for whom the concept of Velayat-e Faqih does not apply. 

There is yet to be evidence presented to prove the detainees are agents of Iran, opposed to them simply expressing popular political views amongst Shia Muslims including opposing the war against Iran.

The UAE is the only Arab State that has directly participated in the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran. This was exposed after two Emirati Wing Loong II UAVs were downed over Iranian airspace. Following the US President’s announcement of a two-week temporary ceasefire, Abu Dhabi allegedly lobbied Washington to continue its assault, even going as far as bombing Iran’s Lavan Oil Refinery.

In the past, Abu Dhabi has launched politicised arrests while engaging in war. 

For example, in 2016, two US citizens of Libyan origin were acquitted after spending two years in prison, on charges of funding two groups fighting in Libya. They were originally arrested in Dubai as part of wider crackdown on Libyan nationals, as the UAE began launching airstrikes in the North African country in 2024. According to the UN and their family members, the two wrongfully detained American citizens were severely tortured.

Between March and April, the UAE was struck by more Iranian missiles and drones than any other nation, during which it arrested at least 375 for violating its strict “cybercrime laws”. The mass arrests, assumed to be much more than officially announced, were launched as reprisals against those sharing and even forwarding videos they had filmed of Iranian munitions striking locations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It got so bad, that even British media had picked up on how many UK citizens were being rounded up.

According to Radha Stirling, the CEO of Detained in Dubai, “Under national security frameworks, individuals may face: 5 to 15 years imprisonment, or potentially life sentences. Fines reaching approximately USD 500,000. Prolonged or indefinite pre-trial detention. Restricted access to lawyers, embassies, and evidence. Human rights violations and torture.”

“People are increasingly afraid to communicate, send messages, document events or share information or a news article, even privately. Many are choosing to remain silent, unsure whether even routine communication could expose them to criminal liability and unsure to what extent authorities are surveilling the population”, Stirling added.

The mass arrest campaigns came as a part of an ongoing information war waged between the UAE and Iran. An investigation into Emirati censorship, by Bellingcat, “identified several high-profile incidents where authorities in the United Arab Emirates have downplayed damage, mischaracterised interceptions and in some instances not acknowledged successful Iranian drone strikes on the country.”

Meanwhile, the UAE has not been the only Gulf country to have launched mass detention campaigns over alleged “cyber crimes” and charges related to publishing “misleading ideas” or having “foreign allegiances”. Kuwait even arrested well known US-Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on March 2, on cyber crime offenses related to posts shared during the war with Iran.

Arrest campaigns carried out against Shia Muslims across the region are also not a new feature to the US-Israel led war on Iran. The UAE’s media itself claimed without evidence that the Emirati authorities had dismantled another “terrorist network” last month, accusing both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah of being behind it. In mid-March, Kuwait also claimed to have arrested members of a “Hezbollah network”, also failing to provide any evidence. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia had even executed two Shia detainees, accusing them of “terrorism”, one of whom was charged for protesting and arrested while he was only 17 years old. 

Robert Inlakesh is a MintPress statff writer, political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

The post UAE Launches Muslim Shia Crackdown Under Cover of “Iran-Linked Terror” Claims appeared first on MintPress News.

Western leaders have framed the war as a mission to “liberate” Iranian women. But according to Sadeqi, that narrative is collapsing in the face of reality.

“Women are not welcoming this,” she explains. “They are among those marching in the streets, defending their country and rejecting foreign intervention.”

Across Iran, millions have mobilized in response to the ongoing attacks, forming national unity across political, social, and generational lines. Rather than weakening the country internally, the war appears to have strengthened a collective sense of resistance — particularly among women, who are playing a visible role in demonstrations and civil defense efforts.

At the same time, the humanitarian toll is mounting. Iranian officials report that more than 300 medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed in just one month, alongside strikes on major universities and civilian infrastructure. Videos circulating online show healthcare workers attempting to save patients — including newborn infants — as hospitals come under bombardment.

Western corporate media largely avoided using terms like “genocide” to describe the situation in Iran, despite the scale of destruction.

“There is a clear gap between what is happening and how it is being reported,” she says.

Beyond the immediate human cost, the war is also triggering profound global consequences.

Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows — has introduced new uncertainty into energy markets. Tehran’s reported push for non-dollar payment systems, including transactions in Chinese yuan, has intensified debate over the future of the petrodollar.

“This is not just a regional war,” Sadeqi explains. “It is about who controls the global economic system.”

Washington has struggled to secure broad international support for its campaign, while Iran has strengthened ties with China and Russia, accelerating a shift toward a more multipolar world. At the same time, cracks are appearing within the U.S.-aligned bloc, as regional actors balance public neutrality with behind-the-scenes involvement.

For many Iranians, however, the reality of the war is far more immediate. The destruction of hospitals, universities, and civilian infrastructure has blurred the line between military and civilian targets, raising serious questions about the true objectives of the campaign.

What emerges from Sadeqi’s account is a stark contradiction: a war justified in the name of liberation, but experienced by those on the ground as collective punishment.

As the conflict continues, that contradiction is becoming harder to sustain — not only within Iran, but across a world increasingly shaped by its consequences.

The post Interview: Bombs in the Name of “Liberation”: Iranian Women Lead Resistance to U.S.-Israeli War appeared first on MintPress News.

As the second largest recipient of Iranian missile and drone strikes on its territory, behind only Israel, the UAE has attempted to present itself as following a path of “cautious de-escalation”; in alignment with the position of its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies. Headlines to this effect have even been run in corporate media, such as “UAE refuses to be drawn into the war, even as Iranian missiles rain down”.

Yet, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not coincidentally target the Emirates with such heavy blows, including to its infrastructure. The UAE, as the most consequential nation to join and push for the “Abraham Accords” series of normalisation agreements with Tel Aviv, began receiving Israeli radar systems as early as 2022. This move even drew former IRGC Navy leader, Ali Reza Tangsiri, to warn that the move “will destabilize, disturb and create insecurity for both himself and this region.”

According to a senior Iranian official, who spoke to the Middle East Eye, only weeks into the war Iranian intelligence concluded that “the UAE also made some of its own air facilities available for operations against Iran.” This included using its facilities to permit an alleged Israeli false-flag attack against Oman, the one Gulf nation that Iran had refrained from striking.

On March 7, some Iranian media outlets blamed the UAE for complicity in an attack on an Iranian water desalination facility located on Qeshm Island. Although Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi suggested the US carried out the strike from Bahraini territory, speculation continued about possible Emirati involvement, which Abu Dhabi denied.

By early April, another major development occurred when Iranian air defences shot down a Chinese-made Wing Loong II UAV over the skies of Shiraz, reportedly carrying out reconnaissance in the vicinity of a missile city site. These drones are only in the possession of two countries in the region, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Tehran immediately said they identified it as belonging to the Emirates.

For decades, the United Arab Emirates has attempted to lay claim to three Iranian islands – Abu Musa, along with Lesser and Greater Tunb – which Iran warned the UAE was seeking to aid the US in attempting to capture. More than simply a claim, and amidst reports of the UAE allowing significant strikes and an American military buildup in the area, Iran’s armed forces issued an official evacuation order for the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah.

Over time, Abu Dhabi’s rhetoric began to grow ever more hostile towards the Islamic Republic, with senior officials using the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” to describe Iran’s actions. The UAE’s US Ambassador, Yousef al-Otaiba, also penned an article for the Wall Street Journal opposing any ceasefire with Iran, seemingly calling for regime change, adding that:

“We need a conclusive outcome that addresses Iran’s full range of threats: nuclear capabilities, missiles, drones, terror proxies and blockades of international sea lanes”

This rhetoric appears in line with reports that following the two-week temporary US-Iranian ceasefire was declared, the UAE has privately lobbied Washington to continue the war of aggression. Publicly, Emirati officials have also advocated for the US position regarding the future status of the Strait of Hormuz.

Within 24 hours of the temporary ceasefire, an Iranian oil refinery was bombed by what Iranian media said was a Dassault Mirage 2000-9 fighter jet. This direct attack, which Tehran accused the Emiratis of being behind, then triggered a direct retaliation and temporarily threatened the stability of the ceasefire.

For Abu Dhabi’s part, it denies any wrongdoing or participation in the war. It has also been exposed for lying about the rate of interceptions it has pulled off against Iranian missiles and drones, downplaying the damage inflicted upon it, while refusing to recognise successful loitering munition attacks despite them being filmed. It had additionally arrested over 100 people for filming Iranian strikes on the country.

On top of this, Abu Dhabi operates the GlobalEye airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) platform, collects advanced signals intelligence data through its Project Dolphin program and uses advanced AI-powered radar systems, specifically to help track Iranian missile launches to protect Israel and warn it in advance of incoming projectiles.

In 2025, the Emirati regime was outed as the secret customer behind a $2.3 billion contract with Israel’s largest weapons firm Elbit Systems. Its cooperation with Israel goes beyond simply contracts and cooperation on tracking Iranian fire at Israeli targets, it extends to other fronts of the regional war also. Last year, the UAE reportedly secretly deployed Israeli ELM-2084 radars in Somalia, in order to monitor missile and drone launches from Yemen.

Then there are the myriad of multinational corporations, tech, and security firms operating in the Emirates, which may not be directly implicated in the fighting, but whose technology is crucial to Israeli-US war efforts across the region especially in the realm of AI platforms they create. This appears to be another reason that Iran has struck the UAE, Dubai in particular so hard compared to other Gulf nations and cities.

Far from a defenseless victim caught in the crossfire, the United Arab Emirates has played a crucial role on the side of the US and Israeli aggressors. Furthermore, during the two-week ceasefire period, the UAE has pursued a course of public antagonism, demanding Iran pay for the damages inflicted against it, while an Emirati government plane was tracked to have landed in Tel Aviv, coinciding with a visit from US CENTCOM Commander Bradley Cooper.

The post Not Neutral: Inside The UAE’s Shadow Role In the US-Israeli War on Iran appeared first on MintPress News.

This has caused widespread consternation and push back from the league’s largely progressive fan base. The NBA, in other words, has an Israel problem.

Drone King

The NBA playoffs start this weekend, with Kevin Durant’s Rockets’ facing LeBron James’ Lakers. Yet both stars have questionable ties to Israel. Durant, for example, is an investor in Skydio, a CIA-funded drone manufacturer that sells surveillance and weaponry exclusively to governments.

Within hours of the October 7, 2023, attack, the company was sending its drones to Israel, where they play an important part in the hi-tech genocide in Gaza. The buzz of Skydio X10 and X10D drones is a near constant sound over Gaza. The drones can be equipped with speakers, spotlights, cameras, or offensive weaponry such as grenades. Israel has used similar drones to play sounds of screaming women and crying babies to lure people to a scene, only to be targeted for assassination.

The U.S. government paid for at least 1000 Skydio drones to be sent to Ukraine to be used in its battle against Russia. Another major funder of the company is In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investments department.

Durant – known for spending a great deal of his time online – is well aware of his investment, and what these drones are being used for, having directly responded to people bringing the issue up. But he has fastidiously refused to address the criticisms. As one NBA fan wrote, “Kevin Durant is on his phone for 23 hours a day to ratio people with 15 followers on Twitter, but bring up his ties with Israel, and now he’s nowhere to be found.”

LeBron Loves Israel

Durant’s opponent this weekend, LeBron James, presents himself as an activist athlete. An outspoken supporter of racial justice movements, he has used his platform to support liberal causes, such as voter registration and to oppose police killings. Idolizing Muhammad Ali, he also very publicly allowed himself to be photographed at a press conference reading the autobiography of Malcolm X (although he was barely able to answer even basic questions about its content).

Surprisingly, then, the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player has expressed his strong support for Israel, and stayed silent on its assault on its neighbors. In the wake of October 7, James was one of many celebrities to rush out statements of solidarity with Israel and condemnation of Hamas.

“The devastation in Israel is tragic and unacceptable. The murder and violence against innocent people by Hamas is terrorism,” he wrote, sending his “deepest condolences to Israel and the Jewish community,” while suggesting Hamas were a “hate” movement.

In the two-and-a-half years of slaughter that has followed it, however, the word “Palestine” has not passed LeBron’s lips, as the star has stayed silent in the face of the unfolding human rights catastrophe. In fact, this February, he went further, seemingly endorsing Israel and its actions, and expressing a desire to visit the country that has bombed seven neighboring countries in the past 12 months.

“I hope I inspire people over there [Israel] to be better in life. Hopefully someday I can make it over there. I’ve heard nothing but great things,” he said.

Considering that Israel has been the number one news story for the past two-and-a-half years, this could be interpreted as public support for Israeli policy.

It is also in direct contrast to the positions taken by LeBron’s idols. Muhammad Ali went to prison rather than participate in the slaughter in Southeast Asia, visited Palestinian refugee camps, and attended pro-Palestine demonstrations until he was physically unable to do so.

Malcolm X, meanwhile, went to Gaza in 1964, and strongly supported the Palestinian cause, linking Israeli settler colonial violence to white supremacism in the United States, and drawing parallels between the Palestinian and Black liberation movements.

Steph Curry: Making Buckets From the Occupation

Perhaps the only current player that can match LeBron’s star power is Stephen Curry. The 12-time All Star and 2023 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award winner presents himself as a humble activist fighting for good. Like LeBron, he is a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party, and has lent his weight to a number of racial and social justice causes.

But also like LeBron, Curry’s connections to Israel have come under public scrutiny. The Golden State Warriors guard has plunged tens of millions of dollars into the country’s tech industry, investing in security and defense firms founded and staffed by Israeli spies and military commanders.

One of these is security firm, Zafran, who, in 2024, Curry bankrolled to the tune of $30 million. Zafran is led by Sanaz Yashar, who spent fifteen years at IDF intelligence outfit, Unit 8200, rising to become a commander, before leaving at starting Zafran.

Unit 8200 is the Israeli military’s most elite and most controversial department. The unit is responsible for cyberwarfare and intelligence attacks, and has been behind some of Israel’s most controversial actions, including producing A.I.-generated kill lists of Gazans, and carrying out the 2024 Lebanon pager attack.

The group is widely identified by both domestic and international human rights agencies as a key perpetrator of the genocide in Gaza, while the pager incident was condemned as a major act of international terrorism, even by former CIA Director, Leon Panetta. Unit 8200 and its graduates are responsible for the production and dissemination of huge quantities of spyware, including the Pegasus software that was used to spy on tens of thousands of activists, politicians, and journalists around the world.

Zafran’s two other co-founders, Snir Havdala and Ben Seri, also come from Israeli military intelligence backgrounds. Havdala spent eight years at Unit 8200, becoming the group’s head of security research, while Seri served in Unit 81, an organization that focuses primarily on building offensive cyberweapons to be used against Israel’s enemies. All three were awarded official prizes for their military contributions. Now, they work (nominally) in the private sector, although the line between Israel’s Silicon Valley and its state intelligence is notoriously blurry.

Another Israeli cybersecurity firm Curry has recycled his NBA dollars into is Upwind, a group founded by Israeli soldiers, Amiram Shachar, Lavi Ferdman, and Liran Polak, who met while serving in the elite Mamram Unit. Famous for selecting only the top 1% of applicants, Mamram is tasked with creating the technological backbone for the entire country’s military, including drones, missile systems, and the Iron Dome.

According to public data from employment database LinkedIn, the majority of employees at both Zafran and Upwind are former Israeli intelligence officers.

Curry’s Israeli investments appeared to have been lucrative ones, as the companies continue to grow. Thus, while the American sharpshooter is making buckets from his partnership with Israel, he remains silent on Gaza.

Unlike Durant, though, Curry’s relationship with Israel appears deeper than purely contractual. He has expressed his interest in Israeli culture, has told the press that he is learning Hebrew, and even has Hebrew tattoos on both his wrists.

Draymond Green: Playing Defense for Israel

Curry’s Golden State Warriors teammate, Draymond Green, however, took his relationship with Israel to a higher level. In 2018, the four-time all-star and NBA Defensive Player of the Year went on a high-profile official trip to Israel, organized by the Friends of the IDF, an American group that purchases equipment for Israeli soldiers.

During his four-day visit, Green smiled as he put on an IDF uniform and shot weapons at a gun range. He also visited Israeli border police and presented their counter-terrorism commander with his own Warriors jersey. He even attended a meeting with Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin – a sign of how important a propaganda coup Israel considered luring the NBA star to their country.

Israel, at the time, was in desperate need of a public relations victory. Green chose to visit the country at the height of the Great March of Return, a series of non-violent Palestinian protests aimed at drawing the world’s attention to the grave injustices being meted out by the Israeli occupation. In response, IDF and Israeli police units – the very organizations Green met with – mowed down protestors, intentionally killing hundreds and disabling thousands.

Green was well aware of the importance of his visit and that it would be understood as an endorsement of a political project. Just weeks previously, he, Curry, and their NBA champion Warriors team rejected an invitation to the White House to meet President Donald Trump, realizing that to do so would carry political connotations.

His decision to visit Israel at the (then) height of their atrocities was widely condemned online. “Flashing a toothy grin with a sniper rifle in Israel on a trip sponsored by Friends of the IDF is so horribly offensive. They’ve recently slaughtered 100s of unarmed Palestinians with those rifles,” activist Shaun King reacted.

Zionism 2.0

A key figure in the NBA’s partnership with Israel is Durant, Curry, and Green’s former Warriors teammate, Omri Casspi. A disciple of President Shimon Peres, the Israeli forward has been a passionate supporter of his country’s expansionist project, and sees basketball as a way of improving Israel’s poor reputation among the Black American community.

“What I wanted to accomplish was to create a better awareness by bringing big celebrities with a lot of following on social media, creating goodwill ambassadors for Israel,” he said, adding: “Unfortunately, Israel gets a bad rep sometimes in the media. These guys are from places like Baltimore and Alabama. And there are kids down there who follow them really closely, and they see that they’ve been to Israel, and that creates good energy.”

Casspi has convinced several NBA players to join him on high-profile visits to Israel, all paid for by Israeli-American billionaire and Republican mega donor Miriam Adelson, who now owns the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise.

In 2015, Adelson paid for a private jet to take Casspi and fellow players, DeMarcus Cousins, Rudy Gay, Caron Butler, Tyreke Evans, and Chandler Parsons to Israel. While there, the group visited the Western Wall and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in what even The Jewish Journal called an “anti-BDS [Boycott Divestment and Sanctions] PR” trip.

The next year, Casspi was joined by Rudy Gay, Chris Copeland, Donald Sloan, Shawn Marion and Amar’e Stoudemire, latter of whom would later move to Israel and convert to Judaism.

Jimmy Butler, meanwhile, received an award for his pro-Israel activism from Israeli Consul General to the Northwestern United States, Ambassador Marco Sermoneta. Since October 2023, the six-time all-star has vocally campaigned for the release of Israeli prisoners from Hamas custody,

Other NBA players known to have visited Israel include Victor Oladipo, Lamarcus Aldridge, and Enes Kanter Freedom.

For Casspi and Israel, however, building goodwill for Israel among the basketball community is not enough. After more than two years of constant fighting, the Israeli economy is in tatters, and desperately needs foreign investment. To that end, the former pro founded Swish Ventures, a project designed to funnel American money into the Israel tech sector.

Casspi hopes that Curry’s massive investments are just the start. As he told The Times of Israel in 2024:

“We are launching Swish at a time when the importance of the high-tech sector to Israel is maturing… In this not easy climate during war and with high interest rates, we see this period as Zionism 2.0, a time and age of building generational companies from Israel, and we want to take advantage of that and help them build a great industry.”

“The high-tech infrastructure allows us to serve national interests and is more important than ever,” he added.

As such, then, the efforts to improve connections between the NBA and Israel are far from natural, but are intentional, coordinated, and part of a wider strategy to further the Zionist project.

Crushing Pro-Palestine Sympathy

While the practice of associating the NBA’s brand with an Apartheid state has received serious pushback from fans, the league has quietly endorsed it. Indeed, NBA commissioner Adam Silver participated in an official visit to Israel as part of its “Basketball Without Borders” program, bringing NBA legends David Robinson and Wayne Embry with him. While in Israel, Robinson and Embry met with both Rivlin and Netanyahu.

Silver has also zealously quashed expressions of support for Palestine, no matter how small. Last year, NBA legend Dwight Howard revealed how a 2014 social media post almost lost him his career. “So I tweet ‘Free Palestine’. Less than 10 minutes after I tweet that, I get a call from the commissioner of the NBA [Silver], agents, people working with my foundation,” he said, all with the coordinated message: “You got to erase this tweet, you got to take this down.”

Howard revealed that it had a chilling effect on his speech, realizing that “If I say too much, if I say something, I may not get a job no more.” At the time of his post, Howard was an eight-time all star and three-time Defensive Player of the Year, suggesting that, on the subject of Israel/Palestine, even marquee names feel immense top-down pressure to conform.

In 2022, the league went one step further with star player Kyrie Irving. After he posted a link to the antisemitic conspiracy documentary, “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” to his Twitter account, Irving was immediately suspended, and forced to apologize.

He was even made to give half a million dollars to the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israel pressure group that spied on Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement and has sought to undermine the current Movement for Black Lives – an organization Irving supports.

This pressure to conform extends, it seems, even to high-profile fans of the sport. At this year’s NBA All Star Game, director Spike Lee wore a keffiyeh-patterned top and a bag featuring a Palestinian flag motif. Shortly afterward, he issued a bizarre public apology for his clothing choice, asking for forgiveness for his “gesture of hostility to the Jewish community” and his “support of violence.”

Targeting Black Americans with Propaganda

The African-American community is vastly more supportive of Palestine than the rest of the population. Like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, Black Americans are far more likely to see parallels between their own struggles and those of the Palestinians. A 2023 New York Times Siena College poll found that they were the only group more likely to sympathize with Palestine (34%) than Israel (28%) – far more than their white counterparts, who overwhelmingly backed Israel (56% to 17%).

Israel and its supporters have long identified the Black community as a potential problem. To that end, they have been targeting them for at least a decade with special public relations efforts. Emails released by WikiLeaks show that entertainment moguls liaising with the IDF recruited hip hop mega producer Russell Simmons to promote Israel’s image in Black America.

When asked what could be done, the founder of Def Jam Records and the brother of Joseph “Rev.Run” Simmons, one third of Run DMC, responded: “Simple messaging from non Jews specifically from Muslims promoting peace and Israel’s right to exist…We have resources and the desire to win rather than lose the hearts of young Muslims and Jews.”

What these resources were, he explained: “We have hundreds of collaboration programs between Imams Rabbis and their congregations We have many respected imams who would join former chief rabbi metzker (spelling) rabbi Schneier and non Jews in promoting the Saudi peace plan.” “Through this campaign we will be helping Israel,” he concluded.

For a deep dive into this story, read the MintPress News investigation, “The Israel Files: WikiLeaks Docs Show Top Hollywood Producers Working with Israel to Defend its War Crimes.”

Israel has also tried to more directly recruit Steph Curry into its P.R. drive. A recently-created firm called Show Faith by Works, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as affiliated with the Israeli government, identified the basketball star as a potential “Christian Celebrity Spokesperson” who could “deliver pro-Israel messaging” into religious communities across the country. There is no evidence, however, that Curry accepted their offer.

Imperial Boomerang

While putting money into drones or Israeli technology may seem a rather abstract, faraway investment for American NBA stars, they are increasingly coming to negatively affect Black communities across the United States. Skydio has signed a number of lucrative contracts with domestic law enforcement agencies, including the DEA and ICE, the latter of which has bought millions of dollars worth of drones

ICE has surveiled, harassed, and broken up communities of color from coast to coast, and is using cutting edge technology to suppress protest movements organizing against it. Last week, the agency admitted that it was also using powerful Israeli spyware developed by former Unit 8200 agents to hack into phones across America.

With help from groups such as the ADL, ICE has a long history of working with the Israeli police and military, studying the tactics they use to oppress Palestinians. Now, we are increasingly seeing those tactics being used to discipline and control domestic dissent.

Therefore, while NBA stars like Durant and Curry can make a killing investing in questionable tech companies, the technology they produce could increasingly be used to suppress Americans protesting against the Israeli-inspired police state being rapidly constructed before our eyes.

Related Articles: https://www.mintpressnews.com/when-it-comes-to-defending-rights-lebron-takes-michael-jordan-to-school/235940/

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During the last large-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanese territory in 2006, its armed forces had managed to reach the Litani River area, some 32 kilometers from the border within thirty days. In over 40 days of fighting, this time around, they have largely failed to move much further than a few kilometers deep into South Lebanon.

Desperate to make an impact and inflict a psychological blow upon the population of Lebanon and break Hezbollah’s morale, Israel has chosen to cover its failure to advance deep into the country by assaulting the village of Bint Jbeil instead.

The village’s significance dates back to the year 2000, when the former Secretary General of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, delivered what was perhaps his most historic speech from a small soccer stadium there to address the Lebanese nation on May 26 of that year to mark the liberation of the South, which had been under Israeli occupation for nearly a decade.

Seyed Nasrallah declared the following:

“Israel, with its nuclear weapons and most advanced warplanes in the region, I swear by God, is actually weaker than a spider’s web… Israeli society lacks the resilience to endure a bloody conflict or suffer casualties. Israel may appear strong from the outside, but it’s easily destroyed and defeated.”

In 2006, Israel set it as an objective that they would conquer Bint Jbeil and set an Israeli flag at the site where Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah had delivered his speech, but failed to seize control of the village; due to the fierce resistance it faced from Hezbollah’s fighters. The “spiders web theory”, about Israel’s weakness, has long occupied the minds of Israel’s top military officials, who continuously attempt to dispute the statement.

Former Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would later visit Bint Jbeil as part of his 2010 trip to Lebanon. From that very same stadium where Nasrallah once spoke, Ahmadinejad delivered a speech in which he asserted that:

“Occupied Palestine will be liberated from the filth of occupation by the strength of resistance and through the faith of the resistance,” drawing outrage from the Israeli political leadership.”

However, today the Israeli military quickly claimed to have completely encircled Bint Jbeil, while some media outlets have disseminated maps showing what is purported to be the situation on the ground.

Yet, the concept of Israel totally capturing areas in Lebanon is misleading for a number of reasons.

During the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war, Israeli Brigadier General Gal Hirsch had declared publicly that Israel had “complete control” over Bint Jbeil. This claim was later discredited after the evidence emerged to show that three separate pushes to seize the village had failed, despite a heavy Israeli presence surrounding it.

Similarly, we see a similar pattern this time around. Major announcements are made, regarding the Israeli advance and how they have the area surrounded. What this actually means is that Israel has cut off all the main public roads, but doesn’t indicate that Hezbollah supply routes are closed, nor does it mean that there aren’t Lebanese fighters operating in the territory Israel claims to have “captured”.

Another example of where this has been on full display is in the case of Khiam, a border village located in south-east Lebanon. Since 1977 the Israeli military has attempted to control the village area’s mountainous terrain, failing five times to do so. In its sixth attempt to seize the territory, it also announced that Khiam was surrounded and almost entirely under their control, yet Hezbollah fighters routinely carry out attacks on the positions they claim to have already occupied.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem commented, following Israel’s 2024 attempt to seize the village, that the reason Lebanese fighters had foiled the invading army’s plots was that it maintained a series of undetected supply lines.

Although Israel did not claim to have seized the village of Bint Jbeil in 2024, the “spiders web” speech was still very much on the minds of the Israeli media and its senior officials. Israel Hayom, a newspaper owned by Miriam Adelson and close to PM Benjamin Netanyahu, had even run an article in September of that year, entitled “Spider Web Theory Unravels”.

Believing that focusing its efforts on seizing Bint Jbeil, will demoralize Hezbollah and constitute a major victory, Israel recently launched airstrikes against the soccer stadium where the famous Nasrallah speech was issued.

The airstrikes against a small stadium were even addressed by Israel’s 98th Division Commander Guy Levy, who boasted that “Bint Jbeil 2000: Someone here spoke and boasted about webs and spiders..Today, that man no longer exists, the stadium is gone, and his words are worth nothing.”

In the realm of Israeli propaganda, this is presented as an achievement. Contrary to this point of view, the strategy of Hezbollah has always been to draw Israel’s forces deep into Lebanese territory, in order to ambush them and wage a guerilla war that eventually forces the occupying army to retreat.  Hence Nasrallah’s warning to Israel in July of 2024, that in the event Israel invades “you will have no tanks left”, after which he said that southern Lebanon would drown the Israeli army.

Washington-based pro-war think tank, the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD) recently offered the following analysis as to why the IDF cannot achieve its stated military goals in southern Lebanon:

“Israel would have to occupy hostile, unpacified terrain over extended lines while simultaneously pushing north through south Lebanon, up the coast toward Dahiyeh, and along Lebanon’s northeastern border with Syria—all while remaining undermanned and over committed across other vital active fronts, and prepared for additional theaters to ignite. Air power alone cannot disarm Hezbollah. Israel’s sustained aerial campaign over the past 15 months hindered, but didn’t halt, Hezbollah’s comprehensive regeneration.”

Similarly, the strategy implemented by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza sought to achieve the exact same outcome. Israel typically sends its soldiers into areas it invades, in tanks and heavily armoured vehicles without infantry accompanying them, to reduce deaths. What this also means is that it does not fully clear areas it enters, nor does it ever fully control them. The difference between Gaza and Lebanon is that the Lebanese terrain is more difficult to traverse, and Hezbollah is far superior to Hamas as a military force.

Speaking to ABC news last August, Gabi Siboni, an Israeli colonel and military expert, working for the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security think tank, stated that the war in the Gaza Strip could take a whole decade to complete its objectives.

With all the relevant facts considered, there is a low likelihood that Israeli ground forces will successfully achieve their objectives of preventing Hezbollah fire into the northern settlements and to permanently occupy southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, proving the “spiders web” theory of Hezbollah’s former leader, Mayors representing Israeli population centers along the border are frequently accusing their leadership of failing to protect residents and warning of an exodus from the area.

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