分类： politics

On Tuesday, voters across five U.S. states headed to the polls for Democratic Party primary elections, and while candidates debated a range of domestic and national security issues, the ongoing conflict in Gaza and U.S. policy toward Iran emerged as the most contentious fault line reshaping campaign outcomes. Although results varied widely from state to state, the contests left a mixed picture of how Democratic voters are responding to candidates’ stances on these explosive foreign policy questions.

The most closely watched and consequential result of the night unfolded in Michigan, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, former director of the Wayne County Health Department, edged out incumbent U.S. Representative Haley Stevens by a razor-thin one-percentage-point margin to secure the Democratic nomination for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. El-Sayed secured 48.5% of the vote to Stevens’ 47.5%, capping a campaign that centered not just on progressive healthcare reform, but also on hardline shifts in immigration and foreign policy. El-Sayed campaigned on a promise to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel, abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and end what he framed as the Trump administration’s unauthorized war against Iran, warning that the conflict puts American lives at unnecessary risk by expanding regional instability without congressional approval.

In contrast, Stevens ran a campaign highlighting Israel’s right to self-defense and argued in favor of continuing U.S. taxpayer-funded military support for the country. She drew heavy endorsements from mainstream Democratic Party establishment figures and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, and adopted a hawkish position on Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence. El-Sayed’s unapologetic criticism of U.S. policy in the Middle East struck a particular chord with the large Arab American and Muslim voting bloc concentrated in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Dearborn, and Hamtramck. Though former President Donald Trump made unexpected gains among Wayne County voters in the 2024 presidential election—even earning an endorsement from Hamtramck’s Yemeni American mayor—former Vice President Kamala Harris still carried the county by a comfortable margin in that contest.

In Missouri, the Democratic establishment delivered a clear win over anti-Israel foreign policy critics. Incumbent U.S. Representative Wesley Bell, a former St. Louis County prosecutor, defeated former congresswoman Cori Bush by a lopsided 22.3-point margin, with 59.2% of voters backing Bell to Bush’s 36.9%. The result blocked Bush’s bid to return to Congress after she lost the same seat in the 2024 election. Bush was one of the most prominent and outspoken congressional voices calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and she centered her entire campaign on her opposition to what she framed as Israeli genocide in Gaza and U.S. aggression toward Iran. Bell, by contrast, ran on a platform of unwavering, ironclad support for Israel and secured formal backing from AIPAC.

In Kansas, Democratic primary voters nominated state Senator Cindy Holscher for the open U.S. Senate seat, while Republicans selected state Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt to face her in the general election. The matchup sets up one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle in a state that has been dominated by Republican control for nearly a century. Unlike the closely fought contest in Michigan, foreign policy played almost no role in Kansas’s Democratic primary, with candidates instead focusing their platforms on rural development, agricultural policy, and abortion rights.

Virginia’s Democratic primary saw only one candidate on the ballot: former state governor and incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who leaned into his decades of experience on the Senate Intelligence Committee and framed his campaign around a focus on national security. Warner is a well-known staunch supporter of Israel and has received consistent backing from AIPAC. He has criticized the Trump administration for failing to consult Congress before launching military action against Iran, while also warning that Iran’s nuclear program poses a major ongoing threat to U.S. and global security. On the Republican side, voters picked retired Army Major General Bert Mizusawa, a former campaign advisor to Donald Trump, out of a crowded field of GOP candidates. Virginia has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 2002, making Warner a narrow favorite in the general election.

Finally, in Washington state, incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez successfully fended off a primary challenge from progressive candidate Brent Hennrich. Gluesenkamp Perez was endorsed by AIPAC, while Hennrich built his entire primary campaign around opposition to the lobbying group’s influence over U.S. politics. This report was produced by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs connected to the region.

A political earthquake shook Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Wednesday, as progressive challenger Abdul El-Sayed pulled off a stunning one-point victory over pro-Israel incumbent Congresswoman Haley Stevens — in a race that became the most expensive Democratic primary contest in U.S. history, fueled by more than $60 million in total outside spending, $30 million of which came from leading pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The upset marks a major defeat for AIPAC, which has built a reputation for ousting candidates it views as critical of Israel across both major U.S. parties. In 2022, the group spent heavily to unseat veteran Democratic lawmaker Andy Levin in Michigan over his support for sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank; on Wednesday, Levin celebrated El-Sayed’s win, writing on Instagram, “Out with all the big money, dark money and corporate and special interest control of our politics. We the people hunger for authenticity.” Earlier this year, AIPac poured more than $4 million into defeating Republican Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s primary, after Massie voted against U.S. foreign aid to Israel, as part of a $9 million coalition effort against the incumbent.

Now, following its $30 million investment in Stevens that ended in defeat, AIPAC has confirmed it will shift its support to the Republican candidate in the November general election. The group’s statement underscored its longstanding approach to U.S. politics: prioritizing its pro-Israel policy agenda over partisan ideological loyalty. “Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda,” the statement read. “Our community is proud to support pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who stand for our values.”

El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American Muslim and former Detroit public health official who has never held elected office, ran a grassroots campaign defined by small-dollar donations and opposition to corporate and special interest influence in politics. According to campaign finance data from OpenSecrets, El-Sayed out-raised Stevens in small-dollar contributions in the final quarter before the primary. His campaign calculated that outside groups spent an average of $95 per vote against El-Sayed, more than 10 times the $9 per vote average of his own campaign spending.

Critics of unlimited outside spending note that this lopsided spending is the result of U.S. campaign finance law, which allows unlimited independent expenditures by groups that do not coordinate directly with candidate campaigns. “In 95 percent of U.S. electoral races, whoever spends the most, wins,” explained Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for non-profit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. “Yes, money buys elections. It’s very effective, and that’s why these candidates work overtime continually raising money.”

El-Sayed’s campaign gained momentum not just from his stance on Israel, but from his focus on kitchen-table issues impacting Michigan voters. He has publicly described Israel’s nearly three-year military campaign in Gaza as genocide, a framing that aligns with statements from leading human rights organizations, genocide scholars, and the United Nations, but rejected by Israel and most sitting U.S. lawmakers. This position resonated deeply with Michigan’s large Arab-American community, which played a pivotal role in driving protest votes against former President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election over his unwavering support for Israel amid mounting Palestinian civilian casualties that have killed tens of thousands of people. In that election, even as Wayne County backed Kamala Harris by 62 percent, heavily Arab-American suburbs of Detroit swung overwhelmingly to Donald Trump, helping Trump carry Michigan by just over one percentage point.

Sally Howell, an Arab American Studies expert at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, noted that El-Sayed’s support rose when he shifted his messaging from critiquing AIPAC’s spending to a broader platform of getting big money out of politics and addressing local concerns. “He started talking about not getting money from DTE, the energy company here in Michigan… and this issue of the AI data centres, and how they would drive up our water bills,” Howell said. “These are issues that really matter to Michiganders across the political spectrum.”

State Representative Alabas Farhat, who endorsed El-Sayed, said the candidate’s appeal stemmed from voter frustration with the status quo. “People in Michigan, they’re looking for leaders that are going to call out bold solutions and that are going to try and speak out against the status quo because the status quo hasn’t been working,” Farhat said. “The status quo has led to our state being 49th in unemployment. It’s led to us being 47th in third grade literacy. It’s led to our middle class having less wealth than they did in previous years. Trump came along, and he sold a false bag of goods, but he was at least willing to say things were wrong. Now comes Abdul El-Sayed, somebody who has made truth and justice two central pillars to his campaign.”

Support for El-Sayed also came from groups advocating for Palestinian rights: the IMEU Policy Project, a three-year-old advocacy organization, contributed $400,000 to his campaign. Turnout for the primary hit historic highs, with half a million more Democratic voters turning out than in previous low-turnout primaries, according to Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel.

In his victory speech, El-Sayed announced he had spoken with Stevens and secured her commitment to endorse him in the general election, where he will face former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. Hertel emphasized that the party is now united to defeat Trump-backed candidates in November, a race that will decide control of the U.S. Senate. If El-Sayed wins in November, he will become the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate, and could tip the chamber’s majority to Democrats for the final two years of Trump’s second term.

Former President Trump reacted to El-Sayed’s primary win on his social platform Truth Social, calling the challenger “a Communist loser who hates Jews and Israel,” while also framing the result as “great news for the Republican party,” claiming El-Sayed will be an easy general election opponent. Howell predicts the general election will bring a sharp, divisive campaign focused on identity rather than policy. “I think that it’s going to go a lot darker than the negative campaigning we’ve seen, and it’s going to be very anti-Arab and a lot more Islamophobic,” she said.

For his part, El-Sayed pushed back against expected identity-based attacks in a post-win address to supporters. “It’s like, wow, he’s different,” he said, describing the likely Republican line of attack. “That’s the best you got? You can’t actually talk about what you want to do? My name is not raising your gas prices. My name is not taking us to war. My name is not the reason you can’t afford your groceries.”

El-Sayed’s win follows a growing pattern of upsets for establishment-backed candidates by progressive Democrats across the country, from New York to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado, signaling a growing grassroots movement challenging special interest influence in U.S. elections.

As Israel gears up for its upcoming general election on October 27, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has launched preparations for a historically unusual voting arrangement: placing dedicated polling stations directly in active, occupied territories across the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria, military broadcaster Army Radio confirmed in a report published Wednesday. The plan, which military chief Eyal Zamir has formally ordered military leadership to implement, is designed to guarantee that frontline combat troops deployed beyond Israel’s internationally recognized borders can exercise their right to vote from their active posts.

Army Radio framed the initiative as a step unseen in Israeli electoral politics for decades, a framing that omits the longstanding practice of Israeli soldiers casting ballots at permanent military bases located in the occupied West Bank. The groundwork for this plan was laid just last week, when Israel’s Central Elections Committee signed off on a new slate of electoral regulations that explicitly permit active-duty troops to vote from their deployed positions in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli online news outlet Ynet has outlined the practical adjustments for in-theater voting: since service rules prohibit soldiers from carrying personal identification documents into these three regions, voters will be verified through their military service number and a confirmation check by a fellow service member.

The expansion of special out-of-district polling stations reflects a growing trend in Israeli elections. Over the past several years, the share of eligible voters casting ballots outside their assigned local precincts has climbed steadily, with active-duty soldiers and other security personnel making up the vast majority of voters using these special stations. Data from the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), an independent Jerusalem-based research center, shows that roughly 425,000 Israelis voted at special polling locations during the 2021 March general election. That total includes not only security service members, but also diplomats, hospitalized patients, and incarcerated citizens.

While definitive voting pattern data for special precincts remains hard to compile, the IDI notes that the overwhelming majority of special station voters are young Israelis serving in active military roles. Political analysts widely assess that right-wing Israeli political parties draw the most support from this demographic, meaning the expanded in-theater voting option could deliver a tangible advantage to conservative blocs in the upcoming vote.

Per official figures from the Central Elections Committee, approximately 7.3 million Israelis are eligible to participate in the October 27 contest. That pool includes nearly 550,000 first-time voters who have reached voting age since the previous national election held in late 2022. While the committee has publicly released details for special polling stations in hospitals, prisons, and Israeli diplomatic missions around the world, it has declined to disclose how many polling stations will ultimately be set up in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

Beyond the logistics of in-theater voting, Army Radio also shared details of a new directive from Zamir aimed at preserving the IDF’s longstanding mandate of political neutrality. Zamir has ordered all commanding officers to block active-duty soldiers and officers from engaging in partisan political campaigning on behalf of any party during the election cycle. He has additionally mandated that commanders review all correspondence distributed to troops to screen out any unauthorized partisan political messaging.

“There is a need to uphold current regulations, orders and instructions on the issue,” Zamir stated during a meeting with senior military leadership. He added that all IDF personnel must “avoid innovations that could bring about the undermining of public trust in the IDF.”

Zamir’s directive comes in direct response to public controversy that emerged earlier this week, when the IDF drew widespread criticism after dismissing a reserve soldier who had repeatedly posted public videos expressing personal support for the current Israeli government. The dismissal was ultimately reversed after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz personally intervened to reinstate the service member.

Five months after the outbreak of the 2026 Iran conflict, the United States finds itself trapped in a familiar strategic quagmire that has plagued its past major military engagements in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington is too deeply entrenched to withdraw without significant political fallout, yet it lacks the leverage and military progress necessary to declare a definitive victory.

This impasse has been amplified by the chaotic, inconsistent approach of US President Donald Trump to the conflict. Trump has flip-flopped repeatedly between issuing fiery threats of what he describes as “the biggest attack since World War II” and suddenly announcing that peace talks are “imminent” — only for Tehran to immediately deny any negotiations are underway at all. This back-and-forth is not a calculated negotiating strategy; it is public evidence of a superpower learning the hard way that overwhelming air power can reduce a nation’s infrastructure to ruin, but it cannot guarantee the political settlement that military intervention was supposed to secure.

Long before the full-scale buildup to this conflict, foreign policy realists warned of this exact outcome: the persistent gap between what military force can destroy and what political outcomes it can deliver. Working alongside Israel, the US has successfully degraded Iran’s core military infrastructure, damaged facilities linked to Iran’s nuclear program, and eliminated multiple top Iranian military commanders. But these tactical gains have not translated into the strategic outcome Washington seeks: an Iranian government willing to surrender on terms the US can brand as victory, nor a stable regional order that does not require the US Navy to maintain a permanent, force-backed presence to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for global shipping. Already, commercial oil tankers have begun rerouting their journeys around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa to avoid the conflict zone — a shift that alone makes clear how far the conflict is from being contained, despite official Washington rhetoric.

Trump’s instinct to seek an exit ramp from the conflict is not misdirected. Unlike many of his predecessors and foreign policy advisers, he has repeatedly pulled back from carrying out the all-out maximalist strike he often threatens, in large part due to appeals from Gulf Arab states. These nations understand far better than most Washington policymakers that a wider regional war only benefits Iran’s hardline factions and the defense contractors profiting from increased arms shipments.

The critical flaw in Trump’s approach is his persistent reliance on empty threat-based leverage. When threats are never followed through, they quickly lose their credibility. The current public disconnect — the White House insisting talks will begin Monday, while Iran’s foreign ministry flatly denies any negotiations are scheduled — is a clear sign that Trump’s repeated threats have been so overused that Tehran no longer feels pressured to back down.

To achieve a genuine exit from this stalemate, Washington must abandon three long-held flawed assumptions that have shaped not just this war, but nearly every US military venture in the Middle East over the past three decades.

First, the assumption that eliminating a regime’s military capabilities will create strategic clarity, rather than strategic drift. History from Iraq to Libya shows this logic is almost always wrong. Destroying infrastructure and military assets is the easy part of military intervention; the longer bombing campaigns continue, the harder it becomes to reach a negotiated settlement. This is because hardline factions on both sides gain political and tactical power from prolonging the conflict, eroding the influence of moderates who favor a diplomatic resolution.

Second, the assumption that regional US allies are willing to bear the costs of an American-guaranteed regional security order. Saudi Arabia’s public call by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for Trump to prioritize dialogue is a clear warning sign. The Gulf states that once quietly supported pressure on Tehran are now the ones pushing to de-escalate, because they border the Strait of Hormuz and cannot retreat across an Atlantic Ocean when the waterway closes to commercial traffic.

Third, and the assumption Washington is most resistant to abandon, is that “no deal” is a neutral default position while the war grinds on. In reality, every week that passes without a diplomatic settlement embeds the 2026 Iran war as the permanent baseline condition of the Middle East, rather than an emergency that demands resolution. Conflicts without clearly defined endpoints almost always expand and extend themselves, becoming self-sustaining policy commitments that are harder to exit over time.

A viable path to exit was already visible back in May and June, when Gulf states first talked Trump down from launching massive new strikes and a tentative negotiating framework nearly held. That path remains open today through the tentative Oman-brokered talks focused on securing freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

What is missing is not opportunity, but political discipline: the willingness to accept a narrow, verifiable agreement focused on the Strait of Hormuz as a sufficient achievable objective, rather than treating it as just a stepping stone to the larger goal of total Iranian capitulation. Facing intense internal political pressure, Iran’s government will never accept total surrender at the point of a bombing threat.

Trump built much of his political brand around criticizing the endless wars his predecessors failed to end. Escaping this conflict with a better outcome than permanent stalemate will require him to embrace the harder political work of accepting a modest, workable deal now, instead of holding out for the politically satisfying but unattainable fantasy of total Iranian surrender later. Throughout history, empires that keep waiting for that one decisive blow that will force their enemy to fold almost always find themselves still waiting, years later, mired in the stalemate they could not bring themselves to exit.

The United Kingdom’s independent charity oversight body has launched a formal investigation into multiple domestic charities accused of directing financial support to illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory, a significant escalation of the regulator’s ongoing scrutiny of UK charitable activity tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Charity Commission for England and Wales confirmed that the inquiry will examine three core areas: how donations transferred to the settlements were ultimately used, the stated and unstated purpose of the funds, and whether the activity aligns with legally defined charitable objectives under UK law. Stephen Roake, the commission’s assistant director for high-risk compliance, confirmed the probe targets eight unnamed UK charities in a public statement announcing the opening of the investigation.

“Serious allegations have been raised regarding UK charities operating in connection with illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine. Our immediate priority is to gather and verify all relevant facts to understand what has occurred,” Roake stated. “Once this fact-finding process is complete, we will assess whether regulatory intervention is necessary based on the evidence we uncover. This work will also inform future regulatory guidance for UK charities operating in the region, which is critical to upholding public trust in the charitable sector as a whole.”

The investigation follows a series of recent developments that have pushed the issue into UK regulatory focus. Last month, independent regional outlet Middle East Eye exposed details of an event hosted by a London synagogue that openly marketed property in illegal Israeli settlements located in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Brochures and promotional materials from the event, obtained exclusively by Middle East Eye, confirmed the event’s focus on advertising settlement properties. Following this expose, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians—a UK-based legal advocacy organization focused on Palestinian rights—submitted a formal complaint to the Charity Commission urging an official inquiry.

This new probe is the latest in a string of regulatory actions tied to the Israel-Gaza war from the Charity Commission. Late last year, the regulator explicitly ruled it unlawful for UK charities to raise or transfer funds to active Israeli soldiers. Since the outbreak of the 2023 Gaza war in October, the commission has opened more than 200 separate regulatory cases linked to the conflict, covering charities across the full spectrum of positions on the war, from pro-Israel to pro-Palestinian groups.

Over the course of the conflict, multiple leading international human rights bodies, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have formally accused Israeli forces of committing war crimes and acts of genocide in their military campaign in Gaza. The regulator has already been conducting active probes into other UK charities tied to Israeli military activity: earlier in 2024, it confirmed it was assessing a complaint against AAC, a Jewish fundraising organization accused of facilitating donations to an Israeli charity that supplies military equipment to soldiers deployed in Gaza. It is also investigating the Hendon-based Boys Clubhouse, a UK charity, after the group hosted a welcome event for a British national who returned to the UK after fighting with the Israeli army in Gaza.

Nearly two years after being ousted from power by a mass popular uprising, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has publicly pledged to return to her home country by December, even as she faces a confirmed death sentence for crimes against humanity handed down by a Dhaka tribunal last year. The 78-year-old leader, who fled to India at the height of the 2024 anti-government protests that ended her 15-year tenure, denies all charges against her, framing the conviction as a politically motivated campaign to destroy her and her Awami League party.

Hasina delivered her remarks via audio link to a packed gathering of journalists at Delhi’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Tuesday, marking her first formal public address to media since her government collapsed. “I know that they may put me in jail or they may kill me, anything may happen, but still I have to go back,” she told attendees, declining to share specific details of her travel route or exact re-entry date to avoid preemptive disruption. During the address, she claimed without providing evidence that opposition and civil society organizations hijacked a 2024 student-led protest over government job quotas to orchestrate a violent coup against her administration.

The conviction against Hasina rests on robust evidence collected by multiple independent bodies. United Nations investigators confirmed they found clear documentation that Hasina and her inner circle authorized systematic lethal force to cling to power during the uprising. A phone call recording verified by BBC’s investigative unit BBC Eye captured Hasina directly approving a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, which prosecutors used as core evidence to secure her in absentia conviction. The UN estimates that as many as 1,400 people were killed during the weeks of unrest, most by live gunfire from state security forces loyal to Hasina.

Since Hasina fled to India, her long-ruling Awami League has fractured amid a widespread crackdown by the new government. The party was banned from political activity shortly after Hasina’s departure and was barred from contesting the country’s February 2026 general election, which brought the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power with its leader Tarique Rahman installed as prime minister.

The current Bangladeshi government has already reacted with fury to Hasina’s Delhi press event, accusing India of violating diplomatic norms by allowing her to hold a public political address. “Our people have firmly resolved that our nation will never again go back to the dark days of fascism and that Bangladesh will never be a client state,” the Bangladeshi foreign ministry said in an official statement following the address. Dhaka has formally requested India extradite Hasina to face her sentence, a request New Delhi says it is currently reviewing. Hasina’s continued residency in Delhi has already put significant strain on bilateral relations between the two neighboring South Asian nations.

Political analysts warn that a potential return by Hasina would carry massive personal and national risks. “It’s a huge risk for her personally. If she does go back to Bangladesh, she will immediately be arrested,” said David Bergman, a Dhaka-based independent political analyst. He added that mass protests led by BNP supporters, student activists from the National Citizens Party, Islamist groups and other opposition factions would almost certainly immediately break out demanding the government carry out her death sentence.

At the same time, the stakes of remaining in exile are equally high for the fractured Awami League. Exiled former Awami League cabinet minister Mohammad Ali Arafat told the BBC that without Hasina’s return, the party will be completely destroyed. “If Ms Hasina doesn’t go back, the violence will continue and they will exterminate the Awami League,” Arafat said. Already, internal discontent has grown within the party, with rank-and-file members and mid-level leaders criticizing top officials for fleeing the country and leaving grassroots supporters vulnerable to targeted violence by the new government. Awami League claims hundreds of its supporters have been killed in post-uprising mob violence and dozens more have died in custody, claims that current Dhaka officials have repeatedly denied.

Bergman notes that Hasina’s vow to return reflects a clear political calculation: any future role for her in Bangladeshi politics depends on her facing the consequences of the conviction rather than remaining in exile. For the country, any move by Hasina to return is almost certain to trigger fresh political unrest and deepen existing divides two years after the uprising that ended her rule.

When social media platform X announced this week it would mount a legal challenge against a Turkish government order to block a campaign account supporting imprisoned Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu’s 2025 presidential bid, the claim was met with immediate skepticism from digital rights and free expression advocates.

The campaign account, launched to boost Imamoglu’s candidacy in Turkey’s upcoming national election, was first taken offline for users within Turkey in late March 2025, after authorities submitted a formal block request to the platform. In a public post to its own platform Wednesday, X explained that it had complied with the block order the previous week, arguing that Turkish legislation left the company no choice: failure to act would have triggered aggressive bandwidth throttling of X’s entire service across the country by Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK).

“Although Turkey’s laws force us to comply with the order, we are challenging the order in court and, in the spirit of full transparency, are sharing the court order,” the company stated, alongside a public copy of the official government directive. This is not the first time X has moved to block Imamoglu-linked content: the mayor’s personal main X account, which boasted close to 10 million followers before it was restricted, was blocked in May 2024 under an identical government order, which X also says it is contesting through the Turkish court system. Other major global social platforms have complied with similar Turkish government requests: both Meta and YouTube have already restricted access to Imamoglu-associated accounts and content at authorities’ demand.

Yaman Akdeniz, founder of Turkish free expression nonprofit IFOD, told Middle East Eye that he doubts X, owned by Elon Musk who has repeatedly labeled himself a “free speech absolutist,” has any real intention of meaningfully opposing the Turkish government’s censorship demands. “It is true to say that every now and again they appeal against decisions and lodge a few applications with the Constitutional Court — however, this is very selective and X chooses not to provide further details about the judicial challenges,” Akdeniz explained.

Data from X’s own transparency reports backs up critics’ claims that the platform regularly complies with Turkish content removal requests. Between July and December 2024, X received 11,107 separate content and account removal requests from Turkish authorities, and enforced action on 86 percent of those demands. An earlier review of X’s disclosure data by The Washington Post found that the platform’s compliance rate with legal content removal requests globally rose 20 percentage points between 2021 and the first half of 2024, hitting 71 percent. For Turkish government requests specifically, X complied with 68 percent of the 9,364 demands it received in the first half of 2024 alone. Akdeniz added that X is not an outlier in this practice: “I must say Meta and the others are no different as they have all become the long arm of the Turkish law enforcement mechanism.”

Turkey is far from the only government where X has complied with demands to censor accounts belonging to dissident voices and government critics, a pattern that undermines the platform’s public commitment to free speech. Just this week, The Guardian revealed that X has blocked a collection of prominent Saudi Arabian critics of the Saudi monarchy, including prominent human rights advocate Yahya Assiri and activist Abdullah Alaoudh, whose father is imprisoned cleric Salman al-Ouda. The restrictions came after Snapchat, Meta and Instagram already implemented similar blocks following Saudi government claims that the accounts violated local content regulations. Notably, X had previously issued a public statement claiming it would refuse to follow the other platforms’ lead, saying it “strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users.”

Saudi Arabia’s government has poured billions of dollars in investment into xAI, recently renamed SpaceXAI, the parent company that operates both the X social platform and its AI chatbot Grok, creating a clear conflict of interest that critics say drives the platform’s willingness to comply with Saudi censorship demands. Middle East Eye reached out to X for additional comment on the Turkish court challenge and compliance patterns, but had not received a response as of publication.