H.A. Mansour
"In recent weeks, the question came up during a heated battle for the open Senate seat in Michigan. Does Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, have any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood? On October 11, Kristen Welker, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, asked the question directly. El-Sayed replied, “No.” Three days later, NBC raised the question again. Later, during a town hall meeting in Caro, Michigan, a voter asked El-Sayed to disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. He did, but objected that the question assumed that “because I am Muslim” he would have “some allegiance to something that is not our Constitution.” President Donald Trump weighed in, saying that El-Sayed is “100 percent” Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed’s campaign called the claims racist. In trying to prove their respective cases, both sides have engaged in a quibbling session over what it means to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, missing the obvious, indisputable facts of the public record about the man and his family. El-Sayed may not be a member of the Brotherhood, but he is clearly a part of the worldview ushered in by the Muslim Brotherhood — at least in its American form.
What a senator believes about the Brotherhood is no academic matter. The Senate will help decide whether further branches of the movement are designated as terrorist organizations. It votes on military aid to Egypt, the country that drove the Brotherhood from power in 2013 and has fought it ever since. It shapes policy toward Qatar and Turkey, which host the movement’s leadership in exile, and toward Hamas and Israel. Senators confirm ambassadors and ratify treaties, and some of them sit on the Intelligence Committee. It is therefore worth understanding what the Brotherhood is, and whether the concerns raised about El-Sayed have any merit...."
https://substack.com/home/post/p-222098566
I am pressing X to doubt
"
An “unprecedented confrontation” has been unfolding in recent days between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir surrounding an instruction by the prime minister for unspecified military action that defense officials believe could lead to a swift confrontation with Iran shortly before the election, Channel 12 reported Sunday.
The TV network, which cited anonymous sources, said Zamir had been resisting carrying out the military action, no details of which were provided, and sought further deliberations, as well as signed documentation from Netanyahu regarding legal authorization for it.
The issue had come to a head in the past 24 hours, the outlet said, noting that its report was being broadcast within the limitations of Israel’s military censorship regulations.
It quoted a military source saying, “This relates to an action that could lead to a flare-up with Iran, at a sensitive and dramatic moment, creating this [potential] miscalculation.”
The report further quoted unnamed sources familiar with the issue, who said there was concern among military leaders of an effort by the political leadership “to utilize the Iranian issue for political benefit.” Asked about the report during an interview with Channel 14, Netanyahu called it “nonsense,” saying “there was no fight” with Zamir. Earlier in the interview, the prime minister said that he had recently “instructed the IDF and Mossad to topple the [Iranian] regime,” though this did not seem to be connected to the report of a specific instruction from recent days...."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-unprecedented-confrontation-idf-chief-said-resisting-military-action-tied-to-iran-ordered-by-pm/
"Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat to the student-led protest movement in parliamentary elections on Sunday.
"We still do not have final results, on the basis of a sample ... it is clear that we have lost these elections, the Student List has won, they will have between 135 and 140 seats and we will have 105, no one else has entered parliament," Vucic said.
The snap elections, called by Vucic in September, came after almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption and creeping authoritarianism triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024...."
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-912835
Sad
"Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won an unprecedented fourth term on Sunday, the country's electoral court said, in a shock result that defied polls, precedent and global anti-incumbent sentiment to put the brakes on a wave of right-wing election victories across Latin America.
Lula, an icon of the global left and the most dominant force in Brazilian politics this century, defeated Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. The senator had finished first in the election's first round and hoped to revive his father's far-right movement.
At times, Lula's reelection looked like a long shot, as voters soured on him and his Workers' Party after years of corruption scandals and rising prices, while sweeping societal changes left the former metalworker and union leader looking out of touch with an increasingly app-based economy and its growing ranks of informal workers...."
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-912848
"US President Donald Trump endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time on Sunday evening in a Truth Social post days ahead of the upcoming election.
"When you go to the Polls please remember that Bibi [Netanyahu] has been an outstanding Warrior Prime Minister!" Trump wrote.
Trump said he and Netanyahu have had a strong relationship, "in winning together," referring to Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury. "Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister; we have to finish the job that we started!" Trump finished.
This comes shortly after The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu had intensified his efforts to secure additional support from Trump earlier on Sunday.
Two American sources confirmed to the Post that Netanyahu and his supporters within Trump's inner circle were increasing pressure on the president to issue new statements of support.
“We have never seen Netanyahu like this before. He is showing signs of political desperation,” they said.
According to an earlier report published by Axios, Netanyahu and Trump have spoken twice over the past three days, and Netanyahu had even suggested possible wording for new endorsements. An Israeli source briefed on the efforts told Axios that the prime minister proposed having Trump speak with Israeli journalists to reiterate his support.
Trump also suggested that the election of another candidate could have consequences for relations with the United States.
“If Israel has the wrong leader, meaning anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this job itself, and I’m not inclined to do that,” he wrote, referring to the confrontation with Iran."
https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-912847
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday posted an AI-generated image depicting a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv, warning the public just two days before the election that voting for anyone other than him could expose Israelis to the danger of a “second Holocaust.”
Netanyahu was sharing the words of Yuval Bloomberg, a right-wing activist with roots in the tech sector who once wrote a book against the Oslo Accords. The post by Bloomberg, written last week, included the AI image of the large mushroom cloud rising above Tel Aviv as the city burned from a nuclear blast.
Israel faces a “real and tangible existential threat,” the post shared by Netanyahu said.
“If the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons, nothing else will matter anymore. Everything pales into insignificance in the face of the existential threat posed by Iran and the Shiite axis.”
The post went on to argue that the controversies surrounding the government, including the Qatargate affair and the efforts to pass a law that would enshrine ultra-Orthodox draft evasion, are “one giant smokescreen designed to conceal the one issue that towers above all others.” “If two atomic bombs were to fall on central Israel, who would care about all these meaningless controversies?” it asked. The post argued that Israel has a limited window of opportunity to confront Iran while US President Donald Trump remains in office, warning that future generations “will not forgive us if we miss this historic window of opportunity.”
It also warned that voters risk exposing their families to “the danger of a second Holocaust” if they elect a leader incapable of confronting Iran, implying that only Netanyahu is up to the task.
The post shared by Netanyahu contradicted the prime minister’s own repeated insistence that Israel and the US devastated Iran’s nuclear program during the 2025 and 2026 conflicts with Tehran. Netanyahu said at the UN last month that “we devastated Iran’s atomic weapons” in the past year. The Israeli leader had also said in a statement in March that, as a result of Israel’s strikes, Iran can “no longer threaten our existence.”
Netanyahu has recently been accused by critics of pushing for a renewal of the war against Iran to influence or delay the October 27 vote — a charge he has denied. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly said during a recent private meeting that he did not see an operational need to strike Iran before the election. Channel 12 news reported Sunday evening that officials in the White House were alarmed by Netanyahu’s post. They worried that the post would cause Iranian officials to miscalculate, which could result in an attack and an escalation in the Iran war, according to the report.
Trump’s statement Sunday afternoon that there will be no strike on Iran that day may well have been designed to calm officials in Tehran, the outlet reported.
Netanyahu also has reportedly asked Trump in recent days to again publicly express support for his reelection campaign. An Israeli source briefed on the topic told the Axios news site that Netanyahu asked Trump to speak to Israeli reporters to underscore his support.
A US source told the news outlet that the Trump administration saw the request as a “sign of desperation.” Trump gave Netanyahu his “complete and total endorsement” a week ago, breaking with precedent. Reacting to Netanyahu’s “second Holocaust” post, Yashar party chairman and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot lashed out at the premier, accusing him of fearmongering ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
“Netanyahu, you’re hysterical,” Eisenkot wrote on X. “As in every election campaign, it’s the same method of lies and scare tactics. This time, threatening Israeli citizens with mass destruction,” he said. “And this is after you failed to achieve the objectives of the war in Iran.
“You’ve failed. And in two days, the people of Israel will show you that at the ballot box,” he added. Also responding to Netanyahu’s post, Democrats chairman Yair Golan wrote on X, “The prime minister of Israel has published an image of an atomic bomb over Tel Aviv. I ask that he be kept away from social media. The man and those around him have lost it. The pressure is mounting.”
“On Tuesday, we will replace those who sow panic and restore security and sanity to Israel,” he added.
“This is the vision [Netanyahu] is painting for our children,” B’Yachad chairman Naftali Bennett said in his response to the post on X. “He claims that only when he is the prime minister can we continue to live. He tells us that if he loses, we will all die. This is a lie.”
“The State of Israel was born and grew strong long before him, and will continue long after him. The people of Israel are stronger than any politician,” Bennett added. “But he is right about one thing: his government is truly leading us to economic, social, political and security destruction.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, Bennett’s No. 2 on the B’Yachad slate, said that Netanyahu was essentially telling citizens that Israel “is in danger of destruction, therefore [he has] decided to forgo American security aid, to surrender to sanctions that will destroy the economy, and to keep all the Qatari agents in [his] office.”
“All in all, it makes sense,” Lapid quipped."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-posts-ai-image-of-nuke-hitting-tel-aviv-warns-of-2nd-holocaust-if-hes-not-elected/
