分类： politics

During a surprise high-profile diplomatic trip to India this week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio bypassed the traditional mandatory stop in the national capital of New Delhi, instead centering his itinerary on the financial hub of Mumbai and the remote western port town of Jamnagar, a move that analysts frame as a strategic gambit tied directly to the Donald Trump administration’s urgent domestic energy priorities in the run-up to November’s U.S. midterm elections. Rubio, making his second official visit to India in a single calendar year, first landed in Mumbai where he held closed-door bilateral talks with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the iconic Taj Hotel, alongside a series of roundtable meetings with top-tier Indian business leaders. The official U.S. State Department pre-visit announcement had flagged energy cooperation, cross-border commercial investment, and broader bilateral economic alignment as core agenda pillars, but the complete omission of New Delhi from the formal itinerary sparked initial speculation from Indian opposition politicians about a potential snub to the national government. Experts including Michael Kugelman, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explained that the deliberate choice to avoid Delhi was rooted in the deep existing trust deficit between the two national administrations: Delhi policymakers have publicly voiced frustration over a string of Trump administration policies, including sweeping tariffs on Indian goods, previously active sanctions targeting Indian entities for purchasing Russian energy, and a 20-month-long stalemate in negotiations for a landmark bilateral trade deal. Former Indian ambassador to the U.S. Meera Shankar, however, pushed back against overinterpreting the skipped capital stop, noting that the entire trip was explicitly structured as an energy-focused mission, and that the critical high-level diplomatic engagement with Jaishankar had already been completed in Mumbai. The defining stop of the visit came in Jamnagar, Gujarat, the site of Mukesh Ambani’s sprawling Reliance Industries oil refinery complex: a facility that processes 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day, accounting for roughly 1.5% of total global refining capacity, and standing as one of the world’s largest single-site exporters of diesel and other refined petroleum products. Against a backdrop of escalating tensions across the Middle East that threaten to disrupt global energy supply chains, and with no new major refining capacity slated to come online in the U.S. in the immediate short term, the Trump administration is under intense domestic pressure to curb rising retail fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections, making India’s world-class refining ecosystem a uniquely viable solution to ease upward pressure on U.S. fuel markets. During a tightly restricted, low-media-access tour of the Jamnagar facility, Rubio met privately with Ambani and senior members of the Reliance leadership team, with the conglomerate later releasing a carefully worded statement noting that discussions covered the shifting global energy landscape and cross-sector commercial partnership opportunities spanning both traditional fossil fuels and renewable new energy projects, without confirming any formal binding commitments on crude sourcing or refined product exports. Speaking to reporters a day prior to the refinery tour, Rubio lauded India as a “refining superpower” and explicitly called for Reliance to ramp up processing of heavy crude oil from Venezuela, whose energy sector sanctions the U.S. partially eased earlier this year after the American intervention that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Analysts note that the push to redirect Reliance’s refining capacity toward Venezuelan crude serves multiple overlapping U.S. goals: it would immediately boost global supplies of refined fuel to cool U.S. domestic prices, while also gradually reducing India’s longstanding reliance on discounted Russian crude. Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, India has emerged as one of the world’s top importers of Russian crude, with data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air showing that between December 2022 and July 2026, 37% of Russia’s total crude exports flowed to India, a dynamic that has long been a major point of friction in U.S.-India ties. The Trump administration had imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods over these Russian oil purchases in August 2025, pushing total tariffs on many Indian products as high as 50%, before pausing the penalty in February 2026; the U.S. also temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian diesel imports earlier this month, creating a new opening for negotiated energy alignment. Kugelman further revealed that Rubio’s meeting with the Ambani family included a second key, less public priority: securing Reliance’s commitment to invest in the proposed Port of Brownsville refinery in Texas, a project Donald Trump first announced on his Truth Social platform in March as the first major new U.S. refinery to be built in 50 years. While no public details on the project’s timeline or investment structure have been released to date, the planned Texas facility represents a long-term U.S. play to expand domestic refining capacity. Despite the apparent progress on energy cooperation, all analysts consulted emphasized that a swift breakthrough on the long-stalled bilateral trade deal is unlikely in the immediate term. Even as two-way trade between the U.S. and India continues to show robust growth – Indian merchandise exports to the U.S. hit $50.81 billion in the April to September 2026 period, marking an 11.1% year-over-year increase, while Indian imports of U.S. goods rose to $32.33 billion – significant unresolved frictions remain, from outstanding tariff disputes to geopolitical misalignments. For now, the unconventional itinerary has succeeded in resetting strained bilateral relations, but it remains to be seen whether the emerging energy partnership will translate into a durable, long-term realignment of U.S.-India economic and diplomatic ties.

Former Hamtramck, Michigan mayor Amer Ghalib, who made history as the first Arab and Muslim-American elected official to endorse Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, has now accepted an appointment as Trump’s special envoy and advisor on Arab-American affairs.

Ghalib made the announcement public via his Facebook account late Wednesday local time, from Washington DC. In his social media post, he wrote: “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to President Trump for appointing me as his Envoy and Advisor for Arab American Affairs, and for his continued trust and support.” He added, “While I cannot promise to resolve every challenge facing Arab Americans across the United States, I can promise to be a strong and dedicated voice for Arab American communities in the White House, ensuring that their concerns are heard and their perspectives are represented.”

Currently, Ghalib serves as a senior advisor for strategic partnerships at AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on expanding civic engagement across the U.S. He stepped into this role after Senate Republicans blocked his earlier nomination, which was a reward for his 2024 endorsement: the position of U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, a key U.S. ally that hosts multiple American military installations.

Ghalib’s public criticism of Israel and past social media comments from his time as a private citizen became the primary roadblock to his Senate confirmation, with the staunchly pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League and several right-wing news outlets amplifying those comments to turn opposition against him. Middle East Eye reached out to the White House for official comment on Ghalib’s new appointment but received no response prior to publication.

Speaking with MEE from Michigan on Thursday, Ghalib declined to outline formal parameters for the new role, but confirmed it is not a full-time position. He explained that he will “meet the president and White House staff as needed to discuss our concerns,” and emphasized that “the president granted me direct access to him whenever I need and that’s what matters the most.” Ghalib also noted that this specific advisory position “never existed in any previous administration.”

A physician who entered politics in 2021, when he took leadership of the first all-Muslim city council in the Detroit suburb, Yemeni-born Ghalib upended the 2024 presidential race with his early endorsement of Trump. This endorsement came even though Trump’s first presidential term was marked by the controversial Muslim travel ban and unwavering close ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which Trump unilaterally recognized all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

By late October 2024, driven by the “Arab Americans for Trump” movement and widespread anger over President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, many Arab and Muslim majority neighborhoods in Michigan began shifting their support from the Democratic Party to Trump and the Republicans. During the campaign, Trump ran on a platform promising to end foreign wars and made a point to visit Dearborn, Michigan’s hub for Arab-American communities, while his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris declined to do so.

Since Trump took office for his second term, however, he has only overseen a superficial temporary ceasefire in Gaza and has joined Israel in the widely unpopular conflict against Iran. Domestically, multiple sources told MEE that the political environment for Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. is now worse than it was in the years immediately following the 9/11 attacks. This comes as congressional and White House Republicans, including President Trump himself, have amplified anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim rhetoric, even as progressive Muslim political figures such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed have risen in prominence.

Ghalib told MEE that during his most recent 45-minute one-on-one meeting with President Trump, he opened the discussion by addressing immigration policy, the need to build stronger connections between the White House and Arab-American communities, and the urgency of reining in hate speech from extremist groups. In a follow-up text exchange with MEE, Ghalib said: “I found an opportunity to continue having direct access to the president so I can deliver the people’s concerns to him and try to get them addressed. It’s going to add more work and more stress to me, but I’m willing to go through it – perhaps I can help and continue to be the voice of our community in the White House.”

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Against a backdrop of rapidly shifting public opinion in the United States toward Israel, the nation’s most influential pro-Israel lobbying entity has announced a major restructuring of its political playbook, ending its longstanding practice of public candidate endorsements and direct financial contributions to electoral hopefuls.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) laid out the new approach in a mass email to supporters Wednesday, framing the shift as a strategic adjustment to align with the evolving political landscape. The organization will move toward a less publicly visible operating model to continue backing pro-Israel candidates from both major U.S. political parties.

“To win the fight for the future of the country and the US-Israel alliance, we must build a more strategic, consequential, and nimble political operation,” the organization’s statement read.

Under the revised framework, AIPAC will prioritize expanding direct, coordinated donations from individual American supporters to candidates, while leaning into newly emerging political fundraising tools. Public endorsements, direct contributions from AIPAC’s political action committee (PAC), and earmarked funding will be eliminated from the group’s strategy to make room for scaled individual giving and innovative campaign tools.

As a registered PAC, AIPAC is legally capped at $5,000 in direct contributions per candidate per election cycle. By contrast, independent super PACs face no limits on outside spending, which can heavily sway the outcome of electoral contests.

AIPAC already operates a well-funded super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), which is exclusively focused on advancing pro-Israel policy goals and ranks among the top spenders in U.S. federal elections. UDP has already poured more than $60 million into influencing the 2024 midterm election cycle, and its independent spending will continue uninterrupted under the new strategy, as it does not qualify as direct candidate contribution. In past cycles, AIPAC has also used so-called “shell PACs” to aggregate funds that are later transferred to UDP before the shell entities are dissolved.

“We believe this approach positions us to capitalize on new innovations and deliver even greater political impact to influence policy,” AIPAC’s statement added. “We will focus our time and resources on what is most effective — disciplined, organized giving directly to candidates by individual Americans — and on the ability to adapt quickly in an ever-changing changing environment.”

The strategic overhaul comes three years into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, amid rising global backlash against Israel’s military campaign and a growing split in traditional U.S. pro-Israel consensus. Even the American right, long a stalwart backer of Israel through the lens of Evangelical Christian ideology, has increasingly begun questioning the massive flow of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, as the country remains the top recipient of U.S. assistance worldwide.

The shift in opinion comes ahead of the November 3 U.S. midterm elections, where soaring cost of living has emerged as the dominant issue on the campaign trail. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s years-long push to convince the U.S. to declare war on Iran culminated in a formal U.S. escalation, former President Donald Trump’s base has openly broken ranks on the issue. Some of the most vocal critics of unchecked pro-Israel policy today are pro-Trump Republicans, including high-profile names like former talk show host Tucker Carlson, far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Repeated public opinion polling confirms that unfavorable views of Israel have grown steadily across all segments of the U.S. public. Within the Democratic Party, even potential 2028 presidential candidates have begun publicly distancing themselves from AIPAC, even as many retain formal support for Israel.

This growing transparency around AIPAC’s influence has been driven in large part by the work of AIPAC Tracker, a independent project that publishes detailed data on how much funding candidates receive to advance Israeli policy priorities.

Still, Waleed Shahid, a former spokesperson for progressive PAC Justice Democrats, noted on social media platform X Wednesday that the political slogan “reject AIPAC money” will carry far less practical weight moving forward. This is because direct AIPAC contributions amounted to only around $3 million in the current cycle, compared to the $90 million donated by AIPAC’s individual members.

Progressive Palestinian rights advocates, who have seen unprecedented electoral success in recent cycles despite starting as longshot underdogs, have long run without pro-Israel financial support. New York City Councilmember Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed are two high-profile examples of candidates who have advanced progressive, pro-Palestine platforms without AIPAC backing.

Leading Senate progressive Bernie Sanders amplified opposition to AIPAC in a post on X Thursday, writing: “AIPAC is now spending as much as $9 million against Abdul El-Sayed. AIPAC is why we’re at war in Iran. AIPAC is why the US has supported genocide in Gaza. We must say NO to AIPAC. YES to electing Abdul as Michigan’s next US Senator.”

If el-Sayed secures victory on November 3, he will not only become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history, but his win will also signal that left-leaning popular policies, including diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel, can gain traction in the industrial Midwest and competitive swing state of Michigan.

The British government is facing widespread accusations of double standards and hypocrisy after its top education official ruled out allowing Palestinian flags to be displayed in state schools, a stark reversal from the government’s years of open promotion of Ukrainian flag displays in educational settings amid the ongoing Russian invasion.

Appearing in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Education Secretary Lucy Powell argued that schools should remain neutral spaces and avoid becoming platforms for public protest over global geopolitical conflicts. When asked directly whether students should be permitted to display Palestinian symbols on school grounds, Powell replied that such displays run counter to expectations for impartiality in UK education.

This stance has immediately drawn public backlash for its inconsistency with the government’s own actions regarding the war in Ukraine. Records show that as recently as November last year, Powell’s predecessor Bridget Phillipson was filmed alongside students waving Ukrainian flags in a classroom. The footage was officially published by the Department for Education (DfE) to promote its national K-Ukraine schools partnership programme.

This pattern of official support for pro-Ukraine displays stretches back years. On Ukrainian Independence Day in August 2024, the DfE released an official statement celebrating Ukrainian democracy, sovereignty, and national identity. Back in March 2022, just weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the department flew the Ukrainian flag above its London headquarters. Then-Conservative Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told a national school leaders conference in Birmingham at the time that the flag was a public declaration of the UK standing “shoulder to shoulder with all Ukrainians against the barbaric, criminal invasion of their sovereign, democratic country.”

The controversy comes as Powell formally responded to a newly released independent review into rising antisemitism in British schools, which found that three out of every five Jewish students have personally experienced antisemitic harassment or abuse on school campuses. The report, led by former schools inspectorate chief Sir David Bell, documents a sharp post-October 2023 surge in antisemitic incidents following the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Bell has called for schools to formally recognize antisemitism as a unique category of harm requiring targeted intervention.

Powell confirmed Wednesday that the government will adopt all of the report’s recommendations in full, including a mandate requiring all state schools to implement the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition, originally drafted in 2004 as a non-binding monitoring tool, includes an example that classifies describing the existence of the state of Israel as a racist endeavour as antisemitic. Critics across political and academic spaces have long argued that the vague language of the definition is frequently weaponized to suppress legitimate political criticism of Israeli policy and actions toward Palestinians. Even the original lead author of the definition, Kenneth Stern, has repeatedly warned against using it as a formal disciplinary or legal instrument, warning it risks chilling free speech and legitimate political debate. Leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC backed this criticism in a 2018 legal opinion, concluding that the definition “likely in practice to chill free speech” by enabling bad-faith complaints against critics of Israel.

The UK’s largest education union, the National Education Union (NEU), has rejected key recommendations from the Bell review, including the IHRA mandate. NEU General Secretary Daniel Kebede argued that forcing the definition on schools tightens an existing “chilling grip” that already stifles open classroom discussion of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Kebede added that schools need practical, targeted support to address antisemitism rather than a contested framework that risks shutting down legitimate political discourse. He also noted that existing rules requiring political impartiality in the classroom are already clear, and that UK teachers take this responsibility seriously, rejecting the report’s implicit questioning of educator professionalism.

Supporters of the report, however, have framed its recommendations as a necessary step to address a growing public safety crisis. Karen Newman, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that the scale of antisemitism documented in the review is “sobering” and demands urgent, consistent action from policymakers. She added that framing antisemitism as an official safeguarding issue would create a clear legal and ethical duty for schools to address the harm, matching the approach taken to other threats to student safety and strengthening institutional accountability.

The review itself was commissioned by the government after a high-profile controversy in 2023: a planned visit to a school by Labour MP Damien Egan, vice-chair of the pro-Israel group Labour Friends of Israel, was cancelled after organizers learned of planned pro-Palestine protests outside the campus. Egan’s cancellation led to widespread accusations of antisemitism against the school trust that oversaw the institution, but an independent inquiry published in April 2024 found “no evidence of antisemitism” connected to the trust or its decision.

Since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, UK authorities have recorded a sharp rise in the number of school-aged children referred to the UK government’s controversial Prevent counter-extremism programme for wearing pro-Palestine badges and displaying pro-Palestine symbols on school grounds.

Critics of the government’s new stance on flag displays have been quick to call out the perceived double standard on social media platform X. Political consultant Gary Spedding pointed out that the DfE itself has created and distributed official promotional material showing students waving the Ukrainian flag in classrooms. London-based journalist Barry Malone, who has volunteered as a reading support worker in UK state schools, noted that he personally saw Ukrainian flags on display in a London school during his volunteer work. “This policy has only come about because of one particular geopolitical event. People are smart enough to see through this stuff now,” Malone wrote. Dozens of other X users echoed the accusation of hypocrisy, drawing direct comparisons between the government’s acceptance of pro-Ukraine displays and its rejection of pro-Palestine expression.

A wave of expansion by major pro-Israel lobbying groups across the Eastern Mediterranean, centered on Cyprus and Greece, has ignited fierce domestic political controversy over foreign influence, national sovereignty, and the risks of being drawn into escalating regional tensions. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), one of the most powerful and widely criticized pro-Israel lobby groups in U.S. politics, became the latest organization to make inroads into the region this week, when a high-level AIPAC delegation traveled to Cyprus to advance what it framed as tripartite “security partnerships in the Eastern Mediterranean” between Israel, Cyprus, and the United States.

Led by outgoing AIPAC president Bernard Kaminetsky and president-elect Yehuda Neuberger, the delegation held a formal meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides on Wednesday. The meeting itself marked a clear signal of Cyprus’ growing strategic importance to Israeli foreign policy interests, as Israel continues to deepen its political and economic footprint across the Eastern Mediterranean. AIPAC has long faced widespread condemnation in the U.S. and globally for its outsized influence over Congress and the White House, its unwavering “Israel-first” policy agenda, and its historical support for aggressive policies including military action against Iran that have triggered far-reaching global economic disruption.

The AIPac visit came just days after another pro-Israel group with deep far-right ties, the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), launched new parliamentary caucuses in both Cyprus and Greece designed to embed Israeli influence directly within the two countries’ national legislative bodies. Announcing the Cypriot caucus on October 14 following a meeting with President Christodoulides, IAF president Josh Reinstein publicly labeled Turkey as a “common enemy” for both Israel and Cyprus. Inauguration attendees included lawmakers from three major Cypriot political forces: the governing Democratic Party (Diko), main opposition Democratic Rally (DISY), and far-right, anti-Turkish National Popular Front (Elam).

The IAF holds long-standing hardline positions: it demands international recognition of occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and openly supports Israel’s ongoing military occupation of the West Bank. To date, it remains unclear which of the group’s extremist positions have been explicitly endorsed by the participating Greek Cypriot political parties. The IAF was founded by late far-right Israeli politician Benny Elon, who openly called for the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland before his death in 2017.

The rapid expansion of pro-Israel lobbying activity in Cyprus has coincided with growing public backlash against a sharp influx of Israeli businesses and tourists to the island, with many local residents warning that large-scale Israeli land purchases and growing foreign political interference pose a direct threat to Cypriot national sovereignty. Small progressive Cypriot party Volt Cyprus was the first to issue a formal, forceful condemnation of the developments on October 20, in a statement headlined “No to the institutionalisation of foreign lobbies in parliament.”

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Volt Cyprus outlined its deep concerns: “As a small state fighting to be vindicated by international law, it is contrary to our national interests to give uncritical support to a country credibly accused of genocide, apartheid and crimes against humanity, and whose leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). We object to foreign national interest lobbies having an inside track in our system that is ill-equipped to deal with them.”

The party added that it fears AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations could replicate the model of outsized influence they have built in U.S. politics within Cypriot institutions, particularly amid ongoing simmering tensions between Turkey and Israel. “Our assessment is that closer ties with Israel puts our country in serious danger. Aligning ourselves close to Israel, having an unreflective support for its policies, and cultivating an atmosphere of excited delusions of a clash with Turkey puts us in the line of fire. Far from being our shield against Turkey, Israel actions can cause us to be a proxy in the event of a clash,” the statement continued.

Cyprus’ largest leftist party, the Progressive Party of Working People (Akel), has also raised formal alarm over the new caucus. In an open letter to Cypriot Parliamentary Speaker Annita Demetriou, Akel noted that the “establishment within parliament of organised groups of MPs working with external organisations whose mission is to promote the interests of a third state constitutes, to our knowledge, an unprecedented development in Cypriot parliamentary practice.” The party added that such partnerships require urgent public debate, particularly after the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry found reasonable grounds to conclude Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

The IAF launch is not an isolated move: in late September, a third pro-Israel network, Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI), formally established its own Cyprus chapter, with lawmakers from Diko, DISY and Elam again in attendance. TFI operates under the umbrella of the American Jewish Committee’s Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute, and its core mission is to persuade European governments that Israel is an integral part of Western collective security. That framing has been repeatedly deployed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to justify Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Opposition to the IAF’s parliamentary push has been equally sharp in Greece, where the caucus launch has also sparked demands for greater transparency. Investigative media collective Reporters United revealed that multiple Greek MPs, including former Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras, attended a closed-door planning meeting for the caucus on October 12, ahead of its formal launch. The full membership list of the Greek caucus remains secret, prompting widespread calls from activists and opposition groups to publish the names of all participating parliamentarians.

Greek leftist party MeRA25 United Left has condemned the initiative outright, framing it as a deliberate mechanism to embed Israeli political influence within Greek national institutions. “Who authorised them to turn the Greek parliament into an office serving Israeli interests? And why are these plans being made behind closed doors?” the party asked in a public statement. “The Greek parliament belongs to the Greek people. It cannot be handed over to foreign lobbies, offered to arms dealers or turned into a vehicle for whitewashing war crimes,” it added.