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Why Iran Thinks It Has All The Cards To Check-Mate Trump

August 11th, 2026 by financetwitter

Aug112026

Aweek ago, Donald Trump said he was calling off the biggest military attack since World War II because a deal to end the Iran War was imminent. When there was no deal, as the world had already anticipated, he changed his story. Now, he’s signalling the U.S. is in no rush to resolve the conflict, preparing instead to wait out Tehran by applying economic pressure. But Trump was not alone.

 

On Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on CNBC to brag that a deal could be announced later that day to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The stock market jumped significantly. Again, there was no deal. It’s unclear whether Bessent had been scammed by the U.S. president into believing there was one, or he is learning fast the art of scamming the financial markets.

 

For weeks, President Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran War should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal. The problem with Trump is he has been playing the game of chicken with Tehran for too long that Iran is getting good at the game itself.

Every time Trump threatens to bomb the hell out of Iran, only to make a spectacular U-turn, Tehran becomes increasingly confident that the POTUS will bluff again. The Commander-in-Chief can’t win at the poker table if he keeps announcing his plan to attack Iran, but never follows through. Even though gambling is prohibited in Iran, they still can smell a bluffer like Trump from thousands of miles away.

 

On Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, laid out the conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. They include the U.S. permanently ending the war, lifting its naval blockade, removing U.S. forces from the region, ending all sanctions, freeing Iran’s frozen assets, seeking billions of dollars in U.S. payments and ending threats and insults, among other things.

 

Such conditions show the Iranian regime believes they have the upper hand, they believe they are winning, therefore, they are emboldened to issue such ridiculous demands. Tehran deliberately – and tactically – wanted to narrow the options for Trump to walk away from the conflict. It’s Trump’s fault for repeatedly threatening – and then backing away from – a massive escalation of its bombing campaign.

President Trump in February 2025 famously told Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he didn’t “have the cards” in talks with Russia. Now, Tehran is playing the same game as Trump. Despite more than 5 months of U.S.-Israel heavy bombardment, destroying much of its military and killing numerous top leaders, Iran still has the trump card – Strait of Hormuz.

 

Weaponizing the Hormuz is somehow proving effective because there isn’t an easy way to replace this waterway in terms of global trade in the Middle East. Just a few missiles and drones are enough to create a lot of havoc in that waterway. And Iran knows the U.S. has been reluctant to send in ground troops to clear out Strait of Hormuz. Tehran also knows that Trump is terrified of high oil prices.

 

“Iran’s recent hardline demands for reopening the strait make it increasingly difficult for the president to manufacture a face-saving off-ramp from the conflict,” – said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. The Iranians fully believe Trump wants out and is focused on opening the strait, which is why they are playing hardball.

Hanging over diplomatic talks since April has been the White House’s ultimatum that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon. Trump initially indicated that Tehran’s nuclear program is non-negotiable. But when Iran insisted that it would not abandon it, Trump blinked and chickened out. The White House in recent weeks has changed its focus to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Iran’s ability to essentially choke off the waterway through sporadic missile and drone attacks has proven to be powerful leverage for the country, stalling commercial traffic and spooking global oil markets. Trump has declared repeatedly in recent weeks that the Strait of Hormuz was already fully open, but each of those declarations has proven premature and false.

 

Now, with less than three months until the midterm elections and the price of gasoline still much higher than it was before the war started in late February, Mr Trump has been desperately looking for ways to tell the American public that the war is won. But the prospects of a deal diminished over the weekend when the United Arab Emirates said Iran launched a missile attack on one of its ships.

By attacking the U.A.E. and laying out a series of tough demands for allowing traffic through the Hormuz, Tehran was not only testing Trump’s patience, but also showing the middle finger to the United States. In fact, Iran was provoking the U.S. president to retaliate so that global oil prices would spike. The average price of gasoline was US$4.02 a gallon on Saturday, according to AAA.

 

On the nuclear concerns, Trump has told senior aides privately in recent weeks that Tehran is likely unable to revive its nuclear work during his presidency after the U.S. destroyed three primary nuclear sites last year. U.S. intelligence capabilities would likely catch any Iranian attempts to rebuild those facilities or covertly build a bomb, the president said.

 

This suggests that Trump doesn’t care if Iran resumes its nuclear program “after” his presidency. He could then brag with story that Tehran was afraid to continue the nuclear weapons when he was the U.S. president, the same way he has frequently claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin respected him and that the Ukraine War would never have happened or would not have been started while he was in office.

Make no mistake – Iran, at least Trump thinks, may not be able to resume its nuclear program not because it agrees to. But because it takes time to retrieve after the U.S. bombardment. Trump said – “We’ve already got the nuclear material, because it’s so far underground. Nobody’s going to be able to get it except us.”

 

If the U.S. can keep the nuclear program in check and traffic resumes in the strait, then Trump is more likely to extend the current ceasefire indefinitely. He also is expected to lift the U.S. military blockade on Iranian ports if Tehran fully reopens the strait. However, there’s one huge problem with Iran’s demands – money – for obvious reasons.

 

Trump cannot agree to Tehran’s demand seeking billions of dollars in war reparations in addition to an agreement to unfreeze the country’s assets around the world. He would not only lose face, but also be seen as an admission of guilt and a sign of surrender. Trump has said the White House wouldn’t allow any taxpayer money to go to Iran, although a deal appears unlikely without the U.S. unfreezing some assets.

There also is a dispute about whether the U.S. should issue waivers to let Iran sell oil on the open market. The U.S. had agreed to the waivers last June as part of an interim peace agreement with Iran. However, that ceasefire collapsed after Iran attacked ships in the strait, and the U.S. reinstated sanctions on the Iranian oil trade.

 

Tehran’s game plan is clear. It wanted to squeeze President Trump, who is increasingly losing patience and might recklessly agree to most of Iran’s demands. At the very least, Iran wanted the U.S. to look weak by demanding Washington surrender on Iran’s terms. Unlike Trump’s goal in seeking a traditional military victory, Tehran’s objective was regime survival and restoring deterrence.

Federal Court dismisses Kedah govt’s bid for leave to appeal in pool betting outlet licences case

Federal Court dismisses Kedah govt’s bid for leave to appeal in pool betting outlet licences case



The three-judge panel chaired by Justice Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang, Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin ordered the state government to pay RM50,000 costs. — Bernama pic


Summary

• The Federal Court upheld a decision preventing the Kedah government from denying licence renewals to pool betting and lottery operators, citing it as unconstitutional.
• The court emphasized that the regulation of these activities falls under the Finance Ministry's jurisdiction, with the state exceeding its authority and contravening the Federal Constitution.
• Consequently, the Kedah government was ordered to pay RM50,000 in costs.
• The majority ruling stressed that the state's refusal was based on policy objections rather than legitimate local governmental concerns.

By Malay Mail
First Published: Wednesday, 12 Aug 2026 11:59 AM MYT
Last Modified: Wednesday, 12 Aug 2026 3:30 PM MYT


PUTRAJAYA, Aug 12 (Bernama) -- The Federal Court today dismissed the Kedah state government’s application seeking leave to appeal against a ruling that had quashed its decision to cease the issuance and renewal of business licences for pool betting operators in the state.


The three-judge panel chaired by Justice Datuk Rhodzariah Bujang, Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin ordered the state government to pay RM50,000 costs.


Justice Rhodzariah, who delivered the court’s unanimous decision, held that the state government has failed to meet the threshold requirement under Section 96 (a) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 for leave to be granted.


The Kedah Government had sought leave to appeal the Court of Appeal 2-1 majority decision, which upheld the High Court’s ruling in favour of pool betting agents, companies and their principal officers in challenging the state government’s directive.


The Court of Appeal, in its majority decision on Dec 12, 2025, ruled that the Kedah government’s decision to cease the issuance and renewal of business licences for pool betting operators was irrational and unconstitutional.

In the majority decision, Court of Appeal judge Datuk Faizah Jamaluddin said the decision by the state government to stop issuing and renewing pool betting business licences had exceeded the constitutional limits of the state power.


She said the decision was an impermissible state-wide prohibition of a subject matter reserved to the Federation.

However, in the dissenting judgment, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Azizah Nawawi held that the Kedah State Executive Council’s decision not to renew pool betting premises licences constituted a policy matter that should not be interfered with by the court.

She said the decision involved the state government’s discretion and consideration of the welfare of the people of Kedah above the personal interests of the operators.

Six judicial review applications were filed by pool betting agents, pool betting companies or principal officers of pool betting companies to challenge the state government’s decision.

On June 20, 2024, the High Court granted a declaration that the Kedah state government’s decision is ultra vires the Federal Constitution, a certiorari order to quash the decision and an order for damages to be assessed before the deputy registrar.

During Federal Court proceedings, counsel for the state government, Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun, sought leave to be granted and proposed six questions of law. He said the questions had not been determined by the top court and that it would be to public advantage if the court decide on those questions.

However, lawyer Brian Foong Mun Loong representing the pool betting operators, argued that the state government failed to fulfil the threshold requirement for leave to be granted.

In November 2021, Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Nor announced that the state would cease renewing local council licences for lottery outlets starting Jan 1, 2023, as part of efforts to curb social ills.

Speaking to reporters after the proceedings, Foong said the Federal Court’s decision to affirm the High Court’s ruling which quash the state government’s decision meant that his clients could now apply for business premises licences.

“As the policy has been quashed, technically, there is no reason for the local councils to refuse, he said.— Bernama

High Court orders Rosmah to pay RM67.4m into stakeholder account pending appeal in missing jewellery suit

High Court orders Rosmah to pay RM67.4m into stakeholder account pending appeal in missing jewellery suit



Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor had previously sought to stay the execution of the High Court’s June 10 decision, with the court having fixed today to deliver its decision on the application. — File picture by Sayuti Zainudin


Summary

• The Kuala Lumpur High Court has ordered Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor to deposit RM67.4 million into a joint stakeholder account within a month amid her appeal in a lawsuit filed by Global Royalty Trading SAL.
• The Lebanese jeweller seeks recovery of the value of 43 jewellery pieces delivered to Rosmah in 2018 that were reportedly not returned after a police raid.
• Judicial Commissioner Marianne Antoinette Ghani emphasized that the appeal alone does not justify granting a stay of execution and required Rosmah to demonstrate special circumstances for such a stay.
• Rosmah, represented by lawyer Reza Rahim, must comply with this order to avoid enforcement actions by Global Royalty.

By Kenneth Tee
First Published: Wednesday, 12 Aug 2026 11:42 AM MYT
Last Modified: Wednesday, 12 Aug 2026 12:46 PM MYT


KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor was today ordered by the High Court to pay RM67.4 million into a joint stakeholder account within a month, pending her appeal in a suit filed by Lebanese jeweller Global Royalty Trading SAL to recover the value of 43 jewellery items delivered to her.


Rosmah had previously sought to stay the execution of the High Court’s June 10 decision, with the court having fixed today to deliver its decision on the application.


In granting the order, Judicial Commissioner Marianne Antoinette Ghani said a stay was not automatically granted simply because an appeal was pending, further stating that Rosmah — as the defendant — had to prove special circumstances justified her application for a stay.


She said Rosmah’s contention that the judgment sum was too large for an individual to pay could not, by itself, justify a stay of execution, despite her claim that her jewellery had been seized during a raid by a third party.

“In the circumstances, the Court orders that a conditional stay of execution be granted to the defendant pending her appeal to the Court of Appeal.


“The defendant shall pay the judgment sum into a joint stakeholders account between the solicitors for the parties within one month from this order, failing which the plaintiff will be at liberty to take out execution proceedings as it deems fit in the circumstances pending the determination of the defendant’s appeal to the Court of Appeal,” she said.

In her judgment, Marianne said the court found that a conditional stay requiring the defendant to pay the judgment sum into a joint stakeholder account would best balance both parties’ rights.

“This will ensure that the plaintiff as the successful litigant is assured the fruit of its successful litigation and avoid the prejudice caused by an unconditional stay if the appeal is dismissed.

“Whilst ensuring that the defendant’s rights of appeal shall not be rendered nugatory should her appeal be allowed, as the judgement funds shall remain within the jurisdiction and are easily, therefore, recoverable, preventing her appeal from being rendered nugatory,” she said.

She also said the court was bound by a previous ruling which established that a substantial judgment sum, on its own, did not constitute a special circumstance.

Rosmah had previously argued that Global Royalty was a foreign entity with no business presence or assets in Malaysia, creating a real risk that the judgment sum could be transferred out of the jurisdiction or dissipated if she succeeded on appeal.

Lawyer Reza Rahim appeared for Rosmah while Datuk David Gurupatham appeared for Global Royalty.

The present case centred on 44 pieces of luxury jewellery worth RM67,461,027.37 (US$14.57 million) that Global Royalty said were delivered to Rosmah in 2018 for viewing under a consignment arrangement.

Global Royalty later filed a legal suit in 2023, seeking the return of the items or payment for their value after claiming the items were supplied to Rosmah on consignment but were never returned following their seizure during a 2018 police raid at Pavilion Residences.

Only one item — a diamond and emerald bracelet — was eventually recovered and returned to the Lebanese company following separate forfeiture proceedings.


MORE TO COME

Wong Chen joins Bersama after resigning as Subang MP

Wong Chen joins Bersama after resigning as Subang MP



Wong Chen was among three PKR MPs whose access to the MyKhas constituency funding portal was revoked after they attended Bersama’s launch event in May. — File picture by Yusof Mat Isa


Summary

• Former Subang MP Wong Chen has officially joined the Bersama party after resigning from his parliamentary seat, as announced by Bersama chairman Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli.
• Wong, a three-term MP with nearly two decades in the PKR party, had signaled his departure following the resignations of Rafizi and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad to lead Bersama.
• Alongside two other MPs, Wong's access to the MyKhas constituency funding portal was revoked for attending Bersama's launch event.
• Wong also previously served as the non-executive chairman of Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd until his removal in May.

By Malay Mail
First Published: Wednesday, 12 Aug 2026 12:24 PM MYT


KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 — Former Subang MP Wong Chen has joined Bersama, days after resigning from his parliamentary seat.

Bersama chairman Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli announced Wong’s membership at a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Taman Putra Perdana, Puchong, today.


Wong, a three-term MP who had been with PKR for nearly two decades, had previously indicated that he would eventually leave the party after Rafizi and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad resigned their parliamentary seats to lead Bersama.


Wong was among three PKR MPs whose access to the MyKhas constituency funding portal was revoked after they attended Bersama’s launch event in May. The other two were Ampang MP Rodziah Ismail and Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung.


Wong was previously the non-executive chairman of Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd but was removed from the position in May.


MORE TO COME

Israeli government accused of complicity as settlers demolish Jericho homes

Israeli settlers demolish homes in village, leaving rubble and fear among displaced Palestinian families in Jericho.

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A Palestinian man in Ein al-Duyuk looks on as a settler-operated bulldozer further damages a yard [Courtesy of Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine]

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 12 Aug 202612 Aug 2026

Jericho, occupied West Bank – Where Palestinian homes once stood among orchards and swimming pools on the southwestern edge of Jericho, there is now only flattened earth.

Somewhere beneath the packed dirt lie entire houses, dumped into pits and smoothed over. Only a few severed water pipes hint that anyone ever lived here – that, and the piles of rubble yet to be buried by an Israeli settler’s excavator.

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“Why do you hide the crime you’re committing?” asked Khalil al-Razim, 60, a Jerusalemite who has spent his summers on a plot of land here in the area of Ein al-Duyuk for more than a decade.

Beside al-Razim’s house, a pile of rubble more than two metres high blocks the entrance to the home of his neighbour, Mohammad Salah. Next to the pile, Salah stood with one of his four children. He now climbs his own fence to reach his house.

Six months earlier in February, during the first settler attack to tear through the area – with homes demolished and damaged, and residents attacked and robbed – a settler arrived with a bulldozer and began demolishing fences and houses in the neighbourhood, including parts of Salah’s home. This summer, the same work resumed under the guise of “clearing” the ruins those earlier attacks had left behind – and in the process, the Israeli excavator dumped piles of rubble in front of Salah’s home.

“How am I supposed to get into my own house?” Salah recalled asking the settler.

“That’s not my problem, how you get into your house,” the man told him, according to Salah. “Can’t get into your house? Go around another way from here. This land is not coming back to you.”

Since July 19, settler-operated excavators have kept coming on a near-daily basis – for the supposed purpose of “clearing waste”, but doing far more than that. The settler behind the attacks, identified by locals and in legal filings from the Israeli state as Hanan Herbst, is escorted by soldiers on every visit. No order has ever been shown to residents – no paper a lawyer can hold up in court. “Not an official order,” Salah said. “It’s all thuggery. Just brute force, nothing else.”

What is unfolding here, according to residents, lawyers and the state’s own court filings, is a subversion of normal legal processes that have all but erased the line between settler ambition and state authority. In practice, Israeli authorities have given the settlers close to a free hand over an entire Palestinian neighbourhood.

“This is a state with no law,” Salah said. “No decency in it. A state of thugs.”

Al Jazeera reached out to Israeli authorities for comment, but received no response. Herbst was also reached by phone, but hung up after being told he was being contacted by Al Jazeera. He has not responded to further attempts at contact.

Ali Kaabneh in front of his partially destroyed home he still lives in [Courtesy of Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine]

A minister and a pogrom

Herbst owns an Israeli settler outpost called Armonot Farm, built without authorisation on a ridge overlooking Ein al-Duyuk in the summer of 2024. It was initially illegal even under Israel’s own rules, but the Israeli cabinet formally recognised it as a settlement, under the name Daya, at the end of March.

The neighbourhood below, known locally as Stih, sits a few dozen metres from the ruins of the Hasmonean and Herodian winter palaces, an archaeological site Israel’s government has designated a flagship for a planned network of “Judeo-centric” heritage parks across the West Bank. On the morning of February 10, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu posted a video of himself at the ruins, Israeli flag in hand. “Any place built on the heritage of the Jewish people,” he said, “we will destroy it.”

Within hours of the post, Palestinian residents said, dozens of masked settlers descended on the area from the Armonot settlement and other outposts in what activists and residents call an eight-hour “pogrom”. Two Palestinian communities sit side by side here, and both were hit that day: a group of Bedouins closest to the ruins, home to roughly a hundred people from the Kaabneh tribe, and the neighbourhood of mostly villa-style homes belonging to Palestinian families from elsewhere, including Salah’s and al-Razim’s.

Ali Kaabneh, 40, a Bedouin herder, was inside his house when the February 10 attack began.

“They started throwing stones at me,” he said. “They forced me and my wife out of the house. There were 13 families with me – they drove us out with stones and weapons. It was a threat: I’m going to die if I don’t get out.”

When the settlers withdrew roughly eight hours later, Kaabneh’s 150 sheep had scattered, and his licensed tractor was gone, driven up towards the settlement. Thirteen houses in the Bedouin compound were demolished that day, he said. In the neighbouring community, three homes were destroyed completely, according to Hussein Taha, a longtime resident.

Many of the Bedouin families have lived since then in the ruins of their partially destroyed homes, or without shelter at all, according to Kaabneh.

A view of the area Palestinian residents say was razed by an Israeli settler in Ein al-Duyuk [Courtesy of Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine]

‘Clearing waste’

For months afterwards, “there was a kind of calm”, Taha said, during which settlers nonetheless carried out thefts of people’s properties and uprooted trees. “But whoever wanted to fix his wall, [Herbst] would come to him and stop him.”

But behind the scenes, developments continued. In March, the Israeli military issued a seizure order for a strip of Palestinian land for an access route to the archaeological site – an order not handed to affected residents until weeks after it was issued – part of a sharp increase in such orders that Israeli NGOs Emek Shaveh and Kerem Navot say now overwhelmingly serve settler rather than security interests.

That “calm” ended on July 19, at 8:30am, when Herbst arrived with a bulldozer – ostensibly to bury rubble from February’s attack, but soon damaging and destroying property well beyond it. The walls of four homes were destroyed or damaged in the first day alone, according to Taha. When residents and Israeli solidarity activists reached out to police, the military, the Palestinian District Coordination and Liaison Office (DCO) and the Civil Administration that day, they were told no one knew anything about it.

By afternoon, the official line had shifted, according to Yael Sela, a cofounder of the Palestine Solidarity co-op that has maintained a presence in the community since February: an unnamed “high-ranking” military figure, she was told, had authorised the work – to “clear waste”.

In the weeks since, residents and activists say, the bulldozers have demolished or damaged additional houses, alleys, orchards and gardens, and dug pits to bury the debris inside the residential area. Soldiers escort Herbst and keep activists back, citing an ambiguous “closed zone”; no official order has been produced for locals, though activists attempting to enter and document the site have been arrested.

Lawyer Tawfiq Jabareen filed for an emergency injunction at Israel’s High Court on July 23, then again, urgently, on July 29, when the demolitions intensified rather than stopped.

What came back, on the night of July 30, was the state’s own account of how Herbst came to be there – a filing, which Al Jazeera obtained, that revealed an extraordinary example of the state deputising settlers to carry out demolitions and land takeover.

The filing revealed that a state-backed arrangement granting Israeli settlers agricultural use of the land long predated February’s settler attack. According to the state’s account, a March 2025 agreement was reached between Herbst and the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization to cultivate “state land” for agriculture.

Following February’s mass settler attack that demolished the Palestinian homes in the area, in May, the Binyamin Regional Council asked the Civil Administration to let Herbst clear “building waste” from “previous demolitions”, without specifying that those demolitions were the settlers’ own making. Nonetheless, the Civil Administration approved the request. The Jordan Valley Brigade commander, Colonel Gilad Shriki, then approved a military escort for Herbst.

At least some of the Palestinian homes in the area have been under a longstanding Israeli court injunction protecting them from demolitions. The agreement instructed Herbst not to damage structures or trees and to stay within the allocated area – instructions that, residents and activists say, have been violated at every turn, under military escort.

“The settler has demolished, and continues to demolish, buildings and uproot trees, despite the existence of restraining orders from the court in Jerusalem barring the army from demolishing them,” said Jabareen, who filed his petition against the army, the settler and the state prosecution together. “That is: the army circumvented the court’s decision and sent the settler to do the demolishing instead.”

“The Prosecution claims the [Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization] leased the land to the settler,” he said, “even though the Civil Administration itself had barred the settler from demolishing any building or any tree.”

“My analysis,” Jabareen said, “is that the army and the Civil Administration are now in the settlers’ grip, and there’s no longer any real difference between them.

“The law and court rulings mean nothing to them. They believe imposing facts on the ground is stronger than any court decision.”

Destroyed home in the Bedouin community in Ein al-Duyuk [Courtesy of Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine]

‘Why can’t I go back to my home?’

Across the razed land, what remains standing is small strips of common-area vegetation belonging to no one in particular. The state’s initial response suggests Herbst plans to begin cultivating the razed land as early as this week. The state maintains the ground itself is state land, now allocated to Herbst for agricultural use – though, as Sela noted, no map or boundary of that allocation has ever been produced.

“The purpose of this act of destruction was to terrorise the Bedouin community, and to create the impression that this was an empty area with nobody living there – only piles of demolished concrete,” said Hussein Taha. “Then this ‘kind settler’ wants to come and ‘clean up’ the area, cultivate it, and benefit from it, because he supposedly loves agriculture and green gardens.”

For al-Razim, whose family bought land here more than a decade ago, what is happening feels familiar. He is from Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, where settlers have spent decades pushing Palestinian families out through a legal system that, he says, offers no real recourse. His own son’s rented home in Silwan was demolished by authorities. Due to the traditional system of ownership in the area, Palestinian-held land often remains undivided family inheritance, unregistrable under rules that demand proof no family can produce.

“They know there’s no tabu [land deed] for it,” al-Razim said. “But [they tell us to] bring proof. So they exploit that gap.”

Unable to safely reach their home and fearing settler attacks, Salah has moved his wife and four children into a rented apartment in Bethlehem, for 2,000 shekels ($667) a month, though he is unable to find work there. He goes back to what used to be his house, mostly alone, when he can.

“Any time I bring it up with my wife, she breaks down,” said Salah outside his blocked home. “She says to me, ‘We want to go back to our home.’ My kids say to me, ‘Why can’t we go back to our home?’ I don’t know what to say to them.”

Attempts to reason with the settlers have failed. “These settlers don’t try to speak with you,” he added. “They only speak in the language of power.”

He paused. “I feel like I’m weak,” he said. “In front of my son, I’m weak – I can’t protect him, I can’t get him back to his home. There’s no worse feeling than standing in front of your kids and your wife and not being able to protect your home.”

Salah glanced at his son accompanying him that day. “I always told my kids: If you don’t make trouble, nobody will bother you. If you don’t cause problems, the government won’t come after you. And my son says to me, ‘Dad, you’re a liar. Look – we don’t make trouble. And yet they came and destroyed our house.'”

He gestured at the razed land adjacent to their home, on the other side of the rubble. He looked up towards the hillside above – Herbst’s excavator visible on the slope of the now-legalised settlement.

“What am I supposed to say to him?”

Israeli settlers feel invincible after Gaza genocide

• 18m ago

  (04:15 GMT)

  

  Israeli settlers feel invincible after Gaza genocide

  Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have become more brazen due to a sense of invincibility following Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, argues Muhannad Ayyash, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

  “One of the big things that has happened is that these settler movements have seen how Israel has gotten away with genocide on the world stage,” Ayyash told Al Jazeera.

  “The settler movement, just like Israeli politicians, believes that this is a moment in history where they can finish off the Palestinian question once and for all,” he said.

  Ayyash added that this sense of impunity among a majority of Israelis has been encouraged by US complicity.

  “Material pressure and economic isolation of the Israeli state is the only path, because right now, they keep getting rewarded.”

  

  An armed Israeli settler stands on a hillside overlooking the Palestinian town of Tal, in the occupied West Bank, on July 31, 2026 [Majdi Mohammed/AP]
• 33m ago

  (04:00 GMT)

  Iranian regime at its weakest point since 1979, US ambassador says

  United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says the Iranian regime is “the weakest they have been since they took over in 1979”, praising Trump’s willingness “to bankrupt them” in an interview with Newsmax.

  “The operation between the United States and Israel did an enormous level of damage,” Huckabee said.

  Welcoming Trump’s military actions in the region, Huckabee claimed that Iran has “carried out actions directly and through its proxies that have killed thousands of Americans”.

  “I don’t know why a lot of Americans seem to be oblivious to the fact that this issue with Iran is not a Middle East issue. It is a global issue,” he added.

  “Hezbollah is in 12 Western Hemisphere countries already. They’re not there because they’re opening snow cone stands in South America. They are there because they have an ultimate goal, and that’s death to America,” Huckabee told Newsmax.

  “It’s what they’ve been saying for 47 and a half years. We need to take them seriously.”

***

Huckabee is a notorious Top Ampu for shailoks 😡😡😡