分类： politics

Israel’s ultranationalist far-right faction Jewish Power is moving forward with a provocative new outreach strategy targeting young Israelis: launching a children’s book that celebrates the controversial career and policy agenda of its leader, incumbent Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The illustrated publication, designed to reach a core and fast-growing segment of Ben Gvir’s voter base, will not be distributed through official Israeli educational institutions; instead, party organizers plan to hand out copies directly to young students outside school campuses to maximize grassroots exposure.

Israeli media reports confirm the book was crafted using simplified, accessible language tailored specifically for a child audience. Titled *The Minister Who Didn’t Stop*, the book is scheduled for an official launch at the party’s regional conference in Netanya on September 1, a date deliberately chosen to align with the opening of the Israeli academic year and capitalize on back-to-school momentum.

In an official statement, Ben Gvir’s office defended the project, framing it as a public education effort: “We are proud to launch the children’s book … and through it tell the children of Israel and the entire Israeli people the story of Minister Ben Gvir’s tremendous achievements throughout his four years as minister of national security.”

The push to court young voters comes as support for Ben Gvir and Israel’s broader far-right movement has surged dramatically among younger Jewish Israeli demographics in recent years. Ben Gvir’s young supporters have repeatedly been documented chanting the virulently anti-Palestinian slogan “Your village should burn” at political rallies—a slogan that glorifies the historical destruction of Palestinian villages and advocates for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from land claimed by Israel.

Data from independent Israeli think tank the Israel Democracy Institute underscores the scale of this ideological shift: 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between the ages of 18 and 24 now identify as right-wing, creating what political analysts describe as fertile ideological ground for extremist politicians like Ben Gvir to expand their influence.

But far from the “tremendous achievements” the book highlights, Ben Gvir’s tenure has been marked by international condemnation and widespread allegations of human rights abuses. A long-time follower of Meir Kahane, an American-born Jewish supremacist whose ideology is classified as terrorist by multiple governments, Ben Gvir has already been convicted by Israeli domestic courts on charges of inciting racial hatred and supporting a banned terrorist organization.

Today, Ben Gvir is a global pariah, barred from entering at least 10 countries over his extremist rhetoric and human rights record, and placed on a Schengen Area watchlist that effectively blocks entry to most of Europe. This international isolation is widely seen as symbolic of the broader global rebuke of Israel’s current government, which faces widespread accusations of carrying out genocide in Gaza and enforcing apartheid policies across the occupied West Bank.

Just weeks before the book launch, Ben Gvir publicly called on Israeli military forces to execute “30 or 40” Palestinian civilians in Gaza every single night, infamously claiming that many Palestinians living in the besieged enclave are “not worthy of life” and “not even people.” When asked in a previous interview whether the racist chant “Death to Arabs” constitutes a moral wrong, Ben Gvir flatly denied the charge, responding “No. I don’t think so.”

Among Ben Gvir’s most controversial policy actions is a series of changes to the Israeli prison system that leading international human rights organizations have condemned as amounting to systematic torture and starvation of Palestinian political detainees. Ben Gvir has personally ordered mandatory cuts to food rations for Palestinian prisoners, openly stating that “One of my top goals … is worsening the prisoners’ conditions.”

This report is original coverage from Middle East Eye, an independent outlet focused on unfiltered reporting and analysis of the Middle East and North Africa region.

The death of prominent Cambridge University sociologist Jason Arday earlier this month has sparked a cascading controversy that pulls back the curtain on long-simmering tensions over academic hiring, free speech, and the growing influence of U.S.-led anti-diversity culture wars in British higher education. New internal documents obtained by Middle East Eye reveal that senior academic leaders at Cambridge privately conceded as early as 2024 that Nathan Cofnas – the self-identified race realist who first brought plagiarism allegations against Arday last month – should never have been hired by the institution in the first place.

Cofnas, who currently holds a postdoctoral research position at Belgium’s Ghent University, has dominated headlines since his unsubstantiated plagiarism claims against Arday spiraled into a relentless media campaign. Arday, a Black sociologist who rose to academic prominence after a non-traditional educational path, resigned from his Cambridge post earlier this month amid the onslaught of coverage, saying he had reached “the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.” He died shortly after stepping down.

In the wake of Arday’s death, Cofnas has been placed under formal disciplinary investigation and temporarily suspended by Ghent University over the inflammatory public comments he made about Arday, including describing the sociologist as “retarded,” “mentally disabled,” and “just another DEI hire.” Just days after his suspension, however, Cofnas announced he would be allowed to continue his research on campus while the probe moves forward, a outcome he directly credited to public intervention from U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White. White had openly condemned Cofnas’s suspension, stating the Trump administration would re-evaluate its institutional ties with Ghent University over the move. Beyond diplomatic backing from the U.S. government, Cofnas has also received public amplification from tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk, as well as consistent coverage across a network of right-wing media outlets and podcasts.

Scrutiny of Cofnas’s academic career has now turned back to his previous appointment at Cambridge, where both he and Arday held positions. In 2022, Cofnas was hired as a Leverhulme Trust early career fellow in Cambridge’s philosophy department and appointed a fellow at Emmanuel College. That tenure ended abruptly in April 2024, after Cofnas published a February 2024 blog post advancing extreme racial pseudoscience: he claimed race was inherently linked to academic ability, argued that Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment” under a true meritocracy, and called for “some barriers set up between races in order for each one to express its own unique genius.”

Internal minutes from a closed-door February 23, 2024 meeting held to address student protests over Cofnas’s remarks, obtained by MEE, lay bare senior leadership’s private misgivings about his hiring. Bhaskar Vira, Cambridge’s pro vice chancellor for education, told attendees that senior university management was widely “outraged” by Cofnas’s comments. Vira noted that while Cofnas held a fellowship at the constituent college Emmanuel, the central university was exploring formal responses, adding that Cofnas had crossed acceptable lines even within the framework of academic free speech – though he cautioned the university needed to seek legal guidance before acting.

Angela Breitenbach, then-chair of the philosophy faculty, openly acknowledged that hiring Cofnas had been a misstep. She told meeting attendees that a simple Google search would have revealed the full extent of Cofnas’s extremist views before the appointment was finalized, admitting the original hiring process was “not satisfactory ultimately.” Breitenbach explained that the process had only involved one or two reviewers who did not fully vet all application materials, and that the university had since revised its protocols to make all applications accessible to the full faculty for review. Associate professor Sophie Dandelet further raised concerns that Cofnas’s extremist racial views would compromise his ability to teach a diverse student body. A student and faculty petition for Cofnas’s dismissal gathered more than 1,200 signatures that March, and Emmanuel College moved to terminate his fellowship shortly after, prompting Cofnas to file a lawsuit alleging belief discrimination. The college ultimately prevailed in court, with the judge ruling Cofnas’s blog post had caused measurable reputational harm to the institution.

The scandal has also cast new light on longstanding questions about Cofnas’s qualifications at his current institution, Ghent University. The Guardian reported this week that Ghent’s own philosophy department raised formal concerns about Cofnas’s appointment as early as May 2024, sending an official statement to the university’s rector questioning his “limited expertise” for the role. An anonymous senior philosophy of science academic quoted by The Guardian described Cofnas’s work as “abysmal” and “shoddy,” accusing him of presenting unproven racial pseudoscience as legitimate science without any supporting evidence. The department’s statement also questioned the transparency of Cofnas’s hiring, noting that out of 14 qualified candidates, it was “very improbable” Cofnas was the best choice, and a large majority of department members suspected his selection was “an ideological choice … decided in advance.” Cofnas has rejected all criticism, stating his academic qualifications are a matter of public record, and framing the scrutiny as an effort to censor his free speech.

The media frenzy surrounding Arday after Cofnas’s initial plagiarism allegations has also come under widespread condemnation for its extreme disproportion. An analysis by media watchdog NewsCord found that in just 22 days after Cofnas’s claims became public, 229 articles were published about Arday across UK media outlets – 188 of those came in the nine days before Arday’s death, averaging 21 articles a day. To put that volume in context, NewsCord noted that only 166 articles were published about Peter Mandelson in the two weeks after the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a far higher-stakes political scandal. As of this week, more than 218,000 complaints have been filed with the UK’s Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) through NewsCord’s campaign – more than double the previous record for complaints over a single media campaign, and nearly 10 times the number filed against Jeremy Clarkson’s controversial 2022 column about the Duchess of Sussex.

Independent analysis published by Middle East Eye has also cast serious doubt on the core claims against Arday: key biographical claims that attackers claimed were fabricated have been verified as accurate, and the framing of Arday as a habitual, unrepentant plagiarist does not hold up to close examination of his work. Des Freedman, a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths University, told MEE that the coordinated media campaign against Arday amounted to a shameful partisan attack, not legitimate public interest reporting. “Elements of the press boast that they are watchdogs, but they are also attack dogs,” Freedman said. “Instead of punching up … they punch down,” going after vulnerable people under the guise of acting in the “public interest.” He added that the frenzy was deliberately stoked by a “coordinated, international right-wing movement” that uses figures like Arday as scapegoats to advance anti-diversity, DEI rollback policies that originated in U.S. conservative politics.

Investigative reporting has now exposed deeper institutional and financial ties linking Cofnas’s campaign to influential right-wing U.S. donors. Byline Times reported last week that Cofnas’s allegations against Arday were amplified by a network of groups linked to billionaire Peter Thiel, founder of U.S. spy firm Palantir. After Emmanuel College dismissed Cofnas in 2024, the UK-based Free Speech Union (FSU) – a pro-free speech advocacy group that often backs right-wing academics – launched a public fundraiser for Cofnas, framing him as a martyr for academic freedom. Multiple Byline Times investigations have linked the FSU to a broader network of far-right academics supported by Thiel’s chief of staff. One key figure in that network is James Orr, a Cambridge divinity faculty academic and FSU adviser who hosted a series of controversial talks by Thiel at Cambridge in January, and serves as head of policy for the UK’s right-wing Reform Party, where he is widely described as Reform leader Nigel Farage’s “kingmaker.” U.S. Vice President JD Vance has even called Orr “my philosopher king.”

Additional far-right ties have been uncovered in the network promoting Cofnas’s views. Online magazine Aporia, which published a series of pieces amplifying Cofnas’s allegations against Arday and framed the scandal as “the bitter fruit of equalitarianism,” operates as the public arm of the Human Diversity Foundation – recently renamed Polygenic Scores – an organization that has documented links to the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland.

Cambridge University has declined to comment on the internal meeting details obtained by MEE, and has not yet issued a new public statement on the broader controversy in the wake of Arday’s death. Ghent University has reiterated that its disciplinary investigation into Cofnas remains ongoing despite his return to campus research work.

Six months into the open military conflict between the United States and Iran, Beijing finds itself trapped in a complex geopolitical quandary: while some Chinese strategists view a prolonged drawn-out conflict as a strategic windfall that drains Washington’s military, financial and diplomatic resources away from the Indo-Pacific, the new unprecedented US economic campaign targeting third-party entities doing business with Tehran has put Chinese firms directly in the crosshairs, leaving Beijing navigating risky trade-offs between strategic gain and economic risk.

The latest escalation came Monday, when the US Department of the Treasury officially launched Operation Economic Outcast, a whole-of-government initiative aimed at fully isolating Iran and cutting off the global commercial networks that sustain its economy. As part of the opening round of the campaign, US regulators designated nearly 60 entities, individuals and vessels across five key sectors: digital assets, technology, precious metals, aviation and commercial shipping.

More than a quarter of the designated entities are based in Hong Kong and mainland China’s Shenzhen, accused of operating as front companies for procurement, logistics and shipping services that support Iran’s international trade networks. The Hong Kong-based firms added to the sanctions list include Sweet Ocean Industrial Ltd, RPT Technology Ltd, Sky Oil and Gas Asia Ltd and Vienna Shipping Co Ltd. The Shenzhen-based entities designated in the action are Shenzhen Sweet Ocean Technology Ltd, Shenzhen Huamei Lianyun International Logistics Co Ltd, Shenzhen Bositong Logistics Co Ltd and Bositong Supply Chain Shenzhen Co Ltd.

Speaking at the launch of the campaign on August 24, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the initiative in historic wartime terms, drawing a parallel to the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II. “In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries,” Bessent said. “Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”

Bessent issued a stark warning to any third-party entities considering continued engagement with Iran: “Any entity that facilitates money laundering on behalf of Iran will be removed from the US dollar system. Let there be no ambiguity as to the position of the US. An economic engagement of any kind with this murderous regime will expose those responsible to the full reach of American power.”

The Treasury Secretary laid out two paths for Iran: complete international isolation, or a return to the global economy following a fundamental shift in its policy. He also gave non-complying governments a limited window to align with US sanctions before the Treasury takes unilateral action against entities within their borders.

This new round of sanctions comes just weeks ahead of a highly anticipated September 24 summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has already publicly rejected the new sanctions campaign, vowing to take all necessary measures to firmly protect the country’s legal economic interests and the rights of Chinese firms.

Reactions to the new sanctions among independent Chinese commentators are deeply mixed, with many warning that the indirect economic and geopolitical spillover for China should not be underestimated. “What Chinese readers really need to pay attention to in this round of US sanctions on Iran is not just whether Tehran can hold on, but that Washington has widened its target from Iran itself to outside players with energy, shipping or financial ties to the country,” noted Liaoning-based commentator Ciyuanjun. “China has been pulled directly into that expanded campaign.”

She added that the campaign is not merely a bilateral economic conflict between Washington and Tehran, warning that further expansion of secondary US sanctions would leave Chinese refining, shipping and trade finance firms with links to Iran facing growing operational uncertainty. Previous rounds of sanctions already targeted independent Chinese refiners and multiple mainland and Hong Kong-based entities, with the latest round adding even more Chinese commercial operations to the sanctions blacklist. While ordinary Chinese consumers have not yet felt immediate impacts, Ciyuanjun noted that further escalation could create broad ripple effects across the Chinese economy: if the Strait of Hormuz remains a high-risk shipping lane and sanctions expand, elevated energy costs will squeeze corporate profits, gradually eroding household purchasing power as cost increases pass through shipping, industrial feedstock and ultimately consumer prices.

Tinglan, a commentator for Chinese online outlet Zhouji Kuaibao, echoed these concerns, noting that China has long been one of the largest buyers of crude oil from the Middle East. “If Washington imposes secondary sanctions indiscriminately on normal international energy trade, it will inevitably hurt China and shake the stability of the global energy market,” she said. Tinglan also outlined multiple pathways Beijing could use to push back against the US campaign: China’s existing rules blocking the extraterritorial application of foreign laws are already actively enforced, barring domestic firms and banks from complying with unilateral US sanctions; Beijing frames its trade with Iran as legitimate commerce between sovereign states, and rejects US long-arm jurisdiction as a violation of the UN Charter; as a major global trading power and central supply chain hub, China can implement proportionate or more aggressive countermeasures, and US domestic pressures including persistent inflation and upcoming 2026 elections limit Washington’s willingness to risk a full economic rupture with Beijing; and Iran is expected to retaliate more forcefully against US interests in the Middle East, further stretching American resources.

The strains of successive sanctions rounds are already visible for China’s smaller independent oil refiners, colloquially known as “teapots,” which have long been major buyers of discounted Iranian crude. Since the US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran on February 28, Washington has steadily tightened sanctions on the Chinese commercial networks that facilitate Iranian oil imports. Many sanctioned teapots have faced major operational disruptions: Shandong port operators have turned away tankers carrying Iranian crude, Chinese banks have cut off financing for oil purchases, and gasoline exports from key Chinese loading hubs have dried up since late March, pushing up domestic fuel prices. To date, however, the broader Chinese economy has absorbed these shocks without widespread systemic strain.

Bessent also confirmed Monday that the Treasury is preparing to sanction a major global financial institution within the coming week, though he declined to name the entity or its home country. When asked directly whether Chinese banks that finance Iranian oil imports could be the next target, he reiterated that no entity is beyond the reach of US secondary sanctions.

Even as Washington ramps up its pressure, the ongoing conflict has created the core dilemma shaping Beijing’s response. Some Chinese strategic commentators argue that a prolonged, grinding conflict in the Middle East serves China’s long-term geopolitical interests, by steadily consuming the weapons, funding and strategic attention that Washington would otherwise deploy to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. “The US attack on Iran may have unintentionally strengthened China’s own security,” observed Qinghai-based commentator writing under the pseudonym Time Brewery. “Intercepting one Patriot missile costs US$4 million, while the drone flying at it might cost only tens of thousands, and the more the Pentagon runs that math, the more alarming it looks.”

Time Brewery noted that US war game analyses have highlighted this stark cost mismatch: a five-month campaign against Iran has already consumed more than 1,500 Patriot interceptors, outpacing American defense manufacturers’ ability to replace stockpiles. Simulations show that swarms of low-cost Iranian drones can eventually overwhelm even advanced air defense systems, leaving multiple US military bases in the Middle East damaged. The commentator frames this as an unsolvable cost imbalance, not a purely military challenge, for the US. He added that American think tank models of a high-intensity conflict in the Western Pacific have already found that current US stockpiles of precision-guided weapons could be exhausted in less than a week, raising serious questions about Washington’s ability to sustain a major conflict near China’s borders, including over Taiwan.

China’s official state media has pushed back against the US campaign, arguing that Washington’s economic pressure will ultimately boomerang to harm American consumers and businesses through higher energy costs and disrupted global supply chains. State news agency Xinhua noted that global markets are already pricing in long-term disruption to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, driving up costs for manufacturing, aviation and global transport, with the potential for crude prices to climb back above $100 per barrel. Xinhua warned that the shock could also spill over into a global food crisis, as the Persian Gulf region is a major supplier of the world’s fertilizer, and disrupted shipping will push up global food prices. Rising shipping costs from rerouted vessels and higher insurance premiums for routes near the Gulf and the Red Sea act as a hidden tax on global trade, the commentary noted, adding that combined shocks could leave major global economies including the United States facing slower growth and persistently higher inflation.