The 2026 World Cup kicked off this week, and the body governing global soccer has spent years refusing to apply its own standards when Israel is involved. FIFA opened an investigation into Israeli clubs operating inside illegal West Bank settlements. The clubs were never suspended and are still competing. There are now ten of them, and they are expanding. Jill Thomson examines FIFA and UEFA’s record on settlement soccer, and what Palestinian advocates are demanding in response.
After Iran struck Israel this week in defense of Lebanon, Mondoweiss sat down with Mohsen Rezaei, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader and former Commander of the IRGC, to understand what Tehran was signaling. He said that Lebanon and Hezbollah are not on the table, and any deal with Washington that tries to negotiate them away will fail. Peiman Salehi reports on Iran’s strategic position and what it will take to end the war.
Every June, Israel uses Pride Month as an instrument of international image management, deploying rainbow flags to deflect accountability for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank. This year, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is directly promoting “Pride Land”, billed as the largest LGBTQ+ festival ever held in the Middle East, at the Dead Sea. The offer to Palestinian queers comes with the condition that queer liberation is available, but only if Palestinian identity is left out. Ghadir Shafie writes about pinkwashing, what it demands of Palestinians, and why she is calling on people not to attend.
A provision in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would lock the United States and Israel into shared frameworks for defense technology research, development, and military-industrial cooperation. Benjamin Netanyahu has long pushed for this level of integration. A Democratic Congress member moved to block it and lost. Michael Arria reports on who is driving the push to make U.S.-Israeli military ties structural and permanent, and what critics say it would mean for American foreign policy.
We’re close to the end of our critical Summer Fundraising Campaign, and we’re coming up short! Right now, donations are being matched, doubling their impact. Please click here to make a donation today, or scroll down to the donation form below and sustain our work bringing you the news and analysis on Palestine that major media outlets suppress.
🇺🇸 United States
Congress is moving to bind the U.S. and Israeli militaries together while also participating in Israel’s campaign against the ICC. The Israel lobby’s ability to destroy candidates it targets is weakening, and whether Trump will break with Netanyahu on Iran remains unresolved.
READ MORE → Congress is pushing to integrate the Israeli and U.S. militaries on behalf of Netanyahu — Michael Arria
READ MORE → The U.S. and Israeli campaign to liquidate the ICC is working. Countries of conscience must intervene. — Craig Mokhiber
READ MORE → The Shift: Platner’s win in Maine is another sign that pro-Israel smears no longer work — Michael Arria
READ MORE → The time has come for Trump to choose between U.S. and Israeli interests in the Iran war — Mitchell Plitnick
🌍 Iran and Syria
The fighting between Iran and Israel is a contest over the shape of the regional order, not just a dispute over nuclear programs or ceasefire lines. Israel is pressing that conflict into Syria.
READ MORE → Former IRGC commander to Mondoweiss: Lebanon is Iran’s ‘non-negotiable red line’ in any deal with the U.S. — Peiman Salehi
READ MORE → What Iran and Israel’s latest exchange of fire is really about, and what it means for the region — Abdaljawad Omar
READ MORE → Israel is abducting ordinary Syrians and seizing their land in Quneitra — Hudda Mattar
🇵🇸 Gaza
In Gaza, the ceasefire has allowed Israel to continue killing. Israel has now added a ‘voluntary emigration’ plan, the latest version of ethnic cleansing given a bureaucratic name.
READ MORE → Israel continues to violate Gaza ceasefire, killing 13 people in a single day — Tareq Hajjaj
READ MORE → Gaza farmers begin the hard work of rebuilding an agricultural sector decimated by Israel’s genocide — Ansam al-Qitaa
READ MORE → Israel’s ‘voluntary emigration’ plan in Gaza is its latest attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians — Ahmad Ibsais
📉 Complicity and normalization
The normalization of Israeli occupation runs through more than military aid and diplomatic cover. It runs through sports governance, the international press, and the cultural apparatus of Pride Month.
READ MORE → FIFA is supporting the Israeli occupation by legitimizing clubs that play in illegal West Bank settlements — Jill Thomson
READ MORE → Pride month and the rainbow flag of colonialism — Ghadir Shafie
READ MORE → Palestine Letter: The mainstream media doesn’t consider the most important story of our time to be newsworthy — Qassam Muaddi
Further viewing:
UN inquiry finds Israeli forces abet West Bank settler attacks
UN inquiry finds Israeli forces abet West Bank settler attacks | Watch
It’s a 3 minute video, here are some of the captions:
CCTV footage shared on social media shows a group of Israeli settlers armed with rods attacking two unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hawara. Joining them is the assault appears to be a helmeted Israeli soldier. On Tuesday a United Nations inquiry reported that Israeli authorities are directly involved in settler attacks that have killed ,injured and displaced Palestinians in the West Bank.