The level of animosity toward Moscow is such that even the US cannot nudge the bloc toward a more reasonable approach, Yury Ushakov has said
European nations appear to be united in a collective anti-Russian frenzy, which precludes even the possibility of dialogue with Moscow, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov has said.
Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, the official admitted that he was “surprised… by the extent of lies, brazen lies” about Russia being peddled by European politicians.
”And I am of course surprised that against a backdrop of these lies, against a backdrop of hatred [of Russia], Europeans could become so consolidated,” Ushakov stated. The Russian presidential aide added that he could not have imagined that “Europe would speak with one voice vis-à-vis Russia – an extremely belligerent, extremely negative [voice].”
According to the official, this approach leaves no room for even an attempt to engage Moscow diplomatically on the part of much of Europe.
The US does not seem to exert much influence over its European allies, as the “extent of… united hatred of the Europeans toward Russia is such that it is hard to ‘bore’ through this hatred even with an American drill,” Ushakov insisted.
Speaking of the prospects for the Ukraine peace process, he accused the authorities in Kiev of being unwilling to end hostilities.
According to the Russian presidential aide, the understanding reached between Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, in Alaska in August is the “guiding star” in terms of resolving the Ukraine conflict.
Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi last Thursday, President Putin accused Western Europe of continuing to “whip up hysteria that war with the Russians is supposedly on the doorstep” and condemned rampant militarization on the continent.
He dismissed such concerns as a “nonsense mantra,” suggesting that European leaders shift their focus to domestic issues.
At a summit in The Hague in June, NATO member states committed to increasing defense spending from the previous threshold of 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. The European Union, in turn, similarly approved several programs aimed at boosting military spending this year, including the €800 billion ($930 billion) ReArm Europe initiative.
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The US president has also accused the former vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, of dishonesty and corruption
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he hopes the “necessary authorities” are looking into Democratic Senator Adam Schiff for being “dishonest and corrupt.” The California lawmaker led two investigations into Trump in 2019 and 2021.
During Trump’s first term, House Democrats impeached him twice – first in December 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and again in January 2021 for incitement of insurrection following the January 6 Capitol riot. Back then, Schiff was a member of the House of Representatives that investigated the cases.
“The Ukraine Impeachment (of me!) Scam was a far bigger Illegal Hoax than Watergate. I sincerely hope the necessary authorities, including CONGRESS, are looking into this!” Trump wrote on social media.
Kremlin investment aide Kirill Dmitriev has called the US president’s statement important, adding that “Ukraine also hid [ex-President Joe] Biden’s corruption and campaigned” against Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance.
Dmitriev recently said that Biden provoked the Ukraine conflict to hide his family’s corrupt dealings, commenting on a set of CIA documents declassified by the agency’s director, John Ratcliffe. According to those, in 2016 Biden asked the CIA to cover up a report about his family’s alleged business dealings in Ukraine.
According to CNN sources, the Trump administration is looking into charging Schiff with mortgage fraud, which he has denied.
Under the US Constitution, the House of Representatives can impeach the president by a simple majority vote. If that happens, the Senate then holds a trial. Conviction and removal from office requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate – a threshold not met in either of Trump’s previous impeachments.
The number of suicides among people tied to the Nova music festival carnage continues to grow
An Israeli man who survived the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel hast taken his own life, three days after the second anniversary of the assault. The body of Roei Shalev was found in a burning car on a highway exit outside the city of Netanya on Friday, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Shalev had attended the Nova Music Festival, an all-night event held near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023 which was targeted by Hamas militants in their attack. He was shot in the back but survived by playing dead for several hours.
His girlfriend, Mapal Adam, and his close friend, Hili Solomon, were among those killed. Two weeks after the tragedy, Shalev’s mother took her life.
Hours before his body was recovered, Shalev posted a goodbye message on his Instagram page: “I just want this suffering to end. I’m alive, but inside everything is dead.” He also asked for forgiveness.
Israeli police are now investigating the circumstances surrounding his death.
On Thursday, 56-year-old Yelena Giler, the mother of Slava Giler, who was murdered by Hamas militants at the festival, also killed herself, according to Israeli media reports. Other survivors have succumbed to depression, including Nova attendee Shirel Golan, who committed suicide a year after the attack, reportedly on her 22nd birthday.
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack, including more than 370 at the Nova music festival; 251 were taken hostage.
Israel responded by launching a military offensive that has cost more than 67,000 Palestinian lives, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and triggered a deep humanitarian crisis in the enclave, prompting the UN to accuse West Jerusalem of genocide.
The banishing of militants from Gaza under the US president’s plan is “absurd,” a spokesman for the group has told reporters
Hamas representatives will not attend the signing ceremony for the US-mediated peace deal in Egypt on Monday, the group’s spokesman Husam Badran has told the press. He also voiced misgivings about certain points in the plan promoted by US President Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, both Israel and Hamas announced an end to the conflict that has dragged on since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. The ensuing Israeli military campaign has claimed the lives of more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local officials. The enclave has been left in ruins and plunged into a deep humanitarian crisis, prompting the UN to accuse Israel of genocide.
On Sunday, Al-Arabiya quoted Badran as saying that “Hamas will not be involved in the signing process. Only mediators and American and Israeli officials will be present.” Meanwhile, Shosh Bedrosian, a spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was quoted by AFP on Sunday as stating that “no Israeli official will attend” the summit either.
The French news agency also quoted Hamas’ Badran as stressing that “talk about expelling Palestinians, whether they are Hamas members or not, from their land is absurd and nonsense.” The Hamas representative described the implementation of the second phase of the peace plan as fraught “many complexities and difficulties.”
The previous ceasefire was ended unilaterally by Israel in March, with Prime Minister Netanyahu recently suggesting that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) could resume its offensive in Gaza, should Hamas refuse to disarm. Some members of the Israeli government coalition have already voiced opposition to any concessions to Hamas.
The deal unveiled by President Trump in late September envisages the recovery of all 48 Israeli hostages, both dead and alive, still held by Hamas in Gaza. Israel is in turn required to free 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans detained since 2023.
Moreover, under the plan, the IDF is to pull its troops out of some parts of the enclave, followed later by a full withdrawal. On Friday, the Israeli military announced that its units had begun retreating from their positions.
The broader 20-point ceasefire framework calls for the establishment of a transitional international administration in Gaza. Hamas is expected to disarm and be excluded from governance in the territory, which is to become a “deradicalized, terror-free zone.”
The establishment’s “firewall” against opposition parties creates a new East-West divide and a two-tier society
It’s been more than a third of a century since the German unification of 1990. Between Hamburg and Munich and Cologne and Frankfurt-on-Oder, you’ll easily find adults who have no personal memory of the country’s Cold War division, and even quite a few who were born after it. Germany divided, in other words, is history.
And yet, it isn’t. That’s what this year’s Day of German Unity – a public holiday on October 3 – has, once again, made clear. For one thing, differences and even tensions between the former West and East Germanies have persisted.
Bodo Ramelow, vice president of the German parliament and himself from the former East Germany, has scandalized many of his colleagues by pointing out that the two kinds of Germans remain estranged. Indeed, Ramelow believes Germany needs a new hymn and flag because too many East Germans still cannot identify with the current ones, which were simply taken over from the former West Germany. A German cabinet minister, who also grew up in the East, feels that talk about East and West is intensifying again. Even one of Germany’s politically conformist main news shows, Tagesschau, admits that the “process of re-unification remains incomplete.”
But these economic and social imbalances may be less important than they seem at first sight, for two reasons: They reflect trends that are winding down over time, and they do not necessarily make Germans in the East less satisfied than their compatriots in the West. Counter-intuitively, polls show that even East German regions where many respondents believe that life is better elsewhere also feature high degrees of life satisfaction.
Ultimately, the fact that two former national economies that, as of 1990, were extremely different have taken time to become more similar and fuse is no surprise. Looking back from the future, some historians – with their bias toward the longue durée – might even argue that the real story is how quickly they converged.
In this regard, what really mattered was less the actual speed of the process but its lopsidedness: if East Germans had not felt – rightly – that for all too many years all decisions were made by West Germans, less estrangement would have resulted. Exaggerated promises of quick fixes, as made by “chancellor of unity” Helmut Kohl, did not help either.
Ironically, in the final analysis the preponderant majority of Germans, East and West, have had something fundamental in common all this time – being trampled by the great neoliberal offensive that has laid waste to most Western societies, and then some. Does it matter whether you have been consigned to the precarity of the gig economy in Dresden or in Stuttgart? Not so much. That’s a kind of unity, too, presumably.
Yet this is where the really interesting divide between Germany’s former East and West comes into play. Because it is politics that really matters most now, to be precise, the politics of parties, elections, and representation. There is a reason why stodgily Centrist mainstream media flagship Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has lamented that the Day of German Unity is now the Day of the AfD, the new-right party Alternative for Germany outdistancing all others in the polls and barely kept in check by a bizarre “firewall” policy.
While the AfD is making inroads in Germany’s West as well – for instance, in the rustbelt region of the Ruhr and even among immigrants – it is the former East Germany that has become its bastion. On electoral maps its shape is now clearly recognizable in solid AfD blue. And it is still growing and getting stronger by the day. For Chancellor Merz, whose own unpopularity rating has hit a whopping 71 percent (and falling) the AfD’s triumph is due to former East Germans still feeling, wrongly, that they are second-class citizens.
That is typical. Thank you, Friedrich, for selflessly illustrating once again why many East Germans have had enough of Western condescension, whether of the hectoring pull-yourself-together or the psychologizing it’s-okay-to-be-angry kind.
What Merz is missing is that much of Germany’s current East-West division is not a relic of the past, unpleasantly persistent, too slow in going away, but ultimately just that – a sort of hangover produced by yesterday’s bad unification party, which will pass. In reality, it is contemporary German politics that is feeding the divide. By “firewalling” the AfD out of government, where, by the usual rules of German coalition building it should be even now, the establishment parties have, in effect, made its supporters second-class voters.
Vote, say, CDU or SPD and your vote may count toward constructing a government with ministers – or even a chancellor – from your favorite party. Vote AfD and forget about it: By “firewall” fiat, that translation of your vote into power has simply been ruled out. Your vote can only feed an opposition that is marginalized in every conceivable way.
And on top of it, you’ll have to listen to endless sermons on how bad, misguided, and backward you are. No wonder many Germans in the East still feel as if they are treated like less than full citizens, then. Because the “firewall” does exactly that as soon as they dare vote AfD.
On one side, the AfD’s position is, obviously, tactical: if a full recount were to bring the BSW into parliament with dozens of seats, the current governing coalition of establishment parties would be finished. The AfD as the largest and, in reality, only effective opposition currently inside parliament, stands to profit: either by the forming of a new governing coalition that would bring down the “firewall” for good and include the AfD, or by fresh elections.
But there also is, across a great right-left ideological divide, the fact that both AfD and BSW are parties rooted in – but not restricted to – the territory of the old East Germany. In that sense, what is done to the AfD via the “firewall” has been done to the BSW via the miscount, whether deliberately or not: namely the de facto discrimination against voters of both parties, whose votes have been treated as of lesser power than others.
If the representatives of Germany’s traditional political establishment were really interested in securing the country’s unity, they would drop the policy of the “firewall” against the AfD and initiate a full recount of BSW votes immediately.
But as things are in Germany, the increasingly foul-play attempt of the radical Center to cling to power produces not “only” political disunity and fundamental disaffection, but also a new East-West divide. One that is not a legacy of the Cold War past – and easily blamed on former East Germany’s Communist leaders, who can’t talk back anymore. Instead, this divide is new and the ones to blame for it are those stubbornly handicapping a large share of the German electorate and, at the same time, one region in particular: the former East Germany.
It is ironic that all too many German experts love to charge East Germans with not being “democratic” enough. It’s the pot calling the kettle black. If anyone displays their lack of democratic culture it is those who find “firewalls” and massive “miscounts” normal. And what rightly frustrates many East Germans now is precisely the lack of effective democracy in big, united, and yet so unhappy Germany.
Washington expects strikes on civilian infrastructure to push Moscow towards a diplomatic settlement, sources have said
The US has been assisting Kiev in carrying out drone attacks on energy facilities inside Russia for the past several months, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed American and Ukrainian officials.
US officials previously made no secret of their data-sharing with Kiev, but never confirmed their involvement in targeting Russia’s energy assets.
When asked earlier in October about Washington’s possible role in Kiev’s strikes deep into Russian territory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was “obvious” to Moscow that “all of NATO and US infrastructure is being used to collect and pass on intelligence to the Ukrainian side.”
The FT said in an article on Sunday that Washington started sharing this data after a call between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in mid-July, in which Trump reportedly asked his interlocutor if Kiev could strike Moscow with American-supplied long-range weapons. The White House later claimed that Trump was “merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing.”
According to the sources, the US intelligence is being used by Ukraine to plan the routes and the altitudes for its drones to travel and to choose the best timing for the attacks.
The unnamed officials claimed the Americans have also been setting target priorities for Kiev. However, one of the sources claimed the Ukrainians selected the sites themselves and were then provided data by the US.
Washington sees the Ukrainian strikes on the energy facilities as an “instrument” to harm Russia’s economy and push it towards a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, one of the officials told FT.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early September that Moscow has been tolerating Ukrainian attacks against civilian infrastructure inside Russia “for too long” and that it will not be doing so anymore. The intensification of Russian missile and drone raids on Ukraine in recent weeks has led to large-scale blackouts in the capital Kiev and other cities.
Earlier this week, Putin stressed that there is understanding in both Moscow and Washington about what direction to move in to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict. However, he noted that several “complicated issues” still need to be resolved to reach that goal.
The Taliban has reported 58 Pakistani deaths, while Islamabad has said it seized 19 Afghan frontier posts
Afghanistan’s Taliban government stated on Sunday that its forces killed 58 Pakistani soldiers and wounded 30 others in overnight border operations. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, during a press briefing in Kabul, said that “certain elements within the Pakistani security establishment want to destabilise Afghanistan.”
Mujahid said the operations took place at multiple border posts. He added, according to a post by Afghanistan’s TOLO News agency, that the situation at the border with Pakistan was under “complete control, and illegal activities have been largely prevented.”
There was no immediate confirmation from Islamabad about the reported casualties. Pakistani state media outlets on Sunday, however, claimed that the country’s military had captured 19 Afghan posts from where attacks were being launched on Saturday night. A video broadcast by Pakistan Television (PTV) showed Afghan posts in flames and Taliban soldiers allegedly surrendering in Kurram.
Radio Pakistan reported, citing security sources, that the Pakistani army had also completely destroyed the Taliban’s Manojba Camp Battalion Headquarters, Jandusar Post, Turkmenzai Camp, and Kharchar Fort.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called the Afghan attacks “unprovoked” and accused Afghan forces of firing on civilians. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned what he described as a “provocation by Afghanistan in Pakistan’s border areas.” He added, “There will be no compromise on Pakistan’s defence, and every provocation will be met with a strong and effective response.”
پاک افغان بارڈر پر افغانستان کی جانب سے بِلا اشتعال جارحیت/ اپڈیٹ
رات گئے سے پاکستانی فورسز بھاری ہتھیاروں کے ساتھ بھرپور مہارت سے افغان پوسٹوں کو کامیابی سے نشانہ بنا رہی ہیں، سیکورٹی ذرائع
اب تک پاکستان نے افغانستان کی بارڈر پر موجود 19 افغان پوسٹوں، جہاں سے پاکستان پر حملے… pic.twitter.com/mp5EsFsSJp
The fighting came days after explosions rocked the Afghan capital, Kabul, in an air strike the Taliban blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack but said it would do everything necessary to protect its citizens. Pakistan has seen a surge in terrorism in recent months, which it blames on the outlawed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In recent years, cross-border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have intensified, with both sides accusing each other of harbouring militants. On Friday, Islamabad accused the Afghan Taliban of sheltering fighters with the support of India, Pakistan’s regional rival. Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, head of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), claimed that “Indian proxies” were operating from Afghan territory to target Pakistan.
The escalation coincided with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to Delhi, as the two nations normalize ties. During a press conference in the Indian capital on Sunday, Muttaqi denied the presence of TTP fighters in his country.
#WATCH | Delhi | On the tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Afghanistan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi says, "… The people of Pakistan, in the majority, are peace-loving and want good relations with Afghanistan. We have no issues with the Pakistani civilians. There… pic.twitter.com/knw7pYOFSx
“If Pakistan wants peace, they have a bigger army and better intelligence — why are they not controlling it? This fight is inside Pakistan. Instead of blaming us, they should control the issues in their territory,” he claimed. The official added Kabul wants “good relations and peace” but is ready to firmly protect its interests and sovereignty.
Palestinians may celebrate the Gaza ceasefire, but their relief will be short-lived. The Bible – and game theory – explain why.
“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” (Genesis 12:3, KJV)
Disguised in wigs and skirts and carrying submachine guns, an Israeli commando from an elite special forces unit moved through Beirut’s dark streets, hunting the masterminds of the Munich massacre. A door swung open, gunfire, a body fell. Only later did the team realize the man was not their target.
The lesson is stark: When harmed, Israel exacts revenge relentlessly, pursuing perpetrators until the score is settled – and the innocent may not be spared.
Broad swathes of the Palestinian population – including Hamas members – rejoiced at the 10 October 2025 Gaza ceasefire. Shortly after it took effect, Hamas combatants resurfaced prominently in Gaza for the world to see – an ostentatious display of defiant resistance.
Yet in reality, there is little reason for Palestinians, particularly Hamas, to celebrate. Israel still holds the power of life and death over all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – an unnatural state of affairs, but a grim reality.
True to its habitual logic and consistent pattern of retribution, Israel is poised soon to resume its relentless campaign of destruction in Gaza and beyond – literally stepping over bodies. Difficult, costly, time-consuming, and potentially unpopular, the strategy is nevertheless deemed essential for preventing future attacks, maintaining credibility, and ensuring the very survival of the state. It reflects Israel’s realist approach, prioritizing national interests over politics, ideology, and narrow moral concerns.
Specifically, Israel – succumbing to threat bias and operating in a whatever-it-takes mode – is very likely to swiftly renew its devastating assault on the Palestinian population at large for three interrelated reasons.
1. Prevention and deterrence
Israel’s vengeance in an extended pursuit can be understood as a forward-looking stance. It neutralizes active perpetrators and dismantles terrorist infrastructure, while offering both intelligence and operational benefits.
Strategically, it provides opportunities to gain insights into what Israel describes as terrorist networks and logistics, allowing authorities to anticipate and disrupt future threats. On the tactical level, it enables the interception of arms, funds, and communications, as well as the targeting of secondary actors who might otherwise perpetuate a seemingly endless cycle of violence.
The relentless pursuit of perpetrators also functions as a form of deterrence, lowering the likelihood of future attacks by signaling Israel’s operational capability and resolve to its adversaries.
Crucially, unremitting punitive action mitigates the game-theoretical problem of time inconsistency – shifts in behavior over the course of events, encouraging hostage-taking and other coercive actions by adversaries.
True deterrence demands a consistent no-negotiation policy, yet once hostages are seized, governments often concede under duress to save lives, rewarding crime and ensuring repetition. The short-term relief of capitulation carries long-term costs, as hostage-takers anticipate such weakness and exploit it in the future.
This dilemma is most acute in liberal democracies, where compassion for captives fuels political pressure that can unseat leaders. Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, often preserve deterrence by refusing to bargain, sacrificing hostages to prevent future incidents, a brutal but effective strategy.
Deterrence lies at the heart of Israel’s security doctrine, aiming at ensuring that every attack carries enduring consequences. Its logic is twofold: general deterrence, which warns others by showing that no perpetrator escapes pursuit, and specific deterrence, which keeps fugitive assailants under perpetual threat, limiting their ability to operate. For a small, exposed nation long beset by enemies, deterrence is not mere strategy but a means of survival.
Despite its uncompromising stance that terrorism must never be rewarded, Israel indirectly negotiated with Hamas in the lead-up to the 10 October 2025 ceasefire, agreeing to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages.
Strategically, this was a game-theoretical blunder, incentivizing future abductions. Psychologically, it produced cognitive dissonance: the tension between principle and action.
Israel’s likely route to resolving the dissonance lies in retribution – resuming its blighting campaign against Hamas and eliminating freed prisoners to signal that hostage-taking gains nothing. A cynic might add that the ceasefire deal was profitable anyway: It saved Israel the cost of continued imprisonment while ensuring those released would not live to cause harm again.
2. Retributive justice
Retributive justice, a moral and legal balancing act, is the idea that punishment should be proportional to the wrong committed: If someone harms others, they deserve consequences in kind.
Unlike forward-looking approaches – such as deterrence (which aims to prevent future wrongdoing), or restorative justice (which seeks to heal relationships and repair harm), or utilitarian strategies (which focus on maximizing overall social welfare) – retributive justice is backward-looking, focused squarely on the past act and the perpetrator’s moral responsibility.
It is a core principle in ethics and law because it affirms that crimes have consequences, reinforcing a societal sense of fairness and accountability, restoring a precarious and delicate balance. In essence, it says: Wrongdoing demands redress, independent of any future benefit.
For Israel, retributive justice is not abstract – it is a guiding principle in national security and conflict response. When perpetrators of attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers are identified, punishment is not only a practical necessity for deterrence and intelligence-gathering; it is a moral imperative.
This explains why, even after the safe return of hostages from Gaza, Israel is likely to resume military operations: The attackers’ initial crimes against innocent citizens still remain unredressed, and retribution is required to restore moral and legal balance.
In the broader context, this stance aligns with Israel’s traditional approach to security – its society expects that wrongdoing will not go unanswered, that enemies will face consequences.
3. Symbolic messaging
Beyond deterrence and retribution, Israel’s forceful actions convey a profound religious, cultural, and historical message. Its military and intelligence operations represent not merely a pragmatic choice – they symbolically reinforce the identity, values, resilience, and collective memory of the Jewish state, shaping norms and expectations in a society shaped by historical trauma and existential threat.
God’s covenant in Genesis 12:3 promises blessing for those who support Israel and curses for those who oppose it, establishing a moral principle linking human behavior to divine justice. Attacks against Israel, like Balaam’s failed curse (Numbers 22–24), reinforce national resilience and identity rather than weaken it.
Israel bears a divine duty to pursue justice (“Justice, justice shall you pursue,” Deuteronomy 16:20), and preventing or confronting evil remains obligatory even if immediate action is impossible.
The command to “remember what Amalek did unto thee” (Deuteronomy 25:17) transforms memory into moral vigilance, guarding against the recurrence of cruelty and unprovoked aggression and preserving the nation’s ethics and collective soul.
The approach of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is consistent with how the people of Israel has long responded to threats: from the vengeance of Simeon and Levi at Shechem – an early act of retribution to defend communal honor – to the Israelites’ punitive campaign against Midian – undertaken to avenge moral and physical aggression – to modern history, including the post-Holocaust pursuit of Nazi war criminals by figures like Simon Wiesenthal and the decades-long hunt for the masterminds of the Munich Olympics massacre.
In each case, decisive action communicated that attacks against the Israeli people will not go unanswered, reaffirming both domestic and international perceptions and expectations.
Citizens see that assaults on Israelis meet consequences, bolstering national morale, social cohesion, and confidence in the state.
At the same time, adversaries abroad are reminded that Israel internalizes historical lessons – its survival depending on determined action – and responds to threats decisively.
International supporters of Israel are also swayed by its symbolically embedded reputation management.
Evangelical Christians worldwide embrace Genesis 12:3, viewing Israel as God’s channel of blessing and believing that how nations treat Israel determines God’s favor. This reading fuels ardent political and moral support Israel’s relentless actions, particularly in the US.
Amid the religious fervor, theological inaccuracies are largely inconsequential. The evangelicals’ one-sided interpretation overlooks the New Testament perspective, which presents Israel as a “type”, foreshadowing the Church as God’s covenant people, and emphasizes love for enemies – without negating the legitimacy of just, temporal punishment.
Ultimately, Israel’s punitive action becomes a statement of enduring principles, moral order, and national identity, connecting the present to its storied past – communicating that Israel’s values, memory of past struggles, and societal norms demand that attacks cannot go unanswered. Every operation, raid, or counterstrike carries this symbolic weight, merging strategy with religious, cultural, and historical expression.
The Retributor’s Curse: The empire strikes back – and will be struck again
I term this the “Retributor’s Curse” as it applies to the Jewish state: Israel’s assertion of national exceptionalism – vilifying and dooming those who resist its bid for supremacy – provokes retaliation and counter-retaliation, generating a cycle of “destructive resilience.” This pattern, a veritable paradox, runs like a red thread throughout its history, binding past and present in an epic narrative of struggle and survival.
Israel’s religious and cultural DNA nurtures both extremism and fragility, helping explain why the nation has so often faced near-annihilation. Yet that same inner code also sustains a resilient “holy remnant,” enabling Israel, time and again, to rise from the ashes against all odds.
Both Palestinians and Israelis are destined to suffer as a result of the ill-conceived US Gaza Peace Plan unveiled by President Donald Trump on 29 September 2025, under which the Nobel Prize-seeking dealmaker-in-chief would effectively assume the role of de-facto governor of a protectorate – a stark reminder that a bad deal can be worse than no deal at all.
Hamas’ self-destructive miscalculation
Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which the movement saw as an act of resistance, was in reality a deadly miscalculation. Harming innocent civilians was morally reprehensible – that goes without saying. Yet, viewed against the backdrop of Israel’s self-conceived identity and moral code, even the grim logic of defiance was fatally flawed, most notably in the hostage-taking.
While the attack shocked the world, the ruthless abduction triggered global pity – stronger than in other crises, not least because of the human relatability of the victims.
Both aspects provided Israel with a convenient and compelling pretext to launch and sustain its disproportionate, ruinous war on Gaza and the wider region under the guise of “self-defense” and the rescue of its abducted citizens. This helped to consolidate domestic support, rally soldiers at the front, and secure diplomatic cover abroad.
The smokescreen remained effective over time, legitimizing Israel’s military action at least until the last hostage would have been recovered and Hamas exterminated. While cynics might argue that Israel could – and would – have manufactured another pretext, none would probably have resonated as powerfully or endured as long as the living memory of beloved hostages and the nation’s longing for their return.
Israeli PR-savvy opinion leaders in civil society sustained public compassion by renaming a plaza “Hostages Square,” holding weekly rallies with vigils, and displaying thumbnail images of all hostages across virtually every platform.
The government escalated the narrative, framing the 2023 Hamas incursion as “Holocaust 2.0,” as it were, a resonant label reinforcing Israel’s self-image as a perpetual victim. True to form, it institutionalized a state cult of death, staging lavish son-et-lumière commemorations, relayed to the world through continuous coverage.
Grief is natural and understandable, but exploiting it for political gain is profoundly troubling. By inflicting collective punishment on innocent Palestinians in one of the most densely populated areas in the world – while claiming that it was Hamas that brought the calamity upon them – a self-styled victim was transformed into a perpetrator of UN-confirmed war crimes. This, of course, does not exonerate Hamas.
Astonishingly, the resistance compounded its errors. Its victory ceremony and parade of abductees on 25 January 2025 were cruel and needless, sparking global condemnation and intensifying sympathy for Israel. Hamas’ triumphal return shortly after the 10 October ceasefire further inflamed Israeli nationalists, while pro-Israeli media stoked narratives of Hamas “mobilization” to justify renewed military action.
These events reveal that Hamas learned little, even as Israel’s relentless collective punishment inflicted unabated suffering on Palestinians. Israel’s response, grim yet unmistakably forceful, reinforced national identity and values, solidifying its stature as a formidable adversary. The harm to Palestinians, however, goes even further.
The prospect of ultranationalist escalation
For ultranationalists in Netanyahu’s cabinet, the 10 October 2025 Gaza ceasefire is intolerable. They crave total victory, notably, the annihilation of Hamas and the conquest of Palestine. The million-dollar question, then, is why these hardliners did not resign in protest, toppling Netanyahu.
Before tackling this pressing question, it is crucial to recognize that Netanyahu, himself, is an ultranationalist hardliner, viewing the world strictly in binary terms of victory and defeat within a zero-sum game. Yet he employs a good-cop/bad-cop strategy, framing his extreme actions as concessions to pressure from cabinet ultranationalists.
On 10 October 2025, he ominously reiterated that Hamas would be disarmed, whether the easy way or by force, vowing that all war aims would be achieved. Preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state is his lifelong mission, and he is unlikely to relent.
Given this constellation, and the high probability that Hamas will not disarm voluntarily, Netanyahu has likely assured his hardliners that he will rekindle the war after the hostages’ return, and that released Palestinian prisoners will be marked for destruction. This is likely facilitated by the fact that public opinion will be largely indifferent to continued Palestinian casualties once the hostages have been freed. Israel is unlikely to relent until the masterminds of the 7 October attacks and other combatants are eliminated – even if the chase takes decades.
Yet this strategy is ultimately futile, quite literally, a grim game of whack-a-mole on a powder keg: For every Palestinian resistance fighter – always a terrorist in Israel’s eyes – killed, a host of new, more determined combatants will emerge, striking Jews and their supporters in Israel and abroad, perpetuating a seemingly endless cycle of violence.
Breaking this spiral requires a new, enlightened Israeli mindset, self-concept, and ethical framework – one grounded in prudent restraint and restorative justice toward external enemies.
Moreover, Israel must pay full reparations for all the human and material devastation it has inflicted on Gaza and the wider region – it is neither fair nor just to expect other countries to foot the bill.
At the home front, all Israeli leaders must be held accountable; those responsible for war crimes – already confirmed by the UN – must face stern punishment. Only then can a durable vision of peaceful coexistence with Israel’s neighbors, founded on shared security and prosperity, become feasible.
The Souyz-5 booster is expected to launch for the first time in December, Roscosmos has said
A successful ground test of the first-stage of the Souyz-5 rocket has concluded at a range in the Moscow Region, the Russian space agency Roscosmos has said.
The Soyuz-5 is a two-stage, medium-class launch vehicle with an increased payload capacity of up to 17 tons. It is intended as a replacement for the Proton and Zenit boosters. Roscosmos said previously that it plans to carry out the first test launch of the new rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in December, with full-scale use expected to begin in 2028.
On Saturday, the Russian space agency released a video of the fire trails of the first stage of the Soyuz-5, which it said concluded the ground phase of the testing.
During the trials, the interaction between the first stage and the new RD-171MV engine was checked, the agency said in a statement. The engine boasts a thrust of 800 tons and remained operational for the intended 160 seconds, it added.
Roscosmos said previously that the designers had branded the RD-171MV the “Tsar-engine” due to it being most potent in the world and generating power comparable to that of a large power plant.
The results of the ground trials “allow for the commencement of flight and design tests of the Soyuz-5 launch vehicle,” the statement read.
The rocket is intended to deliver unmanned spacecraft into various near-Earth orbits under the joint Baiterek project between Russia and Kazakhstan, the agency said.
Last month, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov announced that Moscow plans to construct and launch some 1,000 spacecraft and 300 carrier rockets over the next decade as part of a national project to intensify the country’s space activities. This would see the number of launches doubling compared to the current pace, reaching up to 30 per year.
