The Latest From @MacTaskForce
On the first Friday of Ramadan, tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers are making their way to Jerusalem’s Old City, and Israeli authorities are working to ensure they can do so safely and freely.
In a region where religious persecution is the horrific norm, Israel continues to protect access to holy sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
Security and religious freedom are not contradictions. In Israel, they are upheld side by side.
This is what democracy in the Middle East looks like.
Israeli Member of Knesset Sharren Haskel extended warm wishes to Muslims in Israel and around the world for a blessed Ramadan, a powerful reminder of what real democracy looks like in the Middle East.
In Israel, religious freedom isn’t a slogan, but a lived reality. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druze, and others pray openly, celebrate their holidays, and serve in public life together. Ramadan is observed freely, and all communities gather without fear.
At a time when extremists try to divide faith communities and weaponize religion for political gain, gestures like this matter. They reflect a core democratic value: every person deserves the right to practice their faith with dignity and without coercion.
Ramadan Mubarak to all who are observing.
Israeli Arab IDF Captain Ella Waweya, the highest-ranking Muslim Arab woman serving in the IDF, shared a powerful message to the Arab world wishing everyone a blessed, secure, and peaceful Ramadan.
Her position and steadfast Israeli pride challenge the narratives extremists try to sell. She is proudly Muslim, proudly Arab, and proudly Israeli. She, like the IDF, is proudly committed to protecting human life.
Captain Waweya makes clear that these identities do not contradict one another. They reflect a vision of a Middle East built on coexistence, stability, and shared security instead of division and hate.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar delivered a blunt message at the UN Security Council: Israel will not apologize for defending itself, and it will not be intimidated by what he described as the UN’s “anti-Israel obsession.”
Sa’ar made it clear that Israel is a peace-seeking democracy, standing on the front lines against radical forces that openly call for its destruction. He reminded the international community that attempts to eliminate the Jewish state began the moment it was reborn in 1948, and those efforts have not ceased.
For the past two and a half years we’ve seen that genocidal rhetoric against Israel hasn’t weakened, but intensified. Sa’ar also importantly warned that Israel is not the only target. The same extremist ideologies threatening Israel also threaten the broader West.
Israel will continue to speak the truth, defend its rights, and stand firm against those who seek its destruction.
Everyday Syrian Druze citizens have delivered a message of deep gratitude to Israel for intervening to protect Druze communities from Islamist violence in southern Syria.
For the Druze, this is not about politics, it’s about safety. Israeli Druze serve in the IDF in significant numbers and have long-standing ties to their brothers and sisters across the border. When Syrian Druze came under threat, Israel acted. Many now describe that intervention as a protective shield at a moment of existential danger.
While extremists preach division and hatred, this moment tells a different story: minority communities in the Middle East are recognizing who shows up for them when lives are on the line.
Voices from the Syrian Druze community are now openly expressing readiness for reconciliation and a future built on security and mutual respect.
Masih Alinejad has spent her life fighting for the freedom of Iranian women. At the Geneva Summit, she delivered a powerful message to European leaders: silence in the face of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s massacre of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians is complicity in their murder.
She pointed to real victims of the state’s violence including Kosar, shot in the eye by the IRGC and Sima, shot in the arm and forced to live for years with a bullet still inside her body. These are not statistics, these are the brave women who paid the price for demanding basic human rights.
Masih also exposed a stunning injustice: Afsaneh Nadipour, once responsible for enforcing the regime’s oppression of Iranian women, now holds a position monitoring women’s rights internationally. The very system that brutalizes women is being allowed to present itself as their protector.
She further condemned the UN’s decision to platform Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior regime official deeply tied to the machinery of repression and violence.
The Iranian people have shown extraordinary courage. Now the world must show moral clarity, and not allow their silence to protect the oppressors.
Forty days after protestor Alireza Seidi was murdered by the Iranian regime, innocent civilians gathered only to mourn.
The regime’s security forces responded with gunfire.
This is the reality of life under Iran’s dictatorship. Even memorials peaceful moments of grief and remembrance are treated as threats. The regime fears the truth, the courage of its own people, and their refusal to forget.
Iranians are risking everything simply to honor the victims and demand dignity. They are not armed, nor violent, and they are only standing for their basic human rights.
The world must not look away or fall into silence. Stand with the Iranian people against the murderous dictatorship that rules over them. FREE IRAN NOW.
A UN Special Rapporteur is supposed to defend human rights for everyone, not praise and legitimize terrorist organizations.
Back in August 2025, Francesca Albanese defended Hamas, and attempted to rebrand them as merely a political force. This is the same Hamas that murders both Gazan and Israeli civilians, suppresses dissent, and rules through terror.
Albanese also recently appeared on an al-Jazeera panel alongside extremist figures, including the head of Hamas and the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The role of a UN human rights official is to stand with victims, not to legitimize those groups responsible for their murder and violent repression.
How can the UN claim to uphold human rights while allowing someone who defends extremist actors to retain this position?
