Peloni:  The connection between China and Iran was one of patron and proxy, but their connection was far more useful to China than this alone.  China’s investment in Iran was to gain it the ability to brainstorm mechanisms which might face off and defeat Washington’s economic leverage against the Middle Kingdom, while also giving Xi the abiliity to both test and perfect these defenses against American dominance in the real world.  Yet, for all its efforts and all its investments, the Chinese defenses developed in Iran have been shown to come up short during Operation Economic Fury, which again should be understood to be an operation designed and executed as a contest against China and Iran in the same moment, a concept which was first raised by the Hudson Institute’s Zineb Riboua, whose detailed analysis continues to provide clarity and focus surrounding Washington’s actions, without which, many important realities would otherwise be misunderstood or completely ignored.

Understanding the US Treasury’s latest sanctions

Zineb Riboua | Beyond the Ideological | Apr 30, 2026

The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ali Khamenei. Photo by Khamenei.ir, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia

“The Strait of Hormuz,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News this week, “is an economic nuclear weapon.”

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Peloni:  As the US ban on the Muslim Brotherhood goes into effect, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, which remains the largest party in Jordan’s Parliament to this day, is seeking to re-brand and thereby survive so as to dominate the Jordanian nation into the future.  The chameleon aspect of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is not new, as countless attempts have been made just over the past year to acknowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood is no longer active in Jordan, and yet, they are not only still politically active, but attempting to re-invent themselves so as to stave off being starved into extinction in the Jordanian state, where radical Islam has no need to hide while the regime allows them to simply survive by way of re-labeling their radicalism.  As the Hashemites allow this shape-shifting survival tactic to go forward, it demonstrates their true support for a movement which should be held as anathema, and this is true for both Jordan and the US.  Either Trump’s ban on the Muslim Brotherhood was sincere in targeting at least the Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, or it was political theater to excuse the survival of this evil organization into the future.  How the US responds to the ongoing Hashemite charade in Jordan will tell us which of these is actually the case.

Ahmad Sharawi

By Moses – Own work, CC0, Wikipedia

The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Islamic Action Front, is trying out a new name.

Jordan’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) ordered the party to change its name under the provisions of the 2022 political parties law, which prohibits party names with religious connotations. On April 26, the party’s Shura Council, its top decision-making body agreed to rebrand as the Ummah Party. While the new name avoids the explicit religious label “Islamic,” the Arabic word “ummah” in this context still denotes the global community of Muslims. On April 29, the IEC confirmed the name change and the new constitution of the party.

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Peloni

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FDD Senior Research Analyst Natalie Ecanow and FDD Research Fellow Max Meizlish discuss the details surrounding the success which is coming from the US blockade on Iran.  As Meizlish examines the tools and actions which might be used to shore up the blockade, he explains that substantial pressure can be brought to bear on those organizations, banks and countries which might be involved in evading the blockade, thus indicating that enacting these steps is dependent upon the political will to enforce them.  Another particularly important point raised by Meizlish is that the use of the term maximum pressure is a political statement, but that it needs to have the support of maximum enforcement, and that this requires govt funding for the enforcement mechanisms, all of which are not yet being employed even as a war is being waged due to the failure of the maximum pressure campaign to bring Iran into compliance. 

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More data on Israel as a force and dollar multiplier for the US

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger | “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | May 1, 2026

*Against the backdrop of the current war against the Ayatollah regime, US-Israel joint drills have highlighted the immense cooperation and mutual respect between the US’ Navy Seals and its Israeli counterpart Shayetet 13 – both specializing in pre-emptive operation beyond enemy lines – enhancing battle tactics of both units.

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by Steve Kramer

Genocide doesn’t occur in the normal course of a war, when civilians are being killed. Genocide is different, It is the systematic killing of a racial or cultural group. The perfect example is the Nazi genocide of Jews during WW2, when 6 million Jews were purposely slaughtered.

Last October, Presidential candidate Kamela Harris was asked if Israel committed genocide against the Palestinian Arabs during an interview on MSNBC’s  “The Weekend.” She came close to definitively accusing Israel of genocide – a question that has increasingly become a litmus test in Democratic circles.

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Peloni:  It is time for Hamas to be ended.  For the crimes described below, and those which have been daily occurring since the founding of this evil organization, a death sentence looms over them in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2803, and yet an intolerable series of reprieves have served to forestall this sentence being carried out against these barbarians, allowing them the opportunity to reinstitute their policies of savagery, of which the crimes described below are just a few.

Barry Shaw | The View from Israel | Apr 30, 2026

Why is the world that turned a blind eye to the rape of young Israeli girls at the filthy hands of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad but became virulently anti-Israel is their active support for this Palestinian death cult, now totally ignoring the mass rape of defenseless Palestinan women in Gaza at the hands of Palestinian Hamas?

And, in Gaza, it is not confined to women. Young boys are also being molested by Palestinian Hamas thugs. Yet where is Francesca Albanese when you need her. Together with Human Rights Watch – missing in action. Totally silent.

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Peloni: Where is the conscience of the world as the horrors across Africa go unnoticed and are instead projected upon Israel.  Genocidal slaughter, mass executions, weaponized rape, and systematic dehumanization are all facets of imaginative false narratives focused upon Israel despite the libelous and fantastical sourcing for these false claims, and all the while the world lies silent as these events are in fact ongoing throughout Africa while the same media whores and diplomatic degenerates and perverse podcasters are, all of them, too busy focusing on the Jewish state to raise the slightest concern, objection or commentary about the fate of hundreds of people who are literally about to be put to the sword.  These arbiters of international attention have no shame, no moral compass, and no respect for human dignity.  What they do have is an obsessive problem with Jew Hatred, which comes at the price of ignoring real victims of real evil around the world which are screaming for a scintilla of attention to be paid to their plight as whole populations are under daily assault.  Notably, the well ignored story below is but one example of the human costs which accompanies the consummate obsession with projecting evil upon the Jews, which is above and beyond that which is paid by the Jewish people themselves.

By Pamela Geller | April 30, 2026

Where is the world? Where is the UN, the college protests, the enemedia? The silence is as telling as the violence itself. Only Israel – that is all they see like some form of Tourette Jew hatred.

The silence speaks as loudly as the violence itself. It is as much a crime against humanity as the unspeakable violence against non-Muslims.

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Antisemitism is perhaps the last acceptable prejudice, embraced alike by both right and left, religious and secular, Christian and Muslim. 

Matthew M. Hausman, J.D |  Apr 30, 2026

Image by BlalckPestKommander – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia

The reasons for the dramatic rise in antisemitism today are lost on many progressives who embrace partisan ideologies that actually promote it and acculturated conservatives who blame it exclusively on their political opponents. In truth, antisemitism is perhaps the last acceptable prejudice, embraced alike by both right and left, religious and secular, Christian and Muslim. It is a hatred that has spanned cultures, creeds, and ideologies for generations and never seems to wane. And it is the one form of prejudice that can be expressed publicly without fear of censure or cancellation.

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Peloni:  Should Trump’s efforts of seeking Regime Transformation rather than Regime Change succeed, it would leave the fate of Iran in the hands of the IRGC, making the following inspection of source of that authority somewhat relevant, even in a state which is more of a terrorist cabal than a state.

Mariam Gregorio 

Ahmad Vahidi. Photo by Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia

Vahidi believes he is trying to expand his authority to become supreme dictator of Iran. Every decision he has made is in direct violation of the Iranian Constitution. He now tells the President he does not have the authority to replace the Iranian Foreign Minister – who has become a mouthpiece for Vahidi. The legal framework is the constitution: the “rulebook” for how Iran must function.

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The UAE will not remain in any organization that does not support and protect or serve its interests.

MEMRI.ORG

In an article posted on the Saudi news website Elaph and on his personal website, Emirati intellectual Salem Al-Ketbi discusses the motives behind the UAE’s recent decision to withdraw from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which will come into force on May 1, 2026. Al-Ketbi explains that the decision was connected inter alia to the war with Iran and the severe attacks carried out by this country — itself an OPEC member — on the UAE. He stresses that this move should not be viewed just as a technical step intended to free the UAE from OPEC’s oil-production restrictions, which are imposed for economic and political reasons. Rather, it is a firm political statement that the UAE will not remain in any organization that does not provide it with backing and with pro

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Peloni:  Dr. David Wurmser joins Rabbi Pesach Wolicki as they provide a deep analysis for the breakdown of Opec in what will hopefully be the post-Mullah Iran era.  Among other facets of this emerging new reality is that it provides a counter to Turkey and a wake-up call to Saudi Arabia as the UAE is moving the region towards a new paradigm, as the previous two pillars of power in the Arabian world will be forced to continue to react to the UAE acting as the strategic dominant actor in the region.  In the middle part of this conversation they focus on the potential of regime change by economic strangulation alone.  Wurmser explains that Iran is not a real nation and that the development of fissures within the power structure has a real potential for bringing victory to the West, but that this ceasefire is coincidentally work to strengthen the regime and make its survival possible as it allows the regime to recoup, reorganize and recover from the recent military onslaught.  Consequently, Wurmser argues that an embargo alone will not bring the regime down, while acknowledging that it still possible.  Wurmser adds further that paramilitary groups entering Iran was another cost of the ceasefire as they now stand as a dominating and reliable force capable of both suppressing any popular revolt in Iran as well as countering any divisions from within the Iranian power structure.  As to the arming of the Iranian people Wurmser notes that the Turks are blocking any weapons shipments to Iran based on concerns of the arms flowing to their Kurdish rivals in Iran, but that there are other avenues available to ship arms to the Iranian people.  In the final third of the video they discuss Lebanon and the real successes which are being won by Hezbollah against Israel and that these victories are only possible because Lebanon is a failed-state controlled by terrorists, even as the West remains focused on self-denials of this reality in the form of peace talks with the non-governing govt of Lebanon.

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Peloni:  Will PM Ali al-Zaidi prove to be a reformer, a compromise candidate or Iran’s latest proxy leader in Iraq?  The truth is that he may not even be capable of forming a govt, and he has just one month before Iraq is back to square one while looking for a new parlaimentary leader.  What is certain is that al-Zaidi is an acceptable candidate for Trump, so we will see if having been chosen to lead the govt after 5 months of political log jams, this Shiite candidate from a region which is generally opposes Iran’s rule in Iraq will be able to form a govt, and if so, what sort of government he might be able to form in a country still dominated by Iran and its paramilitary groups.

More than five months after its national elections, Iraq may finally have a new leader.

Bridget Toomey

PM Ali al-Zaidi. Screengrab via Youtube

On April 27, Iraqi President Nizar Amedi named Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman who has not held political office, as prime minister-designate. Zaidi now has 30 days to form a government by selecting a cabinet which must be approved by Iraq’s Council of Representatives, its national parliament. The nomination does not guarantee that Zaidi will assume the top office. In 2020, two consecutive prime minister-designates failed to take office after proving unable to assemble a cabinet with parliamentary support.

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By Hugh Fitzgerald | April 30, 2026

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian Presidential Executive Office, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has firm views on Israel: he doesn’t like the Jewish state, and wishes it would disappear. He is convinced it practices “apartheid” at home and “genocide” abroad. He has fantasized about creating, and heading, a pan-Islamic army that would be able to defeat the IDF, so that “from the river and the sea/Palestine will be free” — which is the thinly-disguised call for Israel to disappear entirely, to be replaced by a state of “Palestine.”

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Linda Goudsmit: An excellent analysis of the deliberate, insidious, radical, leftist Democrat rhetoric designed to turn Americans into assassins. The only difference between the anti-American Democrat party rhetoric designed to kill Trump and the indoctrination of Islamic jihadis is that the American assassins are not promised 72 virgins if they succeed. There is political method in the Democrat party’s psychologically induced Trump Derangement Syndrome––and killing President Trump is its treasonous goal. “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to Trump” are all ideologically driven calls for political assassination whether secular or religious. In America it is called treason. In Iran it is called martyrdom.

Daniel Greenfield | April 27, 2026

Cole Allen with a Mylar blanket after he was detained for allegedly opening fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  Photo by Washington D.C. authorities[1] – CNN, Public Domain, Wikipedia

There was nothing radical about Cole Tomas Allen: the attempted White House Correspondents’ Dinner assassin. Allen’s manifesto reads a lot like that of the previous three-named assassin Ryan Wesley Routh who was stalking President Trump at a golf game.

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Peloni:  The freedom with which Jew Hatred is promoted in England while the govt remains mute leaves little doubt that this latest attack on Englands Jews will be met with nothing more than additional platitudes and fake promises.  The words “Never Again” when spoken by English officials holds no truth, and is in fact an empty cat-call which promises this event will no more serve as a wake-up call to the British govt than the last attack on Britain’s Jews.

Israel says UK government not doing enough to tackle antisemitism

All Israel News Staff | Published: April 30, 2026

Police wrestling knife from terrorist in Golders Green stabbing attacks.  Screengrab via X

The Iranian-affiliated terror group Harakat Ashab Al-Yamim Al-Islamiyya (HAYI) has claimed responsibility for the stabbing attack in Golders Green, London, in which two Jewish men were injured Wednesday, after taking responsibility for numerous attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe in recent weeks.

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Peloni: While these new sanctions being placed on Iran are welcome news, the question remains why these sanctions relating to the teapot refineries were not employed previously as calls for exactly this level of ‘maximum pressure’ had gone unfulfilled til now.  Notably, the teapot refineries provided a key work around for US sanctions due to the fact that this level of sanction policy had not previously been pursued, making their current enactment a decidedly significant change in Trump’s maximum pressure campaign.

Scott Bessent talks with Larry Kudlow about new Iranian sanctions and the UAE quitting OPEC

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Peloni:  The imposed ceasefire and restricted freedom of action forced on Israel has only emboldened the continued attacks on IDF forces.  While this is being used as a conditional concession provided to Iran towards negotiations, the negotiation continue to show nothing from the Iranians but their resolve to not negotiate.  No concessions should have been offered to Iran, and certainly not such concessions as have held Israel under exposed threat while rocket and drone alerts continue nearly uninterrupted.  This continues to be an intolerable convenience offered to the obfuscating masters of terror in Tehran for nothing.

Arlene Kushner | April 29, 2026

Map showing the Israeli-Lebanese border and the Litani River. Photo by 99of9 / * The map is made by Thomas Blomberg using the UNIFIL map, deployment as of July 2006 as source. – Self-published work by 99of9, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikipedia

What’s happening with regard to Lebanon and Israel certainly fits that designation.

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