Student groups in Nepal have come together to oppose the government's decision to ban political party-affiliated groups from the country's educational campuses and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the decision.

A joint statement issued earlier this month by 14 national student organizations, including the left groups, has noted the positive contributions of the student movement in the country's democratic development, underlining its role in the anti-monarchy protests.

The statement described the move to ban political outfits in universities and campuses as unconstitutional and undemocratic, calling it a part of the larger authoritarian tendencies shown by the newly-elected government.

It underlined that student organizations have undertaken corrective measures whenever required to improve their functioning and called the newly-elected Balendra Shah-led centrist government's claims that student politics has been responsible for most of the problems in the country “immature and superficial.”

It has demanded the immediate withdrawal of the decision and launched a nationwide movement to press for the same.

Alternative arrangement

The new Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP)-government, led by Shah, decided to ban political party-affiliated student organizations from educational institutions, blaming them for declining academic standards in the country, apart from holding them responsible for rising political interference in educational institutions and the inadequate representation of student issues.

The decision to dismantle the politically-affiliated student groups within 60 days was taken by the newly-elected cabinet on March 28, two days after Shah took the oath of office.

On 19 April, the government also decided to deploy security personnel inside universities and other educational institutions to dismantle the existing political party-affiliated student organizations by force if necessary.

The government wants to dismantle the present “Free Student Unions” in universities and introduce an alternative system, calling it “Student Council” or “Voice of Students” which will have no overt or covert presence of groups affiliated to political parties/ideologies.

Student leaders and political commentators have opposed the move, calling it an apparent attempt to curb the dissenting voices and deprive students from acquiring crucial experience for their future role as political representatives.

Student organizations have already organized protests in various universities demanding the withdrawal of the decision.

The critics have also claimed that the move is in complete violation of article 17 of the Nepali constitution, which guarantees Nepali citizens the right to form organizations and engage in political activities.

Nepal's authoritarian move

Reacting to the move, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) have called it “authoritarian.”

Talking to the Kathmandu Post, Bijay Sapkota, leader of the student organization affiliated to another major left party, the Nepali Communist Party (NCP), also described the move as “inappropriate.”

Left parties in the country have warned that if the government goes ahead with the planned move they will launch a popular agitation against it.

Speaking to Peoples Dispatch, lawyer and left activist Karuna Parajuli questioned the government's move, noting the positive contributions student unions have made in the country's politics.

“They have played a crucial role in almost all democratic movements in Nepal. They have consistently raised their voices on issues related to people's livelihoods, price hikes, privatization of education, and have notably contributed to policy changes such as student discounts in public transportation,” Parajuli argues.

Parajuli does agree that, in recent times, most of the student organizations have faced increased pressures to take on political tasks on behalf of the mainstream political parties. However, she rejects the idea that this is sufficient ground for an outright ban on them, as these groups also provide crucial political training to a large section of the country's citizens.

“At present, the government tends to portray politically affiliated student unions as the main problem in higher education. In reality, the deeper issues lie in unregulated private educational institutions, insufficient government investment in education, and weak infrastructure,” Parajuli argues.

She sees the move to ban political activities on campuses as part of larger efforts undertaken by the Shah government coming to power, claiming that moves such as “limiting trade unions for public employees” are restricting democratic space in the country.

“These actions are raising fears that the country could be moving toward a more authoritarian or fascistic direction,” Parajuli concluded.

Israeli forces attacked the global flotilla coalition sailing toward Gaza during the night of 29 to 30 April in the Mediterranean Sea. “This is unlawful seizure of human beings on the open sea near Crete, an assertion that israel can operate with total impunity, far beyond its own borders, with no consequences,” wrote the Global Sumud Flotilla, one of the initiatives participating in the effort.

One part of the flotilla was boarded by Israeli forces and their crew kidnapped, while others managed to evade the attack. Morana Miljanović, who is steering the support vessel Shireen, describes how the flotilla was attacked in international waters not only by drones, as she had witnessed on previous occasions, but also by armed ships of different sizes. Despite the extremely stressful circumstances, those on board the Shireen remained composed, Miljanović adds, thanks to comprehensive preparations. “While a terrorist attack in the middle of the Central Mediterranean should be a shocking thing—we were ready,” she adds, contextualizing this as a result of Israel's record of gross infringement of international law.

The attack occurred in international waters, more than 600 nautical miles from the Gaza Strip and only 60 nautical miles from Greek territorial waters. “No state has the right to claim, police, or occupy international waters,” the Global Sumud Flotilla said. “Yet, that is exactly what israel has done, extending its regime of control outward, occupying the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Europe.”

Reactions from the European Union and European governments have been mild. Apart from brief statements made by EU spokespeople appealing to Israel to uphold international and humanitarian law, no substantial response has appeared on the communication channels of, for example, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—who has recently spoken ardently about freedom of navigation in the context of the Strait of Hormuz. Similarly, no urgent comment was published by EU Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica, whose office should presumably have something to communicate about the events of last night.

This is despite clear violations of maritime law and acts of state terrorism by Israel, as outlined by lawyers and support groups of crew members in their countries of origin. Miljanović suggests that the EU and its member states should begin by going back to the basics. “EU Member States can begin by respecting their obligation to protect human rights,” she told Peoples Dispatch. “As subjects of international law, they can begin by respecting their obligations under international law, which include: not participating in genocide, not facilitating genocide, and doing everything in their power to prevent genocide. They should not export weapons to an entity that is in the process of committing genocide and other acts of aggression such as ethnic cleansing and the bombing of neighboring countries.”

A more vocal reaction from the political establishment came from left parties on both EU and national levels rather than from the self-proclaimed sovereignists. “Once again, Israel claims responsibility for the kidnapping of peaceful citizens. This time off the coast of Greece,” La France Insoumise's Emma Fourreau, a participant of previous flotilla attempts, wrote on social media. “Does the Mediterranean Sea now belong to them? Will the EU once again remain cowardly silent?”

“There are dozens of European citizens on board,” echoed Podemos Member of the European Parliament Irene Montero. “This is a serious violation of international law that the Spanish government and the European Commission must prevent: they are responsible for their safety.”

While Israeli authorities originally claimed the assault extended to more than 50 ships participating in the initiative, activists aboard report that the attack led to the abduction of over 150 crew from 21 ships, while others were able to avoid interception and reach refuge in Greek seas. Additionally, reports indicate that the crew of one more vessel, intercepted and damaged by Israeli forces, was left to float in open sea.

The danger of new attacks continues in coming hours, flotilla members warn, appealing to solidarity movements to remain vigilant. Miljanović emphasizes that she places significantly more hope in popular mobilizations and workers” actions of support than a sudden change of heart by the EU and its members. “I place my hope primarily in people,” she says. “People who organize and refuse militarization, people in whose communities drone factories are built, people who understand that their lives can be freer, more dignified, more equal if we collectively organize toward making the lives of all of us equally worthy and free.”

Snap demonstrations have been announced in dozens of cities across the region, including in Italy, where attacks on the last flotilla attempt in 2025 led to a wave of general strikes and mobilization that brought the country to a standstill. “The Israeli Navy now considers itself the master of the seas and acts with no regard for international law, flouting with impunity a system of rules that Western governments have amply demonstrated they have no intention of defending,” the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) wrote on Thursday in an appeal to join the day's protests.

Donald Trump claimed to pursue “regime change” in Iran, but in a manner distinct from the George W. Bush administration's use of the term to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was framed as bringing democracy after Saddam Husin's overthrow. As we have repeatedly argued in these pages, even before the joint US-Israeli aggression against Iran (see, for example, “Washington Will Not Bring Democracy to Iran” [Arabic], 10 February 2026), Trump's objective was—and remains—to replicate his Venezuelan strategy: abducting the president to pave the way for a successor willing to cooperate with Washington and its oil interests. In other words, his aim was to “change the regime's behaviour,” not to change the regime itself.

Yet the outcome of Trump's actions in Iran has been the opposite of his intent. He has not strengthened the “pragmatic” reformist wing within the Iranian regime. These reformists argue that Iran's best interests lie in halting its uranium enrichment program, which awkwardly sits halfway between the thresholds for nuclear weapons and peaceful nuclear energy use. The truth is that Iran does not need nuclear energy: it has abundant fossil fuels and even greater renewable energy potential, particularly solar power, of which China—its key economic partner—is the world leading producer. Reformists also contend that Iran's policy of expanding its influence in the Arab world has failed to deter adversaries, instead triggering destructive wars involving Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. Most crucially, they believe that economic liberalization and engagement with the West could revitalize Iran's economy, harness its human and technological resources, and repair the fractured relationship between the government and a population increasingly hostile to the current regime.

The bipartite aggression led by Washington, however, has bolstered the military wing of the Iranian regime, centred on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This wing rests on a rentier economic model fuelled by oil and gas revenusand shows little interest in developing a productive, globally integrated economy—the kind China achieved through the historic economic opening that allowed it to accomplish the greatest economic miracle in modern history. In effect, Iran is trending toward a model similar to that of Vladimir Putin's Rusa, based on militarization and rentierism, in stark contrast to the Chinese model favoured by the reformists.

It is important to note that religious ideology has not been a guiding force of the Islamic Republic since the death of its founder, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989 and the susquent rise of Hojjatoleslam Ali Khamenei—then a mid-ranking cleric whose elevation required constitutional changes that effectively lowered the theological qualifications for leadership. Khamenei's ascension, facilitated by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, resulted from a political manoeuvre that gradually eroded the spiritual and religious leadership of the Khomeini era. Contrary to Rafsanjani's pragmatic aspiration though, Iran transformed into a military republic dominated by the Revolutionary Guards, closely allied with Khamenei, increasingly abandoning its broader Islamic ideological claims in favour of sectarian opportunism to expand regional influence.

This expansion began in Lebanon during Khomeini's era, rightfully justified as a support against the Zionist occupation of southern Lebanon. Expansion later extended much less rightfully to Iraq, where Tehran encouraged its sectarian proxies to cooperate with the US invasion and occupation to enhance Iranian influence. In Syria, support for the Assad regime—ostensibly a regime belonging to the “Arab Socialist Ba'athist” ideology that Iran had long loathed—was part of a broader strategy to construct a sectarian axis loyal to Tehran, stretching from Iran to the Lebanese and Syrian Mediterranean coasts, through Iraq. The Yemeni Houthis susquently joined this axis, initially rebelling against the elected government that emerged from the 2011 popular uprising and the overthrow of Ali Abdullah Saleh. They temporarily allied with the ousted dictator, with whom they shared nothing but sectarian affiliation, only to assassinate him soon after.

The US-led bipartite aggression has further strengthened this militarized expansionist orientation, explaining the stalled negotiations between Tehran and Washington. This outcome aligns with the wishes of the Israeli government, which, unlike Trump, does not seek mere behavioural change but the complete overthrow of the Iranian regime, and even the country's fragmentation along ethnic lines. Netanyahu therefore favousthe deadlock, hoping that reformist Iranian efforts to puse a negotiated settlement (see “Outlines of a Settlement between America and Iran” [Arabic], 7 April 2026) will fail.

Trump now faces the consequences of his political short-sightedness and his reliance on replicating Venezuela's scenario in Iran, without appreciating the profound differences between the two countries. He confronts a dilemma: continue the bipartite aggression as urged by Netanyahu, bearing immense economic and political risks in the US, especially with congressional elections looming, or withdraw under a pretext that would deceive no one and further erode trust among regional and Western allies alike. In any event, the current state of “neither war nor peace” cannot endure indefinitely.

Adapted from the Arabic original published in Al-Qusal-Arabi on 28 April 2026. Feel free to republish or to publish in other languages, with mention of the source.

Barely four days after repelling the coordinated terror attacks by an Al-Qaeda affiliate and a northern separatist group on six different cities, the government of Mali, whose collapse the Western media has long been prophesying, is pressing on with developmental projects.

Electricity supply, healthcare, education, and the state of livestock and fisheries were among the matters discussed at the cabinet meeting in the Presidential Palace on 29 April, while the military continued “mopping-up” with search-and-secure operations.​

Following a report by Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, the council ministers adopted the draft texts ratifying the agreements signed with the African Development Bank (AfDB) in February, for a loan amount of over USD 70.5 million.​

Development remains a priority

It will be used to finance part of the cost of the 225-kilovolt Northern Loop project to secure a continuous and reliable supply of electricity to Bamako and its surrounding areas.​

Along with ensuring access to domestically-produced energy for consumption, the power plant is also critical for the success of the sovereignist government's push for industrial advancement from merely extracting raw materials for export to domestic processing and value addition.​

Underdeveloped by colonialism and the subsequent neo-colonial regimes propped up by France after formal independence, much of the population still engages in agro-pastoral work, with livestock being an importantsource of livelihood for 85% of farmers.​

The Livestock Minister announced at the cabinet meeting that a nearly two-month-long “General Assembly on Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture” will be held from 4 May to 29 July, to explore the “modernization of the animal, fisheries and aquaculture sectors.”​

Under the title, “Media and national languages: challenges for contemporary African societies?,” the “4 Information and Communication Sciences Days” will be held on 14 May and 15, added the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The health minister reported a drop in Dengue cases in the meeting at the Presidential Palace, chaired by Mali's president, Col. Assimi Goïta.

Defense minister's fall in battle is “an immense loss for the Malian nation”

The meeting started with a minute of silent tribute for Defense Minister Lieutenant General Sadio Camara, who fell in battle during the attack on 25 April, just about 15 km away, in the garrison town of Kati.

After killing several attackers in an intense gunfight, Camara was fatally wounded when a suicide bomber drove in a car so heavily laden with explosives that the blast collapsed Camara's residence and destroyed a neighboring mosque, killing and wounding several others.​

Describing him as a “valiant officer” in his televised address on the evening of 28 April, Goïta said Camara's “passing constitutes an immense loss for the Malian nation.”

He was among the core group of officers with Goïta who, in 2020, overthrew the regime of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, propped up by France, against whose military presence and economic domination, mass protests were rocking the country.​

As a defense minister in Goïta's military government, Camara subsequently oversaw the expulsion of French troops in 2022, consolidating its popular support.

France, Ukraine, and Sahelian terror groups

Insisting Mali had evidence that France had been flying missions in its airspace to collect intelligence and airdrop arms to terror groups after its troops were ordered out, Foreign Minister Diop wrote to the UN Security Council that year, seeking “an emergency meeting.” It was not granted.

Later, similar allegations were also made by neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, after the France-backed regimes there too were ousted in coups amid mass protests, replacing them with popularly supported military governments that expelled French troops.

While France itself continues to deny these allegations, its ally, Ukraine, has not been shy. Ukraine's military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, boasted in a 2024 interview that it provided “necessary information, and not just information” to Tuareg armed groups to carry out attacks in Mali.​

Nevertheless, with reported support from Russia's Africa Corps (formerly Wagner), Camara oversaw the Malian army's retaking of Kidal in November 2023. The city had been overrun by a Tuareg Islamist coalition affiliated with Al Qaeda—one of the many jihadist groups that became prominent in the aftermath of NATO's destruction of Libya, in which France had played a key part.

Intervening to ostensibly protect its former colonies from these groups it had helped spawn, French troops captured this city in 2013. However, forbidding the Malian army from entering the city, French troops practically handed it over to a Tuareg separatist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), allowing its fighters in.​

While Bamako, Kati, Konna, Mopti, and Gao, were secured by the government forces after the attack, the MNLA-linked Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) managed to retake Kidal last Saturday, on 25 April, after attacking it with the support of another Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, abbreviated as the JNIM.

Earlier, in late 2024, when the JNIM was attacking tankers to choke fuel supply to Mali, especially to Bamako, Western media widely reported that the capital was “under siege” and encircled by jihadists closing in on power. Some version of “Is Mali about to fall?” was a rhetorical question across its headlines, while the Atlantic Council declared the country was “unraveling”.

“A proxy war”

However, the Malian security forces prevailed, repelling these terror attacks and securing the fuel supply lines. “We must not think we are simply facing terrorist groups. No, this is a proxy war, where certain powers, cowardly and unable to confront us directly, are using terrorist groups and asymmetric forces to fight us,” Diop had said in his media statements at the time.

“These terrorist groups have drones. Where do they come from? Who manufactures them? Who provides them in areas where people cannot even eat?”

The Ukrainian authorities are supplying drones to a Tuareg armed group, and providing it with the necessary training to use them, France's “newspaper of record,” Le Monde, had reported in 2024.

It is in the backdrop of such multiple reports and allegations of Western backing of the Sahelian terror groups that the attack on 25 April unfolded. At least 23 civilians and soldiers were killed, according to official figures. The terror groups, on the other hand, lost 2,500 fighters and 102 vehicles, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

“These attacks are not isolated events. They are part of a vast destabilization plan conceived and executed by terrorist armed groups and the foreign sponsors of Azawad who provide them with intelligence and logistical means,” Goita said in his televised address on Tuesday, 28 April. ​

Adding that “I have instructed the government to take all necessary measures to strengthen assistance to victims, support bereaved families, and accompany the wounded,” he stressed that Mali is going through a trial that “must consolidate its cohesion and unity.” ​

“No violence, no intimidation, much less desperate attempts at destabilization,” will reverse the progress the country has made, Goïta said, reassuring the Malian people that “Sovereignty will be consolidated.”

The European Union is the “chief of all cowards,” Amnesty International declared in a searing statement issued on 21 April. The condemnation was a direct response to the European bloc's systemic failure to sever ties with Israel during the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg.

Despite months of legal warnings, the EU once again prioritized procedural safety over the urgency of human life.

The efforts to press the EU to finally take a moral position were led by a coalition of Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia, later joined by Belgium. They argued that the EU-Israel Association Agreement—the legal framework governing their trade relationship—is predicated on the “respect for human rights.”

To maintain this agreement while the extreme violations in occupied Palestine continue is to render the EU's own founding treaties meaningless.

Such a decision, even if belated, would have done immeasurable good. It would have restored a measure of the EU's shattered credibility and re-enlivened the discussion on international law. More importantly, it would have initiated a series of concrete measures to hold Israel accountable and provided Palestinians with a tangible sense of hope.

None of that occurred, however, thanks to the lobbying of Germany and Italy. These nations acted as a diplomatic firewall, shielding Israel from consequences.

The German position remains consistent with Berlin's hardline defense of Israel, a stance that has persisted even throughout the genocide in Gaza. As a country that should have been the world's greatest advocate against mass extermination, Germany has repeatedly shielded Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and other global institutions.

During this genocide, Berlin has doubled down, insisting that the accusation has “no basis whatsoever.” This rigid stance remained unchanged even as Spain joined the South Africa case at the ICJ, signaling a profound rupture in European legal and moral consensus.

Therefore, it was no surprise that Germany's leadership dismissed the Luxembourg proposal to suspend trade as “inappropriate.” Along with Italy, it insisted that the EU must remain in a “constructive dialogue” with Tel Aviv—a phrase that has become a euphemism for complicity.

Italy presents a more bizarre example. While Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government remains aligned with the pro-Israel guard, the Italian people's mobilization has been among the strongest in Europe.

The streets of Rome and Milan have seen mass protests and general strikes that rival the fervor seen in Spain. Yet, Meloni still refuses to heed her people's call, with her ministers stating in Luxembourg that the proposal to suspend the treaty has been “shelved.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likely felt a great deal of relief following the vote. The Israeli economy is currently struggling under the staggering burden of continued wars, with the budget deficit ballooning as defense spending skyrockets. The EU remains Israel's largest trading partner, with total trade in goods reaching over €42 billion.

This agreement provides a vital economic lifeline through preferential market access and high-tech integration; its suspension would trigger a devastating financial shock.

But the fact that Germany and Italy managed to sustain the treaty for now does not negate the imminent rupture already underway.

This rupture is not being led by governments, but by European societies. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that Europe's relationship with Israel is destined for pivotal change. The historical divide between Israel's unconditional supporters, like Germany, and more sympathetic nations, like Ireland, is collapsing as the political pendulum swings toward Palestine.

The hardliner camp received its most significant blow recently with the political shift in Hungary. With the rise of Péter Magyar, who recently vowed that Hungary would respect ICC warrants for Netanyahu's arrest, Israel has lost its most reliable “veto-man” in Brussels.

This leaves Germany increasingly isolated as the sole heavyweight protector of the status quo.

We are no longer talking about symbolic gestures. We are witnessing a critical mass of support for Palestine accompanied by direct action: encampments, legal challenges, and labor strikes. On 14 April, it was reported that more than one million Europeans signed a formal “Justice for Palestine” petition calling on Brussels to impose sanctions.

This reflects a sustained pressure capable of shaping political agendas. Polling from this month indicates that only 17 percent of respondents in Germany now view Israel as a reliable partner. This exposes a widening gap between European publics and their governments. While Spain appears to be responding to public sentiment, Germany continues to act in defiance of it.

These same moral positions are reflected in attitudes toward other regional wars. Polling from March 2026 shows that 56 percent of Spaniards and Italians oppose US-Israeli military action in Iran. Public opinion increasingly sees these not as separate crises, but as interconnected fronts of a single, failed policy.

The rejection of war is part of a broader rejection of Israeli military policy and the alignment of European governments with it. These shifts have not only isolated Israel; they have begun to isolate its allies. Aside from Donald Trump and his full alignment with Netanyahu's agenda, the era of a unified Western bloc catering unquestioningly to Israel's demands is fading.

The traditional explanation for Europe's backing—historical guilt over the Holocaust—no longer explains the conduct of political elites. A more accurate explanation lies in Europe's own legacy of colonial violence and racial hierarchy.

However, the real shift belongs to civil society and the resilience of Palestinians who have bypassed traditional media filters to speak directly to the world.

Europe now knows that a genocide has been committed. This paradigm shift is unlikely to be reversed, regardless of whether Luxembourg's bureaucrats manage to delay the inevitable.

At the recently held “TradFest” in Zagreb—where, in the long-established manner of Croatian nationalism, ideas are first declared necessary and only afterwards explained—the issue of the so-called third Croatian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina assumed its most explicit form to date. Although the gathering had no institutional character and adopted no formal conclusions, the very framing of the panel—“Bosnia and Herzegovina: a failed state and the necessity of a third Croatian entity”—was enough to make its outcome all but predetermined.

The panel brought together a range of political and ideological actors, including representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, which over the past two years has played a significant role in mobilizing the Croatian right—a process that reached its apex in a half-million-strong concert in Zagreb by the neo-Nazi singer Marko Perković Thompson, held under episcopal blessing. The intervention of the retired Vrhbosna Cardinal Vinko Puljić, one of the senior members of the Roman Curia, lent particular weight to the event, effectively shifting it beyond the realm of marginal far-right gatherings.

According to reports from the conference—still not fully available to the public—Puljić stated: “I cannot accept injustice, but we must seek a solution for survival and equality,” adding that the constitutional arrangement of Bosnia and Herzegovina must be addressed at the political, not ecclesiastical level—as though his very presence at the event did not already signal the convergence of church and political positions.

Within such a framework, the idea of a third entity no longer appears as one option among many—the sort previously floated through various “non-papers,” trial balloons, pre-election calculations, or well-intentioned academic proposals. What is at stake here is something far more consequential: a clearly articulated form of institutional backing, coming from an institution that has historically been one of the principal bearers of the Croatian national project—the Church among Croats, more precisely its Vrhbosna Archdiocese.

In this enduringly paternalistic mode, the proposed constitutional transformation—envisioning a third entity encompassing the entirety of Herzegovina's federal territories and nearly all of Central Bosnia—is presented as stabilization and the only viable path to coexistence, while the complex reality of the state is reduced to a problem demanding a simple solution. Yet, as experience repeatedly shows, it is precisely within such “simple solutions” that the most catastrophic consequences tend to reside.

Those consequences were avoided in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1971, at the height of the Croatian Spring (a reformist movement in socialist Croatia in the late 1960s and early 1970s that evolved into an increasingly pronounced and ultimately extreme nationalist current, seeking greater autonomy for the Socialist Republic of Croatia within Yugoslavia before being suppressed by the federal leadership)—but, tragically, not in 1991.

For a careful observer of the developmental phases and tactical patterns of Croatian nationalism, the position of Cardinal Vinko Puljić—the long-serving Archbishop of Vrhbosna (Sarajevo) and one of the senior figures within the Roman Catholic hierarchy—can hardly come as a surprise, except perhaps to those who once regarded him as a champion of an “independent Bosnia and Herzegovina” in 1991. In reality, his stance follows logically from the period of the so-called “Croatian silence” that succeeded the collapse of the political establishment which had led the Croatian Spring (MASPOK) in 1971. During that period, the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina assumed the role of a key custodian of national political continuity—preserving ideas and preparing the ground until conditions allowed their open political articulation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At the time, both the Socialist Republic of Croatia and the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were federal units within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, sharing a common state framework in which republican borders did not function as international frontiers but as internal administrative lines. Crucially, the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was constitutionally defined as a republic of three equal constituent peoples—Serbs, Muslims (today Bosniaks), and Croats—an arrangement that formed the basis of its political legitimacy within the Yugoslav federation.

That continuity was also evident in attitudes toward Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Even during the MASPOK period, segments of the Croatian public were not only advancing claims of alleged inequality of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also promoting a more insidious thesis: that Bosnia and Herzegovina was not a self-standing republican entity, but rather the “mother country” exclusively of the Muslim (Bosniak) people, while the “Croatian part of the nation” should be tied to Croatia and the “Serbian part” to Serbia. However couched in the language of national equality, this formula effectively stripped Bosnia and Herzegovina of political subjectivity and reduced it—if not yet in explicit terms, then de facto—to the status of an “artificial creation,” an idea later associated with the thinking of Franjo Tuđman, the first president of independent Croatia.

However commonplace this Croatian perspective may have become after the wars of the 1990s, the formula of “mother states,” both within and beyond Bosnia and Herzegovina, reveals itself as a classic Trojan gift—for both Serbs and Muslims: different in form, yet identical in its destructive consequences for the shared political space.

For Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the notion of Serbia as a “mother state” implied a dangerous relativization of their autochthonous status. Instead of being understood as a constituent people within Bosnia and Herzegovina—with full historical and political rights to that republic—they were reduced to a segment of a broader nation whose “true” center lay outside it. In this way, Bosnia and Herzegovina ceased to be their state to the same extent as Serbia and was relegated to a secondary space of national life. Within the Yugoslav framework—where Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were parts of a single political entity—such a narrative did not expand rights; it introduced a logic of separation and a gradual abandonment of internal political subjectivity.

For Muslims (today Bosniaks), the appeal of the idea that Bosnia and Herzegovina was their “mother republic” concealed a trap of its own, precisely because it stood in contradiction to the ZAVNOBiH concept (the State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the World War II-era political assembly that established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a republic of equal constituent peoples within Yugoslavia). If this “motherhood” was defined exclusively in relation to one nation, it simultaneously meant alienating Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina as their historical state, while also dividing Muslims themselves—those in Bosnia and Herzegovina from those in Serbia and Montenegro. Thus, instead of the integrative idea of a “small Yugoslavia,” what emerged was a model of fragmented and conflictual belonging, in which political relations were grounded in division rather than in a shared institutional framework.

This narrative was therefore doubly corrosive: for Serbs, it offered the illusion of a broader national anchor while effectively stripping them of full belonging within Bosnia and Herzegovina; for Muslims, it promised an exclusive “motherhood,” but at the cost of internal fracture and regional dislocation. What was presented as a solution to the national question in fact introduced a principle that undermined the very foundation laid by ZAVNOBiH—that Bosnia and Herzegovina was a shared, equal Yugoslav political community, not a collection of separate and fundamentally anti-Yugoslav national projects.

Fortunately, due to more favorable geopolitical circumstances in the 1970s, but above all owing to the sobriety of the Yugoslav leadership of the time—as well as that of the republican leaderships of the Socialist Republic of Serbia and the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina—this bait was not taken then.

The diary notes of Draža Marković—a prominent Serbian communist official and one of the key figures of the League of Communists of Serbia—offer telling evidence of this moment. They show that leading figures of the Yugoslav federation, including Stane Dolanc (a senior federal party leader) and Džemal Bijedić (then Prime Minister of Yugoslavia), firmly rejected the demands coming from Croatia, while at the same time supporting the strengthening of the Yugoslav state and openly ridiculing what they saw as an obsessive fixation on republican sovereignty. In such an atmosphere, a growing conviction took hold that Croatian nationalism had exceeded all limits and that a process of political sobering was underway. A similar account was left by Mirko Tepavac, the federal Minister of Foreign Affairs in Bijedić’s government, who recorded that participants in high-level discussions, upon returning from a visit to Timișoara, became increasingly outspoken in their criticism of the Croatian movement—developments that ultimately prompted Josip Broz Tito, the long-time leader of socialist Yugoslavia, to convene a session of the Presidency of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in Karađorđevo and remove the Croatian political leadership from power.

Unfortunately, such a political bloc no longer existed in the 1990s. In place of the earlier balance embodied by the Socialist Republics of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there emerged—at the twilight of the period known as the “Croatian silence”—what might be described as an “anti-Serbia,” led by the technocratic strongman Slobodan Milošević. His leadership, calculating and opportunistic, embraced the concept of a “mother state” for all Serbs, thereby implicitly accepting the logic of partitioning Bosnia and Herzegovina should such an outcome prove expedient in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Parallel to this, a complementary “anti—Bosnia and Herzegovina” took shape in the form of the ostensibly pro-Bosnian regime of Alija Izetbegović in Sarajevo, which pursued the project of an “independent Bosnia and Herzegovina” in coalition with precisely those Croatian nationalist circles and church structures that had, already in the 1970s, envisaged its partial or total partition—ultimately reducing it to an “impossible state,” destined for dissolution. In this context, the policy of the right-wing Serbian leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s can be understood as a peculiar form of self-imposed entrapment between two negative premises: the rejection of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a shared state, and the simultaneous impossibility of immediate political and state integration into Serbia. This double negation—both “anti-Bosnia” and the practical inability of a “full entry into anti-Serbia”—produced a model in which Republika Srpska (one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, created during the 1992—95 war and later formalized under the Dayton Peace Agreement) persisted as a perpetually provisional political framework, a kind of refuge meant to ensure collective security and bargaining power, while in fact generating precisely the opposite.

Yet it is in this very provisionality that its paradox resides: conceived as a transitional form toward a “mother state,” it was at the same time compelled to function within the very space it sought to leave behind. What emerged was a condition of permanent temporariness—a political construct that leads nowhere, yet cannot be abandoned: the lingering nightmare of the Croatian Spring, from which there seems to be no awakening.

And how, then, does one awaken from it?

If we take a comparative view, setting aside wartime traumas and post-war propaganda, a clear pattern emerges: Bosniaks and Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina—and more broadly in Serbia and Montenegro—fared best, throughout the Yugoslav experience, when their politically progressive leaderships were able to find common ground within a unified political space. It was precisely such cooperation, grounded in equality, institutional interdependence, and an awareness of shared destiny, that made it possible to articulate and defend national interests without mutual negation, without dangerous illusions of exclusive “mother states,” and without undermining the very foundations of political life.

By contrast, every attempt to “simplify” matters—by drawing lines, dividing territories, and discovering supposedly salvific “motherlands”—has led to outcomes already seen too many times. From the ill-fated and destructive Cvetković—Maček Agreement (a 1939 political deal within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that created the Banovina of Croatia by carving up Bosnian territory along ethnic lines), through the humiliating accommodation of a large segment of the Muslim political and religious elite to the project of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH—a fascist puppet state established in 1941 under Nazi and Italian patronage, responsible for mass atrocities), to the later grand bargains between Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman, or the tactical alliances of Alija Izetbegović with Croatian nationalists and black-shirted radicals—all such “cleverly” conceived realpolitik ended the same way: not only in deep crises and political collapse, but in historical debacles and moral downfall that discredited both sides alike, leaving behind a shattered political landscape, devastated lives, and a long-term erosion of mutual trust—to the ruin of all involved.

It can therefore be said plainly—however uncomfortable it may sound to some—that both Serbs and Bosniaks have suffered the most precisely when they believed they could be saved by imported doctrines of “mother states” and by narratives portraying their mutual relations as artificial. These ideas, which invariably present themselves as some grand revelation about “thousand-year-old borders” and final territorial settlements, in fact trace their lineage to those rather unsavory figures in black uniforms and their ideological architects. In moments of crisis, they have repeatedly appeared persuasive enough to be embraced as “reality,” only to reveal themselves, time and again, as catastrophically misguided—at an ever greater cost.

For that very reason, if one wishes to break free from this nightmarish centrifuge, one must return to facts that are neither new nor hidden, but persistently ignored and swept aside: Serbs and Bosniaks—especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina—inherit, in different ways, the entirety of that country's history, from its first mention in the 10 century to the present day. Their names appear in the sources in shifting forms and meanings, alternating and intertwining—not as evidence of rupture, but as different manifestations of a single state tradition, a shared space, and—yes—a shared historical destiny, however far it may be from any imagined harmony, and however harsh it has often been for both.

From this follows a simple—though evidently very difficult—task: to foster political and intellectual elites capable of persistently pointing to these facts, of recalling shared achievements precisely when they are deliberately erased from memory, and of placing them alongside moments of collapse as the clearest warning of what happens when a common political space becomes hostage to illusions of exclusive “motherhoods” and territorial fragmentation—with particular emphasis on a serious and honest study of their shared socialist past, as well as of the antifascist and anticolonial traditions that once gave that common space its deepest legitimacy and coherence.

For if our difficult and often painful history teaches anything at all, it is this: those who simplify it—or reduce it to nothing but animosities, wars, massacres, and hatreds—ultimately become orphans of a past they themselves have crudely fabricated, left without a heritage worth defending and without a future that could ever be built upon it.

The killing of 19 people and displacement of 168 families by the Philippine Armed Forces has been met with outrage by human rights organizations across Southeast Asia and the United States. Among the 19 killed in the army operation, which lasted nearly 12 hours, in Toboso, Negros Occidental, were two US citizens, as well as Filipino student leaders, journalists, and human rights activists.

The massacre on 19 April has been justified by a familiar narrative: the Armed Forces claimed they were carrying out a counter-insurgency operation and that those killed were armed and members of the New People's Army (NPA), a banned armed group affiliated with the Communist Party of Philippines (CPP).

Rights groups and institutions, such as the universities where the victims studied, have questioned the Armed Forces” narrative, claiming several of the people killed were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the NPA.

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), in a statement on Wednesday, claimed that at least nine of those killed have been identified as civilians working as journalists, students, community researchers or were local residents and even minors. Some of those killed had been doing community work and research to help local people improve their lives, right groups have claimed.

APHR called their killings a “grave violation of human rights” and demanded accountability.

The two US citizens killed were Lyle Prijoles and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem who had been accompanying local community groups. Other victims include journalist RJ Ledesma and student activists Alyssa Alano, Maureen Santuyo, and Errol Wendel.

According to the Inquirer, the NPA also issued a statement dismissing the army's version, claiming some of the people killed were not fighters but journalists, common civilians and advocates “documenting peasant activities.”

Crackdown on dissent

Rights groups have demanded an independent inquiry into the matter, with some claiming the killings are part of a pattern followed by the governments in the country to silence dissent.

Cristina Palabay, secretary general of KARAPATAN, a Filipino human rights organization, claimed that the armed forces in the country have repeatedly used the “armed encounter” as a justification for killing people critical to the government. She underlined that the Philippines is a party to the Geneva Convention on International Humanitarian Law and as such the government must prioritize the protection of civilians in any sort of military operation.

KARAPATAN has also held demonstrations in various parts of the country demanding an end to the armed forces” violence against civilians and their immediate withdrawal from civilian areas.

APHR also described the killings in Toboso as another display of the Philippine government's attempts to eliminate all kinds of dissent by labeling them “communist sympathizers.”

“An operation that cannot distinguish between armed combatants and community workers is an indiscriminate attack that violates international humanitarian law,” Mercy Christie, head of the APHR, said in the statement, demanding accountability for those responsible for the killing of innocent civilians.

Several other rights groups have also demanded a fair investigation into the killing, along with a halt on all so-called counterinsurgency operations, claiming they endanger civilians and human rights defenders.

Meanwhile, the Philippines Commission on Human Rights (CHR) claimed it has launched an independent investigation into the matter.

Malaya Movement, Bayan, and other US-based groups have organized community vigils to mourn the activists and demand accountability for the killings in Negros. They have also demanded an end to US funding, support, and cooperation with the Philippine Armed Forces.

Amid protests against the Philippine military's human rights abuses, the US armed forces were jointly organizing Balikatan (20 April-8 May), the largest ever joint military exercise between the two countries.

96 South Korean members of parliament, belonging to different political parties, wrote a joint letter condemning what they called US attempts to interfere in the country's domestic affairs and “infringe on its judicial sovereignty.”

The US has reportedly been increasing pressure on the country to drop an ongoing investigation against Coupang, a US-based company which dominates the South Korean e-commerce market, over the leak of sensitive personal data of over 33 million Koreans.

The lawmakers announced, in a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul on Tuesday, 28 April, that the letter would be submitted to the US embassy in the city on the same day, The Korean Times reported.

The Korean lawmakers have claimed that the US is wrongfully trying to disrupt a domestic corporate investigation by using diplomatic tools, which amounts to “undermining the rule of law” in South Korea and is not acceptable.

The South Korean parliamentarians also underlined that if this American attempt is allowed to prevail without contest it will set a dangerous precedent for all multinational corporations to use diplomatic channels to influence legal processes.

The signatories of the letter include members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DP), Rebuilding Korea Party, Jinbo Party, and Social Democratic Party.

The speaker of the National Assembly, Woo Won-shik also expressed his country's disapproval of the American move, calling it “a clear stance of interference in domestic policy.”

A response to the letter from US house republicans

As per reports, the sensitive personal information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and order histories of nearly two thirds of Korea's total population were leaked from Coupang's database last year.

After the news of the data leak became public in early December 2025, the South Korean government faced demands for strong action against the firm.

South Korean law enforcement is currently investigating the data breach, which may lead to a substantial fine or other legal action against the management.

Founded in 2010, Coupang has also been accused of very serious labor rights violations and union-busting measures for several years.

Recently, 54 House Republicans had written a joint letter accusing the Lee Jae Myung-led DP government in South Korea and the country's law enforcement agencies of being biased and deliberately targeting US-based companies.

Lee Jae Myung, of the DP, was elected president in 2025 after his predecessor Yoon Suk-Yeol of the Peoples Power Party was impeached and removed from power for attempting a coup in December 2024.

Since his election, the Lee government has toned down his predecessor's aggressive stance towards North Korea and tried to balance its relations with China, aggravating the Donald Trump administration in the US.

The House Republicans letter accused the DP government of being “left wing” and “pro-China,” claiming attacks against US companies have caused billions of dollars in losses for the US economy.

The signatories of the letter have claimed that they will make sure that the South Korean government “ceases its persecution of Coupang and other American companies.”

Affecting larger bilateral relations

Media reports have claimed that the US had formally asked the South Korean government to provide legal protection to Coupang founder Kim Bom Suk and protect him against any possible arrest in the country, threatening to suspend security arrangements with Seoul otherwise.

Wi Sung Lac, South Korea's national security advisor, acknowledged earlier this month that the issue of Coupang is now affecting the country's “security cooperation” with the US.

The US practically controls the defenses of the country, with thousands of its soldiers based in South Korea since the end of the Korean War.

Reports also indicate that the US has threatened to suspend a planned assistance to South Korea to build nuclear powered submarines and halt the implementation of an agreement signed last year according to which it was to authorize nuclear enrichment in the country.

South Korea has not responded to reports of American threats. However, it has asserted that the investigations in the data breach would continue.

There are moments in international affairs when the destruction of stone says more than the signing of treaties. In Nagorno-Karabakh, the bulldozing of Armenian churches by Azerbaijan is one of those moments. It is not simply about architecture, nor only about post-war reconstruction. It is about whether sovereignty grants the right to erase memory—and whether the international community is prepared to accept that silence can be a form of complicity.

Satellite images rarely provoke moral outrage. Yet the before-and-after images of Stepanakert's Holy Mother of God Cathedral are impossible to ignore. On 3 March 2026, the church stood intact. By 2 April, it had been reduced to rubble. Shusha's 177-year-old Kanach Zham Church suffered the same fate, completely bulldozed by early 2024. These were not accidental wartime casualties. They were deliberate acts carried out in peacetime, under state authority, in full view of the world.

Baku insists otherwise. Officials describe these churches as “illegal buildings” constructed during the Armenian “occupation,” arguing their demolition is a lawful correction of history rather than cultural destruction. Religious authorities aligned with the state have framed the removals as morally justified, while redevelopment rhetoric paints the razing as necessary for roads, housing, and the return of displaced Azerbaijanis.

Another pillar of justification lies in the controversial “Caucasian Albanian” theory—the claim that many Armenian churches are not Armenian at all, but relics of an ancient Christian Albanian civilisation later “Armenianised.” In 2022, Culture Minister Anar Karimov openly vowed to remove Armenian inscriptions from such churches.

This is not restoration. It is revisionism with excavators. The world has seen this script before. In Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan's exclave, nearly all medieval Armenian churches and some 3,000 khachkars—intricately carved Armenian cross-stones—were erased by the late 2000s, including the famed Djulfa cemetery. Officials denied Armenians had ever lived there. What was once dismissed as a regional tragedy now looks disturbingly like a national doctrine.

International law is clearer than diplomacy often allows. In December 2021, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to “take all necessary measures” to prevent vandalism and desecration of Armenian cultural heritage. The European Parliament has repeatedly condemned what it called Azerbaijan's “continued policy of erasing and denying the Armenian cultural heritage” and demanded compliance with the 1954 Hague Convention on the protection of cultural property.

UNESCO's own convention warns that the disappearance of any cultural heritage constitutes “a harmful impoverishment of the heritage of all the nations of the world.” Yet enforcement remains anaemic. Heritage destruction sits in that uncomfortable diplomatic space where outrage is abundant, but consequences are scarce.

The strategic cost for Azerbaijan is profound. States seeking legitimacy do not usually bulldoze cathedrals under satellite surveillance. Baku aspires to regional leadership, energy diplomacy, and greater influence within institutions such as UNESCO, where it was elected to the World Heritage Committee for 2025—29. Critics have called this a Kafkaesque contradiction. A country accused of cultural cleansing now helps govern the world's heritage standards.

Soft power cannot survive selective memory. A nation that preserves minority heritage signals confidence. A nation that destroys its projects projects insecurity.

There is also a greater regional danger. Heritage destruction is rarely about the past alone; it shapes the future. When churches, cemeteries, and monasteries disappear, so too does the psychological possibility of return. For displaced Armenians, the message is unmistakable: there is no home left to come back to. As art historian Christina Maranci has argued, destroying churches does not merely erase buildings—it severs the “connective tissue” of a people's history.

That fracture feeds grievance, and grievance is the most durable fuel in the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan often points, with some justification, to the destruction of mosques and Islamic heritage during decades of Armenian control. Azerbaijani sources report that 63 of 67 mosques in Karabakh were destroyed or heavily damaged during that period. These losses matter. They deserve acknowledgement and restoration. But reciprocal vandalism is not justice. It is simply an inheritance of the worst kind.

There are better models, and they are not theoretical. Spain's Mezquita-Cathedral of Córdoba was transformed from a mosque to a cathedral after the Reconquista, yet its iconic Islamic arches were preserved rather than demolished. Today, it stands as one of Europe's most visited monuments and a UNESCO symbol of layered history.

In Türkiye, Hagia Sophia has moved from cathedral to mosque to museum and back to mosque, yet Byzantine mosaics remain beside Islamic calligraphy—not as a contradiction, but as testimony. The restored Great Synagogue of Edirne and Sumela Monastery reflect the same principle: historic buildings belong to humanity, not merely to whoever controls them today.

This is the real power move in statecraft: not demolition, but stewardship. For global policymakers and from the chambers of the United Nations to the quiet corridors of UNESCO, Nagorno-Karabakh poses a far larger and more unsettling question than the legality of sovereignty, for borders can be redrawn by war. Still, legitimacy is written in how victory treats memory. The issue is no longer whether Azerbaijan holds the land; it does.

The true test is whether modern statehood in the twenty-first century is defined by possession or by stewardship, by the right to govern or by the duty to protect even the painful inheritance of those displaced, defeated, or silenced. Every demolished church in Karabakh sends a message far beyond the Caucasus: to Ukraine and Crimea, to Kosovo and Palestine, to Xinjiang, Cyprus, Kashmir, and the sacred ruins of Mosul—that if sovereignty becomes a licence to erase the cultural fingerprints of the “other,” then the international order itself begins to fracture at its moral foundation.

Strategic thinkers understand that monuments are not passive stones; they are geopolitical texts, repositories of legitimacy, and silent guarantors of coexistence. When a cathedral is razed, it is not only heritage that disappears, but the future architecture of trust, the possibility of return, and the fragile belief that peace can outlive war. Great powers should recognise that cultural destruction is not a peripheral humanitarian issue but a frontline strategic concern, because states that erase memory often normalise exclusion, and exclusion is the oldest accelerant of instability.

True victory in foreign policy is never secured by emptying a landscape of inconvenient history; it is secured when power is confident enough to preserve what once challenged it. Sovereignty without moral restraint becomes conquest in modern dress, while preservation becomes the rarest and most powerful form of diplomacy: the quiet declaration that civilisation is strong enough to remember, and wise enough not to fear memory.

Moreover, the question is what sovereignty means in the 21 century. Is it possession, or responsibility? Is victory measured by territory alone, or by the moral imagination to protect what belonged to those who lost?

Preserving Armenian churches in Karabakh would not weaken Azerbaijan's sovereignty. It would strengthen it. It would tell the world that confidence does not require denial, and that legitimacy grows not from flattening the past, but from carrying it honestly.

Diplomacy often speaks of confidence-building measures. Here is one made of stone. A moratorium on demolitions, independent UNESCO monitoring, and a bilateral Armenian-Azerbaijani heritage protection pact would be a beginning. Reframing these churches as part of a shared Caucasian inheritance—rather than an enemy imprint—could turn monuments of division into instruments of peace.

History in the South Caucasus has been written too often in blood. It does not need to be rewritten in dust.

The ruins of Karabakh are being watched by more than satellites. They are being watched by every state that claims to value international law, by every institution that speaks of cultural diplomacy, and by every displaced family searching for proof that memory can survive power.

A church destroyed is not only a local tragedy. It is a warning. Because when a state decides that the past must be demolished to secure the future, it is rarely the stones that are the final target.

Dozens of vessels are again en route to Gaza in an attempt to break the illegal sea blockade imposed by the Israeli occupation, as part of a new global flotilla coalition. “The flotilla departs with a clear set of objectives,” stated the Global Sumud Flotilla, one of the networks taking part in the mission. “To challenge Israel's illegal blockade, advance the opening of a permanent humanitarian corridor, and intensify coordinated pressure on governments and corporations complicit in its enforcement.”

Global Sumud Flotilla ships are sailing with vessels from the Freedom Flotilla and Thousand Madleens to Gaza, as well as other ships determined to contribute to the stated goals. After departures from Spain and France earlier this month, on 26 April, the fleet left the port of Augusta in Sicily—with more ships expected to sail from Greece and Turkey and join along the way, according to activists aboard.

Hundreds of people from across the globe have volunteered to sail with the flotilla: health workers, journalists, engineers and activists, among others. Among them are some attempting to break the blockade for the first time, including Margaret Connolly, sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly. “Our flotilla sails to deliver hope,” Margaret Connolly, a physician, told The Sligo Champion ahead of departure. “We are sailing to Gaza to break the 18-year Israeli naval blockade, deliver urgent humanitarian aid, and demonstrate international solidarity with Palestinians facing famine and ongoing conflict.”

The networks participating in the flotilla have long emphasized the initiative's aim is to act where governments fail. This is particularly relevant in European countries, where various administrations remain complicit in the genocide in Gaza by maintaining relations—economic, cultural, academic, and other—with occupation authorities. The fact that so many Europeans have joined this global flotilla reiterates demands to end the genocide and occupation of Palestine raised by the public through hundreds of demonstrations, boycott initiatives, and direct action since October 2023.

“The flotilla is not an end in itself or an isolated action, but a part of a broader, historically situated movement of resistance and struggle for the liberation of the oppressed,” Morana Miljanović, who is steering the ship Shireentowards the coast of Gaza, told Croatian media outlet Radnička prava.

“The flotilla is the daughter of centuries-old movements of resistance to systems of domination, repression, extraction, and oppression,” she told Peoples Dispatch. “It is part of organized actions and one of the paths, or methods, of struggle, of galvanizing consciousness, and of collective action.”

“It is also part of the revolutionary processes of learning, unlearning, and transforming interpersonal relationships and structural choices among us. It is complex, composed of people and organizations with many goals, motivations, and experiences. It seeks to connect as effectively as possible with many other collectives and paths of struggle, especially in stopping the production and circulation of weapons of genocide: that is still in an early phase.”

Miljanović is a returning member of the flotilla, having been the captain of Shireen during the last campaign in 2025. At that time, over 400 crew members were attacked and kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces: many spent days imprisoned, later reporting widespread abuse. While Shireen's mission last time was providing legal support and did not participate in the final leg to Gaza's coast, this time it is going to do so.

With the situation in the Mediterranean increasingly militarized and Israel growing more aggressive in its attacks across West Asia, some flotilla participants have not only warned of possible drone assaults, but also expressed concerns about potential artillery attacks targeting the flotilla directly. To minimize the likelihood of these scenarios as much as possible, organizers and participants emphasize the importance of following the flotilla's progress and mobilizing if attacks occur. “On land, the most important part of the job is to speak and organize at every possible level, to make those efforts visible, linking them to the visibility of the flotilla,” Miljanović told Radnička prava.

Significant support is coming from local Palestine solidarity networks and movements, including activist groupsand trade unions. Among other things, the flotilla's sailing will overlap with a new round of coordinated Mediterranean-wide actions by dockworkers to resist arms trade—showing again that Israel's genocide in Palestine could not continue without Western governments maintaining business as usual.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Russia on Monday, 27 April, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed regional and international developments focused around the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Araghchi arrived in Russia after concluding visits to Oman and Pakistan where he presented his country's framework for a possible new round of talks with the US to find a diplomatic end to the war the US and Israel have been waging against his country since 28 February.

Speaking to press at the St Petersburg airport upon his arrival, Araghchi affirmed that his visits to Oman, Pakistan, and Russia were part of Iran's attempts to coordinate “with our partners on bilateral matters and consult on diplomatic matters,” also claiming Iran's neighbors are its priority.

During his visit to Oman, Araghchi met the head of the state, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, and other state officials on Sunday.

It was the first official visit of the Iranian foreign minister to Oman since the US-Israeli war began on 28 February.

Oman was mediating between Iran and the US just before the latter, along with Israel, launched attacks on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and over 3,000 Iranians in around 40 days of bombings.

Strait of Hormuz is a shared responsibility

Noting that the US-Israeli war on Iran has affected the Persian Gulf region as a whole, Esmail Baghaei, official spokesperson of Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Araghchi's visit to Oman was an attempt to undo the effects of the war on the region.

The visit was a sign that “Iran continues to place great importance to its relations with Persian Gulf states and remains committed to strengthening mutual trust and constructive cooperation,” Baghaei said.

Iran had accused several countries in the Persian Gulf region of providing their territory and airspace to the United States to help it launch attacks. Iran retaliated to US attacks by launching counterattacks on several US bases in these countries, which soured ties between Iran and countries in the region.

Araghchi also emphasized that during the visit the two countries discussed the fate of the Strait of Hormuz.

“As only Hormuz littoral states, our focus included ways to ensure safe transit that is to the benefit of all dear neighbors and the world,” Araghchi said on X.

Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi echoed Araghchi's concerns claiming “as littoral states, we recognize our shared responsibility to the international community and the urgent need to free the seafarers held for far too long. Much diplomacy is required and practical solutions to ensure lasting freedom of navigation.”

Iran has restricted the movement of shipments through the strait following the US-Israeli war. The Iranian restrictions have affected the oil and other trade from the region, impacting a wide range of countries across the world.

Iran's framework for talks with the US

Araghchi traveled to Islamabad after finishing his tour to Oman and met Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir.

This was his second visit to Pakistan in two days. Araghchi was in Islamabad on Saturday as well when he had met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Munir, and others.

During his meeting with Munir on Sunday, Araghchi reportedly presented his country's “workable framework” of talks with the US.

Though the contents of the Iranian proposal were not made public, quoting unknown US sources, Axios reportedon Monday that it contains suggestions to suspend the nuclear talks for a while to focus on ways to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has, however, repeated that there cannot be any talks with the US until it removes the “illegal” naval blockade it has imposed on Iran since 13 April.

Araghchi asserted that though he has submitted Iran's preferred framework for negotiations, he is yet to see any serious diplomatic move from the US.

Later, while in Russia, Araghchi said that “previous negotiations, despite some progress, did not achieve their goals due to American approaches, their excessive demands, and their wrong policies. Therefore, we need to hold consultations with our friends in Pakistan to review the latest development.”

A US delegation was expected to visit Pakistan on Sunday for talks with Iran. However, President Donald Trump announced the cancellation of the trip at the last moment, calling it a waste of time and money.

On Sunday, Trump also boasted about American leverage in the talks, claiming Iran has run out of options.

However, Iran dismissed Trump's claims.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament and head of its delegation for the first round of talks on 11 to 12 April said that his country has significant leverage in its standoff with the US.

Advocates for reproductive rights in Kenya, where thousands die every year of complications due to unsafe abortion, expressed outraged at the ruling on 24 April by the Court of Appeal in the town of Malindi. The court overturned a 2022 High Court ruling and recriminalized abortion.

The 2022 decision held that abortion is a constitutional right, but the appellate court ruled that this was an incorrect interpretation. The constitution adopted by Kenya in 2010 allowed for abortion if “there is a need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger.” It has, however, remained criminalized in practice for over a decade as the colonial-era penal code has not been amended to reflect this.​

“This is what the criminalization of abortion looks like in practice”

In September 2019, a 16-year-old suffering severe abdominal pain and bleeding went to a clinic where a professional medic, Salim Mohammed, diagnosed a lost pregnancy and provided emergency post-abortion care. Barging into the clinic, the police arrested the doctor.​

They also arrested the girl from her hospital bed, and held her without medical care for two nights in Ganze Police Patrol Base, before remanding her in Malindi Juvenile Remand Prison for over a month after forcing her to sign a distorted statement.

“This is not an exceptional story. It is what the criminalization of abortion looks like in practice. Every year, at least 2,600 women die from unsafe abortions in Kenya, and 21,000 more are hospitalized due to abortion complications,” said the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).​

“A 2023 national study by APHRC found an estimated 792,694 induced abortions in Kenya in that year alone, with over 304,000 women seeking facility-based care for post-abortion complications. This is not a statistic; it is the lived reality of what happens when women and girls are denied care, information, and dignity,” its statement said.

Acquitting the doctor and his patient in a landmark judgement in March 2022, the High Court of Kenya in Malindi ruled that their arrest and prosecution were unlawful as abortion care is a fundamental right when a doctor determines the need for emergency treatment to thwart a danger to the mother's life.​

It further ordered the parliament to develop a policy framework and enact a law on access to abortion services. However, the parliament slacked.

Far-right lobby

In the meantime, Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF), reportedly an African appendage of the far-right evangelical movements in the US and Europe, along with the Attorney General, appealed the High Court's ruling.

Following arguments last October, the Appeals Court ruled in favor of the appeal, overturning the High Court's judgment on Friday. “Abortion is not a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. On the contrary, the Constitution expressly prohibits it but provides exceptions in limited circumstances when it may be permissible,” the judges ruled.​

Further adding that “Constitutional rights could not, of itself, stand in the way of proper investigation, charge and prosecution of the alleged offenses,” the judges threw open the acquitted doctor and patient for further prosecution.​

A blow for the reproductive rights movement in Kenya

Prudence Mutiso, lawyer for CRR, told NTV that this ruling creates “a chilling effect” on girls and women as well as on doctors, who may hesitate out of fear to provide the necessary emergency care to patients.

Calling the ruling “deeply disappointing,” CRR said it will challenge the judgment in the Supreme Court.

Advocates for reproductive rights have long fought for the recognition of women's autonomy and full control over their bodies. They say the complex social and health realities of women and girls in Kenya are not reflected in rigid legal decisions such as this one.

“In a context where access to comprehensive reproductive health services remains limited, and where cultural taboos still shape conversations around sexuality, such a decision risks worsening already existing challenges,” explained socialist feminist Daisy Burett to Peoples Dispatch.

“Misunderstandings about the female body, combined with restricted access to contraceptives and information, continue to contribute to unintended pregnancies.”

Burett also points out that the most economically disadvantaged women are inevitably the most-impacted by these policies because they already face the most barriers in accessing care.

“If the primary concern were safety and well-being, greater attention would be directed toward improving healthcare systems and ensuring dignified, accessible medical services for all.”

Restrictive abortion policies “often push individuals toward unsafe alternatives” rather than reducing the need for abortion, says Burett, highlighting a broader public health concern as a result of this decision.

She adds that the consequences of having a child without the preparation, support, or stability “extend beyond the individual to affect the well-being of the child.”

“This raises broader concerns about whether such policies sufficiently consider the long-term social and developmental impacts on children.”

Myanmar's Rohingya do not need another promise. They need justice. Nearly a decade after the world watched villages burn in northern Rakhine, the word “accountability” still hangs over Myanmar like a diplomatic ornament—frequently invoked, rarely delivered. For the Rohingya, it is not a slogan. It is the difference between memory and erasure, between survival and permanent exile.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur's latest report is devastating in its clarity: impunity is not a side effect of Myanmar's crisis; it is its engine. Since the 2021 military coup, the junta has murdered thousands of civilians, arbitrarily detained more than 30,000 people, displaced at least 3.6 million internally, and burned more than 100,000 civilian homes through systematic arson campaigns. Airstrikes hit schools, weddings, clinics, tea shops and displacement camps. Torture is routine. Sexual violence is weaponised. The architecture of terror is deliberate.

For the Rohingya, however, this did not begin in 2021. It is the continuation of a longer history that the world repeatedly chose to treat as temporary.

The 1982 Citizenship Act institutionalised statelessness. The apartheid system that followed the 2012 violence confined hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to camps and stripped movement, livelihoods and dignity. Then came 2017, when more than 700,000 Rohingya fled genocidal violence into Bangladesh after Myanmar's military launched what it cynically called “clearance operations.” Entire villages were erased. Women were raped in front of their families. Men were executed in fields. Children disappeared into the fire.

One Rohingya survivor told the Special Rapporteur: “We can only forgive or be happy when justice is totally served, every single perpetrator is held accountable, and people are given compensation for their loss.”

This is not vengeance. It is the minimum demand of civilisation. And yet global policy still behaves as though time itself is a substitute for justice.

The international system has not been entirely absent. The Gambia's genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice is historic. The International Criminal Court prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing marked a long-overdue recognition that command responsibility must mean something. Argentina's universal jurisdiction case has also cracked open another legal front.

But these remain fragments of accountability in a landscape dominated by strategic hesitation. The UN Security Council has still not referred Myanmar to the ICC. No permanent member has meaningfully forced the question. ASEAN continues to perform the ritual of “constructive engagement” while civilians are bombed from the sky. Powerful states denounce atrocities while allowing supply chains, aviation fuel networks, arms transfers and financial channels to remain dangerously porous.

This contradiction is not just a moral failure. It is a policy failure. The strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific cannot be divorced from human security. Myanmar proves the point brutally. Instability in Rakhine is not a local tragedy; it is a regional fracture line touching Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. Refugee flows destabilise politics. Maritime insecurity expands. Extremist recruitment thrives where statelessness hardens into generational despair.

Cox's Bazar now hosts nearly one million Rohingya refugees, making it the largest refugee settlement on earth. Bangladesh has carried a burden that should have been shared globally. Yet donor fatigue is growing. The World Food Programme has repeatedly warned of ration cuts. Children born after the genocide are reaching adolescence, having never seen home, citizenship, or justice.

A generation is being raised inside the ruins of international law. From ASEAN's uneasy diplomacy to Brussels” declarations of values, from Washington's strategic calculations to the Gulf's growing economic reach, Myanmar cannot remain treated as a humanitarian file while the politics of impunity are politely avoided. Food aid without justice is not peace; it is the administration of despair. Refugee camps cannot become the world's substitute for accountability, nor can donor conferences replace courtrooms.

Bangladesh carries the unbearable weight of nearly one million Rohingya refugees, while Southeast Asia absorbs the tremors of instability through trafficking, maritime insecurity, and the slow corrosion of regional trust. Every delayed sanction, every protected business channel, every diplomatic handshake with military power tells survivors the same cruel message: survival is acknowledged, but justice is negotiable.

Humanitarian relief may keep people alive, but without accountability, it merely teaches perpetrators that atrocity has no real political cost.

This is no longer only Myanmar's tragedy; it is a referendum on the credibility of the international order itself. ASEAN's principle of non-interference cannot become a burial ground for human dignity. The European Union's human rights language must move beyond statements into enforceable consequences. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, carrying the moral weight of one of the world's most persecuted Muslim communities, must continue pressing the legal and diplomatic front with urgency.

African leadership, through The Gambia's extraordinary courage at the International Court of Justice, has already shown what principled action looks like when larger powers hesitate. Latin America's universal jurisdiction efforts have shown that geography is no excuse for silence. If genocide can be managed through fatigue, if ethnic cleansing can be absorbed into routine diplomacy, then international law becomes theatre, not protection.

The Rohingya crisis demands something far harder than sympathy—it demands that the world prove justice is stronger than strategic convenience.

Targeted sanctions must move beyond symbolism and focus on military-controlled revenue streams, especially oil, gas, aviation fuel and arms procurement networks. States should prepare now for a likely ICJ ruling on genocide and be ready to enforce consequences without hiding behind Security Council paralysis. Universal jurisdiction laws should be used, not merely praised in seminars. Military leaders emerging from sham elections should be treated not as legitimate statesmen but as alleged perpetrators of atrocity crimes.

The Special Rapporteur was right to state that Min Aung Hlaing belongs in a courtroom, not on a diplomatic red carpet.

There is also a harder truth: accountability must be designed with Rohingya voices at its centre, not appended later as consultation theatre. Too often, transitional justice is discussed by elites as architecture while survivors are asked to remain patient.

They are not patient. They are exhausted. A young Rohingya woman raised in Bangladesh told the UN: “If there's no accountability, it feels like our suffering doesn't matter.”

That sentence should haunt every foreign ministry. Because what is being tested in Myanmar is larger than one country. It is whether genocide can be politically survivable. Whether perpetrators can simply wait out outrage. Whether international law is a shield for the vulnerable or merely a language for commemorating failure.

There is a dangerous habit in diplomacy of confusing stability with silence. Myanmar's generals understand this perfectly. Every delayed prosecution, every softened communiqué, every invitation to normal diplomatic engagement teaches the same lesson: brutality is negotiable.

For the Rohingya, the lesson has already been written in blood. Justice will not restore the dead. It will not return burned villages exactly as they were. It will not erase the memory of mothers searching for children in the Naf River or fathers burying names without bodies.

But justice matters because impunity writes the future. Without it, the next massacre is only a matter of timing. The world once said “never again” for the Rohingya. It now faces a simpler question: did those words mean anything at all?

Intellectual giants are in painfully short supply in the Trump administration, but if there was anyone who might lay claim to cerebral weight of any sort, Elbridge Colby might be one of them. Self-styled as a China hawk, the US Under Secretary of War for Policy must privately be bemused by the changeling that has become US foreign policy, one now latched onto, yet again, the issues of the Middle East and the shaking tail that is Israel. President Donald Trump, the man who promised to end wars and terminate the state of permanent conflict the US has found itself in for decades, is sticking to bad habits.

These bad habits have not been appreciated by various allies, notably members of NATO. Spain, France and Italy have shown varying degrees of icy reserve to the use of their bases and airspace by US forces in striking Iran. The UK has been less firm on the issue, though its unpopular Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is adamant that no troops will be committed to the operation. These countries have also given the cold shoulder to deploying troops in any forceable operation to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Of all the allies, Spain has proven a model objector, arguing that the pre-emptive war launched by Israel and the US on 28 February was and remains illegal. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has stated at length, both in writing and in the press, that the assault was a chilling reminder about what happened in February 2003, when US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, spun that now all too familiar lie before the UN Security Council that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but was bound to use them, directly or through some unscrupulous proxy. “Today we face a similar situation,” wrote Sánchez in The Economist, “and my government's position is the same as that voiced by Spanish society two decades ago: NO TO WAR. No to the unilateral violation of international law. No to repeating the mistakes of the past. No to the idea that the world's problems can be solved with bombs.”

Spain has also peeved officials in Washington for being the least enthusiastic of the NATO partners in increasing defence spending to 5% of GDP. At the June 2025 NATO summit held at The Hague, Sánchez insisted that all members of the alliance had “the right and the obligation to choose whether or no to assume those sacrifices, and we as a sovereign country choose not to do so.” Spain would, he promised, spend 2.1% of its GDP on defence “to acquire and maintain all the personnel, equipment and infrastructures requested by the alliance to confront these threats with our capabilities.” Spain's opposition reaped the appropriate concession from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who confirmed that Madrid be granted “the flexibility to determine its own sovereign path for reaching the Capability Target goal and the annual resources necessary as a share of GDP, and to submit its own annual plans.”

At the time, Trump raged that he would make Spain “pay twice as much” through tariffs if they continued to maintain their more frugal stance on military spending. “Spain is the only country that refuses to pay. They want a free ride—but I won't let that happen.”

With Trump officials seething at European reluctance to muck in regarding the Iran conflict, options for retaliation are germinating in Washington. Some of these are available in a disciplinary note penned by Colby in considering the reluctance on the part of some allies to grant the US ABO (access, basing and overflight rights). ABO was the “absolute baseline for NATO.”

Spain is particularly important in this regard, given its hosting of two vital US facilities. Naval Station Rota (NAVSTA Rota), located in southern Spain, is described by the Pentagon as offering support for “Naval Forces Europe Africa Central (EURAFCENT), 6 Fleet and Combatant Commander strategic priorities by providing airfield and port facilities, security, force protection, logistical support, administrative support and emergency services to all US and NATO forces.” Morón Air Base, located near Seville, is seminal for operations given its proximity to the Mediterranean, Africa and Middle East.

In the email, Colby, according to a Reuters report, considers policies that are intended to decrease “the sense of entitlement on the part of the Europeans.” Member states deemed “difficult” might be suspended from essential or prestigious positions in the alliance. The claim by Britain to the Falkland Islands might also be reviewed.

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson, when asked about the plausibility of the email, summed up the moody atmosphere without giving much in the way of details. “As President Trump has said, despite everything the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us.” The Pentagon would “ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part. We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect.”

Sánchez sees little reason to worry. “We do not work based on emails,” he told reporters in response to Colby's ruminations. “We work with official documents and official positions taken, in this case, by the government of the United States.” Madrid was all for “full cooperation with its allies, but always within the framework of international law.”

Much blather on suspension or expulsion is likely to remain just that. NATO's founding treaty does not expressly stipulate the grounds for expelling recalcitrant members. Article 13 notes that, after the Treaty has been in force for two decades, “any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.”

The removal of any members from the 32 strong club is also likely to create much messy mayhem, given the consensus principle that members tend to follow on issues of significance. Security analyst Jack Buckby, writing in 19FortyFive, proposes a military disincentive as well. “Spain sits on NATO's southern flank and controls valuable territory along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. It also hosts infrastructure that the alliance already uses, and weakening that position to punish Madrid would carry a cost for NATO.” Yet another notch of distraction in an administration that specialises in the subject.

Italy marked its 81 Liberation Day anniversary on 25 April, highlighting the continuity of struggle against fascism during World War II and all iterations of imperialism today. “Cambiamo tutto—Let's change everything” was a prominent slogan across the country, reflecting the widespread demand for radical change, not unlike the one promised by the people's victory over fascism.

The date commemorates Italy's Liberation from fascist rule in 1945, celebrating the partisan resistance that made the establishment of democratic institutions possible. “25 April is a day of struggle, not only to keep alive the memory of the partisan resistance, but above all to continue moving forward in building an alternative,” the student collective CAU emphasized.

For years, left movements have worked to articulate the anniversary into more than mere commemoration, ensuring contemporary struggles are represented at rallies. As a result, this year, migrant and marginalized communities participated in many of the protests, while Liberation Day demonstrations were flooded with Palestinian and Cuban flags, affirming solidarity with ongoing liberation demands. On 25 April, CAU noted, the streets were to be filled with people who had opposed the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of the Italian government in war crimes in Palestine through strikes and encampments over the past three years.

“Today, the flags of socialist Cuba and Palestine flew around us, reminding us that being an antifascist today means being anti-imperialist, standing with the peoples who are resisting the aggression of the increasingly violent and warmongering West,” the Roman chapter of left party Potere al Popolo wrote. “We continue, carrying on the legacy of the partisans, to oppose the fascist government, building an autonomous and independent alternative alongside the oppressed peoples, in the spirit of the Resistance and against war.”

Cuban symbols reflected a massive solidarity drive in Italy, where students, trade unions, and activists have recently supported several missions to the socialist island as it faces renewed US assaults. In Rome, the mobilization paused at the Cuban embassy, where ambassador Jorge Luis Cepero emphasized that “the Cuban people are forged in the same spirit of the partisans.”

The alternatives sought by thousands of Liberation Day participants also extend to domestic policy, particularly opposing the Meloni government's agenda of securitization and militarization at the expense of workers. “25 April serves as a tangible reminder of a choice that was made—a choice that is once again relevant today in a period marked by war, economic crisis, and new forms of domination,” the grassroots trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) wrote. “This current model fuels war abroad and curtails civil liberties at home. Resources are diverted to military spending, while public sector wages and living standards are gradually eroded.”

These government actions, according to the Association of Partisans of Italy (ANPI), not only contest the country's antifascist legacy—in line with revisionist tendencies mirrored in the whole region—but also undermine the democratic progress made possible by liberation.

“Today, all of this is being called into question by a blind and barbaric return to war, nationalism, and fascism; peace and social justice are being undermined; technocrats, the owners of boundless financial empires, claim that democracy is incompatible with freedom; every form of international law is being trampled underfoot in the name of the absolute primacy of force,” ANPI wrote.

“Once again, it falls to us to work toward a new world and, together, to combat at its roots the current tide of authoritarianism, nationalism, and warmongering,” the organization proposed. “If there is a new fascism, there is also a new Resistance. And after the Resistance, there is always a Liberation.”

A chill has settled over the Gulf, and it is not merely the familiar unease of a turbulent region. It is sharper, more existential—a recognition that the old certainties of security are fraying. The shock of Israeli strikes reaching Qatari soil in 2025 did more than damage infrastructure; it punctured a deeply held assumption that external guarantees, particularly those anchored in Washington, would hold firm when tested. In that rupture, a new strategic imagination is taking shape—one that now stretches eastward to Islamabad.

Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Pakistan, signed in September 2025, and Qatar’s accelerating negotiations for a similar pact, are not routine defence arrangements. They are signals of a region quietly, yet profoundly, rebalancing. The language is unmistakable: an attack on one is an attack on both, echoing NATO’s Article 5. Yet this is not Europe, and this is not the Cold War. This is a multipolar Middle East, improvising its own architecture under the weight of uncertainty.

Pakistan’s appeal lies not in abstraction but in hard capability. With approximately 560,000 active military personnel, a battle-hardened army, and an arsenal that includes around 170 nuclear warheads, Islamabad offers something few others can: a full-spectrum deterrent. Its forces have been tempered by decades of counterinsurgency and conventional operations, while its air and naval capabilities—bolstered by Chinese platforms—extend its reach across domains. For Gulf states with wealth but limited manpower, this is not just complementary; it is transformative.

Yet the story is not simply about military arithmetic. It is about trust, or rather, the erosion of it. Gulf leaders have watched as missile and drone attacks—whether from Iranian proxies or state actors—have slipped through existing defence umbrellas. They have noted what many describe as “episodic gaps” in U.S. security commitments. This is not abandonment, but it is inconsistency—and in a region where minutes can determine survival, inconsistency is a strategic liability.

Turning to Pakistan is, therefore, an act of hedging. It allows Riyadh and Doha to diversify without severing ties to Washington. This is “effective burden-sharing,” shifting some responsibility for regional stability onto local actors. But it is also a subtle message: reliance will no longer be singular.

For Pakistan, the calculus is equally compelling. The Gulf has long been a financial lifeline, with Saudi support alone exceeding US$6 billion in recent deposits and loans. Formalising defence ties elevates that relationship into something more enduring—embedding Pakistan as a central node in Middle Eastern security. It also offers Islamabad a pathway to reduce its dependence on China, even as Chinese military hardware continues to underpin roughly 80 per cent of its arsenal.

There is, however, an unspoken dimension that lends these agreements their emotional gravity: nuclear ambiguity. While official statements remain cautious, the suggestion—however informal—that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent could extend to Gulf partners introduces a new and unsettling layer to regional dynamics. It places Saudi Arabia and potentially Qatar within what some analysts term a “nuclear gray zone,” echoing extended deterrence models seen in East Asia, yet without the same institutional safeguards.

This ambiguity cuts both ways. It may deter aggression from Iran or even constrain Israel’s strategic calculus, raising the costs of escalation. But it also risks provoking countermeasures. Tehran, already sensitive to encirclement, may interpret this as justification to accelerate its own nuclear ambitions. The delicate equilibrium of deterrence could harden into a more volatile standoff.

What makes Pakistan uniquely suited to this role is not just its military strength, but its diplomatic posture. Unlike many external powers, Islamabad has maintained working relationships across the region’s divides. It has resisted being drawn into sectarian conflicts, notably declining to join the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen in 2015. It engages Tehran even as it deepens ties with Riyadh. This balancing act—often precarious—grants Pakistan a degree of credibility as both protector and interlocutor.

Qatar’s interest underscores this dynamic. A small state with outsized diplomatic ambitions, Doha has long relied on a mix of soft power and strategic partnerships. The trauma of direct attack has recalibrated its risk tolerance. Integrating Pakistan’s operational expertise—through joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and potentially even force deployments—offers a pathway to resilience that purely technological solutions cannot ապահով.

Across the Gulf Cooperation Council, a pattern is emerging. Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE are all reportedly exploring deeper security linkages with Pakistan. This is not the formation of a formal alliance bloc, but rather an intricate web of bilateral ties that collectively reshape the region’s security architecture. The Atlantic Council has described this as the emergence of a “new security order,” one that operates alongside, but not subordinate to, Western frameworks.

For global strategists, the shift unfolding in the Gulf is not a regional curiosity—it is a warning flare in a world quietly shedding its old gravitational centre. The Middle East is not breaking with Washington, but it is no longer willing to orbit a single sun, and that instinct now echoes from Canberra to Brussels, from Delhi to Jakarta.

Middle powers across continents are developing a new survival strategy that includes hedging loyalty, diversifying risk, and weaving together overlapping security webs in an environment where certainty has become a luxury. This is not disintegration; it is adaptability born of discomfort, a communal realisation that the era of singular assurances is over. Instead, a more fluid, more nervous system emerges—one in which influence is bargained rather than inherited, and in which every state, large or little, learns to stand just far enough apart to be secure while remaining near enough to avoid standing alone.

Yet there is a deeper, more human dimension that must not be lost amid strategic calculations. Security pacts, however sophisticated, cannot substitute for political solutions. The risk is that a region already saturated with arms becomes further entangled in a logic of deterrence that leaves little room for de-escalation. civilians—in Gaza, in Yemen, in Iraq—bear the cost when deterrence fails.

Analysts warned that alliances are only as durable as the alignment of interests that sustain them. Today, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan share a convergence of concerns: Iranian influence, Israeli assertiveness, and doubts about external guarantees. Tomorrow, those priorities may shift. History offers sobering lessons—CENTO, SEATO—where formal commitments dissolved under the pressure of diverging interests.

And yet, there is also opportunity. If channelled wisely, this emerging alignment could stabilise rather than destabilise. Pakistan’s involvement may introduce a moderating influence, given its own interest in avoiding regional wars that could spill over into South Asia. It could also create new avenues for dialogue, leveraging Islamabad’s relationships with multiple parties.

The challenge, then, is not to resist this transformation, but to shape it. Transparency, confidence-building measures, and renewed diplomatic engagement are essential. Without them, the Gulf’s search for security may inadvertently deepen the very insecurities it seeks to escape.

A new map of Middle Eastern security is being drawn—not with bold announcements, but with careful, calculated strokes. In Riyadh and Doha, in Islamabad’s corridors of power, decisions are being made that will reverberate far beyond the region. The question is whether this emerging order will harden dividing lines, or whether it can, against the odds, carve out space for a more stable and humane future.

A 2024 Treasury Department report articulated the leading cause of homelessness in the United States: “For the past two decades, rents and house prices have been rising faster than incomes across most regions of the United States.” The logic of this claim—based on documented evidence—is straightforward. People aren't earning enough to pay rent or their home mortgage, and subsequently end up living in cars or on the streets.

But, to the Cicero Institute, a right-wing, Texas-based think tank, people choose to become homeless so that they can take advantage of publicly funded housing. According to Cicero's website, “Permanent supportive housing doesn't address homelessness—it creates demand for more homelessness.”

Such a claim would be ridiculed as disconnected from reality. Except that Cicero, created by tech billionaire and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, is promoting a dystopian solution to homelessness that includes bans on street camping, involuntarily institutionalizing mentally ill people, and building camps outside cities for unhoused people. According to the Housing Not Handcuffs campaign, as of April 2026, 22 states across the country are considering or have passed legislation based on Cicero's ideas.

Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Centerhas strong words for Cicero's policies, calling them “racist, backwards, and frankly, ineffective solutions to homelessness that focus on jails and arrests and forcing people off of the streets.”

“Billionaires and politicians have fundamentally misdiagnosed the cause of homelessness,” says Rabinowitz. “There is a mistaken but pervasive belief that homelessness is a choice, that people are choosing to sleep outside, and that if we make it a crime to be homeless and make homelessness harder, people will choose something else.”

This dangerous right-wing vision of tackling homelessness is flourishing in Donald Trump's America. The president, in a disturbing 2023 campaign video, denounced homeless people as “deeply unwell” and “dangerously deranged” who are ruining the quality of working people's lives and promised he would use every tool to “get the homeless off our streets.”

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis echoed this language. Instead of acknowledging that no one should be forced onto the streets because they can't afford rent, he said, “You should not be accosted by a homeless, like we see. You should be able to walk down the street and live your life.” Instead of promising all Floridians the ability to live safely, he instead offered a vision of a state where the homeless disappear from view: “We're going to have clean sidewalks. We're going to have clean parks. We're going to have safe streets.”

Study after study proves the obvious—that when housing is too expensive, people can't afford it. “Every time rents go up $100, homelessness increases by 9 percent,” explainsRabinowitz. “People should think back. How many times in the past decade has the rent gone up by $100? That is why more people are sleeping outside and have nowhere else to live.”

Cicero's vision is most notably being realized in Utah, where state authorities are building a 1,300-bed camp for homeless people on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, complete with in-house facilities to force people into treatment for mental health and addiction. Cicero's Devon Kurtz called Utah's experiment “a harbinger of the future.”

“The foremost goal is not to punish,” said Kurtz in an NPR interview. “But,” he added, “there are situations where we just can't accept the status quo.”

The status quo is that people are being priced out of their homes, but rather than address the causes of homelessness, Kurtz, Trump, DeSantis, and other conservatives want to spare themselves the sight of homeless people, to punish them for falling through the gaping cracks of the modern American economy.

To be fair, liberal mayors and Democratic politicians have also embraced similar approaches minus the overtly dystopian rhetoric. For example, in Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass has backed a program that pushes the unhoused into motels as transitional housing. She has come under criticism from housing rights groups for failing to back permanent housing solutions and address the root causes of homelessness. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom has instituted bans on encampments and criminalized homeless people.

The failures of Democratic politicians to effectively tackle homelessness have only fed right-wing derision toward permanent housing and other proven solutions rooted in addressing inequality.

In addition to state-level bills to force the unhoused into camps, the Trump regime has wrecked long-standing federal housing policies enacted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In December 2025, HUD staffers struggled to keep unhoused people safe in harsh winter conditions, with their funding being slashed. Trump took a page straight out of Cicero's book in ending federal “housing first” policies that emphasize subsidized housing and meeting homeless people's needs.

As worthy as pre-Trump federal housing policies have been, they were never comprehensive enough. Rabinowitz traces the failures of federal housing policy to former President Ronald Reagan's decimation of public housing.

“We know the solution to homelessness is housing and supports,” says Rabinowitz. “At the same time, since at least the ’80s, the federal government has abandoned its responsibility to ensure that everyone has a safe place to live. So, cities and states across the country are left carrying the water for decades of failed federal housing policy.”

Because downstream solutions such as subsidized housing and other government supports don't go far enough, and because there is no political will to implement upstream solutions to rising wealth inequality and housing costs, homelessness continues to be a serious problem.

A recent California-based experiment sheds light on this. As part of a partnership between nonprofit organization Miracle Messages and the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, 103 unhoused people were given $750 in cash per month between 2022 and 2024. Recipients who received this basic income spent it on necessities such as food, transportation, and housing costs. But, after a year, the funding did not drastically change long-term outcomes. Researchers concluded that, “While $750 a month helps, it doesn't come close to covering rent in high-cost areas like the Bay Area or Los Angeles.” The solution is more money, not less.

“We will never solve homelessness until we address the underlying factors, the number one of which is that the rent is just too damn high,” says Rabinowitz. “We know that housing solves homelessness. There's just not nearly enough [affordable housing] to go around,” he added.

Rabinowitz's organization launched an effort in early 2026 to prevent tax dollars from subsidizing camps for the unhoused, as Utah is doing. The “No Federal Funding for Homeless Detention Camps” campaign has harnessed the political support of progressive elected officials and nonprofits to demand that federal tax dollars don't go toward such projects.

“Hiding the problem doesn't solve the problem,” says Rabinowitz. “Just like you wouldn't want your kids to sweep all of their crumbs under the rug, we don't want to hide homelessness.”

A line drawn on a map can sometimes feel abstract—until it begins to erase lives. Israel’s newly declared “Yellow Line” in southern Lebanon is not merely a tactical demarcation; it is the latest manifestation of a doctrine that has steadily reshaped realities from Gaza to the Levant’s northern frontier. What is unfolding is not an isolated security manoeuvre but a pattern—one that raises profound questions about sovereignty, legality, and the durability of international norms.

In April 2026, Israel publicly marked a 5–10 kilometre zone inside Lebanese territory that it intends to control, backed by the deployment of five military divisions and naval support. As is typical of official Israeli framing, the move is presented as a buffer against Hezbollah, echoing long‑standing strategic thinking in which distance equals security.

Yet, as has become familiar, the human and political cost of this logic is staggering. Entire villages have been flattened, not in the heat of battle but often after hostilities had subsided. Amnesty International has documented widespread destruction where no active combatants were present, casting serious doubt on claims of military necessity.

There is an uncomfortable familiarity to this approach. Gaza has already served as the testing ground. There, similar “buffer zones” have expanded and contracted in pursuit of military objectives, leaving behind depopulated corridors and devastated infrastructure. The replication of this model in Lebanon signalssomething more deliberate than reactive defence. It suggests a transferable doctrine—one that normalises the systematic emptying of civilian spaces under the language of security.

The numbers tell a bleak story. By late April, about 62,000 homes in southern Lebanon had been destroyed or severely damaged, displacing more than a million people. Water systems, electricity networks, and medical facilities have not been spared. Within days of the escalation, strikes on at least seven major water installations were recorded. As the International Committee of the Red Cross has bluntly warned, a war on essential infrastructure is a war on civilians. Such actions risk crossing the threshold into collective punishment, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.

What makes this moment particularly consequential is not only the scale of destruction but its strategic layering. Southern Lebanon is not just contested terrain; it is resource-rich and geopolitically sensitive. The Israeli-defined buffer zone encompasses areas linked to offshore gas fields, including the disputed Qana prospect. Even though exploratory drilling has cast doubt on the field’s immediate viability, its symbolic and future economic value remains significant.

Control over such an area has far-reaching ramifications beyond immediate security concerns, including long-term economic leverage and regional energy politics.

Water, too, sits at the heart of this unfolding crisis. The Litani River basin, a vital resource for Lebanon, lies within reach of the newly asserted zone. Analysts and local experts increasingly interpret the strategy as one that intertwines security with resource control. In a region where water scarcity is intensifying, such dynamics cannot be dismissed as incidental. They risk embedding environmental and economic asymmetries into an already volatile conflict.

From a legal standpoint, the “Yellow Line” occupies deeply contested ground. International law does not recognise unilateral buffer zones imposed by force. Protected or demilitarised areas require mutual agreement to carry legitimacy. Lebanon’s government has unequivocally rejected the arrangement as a violation of its sovereignty, and rightly so. When borders become fluid under military pressure, the foundational principle of territorial integrity begins to erode—not just for Lebanon, but for the international system as a whole.

The ambiguity of ceasefire frameworks compounds this erosion. The current arrangement, brokered with external mediation, simultaneously calls for cessation of hostilities while preserving Israel’s right to self-defence. This duality creates a permissive environment in which continued military actions can be justified, even as they undermine the spirit of the truce. Reports of hundreds of violations within days underscore how fragile—and perhaps illusory—such agreements can be.

For global strategists, the ramifications go far beyond the Israel-Lebanon border, pointing to a very troubling pattern in which military doctrine, resource ambition, and territory domination merge under the guise of security. What is happening is not just the creation of a temporary buffer, but the systematic hollowing out of civilian life—through widespread destruction of homes, deliberate targeting of water and energy infrastructure, and the forced displacement of more than a million people—actions that leading humanitarian organisations have warned may constitute war crimes.

The repetition of this model, first refined in Gaza and now transposed onto southern Lebanon, signals an emerging strategic continuity: depopulate, dominate, and redraw the operational landscape in ways that blur the boundary between defence and de facto annexation. The inclusion of resource-rich zones—whether offshore gas fields like Qana or critical water systems linked to the Litani basin—deepens concerns that this is not solely about neutralising threats, but about reshaping control over land and assets in ways that could become irreversible.

The moral weight of this reality is profound: entire communities erased, return rendered uncertain, and sovereignty reduced to a negotiable concept under military pressure. For the international system, the danger lies in the precedent—if such actions are absorbed without consequence, they risk normalising a doctrine where overwhelming force can reorder borders and lives alike, leaving international law diminished and collective trust dangerously eroded.

There is also a deeper, more intangible cost: the corrosion of trust. International law relies not only on enforcement but on shared belief in its legitimacy. When powerful states are perceived to operate outside these boundaries with limited consequence, that belief weakens. The result is a more fragmented and unpredictable global order, where smaller states feel increasingly vulnerable, and alliances become more brittle.

Sustainable security cannot be achieved through territorial denial alone; stability emerges from political agreements, mutual recognition, and the protection of civilian life. The current trajectory in Lebanon—and previously in Gaza—moves in the opposite direction. It entrenches grievances, fuels displacement, and risks perpetuating cycles of violence that no buffer zone can contain.

There is an emotional weight to this as well, one that cannot be captured solely through policy analysis. Entire communities are being transformed into no-man’s lands, their histories buried under rubble. The psychological imprint of such displacement lingers for generations, shaping identities and narratives that resist reconciliation.

For middle powers, and indeed the larger community of nations that rely on predictability rather than abstract force, the current moment necessitates considerably more forceful diplomacy than cautious diplomacy. When patterns of widespread destruction, forced displacement, and targeting of civilian infrastructure are met with ambiguous language or procedural delays, a dangerous signal is sent: that the erosion of international law can occur in increments, unchallenged, until it is truly embedded.

The issue is no longer confined to one geography; it reverberates through every region where sovereignty rests not on power but on recognition. If the deliberate flattening of villages, the weaponisation of water and electricity, and the quiet expansion of territorial control under security pretexts are absorbed into the normal conduct of statecraft, then the rules that protect smaller nations begin to fracture. What is at stake is not simply accountability for one actor, but whether the international system retains any meaningful red lines when confronted with sustained, systemic violations.

At a deeper level, this is a test of whether global governance can still function as a moral and strategic anchor in an increasingly fragmented world. Diplomatic engagement must evolve beyond ritual statements into coordinated pressure that carries consequence—through independent investigations, legal mechanisms, and the protection of civilians as a non-negotiable priority rather than a rhetorical afterthought.

There is also a need for imaginative statecraft: coalitions that cut across traditional alliances, resource-sharing frameworks that reduce incentives for territorial capture, and enforcement mechanisms that restore credibility to international commitments. The moral gravity cannot be overstated—entire populations watching their homes erased, their futures suspended, while the world deliberates.

If this moment passes without clarity or conviction, it risks entrenching a precedent where power redraws reality and law struggles to keep pace, leaving a generation to inherit not a rules-based order, but a landscape shaped by the endurance of the strongest.

What is at stake is not just the future of southern Lebanon or the security calculus of Israel. It is the credibility of a global system that claims to balance power with principle. Lines on maps will always be drawn and redrawn, but when they are etched through the displacement of civilians and the erosion of sovereignty, they leave scars that extend far beyond their borders.

The Yellow Line, then, is more than a boundary. It is a test of law, of leadership, and of whether the international community is willing to confront the uncomfortable realities of power when it collides with principle.

Not much good comes from war. Qualifying exceptions, however, can be found. The United Nations, tarnished, libelled and mocked for being simultaneously ineffectual and intrusive, was the mediating entity for international relations that grew from the calamities of the Second World War. Without that somewhat frail body, it is hard to imagine how the patchwork of human rights, however uneven, could have been stitched. The Iran War, and the consequential choking of the Strait of Hormuz by Tehran and Washington respectively have also had an unintended, meliorating effect. If the pressing dangers of climate change cannot push fossil fuel exporters and consumers to wean themselves off their diet of extraction and carbon emission, the panic caused by economic shock may well do the trick.

Despite the pageantry that circles around the now familiar Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), progress on limiting the rise of global temperature remains tardy and constipated. The annual COP talks have become ceremonies of fatigue and inanition, often influenced by petrostates and avid fossil fuel lobbyists. The COP30 talks held in Brazil last November typified the mood. The final COP 30 agreement, entitled “Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change,” failed to even mention the role of fossil fuels. (The same can be said of the 2015 Paris Agreement.) Fossil fuels—that devil in the detail—only debuts in the 2023 COP28 conference, with the call to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”

The insipid outcome of COP30 was enough to spur Colombia and the Netherlands to announce their co-hosting of the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, a step as part of the Belém Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. “This will be,” explained Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia's Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, “a broad intergovernmental, multisectoral platform complementary to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] designed to identify legal, economic, and social pathways that are necessary to make the phasing out of fossil fuels.”

The talks that began on 24 April at the coastal town of Santa Marta, Colombia, are the genesis of that promise. While the list of attendees has conspicuous omissions—the United States, China and India are not among their number—a number of prominent fossil fuel states are. Such absentees as the US did not trouble Torres. “We knew they weren't going to be here. We weren't expecting them to be here because their energy policy and their economic policy is to “drill, baby, drill.’” Not only would the conference not be for them, Torres could express her relief that no one would be “boycotting” the endeavour.

Among the 60 states, we find Australia, Canada and Nigeria. Likewise Brazil, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Countries heavily dependent on such commodities—Pakistan and the Philippines, for instance—are also on the list of participants.

The format of the conference purposely departs from the clumsy, ungainly model of the COP talks. The gathering is smaller and winnowed of any potential saboteurs and fossil fuel touters. It comprises an academic conference, a people's summit and two days of more formal engagements between government officials. Individuals from the private sector have also been invited, but only those sympathetic to the conference's principles and aims.

The eventual report produced by the co-hosts will take into account discussions and deliberations premised on three pillars. The first deals with economic dependence on fossil fuels, a particularly critical matter for poorer states unable or challenged in achieving an energy transition. The second focuses on how best to deal with the supply and demand of fossil fuels, a problem aggravated by the current energy crisis. The third pillar is built around “international cooperation and climate diplomacy” which can cover such matters as the problematic investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system. ISDS has offered much security and succour to fossil fuel companies keen to protect their investments against the perceived predations of climate change policies.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's climate commissioner, explained the importance of the gathering to Politico: “It is hugely important that the Colombians and the Dutch and others have set this up, because we all see how wrecked the COP process is, how vulnerable it is to naysayers and those who want to derail it.” The unifying theme here was “the need to find an alternative. And if anything, world events of the last six weeks have proven them right.”

The scientists are sticking, understandably, to the message of environmental danger. “Breaking through 1.5°C means we enter a far more dangerous world—with more frequent and intense droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves—and we are already approaching critical tipping points in major Earth systems,” says the consistently gloomy Johan Rockströmm, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change. But the energy supply crisis produced by the Iran War may well reinvigorate what seemed to be an expiring patient.

Students of the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb staged a walkout in solidarity with Palestine on Friday, 24 April, after reports that Iddo Netanyahu—brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on suspicion of war crimes—held a secret guest lecture at the institution earlier that week.

Accompanied by Israel's ambassador to Croatia, Gary Koren, Netanyahu's visit was facilitated by faculty lecturer Boris Havel, locally known for his promotion of Zionism.

“Yesterday, in silence and without any announcement, as if hiding from the students he came to meet, Iddo Netanyahu walked into our faculty,” one of the students stated. “He was brought in to hold a book promotion at the course “Oriental Jews and Arabs in the time of Zionism’—without any notice on the faculty's website, without any academic transparency.”

Students expressed deep anger about the secrecy surrounding Netanyahu's visit and disdain at the content of the conversation. “A question was raised at the lecture: is the price of peace worth more than 60,000 Palestinian lives?” students said. “To that, Netanyahu replied, “Yes, a simple question. It's worth it if it means the survival of Israel.’”

“When someone said that the number of children killed in Palestine was around 20,000, his response was: “Well, children die in wars,’” they emphasized. “He shamelessly replied that children had been killed here in Croatia too, among Croats, Muslims, and others; in World War II, in the bombing of Dresden; but that this is “the nature of conflict.’”

“That's 1,000 school classes of children. One thousand classes that will never have the chance to set foot in college, and Iddo Netanyahu walks into ours to make statements like this.”

“Netanyahu's words were those of an illegal occupier, of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity,” another student said on Friday. “Our faculty has been turned into a testing ground for the propaganda of crime.”

Students demanded accountability, warning that the hosting damaged the institution's reputation and called for an investigation into Havel's actions and his suspension. “Open Zionism, sexism, misogyny, and the giving and spreading of absolute support for the regime that is right now, as we stand here, committing genocide against Palestine—supporting such violence means spreading it,” they said of the lecturer's behavior.

As the walkout took place, the Faculty of Political Science issued a statement emphasizing they were not aware of the guest lecture taking place. “The organizer of the lecture, which was not announced to either the Administration or the students, did not take into account the well-being of the students and the integrity of the institution where they work, nor the broader socio-political context,” their statement said.

This action followed recent student protests against Croatia and the EU's complicity in the genocide in Gaza. At the end of March, the group Students for Palestine organized rallies in Rijeka and Zagreb against Israel's involvement in the EU's Horizon program, which enables Israeli academic institutions and companies supporting the genocide to benefit from the bloc's funding. Students warned that cooperation between Croatian research centers and Israeli companies—including those in military and communications sectors—essentially turns local scientists into enablers of crimes.

Together with academic staff active in the Initiative for Academia of Solidarity and Epistemic Justice (IZASEP), students amplified calls for an academic boycott, symbolically telling Israel to “get off their horizon.”

While Croatian President Zoran Milanović has expressed criticism of Israeli authorities and summoned Koren over comments on Croatian foreign policy in the early phases of the illegal war waged by the United States and Israel on Iran, the right-wing government has maintained friendly relations with Israel. This continues despite public demands and dozens of protest actions since October 2023. Defense Minister Ivan Anušić recently traveled to Israel and, facing criticism upon returning, said “he would go again.”