Chris Hedges: Trump’s Sham Peace Plan
October 11, 2025, By Chris Hedges ScheerPost , https://scheerpost.com/2025/10/11/chris-hedges-trumps-sham-peace-plan/
There is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.
It is a sadistic game. A merry-go-round of death. This ceasefire, like those of the past, is a commercial break. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets.
Once Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will continue. I do not know how soon. Let’s hope the mass slaughter is delayed for at least a few weeks. But a pause in the genocide is the best we can anticipate. Israel is on the cusp of emptying Gaza, which has been all but obliterated under two years of relentless bombing. It is not about to be stopped. This is the culmination of the Zionist dream. The United States, which has given Israel a staggering $22 billion in military aid since Oct, 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might halt the genocide.
Israel, as it always does, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for failing to abide by the agreement, most probably a refusal — true or not — to disarm, as the proposal demands. Washington, condemning Hamas’s supposed violation, will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and “special economic zone” with its “voluntary”relocation of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.
Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious. Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire begins, it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. And that is the point. It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand. Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only “rhetoric.”
Israel, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”
Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?
How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?
How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?
Why are Palestinians, who have a right under international law to armed struggle against an occupying power, expected to disarm while Israel, the illegally occupying force, is not?
By what authority can the U.S. establish a “temporary transitional government,” — Trump’s and Tony Blair’s so-called “Board of Peace” — sidelining the Palestinian right to self-determination?
Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?
How are Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of an Israeli “security barrier” on Gaza’s borders, confirmation that the occupation will continue?
How can any proposal ignore the slow-motion genocide and annexation of the West Bank?
Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?
What are Palestinians supposed to make of the demand in the proposal for a “deradicalized” Gazan population? How is this expected to be accomplished? Re-education camps? Wholesale censorship? The rewriting of the school curriculum? Arresting offending Imams in mosques?
And what about addressing the incendiary rhetoric routinely employed by Israeli leaders who describe Palestinians as “human animals” and their children as “little snakes”?
“All of Gaza and every child in Gaza, should starve to death,” the Israeli rabbi Ronen Shaulov announced. “I don’t have mercy for those who, in a few years, will grow up and won’t have mercy for us. Only a stupid fifth column, a hater of Israel has mercy for future terrorists, even though today they are still young and hungry. I hope, may they starve to death, and if anyone has a problem with what I’ve said, that’s their problem.”
Israeli violations of peace agreements have historical precedents.
The Camp David Accords, signed in 1978 by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin — without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — led to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, which normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt.
Subsequent phases of the Camp David Accords, which included a promise by Israel to resolve the Palestinian question along with Jordan and Egypt, permit Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never implemented.
The 1993 Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, saw the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Yet, what ensued was the disempowerment of the PLO and its transformation into a colonial police force. Oslo II, signed in 1995, detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state. But it too was stillborn. It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” were to be delayed until “final” status talks. By then, Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were scheduled to have been completed. Governing authority was poised to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority. Instead, the West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority had limited authority in Areas A and B while Israel controlled all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.
The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands that Jewish settlers seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law — was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat. This instantly alienated many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees. As a consequence, many Palestinians abandoned the PLO in favor of Hamas. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles” and lambasted Arafat as “the Pétain of the Palestinians.”
The scheduled Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. There were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank when the Oslo agreement was signed. Their numbers today have increased to at least 700,000.
The journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo “a sham, a lie, a trick to entangle Arafat and the PLO into abandonment of all that they had sought and struggled for over a quarter of a century, a method of creating false hope in order to emasculate the aspiration of statehood.”
Israel unilaterally broke the last two-month-long ceasefire on March 18 of this year when it launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza. Netanyahu’s office claimed that the resumption of the military campaign was in response to Hamas’s refusal to release hostages, its rejection of proposals to extend the cease-fire and its efforts to rearm. Israel killed more than 400 people in the initial overnight assault and injured over 500, slaughtering and wounding people as they slept. The attack scuttled the second stage of the agreement, which would have seen Hamas release the remaining living male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire along with the eventual lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Israel has carried out murderous assaults on Gaza for decades, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn.” No peace accord or ceasefire agreement has ever gotten in the way. This one will be no exception.
This bloody saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged: the dispossession and erasure of Palestinians from their land.
The only peace Israel intends to offer the Palestinians is the peace of the grave.
Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela
s 12 Oct 2025The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado, a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter who has long been funded by the US government. She strongly supports Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people, and she is at the center of Donald Trump’s war on Venezuela, pushing for regime change against President Nicolás Maduro. Ben Norton exposes the ugly truth.
‘It’s going to be really bad’: Fears over AI bubble bursting grow in Silicon Valley
“We’re creating a new man-made ecological disaster: enormous data centres in remote places like deserts, that will be rusting away and leaching bad things into the environment, with no one left to hold accountable because the builders and investors will be long gone,”
He’s especially concerned now given the magnitude of money on the table as compared to the dot-com boom. There’s so much more to lose.
“When [the bubble] breaks, it’s going to be really bad,
BBC, Lily Jamali, Technology correspondent, San Francisco 11 Oct 25
At OpenAI’s DevDaythis week, OpenAI boss Sam Altman did what American tech bosses rarely do these days: he actually answered questions from reporters.
“I know it’s tempting to write the bubble story,” Mr Altman told me as he sat flanked by his top lieutenants. “In fact, there are many parts of AI that I think are kind of bubbly right now.”
In Silicon Valley, the debate over whether AI companies are overvalued has taken on a new urgency.
Sceptics are privately – and some now publicly – asking whether the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be, at least in part, the result of what they call “financial engineering”.
In other words – there are fears these companies are overvalued.
Mr Altman said he expected investors would make some bad calls and silly start-ups would walk away with crazy money.
But with OpenAI, he told me, “there’s something real happening here”.
Not everyone is convinced.
In recent days, warnings of an AI bubble have come from the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, as well as JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon who told the BBC “the level of uncertainty should be higher in most people’s minds”.
And here, in what is often considered the tech capital of the world, concerns are growing.
At a panel discussion at Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum this week, early AI entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan told a packed audience he has lived through four bubbles.
He’s especially concerned now given the magnitude of money on the table as compared to the dot-com boom. There’s so much more to lose.
“When [the bubble] breaks, it’s going to be really bad, and not just for people in AI,” he said.
“It’s going to drag down the rest of the economy.”………………….
AI-related enterprises have accounted for 80% of the stunning gains in the American stock market this year – and Gartner estimates global spending on AI will likely reach a whopping $1.5tn (£1.1tn) before 2025 is out.
Tangled web of deals
OpenAI, which brought AI into the consumer mainstream with ChatGPT in 2022, is at the centre of the tangled web of deals drawing scrutiny…………………………………………………
Then there’s tech giant Microsoft, which is heavily invested, and cloud computing behemoth Oracle has a $300bn deal with OpenAI, too.
OpenAI’s Stargate project in Abilene, Texas, funded with the help of Oracle and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and announced at the White House during President Donald Trump’s first week in office, grows ever larger every few months………………………………………
And as these increasingly complex financing arrangements get more and more common, the experts here in Silicon Valley say they may be clouding perceptions on AI demand.
Some people aren’t mincing their words about it either, calling the deals “circular financing” or even “vendor financing” – where a company invests in or lends to its own customers so they can continue making purchases.
“Yes, the investment loans are unprecedented,” Mr Altman told me on Monday……………………………………………….
OpenAI’s revenue is growing quickly, but it has never turned a profit.
And it is hardly a good sign that the people I’ve spoken to keep bringing up Nortel – the Canadian telecom equipment-maker that borrowed prolifically to help finance deals for their customers (and thereby artificially boost demand for their wares)………………………..
Telltale signs
Mr Kaplan says he seesa couple of telltale signs the AI sector – and therefore the wider economy – could be in trouble.
In frothy times, he says, companies announce major initiatives and product plans that they don’t yet have the capital for.
Meanwhile, retail investors clamour to get in on the start-up action.
The surge in AMD stock this week could indicate investors are trying to get a piece of the ChatGPT wealth machine – and while all this is playing out, real physical infrastructure aimed at satisfying the seemingly insatiable hunger for more AI development is being built.
“We’re creating a new man-made ecological disaster: enormous data centres in remote places like deserts, that will be rusting away and leaching bad things into the environment, with no one left to hold accountable because the builders and investors will be long gone,” Mr Kaplan said. ……………………………………….
There are plenty of believers in AI’s potential to transform society.
The question is whether the money to fund the ambitions of the foremost companies in the sector may be drying up………………………………https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz69qy760weo
‘WHAT WILL JESUS SAY?’ TONY BLAIR, BIG TECH AND THE ISRAEL CONNECTION
On the day after Trump announced a new “peace” plan for Gaza in which Blair will play a key role, the Nerve can reveal exclusive new information about his relationship with key funders and allies of Israel, funders who are directly entwined with the IDF and the Israeli military machine.
As Trump announces the former British PM as his choice to help govern Gaza, Carole Cadwalladr investigates the opaque workings of Blair’s institute, its funding from friends of Israel – including billionaire Larry Ellison – and an emerging rightwing media takeover of the global information space.
Sep 30, 2025, https://www.thenerve.news/p/tony-blair-institute-big-tech-messiahs-larry-david-ellison-murdoch-israel
At first glance, the event splashed across 18 pages of Hello! magazine could have been an influencer’s wedding. In one of the pictures, a small group, elegantly dressed all in white, gathered on the banks of the River Jordan, a splash of greenery in a stark, desert landscape.
There was a brace of movie stars, a Queen (of Jordan), the daughter of the now US president, Ivanka Trump, with her husband Jared Kushner, and the couple who had organised the occasion – the media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his then wife, Wendi Deng.
It was the kind of intimate billionaire gathering that, in 2010, was catnip for Hello! The photographer for the celebrity magazine captured the ceremony in which Deng and Murdoch’s two daughters were christened on the exact same spot where St John the Baptist had baptised Jesus Christ.
One guest, however, a godfather to the older child, hovered off to the side. A guest who was absent from every single one of the picture spreads: former prime minister Tony Blair.
It was more than a year later, in an interview with Vogue, that Deng revealed Blair had been there. And although the photos have never been made public, a source confirms Blair’s presence throughout.
Deng remarked on how handsome Blair looked, the source said. “He looked like Jesus Christ. It was just these extraordinary images of Tony Blair in white robes in the River Jordan. I literally couldn’t believe it.”
It’s also the nickname that Blair has acquired among young political advisers who work for UK government ministers, a shorthand for the power and influence of Blair and his lavishly resourced thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute.
“You hear people all the time asking, ‘What will Jesus Christ say?’” said a former ministerial special adviser. “Jesus is a huge consideration in any policy announcement.”
And there is a messianic quality to Blair. But in Britain, we tend to see him as a Life of Brian version of the messiah: a Pythonesque caricature, a target to be mocked, a very naughty boy.
On the day after Trump announced a new “peace” plan for Gaza in which Blair will play a key role, the Nerve can reveal exclusive new information about his relationship with key funders and allies of Israel, funders who are directly entwined with the IDF and the Israeli military machine.
The friends and funders include – but are not limited to – Larry Ellison, the founder of the tech company Oracle, and a figure who until now has been largely ignored in America and almost completely in Britain.
That needs to change. Because Ellison, 81, the second richest man in the world, is closely involved with the biggest financial, technological and political players in the world.
He’s a mentor to the only man who is richer than him, Elon Musk, and an investor in his companies. He’s a key partner of Sam Altman and OpenAI. He is now one of Trump’s closest allies and a personal friend and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to Antony Loewenstein – author of The Palestine Laboratory and an expert on Israel’s relationship with Silicon Valley tech companies and how they are using Gaza to test and train new technology products – Ellison’s company, Oracle, is “an integral part of the Israeli military”. It built Israel’s first cloud services and its partner Rafael Systems is one of Israel’s biggest military companies. It makes the deadly spike missiles that are believed to have killed seven aid workers, including three Britons, in April 2024. It also built Israel’s formidable Iron Dome.
And Tony Blair is Larry Ellison’s representative on earth. He has given the former British prime minister’s institute – an institute that is advising governments, including Britain’s, around the world – almost half a billion dollars
This is a partnership that has been years in the making. And to understand Tony Blair and his power now in Israel and Gaza – and behind the scenes of the UK government – you have to understand Larry Ellison.
In the US, where Ellison has mostly flown under the radar until now, people are waking up to his rapidly increasing power and influence. His son, David, is acquiring a vast new media empire in the US at rapid speed: Paramount and CBS News already, Warner Bros – which owns CNN and HBO – maybe next, with reports that Ellison will parachute a controversial pro-Israel journalist, Bari Weiss of the Free Press, into the top job at CBS.
Most consequentially of all, last week Trump signed an executive order that paves the way for Ellison and his newest business partner Rupert Murdoch – and a group of other investors – to own and control what is arguably the most influential social media platform in America: TikTok.
The global scale of what Blair and Ellison are doing has yet to be understood, in either Britain or America. It’s happening too fast. But at the centre are two of Ellison’s key friends and allies: Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu. While most of Silicon Valley was still leaning vaguely left, Ellison was one of the first tech moguls to throw his support and financial backing behind Trump. And he goes back much further with Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has holidayed with him on his Hawaiian island (while Tony Blair vacationed on Ellison’s yacht). According to the Times of Israel, when Netanyahu was fighting corruption charges, Ellison intervened to find him a better lawyer.
And Britain is in the centre of it too. What you can see via the Blair-Ellison relationship, and why it warrants such close scrutiny, is a political and technological transatlantic alliance, an alliance that was formalised in the US-UK tech deal that was announced during Trump’s state visit to the UK earlier this month, including investment from Oracle.
That day on the banks of the River Jordan was not just a celebrity-billionaire mash-up. It was a chink of light into a skein of relationships that now need to be re-evaluated in the light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Not least because all three principals present that day – Murdoch, Blair and Kushner – are playing critical roles in the future fate of Gaza and Palestine.
It was the mise en scène for events that are now playing out in plain sight.
IT’S been a momentous month for Blair. Two of his pet projects that have been years – decades! – in the making, took a great leap forward: Keir Starmer announced a plan to introduce a digital identity card for all UK citizens, a foundational Blair policy that he first tried to introduce in the 90s and that his institute has pursued a long-term plan in pushing.
And, even more consequentially, on the same day sources told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Blair was a key part of Trump’s plan for Gaza.
This is the true root of Blair-as-Messiahdom. The goal of bringing peace to the Middle East is something that Blair has seen himself as uniquely positioned to enable. For years, he was the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, an alliance of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and Russia. It has been an abiding obsession during his post-prime-ministerial career.
And finally, it appeared he would be central to whatever happens next. Haaretz reported that Trump had endorsed a plan in which Blair would become the “governor of Gaza”.
At the end of September Trump confirmed that plan. Blair would join an administration overseeing the reconstruction of Gaza in which the Palestinian Authority would have no involvement. Talking to the BBC, Dr Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician and politician, described Blair’s appointment as “absolutely unacceptable”.
It’s not just a question of Blair’s history in Iraq. Xavier Abu Eid, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s diplomatic negotiating team, told the Guardian that “there is already suspicion of Tony Blair because of the Palestinian experience when he was the Quartet representative.”
But those suspicions are just the tip of the iceberg. The Nerve has established evidence that suggests Blair’s institute could be compromised in its relationships with key allies of Israel
Blair’s central involvement in Trump’s plan was masterminded by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and one of the figures in white in the Hello! photographs – but it comes as there has been too little scrutiny of Blair’s global influencing operation, his London-headquartered institute, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI).
TBI is a vast organisation employing 900-plus employees operating in multiple countries. It’s not even clear what it is. A thinktank? A global consultancy? A lobbyshop?
Most crucially, given his new appointment, there has been no meaningful attempt to examine the financial and other links between the man who is set to be the “governor of Gaza” and Israel. But those links are extensive.
We can report that in the published accounts of TBI’s finances is a reference to an organisation called the Kirsh Foundation. IN 2022, the foundation was listed as a “donor and funding partner” on TBI’s accounts. The person who established the foundation is South African businessman Natie Kirsh, who made his money via Magal Solutions, a company which has built major Israeli infrastructure, including the West Bank wall and much of the fence around Gaza.
In 2017, when Magal Solutions was touting to build Trump’s border wall, Netanyahu tweeted his encouragement at Trump: “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
In the same year’s TBI accounts, Len Blavatnik’s foundation is also listed. Blavatnik, a businessman who is a hugely influential figure in the entertainment industry with a controlling stake in Warner Music, is also a prominent investor in both Israeli defence tech and media. He also bought Israel’s Channel 13 and brought in new leadership following a request from Netanyahu, who had complained to him it was too left-leaning.
These are both significant revelations. The level of funding they have given Blair is not known, and the TBI did not respond to our questions.
But they pale in the face of the influence of Ellison who has given or pledged between $476m and $538m to TBI. Blair is also centrally involved in his £1bn Ellison Institute for Technology in Oxford.
Staff members at TBI claim that these donations to the institution are “ringfenced” and do not influence policy. That’s a claim that seems preposterous given how crucial the money is to the institute’s finances – a vast chunk of its annual turnover of $145m – and how TBI’s reports include mentions of Oracle as a strategic partner.
And what cannot be denied is that Ellison and Oracle are deeply entwined with the Israeli government, its occupation of Palestinian territories and now genocide in Gaza. Both Ellison and his longtime CEO, Safra Catz, have been abundantly clear that Oracle backs Netanyahu’s government and its actions in Gaza. “Anyone who [has] a problem with that,” Catz said recently, has “a problem with us.”
Ellison is the biggest ever donor to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and Catz – an Israeli citizen who stepped down as CEO last week but is now vice-chair of the board – has said: “For employees, it’s clear: if you’re not for America or Israel, don’t work here.” Last year, she was photographed with Netanyahu’s war cabinet, including the man in charge of IDF operations, Yoav Gallant.
There was an extraordinary incident near the start of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza in which Oracle’s senior leadership praised its employees who volunteered their time to work with Israeli ministries to create “words of iron”. This was a software program that created an army of fake accounts to spread Israeli views across Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, specifically targeting public figures.
But above all, Oracle’s technology is playing a critical role in the Israeli military’s tech stack. Loewenstein calls Oracle’s backing of Israel “both financial and ideological”.
Oracle did not respond to any questions or requests for comment.
But it’s Ellison’s involvement in the deal to buy TikTok in the US that may be the biggest gamechanger of all. It’s the cherry on top of what has been an extraordinary media buy-up. His son, David, is leading a rapid charge to acquire US media properties. Earlier this summer, he bought Paramount for $8bn. A deal to buy the Free Press is imminent.
And he’s now in talks to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which as well as bringing him huge franchises like Harry Potter would also give him CNN’s newsroom and HBO Studios.
But the biggest coup of all is Chinese-owned TikTok. Ellison has been pursuing this since at least 2020, and just as Kushner was Blair’s kingmaker for the role in Gaza, he’s also the one who’s smoothed Ellison’s path to this particular deal.
It’s a move that China hawks in the US have long been pushing for, worried about the Chinese government’s influence and access to data. But it was the unfiltered, unmediated footage of heartbreaking carnage from inside Gaza that has become the overwhelming motivation behind the deal in the last two years. TikTok has fuelled a generational shift in sentiment in the US, with younger news consumers overwhelmingly more sympathetic to Palestine than older ones. (Only 9% of those aged 18 to 34 approve of Israel’s military actions in Gaza compared to 49% aged 55-plus.)
And it’s another figure from those Hello! baptism photos who is helping Ellison close the deal, a fellow staunch defender of Israel and another close friend of Netanyahu: Rupert Murdoch. This week, with both Ellison and Murdoch present, Trump signed an executive order authorising the transfer of TikTok to US owners, announcing that he and China’s president, Xi Jinping, had come to an agreement.
It was an arresting – and shocking – moment: America’s latest media monopolist, Ellison, partnering with its most famous, Murdoch. Between them and their sons, they will own a rightwing monopoly across the US media and now the licence to one of the most influential social media platforms in America, TikTok. It’s a huge upheaval with far-reaching consequences, a new hybrid media power merging mainstream and social media.
One man is in no doubt over the downstream consequences: Netanyahu. This weekend, he spoke to a room full of social media influencers. It was, he said, a hugely “consequential” deal for Israel, with TikTok a key “weapon” in its war.
“Weapons change all the time. You can’t fight today with swords, that doesn’t work very well, OK? … We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we engage, and the most important ones are on social media.
“And the most important purchase that is going on right now is?” he asks the room. “Class? TikTok. Number one, number one. And I hope it goes through, because it can be consequential.”
And then he tells them that the second most important platform is X. “So we have to talk to Elon [Musk]. He’s not an enemy. He’s a friend.”
This article only scratches the surface of Tony Blair’s activities and those of his financial master, Larry Ellison. As the name on the steel and glass building in central London states, an institute for global change. And conveying the scope of it, the geopolitical stakes, the big-picture view, while trying to drill down into the details is almost impossible.
The jokes about Tony Blair being Jesus Christ are funny. But they also reveal a deeper truth.
Ellison has successfully flown under the radar. But it’s his stealth that makes him dangerous, according to Gil Duran, a former political strategist and acerbic tech critic: “He is not trying to tweet his way to the front of human consciousness like Elon or others. But that is what makes him smarter and more dangerous.”
That and his ruthless determination and overweening belief in his own importance. Ellison’s biographer actually used a joke about that as the title for his book, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison. (The answer, he explains, is that God doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison.)
If that is the case, is Blair, in whom he’s invested vast sums of money and time, Ellison’s Jesus Christ?
Are they father, son, and – making up the trinity – the holy ghost in the machine, AI?
AI and cloud services currently being used inside Israel’s ministries and shortly here in Britain too. The UK government has signed a deal for Oracle to hold the private information of British citizens in a massive centralised database, a “sovereign AI cloud”: a cornerstone of Tony Blair’s other great obsession, digital IDs.
Culture, politics, technology. Larry Ellison is at the global centre of all three. But then in 2025 culture, politics and technology are one and the same, an accelerating convergence of which we are still only at the very beginning.
- Additional research: Charlie Young
From AI to TikTok to TV, This Pro-Israel Billionaire Is Expanding Power in US
One of Trump’s advisers once called megabillionaire Larry Ellison a “shadow president of the United States.”
By Derek Seidman , Truthout, October 11, 2025
arry Ellison’s name isn’t always mentioned alongside more public-facing megabillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg. But as he vaults to the top of the U.S. power elite after a string of high-profile corporate deals, that’s about to change.
Ellison, the founder of the tech giant Oracle, is quickly emerging as the new face of oligarchic power in the U.S. Oracle has become an AI powerhouse at the same time Ellison and his son David have acquired Paramount and its vast media empire. With Donald Trump’s recent executive order, Ellison and Oracle will also now oversee TikTok’s algorithms, shaping a platform that reaches 150 million U.S. users.
What’s more alarming than Ellison’s sheer wealth — in September, he briefly surpassed Musk as the world’s richest person — is that he’s building his concentrated power and control in collaboration with the Trumpian project of attacking so-called “wokeness,” all while supercharging the corporate expansion of artificial intelligence and tech surveillance.
Moreover, Ellison is a vocal supporter of the Israeli military and a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Israel looks to repair its image after two years of overseeing a genocide in Gaza, it’ll have a powerful booster in Ellison and his new media kingdom.
The Making of a Megabillionaire
Larry Ellison founded Oracle in 1977 and was its CEO for nearly four decades. The firm ascended by providing database software for business and government agencies. Oracle’s first customer was the CIA, and the company is named after a CIA project.
Over time, Oracle has swelled into a business empire focused on cloud services and, increasingly, artificial intelligence.
Today, Ellison is worth more than $350 billion. He owns more than 40 percent of Oracle’s stock and still serves as the corporation’s executive chairman and chief technology officer. Ellison was also on Tesla’s board of directors from 2018 to 2022 and holds a 1.4 percent stake in the company that’s worth billions…………………………………..
Trump-Tied AI Deals
But far more than wealth and luxury, Ellison has power. Notably, he’s forged a close relationship with Donald Trump, with one Trump adviser calling him a “shadow president of the United States.”
While Ellison hasn’t directly donated to Trump, he personally hosted a major 2020 Trump fundraiser. Ellison also joined a November 2020 call “where Trump staffers and supporters discussed strategies for challenging their candidate’s loss at the ballot box,” according to The Washington Post………………………………..
A huge swath of Oracle’s AI business comes from a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Oracle’s partnership with OpenAI was supercharged by Trump’s announcement in January of the Stargate AI joint venture, which The New York Times called an “early trophy” for Trump.
Indeed, Stargate is just one expression of the mutually beneficial alliance that Ellison has forged with Trump. Oracle’s expanding partnership with OpenAI reflects a new primacy for Ellison within the AI boom that is increasingly driving the entire U.S. economy.
Media Mogul
This should raise alarm bells, especially since Ellison has openly celebrated AI’s ability to surveil people, pronouncing in 2024 that “citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
Ellison’s alliance with Trump is also transforming him into an unrivaled media mogul…………………………………………………………………………………..
The Ellisons’ quest for media dominance doesn’t end with Paramount. They’re reportedly eying Warner Brothers, the iconic movie studio and owner of CNN and HBO. Such an acquisition, which would need the Trump administration’s approval, would create a media empire transcending even Rupert Murdoch’s conglomerate.
And then came the TikTok deal…………………………………………………………………………………..
For Ellison, all his new acquisitions present the opportunity to forge a truly novel corporate mega-empire that will dominate the U.S. media and attention economy, injecting his agenda like a thread across an AI-powered chain of news outlets, streaming sites, film studios, and social media outlets.
“We Love the Country of Israel”
“These are very smart people, and none of this is accidental,” noted one business professor.
All of this is very good for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s vast influence operation.
Ellison is a staunch backer of Israel. He is one of the top donors to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), a U.S. nonprofit that effectively subsidizes the Israeli military. Ellison has given the FIDF at least $26.6 million.
“I feel a deep emotional connection to the State of Israel and the Israeli people,” Ellison said at the 2014 FIDF gala. “We love the country of Israel and we’ll do everything we can to support the country of Israel,” he added, with his “we” seeming to refer to Oracle.
Ellison is also extremely close to Netanyahu, who has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court over Israel’s genocide in Gaza………………………………………………………..
Ellison is also a backer of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and has given or pledged at least $348 million to Blair’s Institute for Global Change. Blair could be part of Trump’s “Board of Peace” in Gaza if the current ceasefire deal holds.
…………………………………………………… Netanyahu recently called TikTok “the most important purchase going on right now,” adding that “weapons change over time,” and the most important ones today “are on social media.”
Now Oracle, led by Netanyahu’s friend and staunch ally Larry Ellison, is overseeing TikTok’s U.S. algorithms.
There are already clear signs of Ellison’s intent to take his new media empire in a pro-Israel direction, including his hiring of Weiss as CBS News’s editor-in-chief. The billionaire-courting Weiss is a staunch Zionist whose Free Press has stoked “genocide denial” with an “investigation” into “preexisting health conditions” of starving Palestinian children, notes The Intercept.
Modern-Day Robber Baron
Like the robber barons of the late 19th-century U.S., Ellison is consolidating his control over a vast corporate empire that dominates major sectors, from cloud storage and AI data centers, to iconic movie studios, mass news channels, and social media.
And clearly, Ellison is bringing his politics with him: Trump-aligned, anti-“woke,” and staunchly pro-Israel.
“Everything is consolidating,” media historian Michael Socolow told The New York Times. “What makes these deals different is that they are across multiple platforms.”
“To have the opportunity to establish an editorial line across TikTok, CBS News and CNN — that’s a new world,” Socolow added. https://truthout.org/articles/from-ai-to-tiktok-to-tv-this-pro-israel-billionaire-is-expanding-power-in-us/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=314e14bc07-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_10_11_06_41&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-314e14bc07-650192793
After robbing EU taxpayers, Zelensky uses blackmail to get inside the Bloc
He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process.
The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe
Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London.
Since the United States-led NATO proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, the European Union has doled out $216 billion in aid to Ukraine. That’s equivalent to €186 billion, according to the EU’s latest official count. The true figure is likely to be even more.
The United States has given a similar amount to Ukraine. All paid for by taxpayers.
That’s about $400 billion total in three years, with the EU promising more over the next few years.
To put this in perspective, the EU aid to Ukraine is multiples more than all of the 27 member nations have received – combined – from the bloc’s collective budget and administration. According to Euronews reporting, some of the biggest recipients of EU subsidies each year are Germany (€14 bn), France (€16.5 bn), and Poland (€14 bn). Some of the smaller recipient countries are Austria, Denmark, and Ireland (around €2 bn).
That means Ukraine has received heaps more than all of the EU members combined.
Get your head around that. Ukraine, which is not a member of the European Union, is receiving manifold what actual member states are receiving. And you wonder why people in France are angrily taking to the streets because their shambolic government wants to cut pensions and other social welfare services to save money. Elsewhere, European governments are collapsing from unsustainable debt. And, at the same time, European citizens are constantly being lectured that their states need to spend more and more money on the NATO alliance, even to the insulting point of having to accept the cutting of social benefits and public services
Ukraine and its corrupt Kiev regime of NeoNazis has bled Europe dry. The so-called president, Vladimir Zelensky (who canceled elections last year, so he’s not really a legitimate president), is reported to be funneling €50 million a month to overseas funds for his retirement while his wife goes luxury shopping in New York and Paris. Other members of the regime, like former prime minister and now “defense” minister Denys Shmyhal, are also reportedly up to their eyes in corruption, siphoning off billions in the military aid that Western taxpayers have paid for.
This week, Zelensky took his brassneckery to new levels – if that’s possible. He is demanding that Ukraine be made a member of the EU, and he wants to change the rules of the bloc to speed up the process. The EU has granted Ukraine (and Moldova) a fast-track path to membership, but, to its credit, Hungary has objected to this.
In June, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cast a veto on continuing access talks for Ukraine. According to EU rules, there must be unanimity among member nations for the approval of new members. Orbán said Ukraine is not eligible because of the current war against Russia. “We would be importing a war,” he said.
Also, Budapest objects to Ukrainian language laws that discriminate against a Hungarian minority in the western Zakarpattia region of Ukraine. (The Russian language has been banned, too, in public offices.)
A referendum held in Hungary in June recorded that 95 percent of voters were against Ukraine becoming a member of the EU.
Zelensky is pushing ahead regardless, with his peevish wheedling. In a joint press conference in Kiev on Monday, with the indulgence of the Dutch PM at his side, Zelensky said: “Ukraine will be in the European Union, with or without Orbán, because it is the choice of the Ukrainian people.”
The little dictator flaunted his insufferable presumptuousness by hinting that the European Union would change its rules to bypass Hungary’s veto – all just to accommodate his scrounging regime. “Changing the procedure is called finding a way without Hungary,” he said. And in a further arrogant dismissal of democratic process, Zelensky asserted that the Hungarian people support his EU ambitions, contradicting the referendum back in June.
Orbán responded firmly by telling Zelensky he could not blackmail his way into the European Union.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó added a dose of reality by stating: “The decision on which country is ready to join the European Union and which can join the EU will not be made by the president of Ukraine, but by the European Union itself, where such decisions require unanimity.”
In a further comment, Szijjártó nailed it by saying that Zelensky is “completely detached from reality.” The Hungarian diplomat also reminded that the Kiev regime is blowing up energy infrastructure and jeopardizing the EU members’ vital interests.
Last month, Ukrainian forces exploded the Druzhba oil pipeline from Russia, cutting off energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. The Zelensky regime carried out the sabotage as retribution for Budapest’s opposition to Ukraine’s EU application. This is what Orbán was no doubt referring to when he slammed Zelensky this week for using blackmail.
So, there you have it. A corrupt, unelected, Neo-Nazi regime headed up by a Jewish scam-artist who plays piano with his penis while wearing women’s high heels is using terrorist tactics to attack the vital interests of EU members, and is now telling those members that they won’t have a vote in the EU processes, because the regime has decided it will become a member of the bloc. You could not make it up. This, too, after robbing the taxpayers of the bloc of €186 billion to wage a war against Russia – a war that has killed 1.5 million Ukrainian soldiers – which could spiral out of control into a nuclear Third World War.
If this is the kind of ruination that this regime can inflict while not being a member of the EU, one can only imagine the hellscape it will bring after becoming a member……..
the real culprits in this obscene farce are the American and European elites who have fomented the war against Russia. Together, they have weaned and pampered the Kiev regime with largesse and indulgence, paid for by the taxpayers. The U.S.-EU transatlantic ruling class has cultivated the regime of corruption and war since the 2014 CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president. The racket has laundered hundreds of billions of public money to the Western military industrial complex. The racket has destroyed the economies of Europe and is now destroying the semblance of democracy within Europe. (It’s not clear what Trump’s position in all of this is, but he probably doesn’t count anyway.)
The Western imperialist ruling class is so obsessed with its scheme for “strategic defeat” of Russia (and China) and for global domination that it is willing to cultivate any scumbag regime it can make use of for its goals, no matter how much that violates international law and its own professed democratic principles.
Zelensky’s corrupt dictatorship is just a pale reflection of his patrons in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and London. They are all detached from reality. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/10/after-robbing-eu-taxpayers-zelensky-uses-blackmail-to-get-inside-the-bloc/
Boldness is needed to take on toxicity of nuclear power.
SCOTLAND’S nuclear facilities, civilian and military, are leaking. Is
this an occasional hazard to bear, as we resolutely defend and power
ourselves? Or another indicator of how much independence has to clean up the modernity of Scotland?
This week’s reports of radioactive water
rushing into the Caithness shore at Dounreay – containing Caesium-137, as
well as alpha- and non-alpha-emitting radionuclides – admittedly came
from a clean-up situation, the decommissioning of the plant itself. But the
context makes you shudder. These “accidental” releases – spewing from
some “underground facility” – were deemed a “very small fraction of
our normal discharges via authorised discharge routes”, says Nuclear
Restoration Services (NRS), the firm responsible. (By the way, according to
the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory – a chilling vista of our
nation’s industrial filth – the “authorised” routes contain
Strontium-90 and tritium, some of the most dangerous by-products of nuclear generation).
Consider also last year’s leaks. They identified “corroded
steelwork in a building being used to store drums of radioactive sodium,
and leaks from low-level radioactive waste pits”, as reported in this
paper. It’s all a demonstration of the sheer toxicity of nuclear power
– as evident in its disassembly, as in its installation. And I can’t
not mention the 585 cracks in the graphic reactor core of the ageing
Torness nuclear plant in East Lothian, reported by The Ferret earlier this
year. This is a tiny bit less than the amount – counted across two
reactors – that compelled the shutdown of Hunterston B in 2022. Much
technocratic reassurance from the French owner-operators EDF about safety, until some projected cessation in the early 2030s.
But I’m not exactly
consoled. Are you? And if we need investigative reporting to unearth leaks
in the notoriously defensive nuclear energy sector, imagine the digging
required to get the same from our nuclear warfare facilities.
The Ferret again triumphed in August after a six-year battle, releasing proof of a 2019 irradiated spill from burst pipes at Royal Navy’s Coulport nuclear bombstore, pouring deep into Loch Long.
The National 11th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25535392.boldness-needed-take-toxicity-nuclear-power/
Chicago Tribune avoids giving Donald Trump “great credit” for enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza for 9 months
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 11 Oct 25
The Chicago Tribune is correct to praise Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire in Gaza (Editorial: A remarkable day for peace in the Middle East. Donald Trump deserves great credit.)
However, good editorial journalism requires fair and thorough analysis and assessment. Alas, the Trib’s editorial is virtually devoid of that.
Calling it “two years of fighting and killing” is a callous way of describing two years of genocide inflicted by Israel that has largely obliterated Gaza, killing likely over 100,000 Palestinians and putting the remaining 2,200,000 into starvation and degraded health. That will increase the Palestinian death toll for weeks, months, years to come. That is not “fighting and killing”. It’s genocide, largely recognized by the entire world outside of the Israel and US political leadership. By the way….the US electorate views it as genocide.
An equally egregious Trib omission concerns the Editorial Board’s lavish praise of Trump’s conduct. The Trib likens Trump to the Long Ranger, riding out of the sunset to bring peace to the Palestinians.
If the Trib wants to praise Trump’s role in the ceasefire…fine. But why not include that for nearly 9 months Trump has been funding the genocide with billions in weapons, protecting it with vetoes of UN resolutions condemning the genocide, seeking African countries to take in the Palestinians from Gaza not killed by Trump’s bombs, and excited by the prospect of a Trump real estate project to rebuild Gaza for Greater Israel.
These are not inconvenient facts. They will forever be etched into the history of the worst humanitarian catastrophe the US has ever participated in during its 250 years.
The Chicago Tribune should have balanced its editorial solely praising peacemaker Trump, with condemnation of genocide Trump for enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza for nine long months following his predecessor Biden enabling it during his last 15 months.
Yemen’s Houthis To ‘Monitor’ Israel Compliance With Gaza Ceasefire Deal
Yemeni attacks will stop if Israel implements the deal
by Dave DeCamp | October 9, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/10/09/yemens-houthis-to-monitor-israel-compliance-with-gaza-ceasefire-deal/
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, said on Thursday that Yemen will be “monitoring” Israel’s compliance with the Gaza ceasefire deal, warning Yemeni support for the Palestinians in Gaza would continue if the deal isn’t implemented.
“We must be at the highest levels of caution and readiness, and continue the massive popular momentum with the Palestinian people, until we determine whether the agreement will be achieved, or whether we will continue our path of support and assistance to the Palestinian people,” al-Houthi said, according to Yemen’s SABA news agency.
“We will remain vigilant, prepared, and monitor the progress of the agreement. Will it lead to an end to the aggression on the Gaza Strip and the entry of aid, food, medicine, and humanitarian needs to the Palestinian people? Will the Americans and Israelis stop their genocide against the Palestinian people and commit to a ceasefire? This is what we hope for, and it was our goal in the support operations and confronting the attack on the Palestinian people and the nation in general,” al-Houthi added.
Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, has maintained that its attacks on Israel and blockade of Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea would end if there were a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli blockade on aid entering the Palestinian territory. The Houthis halted their attacks back when a ceasefire deal was signed in January 2025.
After Israel violated the ceasefire deal in March by imposing a total blockade on Gaza, al-Houthi announced that Yemen would restart its blockade on Israeli shipping. In response to that announcement, the US began a very heavy bombing campaign targeting Yemen, known as Operation Rought Rider, which lasted from March 15 to May 6 and killed over 250 civilians.
While the Trump administration framed the bombing campaign as necessary to protect American ships, the Houthis were not attacking US vessels before it started. It ended with an agreement that the Houthis wouldn’t target US ships if the US stopped bombing Yemen, as the Trump administration gave up on trying to get Ansar Allah to stop its attacks on Israel.
Grossi says progress made on restoring Zaporizhzhia power
Friday, 10 October 2025, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/grossi-says-progress-made-on-restoring-zaporizhzhia-power
The two sides in the war have “engaged in a constructive way” with the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose director general says “a process has been set in motion” to help restore external power to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: “Following intensive consultations, the process leading to the re-establishment of off-site power – through the Dniprovska and Ferosplavna-1 lines – has started. While it will still take some time before the grid connection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has been restored, the two sides have engaged with us in a constructive way to achieve this important objective for the sake of nuclear safety and security. No one stands to gain from a further deterioration in this regard.”
External power was lost by the plant – which is on the frontline of Ukrainian and Russian troops – on 23 September, and it has since been relying on its fleet of emergency diesel generators for the power required for essential safety functions, including powering cooling pumps.
Before the war, there were 10 different external power lines to the plant, but that number has fallen since the start of the war in February 2022. Five months ago its last 330 kV backup power line was disconnected, leaving no supply when the sole operational 750 kV power line source was cut.
Both sides blame the damage on military activities and have said that the military situation has stopped them from being able to repair the damage. Grossi has had frequent contact with both sides as part of efforts to find a way forward.
The IAEA’s latest update says: “The focus has been on creating the necessary security conditions for repairs to be carried out on the damaged sections of the 750 kV Dniprovska and the 330 kV Ferosplavna-1 power lines, located on opposite sides of the frontline near the ZNPP.”
It is the tenth time that the plant has lost external power, although on previous occasions it was for a matter of hours rather than the current case of weeks. Seven emergency diesel generators are operating, with 13 on standby.
The IAEA team at the plant report that there has been no temperature increase within the coolant in the reactors or the used fuel pools and radiation levels at the site remain normal. They do continue to hear military action, including on Tuesday evening when they heard “five explosions one after the other, occurring close to the site and shaking windows in their building”.
The six-unit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. All its units are shut down.
Australian Politicians Ignore Israel’s Brutality Against Our Citizens
by Paul Gregoire, 10 Oct 2025, https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/australian-politicians-ignore-israels-brutality-against-our-citizens/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNYYbpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFvZW56NldIYVltV0JSQ1pBAR7k_Ehv4MPM4mBZcl8Ys4k5ckUYvmGHNzne6Ki56oAJjwRA-5TC1-qnzNMnJw_aem_5XDTJx0Kt9Abixs7ELefHA
The morning of Friday, 10 October 2025 saw the Australian Global Sumud Flotilla participants arrive back in our nation, after attempting to breach the Gaza blockade and then being illegally apprehended by Israel. A sizable crowd gathered on Gadigal land at Sydney Airport to welcome them back. However, another Australian flotilla participant has been in Israeli custody and again Australia’s top ministers are silent.
The Global Sumud Flotilla was part an ongoing campaign to breach the 18-year-long goods blockade on Gaza. Six Australians were taken into custody by Israel in international waters last week, amongst over 400 foreign nations, and they were then brutalised and mistreated in prison, while Australian woman Madeline Habib, a participant in a second flotilla, is likely in the hands of Tel Aviv now.
The participants themselves, as well as publics across the planet, have been shocked by the brutalisation and intimidation Israeli forces have subjected the more than 400 illegally detained foreign nationals to. And what’s resulted in equal dismay is the fact that our PM and foreign minister have failed to raise issue over the kidnapping of their fellow citizens, including the plight of Habib.
After focusing on the six Australians in Israeli custody that federal Labor publicly ignored, while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade sought to provide them with consular assistance, the mainstream media has failed to raise the alarm over Habib’s detention, even though the testimonies arising from the Sumud Flotilla mean she’s likely being abused by an allied nation as well.
And as Israel has been dealing with a further 145 foreign nationals it intercepted in international waters on Wednesday 8 September 2025, as part of another Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) mission, what has been revealed to Australians is not only will our politicians look the other way on a genocide, but they’ll do the same if Israel gets the chance to brutalise any of our constiuency.
Shameful lack of support
“The Australian government is absolutely shameful in our extraction,” said Australian Global Sumud Flotilla participant Julie Lamont, speaking to the ABC from Jordan on Wednesday, after being released from Israel’s notorious Ktzi’ot prison. “It did not really support us at all. We were the last people out of 50 nationalities. We were left their probably because it was October 7.”
In response to an ABC question as to whether our government arranged the flight out of Israel to the Jordanian capital of Amman, Lamont said, “No. We were facilitated by other governments not the Australian government. And now we are here trying to find a way to come back to Australia, and we really are upset that the Australian government have been so shameful in support of their citizens.”
Lamont said Italy had risen to support flotilla participants, whereas her government hadn’t. The documentary filmmaker added that she’d thought they might be detained for months, while fellow local participant Surya McEwen was reportedly singled out for extra rough treatment by the Israeli military, which included beatings, dislocating his arm and slamming his head into a concrete floor.
Lamont and the other Australians were released by Israel on Wednesday. They were part of the final one-third of participants still detained in Ktzi’ot prison. The fact that the Australian government was less responsive to its own nationals would have compounded the hard time they were receiving at the hands of a rogue nation that’s developed diplomatic tensions with ours over recent months.
A spokesperson for foreign minister Penny Wong released a statement on Wednesday that suggested DFAT officials were working hard to assist detained Australians. The spokesperson for the minister said officials conducted welfare checks at the prison and liaised with Israeli officials to obtain their release. However, the statement failed to explain why Israel was illegally detaining these people.
Israeli immunity
The disturbing fact that Australia’s top ministers don’t appear to consider there is any reason to waste their breath while citizens who’d risked their lives to feed a group of people being purposefully starved to death are being illegally imprisoned and subjected to harsh conditions has been coupled by the reacquaintance with the realisation that Israel can harm foreign nationals with impunity.
The flotilla apprehended this week with Habib was the fourth such attempt to breach the Gaza blockade since June. Participants are aware they are risking their lives, because the six boats making up a 2010 FFC flotilla were boarded by Israeli soldiers in international waters, and then nine foreign nationals were shot dead on sight, with a tenth dying later in a coma.
Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey was also part of last week’s Global Sumud Flotilla. Following his release, Hickey told a reporter that he had considered that if he ended up in an Israeli prison, he wouldn’t be subjected to the levels of brutality and deprivation that he was subjected to at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces, due to the fact that he is a westerner and a white person.
To face the level of sadism and inhumanity that they displayed was really quite shocking,” Hickey explained. “I mean in the five to six days that we were incarcerated, no access to doctors, no access to medicine, no contact with the outside world” and “no lawyers”. He then explained that one of his fellow participants, a 75-year-old, was deprived of his insulin, which could have killed him.
“In my opinion, they were very happy to let him die,” continued Hickey. “It’s not even a patch of what Palestinians are going through. That was on my mind the whole time. I was thinking, ‘If they’re treating me like this, with the passport I have and the privilege I have, imagine what they are doing to Palestinians in prison, many of whom are children.”
A dereliction of duty
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Instagram page reported on Friday that the participants in the latest flotilla have begun appearing before an Israeli court. Several participants had already been deported. The detainees were also reporting that they had too been subjected to punishing treatment at the hands of the Israeli military, although there was no specific word on Australian citizen Habib.
A large sector of the Australian public that had been aware that foreign nationals would be subjected to human rights violations at the hands of the Israeli state have been given a quick starter course on how there is one nation on the planet that is provided such impunity that it can violate and breach international laws and standards in a completely unbridled manner.
The other lesson Australia learnt is that while Israel might illegally detain and brutalise Australians, this won’t be an issue officially addressed because it is permissible. And this week was really a confirmation after Israel killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six others last year and all the foreign minister could do to respond was produce a declaration on the protection of aid workers.
MAGA Melts Down Over Trump Giving Qatar a Military Base in U.S.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Qatar would build an Air Force base in Idaho.
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, October 11, 2025, https://newrepublic.com/post/201647/maga-donald-trump-qatar-military-air-force-base
The Trump administration’s approval of a Qatari air force base in Idaho isn’t popular with either of America’s political parties.
Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the forthcoming Qatari Emiri Air Force facility in America’s heartland Friday morning, thanking the Middle Eastern nation for playing a “core part” in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. Mountain Home Air Force Base will host Qatari F-15 fighter jets and pilots, and allow Qatari forces alongside American troops for F-15 pilot training.
The move, which stands in stark contrast to the president’s “America first” agenda, seriously rattled some of Donald Trump’s most outspoken supporters.
“Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” posted far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has operated as Trump’s informal “loyalty enforcer” since August. “I don’t think I’ll be voting in 2026. I cannot in good conscience make any excuses for the harboring of jihadis.”
“This is where I draw the line,” she wrote.
Other conservatives were left bewildered by the seemingly nonsensical decision.
“What’s the strategic rationale for this? Either ours or Qatar’s?” posted the National Review’s Noah Rothman. “You could rattle off all the problems/risks we’re inviting easily. But I have no idea what the steelman case for this would be? I’m sure we don’t need to import any more Qatari covert assets into this country.”
And still others pointed out the inconsistent hypocrisy of the administration’s policies.
“Joe Biden was criticized for a Chinese balloon flying over our airspace,” wrote GOP consultant Mike Madrid. “They’re giving Qatar an entire f’ing air base.”
Dan Caldwell, who was forced out of the DOD during Hegseth’s Signalgate disaster, wrote on X that the joint air force operation was being blown out of proportion.
“The freak out around this is of course totally unwarranted since this is actually a pretty common practice with countries that buy and operate a lot of U.S. military aircraft. Singapore has a similar facility and detachment for its F-15 training unit at this very same airbase,” Caldwell said.
But even beyond the Air Force base, Qatar appears to have bought itself a very sweet spot in Trumpworld. Just months ago, Qatar solidified a deal with the Trump Organization to build a Trump-branded golf course and a beachside project as part of a $5.5 billion development project. The tiny nation also bestowed a wildly controversial super luxury jumbo jet on to Trump, all in an apparent attempt to shore up its relationship with the U.S.’s notoriously flighty leader.
Those transactions began to pay off earlier this month, when Trump signed an executive order that pledged to give the tiny, energy-rich, non-NATO ally the same level of protection from the U.S. as some of America’s most powerful allies.
Moniz’s Proposal for a Regional Nuclear Consortium with Iran
11 October 2025
WANA (Oct 11) – As the reinstatement of international sanctions against Iran effectively signals the formal collapse of the JCPOA, Ernest Moniz, former U.S. Secretary of Energy and a key figure in the original nuclear deal, has reintroduced the debate on Iran’s nuclear program with a bold proposal. In an article published in Foreign Policy, Moniz calls for the creation of a regional nuclear consortium involving Iran and other Middle Eastern countries—an initiative he claims could curb nuclear tensions while promoting peaceful nuclear energy across the region.
The End of the JCPOA and a New Idea Emerges
Moniz argues that the return of international sanctions highlights the final breakdown of the JCPOA, which had successfully restrained Iran’s nuclear activities until the U.S. withdrawal in 2018. He claims that Iran’s accelerated uranium enrichment to 60 percent and reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have made the deal irreparable.
Yet, Moniz emphasizes that military action or sanctions alone cannot resolve the issue. The only viable path, he argues, is a new framework based on regional cooperation: a “Middle Eastern Nuclear Consortium.”
Consortium: Cooperation or Control?
Under this plan, countries in the region—including Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and Egypt—would jointly participate in the production and peaceful use of nuclear energy. According to Moniz, the nuclear fuel cycle would be distributed among multiple countries, preventing any single state from independently developing nuclear weapons.
This division of responsibilities—from uranium extraction to fuel production—would accelerate peaceful nuclear technology while raising the cost and difficulty of nuclear weapons development. Countries found v
Iran’s Special Role: Limitation or Participation?
The most contentious aspect of Moniz’s plan concerns Iran. He argues that uranium enrichment should not take place on Iranian soil, but rather in a neutral location—potentially an island in the Persian Gulf or territory in Oman—under direct IAEA supervision.iolating the consortium’s rules could be removed, and their nuclear programs dismantled.
“Iran has enriched over 400 kilograms of uranium to 60 percent, which has no reasonable civilian purpose. To prevent recurrence, enrichment must occur in an international facility outside Tehran’s direct control,” Moniz writes.
He also proposes regional nuclear fuel banks to ensure all member states, including Iran, have secure access to nuclear fuel. Meanwhile, Iran could temporarily continue limited enrichment (up to 5 percent) until the regional fuel cycle is fully operational. In exchange for halting enrichment on its territory and accepting enhanced transparency, Western countries would facilitate investment in Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program.
Silence on Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
A notable criticism of Moniz’s proposal is the absence of any reference to Israel’s nuclear weapons. Previous Iranian proposals, such as the “Minaret Plan” by former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and ex-ambassador Mohsen Baharvand, emphasized a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East. Moniz’s plan, however, does not address Israel’s arsenal, which some analysts view as a one-sided U.S. approach……………………………………………………
Moniz stresses that implementing this plan requires tough decisions from all parties. From his perspective, Iran must dilute its 60-percent enriched uranium, return to JCPOA-level cooperation, and accept expanded inspections. In return, the U.S. and Europe would reopen pathways for investment in Iran, fostering the growth of civilian nuclear energy within the country.
However, Iranian officials have repeatedly affirmed that domestic enrichment is a red line and that Iran’s nuclear program remains entirely peaceful—a position echoed by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi.
Moniz’s plan can be seen as an attempt to reimagine the JCPOA in a regional format: ostensibly promoting peaceful nuclear energy while structurally limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Analysts note that if designed on the principles of mutual respect, non-discrimination, and equal participation, such multilateral cooperation could reduce tensions and enhance nuclear technology collaboration in the Middle East.
Yet, the fundamental question remains: Will Iran, having experienced what it considers Western breaches of trust in the JCPOA, agree to transfer parts of its most sensitive nuclear activities abroad? https://wanaen.com/monizs-proposal-for-a-regional-nuclear-consortium-with-iran/
Samantha Power secretly colluded with Israel to enhance UN role, leaked emails show
Wyatt Reed· The Grayzone, October 9, 2025
Behind closed doors, the noted ‘humanitarian interventionist’ successfully lobbied for Israel’s inclusion on important UN committees even after the Human Rights Council accused it of targeting civilians in Gaza.
The leaked emails also reveal that Israel furnished Power with a dodgy dossier on Syrian chemical weapons as she pushed regime change in Damascus.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power secretly coordinated with a top Israeli diplomat to secure Israel’s access to multiple prestigious UN committees, leaked files show.
Several unsolicited emails sent by Power to the then ambassador of Israel to the UN, Ron Prosor, show the diplomat celebrating her role in polishing Israel’s image on the global stage.
The emails between the two diplomats reveal how the US-Israeli special relationship operates at a granular level, and help map out the personal interactions which ensure Israel enjoys constant diplomatic cover at an international level. They are among the latest batch of hacked files belonging to Israeli government officials which were leaked by the Handala hacking collective.
A November 2013 email exchange between Power and Prosor reveals how the US ambassador helped secure Israel entry to the UN’s Western European and Others Group (WEOG). Three days before the vote succeeded, Prosor predicted “a Hanukkah miracle,” telling Power, “I know what [a] crucial role you played in making this happen. This success will last way beyond our time and will always carry your figure [sic] print on it.”………………………………………………………
Power was evidently rewarded with an invitation to a lucrative speaking gig in Israel. The next February, she appeared in Tel Aviv as a featured speaker at the national model UN conference, where she promptly blasted the UN for its supposed anti-Israel bias. “Bias has extended well beyond Israel as a country, Israel as an idea,” she claimed, complaining, “Israel is just not treated like other countries.”
Israel tailored a Syrian chemical weapons dossier for Power’s “non-technical brain”
Power used her platform at the UN to thunder for military intervention in Syria, frequently exploiting the US-backed opposition’s questionable claims of chemical attacks to make her case. And from almost the moment she entered her position, Israel was feeding her cooked intelligence apparently alleging that Syria held a vast arsenal of WMD’s.
An email chain beginning on Sept. 12, 2013 – just one month into Power’s UN tenure – suggests Prosor instrumentalized his American counterpart as a conduit for Israel’s dubious intelligence on Syrian chemical weapons. “I wanted to let you know that today we have transferred… technical information” to the US side, he wrote to Power, adding, “I know it is of significant value in dealing with the Syrian chemical arsenal.”
Prosor noted that he also distributed the report to Thomas Countryman, then the State Department’s top official in charge of non-proliferation………………………………………………………………………………….
Whitewashing Israel’s atrocities against civilians, including children
One email forwarded by Power to Prosor on June 8, 2015, which was clearly intended to convey reassurance to Israeli diplomats, was originally written by a State Department official. Describing an upcoming UN report on Children and Armed Conflict, the US functionary confirmed that the Israeli military had not “been listed in the annex of the report” despite its well-documented abuses and rampant killings of minors in the Occupied Palestinian Territories……………………………………………………………
Power’s complicity in Gaza genocide spurs staff revolt
After working for much of the ’90s as a Soros-funded journalist in post-communist states, Power shot to fame upon publishing a book called “America and the Age of Genocide,” which hammered State Department leadership in the Bill Clinton administration for not taking more forceful action to intervene in the Rwandan civil conflict. During Obama’s second term, she enlisted Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as her personal liaison to the Zionist lobby, whose support she required to secure the position of UN Ambassador, as documented in a Foreign Policy article headlined “How Michael Jackson’s Rabbi Made Samantha Power Kosher.”
Most recently, Power served as the director of USAID under President Joe Biden. As Israel’s genocide in Gaza unfolded, she faced a growing wave of dissension from staffers in the organization. During a stormy meeting in February 2024, current and former USAID staffers confronted Power over her support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, and refusal to push for a ceasefire. Several staffers expressed outrage that Power had apparently covered up Israel’s killing of a USAID staffer inside Gaza in November 2023, according to the Washington Post. She pushed back by deploying debunked Israeli propaganda accusing Hamas of “sexual assault” on October 7.
Since leaving her office at the helm of USAID, Power has attempted to distance herself from Israel’s ongoing war crimes, and has criticized Israel for failing to provide sufficient aid to Palestinians……… https://thegrayzone.com/2025/10/09/sam-power-colluded-israel-committees/
The Nobel that wasn’t Trump’s: Why Oslo chose a Venezuelan rebel over a peacemaker.
What Oslo calls a “peaceful transition” others might see as a strategy of regime change.
Machado in many ways stands on the same side as Trump. She’s seen positively by figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and all of them share a goal of opposing Nicolás Maduro’s regime. So this may not have been a snub to Trump – it’s more of a balancing act.”
Rt.com 10 Oct 25
By honoring an opposition leader wanted in Caracas, the Nobel Committee reignited a debate over who gets to define “peace”.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has gone to María Corina Machado, one of the most prominent faces of Venezuela’s opposition. The committee’s language is familiar – ”rights,” “peaceful transition” – but the story behind it isn’t. Machado’s record blends volunteer election networks with long-running fights over foreign funding; her name has appeared in cases tied to efforts to unseat the government – charges she rejects; and a country remains split over where legitimate politics ends and regime change begins.
The award lifts a domestic struggle onto a global stage and drops it into a fresh context: for much of the year, chatter about a “Nobel for Trump” hung in the air, and the very idea of what counts as peacemaking is once again up for debate far beyond Caracas.
From steel dynasty to political underground
María Corina Machado is an engineer by training and one of the most recognizable figures in Venezuela’s opposition over the past two decades. Born in Caracas to a family linked to the industrial group SIVENSA, she studied at the Andrés Bello Catholic University and later at IESA, Venezuela’s leading management school. Early exposure to the family business and an affinity for market-friendly ideas shaped her public profile: an emphasis on entrepreneurship, privatization, and integration with global markets
In 2002, Machado co-founded Súmate, a civic platform that built volunteer networks to train election observers and run parallel vote counts. That is when the first major controversy took hold: authorities alleged the group received funding from US-based organizations; her supporters countered that the money supported legitimate civic initiatives. From then on, every move she made in politics was viewed through the lens of where to draw the line on outside assistance.
That same year brought Venezuela’s most dramatic recent upheaval – the brief ouster of President Hugo Chávez and the “Carmona decree,” which proclaimed a provisional government. Machado’s name surfaced in debates over who backed the decree; she denied participating. The legal and historical arguments never fully settled, but the episode fixed an image of Machado as a politician whom opponents associate with the idea of “regime change.”
A long stretch of investigations and restrictions followed. Between 2003 and 2005, prosecutors examined alleged “illegal foreign funding” for NGOs; travel bans appeared periodically. In 2014, amid street protests, Machado became one of the most prominent voices criticizing the government and, in official rhetoric, was linked to cases alleging a plot and even an attempt on President Nicolás Maduro’s life. Machado rejected the accusations as politically motivated. The upshot was a prolonged ban on holding public office…………………………………………………….
After the 2024 vote, Machado largely disappeared from public events. Her statements came via video, with her whereabouts undisclosed. The phrase “underground network” took hold in media shorthand: supporters saw a movement operating under pressure; opponents argued it was a continuation of street-level tactics and external lobbying against the authorities. Against that backdrop, the Nobel Peace Prize elevates Machado’s biography to the international stage – and carries a long-running national argument over the limits of political struggle to a much wider audience.
Why Oslo chose her
In announcing its decision, the Nobel Committee said it was honoring María Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
The language was familiar — rights, democracy, peaceful transition — but the context was not. Machado’s record blends civic mobilization and volunteer networks with long-running controversies over foreign funding. Her name has appeared in cases tied to efforts to unseat the government — allegations she has consistently rejected — and Venezuela remains deeply divided over what counts as legitimate political struggle.
Those contradictions make the award particularly charged. Within Venezuela, the same actions that Oslo calls “peaceful resistance” have been framed by officials as destabilization efforts supported from abroad. For Machado and her allies, the prize validates years of activism under pressure; for the government, it confirms a long-held view that Western institutions reward political opposition disguised as democracy promotion.
The decision also fits a larger pattern. By awarding Machado, the Nobel Committee effectively reintroduced Venezuela into the global political conversation – not as an energy supplier or a sanctions case, but as a test of how the world now interprets democracy itself. What Oslo calls a “peaceful transition” others might see as a strategy of regime change. That tension is what makes this year’s prize less about peace – and more about the politics of defining it.
The Nobel announcement also landed amid one of the most charged moments in US–Venezuela relations in years. Since early 2025, Washington has tightened its posture toward Caracas – reviving energy sanctions that had been partially lifted after the 2023 Barbados agreements and signaling a renewed focus on “transnational crime networks” in the Caribbean. In practice, that meant more joint naval patrols, renewed intelligence activity, and a sharper tone linking Venezuela to the regional drug trade – an accusation Caracas dismissed as a pretext for pressure.
At the same time, the Biden-era approach of limited engagement had given way to a more assertive line under Trump’s second administration. The new White House framed its strategy as a “war on narcotics” and a push to restore regional stability; in Venezuela and across Latin America, many viewed it as an attempt to reassert US influence in a region increasingly connected to Russia, China, and Iran.
Notably, María Corina Machado publicly voiced support for Washington’s decision to combat Venezuelan drug cartels through military means. Her statement drew wide attention, as it aligned her stance with the US administration’s tougher regional policy and blurred the boundary between domestic opposition and foreign strategy………..
The Nobel that got away
For much of the year, Washington buzzed with talk of a “Nobel for Trump.” The president himself didn’t hide his ambition: he wanted to go down in history as a peacemaker. After returning to the White House, he made foreign policy the centerpiece of his second term – launching a flurry of initiatives aimed at cooling global flashpoints and projecting a renewed American presence abroad.
Supporters pointed to a record few modern leaders could match. The Abraham Accords, signed during his first term, had already redefined Israel’s ties with its neighbors – and served as the basis for his 2024 nomination by congresswoman Claudia Tenney.
By late 2025, Trump’s team listed seven cases where US diplomacy had helped halt or de-escalate conflicts:………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Anastasia Gafarova, deputy director of the Center for Political Information, described the Nobel Committee’s choice as “an attempt at compromise rather than confrontation.”
“Despite tensions between Washington and Caracas, Machado in many ways stands on the same side as Trump. She’s seen positively by figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and all of them share a goal of opposing Nicolás Maduro’s regime. So this may not have been a snub to Trump – it’s more of a balancing act.”……………………………………………
What ‘peace’ means now
For the Nobel Committee, María Corina Machado’s name will likely stand beside those of activists and reformers who defied authoritarian systems. For Washington and Caracas, however, the meaning of her award reaches far beyond that frame………………….
To her critics, it is yet another example of Western institutions rewarding political alignment under the banner of human rights……………
Trump’s shadow still looms over the story. His claim to the title of “peacemaker” has turned the Peace Prize itself into a political mirror: a reflection of who gets to define peace, and on whose terms.
According to Fyodor Lukyanov, Trump’s prospects may not be gone for good:
“The door isn’t completely closed. For his achievements – real or perceived – he could very well be nominated again next year, and the Nobel Committee will have a chance to weigh everything once more.”…………..
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