FireBird

Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran. The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike. Netanyahu has been pushing hard for one. “Bibi calls Trump about it every day,” says an informed observer. Netanyahu is cornered and desperate. After last week’s election results, he can’t form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war. To that end, he’s applied maximum pressure to his closest allies in the administration, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper. Both oppose a negotiated settlement to the war they’ve so grievously mismanaged; both are pushing to restart major combat operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe are also following Netanyahu’s lead, as are leaders of the Democratic Party. In a recent meeting on the subject, former president Barack Obama said he opposes the current Iran peace deal being drafted in Doha. The rest of America’s longtime allies in the Middle East are terrified by the prospect of more war. On September 27th, Netanyahu flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to enlist the UAE in his lobbying effort for a final attack on Iran. The Emiratis refused. After eight months of conflict, Gulf economies are teetering. So are global energy and fertilizer markets. They won’t recover soon. Globally, there are a total of about 850 supertankers used to transport oil from producers to the rest of the world. In October alone, 11 of them were badly damaged in Hormuz. At this pace, a global depression is imminent. A nuclear strike would radically accelerate the destruction. Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people. And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent. The Russians have already told at least two other governments that an American nuclear strike on Iran would free them to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Pakistan and India would be tempted to do the same against each other, as would North Korea against Seoul. After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final. We’ve been sleepwalking toward this moment for months. Since February, the administration has quietly rewritten America’s nuclear doctrine to make first use of so-called “battlefield nukes” easier and therefore more likely. No one in Washington in either party seems bothered by this. Now we’re on the brink of it. Close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7, six days from now. To his credit, he’s hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made. They’re right, though it won’t be simple. The Iranians are famously frustrating to negotiate with under any circumstances, and elements of that government have become more radical since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family were killed in February. After decades of isolation, even relatively moderate Iranian leaders seem confused by how decisions are made in the West. (There is a widespread belief in Tehran, for example, that the United States government controls Israel.) But overall, people who have spoken to decision-makers in Iran say there is consensus there that more war is bad for everyone and a deal is worth making. One group that hasn’t been consulted so far is the global population — the hundreds of millions of people who will be killed along with their children if Trump is pushed by Netanyahu into launching a nuclear strike next week. Now would be the time for them to speak up.

NAZA documents the horrifying truth: In 2014, three Israelis kidnapped 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir, tortured him and burned him alive. The entire crime was captured on camera. How many Palestinian children must die before the world finally demands justice?

Israeli settlers are no longer confining their expansionist rhetoric to occupied Palestine. After similar scenes near the Syrian border, they have now filmed themselves inside Lebanese territory, openly calling for new settlements.

20 bucks says trump will not sue this woman.

Anyone planning to attend a demonstration in support of Palestine Action in the vicinity of the US Embassy on Saturday, 31 October will face arrest as part of a robust policing operation. Expressing support for the group is an offence under the Terrorism Act following its proscription in June 2025, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal in June 2026. Read more: news.met.police.uk/news/met-…

🇩🇪 Europe, what is going on? Looting and rioting have reportedly spread to Frankfurt, Germany, tonight, marking the first such unrest in the city.

THEY TRIED TO CANCEL HIM. SO HE BUILT HIS OWN STAGE. Macklemore just wrapped a 3-city European tour. Every arena sold out. ▪️ 100% of proceeds went to 12 organizations providing aid to Palestinians. ▪️ Guests included Hozier, Greta Thunberg, and UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. ▪️ Lineups were kept secret until showtime to avoid backlash. Instead of backing down after being pulled from a massive US tour, he turned his platform into a fundraising machine for Gaza. A real one. 🧭

I fucking, fucking, FUCKING HATE writing about "antisemitism". I am so motherfucking SICK of it. I hate the word. I hate the rapey, gaslighting way all western institutions are constantly forcing this fake narrative down our throats that opposing genocide and apartheid and crazy wars means you secretly hate some random tiny religious group. Hate it, hate it, HATE it. But I have to keep writing about it, because if you let them control the narrative it just takes over and becomes the consensus reality. So essay after essay after motherfucking essay I find myself writing "Uh no actually it's not a hate crime to say you shouldn't drop military explosives on buildings full of children" like a fucking moron, over and over and over again. These freaks make me fucking sick. I hate the way they're constantly trying to stick their gross, rapey fingers into our minds and convince us we think things we don't think and feel things we don't feel. They never stop. They're like a cloud of gnats on a humid summer day constantly trying to fly into your nose, mouth and eyes. You swat them away and they're back an instant later, swarming, suffocating. Pieces of shit. Fucking disgusting, evil scumbags.