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The Nobel Prize for Non-Peace, 2026 edition

By: A A
13 October 2026 at 10:44

Sacrifice the inconvenient, never the project. “Pal-washing” in action.

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A familiar script

On 9 October 2026, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Navanethem Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist, former judge at the International Criminal Court and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The citation speaks of a person who has paved the way for a more comprehensive global legal order. The Committee’s chair, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, added that the prize is a message to those who attack and undermine the international system and its institutions. The verdict is avowedly political, and it is on this level that it must be discussed.

The very same figure who, in 2011, is said to have ‘toppled’ Gaddafi, paving the way for the plundering of Libyan oil and the enslavement of African migrants, would now ‘topple’ Netanyahu, thereby paving the way for Israel’s rehabilitation. The underlying logic would be neither morality nor peace, but the agenda of George Soros’s Open Society: to sacrifice those who have become inconvenient, never the essence of the project itself. Some have dubbed it ‘pal-washing’. The fundamental question is a serious one, for it asks whether there is a pattern behind the prizes and jurisdictions of the liberal order.

It must be emphasised that the script is already familiar. Do you remember when Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, whilst launching war after war? Or do you recall figures in search of a cause such as Machado, Mohammadi, or the defenders of Ukrainian criminals? But let us proceed in order.

Act One: Libya

In February 2011, Pillay, the High Commissioner, called on the Human Rights Council to take vigorous action to stop the violence and hold those responsible to account; the Council condemned the violations and established a commission of inquiry. The next step fell to the Security Council: referral to the ICC via Resolution 1970, followed by Resolution 1973, approved with ten votes in favour and five abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russia). No one claims that Pillay decided to go to war. What matters is the sequence of events: the language of human rights opened the door, that of the protection of civilians authorised the use of force, and the operation gradually shifted towards regime change. As early as April, Lavrov was accusing NATO of exceeding its mandate, and a French minister admitted that regime change would have required a new vote.

Then there are the costs. In 2017, the IOM documented auctions of sub-Saharan migrants in southern Libya, sold for sums ranging from 200 to 500 dollars. The link with the collapse of the state after 2011 is the most plausible interpretation, although the source documents the phenomenon rather than its cause. Libya and the migrants paid the price; the legal framework emerged, formally speaking, intact, even if the controversy over the mandate would later weigh on the vetoes of Moscow and Beijing in other matters.

Act Two: Bibi

On 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Pillay had left the Court in 2008, but chaired the UN Commission of Inquiry which, on 16 September 2025, concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. This is where ‘pal-washing’ comes into play. International criminal law deals with individuals: a defendant, a charge, a period of time. If the case concludes with the fate of a leader, a narrative break occurs – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of a man – after which the state can present itself as restored. Libya offers an analogy: there, the case concluded with the fall of a man.

The limitations of the process work in favour of this interpretation. The Court has no police force and the execution of warrants depends on the States Parties; the Commission is not a court and does not speak on behalf of the entire UN; the Committee itself, according to AFP, has stated that it is up to a court to determine whether genocide has taken place. The award has no legal effect, as we know, but it lends legitimacy to a system that promises justice yet cannot guarantee it.

We must also bear in mind that we have already seen dynamics of this kind on numerous occasions within the globalist order that dominates the West. The Open Society Foundations presents itself as the world’s largest private funder of groups working for justice, democracy and human rights, active in over one hundred countries, and Pillay received the Stockholm Human Rights Award, the same prize that went to Soros and Neier in 2011. It certainly seems that the pattern of the Soros agenda is repeating itself once again – an agenda comprising foundations, NGOs, tribunals, commissions and bureaucracies that share a common lexicon and worldview: that of a liberal order to be perfected and never called into question. Those operating within that lexicon may denounce a government, a leader, or even a state, but they cannot challenge the underlying assumptions of the order that grants them legitimacy.

Some will object that Pillay’s Commission attributes responsibility to Israel as a state, not merely to its leaders, which contradicts the idea of a purely personalised operation. The second point concerns the reaction. Netanyahu accused the Committee of having lost its moral compass; the Israeli Foreign Ministry spoke of a grotesque exploitation of the prize; and Washington announced sanctions against the ICC just a few hours after the announcement. All true. But it would make sense and have value if the Western system were not rotten to its very core, if its legal system were functioning properly, but this is not the case, in any respect (and we have already seen sufficient evidence of this – let us not forget the Epstein case either).

If, over the next twelve months, Netanyahu’s political downfall is presented as the conclusion of the case, rather than as a stage in proceedings concerning the state, ‘Pal-washing’ will gain traction. If the proceedings continue beyond his person, and if the State Parties execute the warrants, perhaps it will lose ground. Given the current evidence, the argument is plausible and, until proven otherwise, this is yet another ‘Non-Peace’ Nobel Prize – one we cannot call ‘war’.

ICC ignored ‘very well-documented’ NATO crimes – ex-Libyan minister

By: aletho
12 October 2026 at 16:05
RT – October 11, 2026

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ignored allegations of “very well-documented” NATO war crimes brought before it, former Libyan Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim has told RT.

In an interview on Saturday, he argued that the US-led military bloc has never been held accountable for what he described as “very well-documented” crimes committed during military interventions in several countries.

“In Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya, we have literally… millions of documents, videos, footage, statements, witnesses who testify to the crimes against humanity committed by NATO collectively and NATO countries individually,” he said.

The former minister said he had personally participated in a 2013 effort to bring allegations of NATO war crimes before the ICC over the bloc’s 2011 intervention in Libya, which left the country devastated and deeply divided.

“We presented a very powerful profile of thousands and thousands of pages. And it was not even allowed to be seen or heard or discussed. It was dismissed right away,” Ibrahim said, adding that prominent European human rights lawyers had been involved in preparing the case.

The failure to pursue such cases demonstrated the “limitation” of the system, he said, urging the East, particularly China and Russia to “rethink the whole equation.”

The ICC needs to be “radically, not superficially” reformed or replaced with a new international judicial institution capable of upholding human rights without Western political interference, he stressed. A handful of powerful Western countries currently exploit the ICC for their own advantage while ensuring “that they are immune against any cases brought forward against them,” he said.

The remarks come just days after Washington imposed sweeping new sanctions on the court after accusing it of overstepping its jurisdiction in pursuing alleged crimes involving American and Israeli nationals. The move followed the ICC’s 2024 issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the ICC’s investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by American forces during the US-led war in Afghanistan never resulted in criminal charges against US personnel.

Watch the RT segment.

Israel’s Military Actions in Lebanon Grossly Violate International Law — Lavrov

By: aletho
12 October 2026 at 13:51
Sputnik – 12.10.2026

MOSCOW – Russia believes that the use of force by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon grossly violate international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

At a press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, Lavrov said that they discussed Israel’s ongoing actions in Lebanon, adding that Moscow has reaffirmed its position in support of Lebanon’s sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity.

“Of course, we are committed to our assessments that the military actions of the IDF, the Israeli army, grossly violate the norms of international law and provoke an additional escalation of tensions in Lebanon,” Lavrov said.

This was part of a broader discussion of the situation in the Middle East, the Russian minister said.

“We certainly discussed the situation in the region and examined issues related to developments in the Gulf, in and around Syria, and, naturally, in Palestine, where Israel’s actions are a source of particular concern, as they create facts on the ground that directly contradict the UN resolution on the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Lavrov said.

Leaders Condemn Ansarallah Attack on Saudi Arabia While Ignoring Illegal War Against Yemen

By: aletho
11 October 2026 at 20:30
By Kurt Nimmo | Another Day in the Empire | October 11, 2026

Following the attack on the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the usual suspects emerged from the social media muck to condemn Ansarallah. “These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now,” demanded Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio.

Bibi Netanyahu, “on behalf of the people of Israel,” condemned the attack and declared the Zionist state “looks forward to a strong Middle East—one that stands united against threats, protects its people, and builds a future of security, cooperation, and prosperity for all the peoples of our region,” never mind the 200,000-680,000 people of the region he butchered over the last three years.

Kaja Kallas, the former president of Estonia and current High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, denounced the airport attack. “The Houthi attack on Riyadh’s international airport is an appalling act of terror. There can be no justification for indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure,” she said.

Kallas, like most European leaders, insists Israel has a “right to defend itself” against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and yet “self-defense” is not a legitimate response for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, all victims of Israeli and US aggression.

António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is “deeply shocked” by the Yemeni retaliation, and criticized the attack on the Saudi airport as a violation of international law.

If Guterres is concerned about international law and the bombing of civilian infrastructure, why hasn’t the UN invoked Chapter VII of the UN Charter in regard to Gaza? “The UN’s member states collectively have a bad track record when it comes to preventing genocide,” writes Sean Matthews. “In the case of genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, the UN only declared officially that genocides took place after the fact.”

G7 foreign ministers also weighed in on the attack, declaring the response to Saudi attacks poses an “unacceptable threat to regional stability and security, to global energy security,” as well as to security in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

In June, during a globalist conclave in Évian, the G7 issued a dilatory statement calling for an acceleration of “humanitarian and reconstruction efforts and the swift implementation of relevant political and security measures” in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, while knowing full well Zionist Israel will ignore international law and continue to murder and starve Palestinians while ethnically cleansing the Shi’a in southern Lebanon.

The official censure by the United States, the EU, UN, and G7, as well as the skewed reportage of the corporate media, overlooks the reason why Ansarallah is bombing Saudi airports and oil infrastructure.

Forgotten, or ignored, are the crimes of the Saudi coalition during and after the Yemen War of 2015. The coalition included the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan.

The Sunni coalition attacked after President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled house arrest into exile in Saudi Arabia. Hadi, who died earlier this year, stood accused of secretly working with al-Islah, described as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Yemeni branch. The former president was also accused of being a Saudi puppet. Saudi Arabia views Ansarallah—followers of the Shi’a branch of Zaydism—as a threat to its national security.

A detailed United Nations report estimated approximately 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021 from the Saudi-led campaign. This total includes direct losses from combat and indirect deaths linked to malnutrition, disease, and the decline of health care and essential services.

The United States was involved in the Yemen humanitarian crisis. US personnel provided logistical support, information, training, and advisers after the Saudi-led intervention. US tankers refueled coalition aircraft, increasing their range over Yemen. Saudi forces relied heavily on US-supplied aircraft, munitions, spare parts, maintenance, and technical support.

Jeff Bachman, a professor and genocide scholar at the School of Information Services, said during an interview with the American University in Washington that the Saudi-led coalition has been able to engage violence against Yemenis thanks to the complicit material and political support of the United States.

UN Security Council Resolution 2216 established a UN arms embargo. The restrictions implemented delayed or curtailed commercial imports and humanitarian shipments of food, fuel, medicines, and medical supplies. Because Yemen is dependent on imports, disruptions to port and airport operations rapidly worsened hunger, health-system strain, water and sanitation breakdowns, and prices, according to Human Rights Watch.

“The Saudi-led coalition’s military strategy in Yemen has been increasingly built around preventing desperately needed aid and essential goods from reaching civilians, risking millions of lives,” said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Security Council should urgently sanction Saudi and other coalition leaders responsible for blocking food, fuel, and medicine, causing hunger, sickness, and death.”

During a full closure in November 2017, UN agencies noted that aircraft and ships delivering aid could not secure clearance, while commercial cargo encountered major hurdles. Human Rights Watch stated that the coalition had maintained a naval and air blockade since March 2015, with restrictions producing a disproportionate impact on civilians in direct violation of international law.

Yemen remains one of the world’s most serious humanitarian emergencies. As of 2026, more than 22 million people need assistance or protection and 18.3 million people are acutely food insecure. Malnutrition levels remain critically high, with over 2.2 million children under five acutely malnourished, including 516,157 suffering from malnutrition, according to the United Nations. “Even before the latest escalation, an estimated 12.2 million children in Yemen needed humanitarian assistance,” UNICEF reported in September.

Article 51 of the UN Charter is a determining provision that addresses the right of self-defense for member states. It represents an exception to the general prohibition on the use of force outlined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which mandates that all member states refrain from using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, as the Saudis did in 2015 in Yemen.

On October 10, following the Ansarallah attacks, Trump announced the US may rejoin the latest Saudi onslaught on Yemen. “We’re going to look at it,” he told reporters. “We just found out about the recent attack. We will make a decision. We move very quickly.”

Prior to Trump’s announcement, Democrat Ro Khanna, who was detained during a visit to Israel in July, introduced a joint Yemen War Powers Resolution along with Republican Representative Thomas Massie on October 9. The resolution directs “the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Houthis in Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.”

Congress is unable to decide whether to rejoin the Saudi effort to destroy Ansarallah and maintain the illegal war on the people of Yemen. In addition to debate on the constitutional legality of the Trump administration’s military assistance to the Saudis without a congressional consultation, members of Congress are concerned about the continued slaughter of civilians and the ongoing humanitarian crisis, considered one of the worst in the world, with around 24 million people, or nearly 80% of the population, needing assistance and protection.

MOE: Nearly 22,000 Students and Education Workers Killed

By: aletho
7 October 2026 at 23:02
IMEMC | October 7, 2026

Nearly 22,000 Palestinian students and education workers were killed during three years of Israeli attacks, according to a statistical report released Wednesday by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The report documents Israeli violations against the education sector from October 7, 2023, through October 7, 2026.

Issued under the slogan, “Three Years After the Genocide: Education Is a Will That Cannot Be Broken,” the report said Israeli forces killed more than 19,189 school students and 1,386 university students in the Gaza Strip. Another 28,586 school students and 3,082 university students suffered injuries of varying severity.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed 134 school students and 39 university students and injured 871 school students and 283 university students. The forces also abducted 416 school students and 481 university students.

Among educational and administrative personnel in Gaza, Israeli forces killed 805 school employees and 246 university lecturers and staff members.

The report also documented the injury of 3,298 school employees and 1,493 university personnel. In the West Bank, Israeli forces killed seven school staff members and injured 26 others, while abducting more than 176 teachers and school employees and 21 university staff members.

Regarding attacks on educational institutions, the ministry said Israeli forces completely destroyed more than 179 public schools in Gaza and more than 105 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). More than 63 university buildings were also completely destroyed.

In response to the widespread destruction and in an effort to maintain the educational process, 700 teaching and learning centers were opened throughout the Gaza Strip, along with 12 virtual schools serving students from Gaza inside Palestine and abroad.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces continued targeting educational institutions. They issued a final demolition order against the Janba School in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and closed four schools in Hebron’s Old City for several days: Yasser Amr, Al-Faiha, Qurtuba, and Al-Ibrahimiyya schools.

Israeli authorities also denied work permits to teachers at private schools in occupied Jerusalem, preventing them from reaching their workplaces, and continued invading Palestinian universities, most recently Birzeit University.

Five Palestinians Killed, Others Injured by Israeli Fire in Gaza

On Tuesday, Israeli forces continued violating the “ceasefire” agreement, which took effect in the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2025, by shelling several areas and opening fire, killing and wounding more Palestinians.

France cleared dozens of military sales to Israel between May and September: Report

By: aletho
6 October 2026 at 18:55
The Cradle | October 6, 2026

France greenlit 35 military sales to Israel between May and September 2026, according to a joint investigation by the Palestinian Youth Movement and the French collective Urgence Palestine, with all shipments bound for subsidiaries of lead Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems.

The report states that suppliers based in five French regions manufactured the equipment, which includes cooling units used in tanks and missile launchers, visors fitted to the helmets of helicopter and fighter jet pilots, surveillance systems, and assorted electronics.

French arms firm Thales built and shipped control panels used to fire weapons remotely, a technology that rights groups and Gaza-based journalists have repeatedly reported Israel using to shoot civilians in their tents and on the streets, children among them.

Of the 35 shipments, 33 left from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport, 32 of them aboard Israel’s national carrier El Al.

French Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin told parliament last week that France supplies no offensive weapons to Israel, repeating the government’s position that such sales ended in 2024.

Thomas Nayla, a lawyer with Urgence Palestine, dismissed that distinction, telling Middle East Eye that, given items such as tank cooling units and pilot visors, “there is no way these can be considered defensive.”

The new findings follow an April report by the same two groups, which counted more than 525 shipments of French military-use equipment to Israel between October 2023 and March 2026, arming the Israeli military throughout the genocide in Gaza.

The French shipments are part of a broader pattern in which European governments and companies continued to supply Israel with military and dual-use equipment throughout the Gaza genocide, even as several governments publicly criticized Israeli apartheid and war crimes, and announced partial or symbolic restrictions.

Germany, Israel’s largest European arms supplier, approved more than $930 million in export licenses to Israel in the first five months of 2026 alone, according to Germany’s news magazine Der Spiegel, citing Economy Ministry data

Britain, meanwhile, has touted its suspension of some export licenses while keeping F-35 components largely exempt, and has still approved at least $236 million in fixed-value military export licenses to Israel since October 2023, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade, a figure that excludes the open licenses covering much of its F-35 contribution.

Elbit Systems, which supplies roughly 85 percent of Israel’s drones and ground-based equipment, has been central to the Israeli military’s relentless onslaught across West Asia.

The arms company’s Hermes drones provided near-total aerial surveillance and target selection for attacks, and its AI-enabled Tzayad system identified more than 800,000 “targets” across Gaza and Lebanon in two years by the company’s own account.

The firm posted record profits throughout the genocide, boasting that its Tzayad system had flagged “up to or over half” of Gaza’s civilian population and infrastructure as targets while marketing its Gaza-used weapons to buyers as “battle-tested” to command a higher premium.

 

Israeli Attacks Kill Two Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli forces continued attacks across Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing and and wounding others in airstrikes and gunfire, while another Palestinian succumbed to wounds sustained in an attack the previous day

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Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks in Gaza

Israeli forces killed 4 Palestinians, including a 6-year-old, and injured others across the devastated Gaza Strip on Sunday in continuing reported violations of the ceasefire agreement

New IDF Website Frames Slain Gaza Journalists as Terrorists

Since October 2023, no nation’s military has killed nearly as many journalists as Israel, a fact that often opens them up to considerable criticism. The IDF aims to quell those concerns with a new round of official narrative

Russia’s new strategy aims to make Ukrainian cities unlivable

5 October 2026 at 13:58

The Russians are struggling on land and at sea, and are having real difficulty protecting themselves from Ukrainian long-range attack. That has left them with one real strategic “advantage” and that is what we will see the next few months. As reports this week made clear, the Russian strategy is now to make Ukraine unlivable, […]

The post Russia’s new strategy aims to make Ukrainian cities unlivable appeared first on Asia Times.

Iranian crew declared Dena training vessel ‘unarmed’ to US warship before deadly torpedo strike: Report

By: aletho
3 October 2026 at 01:53
The Cradle | October 2, 2026

The crew of the Iranian frigate Dena informed a US warship that their vessel was unarmed during their final exchanges before a US submarine launched a torpedo and sank it off the coast of Sri Lanka on 4 March, killing 104 sailors, according to an audio recording cited by an Iranian judiciary official.

“We are not military, we are not armed, and we have come for training,” the crew said in the recording.

The Moudge-class frigate was sailing home from the International Fleet Review 2026, an India-hosted naval exercise Iran had been officially invited to attend, when the USS Charlotte struck it with a Mark 48 torpedo in international waters some 19 nautical miles off Galle, killing 104 of the 136 sailors on board and wounding the remaining 32.

Hassan Abdollianpour, who heads Iran’s Center for Lawyers of the Judiciary, said the recording also captures the frigate’s contact with Sri Lanka’s shipping and ports authorities, who backed the crew’s account that the ship was on a training mission.

Abdollianpour said international law obliged that aid be given to those aboard, even after the ship had been targeted.

“Not only was no assistance provided, but a second attack was also carried out,” he said.

He added that securing the recording, which took extensive efforts and has since featured in a documentary, was key to building an accurate legal case over the criminal attack.

Abdollianpour said the case of the Dena’s slain sailors is being pursued “firmly and decisively,” with his center compiling extensive documentation for domestic and international proceedings.

Nearly 19,000 experts have produced around 130,000 pages of assessments on wartime incidents and damages, he said, meant to serve as standardized evidence before international courts and legal bodies.

In March, Iran’s Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei condemned the deadly US strike as a violation of every international convention, maritime law above all, and vowed that Tehran would “certainly and seriously” prosecute Washington for its “outrageous crimes.”

105 More Buried After Latest Gaza Mass Funeral for Slain in Previous Israeli Attack

1 October 2026 at 20:23
Palestinians in Gaza City continued their mass funerals on Thursday, following the dozens of burials on Tuesday in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Today’s mass funeral saw another 105 victims of an Israeli attack buried in Martyrs Cemetery. The slain in this case were killed in a flurry of Israeli attacks on Yarmouk Square neighborhood on […]
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