Israel is accused of spraying chemicals on farmland inside Syria and Lebanon to destroy crops and plants. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Oghanna reports from Quneitra in southern Syria, where farmers say the damage is threatening their livelihoods.
Published On 10 Feb 202610 Feb 2026
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In 1948, as the foundations of the Israeli state were being laid upon the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (AFFFI), condemning the growing Zionist militancy within the settler Jewish community. “When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organisations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.”
Einstein — perhaps the most celebrated Jewish intellectual of the 20th century — refused to conflate his Jewish identity with the violence of Zionism. He turned down the offer to become Israel’s president, rejecting the notion that Jewish survival and self-determination should come at the cost of another people’s displacement and suffering. And yet, if Einstein were alive today, his words would likely be condemned under the current definitions of anti-Semitism adopted by many Western governments and institutions, including the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, now endorsed by most Australian universities.
Under the IHRA definition, Einstein’s outspoken criticism of Israel — he called its founding actors “terrorists” and denounced their betrayal of Jewish ethics — would render him suspect. He would be accused not only of delegitimising Israel, but also of anti-Semitism. His moral clarity, once visionary, would today be vilified.
That is why we must untangle the threads of Zionism, colonialism and human rights.
Einstein’s resistance to Zionism was not about denying Jewish belonging or rights; it was about refusing to build those rights on ethno-nationalist violence. He understood what too many people fail to grasp today: that Zionism and Judaism are not synonymous.
Zionism is a political ideology rooted in European colonial logics, one that enforces Jewish supremacy in a land shared historically by Palestinian and other Levantine peoples. To criticise this ideology is not anti-Semitic; it is, rather, a necessary act of justice and a moral act of bearing witness. The religious symbolism that Israel uses is irrelevant in this respect. And yet, in today’s political climate, any critique of Israel — no matter how grounded it might be in international law, historical fact or humanitarian concern — is increasingly branded as anti-Semitism. This conflation shields from accountability a settler-colonial state, and it silences Palestinians and their allies from speaking out on the reality of their oppression. Billions in arms sales, stolen resources and apartheid infrastructure don’t just happen; they’re the reason that legitimate “criticism” gets rebranded as “hate”.
READ: Ex-Israel PM accuses Netanyahu of waging war on Israel
To understand Einstein’s critique, we must confront the truth about Zionism itself. While often framed as a movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism in practice has operated as a colonial project of erasure and domination. The Nakba was not a tragic consequence of war, it was a deliberate blueprint for dispossession and disappearance. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has detailed how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, approved “Plan Dalet” on 10 March, 1948. This included the mass expulsion and execution of Palestinians to create a Jewish-majority state. As Ben-Gurion himself declared chillingly: “Every attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion.”
This is the basis of the Zionist state that we are told not to critique.
Einstein saw this unfolding and recoiled. In another 1948 open letter to the New York Times, he and other Jewish intellectuals described Israel’s newly formed political parties — like Herut (the precursor to Likud) — as “closely akin in… organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”
Einstein’s words were not hyperbole, they were a warning. Having fled Nazi Germany, he had direct experience with the defining traits of Nazi fascism. “From Israel’s past actions,” he wrote, “we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”
Today, we are living in the very future that Einstein feared, a reality marked by massacres in Gaza, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the denial of basic essentials such as water, electricity and medical aid. This is not about “self-defence”; it is the logic of colonial domination whereby the land theft continues and the violence escalates.
Einstein warned about what many still refuse to see: a state established on principles of ethnic supremacy and expulsion could never transcend its foundation ethos. Israel’s creation in occupied Palestine is Zionism in practice; it cannot endure without employing repression until resistance is erased entirely. Hence, the Nakba wasn’t a one-off event in 1948; it evolved, funded by Washington, armed by Berlin and enabled by every government that trades Palestinian blood for political favours.
Zionism cannot be separated from the broader history of European settler-colonialism. As Patrick Wolfe explains, the ideology hijacked the rhetoric of Jewish liberation to mask its colonial reality of re-nativism, with the settlers recasting themselves as “indigenous” while painting resistance as terrorism.
READ: Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinian school in occupied West Bank
The father of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, stated in his manifesto-novel Altneuland, “To build anew, I must demolish before I construct.” To him, Palestine was not seen as a shared homeland, but as a house to be razed to the ground and rebuilt by and for Jews alone. His ideology was made possible by British imperial interests to divide and dominate post-Ottoman territories. Through ethnic partition and military alliances embellished under the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the ironic Zionist-Nazi 1933 Haavara Agreement, the Zionist project aligned perfectly with the West’s goal, as per the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Israel is thus criticised because of its political ideology rooted in ethnonationalism and settler colonialism. Equating anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism is a disservice not only to Palestinians, but also to Jews, especially those who, like Einstein, refuse to have their identity weaponised in the service of war crimes. Zionism today includes Christian Zionists, military allies and Western politicians who benefit from Israel’s imperial reach through arms deals, surveillance technology and geostrategic partnerships.
Zionism is a global power structure, not a monolithic ethnic identity.
Many Jews around the world — rabbis, scholars, students and Holocaust survivors and their descendants — continue Einstein’s legacy by saying “Not in our name”. They reject the co-option of Holocaust memory to justify genocide in Gaza. They refuse to be complicit in what the Torah forbids: the theft of land and the murder of innocents. They are not “self-hating Jews”. They are the inheritors of a prophetic tradition of justice. And they are being silenced.
Perhaps the most dangerous development today is, therefore, Israel’s insistence on linking its crimes to Jewish identity. It frames civilian massacres, apartheid policies and violations of international law as acts done in the name of all Jews and Judaism. By tying the Jewish people to the crimes of a state, Israel risks exposing Jews around the world to collective blame and retaliation.
Einstein warned against this. And if Einstein’s vision teaches us anything, it is this: Justice cannot be compromised for comfort and profit. Truth must outlast repression. And freedom must belong to all. In the end, no amount of Israel’s militarisation of terminology, propaganda or geopolitical alliances can suppress a people’s resistance forever or outlast global condemnation. The only question left is: how much more blood will be spilled before justice prevails?
The struggle for clarity today is not just academic, it is existential. Without the ability to distinguish anti-Semitism from anti-Zionism, we cannot build a future where Jews and Palestinians all live in dignity, safety and peace. Reclaiming the term “Semite” in its full meaning, encompassing both Jews and Arabs, is critical. Further isolation of Arabs from their Semitic identity has enabled the dehumanisation of Palestinians and the erasure of shared Jewish-Arab histories, especially the centuries of coexistence, the Jewish-Muslim golden ages in places like Baghdad, Granada/Andalusia, Istanbul, Damascus and Cairo.
Einstein stood up for the future for us to reclaim it.
The way forward must be rooted in truth, justice and accountability. That means unequivocally opposing anti-Semitism in all its forms, but refusing to allow the term to be manipulated as a shield for apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonial domination. It means affirming that Jewish safety must never come at the price of Palestinian freedom, and that Palestinian resistance is not hatred; it is survival.
And if Einstein would be silenced today, who will speak tomorrow?
OPINION: Palestinian voices are throttled by the promotion of foreign agendas
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
KANYE West accused Kim Kardashian of ‘flirting’ with Lewis Hamilton years before she entered into a relationship with the F1 driver, The Sun can reveal.
We revealed over the weekend that Lewis, 41, and Kim, 45, are in a new relationship, with the pair enjoying a string of international dates over recent weeks.
The reality star and entrepreneur has known Ferrari driver Lewis for over a decade, but things only recently turned romantic.
However, her ex-husband Kanye, 48, had previously accused her of flirting with Lewis when they were together.
Kim and Kanye were married from 2014 until 2021, and a source tells us that the Yeezy owner’s jealous streak especially came out around Lewis.
“It was so awkward as when they were together, Kanye would always fly into jealous rages and accuse Kim of flirting with Lewis,” revealed the source.
They continued: “She wasn’t – of course – but Kanye was always so erratic that if Kim was even friendly with someone he’d accuse her of something.”
Kim and Kanye share children; and cited “irreconcilable differences” as a reason for their divorce five years ago.
Lewis was a friend of both Kim and Kanye, with them bonding over a shared love for fashion. The sportsman even spent Easter at the house they shared as a married couple back in 2016.
The Sun understands Kim and Lewis have been growing close for a number of months, with the pair attending actress Kate Hudson’s New Year’s Eve party together.
The new couple have enjoyed several dates in different cities over recent weeks, including London and Paris, to fit around Kim’s work commitments.
Earlier this week, a source told The Sun: “Kim and Lewis have such intense working schedules so they’re keen to spend as much time together as possible.
“Right now, they’re inseparable and are fitting their dates around Kim’s work commitments.”
Kim had to be in Paris to attend a NikeSkims event – her brand’s collaboration with Nike.
Taking Lewis along with her, the pair stayed at luxurious hotel Le Bristol, and ate in private during their stay.
A source revealed: “Kim absolutely loves spending time in Paris and wanted Lewis to go with her. Her work is so important to her but it’s all things she can slot around spending time with Lewis.
“They’re both used to travelling all over the world while working so doing it together means they can spend proper time with each other.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Wednesday asked a federal court to grant a subpoena forcing Nike to provide information related to complaints of systemic discrimination against the shoemaker’s white workers. File Photo by Wu Hong/EPA-EFE
Feb. 4 (UPI) — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a federal lawsuit seeking information regarding allegations of discrimination against athletic shoemaker Nike Inc.
The EEOC has received complaints of systemic race discrimination against white workers via Nike’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and other mechanisms, the federal agency said in a news release on Wednesday.
The EEOC filed its request for a court order for information on the matter in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri, which is located in St. Louis.
“When there are compelling indications, including corporate admissions in extensive public materials, that an employer’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-related programs may violate federal prohibitions against race discrimination or other forms of unlawful discrimination, the EEOC will take all necessary steps — including subpoena enforcement actions — to ensure the opportunity to fully and comprehensively investigate,” said EEOC Chairwoman Andrea Lucas.
“Title VII’s prohibition of race-based employment discrimination is colorblind and requires the EEOC to protect employees of all races from unlawful employment practices,” Lucas said.
The federal agency is investigating claims that accuse Nike of engaging in a “pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white employees, applicants and training program participants in hiring, promotion, demotion or separation decisions,” the EEOC said in a news release.
The alleged discrimination includes selections for layoffs, internship programs and mentoring, leadership development and other career development programs, according to the EEOC.
The agency’s investigation and subsequent subpoena seek information involving allegations dating back to 2018, including the criteria used when choosing which workers would be laid off and the company’s tracking and use of worker race and ethnicity data.
The EEOC wants information on 16 Nike programs that are said to have provided race-restricted mentoring, leadership and career development opportunities.
Agency officials initially sought voluntary cooperation from Nike while undertaking the investigation.
Lacking cooperation, the EEOC filed the legal action seeking a federal court subpoena that compels Nike officials to provide the sought-after information.
MEXICO CITY — Historians and observers accused the Trump administration of trying to rewrite American history to justify its own foreign policy decisions toward Latin America by posting a “historically inaccurate” version of the Mexican-American war.
The Monday statement from the White House commemorating the anniversary of the war described the conflict as a “legendary victory that secured the American Southwest, reasserted American sovereignty, and expanded the promise of American independence across our majestic continent.” The statement drew parallels between the period in U.S. history and its own increasingly aggressive policies toward Latin America, which it said would “ensure the Hemisphere remains safe.”
“Guided by our victory on the fields of Mexico 178 years ago, I have spared no effort in defending our southern border against invasion, upholding the rule of law, and protecting our homeland from forces of evil, violence, and destruction,” the statement said, though it was unsigned.
In the post, the White House makes no mention of the key role slavery played in the war and glorifies the wider “Manifest Destiny” period, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans from their land.
Alexander Aviña, Latin American history professor at Arizona State University, said the White House statement “underplays the massive amounts of violence that it took to expand” the U.S. to the Pacific shore at a time when the Trump administration has stuck its hand in Latin American affairs in a way not seen in decades, deposing Venezuela’s president, meddling in elections and threatening military action in Mexico and other countries.
“U.S. political leaders since then have seen this as an ugly aspect of U.S. history, this is a pretty clear instance of U.S. imperialism against its southern neighbor,” Aviña said. “The Trump administration is actually embracing this as a positive in U.S. history and framing it – inaccurately historically – as some sort of defensive measure to prevent the Mexico from invading them.”
On Tuesday, criticisms of the White House statement quickly rippled across social media.
Asked about the statement in her morning news briefing, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum guffawed, quipping and noting “we have to defend sovereignty.” Sheinbaum, who has walked a tight rope with the Trump administration, has responded to Trump with a balanced tone and occasionally with sarcasm, like when Trump changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The Mexican-American war (1846–1848) was triggered by long-running border disputes between the U.S. and Mexico and the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845. For years leading up to the war, Americans had gradually moved into the then-Mexican territory. Mexico had banned slavery and U.S. abolitionists feared the U.S. land grab was in part an attempt to add slave states.
After fighting broke out and successive U.S. victories, Mexico ceded more than 525,000 square miles of territory — including what now comprises Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah — to the U.S.
The moment turned Texas into a key chess piece during the U.S. Civil War and led former President Ulysses S. Grant to write later that the conflict with Mexico was “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”
The Associated Press was formed when five New York City newspapers funded a pony express route through Alabama to bring news of the Mexican War — as it is sometimes known in the U.S. — north faster than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it.
The war continues to be a historical sticking point between the two countries, particularly as Sheinbaum repeatedly reminds Trump that her country is a sovereign nation whenever Trump openly weighs taking military action against Mexican cartels and pressures Mexico to bend to its will.
The White House statement falls in line with wider actions taken by the Trump administration to mold the federal government’s language around its own creed, said Albert Camarillo, history professor at Stanford University, who described the statement as a “distorted, ahistorical, imperialist version” of the war.
Aviña said the statement serves “to assert rhetorically that the U.S. is justified in establishing its so-called ‘America First’ policy throughout the Americas,” regardless of the historical accuracy.
The Trump administration has ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution, saying it was “restoring truth and sanity to American history.”
The administration has scrubbed government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable. Trump also ordered the government to remove any signs that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” including those making reference to slavery, destruction of Native American cultures and climate change.
“This statement is consistent with so many others that attempt to whitewash and reframe U.S. history and erase generations of historical scholarship,” Camarillo said.
Janetsky writes for the Associated Press.
Social media influencer Sammy Yahood is known to spread Islamophobic content online.
Published On 27 Jan 202627 Jan 2026
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Australia has cancelled the visa of an Israeli social media influencer who has campaigned against Islam, saying it will not accept visitors to the country who come to spread hatred.
Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said in a statement on Tuesday that “spreading hatred is not a good reason to come” to Australia, hours after influencer Sammy Yahood announced that his visa was cancelled three hours before his flight departed from Israel.
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People who want to visit Australia should apply for the correct visa and come for the right reasons, Burke said in a statement to the AFP news agency.
Just hours before his visa was cancelled, Yahood had written on X, “Islam ACCORDING TO ISLAM does not tolerate non-believers, apostates, women’s rights, children’s rights, or gay rights.”
He also referred to Islam as a “disgusting ideology” and an “aggressor”.
Australia tightened its hate crime laws earlier this month in response to a mass shooting at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which left 15 people dead.
In a recent post, Yahood, a native of the UK and a recent citizen of Israel, had also advocated for the deportation of United States Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American, who is Muslim.
In another, he ridiculed the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which is responsible for coordinating relief for Palestinians and Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Israel began bulldozing UNRWA’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem last week, a move strongly condemned by the world body and Palestinian leaders, who said the flattening of the site marked a “barbaric new era” of unchecked defiance of international law by Israeli authorities.
Despite the cancellation of his visa to Australia, Yahood said he flew from Israel to Abu Dhabi, but was blocked from getting his connecting flight to Melbourne.
“I have been unlawfully banned from Australia, and I will be taking action,” he wrote on X.
“This is a story about tyranny, censorship and control,” he added in another post.
Yahood’s visa was reportedly cancelled under the same legislation that has been used in the past to reject people’s visas on the grounds of disseminating hatred.
Sky News Australia reported that Minister Burke previously revoked the visitor visa of Israeli-American activist and tech entrepreneur Hillel Fuld over his “Islamophobic rhetoric”, as well as the visa of Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker with Israel’s far-right Mafdal-Religious Zionism party and a member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that his planned speaking tour in the country would “spread division”.
The conservative Australian Jewish Association, which had invited Yahood to speak at events in Sydney and Melbourne, said it “strongly condemned” the visa decision by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government.
Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges against him Monday and was ordered detained as his case proceeds.
Wedding, who authorities say was in hiding for more than a decade and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, was arrested last week. He faces 17 felonies in two separate indictments.
During the court hearing at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding, who wore a beige jail uniform and black Crocs, scanned the gallery and occasionally smirked. Hulking and tattooed, the 6’3” Wedding towered over his attorney and the deputy marshals standing guard in the courtroom.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Early ordered Wedding jailed without bond and set the next hearing for February 11.
The judge set a tentative trial date in March, although Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, said it would likely take more time for the case to unfold.
Colombo did not argue for his client’s release on Monday afternoon, later citing “the whirlwind” Wedding had experienced since his apprehension.
“It takes time to put the sureties in place, to have the information for the court to establish that there’s a condition or combination of conditions that could secure his release,” Colombo told reporters. “We were not in the position today to do that and we anticipate addressing that at a later date.”
Colombo said he first met with his client several days ago, after his arrival in the U.S., and described him as being “in good spirits.” Colombo disputed claims from federal authorities that Wedding had been in hiding out in Mexico.
“Hiding out and living somewhere are two different things,” Colombo said. “I would characterize him as living, the government can characterize it their way.”
Colombo added that his client was arrested and “he did not surrender.”
Wedding, who was known by many aliases, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of becoming a major trafficker of cocaine into Canada and the United States and a ruthless leader who ordered killings, including one of a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him. The alleged order resulted in the victim being shot to death in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025, prosecutors said.
The former Olympic snowboarder was charged in a 2024 indictment with running a continuing criminal enterprise, assorted drug trafficking charges and directing the murders of two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.
“Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” Patel said in a news conference Friday announcing the arrest. “He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”
When questioned about authorities likening his client to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, Colombo said “I think it’s overstated, that’s their spin.”
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said last week that Wedding’s alleged global drug trafficking organization “used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.”
Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said after Wedding’s capture that his alleged organization shipped approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine through Southern California on its way to Canada.
Authorities have arrested 36 people in connection with their role in the transnational organization and the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned 19 people, including Wedding, according to Davis.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.
Wedding competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
An experienced attorney, Colombo previously represented Rubén Oseguera González, also known as “El Menchito,” the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Oseguera González was sentenced last year to a term of life in prison plus 30 years to run consecutively for his role in a major drug trafficking conspiracy.
