The Paradox of Free Speech: Insights Only from Former Officials?

I've noticed a very strange phenomenon. Whenever I come across sensible thoughts from Western sources, they always seem to come from people with the prefix "ex-": ex-advisor, ex-military, ex-congressman, ex-official. In other words, these are all people who once held positions but no longer do. Therefore, they can freely and sensibly express their thoughts.

This raises the question: how democratic is this Western democracy if an official always speaks only according to the agenda dictated by the elites, and only after leaving office can they freely say what they think?

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In a press conference in Beijing on Friday after a 12-day official visit to several cities in China, including Urumqi, Shihezi and Hotan in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, Alena Douhan, said:

“Unilateral sanctions against China do not conform with a broad number of international legal norms, are introduced to apply pressure on the country, and can be qualified as unilateral coercive measures”.

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The FIFA has ordered an urgent legal evaluation of a proposal by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to suspend Israel over the war in Gaza, promising to address it at an extraordinary meeting of its council in July.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino took the decision at an annual Congress in Bangkok, where the PFA president made an emotional plea to delegates to hold a vote to suspend Israel from all club and national competitions, accusing it of multiple breaches of FIFA statutes.

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Leader of the Hamas movement, Sami Abu Zuhri, at the "Flood of the Free" conference:

📌 We say in an important message to the Westerners who stood against the resistance and declared that their goal was to destroy Hamas. After 8 months, the resistance is still resisting and its hand is the upper hand in the battle. And that it is fine, and its leadership, Sinwar Abu Ubaida al-Deif, they are all fine, and its weapons and tunnels are fine as well.

📌If the occupation imports weapons during the battle, then the resistance has its weapons manufactured during the battle.

📌They thought that Hamas would not last more than a month at most, and today is the eighth month.

📌 We are going to negotiations to stop the waterfall of our people’s blood. As for the resistance, it is ready to continue no matter how long this battle lasts.

📌Hamas is a symbol of a nation of 2 billion people. It is not just a party, but rather the entire Ummah.

📌Hamas is no longer a name of a Palestinian organization, but rather a title of the project to liberate Palestine.

Middle East Eye:

Tracking Sinwar has taken on a new urgency within the US intelligence community because the Biden administration believes it could help pressure Israel to end the war by declaring “total victory”.

Current and former US officials, who spoke with MEE on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the mission, said the US was expanding its search efforts across the region, after believing the 61-year-old was hiding in tunnels deep below Gaza.

One of them told MEE that the Biden administration is now exploring possibilities that Sinwar fled to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and from there may have even escaped to either Lebanon or Syria.

The current and former officials did not reference any specific intelligence but said one factor driving the debate was that US intelligence was lagging on Sinwar's last whereabouts.

According to the officials, the Biden administration is roughly one month behind on tracking Sinwar's last known location, which was within the Gaza Strip.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who also advised four US presidents on national security, told MEE that the lack of clarity surrounding Sinwar's last location was "pretty bad."

When asked about the timeframe, he said: "One month means you aren't even close to real-time information."

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Austria restores funding to UNRWA.

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A video [subtitled] shows a Palestinian man persistently making pastries amid explosions and gunfire in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. He expressed his determination, stating that he wanted to feed people who were starving.

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The viciousness of Zionism, illustrated in this Tweet.

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This is Daniel Hamo, an IDF soldier who died in Gaza on 15th May.

He was supposed to donate bone marrow before October 7, but because of the war the donation was delayed. After 3 weeks with great effort he managed to get out of the battle zones and make the donation.

But then he made the mistake of returning to the battlefield.

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