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Friday, July 3, 2026
Thursday, July 2, 2026
Why Microsoft’s Real Value Is Close to $3.8 Trillion, or $500 a Share -
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsofts-real-value-close-3-8-trillion-500-share?offer=rtsu-engagement-25%2Crtsu-featured-articles-pro
[Salon] Oil: In Support Of My Forecast - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
Oil: In Support Of My Forecast
Summary: the price of crude has fallen still further since I revised my year-end forecast on 22 June. It may yet go further still thanks largely to an accumulated glut of oil now exiting the Gulf. However, this “supply wave” may bring no more than temporary relief from an otherwise bullish market.
We thank our regular contributor Alastair Newton for today’s newsletter. Alastair worked as a professional political analyst in the City of London from 2005 to 2015. Before that he spent 20 years as a career diplomat with the British Diplomatic Service. In 2015 he co-founded and is a director of Alavan Business Advisory Ltd. You can find Alastair’s latest AD podcast (with Jim Krane) here.
I last wrote about oil as recently as 22 June, ending several weeks of sitting on the fence after I had abandoned my 8 January forecast for Brent crude at year-end of US$55 per barrel (pb). Since then, the price of Brent has dipped from around US$80pb to US$73pb, i.e. pretty much where it stood immediately before 28 February. This suggests not so much a shift of market sentiment — which has consistently ‘undershot’ analysts’ forecasts of record highs — as a consolidation thereof, borne out by there being barely a flicker in markets in response to last week’s renewed exchanges of fire between Iran and the US.
As things stand it does indeed look as if the doom-mongers got it wrong. Especially since if last week’s flare-up told us anything, it is that (at least until the US midterms are out of the way) Donald Trump is willing to offer/engineer up-front concessions to keep the Iranians at the negotiating table, e.g. Qatar’s release of US$6bn of frozen assets which Tehran acknowledged publicly on 28 June and which comes on top of the suspension of US oil-related sanctions.
Driven by a temporary supply wave from clearing Gulf backlogs and suspended Iranian sanctions, Brent crude prices have dipped to $73 per barrel, confounding initial worst-case regional scenarios.
Consistent with this, according to Lee Harris and Alice Hancock writing in the 25 June edition of the Financial Times:
The price of insurance for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen by more than half over the past six days, reducing costs for individual ships by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Premiums for hull war insurance dropped from about 5 per cent of the value of a ship to 2 per cent after discounts were included….
Furthermore, although J D Vance’s claims about the amount of oil now flowing out of the Gulf may be somewhat overblown, independent sources such as Kpler confirm that a backlog of several hundred vessels in total is starting to clear, even if this is still at a rate well below the pre-war daily average of 135 passing through the Strait.
However, this outflow alone is a good reason not to change my forecast (again!). Couple it with something between 130 and 150 million barrel of crude which Iran is rushing to get to market following the aforementioned lifting of sanctions (with, no doubt, more to follow as the Iranians look to boost output) and I have to agree with top oil analyst Amrita Sen that the current dip in the price of crude is being driven in significant part by a “one-time supply wave.”
It remains to be seen whether Ms Sen is also correct in saying that this “is masking a structurally bullish market.” Nevertheless, it is worth reiterating points I laid out in the 22 June Newsletter which support this view, as follows:
Despite the uptick in the number of vessels leaving the Gulf, even if Iran desists completely from attacking ships using the channel skirting Oman, the backlog is still going to take some weeks to clear, meanwhile restricting the return of empty tankers;
Under the terms of the MoU, Iran was supposed to de-mine the Strait within 30 days which, with the clock ticking down rapidly and 80 or so mines reportedly still lurking in the major shipping corridors, is clearly not going to happen;
As Saudi Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser said in mid-June, getting the global tanker fleet realigned with the pre-war pattern of movement will take weeks, if not months…
…that is, if it happens at all when owners may prove just as reluctant to send their ships back into the Gulf as they have been to use the Bab-El-Mandeb-Strait since the US’s deal with the Houthis;
Shortages of marine fuel in Asia in particular present an additional barrier to getting ships to where they are needed;
Storage tanks which are close to overflowing throughout the Gulf — Saudi Arabia and, possibly, the UAE excepted — have to be emptied before production can restart in earnest;
The 10,000 or so of the region’s 36,000 wells which have been taken offline as a result of the war have to be brought back into service, which can be technically challenging with older wells in particular; and,
Call them what you will but agreement has to be reached over Iran’s contentious bid to levy charges on all vessels passing through the Strait.
On top of all these hurdles, we also need to consider the impact of Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure. These have escalated hugely since I first flagged them as a substantial threat to global supply in the 22 December Newsletter. For now the resultant shortages are mainly being absorbed domestically; but, with parliamentary elections due in mid-September and the Kremlin’s United Russia party underwater in the opinion polls, this may have to change at the expense of exports.
Finally, there is the question of replacing reserves — both strategic and commercial — which have been seriously denuded during the war. Take China which, by cutting its imports of crude by around three million barrels per day (bpd) since the war started, made a huge contribution to avoiding an even higher price spike globally. To make up for the shortfall in imports, refiners have been tapping commercial inventories at a rate of at least 1mbpd since the start of May. Although the ongoing move away from oil-based transport to electrification means that we may never see the pre-war import level of 9.3mbpd again, these stockpiles are still very likely to be replenished as soon as possible…as are inventories and governments’ strategic reserves worldwide.
In conclusion, I only recently came upon the US Energy Information Administration’s 8 June Outlook in which it forecasts Brent at an average price of US$89pb in 2026Q4 and US$79 through 2027. This is broadly consistent with my 22 June forecast of US$85pb on 31 December to which I am assuredly sticking… for now.
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
[Salon] Fwd: Iranian clerics call for Trump’s assassination - Guest Post by Akhtar Makoii
Iranian clerics call for Trump’s assassination
‘Religious duty’ to kill US president and Israeli PM ‘must not be neglected’, says Tehran’s Assembly of Experts
Akhtar Makoii
Iran’s most senior clerics have called for the assassination of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a 10-point statement, the Assembly of Experts said the killing of “the criminal American president” and “the wicked prime minister of the Zionist regime” was a religious duty.
Assassinating the two leaders – whom they described as mahdour al-dam, or deserving of death – “must not be neglected under any circumstances”.
The call to action came despite Washington and Tehran having signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the Middle East war, which broke out on Feb 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
The 14-point pact allowed 60 days to negotiate a permanent truce and to resolve thorny issues including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
However, days of tit-for-tat strikes in the Strait of Hormuz and Israel’s military actions in Lebanon have put the interim peace deal under pressure.
In their call for Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu to be assassinated, the clerics wrote that avenging the blood of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who was killed on the first day of the war, remained “paramount”.
“It is obligatory upon any duty-bound person who gains access to these criminals to send them to hell,” they added.
The language read like a religious edict but stopped short of a formal fatwa, which in Shia Islam is issued by an individual cleric in his own name rather than by a group.
The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member body of clerics constitutionally tasked with choosing and supervising the supreme leader.
Its premises in Qom and Tehran were bombed during the war, in what Iranian officials said was an effort to stop it from naming a successor to Khamenei.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was later chosen to replace him in a remote meeting.
The statement shows how fractured the establishment has become.
Only about 63 of the body’s members signed it, and the Assembly’s secretariat distanced itself hours later.
Warning of US attack
The clerics also pressed the government to keep the negotiations on a tight leash, warning that Washington was buying time to rearm.
“The likelihood of a renewed attack after will be very high – the matters raised in the memorandum of understanding must be resolved within the stipulated 30-day and 60-day deadlines,” they wrote.
They called on the Islamic Republic supporters to continue mass mobilisation on the streets “in the leader’s name”, saying “the people’s presence is necessary and decisive” for as long as Khamenei “deems it expedient”.
The signatories also condemned the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a “strategic error” and demanded Iran’s nuclear rights be excluded from talks.
It was not the first time Iran had been linked to a threat against the US president.
In 2024, weeks before a gunman shot and wounded Mr Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, US intelligence agencies said they had uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate him – part of what Washington described as years of efforts to avenge the 2020 killing of Gen Qassim Soleimani, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s overseas Quds Force.
US officials found no link between that plot and the shooting.
The clerics’ call came as Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, travelled to Qom to defend his peace agreement, telling seminary teachers it had been reached “in complete co-ordination” with the supreme leader and accusing domestic critics of waging a “psychological operation alongside hostile foreign media”.
The peace process, meanwhile, has appeared to stall.
Steve Witkoff, the US envoy, and Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, arrived in Doha to meet Qatari mediators to discuss the US-Iran negotiations, but there would be no high-level meeting between Washington and Tehran, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, said Tehran had “no negotiating session at any level” planned with the American side.
Mr Baghaei added that an Iranian technical delegation was travelling to Doha only to follow up on implementing the deal, including the release of frozen funds.
Amid the turmoil, Mohammad Akbarzadeh, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s navy, was killed when his vehicle overturned on a road in southern Kerman province, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, without giving further details.
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
When most of us fill out a job application, one quality almost always required is “attention to detail.”
The great luxury ship, the Titanic, was considered unsinkable. It carried the finest engineering and nautical technology of its time. Yet on a calm, clear night in the Atlantic Ocean, the ship struck an iceberg and sank, claiming more than 1,500 lives. Investigators later discovered that one critical factor contributed to the disaster: the rudder was too small to turn the massive ship in time. A great vessel was lost because of one overlooked detail.
Do the small things matter?
I once heard about a pastor who survived a brutal prisoner-of-war camp by dedicating himself to serving others. Years later, someone asked him to name the person who had most influenced his life. Without hesitation, he answered, “Ms. Emma,” his childhood babysitter. School had taught him his ABCs, but Ms. Emma taught him the ABCs of Scripture:
“A soft answer turns away wrath. Be kind to one another. Cast all your cares upon the Lord, for He cares for you.”
Those simple lessons shaped the course of his life. What seemed small at the time became deeply significant later on.
Yes, the small things matter. Today’s Gospel reminds us of that truth. Jesus tells His disciples that even offering a cup of cold water to someone in need is noticed by God. Small acts of kindness become the foundation of a life lived in service to others and in love for Christ.
Jesus also tells His followers to love Him above family, comfort and even life itself. He calls them to take up their cross and follow Him. Those words must have startled the disciples.
Perhaps that is why Jesus immediately points to something simple and concrete: “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because they are My disciples will not lose their reward.”
In other words, even the smallest act of charity requires sacrifice. It asks us to think of others before ourselves; to give rather than cling tightly to what we have.
The people who change the world are often those who practice small acts of goodness with great love. Mother Teresa cared for the poor and dying in Calcutta. Nelson Mandela devoted his life to reconciliation, unity and justice. Miep Gies quietly risked her life to help Anne Frank and her family to survive the Nazi occupation.
This is the vision Jesus offers us: kind words, merciful actions, a listening ear, a helping hand. These are the little things that slowly transform the world, one person and one moment at a time.
My friends, think about your own lives. The moments we treasure most are rarely the grand occasions we planned so carefully. More often, they are the ordinary moments – laughter shared around a table, comfort during sorrow, encouragement when we needed it most. As time passes, we realize the little things often mattered the most.
So, never underestimate the power of simple words or small gestures. “I’m sorry.” “I love you.” “God bless you.” These may be exactly the words someone is longing to hear. And offering them may change a life.
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A. Headshot
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Congress blocks Massie-Khanna effort to kill US-Israel integration | Responsible Statecraft
Congress blocks Massie-Khanna effort to kill US-Israel integration | Responsible Statecraft
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/massie-israel-integration/
Israel Has Become a Borderless State of Settlers - Opinion
Israel Has Become a Borderless State of Settlers - Opinion
"The old is dying and the new cannot be born," diagnosed the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. In the meantime, he warned, monstrous developments take shape.
Israel Has Become a Borderless State of Settlers - Opinion
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
What Lebanon actually signed away in its deal with 'Israel' | Al Mayadeen English - Guest Post
What Lebanon actually signed away in its deal with 'Israel' | Al Mayadeen English
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/what-lebanon-actually-signed-away-in-its-deal-with--israel
6/28/26
What Lebanon actually signed away in its deal with 'Israel'
What's worse than signing away sixty southern Lebanese villages to the Israeli occupation in exchange for nothing? Doing it when a far better alternative was sitting on the table. And what's worse than that? Doing it in the name of "sovereignty."
Lebanese and Israeli officials are both calling Friday's trilateral framework, signed in Washington under US sponsorship, "historic." In a narrow sense, they are right. The Lebanese state has legitimized the continued occupation of the South, handed "Israel" an outcome it could never have secured through war, and thrown a lifeline to a Netanyahu government that badly needed one.
Yet, calling Friday's framework "trilateral" is somewhat misleading. The word suggests three sides walked into the room, when in essence, there was one. The Lebanese delegation arrived with its friends and enemies already settled, just as the US and Israeli delegations did.
Lebanon's friends, by this framework's own logic, are Washington and the occupation. Its enemies, based on the March 2 governmental decree to criminalize the Resistance, are Hezbollah and, behind it, Iran.
The Resistance is now the enemy
The text states plainly that "Israel's" military actions in Lebanon are "solely a consequence" of the threat posed by "non-state armed groups," and that ending this threat through their disarmament will "eliminate any future need" for Israeli military action in Lebanon.
In other words, the Lebanese authority has signed onto the idea that "Israel," an enemy state under Lebanon's own law, is no longer the aggressor; Hezbollah is. Contrary to what a chronically online vocal minority might want you to believe, the Israeli regime is not an enemy state in Lebanese law only; roughly 87% of the Lebanese population views "Israel" as an enemy.
The Lebanese state goes on to commit, in its own words, to rejecting "the claims of any state or non-state actor to use force on its behalf without its explicit authorization," and to treating any such claim as "illegal" and "contrary to Lebanese national interests." Resistance to occupation, something international law has never required a government's permission to exercise, becomes a domestic crime the moment a government decides to call it one.
This matters because of who exactly the Lebanese state has just declared a threat to itself, as Hezbollah's constituency is not a fringe. Beyond being the largest political party in the country, recent polling puts opposition to disarmament at somewhere between 92 and 96 percent among Lebanon's Shia community. A government cannot describe more than a third of its own population as a security threat and call that an act of sovereignty.
Redeployment is not withdrawal
Search the entire text of the framework for the word withdrawal, and you will not find it. "Israel" commits only to "progressively redeploy," a phrase that appears nowhere in international law and exists only for to avoid the obligations that come with acknowledging an occupation.
Aaron David Miller, who spent twenty-four years at the US State Department negotiating Arab-Israeli normalization deals, pointed it out. "Israel had pretty good lawyers," he wrote. "The word withdrawal doesn't appear, redeployment does."
Netanyahu and his war minister have also removed any ambiguity about what redeployment actually means. "Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon," war minister Israel Katz said after the signing, "and will maintain the security zone in the south, and will preserve the army's freedom of action." Netanyahu described the same outcome as "a major achievement" that the occupation "will maintain as long as Hezbollah has not disarmed and as long as there is a threat to the State of Israel," a condition that "Israel" alone gets to assess.
Even the two pilot zones offered as evidence of Israeli concessions are not what they appear to be. One sits south of the Litani River, outside the "security zone" that the Israeli occupation already controls. The other, Netanyahu explained, is "a small part of the expanded security zone we gained over the past two weeks, which the Israeli army does not need, and it says so in the clearest possible terms."
However, to no one's surprise, Netanyahu is lying. The occupation never actually established control over those areas to begin with, so Netanyahu is offering up land he only ever claimed to have taken.
Lebanon is being asked to celebrate the return of land the Israeli military says has no value to it, or even putting territories that were never occupied under the so-called pilot zone model, while the original security zone, including the area occupied specifically to allegedly "push back the Radwan Force," stays put regardless of what happens with disarmament.
Still no ceasefire
For all the talk of de-escalation, the framework does not contain a ceasefire either.
"Israel" is not named anywhere in relation to halting its own attacks. The document conditions calm not on "Israel" ending its aggression, withdrawing from occupied territory, releasing prisoners, or allowing the displaced to return, but on Hezbollah ceasing fire and withdrawing.
What is being sold as a cessation of hostilities is structured, in practice, as the removal of Lebanese citizens from their own land, not the removal of an occupying army from it.
No court, no compensation, no answers on the prisoners
Ironically, the Lebanese government, headed by the former President of the International Court of Justice, signed away its own legal recourse.
The text commits both sides to "the cessation of all hostile or adverse actions in international political or legal fora," language that independent lawmaker Halima El Kaakour challenged directly to the president and prime minister. "Does this mean not pursuing the enemy for its war crimes and crimes against humanity?" she asked, warning that the clause "deprives Lebanon of the possibility of substantial financial compensation" and amounts to enshrining impunity rather than building peace.
Under this clause, Lebanon gives up any path to the ICC, any formal complaint at the UN Security Council, any pursuit of accountability for the Black Wednesday massacre, the pager attacks, or any of the killings carried out over the past three years.
The same passage leaves Lebanese prisoners and the forcibly disappeared in legal limbo. There is no commitment from "Israel" to disclose their fate, allow Red Cross visits, or guarantee their release, the obligations international humanitarian law already requires.
The fine print
Almost everything written into this framework imposes a hard, specific obligation on Lebanon while leaving "Israel" and the United States with language soft enough to mean whatever they need it to mean later.
Lebanon's commitment to disarm "all non-state armed groups" across the entire country is unconditional and described as irreversible. The Israeli regime's "redeployment," by contrast, depends on a "Security Annex" that has not been published, verified by criteria the US will set, with Washington cast as a neutral arbiter despite being "Israel's" principal sponsor and arms supplier.
Reconstruction is structured the same way. Funds are barred from reaching any "individual" affiliated with a non-state armed group, not just organizations. Given how much of the South's population has some connection to the Resistance, this clause functions less like counterterrorism financing and more like a blanket ban on rebuilding most of the destroyed villages in the South.
Even the word "communities" appears only once in the entire text, and it refers to Israeli communities. South Lebanon, where the actual destruction happened, is treated as a depopulated piece of land, empty of a "community" in need of protection.
April 8: The original sin
To understand just how little weight Lebanon's own diplomacy carried in any of this, and how easily its government let itself be used by the same regime bombing it, it helps to go back to how these talks actually started.
President Joseph Aoun signaled willingness for direct talks with the occupation regime back in early March, only for "Israel" to publicly humiliate the offer. Sources told Reuters that Lebanon had "nothing tangible to offer at a negotiating table." Foreign Minister Gideon Saar was asked whether talks with Lebanon were planned and answered, "No." For roughly four weeks, the same government that insisted only it had the standing to negotiate a ceasefire could not get "Israel" to even sit down, while the bombing continued.
The turning point came on April 8, when Pakistan's prime minister announced a ceasefire across all fronts, including Lebanon, as part of the Islamabad track Iran had insisted on. Within hours, the 'Israeli' regime made clear it was not committing to any ceasefire in Lebanon specifically. Simultaneously, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared that securing a ceasefire was a "sovereign matter" only the Lebanese government could negotiate, rejecting any truce that arrived through Iran.
In doing so, Salam handed legitimacy to the massacre that followed within hours, on what has since become known as Black Wednesday, when Israeli attacks murdered more than 350 people across Lebanon in ten minutes.
The killings drew international condemnation, the kind that under any government with a spine would have hardened Beirut's position rather than softened it. Instead, the Lebanese state kept pursuing the same direct, bilateral channel, the first of its kind in decades, with the same regime that had just massacred hundreds of its people in minutes.
Then, just as suddenly, Netanyahu reversed course entirely. He framed it as responding to Lebanon's "repeated requests" for talks, the same requests his government had spent a month publicly mocking. "Israel" was not responding to an improvement in Lebanese diplomacy. It was responding to Iran, which had just made an end to hostilities in Lebanon a non-negotiable piece of any wider de-escalation.
Netanyahu was not about to let Tehran dictate the terms of Israeli activity in Lebanon, so he made sure Beirut delivered those terms to him directly instead.
What Pakistan got that Washington didn't
The contrast with what Iran actually negotiated for Lebanon in the Islamabad track versus what Lebanon's own government did in Washington is immense.
The Islamabad memorandum called for an immediate ceasefire on the Lebanon front, full Israeli withdrawal from the South and all Lebanese territory within two months, extension of Lebanese state authority over the entire country, and a Hezbollah weapons question handled through an internal national security strategy rather than as a precondition for anything. Both sides retained the right to self-defense if attacked, and the threshold for declaring the danger over was never left to "Israel" alone to decide.
The Washington framework inverts every one of those terms. There is no immediate ceasefire. There is no timeline at all. The Lebanese state's authority expands only gradually, based on Israeli judgment, through pilot zones, after weapons are removed, not before.
"Israel" keeps the so-called "freedom of military action" throughout the South whenever it perceives a threat, while Lebanon's army is confined to specific zones it must first earn through performance. And withdrawal, such as it is, depends entirely on "Israel's" own assessment of whether the threat has ended.
The Iran-US memorandum required full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as a condition of any comprehensive deal. Lebanon's government had that outcome sitting in front of it, unconditional and on a clock, without having to give up anything in return. It chose this framework instead.
A sovereign decision, as long as 'Israel' signs off first
What makes this hardest to defend is the gap between what Lebanese officials are telling the public and what "Israel's" own officials are saying about the exact same document.
President Aoun's office described Friday's signing as the first step toward restoring "the sovereignty of the Lebanese state over all its territory, without the loss of a single inch," and promised the Lebanese people they would return to a fully liberated land, with "no more occupation, no prisoners, no dependency, and no tutelage." Prime Minister Salam went further, saying the framework "aims to secure an Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanese territory" and restore full state sovereignty.
War minister Katz called the same agreement "a historic event and an important political and security achievement for Israel." Asked what that achievement actually was, he proclaimed that "Israel will not withdraw from Lebanon," adding that it "will maintain the security zone in the south, and will preserve the army's freedom of action."
Netanyahu opened his address on Saturday the same way. "I want to tell you about a major achievement for the State of Israel," he said, before explaining that the achievement was that "Israel" "remains, first and foremost, in the security zone in southern Lebanon," a presence he said it "will maintain as long as Hezbollah has not disarmed."
Both governments are describing the same piece of paper. One says it secures full withdrawal and total sovereignty. The other says, in plain language, on the record, on the same day, that nobody is withdrawing and that staying put is the achievement. Either Lebanon's government did not read the document it signed, or it is telling its own people something it knows is not true.
A recipe for civil war
Israeli settlers received a far clearer picture of the agreement from their national broadcasters than the Lebanese population. Channel 13 host Rafi Droker said plainly that "the Israeli plan in Lebanon is to divide the country and plunge it into a civil war to force the Lebanese government to confront Hezbollah militarily," and military correspondent Alon Ben-David confirmed it was "the Israeli goal from the beginning."
It is not hard to see how that would actually play out. The framework asks the Lebanese army, a national institution built on cross-sectarian consensus, to enter the South and dismantle Hezbollah's positions under Israeli and US supervision.
Hezbollah is not going to disarm voluntarily, and the army has no mandate, no appetite, and no realistic capacity to force the issue without turning its own ranks, and the country around them, against each other.
A force meant to hold Lebanon together would become the instrument that tears it apart, fighting a domestic enemy on behalf of the same regime still occupying its land.
Lebanon already tried this in 1983
This is not the first time a Lebanese government has signed an agreement with "Israel" under US sponsorship that promised peace and delivered occupation.
In 1983, the Gemayel government signed the May 17 Agreement after the 1982 invasion, with a written, named Israeli commitment to withdraw all forces within eight to twelve weeks. It collapsed within a year, rejected by the political forces strong enough to block it, and canceled by the Lebanese parliament in March 1984.
The 2026 framework does not even reach the bar that the May 17 Agreement set.
The earlier document at least named Israeli withdrawal as an obligation, however, conditional in practice. This one does not contain the word at all. And unlike 1983, when Israeli troops occupied Beirut, and the Lebanese state was negotiating, effectively with a gun to its head, today's government has no such excuse. There is no foreign army in the capital, and Hezbollah's military capacity is reconstituting rather than collapsing, with its drone and anti-tank tactics already producing real losses on the IOF. Iran is negotiating with Washington from a position of regional strength, not weakness, and made a Lebanon ceasefire a centerpiece of those talks. Lebanon had diplomatic leverage in 2026 that it simply did not have in 1983, and chose not to use it.
It is worth letting Hezbollah have the last word here, since this is the side the entire framework was built to silence. Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah addressed Netanyahu directly on the day the agreement was signed. "You have reached an agreement with one who possesses nothing," he said. "The state of hostility toward Israel will remain, and whoever shakes hands with the enemy is complicit in its crimes."
What will be the fate of the SSPX? - Guest Post by Anna Kurian for Aleteia
An exclusive service for Aleteia readers
Schism, excommunication, and the SSPX ordinations
As the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X prepares to consecrate new bishops on July 1, 2026, we explain the consequences and implications, guided by a canon lawyer.
By Anna Kurian
Why are the upcoming episcopal consecrations announced by the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) for Wednesday, July 1, 2026, problematic? What will happen to the individuals involved? Furthermore, what will become of the priests and faithful associated with this movement?
The SSPX has lacked official canonical status since its break with Rome in 1988. Now, relying on canon law and the expertise of canonist Pierre Chaffard-Luçon, we break down the implications of these upcoming ordinations.
Why are these consecrations controversial?
In the Catholic Church, any episcopal consecration requires a papal mandate. Selecting a new bishop follows a strict procedure overseen by the papal nuncio — the pope’s ambassador — and the Dicastery for Bishops.
They present three candidates — known as a terna — to the Pontiff. He then makes the final choice, though he is free to select someone outside that list. Proceeding with consecrations without a proper papal mandate constitutes an offense under current ecclesiastical law (Canon 1013).
True or false bishops: What will be the status of the subjects of these consecrations?
There is an important difference between a consecration’s validity and its liceity. According to canon law, the Wednesday, July 1 celebration will be valid because a consecrating bishop will perform the rite. However, the consecration will be illicit since it lacks a papal mandate. From the Church’s perspective, the newly ordained men will be true and full bishops, but they will essentially operate as “outlaws.”
What is a “schism”?
Individuals who commit a deliberate act of disobedience against the Pontiff’s authority enter into a state of schism. Canon 751 defines schism as the refusal to submit to the Roman Pontiff or to remain in communion with the members of the Church.
This is primarily a disciplinary issue. It shouldn’t be confused with heresy, which is the obstinate denial of doctrinal truth, or apostasy, the total repudiation of the Christian faith. All three of these offenses incur excommunication.
What exactly is excommunication?
Excommunication severs a person’s communion with the Church and serves as the penalty for a schismatic act. If the SSPX follows through on its plan to consecrate four bishops, the excommunication will be latae sententiae. This means the penalty is automatic, triggered immediately by the gravity and public nature of the act. Rome may simply issue a public declaration recognizing a situation that already exists, much like it did in 1988 with the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei.
Unlike “expiatory” punishments, excommunication is a “medicinal” penalty. Its purpose is to help the offender realize their fault and regularize their situation.
In other circumstances, canon law provides for ferandae sententiae excommunication. When this applies, the penalty is formally declared at the conclusion of a judicial trial.
Does excommunication mean damnation?
No. According to Catholic theology, breaking communion has serious consequences for earthly life, primarily because “excommunicated” individuals can no longer receive the Sacraments. However, the Church doesn’t pass judgment on the sanctioned person’s ultimate salvation. That judgment belongs to God alone.
Who will incur excommunication on Wednesday, July 1?
The bishops conferring the consecration and the men receiving it will be personally excommunicated the moment the offense occurs. Yet, this act also carries institutional weight since the SSPX is carrying out the consecrations as an organization. Father Davide Pagliarani, the society’s superior, announced the decision and stated they would proceed without a papal mandate.
Consequently, all registered members of the organization—including clerics and religious—as well as laypeople who support the action, will find themselves in a schismatic situation in the eyes of the Church. They all potentially face excommunication.
It’s worth noting that during the initial illegal consecrations over which Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre presided in 1988, Rome only declared excommunications for the celebrating and consecrated bishops, rather than the entire SSPX membership.
What steps are needed to return to the Church's communion?
Lifting an excommunication is a personal matter. Rome makes the decision after the excommunicated person fulfills a period of repentance. A pontiff can also initiate the process to foster dialogue.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree lifting the 1988 excommunications, describing it as “a discreet gesture of mercy” designed to “invite the four Bishops once more to return” to the Church’s fold. Returning involves an “admission to full communion.” This requires a specific liturgy where the person recites the Creed before representatives of the Catholic community.
What is the current status of SSPX priests?
SSPX priests are validly ordained, but they remain “suspended.” Because illegitimate bishops who are in direct conflict with Rome ordained them, they incur a suspensio a divinis. This penalty prohibits them from administering the Sacraments. Unlike excommunicated individuals, however, they are still allowed to receive them.
Are the Sacraments they celebrate valid?
An SSPX priest’s ordination is illegitimate yet valid. The Sacraments he celebrates share this exact status: illicit but valid. The Church teaches that the “grace of God” remains present and active in these sacraments.
During the 2015 Year of Mercy, Pope Francis even allowed SSPX priests to validly and licitly hear confessions. He later indefinitely extended this provision. Additionally, in March 2017, the pontiff granted them the ability to celebrate licit Catholic marriages on a case-by-case basis, provided they have the local bishop’s authorization. It remains unclear whether these pastoral provisions will endure under Pope Leo XIV if the Wednesday, July 1 episcopal consecrations take place.
Are there exceptions where their Sacraments are valid and licit?
Church law makes an exception for a Catholic who is at the point of death (in articulo mortis) and urgently needs a sacrament. In those dire moments, any priest or bishop—even one under severe ecclesiastical penalties—regains the faculties to hear confessions validly and licitly, specifically for the person in need. This rule isn’t meant as a favor to the suspended or excommunicated priest. Instead, it prioritizes the soul of the dying person and their eternal salvation.
No sign of turning back
On June 30, Leo XIV sent a final message inviting the SSPX to suspend the episcopal consecrations and engage in dialogue with the Vatican. However, Father Davide Pagliarani replied to the Pope in the afternoon of the same day. He published an open letter on the website of the Society of Saint Pius X denying the request for the annulment of the episcopal consecrations. The superior of the Society of Saint Pius X nevertheless thanked the Pope for his "paternal solicitude" expressed in his letter, while regretting not having been able to meet with him.
The Lefebvrist superior explains that the two bishops tasked by the Holy See with engaging in dialogue with the SSPX —Bishop Vitus Huonder, then Bishop of Chur, now deceased, and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana— "recognized the profoundly Catholic spirit of the Society." He says he does not want to "separate from the Roman Catholic Church."
"One day, all the difficulties between the Holy See and the Society will be resolved," Father Pagliarani writes, urging the Pope to make "a gesture of understanding."
Monday, June 29, 2026
U.S. resumes limited strikes in Iran; Board of Peace may get legal immunity; Breathtaking new Trump corruption
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/us-strikes-iran-board-peace-gaza-immunity-trump-corruption-deals?r=1y80w
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Who has profited most from the war on Iran? | US-Israel war on Iran News | Al Jazeera
Who has profited most from the war on Iran? | US-Israel war on Iran News | Al Jazeera
EXPLAINER
News
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US-Israel war on Iran
Who has profited most from the war on Iran?
Defence contractors, energy companies and investment banks saw profits soar as war and uncertainty upended markets.
[Salon] The book the West refuses to read -
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2069979487354405281
user avatar
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is genuinely shocking, and says so much about our approach to China.
I decided to check for independent reviews of the English version Xi Jinping's latest book, published a year ago, to see what people had to say about it since I hadn't read it myself.
To my surprise, I couldn't find any: not a single thoughtful review about the book out there! Even on Amazon, check it for yourself (amazon.com/XI-JINPING-GOV…): the book has only 3 ratings, that's it.
No matter where you stand on China, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty crazy: the sitting president of the world's rising superpower publishes a 700-page book explaining exactly what he's doing and why, and we don’t even care to look.
If there ever was a fact that illustrates just how willfully ignorant we are about China, this is it.
All the more because we then go spew the usual clichés around how secretive and impenetrable the Chinese system is: the book is on Amazon for $21 for crying out loud!
Anyhow, this felt so wrong that I figured I'd fix it. I bought the book, read it attentively and wrote what I hope you'll agree is a thoughtful review of it.
The book contains genuinely surprising passages, such as Xi writing that oversight of the Communist Party by "the judiciary, the public, and the media" was not just something the Party must “readily accept,” but something that he framed as historically decisive - an essential component to "escaping the historical cycle of rise and fall" that has doomed every dynasty in China's history.
Other passage that I'm sure would surprise many: a common narrative out there is that China blames the West for the century of humiliation and is driven by revenge. Well, Xi explains that's not true at all: the century of humiliation was China's own mistake, originated in the Ming Dynasty's disastrous "policy of national seclusion" that "resulted in China missing out on the opportunities presented by the Industrial Revolution" and "led to China’s decline."
All in all, the book is remarkably self-reflective and thoughtful. For instance Xi recognizes that his drive for “full and rigorous internal governance” - including to rid the Party of corruption - risked "instill[ing] fear and apprehension, or intimidate members into inaction.” He emphasizes the need for pragmatism in this regard, codified in a framework called the “Three Distinctions” that separates honest mistakes - made while experimenting, reforming, or operating without precedent - from deliberate violations committed for personal gain.
And many other surprises still. I found it a genuinely fascinating read for anyone interested in how the Chinese system works and how Xi thinks - or anyone interested in governance, period, as so much of what he writes is pretty universally applicable.
This is the link to my review of the book, an article I titled "The Book the West Refuses to Read": open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert…
Saturday, June 27, 2026
[Salon] Beyond the Nazi Comparison: Calling out Zionism - Arab Digest.org Guest Post
Beyond the Nazi Comparison: Calling out Zionism
Summary: while the Nazi genocide was larger in scale, the Israeli state’s actions are distinct because its leaders openly boast about war crimes and ethnic cleansing in a way no Nazi official ever did.
On 14 June, Israel’s former Defence Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, compared Israeli settlers to Nazis and accused authorities of failing to investigate Israelis responsible for killing Palestinian civilians in the Occupied West Bank.
In an interview with Ynet, Ya’alon stated that factions within the religious Zionist movement hold a “Jewish supremacy ideology.” “What is Jewish supremacy? Eighty years after the Holocaust, it’s Mein Kampf in reverse. The superior race is us,” said Ya’alon, who served as Defence Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2013 to 2016.
Such comments raise eyebrows in the West, where comparing Israel to the Nazis is still taboo. However, among Israelis, this comparison is not new. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father, regularly likened Menachem Begin and Ze’ev Jabotinsky to Hitler. In the 1980s, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a respected Orthodox intellectual, warned that nationalist shifts in Israeli society were fostering a “Judeo-Nazi” mentality. More recently, in early 2026, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo stated that settler violence reminded him of historical persecution against Jews: “My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century.”
It is an irony worth noting that these comparisons contravene the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s exceptionally broad definition of anti-Semitism adopted by over 1,200 entities worldwide. Indeed one could argue that the current actions of the Israeli state exceed even Nazi atrocities, albeit not in scale. With support from the US, UK and Europe, Israel continues to exterminate Palestinians. People in Gaza are denied elementary healthcare, education, water, and sanitation. Settlers rampage unchecked in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Although official figures place the death toll in Gaza at over 69,000 - 75% of them women and children - some scholars estimate the actual death toll at 680,000, including 380,000 infants under five. Average life expectancy has dropped from 75 to 35 years. Since the October ceasefire announcement, UNICEF reports one child killed daily. There are hundreds of videos showing Israeli forces destroying schools. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Dr Nick Maynard of Oxford University described how many Palestinian boys suffered gunshot wounds to their testicles, and at least 114 children were killed with single gunshot wounds to the head or chest. A recently published United Nations report states that Israel is not only indiscriminately killing children but is "deliberately" targeting them.
The targeting of journalists is unprecedented. More journalists have been killed in Gaza than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav wars and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined. An average of 13 are killed every month.
Last month, the United Nations added Israel to its blacklist for sexual violence in conflict zones, citing systematic, large-scale rape of Palestinian women, men, and children. While Klaus Barbie raped prisoners with dogs, the Nazis did not operate with the same systematic, state-enabled organisation as the IDF. Soldiers caught raping a Palestinian prisoner on camera were acquitted and became celebrities in Israeli media.
Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister are wanted by the ICC for war crimes including starvation, murder, and persecution. Never before has a state boasted so openly about committing war crimes. Settlers call for ethnic cleansing; IDF members celebrate burning Palestinians alive. Rabbi Eyal Karim, now the chief rabbi of the IDF, stated in 2014 that soldiers are allowed to rape non-Jewish women in wartime. Other military rabbis have called for the return of slavery and the killing of gentile babies.
Government rhetoric is equally explicit. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared Gaza would be “totally destroyed.” Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu suggested nuking Gaza. Minister May Golan said, “I am personally proud of the holocaust of Gaza” and “I am proud to be racist.” MK Moshe Sa’ada’s catchphrase is “vanquishment, annihilation, emigration.”
Defence Minister Israel Katz outlined plans for permanent occupation and ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon, stating residents would never see their homes again. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, convicted of eight offences including incitement to racism, oversees the prison service described by B’Tselem as a “network of torture camps.” He stated, “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep,” echoing Nazi General Wilhelm Keitel’s “Hostage Order,” for which Keitel was executed in 1946.
Even Naftali Bennett, former PM and head of the ‘Liberal Zionist’ camp, proposed a “full siege” on Gaza, suggesting upcoming elections will focus on methods of genocide rather than its cessation. As US Senator Richard Black noted, not even the Nazis felt emboldened enough to openly announce their genocide.
In Gaza, occupation forces hunt hungry Palestinians with bullets. Snipers shoot unarmed people at aid centres and brag about it. The IDF left premature babies to die in incubators at Nasser Medical Complex. When Netanyahu characterised the mass slaughter of 22 civilians at Nasser Hospital as a mishap, Channel 14 reported that the Golani Brigade demanded an apology. Channel 14 has a history of praising civilian killings; one journalist giggled on air, “I am for the war crimes... I want to see more houses destroyed.”
For months, Israeli forces murdered dozens of Palestinians daily at GHF “aid” sites. Haaretz interviewed IDF soldiers who admitted they were ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinians collecting food. The moral difference between gassing people after promising a shower and shooting them after promising food is only technological: Zyklon B as opposed to corporate entities such as Palantir, Google, and Amazon.
Unlike the Nazi regime which did not use the ploy of assassinating enemy negotiators, Israel and the US have targeted Hamas negotiators multiple times with Israel reportedly pressing the US to kill Iran’s current negotiators.
While the German public’s relationship to the Holocaust was mixed, Israelis overwhelmingly support the genocide. Polls show 76% of the Jewish public believe there are no innocent people in Gaza.
But Israel does not represent the Jewish people, and Zionism is not Judaism. Authentic Jewish tradition stands for justice (Tzedek) and the belief that every human is created in the image of God (Tzelem Elohim).
As former PM Ehud Olmert wrote in Haaretz, Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. And as Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi stated the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv threatens us all.
The taboo of calling what Israel is doing Nazism is broken but the scorched earth tactic that starves and slaughters women and children, blows up hospitals, rapes and tortures prisoners in custody, murders journalists - that tactic is driven by the ideology of Zionism.
Friday, June 26, 2026
President Trump has quitely and without any news reporting renewed Executive Order 13303, which puts all Iraqi oil revenues under his control.
https://x.com/HusseinAskary/status/2070073615005954546
President Trump has quitely and without any news reporting renewed Executive Order 13303, which puts all Iraqi oil revenues under his control. There has not been a single news item or White House press release since Trump signed the renewal in early May, 2026.
When Iraq sells oil to foreign companies, including the largest buyers, the Chinese, they deposit the money in a bank account in the New York Federal Reserve branch, not in an Iraqi bank. That account is controlled by the U.S. President and U.S. Treasury. EO 13303 was first signed by President George W. Bush in May 2003 after the illegal invasion of Iraq. All American presidents have since then ritually renewed it in May of every year under the guise of "national security emergency". The details of how this was done and why it is not legal have been explained by myself in different media. The Iraqi government has not dared to challenge this political and economic crime to the extent that Trump in March this year said that he did not want Nouri Al-Maliki (winner of elections last October) to become the new prime minister of Iraq. And the Iraqis obeyed. I explain some of the details in this previous interview: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5s96Cp_OVKA
Here is the document on the signing of the renewal on May 4, 2026: https://govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202600313/pdf/DCPD-202600313.pdf
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[Salon] Washington agreement 'will not pass': MP Fadlallah to Al Mayadeen - Guest Post
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/washington-agreement--will-not-pass---mp-fadlallah-to-al-may
6/26/26
Washington agreement 'will not pass': MP Fadlallah to Al Mayadeen
The current Lebanese government lacks both constitutional and consensual legitimacy and is in no position to impose its will on the country, a senior Hezbollah parliamentarian said on Thursday, rejecting the framework agreement signed in Washington and dismissed its enforceability on the ground.
In a phone interview with Al Mayadeen following the signing of a framework agreement between Lebanese authorities and "Israel", Fadlallah called on the Lebanese authorities to "withdraw from the direct negotiation path" and to rescind "all decisions taken against the Lebanese people" in that context.
He dismissed as "baseless" reports suggesting that Lebanon's position had been formulated in meetings between himself, Major General Hassan Choucair, and Brigadier General André Rahal. He added that what had been circulated "contradicted what was communicated to relevant officials in the Lebanese state" regarding Hezbollah's rejection of direct talks.
'Do not rush to deliver good news to your people': Fadlallah to Netanyahu
Fadlallah addressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly, telling him: "Do not rush to deliver good news to your people."
He stated that Netanyahu was effectively "negotiating with himself," describing the current Lebanese government as "constitutionally and consensually illegitimate" and "incapable of imposing dictates."
"This administration will not be able to enforce the agreement signed in Washington unless it resorts, with US support, to a civil war," Fadlallah said.
He characterized the Washington deal as "an attempt to derail the Islamabad track" and insisted that "without the resistance, nothing will pass," vowing that Hezbollah "will not allow the authorities to destroy Lebanon" nor "surrender the country's fate" to them.
"The important factor is the battlefield, and we own the battlefield; we are the people of the land," he said.
Iran will not sign any agreement before full Israeli withdrawal
On Iran, Fadlallah stated that Tehran's position "is clear" and that it "will not sign any agreement before an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon," asserting the Lebanese government has given a "gift" to "Israel" that "will have no effect on the ground."
The lawmaker warned that Hezbollah would "confront any government measure" and would "cling more" to its resistance and its weapons. He affirmed that the group's opposition is "serious" and would not allow the authorities to "implement their commitments on the ground."
Addressing Hezbollah's continued participation in the cabinet, Fadlallah said: "The presence of our ministers in the government has its own calculations, and our presence in it does not mean we approve of its decisions."
He argued that direct talks with "Israel" violate Article 52 of the constitution, adding: "No individual has the right to cancel the state of hostility toward Israel."
Fadlallah also stressed that Hezbollah seeks no confrontation with the national army, saying: "We do not want any clash with our national army, which is carrying out its duties to the fullest, and the army will remain, the resistance will remain, and the people will remain."
He concluded with a direct message to Netanyahu: "You have reached an agreement with one who possesses nothing. The state of hostility toward Israel will remain, and whoever shakes hands with the enemy is complicit in its crimes."
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