President Ahmad al-Sharaa is playing “basketball diplomacy” with his Washington and Moscow visits
Following his recent visit to Moscow, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa paid a working visit to the United States. The purpose of the trip was to strengthen Damascus-Washington cooperation and to explore new channels of trust amid a changing regional security architecture.
The new Syrian leadership’s foreign policy approach can be described as “basketball diplomacy.” It’s an apt metaphor reflecting a genuine political style – a blend of informality, agility, and personal rapport – rooted in the president’s and Foreign Minister Assad al-Shaibani’s passion for basketball, frequently showcased in viral videos of their casual games.
The symbolic weight of this approach grew after the release of footage from a discreet visit by senior US officials to Damascus. The video showed al-Sharaa and al-Shaibani playing basketball alongside US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Admiral Charles B. Cooper II and Brigadier General Kevin J. Lambert, head of the Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR). These images became a visual embodiment of a new model of engagement – one in which informal interaction complements, and at times even precedes, formal diplomatic agreements.
The “basketball diplomacy” of Syria’s new leadership is more than a stylistic flourish; it is an attempt to craft an image of a regime capable of turning a hard biography and a traumatic past into political capital. Ahmad al-Sharaa’s personal story – from his time in US detention in Iraq and his years in the jihadist underground to his emergence as a statesman capable of negotiating on equal terms with both Washington and Moscow – has become central to this narrative. Unlike Bashar Assad, who over time was cornered into dependence on a narrow circle of allies, the new Syrian authorities seek to project a different image: that of a state reclaiming agency, able to reshape the architecture of regional security and the configuration of coalitions.
Within this framework, the basketball court is both a visual and political code. A shared game with American officers – along with the leaders’ visible ease and openness – serves as a message of readiness for a new kind of dialogue. Not the ritualized rhetoric of “resistance” or the “axis of resistance,” but a display of confidence, manageability, and predictability.
The decision to send a high-level delegation to Moscow immediately after al-Sharaa’s Washington visit was also a deliberate signal that Damascus is trying to build a system of balance. The revival of trade, economic, and defense ties with Russia is meant to underscore that the new Syria is not severing its old connections, but rather seeking to make them more rational and pragmatic, to cleanse them of the toxicity inherited from civil war and internal repression.
The parallel rapprochement with Washington serves a different, yet complementary purpose: to legitimize the new Syrian government within the Western political sphere and integrate it into coalition and sanctions frameworks. Equally important, Washington itself – by extending or lifting sanctions exemptions – becomes part of a process in which Syria’s stability is no longer viewed as an incidental outcome, but as an intentional political objective.
Al-Sharaa’s Washington visit has become one of the most remarkable developments in the Middle East in recent years. It marked the first official visit of a Syrian head of state to the White House in modern history – and although it unfolded without the usual ceremonial pomp, its political significance was enormous.
The context of the visit was complex. After years of civil war, foreign interventions, and sanctions, Syria had been left in a state of fragmented sovereignty. For Washington, meanwhile, al-Sharaa’s arrival offered an opportunity to restore its strategic foothold in a region from which the US had largely withdrawn after 2019. During his second term, President Donald Trump has prioritized targeted deals and personalized diplomacy over large-scale military campaigns – direct arrangements with regional leaders capable of delivering concrete benefits to the US. The Syrian track has thus become a testing ground for this new model.
The format of the visit itself carried symbolic weight. The Syrian president entered the White House through a side entrance rather than the traditional front door – a deliberate gesture, signaling that the US is not yet ready for full “normalization” with Damascus, preferring to retain control over the process. Nevertheless, the Oval Office meeting with Trump, attended by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, represented a political breakthrough. Fidan’s presence clearly indicated that Washington, Ankara, and the new Damascus are attempting to jointly reshape the Syrian agenda – above all, to resolve the Kurdish issue in a way that does not compromise Türkiye’s interests.
For Ankara, the key objective remains the dismantling of the military and political infrastructure of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which it views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). For the United States, the priority is to preserve its influence in eastern Syria – no longer through Kurdish autonomy, but through agreements with the new central government.
Al-Sharaa left Washington with a tangible result: the signing of the D-ISIS (Defeat ISIS) agreement, described by the White House as the main practical outcome of the talks. The accord formally commits Syria to join the international coalition against the remnants of the Islamic State. Yet its significance extends far beyond counterterrorism – the agreement effectively acknowledges the new Syrian leader as Washington’s partner in the security sphere. For al-Sharaa, a former commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham once designated a terrorist, it marks a decisive step toward international legitimacy. Syrian sources described the agreement as a “tax” that al-Sharaa paid in exchange for the easing or lifting of US sanctions.
The sanctions issue indeed became the centerpiece of the agenda. The Caesar Act, enacted in 2019, had long been the principal obstacle to Syria’s economic recovery, blocking foreign investment and international financial operations. Since the regime change, Washington has gradually softened the sanctions, allowing limited transactions and humanitarian exemptions. Now, discussions have moved toward the possibility of a legislative repeal – a move that would require congressional approval.
Not coincidentally, immediately after the White House meeting, al-Sharaa held a late-night session with Congressman Brian Mast, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose vote may prove decisive. In Washington, the gradual “unfreezing” of sanctions is viewed as a strategic lever: their removal will serve as a reward for Syria’s compliance with US security arrangements and for maintaining distance from Tehran and Moscow.
For Syria itself, the visit sent a powerful signal of internal consolidation. Al-Sharaa strengthened his position among domestic elites by demonstrating his ability to negotiate with the world’s leading power and to open pathways for foreign investment. His internal legitimacy also grew because the trip undermined the influence of the SDF – the last major force controlling the country’s eastern regions. If the US and Türkiye truly intend to redistribute territorial control in favor of the central government, the SDF risks losing not only its external support but also its political relevance.
At the same time, al-Sharaa’s promises of a “five-year transition toward a pluralistic system” evoke skepticism. His armed forces have already conducted several operations against minority communities – the Alawites and Druze – resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties, casting doubt on the sincerity of his democratic rhetoric. For the United States, this poses a dilemma: on the one hand, Washington gains in al-Sharaa an effective partner against ISIS and Iran; on the other, it risks being accused of backing a regime that continues to rely on coercion and violence at home.
The regional dimension of the visit is no less significant. Türkiye, which had supported al-Sharaa during his war against Assad, is emerging as an intermediary between him and the West. This enables Ankara to advance its own strategic aims – neutralizing the Kurdish threat along its southern border and expanding its influence in post-war Syria.
Meanwhile, the Gulf monarchies – particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE – have expressed their readiness to invest in Syria’s reconstruction, provided that US sanctions are formally lifted. European nations, too, are beginning to adapt their positions, exploring opportunities to participate in humanitarian and infrastructure projects under American oversight.
Taken together, Ahmad al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington signaled the beginning of a new phase in Syrian diplomacy and a recalibration of regional alignments – one in which Syria seeks to transform itself from a passive object of great-power rivalry into an active architect of its own political future.
Although al-Sharaa’s visit did not produce the kind of headline-grabbing economic deals typically associated with Donald Trump’s style, it nonetheless fits squarely within Washington’s broader strategy of outsourcing regional issues to its partners. For the Trump administration, the current stage of US policy in the Middle East is defined less by direct intervention than by the construction of an architecture of interdependence – one in which Türkiye and the Gulf states assume primary responsibility for maintaining stability, while remaining bound to US strategic priorities.
In this emerging system, the US acts as both coordinator and arbiter: it no longer seeks to resolve the Syrian crisis directly, but instead sets the parameters within which regional actors operate. In this sense, al-Sharaa’s visit can be seen as part of a larger American design – an effort to delegate day-to-day regional management to Ankara and the Gulf monarchies while retaining control over financial flows, the sanctions regime, and the international legitimization of new political actors.
For Ahmad al-Sharaa himself, the meeting carried an even deeper meaning. It was a step toward consolidating his political stature and expanding his room for maneuver on the international stage. The new Syrian president has relied heavily on informal channels – most notably his “basketball diplomacy,” in which sports exchanges and symbolic gestures serve as a medium for demonstrating the openness and modernity of Syria’s leadership.
Through such forms of soft power, al-Sharaa seeks to soften perceptions of his controversial past and present himself as a pragmatic mediator between rival power centers. His foreign-policy course is oriented toward maintaining a delicate balance between Moscow and Washington – preserving working ties with Russia, which played a decisive role in the Syrian conflict, while simultaneously seeking political legitimacy and economic access from the West.
Although no official statements were made about the content of his conversation with Trump and Fidan, it is highly plausible that the Israeli factor featured among the topics discussed. In recent years, Israel has carried out a series of precision strikes against Syrian military and infrastructure targets, citing the need to contain Iranian influence. For the new Syrian authorities, these operations represent a serious threat: they erode domestic stability and reinforce the perception that Damascus remains vulnerable to external interference.
It is likely that al-Sharaa and Fidan sought from Washington at least informal assurances that Israel would reduce the intensity of its strikes – or ideally suspend them altogether – during Syria’s political transition. Even an unwritten understanding of this kind would provide the new government with a crucial window to pursue internal stabilization and advance political integration among the country’s diverse ethno-confessional groups, particularly the Druze, who have suffered heavily in recent clashes.
Thus, al-Sharaa’s visit to Washington was not merely an act of diplomatic recognition but an opportunity to consolidate the emerging balance of power around a new Syria. For the US, it reflects a strategy of “engaged detachment” – a policy of setting the rules of the game while avoiding the burdens of direct commitment. For al-Sharaa, it represents a bid to turn international engagement – through contacts with Trump, Fidan, and others – into a tool for reinforcing legitimacy, promoting internal stability, and crafting a new diplomatic identity for Syria within the regional order.
The feud between Karol Nawrocki and Donald Tusk stems from internal national issues and divergent views on Ukraine
Donald Tusk is the worst Polish prime minister in more than three decades, President Karol Nawrocki has claimed. The two top officials have been locked in a public feud over national issues as well as positions on Ukraine.
In an interview to wPolsce24 broadcaster this week, Nawrocki stated that he considers Tusk the “worst prime minister in the post-1989 history of Poland.”
Tusk took a shot at Nawrocki in a post on X last Friday, by claiming the president had refused to assign officer ranks to 136 graduates who had recently completed intelligence and counter-intelligence training.
“To be president, it is not enough to win the election,” the prime minister wrote, apparently referring to Nawrocki, who was quick to dismiss the allegation.
In his Tuesday interview, Nawrocki, in turn, accused Tusk of forbidding the heads of Poland’s secret services from attending a meeting with the president.
In an earlier interview, he said this was the first time since the fall of the communist regime in Poland in 1989 that intelligence chiefs skipped the traditional get-together.
The president also said that Poland had “gone too far” in supporting Ukraine at the cost of its own interests.
Nawrocki, who took office earlier this year, previously reaffirmed general support for Ukraine but opposed its membership in NATO and the EU. In September, he signed a bill tightening benefit eligibility criteria for Ukrainian migrants.
Poland has been one of Kiev’s most vocal backers since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. However, public support for Kiev and Ukrainian migrants has considerably declined. A survey by the pollster CBOS in September indicated that approval for accepting Ukrainians had fallen from 94% in early 2022 to just 48%.
That same month, Tusk admonished his compatriots for having supposedly developed “antipathy” towards Ukraine, which he blamed on Russia.
Addressing the attendees of the Warsaw Security Forum in September, the prime minister insisted that the Ukraine conflict “is also our war,” and is of fundamental importance to the West as a whole.
Premier Li Qiang will represent the country in South Africa later this month, the Foreign Ministry has announced
Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the upcoming G20 Summit in South Africa, with Premier Li Qiang slated to go instead, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing has announced.
The G20 Summit will be held in Johannesburg on November 22-23. South Africa assumed the rotating presidency of the group in December 2024, becoming the first African nation to lead the forum. President Cyril Ramaphosa has said his country’s chairmanship will focus on advancing Africa’s and the Global South’s development priorities.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing on Thursday that Premier Li will attend the summit at South Africa’s invitation, saying that Beijing supports Pretoria’s G20 presidency and is ready to work with all parties to uphold multilateralism and an open world economy. He also emphasized the “historic significance” of the summit being held on the African continent for the first time.
The G20 brings together 19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union. The US, which is set to assume the chairmanship next, announced last week that no officials would attend the meeting in Johannesburg. Washington has previously accused Pretoria of advancing an “anti-American” agenda. Ramaphosa said on Thursday that Washington’s decision to boycott the summit was “their loss.”
There had been speculation that the G20 summit could host a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin, however, announced last month that Putin would not attend in person, tapping presidential aide Maksim Oreshkin to lead the Russian delegation instead. Moscow has hailed South Africa’s presidency as a milestone for the continent and a constructive step toward strengthening multilateral cooperation.
Finland has said that the two countries’ cooperation is a growing challenge for the US-led military bloc
Finland has accused China of supporting Russia in the Ukraine conflict and described the two countries’ deepening cooperation as a growing challenge for NATO. Beijing has repeatedly denied such allegations, insisting its trade with Moscow is lawful and balanced.
Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen made the remarks in an interview with AFP after hosting a meeting of Nordic counterparts in Helsinki on Wednesday, where military cooperation and rearmament efforts topped the agenda.
Hakkanen claimed that China is “massively financing Russia’s war chest,” alleging that it supplies military components and participates in joint military exercises and other large-scale activities in the Arctic, Indo-Pacific, and beyond.
The Finnish minister added that Russia would be unable to sustain itself for long without such support, saying that “India, of course, provides funding in other ways, but China is doing so quite deliberately.”
The Russian economy has grown steadily despite the pressure of the Western sanctions. Moscow says restrictions are counterproductive and backfiring on the nations that implemented them.
Hakkanen described the expanding partnership between Moscow and Beijing as a challenge for the US-led military bloc. He also said that Nordic nations discussed plans on tripling ammunition production.
Beijing has called for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict and accused the West of “double standards.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry insists it has never supplied lethal weapons to either side and strictly controls the export of dual-use goods.
China has refused to join Western sanctions imposed on Moscow, instead expanding bilateral trade, which nearly doubled from 2020 to 2024, surpassing $240 billion last year. The two nations have essentially abandoned Western currencies in bilateral trade, with most payments now conducted in rubles and yuan, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said this month. They have also pledged to jointly respond to external challenges.
In recent months, the West has stepped up efforts to target Russia’s trading partners in an effort to isolate the country and curb its export revenues. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Western nations against adopting a “colonial” tone toward China and India or seeking to “punish” them for trading with Moscow.
The US administration is now reportedly considering air strikes, but no final decision has been made
Top Pentagon officials on Thursday briefed US President Donald Trump on potential military operations against Venezuela, CBS News has reported, citing a number of sources familiar with the meeting.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine were among those who presented Trump with new options, including air strikes against unspecified targets across the country. No final decision regarding military action was made at the meeting, two sources told the outlet.
Trump has repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of aiding “narcoterrorists,” alleging that the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, personally leads a drug-trafficking organization. Washington has also increased its bounty on Maduro to a massive $50 million. The US leader ordered naval forces into the region last month, hinting that he could authorize strikes.
Since early September, the US military has carried out over a dozen strikes on small boats in international waters, claiming the vessels are being used by drug smugglers. More than 70 people are believed to have been killed in the attacks, according to media reports.
Maduro has strongly denied being somehow involved in drug trafficking, accusing Washington of merely “fabricating a new war” and inventing a pretext for a potential regime-change operation.
Venezuela has placed its military on high alert amid the American buildup in the region and held a series of drills. “We are ready to defend the Homeland on any terrain and under any circumstances,” Maduro said on Wednesday as he posted photos from the latest exercise online.
The bloc is considering tapping Russian assets due to concerns over the sustainability of Ukrainian debt, according to Valdis Dombrovskis
The EU cannot continue providing loans to Ukraine amid growing concerns over Kiev’s ability to repay them, European Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis has warned. He has urged the bloc to keep up the financing by tapping Russian assets, which Moscow has repeatedly said would amount to theft.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, Dombrovskis stated that Ukraine was facing a “very sizable funding gap” and additional borrowing would risk undermining its debt sustainability.
According to Dombrovskis, tapping Russian sovereign reserves, unlike other alternatives under consideration, would allow the EU to continue channeling funds to Kiev without imposing fiscal burdens on member states. He explained that Ukraine would only need to repay the loan if Russia pays reparations in the future, whereas other mechanisms would require significant budgetary contributions from EU governments.
On Thursday, Dombrovskis also announced that the EU had paid out the final €4.1 billion ($4.8 billion) loan to Ukraine under the ERA Loans program which was financed by proceeds from Russia’s frozen assets.
Last week, Financial Times reported that the bloc failed to agree on a €140 billion reparation-loan scheme in October. The European Commission had reportedly warned EU members they would face ballooning deficits and rising debt unless they agreed to use frozen Russian assets as collateral. In a document circulated to EU capitals, the Commission estimated that servicing a collective loan of that size could lead to €5.6 billion in annual interest payments.
Western nations have frozen around $300 billion in Russian sovereign reserves since 2022, with roughly $200 billion held at Belgium’s Euroclear. Despite repeated efforts by the EU to tap these funds, Belgium has continued to block such attempts, including the current reparation-loan proposal, arguing they would expose the country to serious legal and financial risks and would only prolong the conflict.
Moscow has repeatedly stated that seizing its assets would equate to theft and has threatened to retaliate by targeting up to €200 billion in Western assets held in Russia.
An ominous emblem at a Paris gala lays bare the theology of empire animating Israel’s expansion – faith recast as frontier.
Imagine the following tableau, touched with Huysmansian fin-de-siècle grace and decadence: A German finance minister glides toward the lectern in a secluded Parisian salon somewhere off the Champs-Élysées – one of those polished chambers hired for charity dinners and discreet political soirées, where the champagne flows more easily than the truth.
Reich Redux: An arresting speech eclipsed by its emblem
The air is heavy with perfume and pretense. The chandeliers, still remembering empire, tremble faintly above the susurrus of silk and the faint clink of crystal; waiters pause mid-step as the music fades. All is elegance, all is expectation – until the light catches the emblem adorning the lectern, and what it reveals draws the chamber to a hush.
It is not the crest of a ministry, but a new map of Germany – not the modest contours of today’s republic, but the phantasmal silhouette of something mythical and vastly larger: a spectral Reich stretching from the Meuse in Belgium to the Neman in Lithuania, from the Adige in northern Italy to the Little Belt in Denmark.
The Teutonic minister, ostensibly unaware of the ghosts of the past, holds a fiery irredentist speech extolling Greater Germany. Mistaking amnesia for wisdom, he calls the momentous enterprise a “triumph of European integration,” as the audience politely applauds and diplomats pretend not to notice the borders bulging on the logo.
At the close of his impassioned address, the climactic conclusion reverberates like an echo from another century: “Poland,” the government official proclaims with the calm conviction of unveiling a solemn truth, “is a mere invention.”
The guests murmur politely, cameras click, and somewhere in the background, Madam History – weary as ever – raises her long, amber-mouthed cigarette holder, takes a drag in silence, and exhales with a sigh, «Plus ça change…».
The river-drawn borders dreamed of in the opening stanza of the “Lied der Deutschen” (1841) – effectively unsingable in modern Germany since its National Socialist appropriation – now shimmer in memory like an incandescent mirage glimpsed through gilded smoke.
From the Maas to the Memel, the Etsch to the Belt, Hoffmann von Fallersleben’s cultural geography was never a map but a mood, immortalized in a civic ode, Horatian style – a mystic hymn to unity for a people divided.
What began as romantic verse became nationalist ambition, and ambition, predictably, sought to transform poetry into borders. Yet even at the Reich’s imperial zenith, those reverie-laden lines remained a vision rather than a realm.
Set against the weight of history, one scarcely needs imagination to picture the fury such a speech in praise of Greater Germany would provoke.
Within hours, foreign ministries would summon German ambassadors; ritual statements – expressing “deep concern” – would proliferate across capitals, solemn and indignant.
Brussels would convene an emergency session, diplomats adjusting their cuffs as they affirm the sanctity of borders. Paris, ever theatrical, would weep and warn in the same breath, invoking the ghosts of treaties past. London would issue its grave assurances, Washington would voice deep regret.
In Berlin, the chancellor would appear before a wall of flags, his voice taut with disbelief, assuring the world that “these words do not represent the Germany we know.”
Panels of experts would dissect tone and timing; historians, a little pale, a little pleased, would crowd the airwaves to remind us that language draws blood before armies do.
Protesters would gather outside German chanceries with placards and candles, while social media – half fury, half lament – would light up the night. By dawn, headlines would, inevitably, blaze, “Europe’s Nightmare Map.”
And through it all, the map would remain: a relic reborn in rhetoric, image and indictment entwined.
Premeditated scandal: A neocolonial stunt in Paris
In stark contrast to such an imagined storm of outrage, the world barely stirred when the Parisian scene unfolded for real – not casting a German finance minister invoking specters, but an Israeli one etching new lines across inherited fault lines.
At a memorial, another portentous map unfurled, not of rivers and rhyme, but of promise and providence: borders distended beyond recognition, yet the insult precise. The protagonist: Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister.
On 19 March 2023, the fervent nationalist delivered a politically supercharged address behind a lectern emblazoned with an unofficial map of “Greater Israel” (see Figure 1). That imagery was no ornament; it embodied what I call the “Neo-Canaan Doctrine,” a postmodern theology of empire. This conception recasts the Promised Land in its entirety as territory to be rightfully claimed by Israel.
Figure 1
At the gala event, the ideological cartographer effaced Palestine from the palimpsest of history with a casual flourish, turning theology into cartography and covenant into claim and conquest – his lines of empire, his politics of erasure draped in scripture rather than song.
Yet Smotrich went beyond symbolism. To applause, he called Israel a miracle, claimed that the Holy One stands with it, and proclaimed the “biblical truth” that the Palestinian people is a mere “invention” of the preceding century.
Critics denounced the final claim as extremist and racist, echoing the Zionist-colonialist creed of “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Yet no ambassadors were summoned; no capitals trembled.
The controversy was sharpened by Smotrich’s role: a West Bank settler who presides over civilian governance in the occupied territory, determined to use his position in the Defense Ministry to extend Israeli sovereignty there.
In denying the existence of the Palestinian people, the leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party, remarkably, merely ascended to a new register of his own extremism. He spoke from the same impulse that, on 1 March 2023, drove his call to “wipe out” the Palestinian town of Huwara after settlers had already ravaged it. In 2021, he had gone so far as to opine that Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, should have “expelled all Arabs” from newly founded Israel.
The deep unease lies in the eerie familiarity of the Parisian neocolonial gesture. Substitute the Middle East for Europe, swap Smotrich for a German statesman unveiling a map from the Meuse to the Neman, and the chimera becomes universal: the fantasy of endless expansion, cloaked in the language of responsibility.
The bureaucrat as imperial cartographer, the accountant as nationalist dreamer – the impetus is the same: to redraw the world in the image of a mythic past, to turn nostalgia and providence into a weapon, and memory into a map.
There could scarcely be a more bitterly symbolic stage than Paris, where Europe once dreamed of universal rights, only to see them trampled beneath the boots of empire and occupation.
The allure of Greater Israel: From covenant to conquest
The “Greater Israel” vision – which critics compare to the National Socialist lebensraum concept – is the most concrete embodiment of the Promised Land theology: the ancient covenant translated into modern cartography, in a careful marriage of faith and frontier, poetry and power. What began as a scriptural metaphor of divine promise evolved into a dynamic national narrative of entitlement – a land not merely inherited but continually to be enlarged.
From early Zionist debates over biblical borders to the post-1967 settlement movements, the idea that Israel’s destiny extends “from the Nile to the Euphrates” has persisted as a powerful undercurrent, shaping both ideology and policy. The “Movement for Greater Israel” of the 1970s turned this vision into a political project, sanctifying geography as proof of faith and victory.
Across decades, the Greater Israel idea has fused myth with mandate – transforming theology into strategy and territory. What began as the vision of covenant has hardened into the policy of permanence, redrawing not only borders but Israel’s understanding of itself.
By 2025, the idea once dismissed as messianic extravagance has seeped into the marrow of Israel’s governing coalition and the settler movement alike.
Cabinet ministers speak with operatic certainty of “burying” the two-state solution. Settlements creep like tendrils across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, draped in justifications steeped in biblical prophecy. IDF soldiers have been observed drifting through the dust with Greater Israel insignia glinting on their sleeves. Senior officials now demote Lebanon to a mere “entity,” stripped of sovereign dignity, and muse – coldly, almost surreally – about its annihilation.
Even Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spoken of his profound attachment to the vision of the Promised Land and the dream of a Greater Israel. To grasp the magnitude of such a profession, imagine the political firestorm that would erupt were a German chancellor to avow a longing to restore Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire, Bismarck’s German Empire, or – anathema to modern sensibility – Hitler’s Third Reich!
Israel, if left unchecked, will, on the near horizon of time, likely proceed to formally annex the West Bank and Gaza, transforming de facto control into de jure sovereignty. From there, the Jewish state will almost inevitably turn its covetous gaze toward the unconquered expanse between the Nile and the Euphrates, seeking the long-imagined consummation of Project Greater Israel.
Promise in chains: The sacred made savage
The rapacious, irredentist logic taking root in the political imagination almost inevitably congeals into violence on the ground, provoking condemnation even within parts of the Jewish community. At times, the unvarnished cruelty elicits comparisons that critics denounce as outlandish moral equivalences.
In a controversial interview, the Jewish actor Wallace Shawn went so far as to advance the following contentious claim:
Israelis are “doing evil that is just as great as what the Nazis did…(and) in some ways, it’s worse, because they kind of boast about it. Hitler had the decency to try to keep it secret… the Israelis are almost proud of it, and it’s demonically evil.”
Such remarks, incendiary by any measure, arise against a backdrop in which the divine covenant is not merely invoked but weaponized by nationalist zealots – the scriptural inheritance contorted into an apparatus of domination rather than allowed to stand as a mandate for restraint. Amid such perilous abuses of the biblical promise, it is a providential grace that Scripture harbors, within its own depths, the antidote to its profanation.
The latest revelation suggests a vast network siphoning Western money to political elites, the Foreign Ministry has said
A “many-headed bloody hydra” is draining Western taxpayers’ money through sprawling corruption schemes in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned, arguing that the latest scandal in Kiev exposes a network far larger than a simple case of graft.
In a social media post on Thursday, she described a global structure “wrapped around the planet,” channeling funds from Western taxpayers to the elites who profit from the conflict.
Her remarks followed the launch of a major probe by Ukraine’s Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) into alleged embezzlement at the state nuclear operator Energoatom.
According to Zakharova, officials in Kiev serve merely as instruments within a broader machinery involving institutions such as the European Commission and NATO, while the real beneficiaries sit in the inner circles of Western liberal democracies.
Her comments echoed criticism from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who earlier on Thursday denounced what he called a “wartime mafia network” in Ukraine linked to Zelensky. Zakharova said the description was “absolutely accurate,” adding that it was “astonishing” that Brussels still refers to the situation as simple corruption.
After news of the scandal broke, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas stressed that “there is no room for corruption” in Ukraine, urging the country’s authorities to take swift action.
For years, Western politicians and media outlets have warned that entrenched graft threatens both foreign aid and Kiev’s hopes of joining the EU. The bloc and its member states have allocated an estimated €177.5 billion (nearly $205.9 billion) to Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict in 2022, while repeatedly pressing Kiev to strengthen anti-corruption safeguards.
The latest scandal comes months after the Zelensky administration pushed through a law weakening the independence of NABU and SAPO by shifting power to the prosecutor general. The move triggered mass protests and condemnation from the EU and the US, eventually forcing the government to reverse course and restore the agencies’ autonomy.
The “Servant of the People” is only serving his besties, and patience with him is running out
In all too many ways, what has happened to Ukraine, particularly since 2014, is a very sad story. Two things that are especially depressing are what its own “elites” and its so-called “supporters” in the West have done to the country.
Regarding the West, its contribution to Ukraine’s devastation has been to lure its leadership into sacrificing the country and its people in a proxy war. That proxy war, to make things even more absurd and futile, has long failed predictably, even if measured against its Western designers’ own selfish and hubristic aims: namely, to substantially weaken if not degrade Russia, or even subject it to the scourge of regime change.
Ukraine, in sum, has been literally bled almost dry in pursuit of a cynical and delusional strategy that has always privileged misconceived Western, not real Ukrainian interests. Ironically, what was meant to weaken Russia has made it stronger, while it is Ukraine that has been degraded, economically, geographically, and, last but not least, demographically.
And politically as well. This may surprise some observers, at least in the West, where the public has been deprived of truthful reporting on Ukraine’s domestic politics for years now. Yet the reality is that the country’s own “elites” are as brutally selfish and corrupt as ever. Yes, the last president who was not anti-Russian (he wasn’t “pro” either), Viktor Yanukovich, made himself a big fat regime change target with his pronounced if messy authoritarianism – mean lawfare against rivals included – and bombastic corruption. But no, nothing has changed.
At least not for the better. If anything, the current regime, under Vladimir Zelensky, is worse. And, as before, it is pervasive: while a favorite sport of the ultra-rich and well-connected, corruption also poisons the life of ordinary Ukrainians at every step. As a Ukrainian construction manager told Al Jazeera this summer, “What’s the point if I go back home and my family is surrounded by corruption everywhere […] Judges, officials, even schoolteachers all say, ‘Give, give, give.’” Yet unlike with hapless Yanukovich, Zelensky is, in the infamously candid American phrase, “our son of a bitch,” that is, the West’s. So, he lasts. For now.
That is where things get sticky. Because Ukraine is currently being shaken by a corruption scandal so humungous even Zelensky’s most deluded fanboys (for instance, Keith Kellogg in the US) and girls (say, Mette Frederiksen in Denmark) must find it hard to keep the faith. In what can only be described as Kiev’s new, improved Graftzilla monster, the country’s nuclear utility Energoatom has become the center of explosive revelations that reach up to the very top of the political hierarchy, Zelensky’s presidential office. It is likely that it is only a question of time until he himself will not only be deeply embroiled and damaged, as now, but facing direct accusations as well.
The gist of the mega-scandal is simple: a network of businessmen (really, gangsters) and politicians (really, gangsters) has used illegal control over Energoatom contracts to fleece anyone who wanted or had to do business with the strategically placed enterprise. As Ukrainian prosecutors have explained, the power of this Energoatom mafia permeated the company, ensuring “control over personnel decisions, procurement processes, and financial flows.” In fact, the management of a strategic enterprise … was carried out not by state officials, but by third parties who had no formal authority, [but] took on the role of ‘overseers’ or ‘shadow managers.’
None of this would have been possible without very close proximity to Zelensky and his fixer Andrey Yermak. The main capo of the Energoatom mafia was Timur Mindich (gangster nickname: “Karlson”), a close friend and media business partner of the ex-comedian president.
He was not just any friend: Mindich was the one who introduced Zelensky, then a mediocre – if profitably uninhibited – comedian and small-time businessman from the provinces to Igor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s richest and most sleazy oligarchs.
Kolomoisky became Zelensky’s sponsor and facilitated his commercial and political rise. Yet while Kolomoisky has long been purged as no longer useful and annoyingly demanding, Mindich has stayed around. Until a few days ago, that is, when “the president’s purse” – Mindich’s other nickname – fled the country, clearly tipped off about his imminent come-uppance by someone high-up and well-informed.
“Karlson’s” crew included other characters with much oomph and colorful nicknames, such as the “Professor” (in the lead together with “Karlson”), “Rocket” and “Tenor” (hints of Tony Soprano there), or, as the public used to know these three gentlemen before (in order of appearance), the now-former Minister of Justice German Galushchenko, the former deputy head of the state property fund and then adviser to the energy minister, Igor Mironiuk, and the former prosecutor and security director of Energoatom, Dmitry Basov.
Together with their accomplices, they ran an operation in which everyone dealing with Energoatom had to pay them a kickback of 10-15% of any given contract’s value. Those not willing or able to go along with the shake-down would be excluded by what the crew called the barrier, or “shlagbaum.” Financial transactions were supported by the kind services of “Sugarmen.”
In a first wave of arrests that will probably not be the last, the Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutors have detained five suspects. They were aiming for six, but then, someone told Mindich to bolt, somehow. There are other suspects who are already abroad and out of reach.
This, clearly, is only the beginning – or perhaps rather escalation – of a great scandal. Ukrainians and all of us who care are certain to hear much more about it. Details abound even now. Yet they are not what is most important here. Instead, the true significance of the Energoatom mafia case that is now exploding is how immeasurably close it is to country leader and former boy wonder of the West Zelensky.
In Ukraine, it is obvious that the consequences for Zelensky will be dire. Western fantasists, such as the Telegraph author suggesting that this fiasco could still be an opportunity for the president-past-best-by-date, would provoke ridicule in Ukraine.
In reality, as Ukrainian news site Strana.ua strongly implies, Zelensky’s voice may well also be heard in the 1,000 hours of wiretap recordings that have brought down the Energoatom mafia. Not all the recordings have been released; and any featuring his voice would be held back for as long as possible or, maybe, forever. Or, at least, until he falls from power and his successors do the Ukrainian-”elite” thing and go after him with lawfare to distract from their own schemes.
Even without – or before – direct evidence of Zelensky’s immediate participation in his friend’s Mindich’s crimes, the persistent president has done plenty already to leave an extremely unpleasant impression. It was Zelensky, after all, who, just this summer, went after precisely the anti-corruption prosecutors who have been working on the Energoatom mafia case for over a year already. Even then, his critics suspected that Zelensky was desperately trying to stave off what has now happened. That in itself is, obviously, highly suspicious.
Zelensky, meanwhile, is continuing to ask his EU supporters for ever more money, including about €140 billion of frozen Russian assets. However, even before the Energoatom dirt really hit the fan, the European Commission had already signaled that its patience for Kiev’s hyper-corruption is running out. There may even be a connection between Western displeasure and the timing of the fresh arrests. Zelensky should worry about being set up for removal. The West made him; the West can undo him.
Add the looming military catastrophes of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk (and they won’t be the last), Ukraine’s enormous desertion problem, growing rebelliousness against the brutality of forced mobilization (“busification”), and the prospect of a dark, cold winter, and Zelensky’s chances of political survival have clearly decreased. He may still be the West’s proverbial “son of a bitch,” but there’s no doubt that the search for replacements must be shifting into high gear. And there even is the possibility that his former “friends” in Washington have started pro-actively undermining him: the anti-corruption prosecutors now on his heels are well known to enjoy American protection.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, silly Western propagandists likened him to Che Guevara, the famous South American guerrilla leader. Now “Che Guevara” is just another gangster nickname in the Energoatom mafia, apparently for a former Ukrainian prime minister. Zelensky has done enormous damage to his country. The irony is that doing damage to himself is perhaps the last service he can render Ukraine. He is a national liability, just like his “friends” who are now behind grates or on the run. Only, he is even worse.
West Jerusalem reportedly wants to reach a new 20-year military aid deal with Washington
Israel wants to strike a 20-year security agreement with the US, doubling the duration of the previous one and emphasizing “cooperation” between the two nations rather than one-sided reception of military aid, Axios has reported, citing officials familiar with the matter.
The current 10-year framework agreement for long-term security assistance to Israel is set to expire in 2028. The $38 billion deal was signed under the Obama administration, making it the third in a string of ever-growing security packages for Israel. The two previous deals were worth some $21 and $32 billion, respectively.
The US poured additional military aid into Israel during the conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to recent estimates by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs, the additional assistance amounted to nearly $22 billion. Moreover, the Pentagon spent up to $12 billion to prop up Israeli operations across the Middle East during the conflict.
West Jerusalem would like to sign the deal next year and has reportedly added unspecified ‘America First’ provisions to appease the Trump administration.
“This is out-of-the-box thinking. We want to change the way we handled past agreements and put more emphasis on US-Israel cooperation. The Americans like this idea,” an unnamed Israeli official told the outlet.
Israel reportedly proposed using some of the funds allocated under the pact for joint research and development, rather than funneling it all into direct military aid. The research areas could involve AI-related defense tech, as well as the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, an Israeli official told Axios.
US President Donald Trump announced his Golden Dome initiative, whose name is reminiscent of the Israeli Iron Dome anti-aircraft system, early this year. The system is envisioned as a space-integrated shield capable of intercepting missiles from anywhere in the world and is expected to involve space-based components and options for preemptive strikes. The Congressional Budget Office has projected the program’s cost could exceed $542 billion over two decades.
