分类： politics

In a bold act of diplomatic defiance that underscores deep European divides over the Gaza conflict and international accountability, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez bestowed one of his country’s highest civilian honors on Thursday upon Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine who has been targeted with unprecedented U.S. sanctions for her work documenting human rights abuses and potential genocide in Gaza.

In an official statement announcing the award of the Order of Civil Merit, Sanchez emphasized that holding public office carries an inherent moral duty to confront injustice rather than ignore it. “It is an honour to award the Order of Civil Merit to a voice that upholds the conscience of the world: Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” he wrote.

The ceremony and honor came just 24 hours after Sanchez took another high-profile stand against U.S. punitive measures targeting international justice bodies: he formally called on the European Commission to trigger the EU’s long-dormant Blocking Statute, a legal tool designed to protect European individuals and institutions from extraterritorial sanctions imposed by non-EU powers. Speaking a day ahead of the award, Sanchez rejected any tolerance for what he framed as a targeted campaign of intimidation. “The EU cannot stand idly by in the face of this persecution,” he said, adding that Brussels must defend the independence of both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United Nations, as well as their critical work “to end the genocide in Gaza.” “Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk,” he added.

Albanese, the first and so far only UN special rapporteur to face U.S. sanctions over her official mandate, was targeted by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump last year. The restrictions, which include a visa ban that bars her from entering the United States and a freeze on any assets she holds in U.S. jurisdictions, were imposed over her documentation of human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories and her longstanding cooperation with the ICC’s investigations into potential atrocity crimes.

The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is the world’s only permanent international court with a mandate to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Relations between the U.S. and the court have collapsed entirely since ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier this year, accusing the pair of overseeing systematic war crimes and atrocities in Gaza that began in October 2023. In addition to Albanese, the Trump administration has now imposed sanctions on 11 senior ICC officials, covering not only the court’s work on Gaza but also its long-running investigation into potential war crimes in Afghanistan connected to U.S. and Taliban forces.

Albanese was specifically sanctioned in July 2024 for her ongoing investigation into allegations of genocide in Gaza and her work with the ICC as part of her UN-mandated role. In addition to the travel and asset restrictions, the sanctions have cut her off from core global financial infrastructure, preventing her from completing routine daily transactions, she told Middle East Eye earlier this year. In February 2025, Albanese and her family filed a legal challenge against the Trump administration over the punitive measures, arguing they violate U.S. law and fundamental due process rights.

Since the outbreak of the current Israel-Gaza conflict in October 2023, Albanese has released four major official reports as special rapporteur, all of which have concluded that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide. She has also repeatedly condemned what she frames as global economic and political powers that have enabled and supported Israel’s operation, providing diplomatic cover and military supplies despite mounting evidence of atrocity crimes. Her most recent report called on the ICC to expand its arrest warrant list to include three senior Israeli cabinet ministers, whom she accuses of overseeing systematic torture of Palestinian civilians that amounts to acts of genocide.

Sanchez has emerged as the most outspoken critic among European Union leaders of what he frames as repeated violations of international law by Israel and the United States, not only in Gaza but across broader Middle East policy including tensions with Iran. He made history earlier this year as the first EU head of government to publicly label Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as genocide, a stance that has put him at sharp odds with Washington and several Western European allies.

Amid ongoing low-intensity hostilities along Israel’s northern border and growing national anxiety over Iranian intelligence infiltration, a controversial decision by the Israeli Home Front Command to cut access to a critical missile impact alert system has sparked fierce backlash from local leaders and security officials across northern Israeli communities, Israeli outlet Ynet reported Thursday.

The disabled infrastructure, which once shared real-time data on potential missile strike impact zones with local first responders and municipal leadership, was taken offline by military authorities over explicit concerns that Iranian intelligence operatives could exploit the platform to harvest precise location data. Military officials argue that this information would allow Iran and its regional proxy militia Hezbollah to refine the accuracy and destructive power of future attacks against Israeli targets.

Strict military censorship rules have governed all reporting of missile impact locations across Israel since the outbreak of open conflict between Israel and Iran in June 2025. International and domestic Israeli media outlets are already banned from disclosing the exact coordinates of strikes, particularly those targeting strategic and military infrastructure, and the military’s latest move extends this information control to frontline local response teams.

For years, the restricted system served as a core operational tool for local authorities, enabling them to rapidly deploy emergency rescue and response teams directly to sites hit by rocket and missile fire. But today, the shutdown has left northern response teams operating without critical situational awareness, according to local leaders.

Assaf Langleben, head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, warned that the decision has created a state of “operational blindness” across the entire northern frontier. “It is absurd that Hezbollah knows where it is firing, so at least we should also know and be able to deal with the incidents and the responses we are required to provide,” Langleben said in an interview with Ynet.

Avichai Stern, mayor of the key northern border city Kiryat Shmona, echoed this criticism, emphasizing that the alert system had a proven track record of saving lives amid repeated cross-border fire. “Leaving us without [the system] means abandoning even more lives in an area where most residents already lack protection,” Stern said, adding that “now we are also not being given the ability to go out, rescue and save them during fire.”

Frontline civil security personnel in the region have described chaotic, dangerous working conditions in the wake of the shutdown. A civil security officer based in Kiryat Shmona told Ynet that in recent alarm events, response teams have “operated like blind mice.” The official added, “When I don’t have this tool, I don’t know where to run. We are ahead of another round, Hezbollah will again target our homes, and our residents will pay the price.”

Another civil security officer from a local northern council criticized military leadership for choosing a blanket shutdown over targeted security reforms, saying “No one talks to us, explains, or thinks they owe us answers. They simply cut us off. In the army, instead of dealing with how to handle and prevent leaks, they chose the easiest solution and shut everyone out. They irresponsibly chose to punish us.”

In an official statement to Ynet, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson defended the order, noting that the platform “contains sensitive information, and during the war cases were identified that required adjustments to procedures and a reduction of access permissions in order to prevent harm to information security.”

Military concerns over Iranian infiltration come against a backdrop of a sharp rise in domestic espionage cases linked to Tehran. Israeli outlet Ma’ariv has reported that more than 40 indictments have been filed against roughly 60 Israeli civilians on espionage charges since October 2023. Iranian intelligence is known to recruit Israeli operatives through large financial incentives, in exchange for documenting strategic locations and facilitating attacks inside Israeli territory.

Just this week, Israeli leading outlet Haaretz exposed a major intelligence breach revealing that Iranian operatives have obtained secret sensitive data on researchers at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel’s premier independent security think tank with formal ties to the Israeli military and Tel Aviv University. Over a six-year period, Iran collected personal identifiable information on dozens of INSS researchers — many of whom are retired senior Israeli security and military officials — alongside detailed records of closed-door meetings between INSS personnel and Israeli military leadership.

LONDON – In a landmark espionage case that has escalated diplomatic tensions between London and Beijing, a UK jury has found two dual Chinese-British nationals guilty of conducting coordinated spying operations on behalf of Chinese authorities targeting Hong Kong pro-democracy dissidents based in Britain. The convictions mark one of the highest-profile transnational repression cases prosecuted under the UK’s landmark National Security Act.

The defendants, 40-year-old Peter Wai and 65-year-old Bill Yuen, carried out what prosecutors described as “shadow policing” across the UK, targeting exiled activists and political figures who relocated to Britain after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong in 2020. Wai, a serving UK Border Force officer and a special constable with the City of London Police who also operated a private security firm, abused his official access to law enforcement databases to gather intelligence on dissidents. Yuen, a former Hong Kong Police superintendent who worked as an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) – Hong Kong’s official representative body in London – exceeded his official remit to coordinate the surveillance network, prosecutors confirmed.

Following a weeks-long trial at London’s Central Criminal Court, the jury returned guilty verdicts on Thursday on charges of violating the National Security Act by providing assistance to a foreign intelligence service. Wai received an additional conviction for misconduct in public office over his misuse of police computer systems to pull information on targets while off duty. Prosecutors documented that Wai received payment for his work from an HKETO bank account, and the pair exchanged phone messages referring to Hong Kong dissidents as “cockroaches.” Their targets included prominent exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy figure Nathan Law, as well as senior UK politicians: Yuen explicitly instructed Wai to prioritize monitoring members of UK Parliament and government employees, providing Wai with the name of Conservative lawmaker Iain Duncan Smith, co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, in 2023.

The conspiracy was uncovered by British counterterrorism police in May 2024, when officers monitoring the network disrupted an attempted break-in at the West Yorkshire home of Monica Kwong, a Hong Kong national living in northern England. Kwong had been accused of 16 million pounds ($21.8 million) fraud by her former employer, Beijing-based Australian businesswoman Tina Zou, who was present at the scene during the attempted break-in. Kwong has maintained the fraud accusation is a fabricated setup. Nine people were arrested during the disruption, including Zou, Wai, and two retired Hong Kong police officers. Yuen, who was in regular communication with the group, was taken into custody shortly after in London.

A third defendant, Matthew Trickett, a UK immigration enforcement officer also arrested at Kwong’s home, died by suicide in custody before the conclusion of the trial. Zou was never charged in connection with the espionage conspiracy, and the jury was unable to reach guilty verdicts on charges linked to the break-in at Kwong’s residence. Prosecutors further confirmed that Hong Kong authorities had offered bounties of up to nearly 100,000 pounds ($136,000) for information leading to the capture of exiled pro-democracy supporters, a context that frames the surveillance operations carried out by Wai and Yuen.

Shortly after the jury delivered its guilty verdicts, the UK Foreign Office summoned Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang to formally protest the actions. Senior UK officials emphasized that the convictions send an unambiguous message to foreign governments seeking to conduct unlawful operations on British territory. “These convictions send a clear message that transnational repression, foreign interference, unauthorized surveillance, and attempts to operate outside the law will not be tolerated on British soil,” said Bethan David, head of counterterrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service. “This conduct was deliberate, coordinated and carried out with full knowledge of who it would benefit.”

Security Minister Dan Jarvis echoed the condemnation in a formal statement, noting: “The activities carried out by these men, on behalf of China, are an infringement of our sovereignty and will never be tolerated. We will continue to hold China to account and challenge them directly for actions which put the safety of people in our country at risk.”

Hong Kong’s government issued a response distancing itself from the case, saying it was not involved in the activities and strongly rejected “unfounded allegations” against the administration or its London trade office.

Since the escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran, former U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a series of unprecedented threats that extend far beyond targeting Tehran’s military infrastructure. His rhetoric has directly targeted Iran as a whole, calling into question the very survival of the nation and its 3,000-year-old civilization.

Most recently, Trump warned that if Iran launched any attack on U.S. vessels deployed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran would be “blown off the face of the earth.” This is not an isolated outburst: he has previously threatened to return Iran to the “Stone Age” and issued a chilling warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” These extraordinarily aggressive remarks expose not just a commitment to extreme bellicosity, but a profound misunderstanding of the deep-rooted resilience of Iranian culture, civilization and the enduring fortitude of the Iranian people, according to analysis from leading regional scholars.

Iran’s long history is defined by repeated tests from internal unrest and foreign intervention, yet the country has never been fully colonized or permanently subjugated by outside powers. At every turning point marked by crisis, the Iranian people have mobilized to defend their sovereign identity and cultural heritage. This pattern stretches back to the earliest interactions between Persia and Western powers, rooted in a centuries-old framing of Persia as the West’s ultimate “other” – a supposed despotic Oriental threat to an enlightened Western order, a narrative that has persisted since the Greco-Persian Wars of 499 BCE.

This popular Western narrative overlooks key historical context: as early as 538 BCE, the Persian Empire allowed exiled Jews to return from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple, and governed the world’s first large-scale multicultural empire with a policy of tolerance for diverse communities and faiths. While Greek city-state victories over Achaemenid Persian forces at Marathon in 490 BCE and Salamis in 480 BCE are widely celebrated as turning points for Western civilization, these defeats were little more than a minor setback for the Persian Empire. Persia remained a decisive power in Greek politics for centuries: Persian funding helped Sparta secure victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), and Persia regularly served as the most influential mediator in disputes between Greek city-states.

After the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty, the successive Parthian and Sasanian Persian empires emerged as primary rivals to Roman power. In 260 CE, Sasanian Emperor Shapur I defeated Roman forces and captured Roman Emperor Valerian, an unprecedented humiliation for the empire. A century later, Shapur II’s army repelled an invasion led by Roman Emperor Julian, killing Julian in battle. Mainstream triumphal Western narratives routinely erase these chapters of history, in which Persian forces repeatedly outmatched and defeated the most powerful Western empire of the ancient world.

Even when foreign powers won military control over Persian territory, Persian civilization outlasted its conquerors. When Alexander the Great completed his military conquest of Persia in the 4th century BCE, he ultimately embraced Persian cultural traditions, which remained the dominant cultural force in the region long after Greek influence faded. The arrival of Islam in the region did not erase Persian civilization either: Islamic rulers preserved the Persian language and core cultural traditions, including 3,000-year-old celebrations such as Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and pre-Islamic Zoroastrian concepts of resistance to tyranny were adapted into Shiite Islam’s core ideological framework.

The devastating Mongol invasions between 1219 and 1258 left widespread destruction across Iran, but the core foundations of Persian civilization survived, and Persian power reemerged to flourish, most notably under the Safavid dynasty that ruled from 1501 to 1736. During the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), Persia was caught in the middle of Anglo-Russian great power competition during the “Great Game” era, but never surrendered its sovereignty to foreign control. Even during World War II, when British forces occupied Iran’s oil-rich southern regions and Soviet forces occupied the north, both occupying powers ultimately pledged to respect Iran’s sovereignty and withdrew their troops at the end of the conflict.

This history of foreign interference rejuvenated Iranian nationalist sentiment in the 20th century, sparking a broad movement to free Iran from great power competition and take full control of the country’s natural resources, particularly its oil reserves. British interests had controlled Iran’s oil sector through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) since the early 1800s. In 1951, nationalist reformer Mohammad Mossadegh was elected prime minister, and immediately moved to nationalize the AIOC, triggering a major diplomatic and economic dispute with the United Kingdom. Mossadegh also sought to curb the power of the monarchy and advance democratic reforms, bringing him into conflict with the young, pro-Western monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was forced into exile in 1953. Just days later, a covert joint operation led by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, with support from Britain’s MI6, overthrew Mossadegh and restored the shah to power. Fifty years later, then-U.S. President Barack Obama formally acknowledged the CIA’s direct role in the 1953 coup.

After the coup, the U.S. positioned the shah as a key pillar of American hegemony in the Middle East, and in exchange, U.S. oil firms secured a 40% stake in Iran’s oil industry. Despite his dependence on U.S. support, the shah gradually transformed the relationship into one of interdependence, and Iran emerged as a pivotal player in both the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and regional Middle Eastern politics. After the 1973–1974 global oil crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger openly warned that the U.S. would respond with military force if oil supply cuts “strangled” the American economy – a clear veiled threat against the shah’s government.

The 1978–1979 Iranian Revolution ultimately toppled the shah, bringing his main political and religious opponent, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to power. Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, which adopted an explicit anti-U.S. and anti-Israel posture, and rooted his rule in the longstanding historical pride Iranians hold in governing their own sovereign destiny. Khomeini and his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have entrenched Shia political Islamism as the core ideological foundation of the Iranian state, while blending this ideology with the deep-rooted Iranian sense of civilizational, cultural and national identity – a unifying force particularly amid repeated external aggression.

As the celebrated 10th and 11th century Persian poet Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi wrote centuries ago: “Iran is my land, and the whole world is under my feet. The people of this land are the possessors of virtue, art and bravery. They have no fear of roaring lions.”

As the ongoing standoff between the U.S. and Iran continues, Iran’s current government has signaled it is prepared for a long-term confrontation with the latest foreign military threat. The analysis from scholars makes clear, however, that no military solution exists to resolve the current conflict. The only sustainable path forward is diplomatic negotiation conducted within a framework of mutual respect and trust. Without diplomatic progress, the entire Middle East region and global economy will remain vulnerable to an avoidable energy and economic crisis that could have been resolved through dialogue rather than conflict. Ultimately, the future of Iran’s governing system is a matter to be decided exclusively by the Iranian people.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license, written by Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern studies at Australian National University, The University of Western Australia, and Victoria University, and Amitav Acharya, distinguished professor of international relations at American University School of International Service.

A high-stokes clash between the second Trump administration and campus pro-Palestinian dissent has reignited after the US Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian US green card holder and prominent organizer of last year’s anti-war protests at Columbia University, his legal team confirmed this week.

Mahdawi, 34, a master’s student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, first encountered immigration enforcement in mid-April 2024, when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him during a scheduled citizenship interview in Vermont. The detention came directly after he took part in campus demonstrations opposing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. He was released from custody two weeks later, but the threat of deportation hung over him as the active proceedings remained unresolved.

In February 2025, a federal immigration judge had blocked the Trump administration’s push to deport Mahdawi. The ruling centered on a critical procedural flaw: the government attempted to enter a removal order memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio as evidence using only an unauthenticated photocopy. Judge Nina Froes, who issued that ruling, noted that while the document was relevant to the case, it could not be admitted without proper verification, a standard legal requirement. Just one month after issuing the ruling that halted Mahdawi’s deportation, the Trump administration removed Judge Froes from her position.

Mahdawi, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and relocated to the United States a decade ago, holds permanent US residency (green card) status. In 2023, he co-founded Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union alongside Mahmoud Khalil, another leading pro-Palestinian student organizer who has also been targeted by the US government. In a shift from frontline protest organizing in 2024, The Intercept reports Mahdawi stepped back from leading demonstrations to pursue cross-community dialogue, reaching out to build connections with Jewish and Israeli students and faculty on campus.

As part of that outreach effort, Mahdawi invited Shai Davidai, a pro-Israel Columbia assistant professor who has faced repeated accusations of harassing pro-Palestinian student activists, to a public coffee meeting. According to multiple accounts, Davidai left the discussion abruptly before it concluded. Less than two months after the meeting, Davidai published a video of Mahdawi on the social platform X, formerly Twitter, where he accused Mahdawi and other protest leaders of antisemitism and supporting Hamas.

The reinstatement of Mahdawi’s deportation proceedings is not an isolated case. Last month, the Trump administration dismissed six immigration judges, including both Froes and the judge who blocked the deportation of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish pro-Palestinian student at Tufts University who was targeted after co-writing an op-ed critical of Israel’s war in Gaza.

In a prepared statement released by his legal team Wednesday, Mahdawi pushed back against the government’s actions, arguing that the current administration has deliberately used immigration policy as a tool to suppress dissent. “The government continues to weaponize the immigration system to silence dissent,” Mahdawi said in the statement.