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Ukraine Is at War with Russia … and North Korea and Iran
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – Last week was clearly a week for making history. That observation isn’t primarily sparked by Donald Trump’s presidential election victory—he’s now the only commander-in-chief besides Grover Cleveland to win two non-consecutive terms at the helm of the world’s leading democracy—but to a much less reported event half a world away, whose consequences Trump will have to deal with when he takes office in January.
As the Pentagon has now confirmed, the North Korean regime has deployed up to 12,000 troops to fight alongside its Russian ally nearly three years after Moscow launched its brutal aggression against Ukraine. As Americans ventured to the polls on Tuesday to carve a piece of history, the North Koreans did the same in Russia’s Kursk salient, where they clashed with Ukrainian forces, marking the first time that an outside party has fired a shot in this war. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out, the very presence of North Korean forces marks a serious escalation that will generate a “new chapter of global instability.”
Time will tell whether the North Koreans will make a significant difference to the actual progress of the war. A story that did the rounds in recent days centered upon a captured Russian soldier caught on video claiming that his unit was accidentally fired on by the very same North Koreans supposed to be fighting alongside them, suggesting that Pyongyang has dispatched cannon fodder rather than crack troops. “We tried to explain to them where to aim, but I think they shot two of our own,” the soldier explained. “I decided it was better to surrender in this situation than to be killed by our own bullet.” That probably shouldn’t be surprising; while North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has called his 1 million-man army “the strongest” in the world, none of the Hermit Kingdom’s soldiers have any meaningful combat experience.
The other aspect here is geopolitical—the coming together of two tyrannical regimes to crush the independence of a post-Communist democracy allied with the European Union and the United States. By choosing North Korea as his partner in war, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has signaled that no state is off-limits when it comes to seeking allies. For as bad and repressive as Russia is internally, North Korea is even worse; as I’ve written before, the “Democratic People’s Republic” is not so much an independent country as it is a concentration camp with a seat at the United Nations.
With his relations with Western nations at a nadir, Putin has become increasingly reliant on countries like China, Iran and North Korea for diplomatic and military support, as well as those states that are either existing or aspiring members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) bloc of states, who present themselves as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated international institutions that emerged after World War II. Iran has supplied Russia with missiles and Shahed drones that have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian cities and towns. In the case of North Korea, Putin and Kim signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty” when the Russian leader visited Pyongyang in June that pledges both countries to come to the defense of the other in the event of an attack. For Moscow, the North Korean troops for the time being offer a practical alternative to recruiting yet more Russians to fight in a war that has already taken the lives of more than 700,000 of them, along with thousands of tanks and armored vehicles. For the North Koreans, assisting Russia will bring in much-needed cash into Kim’s coffers, as well as Russian know-how in the development of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
What this means is that Ukraine isn’t just fighting Russia but also North Korea and Iran. The implications of this for Ukraine, as its civilians and armed forces face yet another freezing winter with dwindling supplies, are the gravest of all. But in the longer term, Ukraine’s ostensible allies will also bear the costs of this alignment of autocracies.
In the Middle East, the effects of Russia’s belligerent foreign policy have been manifest for more than a decade, given its aggressive backing of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime during the civil war in that country. Israel has had to tiptoe around the Russian presence in Syria as it has attempted to deal with Iran’s use of both Syria and Lebanon as a staging ground for its proxies’ attacks upon the Jewish state. Because of that, in the wake of the Ukraine invasion three years ago, Israel considered and then essentially rejected the proposal that it should actively back the democratic government in Kyiv with weapons and training. That prudence was understandable, but it has not curtailed the Russians, whose attitude to the Jewish state is increasingly returning to the demonizing approach witnessed during the Cold War as it cultivates terrorist groups from Hamas in Gaza to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
For Putin, the war triggered by the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 has been a blessing. In terms of world attention, his war in Ukraine has been eclipsed by the fighting in the Middle East, with the grim result that the authentic genocide that Russia is waging against its southern neighbor has been largely ignored as patently false claims of Israeli genocide in Gaza have mushroomed. As we enter the lame duck phase of President Joe Biden’s administration, a fundamental reassessment is therefore necessary—specifically, understanding how the wars in Ukraine and on multiple fronts in the Middle East interact with each other, and at what points Western, Israeli and Ukrainian interests intersect and where they might diverge.
Ultimately, both Ukraine and Israel are fighting against the same set of enemies. At stake is not just their security—one might even say their very survival—but the values and policies embodied by both the NATO alliance and U.S. foreign policy. How America and its allies respond now will determine our stance towards this so-called “Axis of Resistance” for a generation.
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‘Unjustifiable’: Trump Administration Responds to Deportations Lawsuit
FILE PHOTO: People walk on the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2025. Photo: Faith Ninivaggi via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to deny a preliminary injunction request as part of a lawsuit challenging its attempt to deport pro-Hamas activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and three of its local chapters sued the federal government to halt deportation proceedings involving expatriate pro-Hamas activists enrolled in American institutions of higher education, arguing that the allegedly seditious contents of their speech are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Filed in March, the legal complaint came several weeks after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) high-profile arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumnus who was an architect of the Hamilton Hall building takeover and other disturbances in the New York City area this semester. Similar action has since been taken against others, including Cornell University graduate student Momodou Taal, a dual citizen of Gambia and the United Kingdom, and Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a noncitizen legal resident from South Korea.
The AAUP and its chapters at Harvard University, Rutgers University, and New York University, along with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), argued in court documents that the Trump administration’s “policy has created a climate of repression and fear,” charging that ICE is “terrorizing students and faculty for their exercise of First Amendment rights in the past, intimidating them from exercising those rights now, and silencing political viewpoints that the government disfavors.”
Monday’s filing constitutes the Trump administration’s first challenge to the case.
“Plaintiffs fundamentally misunderstand how the First Amendment applies in this context” government lawyers argued in the pleading. “They conflate the fact that the First Amendment applies at all to aliens, with the First Amendment applying in full to them.”
The government went on to explain that Khalil and other aliens deemed as posing a threat to national security lack complete constitutional protections with which American citizens are endowed by right, noting that past case law has determined that while they are entitled to “freedom of speech and of press,” protections of those freedoms are “less robust.” Responding to the lawsuit’s charge that the deportation of Khalil, and others, is “ideologically motivated” — that is, that the Trump administration aims to purge the country of jihadist supporters — it added that the US Supreme Court ruled in 1951 that the federal government may constitutionally deport aliens who hold seditious beliefs such as communism, as is prescribed by the Alien Registration Act of 1940.
In conclusion, the government argued that pausing the deportation policy would undermine the public interest.
“Plaintiffs seek an injunction that would extend over immigration against all ‘noncitizen students and faculty’ in the country,” the filing says. “That is unjustifiable.”
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, pro-Hamas activists in the US, citizen and noncitizen, have allegedly violated the civil rights of Jewish students, penned extremist manifestos calling for revolutionary violence and overthrowing the government, and contributed to the spread of anti-Western beliefs.
Additionally, pro-Hamas activists have perpetrated gang assaults, threatened to commit mass murders of Jewish college students, and vandalized private property, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Recently, a lawsuit, first reported by the The Free Press, alleged that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the principal organizer of pro-Hamas activities on US campuses, received advanced knowledge of the Oct. 7 atrocities, suggesting a level of coordination between US-based anti-Zionists and jihadist terrorist groups that could pose a danger to national security.
President Donald Trump initiated the removal of pro-Hamas green-card holders living in the US through a January executive order which called for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” A major provision of the order calls for the deportation of extremist “alien” student activists, whose support for terrorist organizations, intellectual and material, such as Hamas contributed to fostering antisemitism, violence, and property destruction on college campuses. Trump has also said that foreign students who hold demonstrations in support of Hamas “will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.”
The policy has many detractors, such as AAUP president Todd Wolfson, who has said that it undermines civil liberties.
Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in March that the administration’s actions are legal and safeguard US interests.
“The Trump administration’s new policy of deporting pro-Hamas demonstrators who are not citizens is an important step toward addressing problems related to Hamas in America,” he explained in a statement. “The Immigration and Naturalization Act clearly gives the Secretary of State the authority to deport aliens on a variety of grounds, including endangering public safety and national security.”
A Louisiana immigration judge, Jamee E. Comans, recently agreed with President Trump, as well as Mr. Joffe, ruling that the federal government has “established clear and convincing evidence that [Mahmoud Khalil] is removable” due to “severe, adverse foreign policy consequences” carried by continued residing in the US. Khalil’s attorneys have until April 23 to petition the appeal his deportation.
If they do not do so, Khalil will be repatriated either to Syria or Algeria, two countries in which he reportedly holds citizenship.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Unjustifiable’: Trump Administration Responds to Deportations Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Rescued and Reunited: Dog Kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 Returns Home
Billy was taken by Hamas from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) helped reunite Billy, a dog kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with her family on Wednesday after discovering her in the southern Gaza Strip.
The three-and-a-half-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel was identified via a microchip which helped reunite the animal with its owner, Rachel Dancyg. She is the ex-wife of Alex Dancyg, who was abducted by Hamas during the Oct.7 massacre and later killed in captivity. The IDF confirmed his death last year.
Rachel survived the Oct. 7 atrocities and managed to save her two granddaughters. However, her brother, Itzik Elgarat, was also abducted by Hamas and murdered in Gaza.
Months after Hamas’s onslaught, Rachel and her family continued searching for Billy, but they believed the dog had been killed after finding a blood stain in the house.
“My brother Itzik didn’t come back. And Alex didn’t come back. And here, this little dog, survived,” Rachel said after being reunited with Billy. “I hadn’t managed to get her into the safe room and I imagined that they’d [Hamas] killed her, because they killed all the dogs at Nir Oz.”
According to Israel’s Channel 12 news, Aviad Shapira, a reserve soldier in Golani’s 13th Battalion, found Billy when she emerged from the rubble after hearing soldiers speaking Hebrew.
“We had just conquered the Morag corridor in order to encircle Rafah. I went to the Namer [armored personnel carrier] and saw lovely Billie walking toward me,” Shapira told Channel 12, recounting her experience.
“She just ran up to me and jumped on me. I told myself that she would come with me to Israel and I really fought for her to come with me,” she continued.
Rachel’s family and friends were murdered on October 7.
Her dog Billy was kidnapped to Gaza.
For a year and a half, Rachel didn’t know if he was alive.
This week, an IDF reservist found him in Rafah.
Today, they were reunited.
pic.twitter.com/xfiKyGNUur
— Tamar Schwarzbard
In a statement, Rachel and her family expressed their gratitude to the IDF soldiers for bringing Billy home.
“We thank, from the bottom of our hearts, the Golani Brigades reservist who insisted on taking Billy with her and returning her to Israel,” the statement reads. “Thank you to all the heroic IDF combat soldiers, you showed us light amid the great darkness.”
A spokesperson for Nir Oz also praised Aviad and “all the heroic IDF soldiers” for bringing some hope and light to the community.
“Dogs are a family, and many of the dogs and other animals in our kibbutz were also kidnapped and murdered on Oct. 7,” the spokesperson said. “The great joy of the people of Israel in Billy’s return proves more than anything else how much we all need and wait for such miracles.”
“We still have 59 abductees in Gaza, 14 of them from Nir Oz, and we hope that the next miracle will come with the return of all of them.”
Since Hamas’s attack — in which the Palestinian terrorist group led the massacre of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 251 hostages — well over 100 captives have been released through negotiated ceasefire deals in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian detainees. The Israeli military has also rescued a smaller number through special operations
There are currently 59 hostages still in Hamas’s captivity in Gaza, with over half believed to be dead. As the second phase of the ceasefire agreement was never launched, Israel resumed its military campaign in the enclave to press Hamas into freeing the remaining Israeli hostages.
The latest round of talks in Cairo to restore the ceasefire failed to make any progress, as Hamas insisted that any agreement must lead to an end of the war in Gaza, while Israel maintained it would not cease fighting until Hamas is eliminated, with the terrorist group refusing to lay down its arms.
The post Rescued and Reunited: Dog Kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 Returns Home first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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What Western Media Won’t Tell You About Palestinian Paramedics in Gaza
November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
What comes to mind when you think of a paramedic who rushes to save innocent people during a war — only to be attacked and detained?
Most people would envision a peaceful individual devoted to saving lives, and instinctively view those who detained him as brutal and unjust. You’re also far more likely to trust his version of events over those who arrested him.
This is precisely the narrative dominating most Western media outlets in their coverage of Asaad al-Nasasra, a paramedic from Gaza. Readers too easily fall into the trap set by biased journalists at The Guardian and other outlets who, as usual, haven’t done their due diligence.
Because just a cursory check of Asaad al-Nasasra’s public Facebook account reveals someone far from the peaceful medic he’s portrayed as.
His posts are filled with incitement to terrorism and praise for Gaza’s “martyrs.” Here are just a few examples.
In a post from May 2021, accompanied by a poster whose design disturbingly echoes Nazi-style antisemitic visuals, al-Nasasra wrote (translated from Arabic):
Muslims today, due to their weakness and shallow understanding of the true essence of religion, are waiting for a miracle from God to destroy their enemies — while their enemies are growing stronger! This is foolishness…
God Almighty said: ‘And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war.’ After you prepare all that you can, say: O Lord, You are the Supporter, You are the Granter of success, You are the Protector, You are the Sustainer. We must take the necessary means as if everything depends on them, then put our trust in God as if they mean nothing. This is the lesson Muslims need today more than at any time in the past. [emphasis added]
We now know all too well what “necessary means” stands for in Gaza: taking hostages and slaughtering civilians, and sacrificing thousands of Gazans, using them as human shields.
Above is another post from this “peaceful” paramedic, written during Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. The phrases on the rockets read (translated from Arabic):
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- اللهم يبّس عظامهم – “O Allah, dry up their bones.”
- ورمّل نساءهم – “…make their women widows.”
- ويتم أطفالهم – “…orphan their children.”
- وانصرنا عليهم – “…and grant us victory over them.”
And one more, from May 13, 2021 (translated from Arabic): “May everyone who struck Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Ashkelon, the Gaza Envelope*, and the occupied territories be well every year. #Every_Year_Our_Resistance_Is_Our_Pride”
It’s crucial to remember that many of those who lived — and were brutally murdered — in the Gaza Envelope were known for being among Israel’s most passionate advocates for a two-state solution and harsh critics of the Israeli government. As Douglas Murray noted during his recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast (timestamp 01:51:05):
So many of them, particularly the people in the south who were attacked on the morning of the 7th, were literally people who dreamed of living in peace with their Palestinian neighbors.
They were people like Vivian Silver, whose body wasn’t identified for months because there wasn’t enough of her charred remains to even extract DNA from. She spent every weekend, like so many people in the southern communities of Israel, driving Palestinian children with rare medical conditions to hospitals.
So what kind of peace deal exactly is expected from Israel when Gaza’s so-called “peaceful paramedics” openly support Hamas, refer to terrorists as “our resistance,” and glorify rocket attacks on the strongest advocates of coexistence?
And this is likely just the cleaned-up version of al-Nasasra’s profile, which features near-daily posts up until late June 2021. One can only imagine what was posted there on or around October 7, 2023.
While the incident involving the Red Crescent ambulances is still under investigation, most Western media outlets continue to prioritize the narratives of Hamas officials and Gazan eyewitnesses. But after everything found on al-Nasasra’s Facebook, it’s hard not to question whether his colleagues share similar views — views that include denying Israel’s right to exist and supporting terrorism.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post What Western Media Won’t Tell You About Palestinian Paramedics in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.