Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 25, 2025. Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday rejected the possibility of nuclear talks with the United States, which imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil industry as part of the Trump administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

“There will be no possibility of direct talks between us and the United States on the nuclear issue as long as the maximum pressure is applied in this way,” Araghchi said during a joint press conference with his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

“We will not negotiate under pressure, threat, or sanctions,” he added.

The top Iranian official’s remarks came a day after the US Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, targeting over 30 brokers, tanker operators, and shipping companies involved in transporting and selling Iranian petroleum.

The new oil sanctions were the latest to be imposed since US President Donald Trump reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy toward Tehran, aiming to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Earlier this month, however, Trump also expressed a willingness to talk to Iran’s leaders, stating his desire to reach a “nuclear peace agreement” to improve bilateral relations with Tehran while insisting that the Iranian regime must not develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected the idea of negotiating with Washington, calling such a move “unwise” and “dishonorable.”

Tuesday’s high-level meeting between Russian and Iranian officials took place in Tehran to discuss bilateral relations, regional developments, and the 2015 nuclear deal with major world powers that placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

“On the nuclear issue, we will move forward with the cooperation and coordination of our friends in Russia and China,” Araghchi said during the press conference.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the views of both Russian and Iranian officials were in alignment regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

“Positions were aligned on the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [the official name for the 2015 nuclear deal] on the Iranian nuclear program,” it said.

Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported last year that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level.

At the time, the UK, France, and Germany said in a statement that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Tehran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

As Russia also faces increasing sanctions from the West over its war in Ukraine, Moscow and Tehran have deepened their cooperation. Ukraine and its allies have accused Iran of supplying weapons to Russia, allegations Tehran has denied.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian signed a 20-year “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty” reinforcing their economic and military cooperation.

The bilateral cooperation between Tehran and Moscow comes at a time when Iran’s influence in the Middle East is waning, with the fall of long-time Iranian ally Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Israel’s military successes against two of Iran’s terrorist proxies: Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

After the collapse of Assad’s regime, which was driven by an offensive led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, both Russia and Iran suffered a major setback in Syria despite years of investment in supporting their longtime ally during the civil war.

“Iran wants peace, stability, preservation of territorial integrity and unity, and the progress of Syria based on the will of the people,” Araghchi said on Tuesday, referring to Damascus’s new government.

During the press conference, Lavrov also referred to Syria’s new regime, saying, “We will do our utmost to ensure that the situation calms down and does not pose a threat either to the Syrian people … or to the people of neighboring states.”

The post Iran Rejects Nuclear Talks With US as Trump Admin Ramps Up ‘Maximum Pressure’ Campaign first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Illustrative: Pro-Hamas students rally at the encampment for Gaza set up at George Washington University, Washington, DC, April 25, 2035. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at George Washington University on Monday issued an ominous warning to a professor who created a proposal to resettle residents of Gaza outside of the Palestinian enclave and remake it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism, a policy rolled out by US President Donald Trump earlier this month.

“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.

“The reason for the eviction is: your active role in incepting the genocide and planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” SJP’s message continued. “Your disgusting plan for the complete destruction and foreign occupation of Gaza and the colonial ‘re-education’ of Palestinians.”

Denouncing Pelzman as the “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”

On Tuesday, Pelzman told The Algemeiner in a statement that the university’s police department and its president, Ellen Granberg, have been notified of the letter. He also shared background on his controversial proposal, which was outlined in a paper titled “An Economic Plan for Rebuilding Gaza,” a work published by the Center of Excellence for the Economic Study of the Middle East and North Africa (CEESMENA).

“The flyer, titled ‘Notice of Eviction,’ falsely accuses me of genocide, racism, and other inflammatory claims,” Pelzman said. “While it does not contain an explicit, direct threat, the language used is highly aggressive and appears to incite collective action against me.”

He added, “The SJP complaint refers to a paper that I recently published in an academic journal. Nothing in my formal economics paper suggests anything remotely resembling the SJP complaint. They accuse me of writing the Trump plan. The reality is that my paper was sent to the Trump people in July. It was not written for him, nor was it requested by him. Clearly, these people did not read the paper.”

Pelzman had said during an interview in August that his paper, which was later published in the Global World Journal and put online in October, “went to the Trump people because they were the ones who initially had an interest in it — not the Biden people. I was asked [by Trump’s team] to think outside the box on what do we do after [the Gaza war], as nobody was really talking about it.”

Responding to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment on SJP’s conduct, spokeswoman Julia Garbitt said the university is taking the situation “very seriously” and deplores “any acts that deface university property or threaten any members of our community.” Garbitt also noted that an investigation to identify the culprits, whom she said will be subject to “all applicable local laws and university polices,” is underway.

She continued, “We also want to stress that faculty members are entitled to academic freedom in their teaching and research, even when it is controversial. We also want to be clear that scholarly work produced by faculty does not reflect a university position. These commitments are the hallmark of an academic community that respects differing points of view.”

SJP’s threat to Pelzman, an accomplished academic who has focused heavily on the Middle East region, comes as the group serves probation for breaking a slew of school rules during the 2023-2024 academic year — a term which saw it heap abuse on school officials, visitors to campus representing former US President Joe Biden’s administration, and African Americans.

The university suspended the group over its behavior in Feb. 2024 but is now active again. Recently, SJP announced that it will hold a “teach-in” to commemorate the First Intifada, an outbreak of Palestinian terrorism which began in Dec. 1987 and, lasting for nearly six years, claimed the lives of scores of Israelis.

The group’s targeting of Pelzman came after Trump earlier this month proposed an amalgam of Pelzman’s concepts and his own, which notably involved the US occupying Gaza in perpetuity to oversee its reconstruction and recovery from the Israel-Hamas war prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As part of the proposal, Trump suggested relocating Gazans in countries such as Jordan and Egypt, which rejected the plan for being unworkable.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said on Feb. 5 during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site — level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

Pelzman explained his own thinking on the topic in August, noting that the Biden administration was not interested in his counsel.

“You have to destroy the whole place, you have to start from scratch,” he said. “And then you have an economy which actually has three sectors. You have tourism potential, you have agriculture potential, and then you have — because a lot of them are smart — high tech … This is a triangular sector model, but its implementation requires the area to be completely vacated so that the destroyed concrete can be recycled — ensuring that nothing remains of the vertical construction extending deep underground.”

Trump recently somewhat retreated from the idea, saying he would not impose the plan but instead recommend it. Nonetheless, the controversial and seismic proposed policy change has set off a maelstrom of anti-Zionist sentiment at George Washington University.

In Monday’s letter to Pelzman, SJP implied that it is prepared to harm the professor over his role in advancing Trump’s plan for Gaza.

“If you choose to remain on the premises, and if GWU continues to harbor your malignant presence on this campus, every sector of this community will be mobilized against you,” the group said. “The students of GWU will hold you and this university accountable for your crimes.”

Speaking to The Algemeiner on Tuesday, George Washington University senior Sabrina Soffer said SJP’s note to Pelzman violates norms which protect the unfettered exchange of ideas in higher education and constitutes harassment.

“They are targeting Professor Pelzman for doing his job — producing creative scholarship in a field of academia that is littered with mines that explode with the slightest sense of movement or touch,” Soffer said. “SJP’s slandering him as a ‘bloodthirsty Zionist” and threatening to ‘mobilize’ against him amounts not only to a violation of our discrimination policy but also a brazen act of intimidation which discourages academic freedom and the discovery of new knowledge.”

She continued, “The university must enhance their disciplinary policies and hold SJP accountable for its actions by once again suspending its permission to operate on campus.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Jewish Professor Threatened by Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Karen Attiah of the Washington Post. Photo: YouTube screenshot

An event celebrating anti-Israel writer Peter Beinart’s new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, went off the rails on Monday night after a woman confronted the moderator, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, for her social media posts made in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

On Monday night, a packed room of attendees huddled inside the Politics & Prose bookstore in northwest Washington, DC to listen to the duo chat about Beinart’s book, which details his thoughts about the ongoing war in Gaza and its impact on the American Jewish community. During the question-and-answer session following the discussion, Nyah Molineaux, an employee of the DC Department of Health, repudiated Attiah for liking a social media post which minimized Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel. 

“I want to ask you a question,” Molineaux said. “How do you correspond or reconcile your Christianity when on October the 7th you [liked a retweet] that said, ‘What do you think decolonization meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.’ You liked that retweet!” Molineaux yelled. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, immediately following the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel and abduction of 251 hostages, Attiah incited outrage after sharing a series of posts seemingly justifying the terrorist attacks. She reposted a tweet that stated, “Settlers are not the victims here and never will be.” On Oct. 8, the journalist also posted tweets defending the utility of “armed struggle” against oppression. 

I just got out of the Peter Beinart/Karen Attiah anti-Israel book event in DC. A woman confronted Attiah for retweeting a post supporting the Oct. 7 attacks. Attiah said she does not regret it and blamed racism for the backlash, though the woman screaming at her was also black pic.twitter.com/MjkeS0dv5v

— Corey Walker (@CoreyWriting) February 25, 2025

The scene quickly descended into chaos as Attiah tried and failed to interject. 

“I can answer your question,” Attiah said.

“No, no, no. I will explain to you what happened, so we can be very clear,” Molineaux continued, before referencing the systematic sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7 rampage.

“Rape happened,” Molineaux said. “How do you reconcile that with rape? How the hell do you reconcile that with a woman being raped? She was Shani Louk. Her body was taken apart. Is rape OK with you?”

“OK, that’s enough,” Attiah retorted, trying to deescalate the scene. 

“No, rape is OK with you, you damn jihadi. It is OK with you to rape a Jewish woman,” Molineaux added. 

A visibly uncomfortable Attiah requested the employees of the bookstore mute Molineaux’s microphone. An employee from the bookstore intervened and requested that the irate Molineaux leave the venue. 

While being escorted out, Molineaux called Attiah a “terrorist” and a “coward” and said she deserves “every goddamn thing that happens to you.”

“You’re a jihadi, and you’re a f—king terrorist. That’s who the f—k you are. The state of Israel will stand, and if you want to f—king play around and play like Bin Laden, you will be treated as such,” Molineaux added. 

Following the explosive confrontation, Attiah clarified that she has “no apologies” for her anti-Israel commentary following the Oct. 7 massacre and suggested that her critics harbor anti-black racial bias. 

Attiah said she hoped the incident would serve as “an example of how violent the social media discourse is” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “particularly if you are black.”

The Washington Post columnist did not mention that Molineaux was also black. 

Beinart, the featured guest, silently grinned while sitting next to Attiah.

Earlier in the evening, Beinart, one of the most prominent critics of Israel in the West, suggested that the Jewish state might be committing a “genocide” in Gaza as revenge for the Oct. 7 slaughters. Although he clarified that he does not support the mass murder of Israelis that occurred, Beinart suggested that the Jewish state’s alleged record of anti-Palestinian oppression incited it.

The left-wing intellectual also asserted, without evidence, that the recognized death toll in Gaza is “far too low,” and that Israel has caused a famine in the war-torn enclave. He also unfavorably compared the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa, arguing that Israelis speak about Palestinians comparably to how Afrikaners spoke about black people.

On Tuesday, Beinart appeared to attack The Algemeiner on social media for covering the event and posting video from it, falsely accusing the publication without evidence of following the extremist movement of Kahanism.

At my book event last night, a Kahanite publication tried to create the impression that I justify Oct 7, even though I condemn it at length in my book. What they left out of their video is me condemning Oct 7 in that very exchange, as I have literally thousands of times.

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 25, 2025

As for Attiah, over the past 16 months she has launched an unrelenting barrage of criticism opposing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Attiah criticized 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for adopting what she described as a pro-Israel stance during her campaign. The journalist also accused Israel of implementing “permanent occupation and apartheid” against the Palestinians and stated that it is “justified, moral, and necessary to be outraged at Israel’s behavior.”

Although Molineaux told The Algemeiner she is not Jewish, she said she felt inspired to defend Israel because she has Jewish first cousins. Molineaux also defended calling Attiah a “jihadist,” arguing that the Washington Post columnist has displayed hypocrisy by sympathizing with Hamas while simultaneously condemning extremist movements within Africa.

“As a Black woman it is abhorrent to me she is saying she is against Boko Haram in Nigeria but for Hamas in Israel. A jihadist is a jihadist,” Molineaux said.

The post Watch: Washington Post Columnist Karen Attiah Confronted Over Pro-Hamas Social Media Posts, Called a ‘Terrorist’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.