作者： admin

In early July, Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz traveled to Tehran to participate in the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, where he was greeted warmly by senior Iranian government officials and later hosted for formal talks by newly elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Behind the public diplomatic courtesy, a critical behind-the-scenes security collaboration between the two regional powers was revealed to independent news outlet Middle East Eye by multiple anonymous sources familiar with the closed-door discussions. \n\nAccording to the sources, Pezeshkian expressed explicit gratitude to the Turkish delegation for its role in derailing a covert Israeli plan led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to incite an armed uprising by Kurdish opposition groups in western Iran. Senior Turkish officials had launched intensive diplomatic outreach to their U.S. counterparts to argue that the Israeli proposal was not only unworkable but also posed a direct threat to Turkey’s core national security interests. Multiple sources familiar with the exchanges note that former U.S. President Donald Trump had previously hinted on multiple occasions that Ankara was even prepared to take military action to stop the creation of a new Kurdish separatist entity along its southern border, a response shaped by Turkey’s past security experiences stemming from the civil war in neighboring Syria. \n\nBeyond blocking the Israeli initiative, Turkey also delivered a clear diplomatic message to Iranian leadership during the talks: avoid sustained large-scale military operations against Kurdish groups positioned in the cross-border regions of Iran and northern Iraq. Turkish policymakers warn that if Iran continues its crackdown after the failure of the Israeli-backed insurgency plot, displaced and embattled Kurdish factions will have little choice but to deepen alliances with Israel and Western powers, a outcome that runs directly counter to Ankara’s current security priorities. \n\nCrucially, Turkey is currently navigating a fragile peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as a terrorist organization by Ankara, the EU, and the United States. The Turkish government is set to introduce landmark draft legislation to parliament this coming Monday that would create a legal pathway for former PKK militants to return to Turkey within a six-month window. The proposed partial pardon would open a path to social reintegration for non-violent PKK cadres, making regional stability a non-negotiable requirement for the peace process to move forward. Any escalation of Iranian military action in northern Iraq, where the PKK maintains long-standing rear bases, risks unraveling the delicate negotiating track. \n\nTurkish diplomatic lobbying of Washington proved surprisingly effective, sources confirm, because senior Trump administration officials were already deeply skeptical of Netanyahu’s regime-change gambit, particularly the claim that Kurdish forces could successfully execute a ground incursion into central Iran. Multiple U.S. officials privately dismissed the plan as deeply flawed: the CIA director reportedly described Netanyahu’s regime-change scenarios as “farcical”, a characterization that Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed in blunter terms to aides, calling it “bullshit”. \n\nEarlier this year, when U.S. officials working with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and the CIA approached Iraqi Kurdish leaders to invite them to join the proposed anti-Tehran uprising, the proposal left Kurdish leadership caught between competing interests. The plan called for the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the Iranian affiliate of Iraq’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), to lead the insurgency, and also demanded that Peshmerga forces from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) join the campaign, as U.S. officials doubted the PDKI had the military capacity to pull off the operation on its own. But Erbil rejected the proposal. \n\nThe reluctance of Iraqi Kurdish leaders to sign on stemmed from lingering distrust of Washington, after the U.S. abandoned Kurdish militias in northern Syria earlier this year in a policy shift to accommodate the new Damascus government. With no guarantee of sustained U.S. support, Kurdish leaders had little incentive to take up arms against Iran. \n\nMehmet Alaca, a leading Turkish scholar focused on Iraqi politics and security, explained that escalating Iranian military pressure on Kurdish opposition groups would backfire for all regional actors. “Increased Iranian military pressure could inadvertently push Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, such as the PDKI, Komala and the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), closer to the West, particularly Israel,” Alaca told Middle East Eye. “The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which has hosted these groups for many years, would bear the greatest cost of such a development. Besides risking the transformation of the region into a new front in the Iran-Israel rivalry, this scenario could make the balance between the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) [in Iraq], the party led by the Talabani family, even more fragile. It could also provide Tehran with a justification for further expanding its influence in the region on security grounds.” \n\nIran has launched repeated airstrikes against PDKI bases in northern Iraq since escalating operations against Kurdish opposition groups in late February. To mitigate the risk of escalating instability, Alaca notes that Turkey has actively pursued diplomatic outreach to the PUK, a traditionally Iran-aligned Iraqi Kurdish party that normalized official relations with Ankara during a high-level visit to Turkey earlier this month. Currently, both the KDP and PUK – despite their long-standing internal rivalry – have agreed on a shared position that Iranian Kurdish opposition groups should not be drawn into the broader conflict between Iran and Israel. \n\nFor Turkey, Alaca emphasized, the entire dynamic revolves around its long-term domestic and regional security goals. “For Turkey, the most critical dimension is the peace process and the new security architecture it is seeking to build for the post-PKK era. The extension of the Iran-Israel rivalry into Iraqi Kurdistan and the re-emergence of the Kurdish card at the centre of the regional power struggle would directly undermine Turkey’s long-term security calculations.”’

A month after completing what stands as the highest-profile diplomatic tour of Libya by the US’s top regional envoy since he assumed his role, Massad Boulos’ push for Libyan institutional unification remains mired in ambiguity, leaving regional observers and local factions questioning Washington’s core goals in the fractured North African nation.

Boulos, who serves as senior advisor to former President Donald Trump on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, kicked off his multi-stop tour in early July with widespread expectations that he would unveil a concrete framework to resolve Libya’s decade-long political split. The itinerary kicked off with preliminary closed-door talks with factional representatives in Malta on July 6, followed by back-to-back face-to-face negotiations the next two days: first with Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who leads the UN-backed western Libyan government, on July 7, and then with eastern Libyan strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi a day later.

In a notable break from standard diplomatic itineraries, Boulos also carved out time to meet with a range of influential independent players unaffiliated with either of the country’s rival ruling blocs. These included Naji Issa, governor of Libya’s Central Bank, and leading representatives from the Council of Elders of Misrata, the economically powerful western Libyan city that played a key role in defeating Haftar’s 2019–2020 offensive on western Libya.

Despite weeks of follow-up talks after the tour, no clear public roadmap has materialized for what Boulos framed during his visit as national unification efforts, a framework that has become widely known as the “Boulos initiative.”

This diplomatic push is not a new endeavor. As far back as September 2024, Boulos publicly committed that Washington would actively facilitate the reunification of Libya’s governing institutions, which have split along eastern-western lines since the outbreak of the country’s second civil war in 2014. That division came three years after a NATO-backed intervention toppled longtime Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, leaving a power vacuum that has stoked ongoing instability.

Today, the country’s political landscape remains split: Haftar and his allied factions control eastern Libya, while Dbeibah’s UN-supported administration governs the west from Tripoli. The UN Support Mission in Libya has led formal peace negotiations since large-scale fighting ended in 2020, but the country has yet to achieve full institutional unification, with no national elections held to resolve competing claims to power.

After nearly 12 months of regular negotiations and meetings with Libyan officials from all sides, Boulos’ only confirmed major breakthrough has been the brokering of a unified national budget for both rival governments, agreed in April 2025. No additional concrete progress has been recorded in the months since. As of July 19, Aguilah Saleh, speaker of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives aligned with Haftar, confirmed that the legislative body had not received any official draft proposal for the Boulos initiative as of yet.

Slow progress on the initiative has been fueled in large part by mounting criticism from multiple major Libyan factions, whose opposition coalesced after a June 2025 Financial Times report cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter claiming that Washington was pushing a power-sharing deal that would install Saddam Haftar, Khalifa Haftar’s son and widely anticipated successor to the 82-year-old field marshal, as head of Libya’s highest executive body, the Presidential Council. The role is currently held by Mohamed Menfi, a relatively neutral political figure.

When Boulos arrived in Misrata on July 7 to begin his tour of western Libya, dozens of protesters gathered at the city’s airport to demonstrate against his visit and denounce what they called a “suspicious deal” to advance the Haftar family’s political power. Misrata, Libya’s commercial heartland, and its business and military leadership have a long history of fierce opposition to the Haftars; the city’s militias led the resistance that repelled Haftar’s 2019–2020 offensive to seize control of western Libya.

“The criminal Haftar is responsible for everything happening today, this is reason enough to reject a solution [involving his family],” Younes al-Salabi, spokesman for the Misrata Military Council, one of Libya’s largest armed factions, told Middle East Eye in an interview.

Misrata is not the only bloc opposing the initiative. In southern Libya’s desert region, rebel leader Mohamed Wardago, whose armed movement has waged an insurgency against Haftar’s forces since January 2025, echoed the opposition. “Nobody can accept that Haftar and his sons should hold key sovereign positions within the Libyan state,” Wardago said, confirming that his group had also seen reports of the US plan to install Saddam Haftar as Presidential Council head.

Jalel Harchaoui, a leading North Africa-based political analyst, confirmed that placing Saddam Haftar in the top executive role is the core component of the proposed deal. While the constitutional framework that defines the Presidential Council head’s powers remains vague, Harchaoui noted that Saddam Haftar already commands his own military units, so his appointment would expand the office’s influence and fundamentally reshape its role in Libyan politics.

The proposed deal does not only elevate the Haftar family: multiple reports, including the June Financial Times investigation, indicate the framework would allow Dbeibah to remain in his post as prime minister in Tripoli. Though Washington has long-standing ties to Khalifa Haftar, who holds US citizenship, the State Department has also maintained regular direct diplomatic contacts with Dbeibah; Boulos described a July 26 phone call between the two sides as “productive.”

Dbeibah, who was appointed to his post by the UN-backed Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in 2021 rather than elected through a popular vote, has faced growing public backlash in recent months. Since May 2025, repeated street protests have called for his resignation. Tensions flared again at the end of July, when protests sparked by widespread power cuts in western Libya shifted focus to Dbeibah, with demonstrators attempting to storm his Tripoli office. In recent days, protesters have closed five ministry offices and the national anti-corruption authority to protest collapsing public services, the ongoing electricity crisis, and plummeting living standards across the country.

Against this backdrop, a US-brokered deal that allows Dbeibah to retain power is deeply controversial among the Libyan public, even as it offers the embattled prime minister a critical political lifeline. “Dbeibah would gain recognition across the country and would, for the first time, be able to travel to Benghazi,” Harchaoui explained. “Both Saddam and Dbeibah would acquire national legitimacy, with the possibility of remaining in power without elections for at least a year, probably longer.”

While holding national elections remains an official priority for the United Nations, with the UN Security Council reaffirming its call for polls last month, elections have barely been mentioned as a core goal of Boulos’ initiative and do not appear to be part of his proposed framework. Misrata’s leadership says it supports a resolution centered on “the organisation of a constitutional referendum and elections,” while July protesters in Tripoli repeatedly called for “the fall of all political institutions, without exception,” to be replaced through a free electoral process.

In recent weeks, Boulos, a fluent Arabic speaker, has given a series of interviews to Arab regional media to defend and promote Washington’s efforts in Libya. In a July 27 interview with Saudi outlet Asharq Al-Awsat, Boulos argued that “unity is the basis for legitimacy and democratic elections,” meaning his framework prioritizes reaching a unification deal first before holding any national polls.

Analysts say this sequencing aligns with the White House’s core priorities in Libya: securing stable, pro-US partners rather than advancing rapid democratic transition. Since January 2025, when Libya announced its first oil licensing round in nearly 20 years, the US has actively encouraged American energy firms to invest in Libya’s oil sector, which holds the largest proven oil reserves on the African continent. A second core US priority is expanding security cooperation with Libya’s fragmented military, particularly Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), to counter Russian influence in the region.

Russia has provided direct military support to the LNA since the second Libyan civil war, with Russian paramilitary groups deploying thousands of fighters to back Haftar’s forces. In exchange, Moscow has gained access to key airfields and ports in eastern and southern Libya, which the LNA controls, allowing Russia to expand its military operations across the African continent.

Harchaoui noted that “The Pentagon believes that unifying the military commands would make it harder for Russia to maintain its presence” in Libya. So far, one of the only tangible US successes in this area has been the Flintlock 2026 joint military exercise held in April 2025, which marked the first time LNA units and Tripoli-based armed forces trained together on Libyan soil.

During his July tour, Boulos also prioritized meetings with top Libyan security officials, meeting not just the Haftar family in Benghazi but also Interior Minister Emad Trabelsi and Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Salam al-Zoubi in Tripoli, both of whom command powerful western Libyan armed groups. Still, even after months of high-level diplomacy, Boulos has failed to outline clear specifics for his initiative, including how military reunification would be implemented.

A recent UN Panel of Experts on Libya report has also added to skepticism, reiterating longstanding allegations of widespread human rights abuses and systemic corruption involving armed groups and factions aligned with both the Haftar and Dbeibah families. Khalifa Haftar in particular has been accused of war crimes by global watchdog groups including Human Rights Watch, and a US court has previously ruled that he is legally liable for torture and extrajudicial executions carried out by his forces.

Ultimately, the lack of clarity surrounding Boulos’ plan has fueled growing skepticism across Libya, even as a broad majority of Libyans from all factions support the ultimate goal of unifying the country’s fractured institutions.

A major rift has emerged over a touted Gaza ceasefire breakthrough after a senior Hamas official confirmed the Palestinian armed movement will refuse any disarmament steps until Israeli military forces fully withdraw from the besieged enclave. Speaking to Al Jazeera, senior Hamas representative Ghazi Hamad emphasized that Israel will have no part whatsoever in any process to surrender the group’s weapons. Instead, Hamad noted, any disarmament initiative will be led exclusively by an independent Palestinian national committee.

The announcement comes amid a deeply broken ceasefire that took effect in October 2025: while Hamas has largely honored the truce terms, Israel has launched an unrelenting bombing campaign across Gaza that has already killed over 1,000 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more, in direct violation of the agreement.

Per reporting from Agence France-Presse, unnamed Hamas sources confirmed that a technocratic Palestinian committee established by the Board of Peace to govern Gaza would act as the sole authority responsible for managing and storing the group’s arms. The framework aligns with a broader ceasefire implementation deal that the Board of Peace announced Friday, confirming Hamas had formally approved the detailed plan for the next phases of the truce.

In a public statement posted to X, the Board of Peace framed the deal as the product of months of intensive, good-faith negotiations advancing a peace plan put forward by former U.S. President Donald Trump. The plan lays out new governance structures, expanded security arrangements, increased humanitarian aid access, large-scale reconstruction and economic recovery for Gaza, as outlined in the Trump proposal and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803. The Board of Peace called the decision a “historic breakthrough,” claiming it would see Hamas disarm prior to an eventual Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.

The White House echoed that celebratory framing in a July 30, 2026 post on X, writing “Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. A monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY.”

Israeli officials have yet to issue any formal comment on the new agreement, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet have repeatedly stated Israeli forces will not withdraw from Gaza, where the Israeli military has waged what the report terms a genocidal war and ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinian civilians. Back in May 2026, Netanyahu publicly stated his goal for Israel to seize full control of 70 percent of Gaza’s territory, noting “We currently control 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, and my directives are to move toward controlling 70 percent.”

As of July 2026, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 73,000 people in Gaza, with thousands more still unaccounted for and presumed dead under the rubble of destroyed buildings. The small enclave, home to nearly 2 million Palestinians, has been left almost entirely in ruins, with 90 percent of the local population displaced from their homes. Most displaced Palestinians now live in overcrowded tent camps with no access to basic sanitation infrastructure. This report was originally published by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent coverage and analysis of the Middle East and North Africa region.

In mid-July 2025, a controversy sparked by unsubstantiated allegations of Israeli nationals working at a controversial tech-backed project in southern Malaysia has thrown a harsh spotlight on the deep contradictions between Kuala Lumpur’s longstanding pro-Palestine foreign policy and its aggressive push to attract global foreign investment.

On July 15, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim made a forceful public declaration: any Israeli national found on Malaysian soil would be immediately deported, and the country would not compromise on its immigration stance, a position rooted in Malaysia’s official non-recognition of the state of Israel. The prime minister’s comments followed the emergence of online claims that Israelis were embedded in the Network School, a little-known initiative tied to the so-called ‘Network State’ concept launched by former Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Stanford professor Balaji Srinivasan, located in Johor state’s Forest City development.

Within hours of the allegations surfacing, Johor Chief Minister Dato Onn Hafiz Ghazi ordered state agencies including the Iskandar Puteri City Council to launch a full review of the Network School’s business compliance, and called for federal agencies including the Home Ministry, Immigration Department, police and customs to lead a formal probe into the claims of Israeli presence. Malaysia’s federal Home Ministry quickly greenlit the investigation.

After two rounds of inspections covering 379 foreign nationals registered at the site, Malaysia’s Immigration Department confirmed no regulatory violations were found among the vast majority of those checked, but noted that 19 individuals could not be traced. Director-General Dato Zakaria Shaaban told reporters the untraced people may have entered or exited the country through irregular channels, and authorities have launched a nationwide lookout for the group. On July 17, Ghazi’s administration issued formal notices to the Network School after uncovering that one of its linked properties was operating without a valid business license.

The crisis escalated on July 23, when the United States government summoned Malaysia’s ambassador to Washington, Tan Sri Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob, to demand clarification of Anwar’s deportation announcement. In a firm response, the Malaysian government reaffirmed it would not revise its longstanding immigration policy toward Israel. Srinivasan, for his part, took to social media platform X to request an audience with Anwar, seeking to reassure international investors and restore confidence in Malaysia as a viable destination for tech investment.

To understand the roots of this controversy, it is necessary to examine the unconventional nature of Srinivasan’s Network State project. First conceptualized publicly in 2022, the initiative frames itself as a “startup society” focused on peace, with the ultimate goal of crowdfunding physical territory to build a new sovereign state that would eventually earn diplomatic recognition from existing global governments. The project’s website describes it as a community built around an “ethnic diaspora” connected digitally, with physical outposts that act as “cloud embassies” where recruits can test the project before committing to stay. The Network State counts heavyweight backers including Silicon Valley titans Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Joe Lonsdale and Patri Friedman, as well as major crypto firms such as Coinbase and Praxis.

Critics have long flagged the project’s troubling parallels to historical settler colonial ventures, noting that it centers on a digitally organized movement seeking to purchase and control physical territory in foreign nations. Many academic observers have also pointed out that Srinivasan frequently cites Israel as a model for successful nation-building, and draws direct ideological inspiration from Israel’s state-building experience. Compounding these red flags for Malaysia, multiple backers of the Network State have well-documented ties to Israel’s military and surveillance apparatus: Thiel’s data firm Palantir has invested heavily in Israeli military startups accused of providing surveillance technology that enables Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Srinivasan launched the Network School in 2024, choosing Forest City in Johor for its close proximity to Singapore, a global tech hub. But the location itself is mired in decades of controversy. Forest City is a multi-billion dollar joint venture between China’s Country Garden Group and Malaysian firm Iskandar Esplanade Danga 88 Sdn Bhd, whose shareholders include Johor’s ruling Sultan Ibrahim and business interests linked to the United Malays National Organisation, Malaysia’s largest Malay nationalist political party. Built largely on reclaimed coastal land, the development has long faced condemnation from environmental activists and local communities: an investigative report by Mongabay confirmed that construction began without a required environmental impact assessment, leading to the destruction of critical seagrass habitats and massive sand dumping that erased hundreds of hectares of traditional fishing grounds relied on by local communities. Rights groups have also previously criticized the project for relying heavily on low-wage migrant workers from South Asia, particularly Bangladesh, with limited labor protections.

The Network School scandal is not an isolated incident, but the most visible exposure of longstanding tensions at the heart of Malaysia’s foreign and economic policy. Malaysia has positioned itself as a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause and a critic of Israeli military actions in Gaza, but it has also actively courted billions in foreign investment from Western and U.S.-linked firms, many of which have documented ties to Israel.

Earlier this year, for example, a BlackRock subsidiary was allowed to join a consortium taking a ownership stake in Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, a move that drew widespread criticism from Malaysian civil society groups, who called on Anwar to reject the deal over BlackRock’s links to what they described as “Zionist entity conducting a settler-colonial and racist genocide in Gaza.” Local media reports later revealed that the Anwar administration launched an aggressive media campaign to discredit critics of the BlackRock deal. In April, multiple major international defense firms with longstanding business ties to the Israeli military – including U.S. contractor Lockheed Martin, European missile maker MBDA, and U.S. firearms producer Colt’s Manufacturing – were allowed to participate in the 2026 Defence Services Asia and National Security Asia exhibition in Kuala Lumpur.

Civil society campaigners have also documented other ongoing links: Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby maintains investment ties with Caterpillar, whose bulldozers have been used by the Israeli military for home demolitions in the occupied Palestinian territories; Australian rare earth producer Lynas continues its operations in Malaysia, with its minerals entering global defense supply chains that serve Israel; and activists have alleged that Malaysian ports have been used to facilitate shipments bound for Israel’s military supply chain. In 2025, Anwar welcomed former U.S. President Donald Trump to the ASEAN Summit held in Malaysia, despite widespread mass protests from pro-Palestine activists. Rights groups accused Malaysian police of detaining and intimidating peaceful protesters during the visit, while authorities maintained tight security to accommodate Trump.

Malaysia’s complicated balancing act is also shaped by its unique domestic political structure: a constitutional monarchy where power is divided between the federal government, state authorities and royal institutions, a system that has historically allowed large-scale foreign-backed development projects to move forward with limited public accountability or resistance. For Johor, the current site of the controversy, the stakes are particularly high: between July 2024 and June 2025, Malaysia attracted roughly $759 million in data center investments, with Johor emerging as a key tech hub as part of the newly launched Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone.

Government officials have repeatedly stressed that all enforcement actions against the Network School have been rooted in regulatory compliance, not political considerations, but the controversy has ignited a fierce national and international debate over whether Malaysia can maintain its principled pro-Palestine stance while continuing to court investment from firms and countries with deep ties to Israel. As of late July, the investigation remains ongoing, and the future of the Network School project in Johor remains uncertain.