Why there can be no peace for Palestinians.
For those governments looking for means of controlling restive populations, the Gaza war of the last two years is nothing more than a gruesome marketing tool, the continued harassment of people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem becomes another marketing tool, selling the means of control, of surveillance, of remote controlled killing.
22 October 2025 , Bert Hetebry, https://theaimn.net/why-there-can-be-no-peace-for-palestinians/
At the end of 2024, according to UNHCR, there were estimated to be 123.2 million people world wide, forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence human rights violations and events seriously disturbing public order. That is 1.5% of the world population. Or if you want to make it real numbers instead of a percentage, for every 1,000 people in the world there are 15 people who are displaced, superfluous to needs, unwanted.
These people form a long line, an almost endless stream of desperation, seeking a safe refuge, seeking work, seeking dignity, yet they are shunned, shoved aside and when they do make it to a ‘promised land’ of sorts, they are remain vulnerable, able to be exploited, yet some make it, find a new home, but many do not.
In 2017, the Chinese artist and humanitarian Ai Weiwei produced a documentary The Human Flow, documenting the march to nowhere, people unwanted, pushed aside, rejected from from the Middle East, from Myanmar, from Africa, from Central America. Millions of people looking for somewhere, anywhere they could make a life. Since that time, the problem has increased, and nation after nation is trying to find ways of controlling this human flotsam.
And that can bring us to Gaza.
No one asks what drove Hamas to mount the attack of 7 October 2023 which killed 1200 Israeli people who were partying at a music festival, and no body asks why Hamas took 250 people as hostages. Hamas are a terrorist organisation, and what ever they do, is an act of terrorism.
That appears to be the conventional wisdom.
What makes a terrorist? Are all Palestinians terrorists?
And despite the best efforts of Donald Trump, what chance is there of peace for the Palestinians in Gaza, in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank?
After eighty years of Israeli occupation, after a hundred years of war against Palestinians, I hold very little hope that the current cease fire will result in peace for Palestinians.
Despite the cost of war, the Israeli economy is in very good shape. This is not in Israel’s interests to stop the war.
The reason is economics.
Israel, with a Jewish population of around 7.7 million represents about 1% of the world’s population, but is a major supplier in the sale of military and surveillance products and services. Over one third of Israeli exports are arms and surveillance equipment and services. Where for most nations military industries are essentially for local markets, Israel’s military and surveillance industries rely on export, constituting as much as 80% of their revenues according to Taylor & Francis online, vol 25, 2025.
It is hard to imagine, from the relative safety of the lives we live, of the freedoms we have, that the freedom to travel around whether it is just locally, near where we live or even to hook up a caravan and do a 20,000km trip ‘around the block’, what it would be like to have a constant awareness that you are being watched. The sort of scenario depicted in the novel, 1984, where Big Brother is watching, where every step you take is noticed, where every word you utter is heard. Where, it seems, even your thoughts are somehow monitored.
I had a sense of that recently. I don’t much like the self checkout at the supermarkets, but used one when buying just three items. It was busy, and as I am scanning my items, placing them carefully on the correct side of the checkout I was using, an attendant came and swiped her card, I asked he what she was doing, apparently she had be warned by the electronic surveillance camera that I might be stealing stuff. Bunnings are using camera surveillance to address theft from their stores, have considered using face recognition, but got into a spot of bother regarding that, but have been a bit quiet on that front lately, so perhaps it’s there, and then there is the profiling of people, certain people look like thieves, right?
The surveillance systems in supermarkets has become so ubiquitous, so sophisticated that any unusual activity is noticed and monitored. In this case, I bought three items, I did not have a trolley but carried them by hand to the check out, and from there followed normal procedure… Except I did not have nor did I purchase a bag to carry them home, I used my hands. So the camera thought perhaps I was trying to steal stuff, or at least looked ‘different’ enough to be possibly suspicious.
The cameras will pick up any behaviour which is considered unusual, any person which fits a specified criteria can be followed through their shopping expedition, monitoring behaviour, and security personnel are advised and will greet the person before they leave the store. And yes, it is easy to justify that sort of surveillance in a supermarket or other retail environment where shop lifting is an issue. And yes, although it would be denied, there is a profiling of shoppers through the surveillance system.
In Israel, the surveillance of Palestinians is not in shops, it is constant, ever-present, it is part of life as a Palestinian… As a ’terrorist’.
To define a group as ‘terrorist’ is dehumanising. It takes away the sense of individuality, the thought that those ‘terrorists’ cannot think for themselves, but are almost mechanically filled with evil intent. It also denies the ability to consider what makes those people subject to such categorisation. And there-in lies the actual juxtaposing of the term, that the so called ‘terrorists’ are being terrorised.
It is difficult to think that with the sophisticated surveillance that Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank are subjected to that the Israelis did not know that Hamas were planning, in fact training for the 7 October attack which was the catalyst for the two years destruction of Gaza. Antony Loewenstein in his 2023 book The Palestine Laboratory writes:
“The most effective example of separatism is the encirclement of Gaza, trapping more than 2 million Palestinians behind high fences, under constant drone surveillance, infrequent missile attack, and largely closed borders enforced by Israel and Egypt. When Israel completed the sixty-five-kilometer high-tech barrier along the entire border with Gaza in late 2021, at a cost of US$1.11 billion, a ceremony in southern Israel took place to mark the occasion.” (The barrier was a rebuilding of a barrier fence which had been destroyed in 2001.)
Facial recognition technology, developed by Israeli firms, AnyVision and Corsight AI among others is used extensively through a growing network of cameras both in Gaza and throughout the West Bank as well as through mobile phones, means that the IDF and other government departments effectively follow interested subjects. Big Brother is constantly watching.
The technologies are sold at various marketing shows, with the mantra that these products are ‘conflict proven’, often with videos of ‘terrorists’ being arrested or otherwise dealt with as evidence of their effectiveness.
The growing use of drones both for surveillance and as means of delivering explosive devices is another export industry, again, proven effectiveness as a marketing tool is demonstrated through videos of the fight against terrorism, in Gaza and the West Bank.
Other means of ‘following’ people is through mobile phone technology. A programme ‘Pegasus’ developed by the Israeli NSO Group was instrumental in monitoring members of the drug cartels resulting in a reduction of murders committed in the drug wars which raged during the early 2000s.
NSO were blamed for being an accessory to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, enabling him to be ‘followed’, tracking his movements before his death.
The sale of exploding communication devices used by Hezbollah across Lebanon last year was another surreptitious use of technology, selling ‘safe’ communications devices, safe, in that they could not be tracked like mobile phones can be tracked, proved to be nothing less than selling murder weapons to be operated remotely; murder by remote control.
But that is part of the technology, the means of remote controlled murder. Israeli industry is at the cutting edge of drones, both for surveillance and for delivering bombs, delivering death and destruction. Not just in controlling Palestinians, but unwanted people, people seeking a better life, somewhere, anywhere but where they are unwanted. Surveillance drones are sent over the Mediterranean Sea, through the sale of surveillance systems to European countries struggling with the influx of stateless and unwanted people, the drones send images to a central, remote site where the images are viewed, and when a boat is in trouble, can message ships, coast guards, officials to help should such a boat be in trouble. Many are inflatable boats and because of overcrowding, deflate, and with the crisis of too many unwanted people, may choose to send the emergency message at a time when the boat has sunk and there is little chance of survivors. Other technologies monitor the movement of mobile phones, tracking the signals as the phones are carried on the journeys to a hoped for freedom.
Client states of these technologies are many, and particularly those states which have ethnic and religious divides, states where civil uprisings are feared, where authoritarian governments need to increase control over populations.
In dealing with the troubles in Gaza during the current conflict, searching for Hamas, drones deliver ordinance to blow up suspected places Hamas may or may nor be hiding, hospitals, schools for example because we know that in that small enclave, where over 2.3 million people are crammed together, Hamas is using human shields, right?
Using technology as an instrument of control, of surveillance, of murder is demonstrated time and again, and that has been a major tool of control Israel has used and continues to use, and the people in Gaza know they are being watched, they cannot escape the surveillance, and so in their preparation for the attack on 7 October 2023, every move had been watched, had been recorded. Could it be that Israel actually wanted the attack to occur, thinking that perhaps a small attack could happen but an excuse for another conflict, another punishment, but when the number of fatalities, the number of injuries, the number of hostages, it became the ultimate excuse for the devastation we have seen over the past two years.
For those governments looking for means of controlling restive populations, the Gaza war of the last two years is nothing more than a gruesome marketing tool, the continued harassment of people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem becomes another marketing tool, selling the means of control, of surveillance, of remote controlled killing.
And the means used, the technology of terrorising is exported, the industry being a huge component of the Israeli economy.
The importance of Gaza and The West Bank is to use it as a marketing tool for other nations needing to control populations, to ensure conformity, to quell dissent. There can be no peace for Palestinians in the marketing of surveillance mechanisms.
There can be no peace for Palestinians while they can be used to sell the means of population control. To sell the Big Brother tools and the armaments and explosives for when needed to ‘mow the grass’, as Prime Minister Netanyahu used to say during his earlier term in power, to keep the anxiety level in Gaza heightened.
How can there ever be peace for Palestinians?
The Rise of the Thielverse and the Construction of the Surveillance State (w/ Whitney Webb) | The Chris Hedges Report
Chris Hedges, October 23, 2025
Whitney Webb traces the Thielverse’s rise and the bipartisan construction of the modern surveillance state that Trump and his benefactors are deploying against dissidents and immigrants today.
The descent into a new, mutated and technology-focused form of American fascism is already here. Those who have kept track of the rise of the Thielverse, which includes figures such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and JD Vance, have understood that an agenda to usher in a unique form of authoritarianism has been slowly introduced into the mainstream political atmosphere.
Whitney Webb, investigative journalist and author of One Nation Under Blackmail, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to document the rise of this cabal into the most powerful positions of the American government.
“I think now it’s quite clear that this is the PayPal Mafia’s moment. These particular figures have had an extremely significant influence on US government policy since January, including the extreme distribution of AI throughout the US government,” Webb explains.
It’s clear that the architects of mass surveillance and the military industrial complex are beginning to coalesce in unprecedented ways within the Trump administration and Webb emphasizes that now is the time to pay attention and push back against these new forces.
If they have their way, all commercial technology will be completely folded into the national security state — acting blatantly as the new infrastructure for techno-authoritarian rule. The underlying idea behind this new system is “pre-crime,” or the use of mass surveillance to designate people criminals before they’ve committed any crime. Webb warns that the Trump administration and its benefactors will demonize segments of the population to turn civilians against each other, all in pursuit of building out this elaborate system of control right under our noses.
Transcript:
Chris Hedges
There were many, including some liberals, who mistakenly believed the Trump administration would dismantle the deep state. In fact, as the investigative reporter Whitney Webb has documented, Trump is closely allied with the most authoritarian figures in Silicon Valley, such as Peter Thiel, who envision a world where our habits, proclivities, opinions and movements are minutely recorded and tracked.
These Trump allies do not intend to free us from the tyranny of intelligence agencies, militarized police, the largest prison system in the world, predatory corporations or mass surveillance. They will not restore the rule of law to hold the powerful and the wealthy accountable. Nor will they slash the bloated and unaccountable spending — some $1 trillion dollars — by the Pentagon.
They are rapidly purging the civil service, as well as law enforcement and the military, not to eradicate the deep state, but to ensure that those in charge of state machinery are exclusively loyal to the whims and dictates of the Trump White House. What is being targeted is not the deep state, but the laws, regulations, protocols and rules, and the government civil servants who enforce them, which hinder absolute dictatorial control.
Compromise, limited power, checks and balances and accountability are slated to be abolished. Those who believe that the government is designed to serve the common good, rather than the dictates of a tiny cabal of billionaires, will be forced out. The deep state will be reconstituted to serve the leadership cult.
Laws and the rights enshrined in the Constitution will become irrelevant. It is a coup d’état by inches, one that will be enforced in crude and brutal fashion by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the streets of our cities and empowered by Thiel’s Palantir and the sophisticated forms of monitoring made possible by artificial intelligence and digital surveillance pioneered by Silicon Valley.
Joining me to discuss our emergent Orwellian state is the investigative journalist and author of One Nation Under Blackmail Whitney Webb. You can find her on her website, Unlimited Hangout.
Whitney, let’s go back to the beginning, [John] Poindexter, Iran-Contra, which I covered actually when I was in Nicaragua, because that’s really the origin of where we are today.
Whitney Webb……………………..right after the Reagan administration, Poindexter was sort of in various roles throughout these tech companies that were sort of a prototype to what Palantir and Total Information Awareness (TIA) would later do…………………………………………………………………………….
Peter Thiel incorporated Palantir and as Palantir was developing as a company they, Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, the Palantir co-founders, reached out to Poindexter directly through Richard Perle, who’s a well-known neoconservative figure and was also one of the architects of the Iraq War at the Bush-era Pentagon.
Basically they hatched this plan to privatize this program, rightly calculating that if they turned it into an entirely private sector enterprise, the outrage would essentially dissipate, which it remarkably did because originally it was a public-private partnership housed within DARPA……………………………………………………………………………..
the CIA was Palantir’s exclusive client for, I believe, the first six years of its existence as a company and its engineers went to Langley, the CIA headquarters in Virginia, every two weeks for several years as well where the CIA was developing their algorithm with them, in a very direct partnership and Alex Karp has even said that the CIA was always the intended client of Palantir………………………………………………………….
Palantir, you know, also works extensively now in the private sector as well. They’re a major AI engine for Wall Street banks, for example, and they have different programs that are sold to different entities, but ultimately, they are a massive contractor to essentially every US intelligence agency, and that includes DHS and ICE
………………………………………………….. predictive policing is the term that they use but a lot of other companies have attempted to also get in on this.
One of the most notorious being PredPol that was a partnership I believe with UCLA and LAPD or something to that effect and they’re notoriously inaccurate…………………
another Peter Thiel-backed entity called Carbyne also has a predictive policing component……………………………..
But this is a company that wasn’t just funded by Peter Thiel, it was funded by Jeffrey Epstein and was led for a significant amount of time by Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, as well and has sort of expanded outwards.
…………………………… The Trump administration was explicitly using Palantir to make databases on every American. But that has been done in a way that has been more covert through something called the Main Core database.
…………………………..William Barr, then Attorney General, created this program at the DOJ called DEEP that basically created the legal infrastructure for pre-crime. And you had Trump come out and say that the way to combat these shootings was to have social media develop algorithms that flag posts to predict shooters before they can act, target some of these anonymous online message boards.
…………………………………………..It is rather unsettling but, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of this profiling of Americans has been going on for a long time under the guise of what was developed by the Iran-Contra crowd covertly. The continuity of government protocols in this effort by parts of the “deep state” or the national security state to basically profile people they deemed unfriendly for whatever reason, people that could be, you know, potentially incarcerated in a time of political upheaval, they said.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………And so since then you have a whole network of people that have either been protege’s of these figures or worked at one point for PayPal. For example the current AI and crypto czar at the White House David Sacks, a former top executive at PayPal with Thiel and all of these other people.
And of course JD Vance, the current vice president, is intimately connected to Peter Thiel……………………………………………………
So Thiel’s influence is incredibly significant. It was also arguably significant during the first Trump administration, but I think now it’s quite clear that this is the PayPal Mafia’s moment. These particular figures have an extremely significant influence on US government policy since January, including the extreme distribution of AI throughout the US government.
…………………………………………………….what I find particularly troubling about this is that a lot of these PayPal Mafia figures Thiel, Musk and Vance, among others, are extremely close to or acolytes really of the philosophy advocated by a fellow named Curtis Yarvin, whose political philosophy is essentially that the way to solve the problems of our current system and current bureaucracy is to basically completely privatize the state and install a CEO in place of the president, who would rule essentially as a dictator, which is completely bonkers and it’s amazing that people have allowed people like Peter Thiel or even Yarvin himself to masquerade as so-called libertarians when they’re very in favor of the authoritarian abilities of the state.
………………………………………………… And you can also see how a lot of these people are also war profiteers, Palantir, of course, not only is this tool of mass surveillance, it’s a tool of mass murder used by the US Army and also by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to decide who lives and who dies in Gaza.
And a lot of these other people that have been Thiel protégés, for example, like Palmer Luckey and Anduril, which Luckey co-founded with Trae Stephens, who’s also affiliated with the aforementioned Epstein-funded Carbyne 911.
Anduril is ushering in this era of autonomous warfare, and bankrolled, of course, by Peter Thiel. And they’re also developing the so-called smart wall on the US-Mexico border. And really, you know, these people are developing very Orwellian disturbing systems with not just domestic implications but also very significant implications to how the US military and other militaries operate abroad……………………………………………………………………….
So under the guise of “we’re making the government more efficient”, what aspects of the government are these people in the PayPal Mafia actually making more efficient? Well, one of them is mass murder.
…………………………………………………………………………………… basically the goal of the smart wall, it’s not a physical wall, it’s meant to be basically an invisible wall that uses a combination of surveillance and drone technology to basically intercept anyone crossing the border in a non-authorized way.
………………. I’m not sure exactly what you’d like to talk about as it relates to SpaceX, but it is worth pointing out that they’re a massive military contractor specifically for Space Force created under the first Trump administration. They really are the main contractor for Space Force.
And also, you know, they are directly affiliated with Starlink, the satellite internet company that also arguably has some kind of covert uses with Elon Musk, for example, saying he is going to help sneak Starlinks into Iran, for example
………………………………………………….. through the Department of Government Deficiency, a government efficiency DOGE, a lot was made to facilitate that by laying off a lot of government workers in their place putting, basically replacing them with, AI algorithms.
And those algorithms are, of course, patented and controlled by Silicon Valley companies. And the vast majority of major Silicon Valley companies double as either intelligence or military contractors or both, or have for a very long time.
One that’s often overlooked a lot is Oracle, Larry Ellison’s Oracle. And Larry Ellison, before creating Oracle, worked on Project Oracle at the CIA, and then created Oracle, the company, which then took on the CIA as one of its earliest main clients, similar in a way to what happened with Palantir, as I noted a moment ago.
And now, Larry Ellison is becoming, basically taking over a large swath of American media now. So you’re seeing a lot of these Silicon billionaires that contract for the military are also becoming major owners of mass media. So you see that with Ellison, for example, and it’s also true with Elon Musk after his purchase of Twitter…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Chris Hedges
I want you to speculate what this world is going to look like, it is the fusion of corporate and governmental power. In some ways, of course, these corporations will have even more power than government institutions. We just had the presidential memo that came out a couple days ago, which essentially criminalizes… It’s quite an amazing memo that criminalizes people who criticize capitalism, support gender equality.
Whitney Webb
Or really anyone who is antifascist in any capacity…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
we lost all of our freedoms, but now al-Qaeda is just let’s shake hands and let them come to the UN while we don’t let anyone from Palestine come. I mean, it’s totally insane. ……………………………………………….
I think Americans have been naive that a lot of the evil that that national security state has done abroad would never be used against them. And I think that we need to be very aware of what is going on here and that the deep state, whatever you want to call it, is expanding and it’s expanding in the hands of private oligarchs that have a very dangerous political vision that is rarely talked about.
……………………………………………………………………..So I think there’s a potentially dark future but there’s still time for awareness about these agendas and for people to develop parallel systems to escape this. And I think it’s very important too that people start really seriously considering how to wean themselves off of these Silicon Valley giants that are building these systems and contracting with these military and intelligence agencies. You know, getting off of Microsoft or Google products………………………………………………………….. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-thielverse-and-the
Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing
Martin Jay, Strategic Culture Foundation, Tue, 21 Oct 2025 , https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/10/21/gaza-ceasefire-is-an-illusion-starvation-and-killings-still-continuing/
Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.
How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.
My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.
World
Gaza ceasefire is an illusion – starvation and killings still continuing
October 21, 2025
© Photo: Public domain
Just how much of what we see in mainstream media about Gaza is the real story? Actually none of it is true as the bigger, darker game being played is all about preparing for a war with Iran.
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How’s the so-called ceasefire holding up in Gaza? You might be forgiven for thinking that it is anything but a ceasefire but more of an illusion created by the U.S. and a deal which can be broken at any moment by Israel if and when it sees capital to be gained there. Indeed, if there is one thing Bibi Netanyahu is renowned for, it is breaking ceasefires and so it should come as little surprise that he recently did that, supposedly to attack Hamas fighters which Israel claimed were posing a threat.
Let’s be clear. The ceasefire is really all about boosting Trump’s credibility as a statesman and giving Netanyahu breathing space to re-equip his army, ahead of an inevitable war with Iran. It is anything but a peace deal with the Palestinians but more of a bluff which was really about giving Netanyahu a shot in the arm amongst voters as he gets the credit for bringing back the hostages. But what is the real story? What is behind all this and reports of ISIS fighters being shipped in to take on Hamas?
What we are witnessing is an illusion on a grand scale. Israel has not really stopped its military campaign against the Palestinians there and is still killing Gazans on a daily basis. It is also not feeding them as legacy media likes to assert but in reality the starvation policy is still in place. The West likes to create the narrative that the Gazans are getting fed now with aid shipments whereas in reality these trucks are not getting through. Tom Fletcher, a man comfortable in his role as someone who lies to the press in his previous role of British ambassador to Lebanon is the UN’s relief chief who claims that his operation is feeding one million Gazans a day? But can we believe the softly spoken former diplomat?
The smooth media operator who is comfortable doing ‘pieces to camera’ like broadcast journalists stirred up controversy recently when he made a series of films of him standing in front of UN aid trucks driving past, supposedly heading for Gaza. Sara Wilkinson, a UK-based activist who is often in Gaza, claimed that the trucks were actually only moving in and out of a UN compound and that the whole stunt was dishonest.
My own personal experience with Fletcher is that he smeared my name in Lebanon in 2015 as a pathetic act of petulance following an interview I wrote up about him which, in places, revealed him to be at best a lame diplomat winging it, at worse misinformed and woefully ignorant of regional politics. His response was to defame me in front of a group of visiting MEPs which backfired as the hapless buffoon didn’t realize that I had worked in Brussels previously for a decade and most of the MEPs knew me (or knew of me) and respected my work. One of them even invited me for a working breakfast the next day and was shocked at how immature and vindictive he was.
Fletcher is just all spin. He is hollow and has no substance and only made the news in Lebanon almost on a daily basis for being photographed with super models with bee sting lips and fake boobs while his podgy Irish wife stood behind him with eyes rolling. He is so vain that he gave a photoshoot to a local TimeOut magazine posing as James Bond in front of a British supercar and has a fabulous contempt for free speech. But of course he is a good communicator. He is the man to go to if you have a grand illusion to pull off for Israel as he will happily make that magician’s trick happen by misinforming the press and the greater public about what is the real story.
Gazans are not only still starving but according to a number of top analysts like Lawrence Wilkerson are still being killed at gunpoint (airstrikes) by Israel at feeding centres. So what exactly is the role of this UN body which Fletcher heads up?
The aid trucks are a huge deception conjured up to draw us away from not only a more nefarious, bloody plan which is about to kick off in Gaza but a bigger existential threat to the West and in particular America, which is coming Trump’s way. Like a moth being drawn to a flame, Netanyahu is preparing for war with Iran and this time it will be nuclear.
Some pundits wrongly pour over the subject of the power struggle between Israel and the U.S., with many pointing to the power of AIPAC within the deep state. It is a common idea that Israel completely controls Trump – a notion I sign up to. But we miss the point.
Yes, it’s true that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will make billions in real estate deals in Gaza. The point though is that Trump will no longer have any cards to play if a war starts with Iran. He will be forced to join Israel with its Samsonesque suicide doctrine. The problem with a war with Iran is that it is unwinnable for Israel and more to the point, a disaster for Western hegemony. War with Iran, even if it were only with Iran, doesn’t favour Israel even backed by the U.S. But war with Iran goes beyond the country’s borders as since the Donald was reported to have directed U.S. attacks against Iran’s nuclear bunkers and since it was reported that they had severely damaged them, Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear pact with Pakistan and both Russia and China are stepping up their military procurement for Iran.
Iran is no longer alone and the first U.S. bunker buster bombs have, if anything, conglomerated these regional powers’ support for Iran. Put bluntly, China simply cannot afford to have its economy threatened by Iran’s cheap oil being halted and Russia needs Iranian drones. To allow Israel, backed by the U.S., to go ahead with a nuclear strike on Iran poses such an existential threat to both Russia and China that is inconceivable that there will be no counter strike on Israel which has never been seen before, which might well mean the end of Israel as we know it. There are no good outcomes to Bibi’s plan to begin a war with Iran and Trump fears more than ever being dragged into it. Yet for the moment, the Gaza ceasefire can be seen for what it is. An illusion, rather like those marching bands and performing artists which come onto a soccer pitch during the half time break which you don’t pay too much attention to and Tom Fletcher is the effeminate wanker leading them spinning his gilt baton and his sparkling teeth.
The Great Narco Pretext: Trump Readies for Regime Change in Venezuela.
20 October 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/the-great-narco-pretext-trump-readies-for-regime-change-in-venezuela/
Since the start of September, the Trump administration has busied itself with striking boats in international waters stemming from Venezuelan and possibly Colombian waters. Their mortal offence: allegedly carrying narcotics cargo destined for consumers in the United States. A few days following the first strike on September 2, President Donald Trump stated in a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress that the action was one of “self-defense” motivated by “the inability or unwillingness of some states in the region to address the continuing threat to United States persons and interests emanating from their territories.”
In early October, a presidential notice was issued deeming those killed in such strikes on suspicion of drug smuggling “unlawful combatants.” The notice to Congress advanced an anaemic excuse to justify murder instead of arrest, an echo of previous, elastic rationales used by administrations to justify an enlargement of executive war powers: “based on the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a non–international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations.” The US had “reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.”
The document amounted to an arrogation of extraordinary wartime powers to combat drug cartels, treating the trafficking of illicit narcotics to an armed assault on US citizens. Geoffrey S. Corn, a former judge advocate general lawyer, thought it a most adventurous move, given that drug cartels were not engaged in “hostilities”. “This is not stretching the envelope,” he told The New York Times. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
In the kingdom of alternative legal realities, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly articulated the position in an email: “the president acted in line with the law of armed conflict to protect our country from those trying to bring deadly poison to our shores, and he is delivering on his promise to take on the cartels and eliminate these national security threats from murdering more Americans.”
The number of possible international law violations are far from negligible. Michael Schmitt lists a few in Just Security. Most obvious is the physical violation of a State’s sovereignty, which can take place through interfering with its “inherently governmental functions” comprising such matters as law enforcement. To also authorise kinetic operations in another State’s territory can amount to wrongful intervention in its international affairs. Last, though not least, is that using force in this context may be unlawful, violating Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter and customary law.
Nothing in this cooked up scheme adds up. If the intention is to curb overdoses on US soil from drug use, flow of fentanyl would be the object of the exercise. But fentanyl hails from Mexico, not South America. The broader agenda is a more traditional one: the assertion of the imperium’s control over countries in the Americas, eliminating regimes deemed unfriendly to Washington’s interests. Narcotics has become the throbbing pretext, with Trump accusing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro of being the leader of the drug trafficking organisation Cartel of the Suns. He is also accused of using the dark offices of the Tren de Aragua prison gang to conduct “irregular warfare” against the United States, despite countering claims by the intelligence community that the gang is not under Maduro’s control. (The reaffirmation of the initial intelligence assessment by the National Intelligence Council led to the sacking of its acting director, Michael Collins.)
In 2020, the first Trump administration offered a reward of up to US$15 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro. Two more increases to the bounty followed, the latest on August 7 being US$50 million following the sanctioning of the Cartel of the Suns by the Department of Treasury as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. “As leader of Cartel of the Suns,” declares the State Department in its notice of reward, “Maduro is the first target in the history of the Narcotics Rewards Program with a reward offer exceeding $25 million.”
Trump, in one of his moments of sharp frankness, concedes that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been authorised to conduct covert lethal operations on Venezuelan soil and more broadly through the Caribbean in a presidential finding. “We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea well under control,” he told reporters hours after the secret authorisation was revealed.
In explaining his shoddy reasons, Trump cited Venezuela’s emptying of its “prisons into the United States of America” and the issue of drugs. “We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also.”
To the finding can be added a bulking military presence in the region: eight surface warships and a submarine in the Caribbean, 10,000 US troops, largely garrisoned at bases in Puerto Rico, with a contingent of Marines equipped with amphibious assault boats. In the meantime, the recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado, salivates at the prospect of regime change with muscular intervention from Washington. The pieces are being moved into place, and the self-proclaimed peace maker in the White House is readying for war.
AUKUS: Revolving door, spiralling down
Ahead of the launch of a new database on the Australian military-industrial complex, we document the farce that AUKUS has become
Michelle Fahy, Undue Influence, Oct 20, 2025
It is clear to many that AUKUS, in particular its early fulfilment stages, is becoming a debacle. In February, Defence Minister Richard Marles lauded as a ‘very unique’ arrangement Australia’s gift to the United States of $4.7 billion to bolster America’s struggling submarine output, highlighting that such an arrangement hasn’t been seen in other defence pacts globally.
Of course such an arrangement hasn’t been seen elsewhere! Most other countries wouldn’t agree to hand over this massive sum without ensuring there were provisions for a refund should the promised submarines fail to arrive.
In an inept performance in Senate Estimates in June 2024, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, head of the Australian Submarine Agency, woodenly refused to answer a straightforward question from Greens’ Senator David Shoebridge about whether the agreement Australia has struck with the US contains a clawback provision should the promised submarines fail to be supplied.
Mead’s performance, as recorded in Hansard, is mordantly comical:
It is thus obvious that Australia has no contractual way of recovering its money should the current or a future US President block the transfer of the submarines, as the US President is entitled to do under US legislation.
Australia is certainly ‘very unique’ in its willingness to part with almost $10 billion (the UK is getting a similar amount) in public funds with no strings attached.
Australia made the first payment of $800 million to the US in February and quietly transferred the second payment, a further $800 million, in July. It has committed to paying a total of US$2 billion ($3 billion) by the end of 2025, with the remainder to be paid over the decade to 2035‒36.
Under the AUKUS deal, both major political parties have committed to spending vast public resources with no consultation and minimal transparency and accountability.
Even though the Australian National Audit Office has exposed, in report after report, serious probity breaches in defence procurement, including unethical conduct between global weapons companies and the Australian government, these transgressions are routinely ignored. The weapons deals continue regardless.
The big winners from AUKUS so far have been nuclear submarine manufacturers in the United States and the United Kingdom. Australia has committed to providing almost $10 billion to boost the output of these companies, helping secure jobs for workers in America and the United Kingdom.
As there are no clawback provisions in either of these agreements, should President Trump ditch AUKUS, or if the submarine manufacturing capacity in the US and UK doesn’t sufficiently increase, Australian taxpayers will be picking up another multibillion-dollar defence tab with nothing to show for it. We’ve already shelled out $3.4 billion for no submarines, following former PM Scott Morrison’s shredding of the pre-AUKUS French submarine contract.
This is far from the only example of waste, misdirection and incompetence in Australia’s dealings with the global arms industry. Take the Albanese government’s engagement with global arms giant Thales. In October last year, the government signed up Thales to a further munitions manufacturing contract and a ‘strategic partnership’ in the new domestic missile-making endeavour, the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise.
The new deal with Thales was struck despite the fact that Thales is currently being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. …………………….https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/nothing-to-see-here-says-australia………………………………………… The Thales example illustrates how a key democratic accountability mechanism, the National Audit Office and its reports, is routinely ignored.
…………………………………………………How is it that such imbroglios occur again and again? Australian governments are highly susceptible to the ‘revolving door’ process in which politicians, the military and public servants move effortlessly between government, lobbying and the industry itself.
In what follows, no suggestion is being made of unlawful activity by any person named, nor that any of the appointments noted was unlawful.
The problem for Australia is not one of legality but of the perfectly legal influence of industry insiders within government, the lack of transparency, and the absence of management of the ‘revolving door’.
The revolving door
The ‘revolving door’ describes the movement of public officials into related private roles, and industry executives into related public roles. It is a widespread problem that undermines democracy, yet in Australia it remains unmonitored and unpoliced.
A large number of Australia’s senior government ministers and their staffers, military officers, and defence department officials move through the revolving door into paid roles with the weapons industry. Such moves are not illegal but they require a robust management framework—with rules that are enforced—to mitigate the inherent conflicts of interest. Australia’s feeble attempts at managing the revolving door have been completely ineffective
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..In the lobby
Numerous former senior politicians are now working as lobbyists for the weapons industry. Examples include: Liberals Christopher Pyne (Pyne and Partners), Joe Hockey (Bondi Partners), Arthur Sinodinos (The Asia Group) and David Johnston (TG Public Affairs); and Labor’s Kim Beazley (TG Public Affairs), Joel Fitzgibbon (CMAX Advisory), Stephen Conroy (TG Public Affairs) and Mark McGowan (Bondi Partners).
There are also plenty of former senior military officers pulling strings on behalf of weapons companies too. Examples are listed below.
The federal register of lobbyists provides some transparency, but does not cover the majority of people who lobby politicians. The register applies only to third-party lobbyists. These people operate as paid professionals, either individually or as an employee of a lobbying firm, on behalf of clients. Third party lobbyists make up just 20% of all lobbyists. The remaining 80% include, amongst others, company CEOs and people employed by corporations as ‘government relations’ advisers. This enables employees of major weapons companies to lobby politicians easily and legally, with zero transparency.
Reverse cycle: private to public
The government’s engagement with UK weapons giant BAE Systems’ local subsidiary best illustrates how this works.
The government gave former senior BAE Systems executives influential behind-the-scenes roles both before and during the tender process for Australia’s largest ever surface warship procurement, the $46 billion Hunter class frigates, a contract BAE went on to win. Few of these roles were publicly acknowledged. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/sinking-billions-revolving-doors
BAE Systems was awarded the frigates contract by the Turnbull government in mid-2018. The names of the people appointed to an expert advisory panel to oversee the tender evaluation process were not made public. Here’s why: serious conflicts of interest…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Lockheed Martin locks on target
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has put the issue of the extensive influence on the Australian government of Lockheed Martin—the world’s largest arms manufacturer—under the spotlight…………https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/buck-passing-inside-the-murky-arms
Lockheed Martin utilises the revolving door heavily in the US. Until recently, it had openly adopted the same strategy in Australia. From October 2013 until the end of 2021, the board of Lockheed Martin Australia boasted multiple former senior Australian public officials: at least two at any one time, more often three, and even four during one 20-month period.
They included a roll call of defence heavies from past decades,………………………………………………………………………………………
The UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, released a report in July addressing the ‘economy of genocide’ in which she makes special note of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program…………………………….
Australia’s refusal to cease the supply of parts and components into Lockheed Martin’s F-35 global supply chain places the nation at risk of being found complicit in Israel’s genocide.
Complicity in the world’s worst international crime is just one of the democracy-undermining consequences of Australia’s deep enmeshment in the US and broader Western military industrial complex.
This feature article started life as a talk to Australia’s Online Quaker Meeting mid-year. I later expanded it for ARENA Quarterly’s Spring 2025 issue, which was delivered to bookshops last week ($20). It is also online at Arena. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/aukus-revolving-door-spiralling-down?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=176534719&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The 9,100 Palestinians left behind in Israeli prisons after the ‘peace’ deal
As world leaders celebrate the release of Israeli captives, over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners still face torture, hunger, and isolation behind bars. Half of them are held by Israel without charge or trial.
Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi October 15, 2025
As the leaders of 20 countries gathered in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to celebrate the ceasefire, mainstream media celebrated the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza. After reuniting with their families, the captives described the harsh conditions in which they were held. Meanwhile, 1,968 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons, 88 of whom were released in the West Bank, 154 were deported to Egypt, and the rest were released in the Gaza Strip. Most of them were abducted by Israeli forces inside Gaza over the past two years. Of the total number of prisoners released, 250 had been serving life sentences for charges related to armed activity.
But over 9,100 Palestinians continue to be held in Israeli prisons. Some 3,544 of them are held under the Israeli system of “administrative detention,” which allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, none of the released prisoners in Monday’s swap were administrative detainees.
Administrative detention orders are ratified by an Israeli military court, and the six-month period of imprisonment can be renewed indefinitely based on a “secret file” that neither the detainees nor their lawyers can access. Consecutive renewals have led many Palestinians to serve up to two years under this system, never having been given due process.
Administrative detainees represent the largest category of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, says Ayah Shreiteh, the spokesperson of the Prisoners’ Club.
Shreiteh added that around 1,000 Palestinians have been arrested and held without trial, without even an administrative detention order. Many of them have spent months behind bars.
As for those who have been sentenced based on clear charges, the majority of sentences are for belonging to political organizations and unions, participating in protests, or throwing stones. Since October 2023, however, Shreiteh points out that the most common conviction has been over “incitement,” a charge that covers anything from a social media post to delivering public speeches, and even to raising the flags of Palestinian political factions in public.
“Before October 7, the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners had already been deteriorating,” Shreiteh noted. Then everything changed. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
After October 7, things got dramatically worse, Ansari says. Both verbal and physical violence increased against Palestinian detainees to the point that violence was used during all phases of detention, starting from the moment of arrest. “But the most noticeable change after October 7 has been the complete isolation of Palestinian prisoners, with the ban of family visitation,” she said. “This is still ongoing.” …………………………………………………………………………………………
Palestinian prisoners have been largely absent from mainstream media since before October 7, appearing only in the context of prisoner swaps last January and last week. However, the day before October 7, human rights groups reported that a total of 5,000 Palestinians were in Israeli jails — at the time, it was considered a record that had not been met in several years, including 1,300 administrative detainees. Over the past two years, that record-breaking prison population doubled.
Mass captivity as a phenomenon is foreign to Israelis, but for Palestinians, it has been normalized over decades. According to human rights reports, at least 1 million Palestinians have experienced Israeli detention since 1967. Yet after October 7, the Israeli captives became the only talking point for Western politicians and the mainstream media, while Palestinian prisoners remained invisible.
On Monday, Donald Trump celebrated his vaunted “forever” peace after the signing of the ceasefire deal in Egypt. Now that the Israeli captives have been released, the 9,100 Palestinians languishing in Israel’s dungeons can continue to be forgotten. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-9100-palestinians-left-behind-in-israeli-prisons-after-the-peace-deal/
The £1m man: why did Boris Johnson take his donor to Ukraine?
Leaked files offer a glimpse of the ex-prime minister’s relationship with Christopher Harborne.
Tom Burgis. Guardian 10 Oct 25
As he boarded the night train to Ukraine, Boris Johnson had the usual entourage of aides and bodyguards – plus the man who had given him £1m.
Less than a year had passed since Johnson accepted what is thought to be the largest donation ever to an individual MP. It was from Christopher Harborne, one of the UK’s biggest and most private political donors.
Harborne, whose millions helped bankroll Brexit, made the payment to a private company Johnson set up after resigning as prime minister. Now leaked files show that Johnson, a champion of Ukraine in office and since, was accompanied in September 2023 by his benefactor on a two-day visit that included meetings with top officials.
What the files do not explain is why. And neither the former prime minister nor his backer will say.
The organisers of the high-level gathering they attended in Kyiv say Harborne was registered as “adviser, Office of Boris Johnson”.
Harborne has wide expertise: a self-described “digital nomad”, his holdings range from cryptocurrency and a wellness centre to jet fuel and stakes in at least three military contractors. His only apparent connection to Ukraine is as the biggest shareholder in a British weapons manufacturer whose robots and drones are reportedly supplied to its armed forces.
The Boris Files, leaked documents from Johnson’s private office, have exposed how the former PM has sought to enrich himself since leaving office by sitting down with a Venezuelan despot and courting Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince accused of ordering the murder of a journalist.
The Ukrainian cause, by contrast, is “sacred” to Johnson, one political consultant says, an enduring source of moral authority for a politician who was forced out of Downing Street amid scandal.
The leaked files raise questions about whether, even here, he has blurred the lines between public service and money-making.
In an extraordinary statement to the Guardian when asked about his relationship with Harborne, Johnson said: “Your pathetic non-stories … seem mostly to be derived from some illegal Russian hack job. You should be ashamed of yourselves.” Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS), the US-based transparency group that obtained the leaked files, said it did not know their provenance.
Johnson added: “Why don’t you just change your name to Pravda? Your stories are rubbish and you are doing Putin’s work.”
‘Boris and Chris only’
In Downing Street, Johnson rallied western powers as Vladimir Putin’s armies poured into Ukraine in February 2022. Since resigning, he has continued to travel there, pledging to maintain allies’ commitment, and remains so popular that he is cheered in the streets.
When he disembarked from the night train in Kyiv on 8 September 2023, Johnson had time for a quick shower at his hotel before heading for the Yalta European Strategy (YES) forum, an itinerary in the leaked files indicates. According to a published list of participants, Ukrainian ministers, spymasters and military chiefs mingled with foreign diplomats, politicians, industrialists and executives.
The itinerary has “Boris and Chris [Harborne] only” down to attend the opening session of the high-level gathering. Images show Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Johnson addressed the gathered luminaries and the itinerary suggests they then retired for a private meeting. Zelenskyy’s office did not respond when asked if Johnson’s benefactor joined them…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The £1m donation
………………….He [Harborne]has given £10m to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party – now Reform UK – and £1m to the Conservatives while Johnson was completing the UK’s departure from the EU. And Johnson seems to have nurtured the beneficial relationship while he was in No 10.
Harborne visited Chequers at least twice during Johnon’s premiership. Once, he arrived at the prime ministerial retreat by helicopter. The second time was for a Tory megadonor barbecue in August 2022.
Within days, Johnson’s tenure was over, but his relationship with Harborne endured, and the £1m personal donation followed. A copy of the financial advice Johnson received soon after leaving Downing Street raises questions about it.
While Johnson was still an MP he set up a private company, The Office of Boris Johnson Ltd. The financial advice reveals that he was expecting a “payment to fund the company’s first few years”. He was advised to consider whether this would represent a political donation or if it “might be simpler for the company to invoice the donor’s company for services”.
The following month, in November 2022, Johnson’s entry in the register of MPs’ interests records a £1m donation to his company from Harborne. The payment does not appear on the Electoral Commission’s donation database of money “given towards the recipient’s political activities” as an MP. This appears to suggest it may have been a contribution towards Johnson’s money-making activities.
The month of the £1m payment, Johnson and Harborne dined together twice in Singapore. A January 2023 entry in Johnson’s schedule set aside half an hour for a call with his backer. It was labelled “Ukraine readout”. That September, by which time Johnson had quit parliament, he and Harborne stepped aboard a Dassault Falcon at Stansted airport, the leaked files indicate. The private jet, apparently operated by Harborne, carried them to eastern Poland to catch the sleeper to Kyiv.
Harborne’s lawyers said: “Mr Harborne’s donation was given to enable Mr Johnson to stay actively engaged in mainstream UK politics. It is and was a donation, and its reporting as such is appropriate.”…………
The letter
Harborne’s lawyers did not give substantive answers to questions about why he went on the trip to Ukraine, beyond saying they “appear to have little to no basis in reality”. But there are possible clues in the leaked files.
The itinerary features a “closed meeting at the military-tech R&D centre”. It does not say whether Harborne attended, but this is an area he knows well. While his position as the largest shareholder in QinetiQ, with 13%, does not give him a role in the day-to-day running of the privatised research unit of the UK armed forces, his financial stake in its operations is significant.
QinetiQ has interests in Ukraine, albeit not its biggest. Ukraine’s forces reportedly use the company’s Banshee drones and bomb-disposal robots. In April 2025, the UK Ministry of Defence announced QinetiQ would help Ukraine’s military make kit with 3D printers……………………. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/10/the-1m-man-why-did-boris-johnson-take-his-donor-to-ukraine
Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela
Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports Israel as it commits genocide and is central to Trump’s regime-change war against President Maduro.
By Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy 13 Oct 25– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks9uDtd7Msc
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to María Corina Machado, a far-right coup leader in Venezuela who has been funded by the US government for decades.
Machado has openly called for the US military to invade Venezuela, in order to overthrow the revolutionary Chavista government of President Nicolás Maduro.
She is at the heart of the war that Donald Trump has waged on Venezuela. Machado has endorsed the US military’s extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans in boats in international waters, echoing the Trump administration’s unsubstantiated, evidence-free claims that it is supposedly killing “drug traffickers”.
Machado also supports the illegal, unilateral US sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.
Likewise, Machado has expressed staunch support for Israel as it carried out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Nobel Peace Prize for war criminals
The fact that a pro-war, far-right coup-plotter like Machado was given a Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates how extremely hypocritical the award is.
This hypocrisy is far from new.
US imperial planner Henry Kissinger was given a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, despite the fact that he was one of the worst war criminals in modern history, with the blood of millions of victims on his hands, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, Chile, and beyond.
Former US President Barack Obama also won a so-called Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. His administration then went on to wage nonstop war. Obama bombed seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
This is by no means the first time that the Norwegian Nobel Committee has been hypocritical. But giving the prize to María Corina Machado is especially outrageous, because it comes precisely at a moment when, one, she has been supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza; and two, she is working with Donald Trump to wage war and use violence to try to overthrow Venezuela’s government.
María Corina Machado supports Israel’s genocidal regime
Machado has openly praised Israel as it has carried out a genocide against the Palestinian people.
A United Nations commission led by renowned experts on international humanitarian law stated clearly that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
In January 2025, Machado held a call with Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar. She expressed her “gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel”, adding that she “immensely values the support of the government of Israel”.
The genocidal Israeli regime has refused to recognize the government of Venezuela’s constitutional, internationally recognized President Nicolás Maduro, and has instead recognized US-backed coup leader Edmundo González, who lives in Spain and is a proxy for Machado.
In April 2024, Israel attacked Iran in an act of aggression, and Tehran hit back in self-defense. Machado immediately took to Twitter to condemn Iran. She emphasized her “solidarity with the State of Israel amid the direct aggression by the Iranian regime”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
María Corina Machado is at the center of Donald Trump’s regime-change war on Venezuela
Giving the so-called Nobel Peace Prize for María Corina Machado is even more outrageous considering that she is at the heart of a war that the US government is currently waging against Venezuela.
Donald Trump has launched multiple military attacks, killing dozens of Venezuelans without charge or trial. In flagrant violation of international law, the US military has repeatedly bombed boats surrounding Venezuela in international waters, claiming without any evidence that they were full of people trafficking “drugs”.
Machado has supported Trump’s attacks on her country, including his extrajudicial executions of Venezuelans without charge or trial.
The Financial Times interviewed Machado, and she admitted that she is working with the US government to try to overthrow Venezuela’s President Maduro……………………………………………………….. https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/10/13/maria-corina-machado-israel-genocide-trump-war-venezuela/
Democratic lawmakers request probe into Jared Kushner after Reuters Saudi report
By Aram Roston and Alexandra Ulmer, October 25, 2024
- Summary
- Wyden and Raskin request special counsel to investigate Kushner
- Concerns over Kushner’s influence on U.S. foreign policy and potential conflicts of interest
WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – The Democratic chair of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and a prominent Democratic congressman asked the U.S. attorney general on Thursday to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, was functioning as an unregistered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia, according to a letter from the lawmakers.
The letter from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin cited an Oct. 4 Reuters report that revealed that Kushner on multiple occasions had discussed U.S.-Saudi diplomacy concerning Israel with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since leaving government.
“This revelation is deeply disturbing, as Mr. Kushner appears to be influencing U.S. foreign policy by acting as a political consultant to the Saudi government while also accepting their money,” Wyden and Raskin wrote in the eight-page letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The letter has not been previously reported.
“Mr. Kushner’s proximity to President Trump and the potential for political interference warrants the appointment of a Special Counsel,” the letter added.
Saudi Arabia has invested $2 billion into a private equity fund, Affinity Partners, that Kushner, who was a top adviser on the Middle East during Trump’s administration, founded in 2021 after leaving government, according to congressional investigators………………………
The Department of Justice acknowledged receipt of the letter but declined further comment.
The Saudi Arabian embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Saudi Arabia’s investments in Kushner’s fund have been criticized by ethics experts, Democrats in Congress and some Republicans, who have expressed concern that Saudi Arabia’s stake can look like a payoff since Kushner worked on Saudi issues before leaving Trump’s White House.
“There is substantial reason to believe,” the letter wrote, “that the Saudi government’s decision to engage Affinity for investment advice is a fig leaf for funneling money directly to Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump.”……………………………………..https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democratic-lawmakers-request-probe-into-trump-son-in-law-after-reuters-saudi-2024-10-24/
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.
‘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
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/
How Jared Kushner Played Trump to Grease Own Pocket: Wolff
Kushner’s business connections and Trump manipulation may have cleared the way for a Gaza peace deal, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff.
Adam Downer , Breaking News Reporter, Inside Trump’s Head Podcast, Oct. 11 2025
Donald Trump’s (so-far) successful plan to end the conflict in Gaza was orchestrated by Jared Kushner in a bid to make himself richer, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff.
Speaking on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, Wolff outlined how Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, played Qatar and the president in order to further his own business interests.
“[Jared] craves influence in the Middle East. He craves business opportunities in the Middle East. He craves further, deeper relationships with the powerful people in the Middle East, all of which is helped by peace. So peace becomes a byproduct of business,” said Wolff.
Kushner, 44, founded the private equity firm Affinity Partners in 2021, after the first Trump administration. Affinity Partners has substantial investments from several Middle Eastern countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Affinity Partners invests in American and Israeli companies in the Middle East with the goal of expanding in the territory.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and Jared Kushner for comment. On Oct. 1, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed claims of impropriety related to Kushner’s peace negotiations and his business interests in the Middle East………………..
Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump, is technically not a part of the Trump administration but acts as an unpaid, informal adviser, particularly when it comes to the Middle East.
Wolff believes Kushner, along with real estate developer and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, pressed their business connections with Middle Eastern royal families to broker the Israel and Hamas deal. On Friday, The New York Times reported on the extent of the pair’s involvement, which earned bipartisan praise…………………………………….
Until just recently, Trump, 79, wasn’t addressing Israel’s brutalities in the conflict, which have killed over 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. That was the case until Trump implied that if Netanyahu didn’t sign on to his peace plan, the U.S. would stop supporting Israel in the war, according to a White House adviser.
“Essentially Bibi has had a free rein to continue this awful carnage with Trump at best looking the other way. Suddenly though, he comes down hard on Bibi,” said Wolff.
The reason for Trump’s sudden change in tune, according to Wolff, was the imminent announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize. Wolff believes Jared got Trump to turn on Netanyahu by telling the president that if he brokered a peace deal in the conflict, he would be a top candidate for the honor.
“And [Trump] comes down hard on Bibi, not least of all because Jared is good at this. He knows how to play his father-in-law. He comes down hard on Bibi in this 11th hour bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Wolff.
“How can he get the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, by bringing peace to the Middle East, by solving the Gaza situation. Now, of course, he could have done that any time since last January when he became the President of the United States. But he does it now because for a very specific goal.”………………….
Wolff argued that the deal might not actually support Trump’s case for the prize as much as it does Kushner’s.
“[Trump] might win,” he said, “then again, he might go through the humiliation of watching his son-in-law and his former golfing buddy, Witkoff, pick it up next year.”…………………………… https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-jared-played-trump-to-grease-own-pocket-wolff/
The Israeli media is reporting on a ‘secret clause’ in the Gaza ceasefire deal that no one is talking about.
Hebrew-language Israeli media reports say there is a “secret clause” buried in the Gaza ceasefire agreement that would allow Israel to resume the war. Palestinians worry this is the pretext Netanyahu needs to get out of completing the deal.
By Qassam Muaddi October 10, 2025 https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-israeli-media-is-reporting-on-a-secret-clause-in-the-gaza-ceasefire-deal-that-no-one-is-talking-about/
The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas could collapse due to an alleged “secret clause” in the agreement that would allow Israel to resume the war, according to reports in the Arab and Hebrew-language Israeli media. That so-called clause would reportedly be “activated” in the event that Hamas is unable to locate all the Israeli captives within the 72-hour window allotted to the Palestinian resistance group during the first part of the deal’s implementation.
On Friday, Al Jazeera’s Palestine Bureau Chief Walid al-Omary pointed out on the network’s live broadcast that the second article of the deal concerning the release of Israeli captives included a phrase in the Hebrew version about an undisclosed annex. According to al-Omary, if Hamas fails to release all Israeli captives, dead and alive, a “secret clause in appendix B” would be “activated.”
Israel’s Kan TV was the first to report on the clause, which was subsequently covered by other Israeli media outlets. According to Kan, an unnamed source who had been exposed to the content of the secret clause said that it was “jumbles of words.” Israel’s Channel 13 also reported that an Israeli court dismissed a petition to disclose the “secret contents” of the deal, citing security considerations.
Although the alleged clause implies punitive consequences on Hamas in the event of failing to meet the 72-hour deadline, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in an interview hours after the deal was first announced that the time needed to find, gather, and release Israeli captives would depend on “field conditions.” Hamdan added that locating the captives might take longer. U.S. President Donald Trump also admitted that finding the dead bodies of Israeli captives might take longer than anticipated.
Hamas has officially denied the existence of such a clause. A Hamas official told Al Jazeera that “the reported rumors concerning the presence of ‘secret clauses’ in the agreement to end the war on Gaza are completely untrue.”
The potential existence of such a secret clause has reinforced already-existing Palestinian concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would seek to find a way to sabotage the deal. Already in March, Israel broke the first ceasefire after the release of all civilian Israeli captives in the first phase of the deal. Last July, Hamas accepted a proposed deal following talks through Egyptian and Qatari mediators, while Netanyahu completely ignored it as mediators waited for Israel’s response.
Moreover, the lack of any additional terms within the deal for the end of the war, known as Trump’s “20-Point Plan,” has contributed to the spread of such reports in Arab media outlets. Issues relating to disarmament, Gaza’s postwar administration, and Israel’s withdrawal have all been relegated until after the prisoner exchange.
Israeli media reported late on Thursday that talks ended over the names and numbers of Palestinian prisoners and detainees set to be released as part of the deal. Israel had reportedly vetoed the names of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, and the secretary general of the PFLP Ahmad Saadat. Another Israeli veto was placed on the names of 14 out of the 303 Palestinians serving life sentences, because they are Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. The final lists of agreed-on names haven’t yet been made public.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army began its withdrawal from Gaza City and other parts of the Strip. The Israeli army would remain in control of 53% of the strip, excluding urban areas.
Meanwhile, Palestinians have started to return to Gaza City following the entry of the ceasefire into effect on Friday. This comes after almost a month of Israel’s largest offensive yet on Gaza City, which included three army divisions and the detonation of hundreds of remotely controlled and outdated armored personnel carriers packed with explosives in civilian neighborhoods. Before the announcement of the ceasefire, on Thursday, Israel had pushed around 900,000 Palestinians out of Gaza City.
Israel’s war on Gaza, which Israel announced following Hamas’s October 7 attack, has killed over 66,000 Palestinians, a third of whom were children. The war displaced almost 2 million Palestinians and destroyed both the health and education systems. The war has been recognized as a genocide by the UN.
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Now until to February 10, 2026 Radioactive waste storage in France: the debate is finally open! How to participate?
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