Daniel Davis: Russia Preparing Retaliation – Oreshnik Deployed & Seizing Odessa
Glenn Diesen | December 20, 2025
Lt. Col. Daniel Davis is a 4x combat veteran, the recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, and is the host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive YouTube channel. Lt. Col. Davis discusses how Russia is preparing itself for the possibility of Europe attacking Russia by deploying a powerful arsenal of Oreshniks. The attacks on Russia’s civilian vessels will likely end with Russia seizing Odessa, which could also trigger the Europeans to send troops. We are rapidly going up the escalation ladder as diplomacy fails.
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FDA Won’t ‘Rubber-Stamp’ Pfizer mRNA Flu Vaccine Without Better Safety Data
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 15, 2025
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) likely won’t approve Pfizer’s mRNA flu vaccine unless the drugmaker produces data proving the product is safe for seniors, according to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.
Makary told Fox News last month that the data from Pfizer’s recently completed Phase 3 clinical trial showed that adults 65 and older were at higher risk of several serious adverse events, including kidney failure and acute respiratory failure.
“We’re not just going to rubber-stamp new products that don’t work, that fail in a clinical trial,” Makary said. “It makes a mockery of science if we’re just going to rubber-stamp things with no data.”
Makary said the shot “failed in seniors” and the trial data “showed zero benefit” from the vaccine.
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense, said Makary’s comments signal a change in the way the FDA evaluates clinical trial data for vaccines.
“Makary’s FDA threw out the rubber stamp,” Jablonowski said. “The FDA, under different leadership, may have brushed off the lack of efficacy and Pfizer’s concerning safety data. A future administration may resurrect the rubber stamp. For the time being, this is Makary’s FDA.”
Last month, Pfizer published the results of its clinical trial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). However, the published results included data only for participants between 18 and 64. Data for participants 65 and older, published only on ClinicalTrials.gov, drew criticism from some scientists.
That data showed that elderly trial participants who received the mRNA vaccine had a significantly higher rate of death and several serious adverse events, including cancer, compared to participants who received the conventional non-mRNA flu shot.
This contrasts with Pfizer’s claims that the vaccine delivered “statistically superior efficacy” compared to the conventional flu shot, and that the frequency of serious adverse events was “similar” across the mRNA and non-mRNA groups.
“The disposition of the kidney and lung issues associated with the mRNA shot was concerning,” Jablonowski said.
Some experts noted that even among the 18-64 age group, adverse events were higher among trial participants who received the mRNA shot.
The only mention of the trial data for people 65 and over in the NEJM came in an accompanying editorial, which noted that this age group faces “the highest risk of hospitalization or death” from the flu.
Dr. Meryl Nass, a former internist and founder of Door to Freedom, said she was encouraged by Makary’s remarks. She said the FDA is legally required to license only those drugs that are proven to be safe and effective.
“This mandate is at least 70 years old,” Nass said. “What Makary is saying is already mandated by Congress. But the FDA has chosen to ignore that mandate due to politics, and Congress has failed to enforce it. Makary is actually obeying the law for the first time in decades regarding flu shots.”
Makary: annual mRNA vaccination ‘not based on science’
Makary told Fox News that past administrations rubber-stamped vaccine approvals even when safety data was questionable.
“That was the MO in the Biden administration with the eternal COVID booster approvals for young healthy kids,” Makary said.
The current administration will adopt a different approach to vaccine approvals, especially for children, Makary said.
“Recommending that a 6-year-old girl get another 70 mRNA COVID shots, one each year for the rest of her life, is not based on science,” Makary said.
Makary’s remarks came days after the release of a leaked memo in which Dr. Vinay Prasad, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said changes are coming to the framework for evaluating flu vaccines.
“We will revise the annual flu vaccine framework, which is an evidence-based catastrophe of low quality evidence, poor surrogate assays, and uncertain vaccine effectiveness measured in case-control studies with poor methods. We will re-appraise safety and be honest in vaccine labels,” Prasad wrote in that memo.
Dr. Robert W. Malone, a member of ACIP and the committee’s influenza workgroup, told The Epoch Times that Prasad’s memo means “the entire influenza vaccine, annual vaccination enterprise is now subject to major disruption.”
In May, COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna withdrew its application for FDA approval of a combination mRNA flu and COVID-19 vaccine, after the FDA requested more clinical trials.
In June, the CDC’s vaccine advisers voted to stop recommending flu shots that contain thimerosal — a mercury-based preservative linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.
‘No one has figured out’ how to make mRNA shots safe
Makary’s statements came amid growing questions about the safety, efficacy and necessity of existing non-mRNA flu vaccines and waning uptake of the shots.
A Cleveland Clinic study published in April found that people who received the flu vaccine were 27% more likely to get the flu than those who didn’t.
Another study, published that month in JAMA Network Open, found that flu vaccines, whether given alone or in conjunction with COVID-19 shots, caused women to have longer menstrual cycles.
Endpoints News reported last month that public demand for flu vaccines is stalling and that “the general consensus among vaccine makers for Covid-19, flu and RSV is that dampening demand has shrunk sales.” Data from Eurostat indicate a decline in flu vaccine uptake in the European Union.
Research into mRNA-related platforms is also facing growing scrutiny. In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cancelled nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research.
“With regard to mRNA injections, no one has figured out how to make them safe,” Nass said. “mRNA shots provide an unknown dose, and they can be ‘the gift that keeps on giving,’ because we don’t know how to shut off the production of mRNA-coded proteins. We probably never will.”
Nass added that while FDA rules require that a specific dose be established for every drug, “somehow this rule has never applied to mRNA vaccines.”
“I believe the mRNA platform is irrevocably flawed for this reason alone, although there are other toxicities involved that also make the platform problematic,” Nass said.
A growing number of scientists have called for the suspension or withdrawal of the administration of mRNA vaccines and products.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Bill Gates’ CEPI revives Moderna mRNA bird flu vaccine development with $54M investment after HHS terminated funding
Avian influenza jab “mRNA-1018” is in full pandemic flight
By Jon Fleetwood | December 19, 2025
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will invest up to $54.3 million to support a Phase 3 clinical trial for Moderna’s investigational mRNA-based pandemic H5 avian influenza “bird flu” vaccine candidate, mRNA-1018.
The move immediately follows the Gates Foundation’s $3.3 million award to a team of scientists at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to develop “breakthrough purification technologies” for producing mRNA-based vaccines, which are plagued with contamination and impurity issues.
Bill Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a co-founder and major funder of CEPI since its 2017 launch at Davos.
A Thursday press release from CEPI emphasizes the new mRNA bird flu vaccine is for “pandemic preparedness,” as this website has been documenting gain-of-function experiments being conducted on bird flu pathogens around the world, warning about the supranational orchestration of a coming bird flu pandemic.
HHS had terminated its multi-hundred-million-dollar commitment to Moderna to produce mRNA-1018 in May, with Moderna vowing to explore “alternative paths for development of the vaccine program.”
Moderna—also Gates-funded—has now followed through on its promise.
This is despite the fact that Moderna submitted data in November 2017 proving their mRNA vaccine lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) accumulate in mammalian liver, spleen, plasma (blood), kidneys, heart, and lungs.
Per the new CEPI press release:
The funding marks a significant step forward in global pandemic preparedness that could enable fast, equitable access to vaccines for one of the world’s most pressing health threats.
This Phase 3 study would be the first mRNA-based vaccine targeting pandemic influenza to enter a pivotal trial. If the vaccine candidate is licensed, it would expand the current global portfolio of H5 vaccines with a rapid-response platform that could revolutionize future pandemic responses, making a significant contribution to CEPI’s 100 Days Mission, a global goal to develop safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of a new pandemic threat being identified.
Dr Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of CEPI, stated:
“Pandemic influenza remains one of the greatest threats to global health security. With this partnership, we are not just advancing vaccine science, we are fundamentally changing the game. By harnessing the speed and adaptability of mRNA technology, we could shave months off the response time, deliver vaccines at scale, and enable equitable access for all. This is how we plan to protect the world from the next flu pandemic.”
Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, said:
“We are proud to have the support of CEPI to advance our pandemic influenza vaccine candidate, research that is critical to our commitment to pandemic preparedness. mRNA technology can play a vital role in addressing emerging health threats quickly and effectively, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with CEPI as we advance our health security portfolio, and in parallel, further the 100 Days Mission.”
CEPI collaborates closely with the World Health Organization (WHO)—also Gates-funded—through a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding, meant to accelerate pandemic vaccine development.
The WHO has already:
- Established a WHO-backed influenza command framework that merges governance, operational authority, and outbreak-response assets into a single controlling entity for the next pandemic cycle.
- Approved a WHO–Gates influenza-adjacent global digital ID and surveillance architecture, designed to track vaccination status and population compliance across borders during respiratory-virus campaigns.
- Ran pre-COVID compliance-testing programs tied to future influenza vaccine deployment, using CDC-, Gates-, and Oxford-linked institutions to model population behavior toward lower-quality vaccines years before SARS-CoV-2.
- Activated a “Future Pandemic” plan positioning U.S. labs inside a WHO-directed influenza sentinel surveillance network, preserving global monitoring operations even after the U.S. attempted withdrawal.
- Deployed a national influenza surveillance grid in Egypt under WHO authority, installing 30 sentinel sites and training 270 officers for real-time detection, reporting, and response.
- Constructed an international influenza pathogen-sharing command system enabling rapid transfer of H5- and other high-risk influenza samples for sequencing, analysis, and vaccine design under centralized WHO control.
- Outlined an influenza-triggered governance model that explicitly mandates “integration—merger of assets” and “united governance,” transferring all national governance functions to a single authority under conditions of crisis, uncertainty, or sector failure.
The WHO is already dictating how the coming bird flu pandemic will be controlled, just as it controlled the authoritarian COVID-19 pandemic response.
Moreover, the Trump administration this year announced a $500 million “next-generation, universal vaccine platform” called ‘Generation Gold Standard’ that will focus on bird flu jab creation.
Taken together, the CEPI–Moderna Phase 3 push, Gates-funded efforts to address known mRNA impurity issues, and the WHO’s already-built influenza surveillance, sample-sharing, and compliance architecture suggest a coordinated, pre-positioned pipeline designed to move seamlessly from pathogen research to mass deployment—before a bird flu emergency is formally declared.
Government Minister Steps in to Defend Met Office as Fake Temperature Scandal Escalates
By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | December 19, 2025
In a couple of weeks’ time, the Met Office is likely to announce another ‘hottest year evah’ in the UK. The message will be broadcast faithfully by trusted messengers in mainstream media, keen to prop up the fading Net Zero fantasy, but greeted with howls of derision across social media. Eye-opening investigative research over the last two years has revealed a national temperature network mainly composed of ‘junk’ inappropriate sites and massive data inventions across over 100 non-existent stations. Now the British Government has stepped in with the suggestion that questioning the Met Office’s shoddy measuring systems “weakens trust in science”. Misinformation is said to have proliferated on “conspiracy networks”.
Step forward Lord Patrick Vallance, the former Government Chief Scientific Adviser at the heart of the Covid lockdown panic but now an unelected Science Minister in the Labour Administration. “There has been a growing online narrative in some online and social media spaces attempting to undermine Met Office observations and data,” he observes. Vallance’s conspiracy claims echo similar comments made earlier in the year by the Met Office. The investigative efforts of a small number of people were said by the state meteorologist to be an “attempt to undermine decades of robust science around the world ‘s changing climate”.
Only in the world inhabited by Vallance and the Met Office can a conspiracy be whipped up when rigorous examination and questioning is applied to scientific data. From Covid to climate, it seems the scientific process is a closed book to state scientists following the settled political narrative. One of the ‘conspirators’ is citizen sleuth Ray Sanders, who has undertaken a forensic examination of nearly 400 individual Met Office recording stations. Commenting on the official ministerial response, he observed that not one word constituted a scientific approach. “It is a political monologue of the lowest order,” he opined.
Regular co-conspiratorial readers will of course be aware of the reporting problems at the Met Office. Over the last 18 months, the percentage of sites in junk CIMO Classes 4 and 5 with ‘uncertainties’ due to nearby unnatural obstacles of 2°C and 5°C respectively has climbed from 77.9% to over 80%. In that period, the number of pristine Class 1 sites capable of measuring an uncorrupted ambient air temperature over a large surrounding area has fallen from 24 to just 19. Ray Sanders has catalogued most of the unsuitable sites producing measurements taken by airport runways, in walled gardens, near main roads and in the middle of solar farms. Daily high unnatural heat spikes, amplified by the recent introduction of more accurate electronic devices, are an obvious unaddressed problem, but they are often fed into the official statistics. One such 60-second spike in July 2022 pushed the temperature at RAF Coningsby up to 40.3°C, a declared national record that is widely publicised.
Meanwhile, temperature databases are awash with non-existent stations and invented data. Explanations that the ‘estimates’ are taken from ‘well-correlated neighbouring stations’ might be more convincing if those stations could be identified. Freedom of Information (FOI) efforts by Ray Sanders seeking such details have been dismissed as “vexatious” and “not in the public interest”. The picture has emerged of a very rough-and-ready network, suitable for specific local temperature reporting at places such as airports, but unconvincing in promoting widespread average temperatures down to one hundredth of a degree centigrade.
The Vallance explanations are contained in a letter written to the Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis following concerns raised by Derek Tripp, a local councillor in his constituency. He notes that in September, the Met Office decided to remove estimated data from three non-existent stations on its historic temperature database. “They recognised that confusion could be caused when there appears to be a continued flow of data on this website from stations that have closed,” he said.
In fact the confusion was caused by the Daily Sceptic seeking FOI details in November of well-correlated neighbouring stations responsible for data at one of the stations, namely Lowestoft. The well-correlated explanation is often used by the Met Office and formed the basis of an earlier ‘fact check’ by Science Feedback that seems to have relied exclusively on text provided by the Met Office. Sanders had earlier determined that there were no such stations within a reasonable distance of Lowestoft. The Met Office admitted under FOI that it did not use such stations but rather made estimates using its HADUK-Grid. This was little more than passing the buck since HADUK-Grid inputs temperature information from nearby stations, none of which it seems can ever be identified.
Vallance went on to note that the historic dataset was for “general interest only and is not intended for climate monitoring purposes”. Curiously, Vallance failed to point out that this was a very recent explanation since it only appeared on the Met Office historic page after the Daily Sceptic submitted its FOI.
On the 80% junk nature of the Met Office’s temperature sites, Vallance rushes to the aid of the party. “It is misleading and inappropriate to interpret the CIMO classifications in isolation to question the quality of the Met Office’s observing network or the integrity of the UK’s climate record,” he states. What pompous piffle. In-house activists have been allowed to leverage the reputation of the Met Office to produce a flood of dubious measurements and statistics designed to create mass climate psychosis with the aim of promoting a hard-Left Net Zero agenda. The World Meteorological Organisation could not be clearer in stating that a CIMO Class 1 location can be considered as a “reference” site giving a true air temperature over a wide surrounding area. “A Class 5 site is a site where nearby obstacles create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area,” it notes. A site with a poor class number can still be valuable for a specified application, it adds.
In other words, a Class 5 is useful for giving jet pilots a vital runway temperature, but less so for telling us that the annual temperature in the UK was 0.06°C cooler in 2023 than the ‘record’ year of 2022.
Vallance also claims that the Met Office “follows a structured, requirements-driven process to identify and establish new land observing stations”. It is reasonable to ask what “requirements-driven” process is being used by the Met Office, given that a large majority of sites started over the last 30, 10 and five years are to be found in the junk 4 and 5 Classes. Even worse, the Daily Sceptic has disclosed using FOI information that 20 new sites have opened since April 2024, and of the 17 that have received CIMO classifications, a frankly incredible 64.7% started life in the Class 4 and 5 junk lane.
And they say we are the conspiracy nuts.
Russia, African Countries Agree to Strengthen Security Cooperation – Lavrov
Sputnik – 20.12.2025
CAIRO – Russia and African countries have agreed to strengthen cooperation in the spheres of politics and security following the Second Ministerial Conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday.
“The joint statement also contains our shared decision to strengthen cooperation in the political and security spheres, including with the aim of recommending the establishment of working relations between the African Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
The minister added that Russia and Africa do not see the need to dwell on Western sanctions.
“We prefer to focus on coordinating workable, efficient mechanisms that will safeguard our trade and economic ties, making them independent from the illegal actions of those who, in violation of all principles of international law, resort to methods of blackmail and pressure,” Lavrov noted.
Additionally, the Foreign Minister discussed increasing trade turnover and energy cooperation with African partners, as well as the creation of joint financial and logistical structures to protect the trade and economic investment partnerships of the countries from illegal unilateral sanctions.
“Unlike those who try to continue colonial and neocolonial policies, dictating their will to others, we, together with our African friends, have a solid international legal foundation in our positions,” he emphasized.
In turn, Abdelatty said that during the ministerial conference in Cairo, African countries and Russia had reached a mutual understanding regarding further cooperation.
Lavrov participated today in the second ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Egypt. The conference was attended by foreign ministers, heads of state, and leaders of executive bodies from integration associations across the continent. They discussed cooperation in various areas. The minister also held a series of bilateral meetings.
The forum was established in 2019. Two summits were held within its framework—in Sochi in 2019 and in St. Petersburg in 2023, as well as the first ministerial conference in November of last year.
Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons: When Silence Becomes Surrender
Al-Manar | December 18, 2025
This is no longer a humanitarian file delayed by bureaucracy. It is a national test that Lebanon is failing in slow motion. Lebanese detainees remain locked inside Israeli prisons while their names circulate in press statements, their families count months without news, and the state responds with restraint that borders on abdication. When citizens are taken, hidden, denied Red Cross visits, and subjected to abuse, silence is not prudence. It is complicity by omission.
For an audience that understands the cost of confrontation and the meaning of deterrence, the facts are unmistakable: “Israel” is not holding detainees because it must, but because it can—because the political cost remains low.
File That Refuses to Close
The number of Lebanese detainees currently held by the occupation stands at 19 to 20, based on the latest confirmations from released Palestinian prisoners who encountered Lebanese captives previously listed as missing. The uncertainty itself is revealing. It is the result of deliberate Israeli obstruction, including the ongoing ban on Red Cross visits and the refusal to provide any official accounting. A large group of civilians—fishermen, a shepherd, and workers arrested in their fields—some of whom were detained after the ceasefire was declared.
These are not arrests justified by war. They are acts of abduction, carried out under the cover of “security,” and sustained by international inaction and local hesitation.
The ceasefire of November 27, 2024, was supposed to mark an end. Instead, it marked a shift in method.
Ali Younes was detained after the so-called cessation of hostilities.
Ali Tarhini was arrested inside the Lebanese town of Odeisseh on January 28, 2025.
Mohammad Ali Jheir—a fisherman from Naqoura—was shot with a rubber bullet and taken from his boat by Israeli naval forces, then transferred to Ofer Prison and placed in solitary confinement.
These are not isolated incidents. They form a pattern: ‘Israel’ exploits calm to seize civilians, converting ceasefires into opportunities for leverage. Months later, families still have no official information. The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed that Israeli authorities are blocking access to Lebanese detainees. This is not procedural delay—it is policy.
Testimonies from released prisoners speak of severe beatings, humiliation, and sexual abuse—violations that meet the definition of war crimes. The denial of visits is meant to do one thing: keep these crimes out of sight. A prison without witnesses is not detention. It is a black site.
Families Carrying What the State Will Not
With the state moving cautiously, families stepped forward forcefully. From protests outside ESCWA to meetings in Baabda, they have said what officials have not: This is not a humanitarian appeal. It is a demand.
Former detainee Abbas Qabalan spoke of civilians arrested while farming their land.
The mother of Mohammad Abdul Karim Jawad—a civilian nurse—has waited more than a year without a single official update. The wife of Ali Younes called for action “through every legal, diplomatic, and political means.” The mother of Ali Tarhini named the date and place of her son’s arrest—inside Lebanon.
These families are not guessing. They are documenting publicly because the file has been left on their shoulders. Officials have called the detainee file a “priority.” But priorities are measured by action, not vocabulary. So far, the issue has been confined to the so-called mechanism committee, a framework chaired and constrained by U.S. oversight—hardly a venue known for pressuring ‘Israel.’ Rather than securing releases, it has allowed the occupation to freeze the issue while continuing violations.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which should have escalated the file internationally, remains largely absent. No sustained UN campaign. No legal offensive. No international naming and shaming.
This is not incapacity. It is a political choice.
Human rights researcher Ghina Ribaai was direct: Lebanese detainees are paying the price for a state that wasted leverage. The handover of an Israeli detainee without any reciprocal release sent a dangerous message—that ‘Israel’ can detain Lebanese citizens without consequence. That message still stands.
Detainees as Bargaining Chips ‘Israel’ has made its strategy clear. Lebanese detainees are not prisoners—they are hostages, to be traded against unrelated political files: borders, negotiations, “working groups.” Lebanon has rejected this logic rhetorically. But rejection without pressure is empty. ‘Israel’ responds only to cost—political, legal, and strategic.
What Must Change—Now
This file cannot remain seasonal. It requires:
• A clear sovereign decision
• An aggressive diplomatic and legal campaign
• International escalation, not quiet mediation
• Continuous media pressure that keeps the issue alive
For an audience that understands resistance, this truth is familiar: rights are not returned through patience alone. The detainee file is not a test of sympathy. It is a test of statehood.
‘Israel’ does not release prisoners because it is reminded of morality. It releases them when detention becomes expensive. As long as Lebanese detainees remain an afterthought—raised in speeches but not imposed as a cost—’Israel’ will continue to detain, abuse, and bargain.
The families have said it plainly, and history confirms it:
A nation that does not fight for its detainees forfeits a core element of its sovereignty.
In a country whose modern identity was shaped by the principle that prisoners are never abandoned, failure here is not neutrality. It is surrender by silence.
US Weighs Port Restrictions on Spain Over Israel Arms Transit Ban
teleSUR | December 20, 2025
The United States is considering restrictive measures against Spanish-flagged vessels following Spain’s decision to block the transit of US military cargo bound for Israel through its territory, prompting a formal investigation by US maritime authorities.
In late September this year, the Spanish government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez prohibited the transit of US aircraft and ships carrying weapons, ammunition, or military equipment destined for Israel through the military bases of Rota, in Cádiz, and Morón de la Frontera, in Seville. The measure was adopted in protest against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
The Joint Spanish–US Committee confirmed the decision, clarifying that the ban applies both to aircraft and vessels heading directly to Israel and to those bound for the country after intermediate stopovers.
Washington responded on Friday through the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), which said it is considering closing US ports to Spanish ships while it investigates Spain’s refusal to allow US cargo vessels carrying arms to Israel to dock at the port of Algeciras, in southern Spain.
In a statement, the FMC said it is examining options that include cargo limitations, denial of entry to vessels operating under the Spanish flag, or fines of up to $2.3 million per voyage for Spanish-flagged ships.
Spain has prohibited the transfer of US weapons to Israel through the military bases of Rota and Morón, facilities located on Spanish territory but used by the United States under bilateral defense agreements.
US authorities view Spain’s stance as a challenge. The FMC said it is gathering information on “the current policy of Spain of denying or rejecting port access to certain vessels carrying cargo to or from Israel,” which, according to the commission, may be creating “unfavorable general or special conditions for maritime transport in US foreign trade.” The FMC, which is independent of the US government, stressed the urgency of completing its investigation to determine what “corrective measures may be appropriate to address such conditions.”
According to sources from Spain’s Ministry of Defense cited by Europa Press in September, the Defense Cooperation Agreement governing military collaboration between the two countries will not be amended. As a result, US-operated military bases in Spain remain excluded from arms embargoes.
Under Article 32 of the agreement, the United States must obtain authorization from the Permanent Committee, which operates under Spain’s Ministry of Defense, for operations involving the loading or unloading of munitions and explosives, as well as their transport by land, sea, or air within Spanish territory. However, the United States is not required to disclose the final destination of such cargo when stopovers are involved.
Spain reaffirmed in September its decision to halt arms sales to Israel, a move that has been questioned by some reports. The country has also taken broader diplomatic steps critical of Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In late May 2024, Madrid formally recognized the State of Palestine and later joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of committing genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.
How Israel hijacked US politics, media and tech – without Americans even realizing
By Maryam Qarehgozlou | Press TV | December 20, 2025
When tech billionaire Larry Ellison was tapped to help oversee TikTok’s US operations, the move immediately drew scrutiny over the Oracle co-founder’s longstanding ties with the Israeli regime and how it could sharpen censorship of pro-Palestinian content on the platform.
Oracle’s ascendance came after the US Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok earlier this year, positioning the company as the frontrunner to take control of the Chinese-owned app.
Under the arrangement, Oracle would serve as the “secure cloud provider,” storing US user data and controlling the recommendation algorithm, an authority Washington framed as necessary to counter alleged Chinese “manipulation.”
But while the campaign against TikTok was outwardly led by China hawks, pro-Israel contractors, and the powerful Zionist lobby in Washington, played a central role in shaping the political pressure that made Oracle an obvious choice for the takeover.
Pro-Palestine advocates point out that a deeper motivation has been to silence the overwhelming pro-Palestinian opinions and sentiments on TikTok, where users have in great detail documented Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and challenged American-Israeli narratives about it.
The platform has become a key outlet for unfiltered footage from Gaza, including scenes of devastation, civilian casualties, and global solidarity campaigns.
Research from Northeastern University has consistently shown that pro-Palestinian posts dwarf pro-Israel content—most recently, in September 2025, by a ratio of roughly 17 to 1.
This imbalance reflects TikTok’s younger user base—Gen Z and millennials—who increasingly reject Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s deceptive and deeply manipulative positions.
Israel’s leadership understands the stakes. Benjamin Netanyahu recently described social media as a decisive “weapon” in modern warfare, calling the TikTok sale “the most important purchase” for securing influence over US public opinion.
Oracle’s deep alignment with Israeli interests has only heightened concerns. The company had already tightened its grip over aspects of TikTok’s operations while openly embracing a pro-Israel agenda and, as an Intercept investigation revealed, suppressing pro-Palestine activism within its own ranks.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz, an Israeli-American and longtime supporter of the Zionist project, made her stance bluntly clear, telling an Israeli business outlet: “For employees, it’s clear: if you’re not for America or Israel, don’t work here—this is a free country.”
Ellison, a major funder of Israeli causes and a close ally of Donald Trump, has long been celebrated by the US political establishment.
Trump—who placed him in the front row at his inauguration—famously hailed him as “one of the most serious players in the world.”
In 2017, Ellison made the largest single donation in the history of the so-called “Friends of the Israel Forces,” a US-based organization tied to the Israeli military responsible for genocidal attacks across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Oracle’s material support for Israel extends far beyond philanthropy. In 2021, the company opened a $319 million data center in occupied al-Quds, providing cloud services to Israeli banks, health institutions, and military units.
Immediately after Israel launched its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, Oracle publicly declared its support for the regime even as hospitals and schools were bombed.
Catz instructed that the message “Oracle Stands with Israel” be displayed across all company screens in more than 180 countries.
The company has also actively participated in Israel’s digital propaganda efforts. Following the outbreak of the war on Gaza, Oracle and the Israeli regime officials developed “Words of Iron,” a project designed to amplify pro-Israel content while whitewashing horrendous war crimes and countering critical narratives on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.
In February 2024, Oracle collaborated with the Israeli military’s cyber department on a hackathon seeking “tech solutions” for rehabilitating illegal settlements near Gaza.
Around the same time, Oracle donated medical and environmental supply bags worth half a million dollars to Israeli occupation forces.
Oracle’s political lobbying worked in tandem with its technological support. Last summer, Catz joined a closed-door meeting with US senators to push for continued weapons shipments to Israeli-occupied territories.
Later that year, Oracle partnered with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems—one of Israel’s major weapons manufacturers—on an AI program to provide “warfighters with quick, actionable insights in the battlespace.”
While Israel escalated its bombing and invasion of Gaza, some Oracle employees reported that the company was actively curtailing internal support for Palestinians.
Oracle’s charitable matching program quietly removed organizations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and UNRWA from its list of eligible beneficiaries, effectively blocking workers from directing matched funds toward humanitarian relief.
Ellison and Catz are hardly outliers; they are part of a broader pattern of influential Zionist figures holding disproportionate power across US political, financial, media, academic, tech, and cultural institutions.
Although only about 2 percent of the US population identifies as Jewish, Jewish and Zionist representation among American elites is significantly higher—a trend that has shaped US foreign policy, cultural production, and the sustained alignment with Israel’s violent occupation.
Below is a list of influential Zionist figures who occupy key positions across these sectors.
Jews in American politics
In February 2021, less than a month after former US President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post celebrated the new president’s appointments of 15 Jewish politicians.
“US President Joe Biden has appointed a strong, experienced team for his new administration. Among them are a minyan and a half of Jews. Indeed, I wonder if there has ever been a more Jewish US administration,” columnist Shlomo Maital wrote in the article.
The article added that “a vigorous American presence in world affairs, spearheaded by the Jewish A-Team, is in Israel’s long-term interest, more than an ‘America first’ administration that made the US largely irrelevant in global affairs.”
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines were among the Jewish members of Biden’s administration holding influential positions.
The list also included Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, Deputy Health Secretary Rachel Levine, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Other key figures were NSA Cybersecurity Director Anne Neuberger, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, COVID-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Also serving in senior economic and political roles were Jared Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.
As Secretary of State, Blinken was a central public and diplomatic defender of US support for Israel during the initial phase of the Gaza genocide — pressing allies, coordinating arms transfers, and publicly backing negotiations framed to protect the Israeli regime while offering limited humanitarian concessions for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip.
According to rights groups and activists, his steady diplomatic backing helped shield Israeli genocidal actions from stronger, public US rebukes.
Yellen’s Treasury enforced and expanded financial pressure instruments, such as sanctions that the US uses against Iran and other supporters of the Palestinian resistance.
The Treasury under Yellen issued targeted sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors.
Cohen, as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (Treasury), also designed and executed sanctions that targeted Iran’s oil, petrochemical, and financial sectors.
He is widely described in reporting and policy bios as the administration’s “sanctions guru.”
As Deputy Director of the CIA (and acting director briefly), Cohen brought his sanctions experience into targeting work against Iran — shaping covert disruption tools in addition to Treasury levers.
These unilateral sanctions form a core non-military lever in the US hawkish toolkit.
A Lancet study in August found a significant link between sanctions and higher mortality. The US and EU sanctions were associated with over 564,000 deaths annually from 1971 to 2021 in 152 countries.
It is similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict.
Children under 5 years faced about an 8-9 percent higher death risk, and adults aged 60-80 years had about a 2-3 percent higher risk.
The study found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, but none from UN sanctions.
Trump’s first term also included many Jewish officials in senior roles. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior advisor, was among the most influential, alongside Elliot Abrams, Special Representative for Venezuela and later Iran, and David Friedman, Ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories.
Other key figures included Jason Greenblatt, Special Representative for International Negotiations on Palestine; Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury; Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor for Policy; Gary Cohn, Director of the White House National Economic Council; Reed Cordish, Assistant to the President for Intragovernmental and Technology Initiatives; and Avrahm Berkowitz, Deputy Advisor to the President.
Additional senior officials were Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General; Elan Carr, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism; Ellie Cohanim, Deputy Special Envoy for the same office; Jeffrey Rosen, Attorney General; Morgan Ortagus, State Department spokesperson; David Shulkin, Secretary of Veterans Affairs; and Lawrence Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council.
Also serving in high-level positions were Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and advisor, who was raised Christian but converted to Orthodox Judaism to marry Kushner in 2009; John Eisenberg, National Security Council Legal Counsel; Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Acting Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; and Len Khodorkovsky, Deputy Secretary of State and Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Iran.
Several senior Jewish members of the Trump administration played central roles in reshaping US policy in ways strongly favorable to the Israeli regime.
Kushner was the architect of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab states — including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
Kushner also helped push forward the administration’s West Asia so-called “Peace to Prosperity” plan, which embraced long-standing Israeli positions on expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, and occupation of Palestine.
David Friedman, the Ambassador to Israeli-occupied territories, used his position and strongly supported recognizing occupied al-Quds as Israel’s capital, encouraged the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds, and backed Israel’s claim to West Bank settlements.
His diplomatic messaging consistently pushed Washington toward formally accepting Israeli control over the occupied territories.
Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, worked closely with Friedman and Kushner.
He was one of the primary US officials promoting the idea that settlement expansion was not an obstacle to peace. His role helped shift the State Department’s language away from the traditional American view of settlements as “illegitimate,” aligning it more closely with Israeli regime positions.
Lawrence Kudlow and Gary Cohn, who headed the National Economic Council at different times, supported the administration’s economic components of West Asia policy, including aid packages tied to normalization and economic incentives designed to complement Kushner’s diplomatic agenda.
Elan Carr and Ellie Cohanim, from the State Department’s antisemitism office, advanced aggressive messaging on global antisemitism that often intertwined with defending the Israeli regime’s genocidal and apartheid policies. Their public diplomacy helped cast any criticisms of Israel in terms of antisemitism, influencing international discussions.
After re-entering the White House for a second term in January, Trump once again packed his inner circle with vocal Jewish and Zionist loyalists, many of whom stand out for their unprecedented hostility toward the Palestinian people and their basic rights.
Trump stacked his advisory ranks with a mix of familiar figures and newer faces who exert outsized influence over his relationship with the Jewish community in the US and in the occupied territories.
Among them are Will Scharf, White House staff secretary; Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser; Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to West Asia; Howard Lutnick, secretary of commerce; Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s personal senior counsel; Elizabeth Pipko, national spokesperson for the Republican Party; Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Laura Loomer, an extremist influencer who operates as an unofficial loyalty enforcer within Trump’s political orbit.
Ivanka Trump and her husband were notably absent from much of Trump’s 2024 campaign and announced two years ago that they had stepped back to support Trump “outside the political arena.”
However, as one of Trump’s former top aides alongside Kushner—who played a central role in brokering the Abraham Accords and now runs a multibillion-dollar private equity fund bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—many speculate that the couple’s influence, particularly Kushner’s, will persist throughout Trump’s presidency.
This influence is expected to be especially pronounced in shaping the administration’s interference in West Asian affairs, as has already witnessed during the so-called Gaza “truce deal.”
Miller, one of Trump’s most hardline advisers on immigration during his first term, was instrumental in shaping some of the administration’s controversial policies, including the travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority countries and the policy that separated the children of undocumented migrants from their parents at the border.
Pipko is an avowed Zionist and stated following her appointment that “supporting Israel is in the best interest of the United States.”
She has also attacked pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses, singling out demonstrations at her alma mater, Harvard.
In an interview with Ynet News, she dismissed the protests as “awful” and “disgusting.”
Loomer, who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe,” ran an online campaign in August that pressured the US State Department into halting visa issuance for children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care amid Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Strip.
Zionist donors heavily underwrote Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Miriam Adelson, a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of $35 billion and a prominent Zionist mega-donor, spent more than $100 million to propel Trump back into the White House.
She is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, one of the most prolific financiers of illegal Israeli settlements in history.
Miriam Adelson is herself a settler, born and raised in the occupied Palestinian territories, and has been a vocal champion of the regime’s settler-colonialism.
She is closely associated with the ideology of neo-Zionism, which advocates not only the permanent retention of occupied Palestinian land but also the expansion of the occupation through annexation of Palestine and neighboring countries.
Ivy League presidents
The Ivy League is a group of eight elite private universities located in the northeastern United States. They include Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.
At present, five of these institutions are led by Jewish presidents.
Their Jewish and Zionist identities have become most visible amid the wave of pro-Palestine university encampments that swept campuses across the United States.
Beginning at Columbia University on April 17, 2024, pro-Palestinian students established encampments on at least 80 college and university campuses nationwide, demanding that their institutions disclose investments tied to Israeli-occupied territories and divest from financial and cultural entities that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
These demands were raised in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians—most of them women and children—and the continuation of the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.
The protests echoed a call from Palestinian civil society for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.
The largely peaceful demonstrations, however, were met overwhelmingly with force. Police crackdowns resulted in mass arrests and injuries, actions frequently ordered by the students’ own university administrators and, in some cases, backed by faculty members.
After taking office in January, Donald Trump signed an executive order to “combat antisemitism,” directing federal agencies to explore avenues for deporting pro-Palestinian activists, including student protesters—a demand to which many universities, including Ivy League institutions, readily capitulated.
Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber, a Jewish-American who has served as Princeton University’s 20th president since July 2013, ordered the removal of a major pro-Palestinian encampment on Cannon Green, citing preparations for commencement, and has repeatedly resisted demands that Princeton divest from the Israeli regime.
In April 2024, when police—acting on authorization from university administrators—arrested dozens of students during pro-Palestinian protests, including at Princeton, Eisgruber warned that those students would face disciplinary action that could “extend to suspension or expulsion.”
Alan Garber, another Jewish academic leader, was appointed president of Harvard University in August 2024 after serving as interim president since January 2 of that year.
He succeeded Claudine Gay, who was forced to resign after being accused by members of Congress of failing to adequately condemn and combat “anti-Semitism” on Harvard’s campus during pro-Palestine encampments.
Under Garber’s leadership, Harvard shared information with the US Department of Homeland Security in response to its request for the disciplinary records of international students and records of pro-Palestinian activity.
Sian Leah Beilock, the president of Dartmouth College, is another Jewish leader within the Ivy League.
She faced sharp criticism for her decision to call in police to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus on May 1 of last year.
Mike Kotlikoff, who is also Jewish, assumed permanent leadership of Cornell University in March, as universities faced unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian student protests.
In November 2024, while serving as Cornell’s interim president, a leak revealed that Kotlikoff had suppressed academic freedom after criticizing a pro-Palestinian professor’s planned course on the Gaza genocide in an internal email.
The course, Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance, was set to be taught by Eric Cheyfitz, who is also Jewish.
Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters and a scholar of Indigenous studies, wrote in the course description that it would examine how Indigenous peoples have been engaged “in a global resistance against an ongoing colonialism.”
He further stated that the course would “present a specific case” of the ongoing genocidal war as “settler colonialism in Palestine with a particular emphasis on the International Court of Justice finding ‘plausible’ the South African assertion of ‘genocide’ in Gaza.”
Kotlikoff wrote in an email to another professor that he “personally finds the course description to represent a radical, factually inaccurate, and biased view of the formation of […] Israel and the ongoing conflict.”
Kotlikoff replaced Martha Pollack, who is also Jewish, and stepped down amid sweeping pro-Palestinian protests across US college campuses.
During the protests, Pollack expressed disappointment with student demonstrators and warned that if they refused to dismantle their encampments, “more temporary suspensions… are forthcoming.”
Christina Paxson, who converted to Judaism after marriage, serves as president of Brown University.
Last year, for the second time during her tenure, Paxson rejected divestment from 10 companies identified by a student-led pro-Palestine initiative as facilitating “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory.”
Hollywood
It is widely documented that Jewish people are overrepresented in Hollywood relative to their share of the overall population.
Jews account for roughly 2 percent of the American population, yet various estimates suggest they have historically comprised a far higher proportion of key industry roles, including studio executives, writers, and actors.
Some discussions cite figures of 20 percent or higher in certain sectors of the entertainment industry.
Jewish entrepreneurs were instrumental in founding most of the major film studios during Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age.
These figures include Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures; William Fox, founder of the Fox Film Corporation; Louis B. Mayer and Marcus Loew, co-founders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM); Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the brothers behind Warner Bros; Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Pictures; and Harry and Jack Cohn, founders of Columbia Pictures.
In more recent decades, prominent Jewish executives have continued to occupy influential positions in the entertainment industry.
They include Bob Iger, chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company; Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment; Jon Feltheimer, CEO of Lionsgate; Shari Redstone, president and CEO of National Amusements; David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery; and influential film producer and former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal.
For years, activists and some academics have warned that this concentration of power has helped shape an industry culture that frequently aligns with pro-Israel narratives, whitewashing Zionist crimes while marginalizing or excluding Palestinian perspectives.
Jewish Hollywood power brokers, they say, used their influence in the mid-20th century to mobilize cultural support for the Zionist project, portraying settler violence as “Jewish self-defense” in early films and theatrical productions.
By contrast, Palestinian narratives are routinely sidelined. Palestinian films are often excluded from major festivals and streaming platforms, while Israeli atrocities are frequently framed in ways that downplay or obscure Palestinian suffering.
Even films and documentaries that seek to center Palestinian humanity and lived experience have become a subject of sustained controversy within the industry.
Finding mainstream Hollywood productions that portray Palestinians in a balanced, non-dehumanizing manner remains difficult, as decades of output have either perpetuated negative stereotypes or erased Palestinian perspectives altogether.
The few films that do offer more nuanced or humanizing depictions of Palestinians are typically independent productions or international co-productions, often directed by Palestinian filmmakers working outside the Hollywood studio system.
Meanwhile, public support for Palestinian rights or criticism of the Israeli regime or its backers has increasingly carried professional consequences in Hollywood.
Actors and industry professionals—both Jewish and non-Jewish—have faced reprisals ranging from being dropped by agents to losing roles, contributing to a pervasive “silencing effect.”
In December 2023, two months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, actress Melissa Barrera, a star of the Scream franchise, was fired from the next installment after posting on social media about Israel’s real-life horror show in the Gaza Strip.
Barrera was not alone. In November of the same year, actress Susan Sarandon was dropped by United Talent Agency (UTA) after speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally.
Actor Mark Ruffalo also faced backlash during Israel’s May 2021 assault on Gaza, when he was pressured to apologize for using the term “genocide.”
Top 50 Billionaires
The latest rankings of the world’s wealthiest individuals highlight a notable trend: of the top 50 billionaires globally, at least 12 are Jewish, showcasing their considerable influence across technology, finance, and investments.
Leading the pack is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, whose fortune stands at $213.7 billion, making him the third richest person in the world.
Close behind is Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, which includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with a net worth of $202.4 billion and a world rank of 4.
The search engine giants Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google, are ranked 6th and 7th, respectively, with fortunes of $157.8 billion and $150.7 billion.
Other prominent Jewish billionaires in the top 50 include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft ($127.7 billion, rank 9), Michael Dell of Dell Technologies ($113.5 billion, rank 12), and media mogul Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg LP ($104.7 billion, rank 16).
Stephen Schwarzman, a major figure in investments, ranks 28th with $50.4 billion, while Jeff Yass, active in trading and investments, holds $49.6 billion at rank 29.
Luxury fashion also sees Jewish representation through Gerard Wertheimer and Alain Wertheimer, owners of Chanel, both holding $41.5 billion and sharing world rank 38.
The Miriam Adelson & family, tied to the casino industry, are valued at $34.9 billion, ranking 49.
The overwhelming majority are based in the United States, dominating technology and investment sectors, and heading companies that shape global information flows.
But beyond wealth, their power has had devastating consequences for Palestinians.
Meta and Oracle, for example, have been implicated in censoring Palestinian voices online, shaping narratives in favor of Israeli policies while silencing dissent.
Google, Microsoft, and Dell Technologies have enabled the Israeli military’s genocidal war on Gaza over the past two years, providing cloud infrastructure, AI, and technology services that the regime has used to target Palestinian civilians.
This concentration of wealth and technological control underscores not only the disproportionate influence of Jewish billionaires in the US tech world but also raises profound questions about the ways these platforms and services are weaponized in geopolitics—always aligning with US and Israeli agendas to the detriment of human rights.
Sport teams owners
Ownership patterns across major US professional sports leagues reveal a striking concentration of power among a small group of ultra-wealthy Jewish stakeholders, many of whom hold openly pro-Zionist political positions or have backed policies hostile to Palestinian advocacy.
In the National Basketball Association (NBA), estimates indicate that roughly 40 percent of franchises are majority-owned by individuals or groups with Jewish backgrounds—far exceeding their approximate 2 percent share of the US population.
An additional five teams include Jewish minority stakeholders, underscoring a level of influence that extends well beyond ownership into league governance and political positioning.
Out of 30 NBA teams, 12 are majority-owned by Jewish stakeholders.
These include Anthony Ressler (Atlanta Hawks); Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall (Charlotte Hornets); Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago Bulls); Dan Gilbert (Cleveland Cavaliers); Miriam Adelson (Dallas Mavericks); Joe Lacob and Peter Guber (Golden State Warriors); Herbert Simon (Indiana Pacers); Micky Arison (Miami Heat); Marc Lore (Minnesota Timberwolves); Steve Ballmer (Los Angeles Clippers); Joshua Harris and David Blitzer (Philadelphia 76ers); and Mat and Justin Ishbia (Phoenix Suns).
Teams with Jewish minority owners include the Jacobs family (Sacramento Kings), Larry Tannenbaum (Toronto Raptors), George Kaiser (Oklahoma City Thunder), Oliver Weisberg (Brooklyn Nets), and Larry Fink (New York Knicks).
For four decades, the NBA itself has been led by two commissioners—David Stern (1984–2014) and Adam Silver (2014–present)—both of whom presided over eras marked by close alignment with US foreign policy narratives and repeated controversies related to Palestine.
The league has faced sustained criticism for suppressing or sanitizing Palestinian references under political pressure.
In 2017, the NBA removed “Palestine—occupied territory” from an official website list following a complaint from Israel’s sports minister.
A year later, the league apologized after a fan-voting list for the All-Star Game included “Occupied Palestine,” blaming an outsourced firm after Israeli officials demanded its removal.
Senior NBA figures, including Commissioner Adam Silver, along with current and former players, have participated in high-profile trips to Israeli-occupied territories, meeting with Israeli regime officials and engaging in public relations efforts to normalize occupation.
Meanwhile, players who expressed solidarity with Palestinians faced swift backlash.
Former NBA star Dwight Howard said he was pressured to delete a “Free Palestine” tweet in 2014 after receiving multiple calls, including one from the commissioner’s office.
This concentration of ownership and political alignment is not limited to basketball.
In the National Football League (NFL), 11 of the league’s 32 teams are owned by individuals or families with controlling Jewish stakes, including Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons), David Tepper (Carolina Panthers), Jim Irsay (Indianapolis Colts), Mark Davis (Las Vegas Raiders), Stephen Ross (Miami Dolphins), the Wilf family (Minnesota Vikings), Robert Kraft (New England Patriots), Steve Tisch (New York Giants), Jeffrey Lurie (Philadelphia Eagles), the Glazer family (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), and Josh Harris and Mitchell Rales (Washington Commanders).
Major League Baseball (MLB) shows similar patterns.
Eight of its 32 teams are majority-owned by Jewish stakeholders—David Rubenstein (Baltimore Orioles), Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago White Sox), Bruce Sherman (Miami Marlins), Mark Attanasio (Milwaukee Brewers), Steve Cohen (New York Mets), the Fisher family (Oakland Athletics), Stuart Sternberg (Tampa Bay Rays), and the Lerner family (Washington Nationals).
Six additional teams have Jewish minority owners or executives, including Tom Werner (Boston Red Sox), David Blitzer (Cleveland Guardians), Stan Kasten and Peter Guber (Los Angeles Dodgers), and Lester Crown (New York Yankees).
Several teams without Jewish majority owners—including the New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Toronto Blue Jays—are run by Jewish presidents or senior executives.
Across leagues, Jewish owners and executives with strong pro-Israel views have helped shape institutional responses that activists warn would marginalize Palestinian voices while reinforcing US and Israeli political narratives.
Federal Reserve
Beyond sports and entertainment, Jewish financiers have played central roles in US monetary power structures.
Paul Moritz Warburg, a German-Jewish banker from Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was a key architect of the US Federal Reserve System.
From 1987 to 2014, the Federal Reserve was chaired consecutively by Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen— three Jewish individuals overseeing periods of aggressive financial intervention that disproportionately benefited Wall Street while entrenching US global dominance.
Other influential Jewish figures include Emmanuel Goldenweiser, who supervised early Federal Reserve Board operations, and Stanley Fischer, who later served as vice chair.
Media, advertising, adult entertainment
Jewish Americans have also been influential across a wide spectrum of media, advertising, and public relations industries, sectors that play a decisive role in shaping political narratives, as well as adult entertainment businesses.
In the advertising and public relations world, influential Jewish executives include Richard Edelman, CEO of the global PR firm Edelman; Carl Spielvogel, co-founder of the major agency Backer & Spielvogel; Ronn Torossian, founder of 5W Public Relations; and Marian Salzman, a senior advertising and communications executive and trend expert.
Torossian, an American public relations executive, is a prominent and controversial figure in the far-right Zionist movement, known for his leadership of the recently re-launched Betar USA organization.
Betar USA, under Torossian’s leadership, has been using inflammatory rhetoric and calling for violence. In response to a social media post about Palestinian children killed in the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the group’s account commented, “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”
Betar has been involved in identifying and circulating lists of pro-Palestinian protesters for deportation.
Digital media platforms have also been dominated by Jews with allegiance to the Tel Aviv regime.
Susan Wojcicki was an American business executive who was the chief executive officer of YouTube from 2014 to 2023.
Human rights and digital media advocacy groups, such as the organization 7amleh, have denounced YouTube’s policies and blatant bias against Palestinian voices and in favor of Israeli narratives.
In November 2015, Wojcicki and other Google representatives met with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to establish a mechanism for monitoring and removing Palestinian content deemed “inflammatory” by the apartheid regime in Tel Aviv.
In adult entertainment, prominent founders and executives include Michael Lucas, the founder and CEO of Lucas Entertainment, one of Manhattan’s largest gay adult film companies.
Last year, the adult film producer faced intense backlash after bragging about writing his name on a missile to be dropped in Gaza in a post on social media.
Several adult entertainment stars have since vowed to boycott working with Lucas and his company over the “reprehensible” post.
Taken together, the American landscape reveals not a coincidence but a pattern: a dense web of political power, corporate control, cultural influence, and financial leverage that consistently converges to protect Israel from accountability while suppressing Palestinian voices.
Disguised under the language of “security,” “shared values,” and “combating antisemitism,” US institutions have been mobilized by the powerful Zionist lobby to normalize occupation, whitewash mass killings, and criminalize solidarity with the oppressed.
The result, according to activists, is a manufactured consensus in which Israel’s crimes are laundered through American power centers, and dissent is treated as a threat.
As Gaza is starved, bombed, and erased in real time, this alignment exposes the moral bankruptcy of an order that privileges loyalty to a settler-colonial regime over international law, human rights, and basic human life, they warn.
HHS to Prohibit Hospitals From Performing Sex-Change Surgery on Kids
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 19, 2025
Federal health officials are taking action to prohibit hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on children and support the families of children who underwent such procedures and now regret it, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday at a live press conference.
Sex-rejecting procedures, or “gender-affirming care,” refers to the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and/or surgery as a treatment for gender dysphoria. The Mayo Clinic defines gender dysphoria as a “feeling of distress that can happen when a person’s gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.”
Children are falling prey to a “predatory multi-billion dollar industry,” said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy cited a study that reported profits from sex-rejecting drugs and surgeries surpassed $4.4 billion in 2023, and were on track to top $7.8 billion by 2031.
Kids’ and teens’ brains aren’t fully mature yet when they decide to undergo the procedures, said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz.
Kennedy agreed, citing a comment by one doctor who “callously” described sex-rejecting procedures in kids as a “big money maker.”
Kennedy said:
“Hospitals rake in millions of dollars by convincing boys and girls that a lifetime of off-label prescriptions for estrogen and testosterone blockers, chest reconstruction surgeries and more are the only way to achieve true happiness and belonging in life.
“It’s wrong. The Trump administration will not stand by while ideology, misinformation and propaganda push young people into decisions they cannot fully understand and that they can never reverse.”
Kennedy told his audience — which included Congress members and several attorneys general — that he signed a declaration stating that healthcare practitioners who perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors would be deemed out of compliance with professionally recognized standards of healthcare.
The “overwhelming body of evidence” shows “these procedures hurt, not help children,” Kennedy said.
The declaration is based on an HHS peer-reviewed report published last month, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” which concluded sex-rejecting procedures have an unfavorable risk-benefit profile and fail to meet professionally recognized healthcare standards.
Hospitals that perform sex-rejecting procedures on minors will no longer be eligible for Medicaid or Medicare funding. And no Medicaid funding can be used to pay for the procedures, Oz said. “We’re not going to let taxpayer money go to hurt these children.”
CMS will release a notice of proposed rulemaking to bar hospitals from performing sex-rejecting procedures on kids as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid. It will also release a notice of proposed rulemaking to prevent Medicaid dollars from going toward sex-rejecting procedures on kids.
CMS will issue its final rule after a 60-90 day period soliciting public comments.
HHS also announced it will work to reverse the Biden administration’s attempt to have gender dysphoria be considered a disability under federal law.
That’s important, so hospitals that no longer perform sex-rejecting procedures will not be charged with discriminating against those with a disability, according to an HHS press release.
Admiral Brian Christine, M.D., HHS assistant secretary and head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, on Thursday signed a public health message telling medical providers, families and policymakers that sex-rejecting procedures are not safe or effective treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria.
“Evidence shows sex-rejecting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries are dangerous,” Christine said in a statement. “Providers have an obligation to offer care grounded in evidence and to avoid interventions that expose young people to a lifetime of harm.”
Doctors should ‘start slowly’ when treating gender dysphoria
President Trump charged HHS to undertake actions against sex-rejecting procedures in his January executive order, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
The MAHA Report also named the “overmedicalization” of U.S. youth as a key driver of the childhood chronic disease epidemic, Kennedy noted.
As the number of youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria has increased in recent years, thousands of children have been “fast-tracked” into sex-rejecting procedures, Oz said.
Doctors seeing kids who have gender dysphoria should “start slowly” with the least invasive treatments possible, such as psychotherapy and evaluating for other conditions like ADHD, autism, anxiety and depression.
Gender expression is complex, and scientists are still trying to find out all the factors that play a role.
For instance, research by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist, suggests that prenatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can blur physiological and behavioral sex differences in offspring.
However, she and other scientists conducting similar research acknowledged the issue’s political and ethical implications.
“We have to be very careful not to frame gender non-conforming as an adverse effect,” said Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in a report by Undark.
NIH to fund research supporting kids who want to ‘de-transition’
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya announced his agency, which already stopped supporting research on gender transition, will do science aimed at helping kids who are “de-transitioning” — or wanting to “de-transition” back to their original sex — and their families.
Thousands of kids and their families have been harmed by these procedures, Bhattacharya said. “We are going to fund science to help them because what I don’t want is for the answers to those families to be based on basically no evidence or presumed knowledge that we don’t actually have.”
Chloe Cole, a 21-year-old, spoke at the press conference about detransitioning at age 16 after starting on puberty blockers at age 13 and undergoing an irreversible double mastectomy at 15.
“I, myself, and every other detransitioner I know have so many different medical concerns,” she said. “They’re not being addressed because our own doctors don’t have any standards of care to refer to. They don’t know what to do with us.”
‘Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?’
Cole, now an activist against sex-rejecting procedures, has a bill named in her honor.
The “Chloe Cole Act,” initially proposed under a different title by the U.S. Department of Justice, would ban hospitals, clinics and doctors from performing sex-rejecting procedures on kids.
It would also allow children who underwent such procedures and their parents to sue the healthcare provider for damages. On Sept. 18, the bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The bill hasn’t yet come up for a vote.
On Dec. 17, a related bill championed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene passed the House. The “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which has yet to be voted on in the Senate, would make it a federal crime to provide gender-affirming care to a minor.
“Every American needs to hear Chloe Cole’s story,” Greene wrote in a 2022 X post of a speech Cole gave about her experiences. “The gender clinic presented my parents with the classic false dichotomy: Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” Cole said.
At yesterday’s press conference, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary said that the notion that parents are putting their child at increased risk of suicide if they don’t consent to sex-rejecting procedures is a “baseless claim that has never been supported with good data.”
Bhattacharya agreed. He told the audience this true story:
“There was a researcher that the NIH funded that did a study to answer the question, was it more likely that a child who didn’t transition would commit suicide?
“That researcher found the answer was no, but because the researcher’s ideology was so enmeshed in this — because if the answer is no, that means she might get canceled — she refused to release the study.”
The NIH obtained the researcher’s data and made it available for other researchers to work with, Bhattacharya said.
Makary also shared that the FDA will issue warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers that are illegally marketing breast binders to kids as a treatment for gender dysphoria.
Breast binders are a “class one medical device” usually used by women after breast cancer surgery, he said. Using them long-term can have negative effects, including pain, compromised lung function, lung collapse and difficulty breastfeeding.
“The warning letters will formally notify the companies of their significant regulatory violations and how they should take prompt corrective action,” Makary said.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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