Sina Toossi
senior fellow at the @CIPolicy.bsky.social | write a lot about Iran, US foreign policy, Middle East | bylines Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Guardian & elsewhere | check out my substack: dissidentforeignpolicy.com
- A friend just returned from Palestine. Daily humiliation & oppression is intensifying everywhere: raids, settler attacks, home seizures, checkpoints, systematic discrimination for Palestinians in 1948 Israel. It's hard to fathom. Yet this is what so many in Washington defend. 🧵>>>
- 2/ He encountered settler teens acting with impunity, cussing at Palestinians, spitting, throwing stones, all in front of Israeli soldiers. The goal is humiliation & provocation. If a Palestinian flinches or pushes back, the army steps in to beat, arrest, and escalate.
- 3/ And for Palestinians inside 1948 Israel, the myth of "democratic rights" for all collapses quickly. Many cannot even repair their homes, let alone build new ones. Their lives & livelihoods are constantly squeezed. Discrimination is structural & aimed at getting them to leave.
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View full thread6/ From his talks with Palestinians & Israelis, it was clear: the goal is “Greater Israel." Not only the West Bank but ambitions in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt. And this isn’t fringe. It's a driving force in Israeli society, fueled by impunity & deep ethnosupremacism.
- Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated despite ceasefire
- Reposted by Sina Toossi[This post could not be retrieved]
- There’s still a segment of the liberal political & foreign-policy pundit class that, even now, can’t bring itself to criticize Israel — though they’d condemn any other state for the same actions. At this point, that silence says something deeper and darker about many of them. 🧵>>>
- 2/ It’s no longer just careerism or “risk aversion,” but an unexamined belief that Israel is shielded by a uniquely punitive, almost omnipotent force — that speaking honestly about Israel carries a singular cost.
- 3/ This instinct to tiptoe around Israel is not neutrality, certainly not now. It rests on — and reproduces — an old, harmful idea that Israel or its supporters wield some extraordinary, almost mystical power capable of punishing dissent.
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View full thread8/ And the answer is simple and desperately needed: treat Israel like a normal country, whether you defend it or oppose it or are (somehow) ambivalent about it. This breaks an illusion that many pro-Israel forces actually want to sustain.
- Israeli analysts are whipping up a more fervor against Syria as Israel expands its attacks. On Telegram, Eran Lahav, fresh off a program with FDD, casts Syria’s internal dynamics as “Al-Jolani’s sophisticated jihad.” The narrative is clearly primed for more attacks. 🧵>>>
- 2/ Yesterday, in the latest Israeli incursion into Syria, Israeli forces killed at least 13 Syrians, including children. Most casualties were civilians fleeing artillery and air strikes Israel used to pull out a military unit. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
- 3/ Syria is also seeing large demonstrations backing the Al-Sharaa government and condemning Israel. They come just days after Al-Sharaa’s anniversary speech marking his rise to power, where he urged Syrians to take to the streets and “express joy” over Assad’s fall.
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View full thread5/ Israeli analysts' Telegram channel: "In Beit Jann they are occupied with the funerals of those who were eliminated, and in the background you can hear the noise of the Israeli aircraft circling overhead."
- Apartheid South Africa waged endless regional wars under a “total strategy,” claiming it was fighting the Soviets while feeding off Western backing. Israel now does the same with Iran. But Pretoria’s militarism only brought isolation, economic strain & accelerated collapse. 🧵>>>
- 2/ Apartheid South Africa sold its regional wars as a response to a Soviet “onslaught,” framing its aggression as self-defense. In reality, the goal was to crush liberation movements, destabilize neighboring states, and preserve apartheid through force.
- 3/ The scale was staggering: invasions of Angola, assassinations and raids in Lesotho, Swaziland, and Mozambique, and support for proxy forces like RENAMO and UNITA that terrorized civilians to keep frontline states weak.
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View full thread14/ Apartheid South Africa's lesson for Israel is clear: ethno-supremacist projects built on regional destabilization can last a while on western indulgence & manufactured existential threats, but they can't indefinitely survive legitimacy crises, isolation & economic attrition.
- Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's about gratitude. It reminds us how interconnected we are. Even in foreign policy, the suffering we cause elsewhere reshapes us at home. Gratitude brings us back to our better nature. Some thoughts ⬇️
- "But nothing has stirred my soul quite like Persian – the language of mystics and lovers." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
- Reposted by Sina Toossi⭕️ Newly shared footage from Tehran captures the aftermath of Israel’s strike on a packed intersection during the war in June:
- New footage shows the aftermath of Israel’s strike on a busy traffic intersection near Tehran’s Tajrish Bazaar in the June war. Cars & surrounding infrastructure destroyed, streets flooded, many killed or injured, people trying help each other at the scene.
- Reposted by Sina ToossiYes! Understand this, you’ll understand 99% more than many Iran “experts!”
- “Eat grass before becoming a colony again.” The Polish Foreign Minister's line echoes across the world, from Iran and Taiwan to Latin America and Palestine. I wrote about the universal struggle to resist domination and the hard tradeoffs nations face 👇
- Reposted by Sina ToossiThe new Epstein emails are the most incriminating evidence to date on Trump & Epstein & let's be clear, there has been plenty of incriminating evidence for many years. So, can we stop treating this like a process story and start focusing squarely on the likelihood Trump is a pedophile sex criminal.
- Beware of narratives that serve to manufacture consent for another war, especially a new one against Lebanon or Iraq. Both are in the Netanyahu government's crosshairs, even as Israel’s military is worn down. They're hunting for another war & trying to drag the U.S. along.
- The fact that the NYT even entertains such an outlandish, agenda-driven accusation isn’t just bad journalism. It’s how establishment outlets police the boundaries of “acceptable” debate and manufacture controversy over positions & people they want to keep on the margins.
- Centrist Dems aren’t built for moments like this. They rose in a politics designed to preserve status quo institutions of power, not challenge them. This is why they'll crumble even when "democracy" is on the line. Their instincts simply aren't fit for this Trump-era authoritarian moment.
- Reposted by Sina ToossiIran’s postwar politics are in flux. Beneath the surface noise, one trend is unmistakable: Tehran is pivoting more decisively toward China, out of necessity. @sinatoossi.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/11/i...
- Reposted by Sina ToossiImportant analysis from @sinatoossi.bsky.social: “The lesson in Iran is that international law and institutions no longer matter, so Tehran must act on its own national interests.” thebulletin.org/2025/10/why-...
- Reposted by Sina ToossiTrump believes he can get more than a nuclear deal from Iran, but pressure will make Tehran stick to its guns and turn to China and Russia – @sinatoossi.bsky.social told @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
- Reposted by Sina Toossi[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Sina ToossiVery valuable @nonzeronews.bsky.social podcast conversation about this weekend's US-Iran talks between @sinatoossi.bsky.social and @connorechols.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwYz...
- I spoke to The Hill about the Trump-Iran talks set to begin. This could be a real opening — if both sides recognize that serious diplomacy, not threats or ultimatums, is the only viable path to avoid conflict.
- Trump blindsided Netanyahu by announcing high-level talks with Iran. It’s a rare opening for diplomacy—and the war camp is scrambling to shut it down. I've written in Mondoweiss on why the US must not waste this chance:
