Two New York Families Sue Schools for Denying Medical Vaccine Exemptions
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 4, 2025
Two New York families are suing their school districts in federal court, alleging that district officials unlawfully denied their children’s medical exemptions.
One case involves an 11-year-old, identified as “Sarah Doe,” in the Webster Central School District. According to the complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, Sarah has a “documented history of life-threatening reactions to vaccines.”
The school district denied her medical exemption request for the Tdap vaccine.
The other case concerns a 17-year-old, identified as “Michael Doe,” in the Penfield Central School District. His complaint, also filed last month, and in the same federal court, states that he has a “documented personal history of severe vaccine-induced airway constriction, a strong family history of autoimmune disorders, and a life-threatening latex allergy.”
The school district denied his medical exemption request for the meningococcal vaccine.
The lawsuits ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to allow Sarah and Michael to return to school and to recognize their medical exemptions as valid. The plaintiffs also seek compensation for damages, including lost educational opportunities and emotional distress.
Chad Davenport, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender that the New York school districts’ actions were “egregious” and “in direct contradiction” to a recent federal ruling in a related case, Doe v. Oceanside, involving a New York mother and her teenage daughter, also called “Sarah Doe.”
Davenport and attorney Sujata Gibson represented the teen and her mother, who successfully sued the Oceanside Union Free School District for refusing to grant the teen a medical vaccine exemption for the hepatitis B vaccine. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) funded the lawsuit.
In August, the judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the teen to return to classes.
On Sept. 1, Davenport and Gibson sent a letter on CHD’s behalf to all New York state boards of education and superintendents, threatening legal action if school district officials continued to deny medical exemptions certified by students’ physicians.
“We sent it out and we tried to stop them from doing this, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough,” Davenport said.
New York’s ‘flawed’ medical exemption process puts kids at risk
The situations described in the two new lawsuits are “happening throughout New York state,” he said.
CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the new lawsuits highlight “how flawed the medical exemption process is in New York state.” Gibson agreed.
Mack Rosenberg added:
“For too many, the existence of the medical exemption truly is illusory and the misinterpretation of grounds for a medical exemption is rampant, both at the state and district level.
“The flaws in the system are placing families who choose to have their children educated in schools — versus homeschooling, which is not an option for everyone — in the horrible position of potentially risking their child’s health to attend school, where doctors familiar with the children recommend that the children not receive vaccines.”
Davenport said he reached out to the New York schools, requesting homeschooling curriculum.
“They give us nothing — and again, this is not unique,” he said. “Every single time that they kick these children out into homeschooling, they give them nothing. … They basically say, ‘We’re done with you.’”
Doctors cited ‘clear and documented danger’ to Sarah’s health
The Oct. 22 lawsuit states that Webster Central School District denied 11-year-old Sarah’s Tdap vaccine medical exemption despite the warning from her treating physician that further vaccination was “absolutely contraindicated” because of a prior “life threatening, multi-organ failure after vaccinations.”
When the family tried to meet the school’s vaccine requirement, healthcare providers refused to vaccinate Sarah. The complaint states:
“When the family, acting under extreme duress from these threats, attempted to comply with the District’s demands, they were turned away by multiple medical providers who refused to administer the vaccine, citing the clear and documented danger to Sarah’s health.”
The district denied Sarah’s exemption because her condition was not listed on “a rigid, pre-approved list of contraindications” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee.
The lawsuit also alleges that the district responded to Sarah’s exemption request with “coordinated campaign of intimidation and threats involving Child Protective Services (CPS).” The county health department warned Sarah’s mother that CPS could intervene if Sarah remained unvaccinated.
In addition to the Webster Central School District, the lawsuit names Dr. Margaret Callahan, the district’s designated school physician, and Chris Callahan, principal of Spry Middle School, as defendants.
School’s medical director showed ‘clear bias’ in case involving 17-year-old
The Oct. 24 lawsuit states that Dr. Robert Tuite, the medical director who reviewed the exemption request, said the district should need it because the request was issued by a psychiatrist, whom Tuite deemed was the “wrong” type of doctor.
However, Davenport said the judge who ruled in Doe v. Oceanside made it clear that medical exemptions don’t have to be written by a specific type of doctor.
The judge “went through the district’s demands for letters from specialists, including hematologists, immunologists” and explicitly said letters from specialists are not required, Davenport said.
“The statute is very clear: it is any physician. You do not need to have somebody with a certain specialty to certify that a vaccination may be detrimental to the health of your child,” he added.
The lawsuit also says Tuite had “profound” conflicts of interest that affected his review of Michael’s exemption request. The complaint names Tuite as a defendant, along with Penfield Central School District, Penfield High School Principal LeAnna L. Watt and Superintendent Tasha Potter.
Tuite, the district’s medical director who also runs a private practice, previously served as Michael’s doctor until a “contentious disagreement” arose between Tuite and Michael’s mother.
After “an argument over the COVID shot and whether or not her child should receive it,” Tuite kicked Michael’s mother out of his practice, Davenport said. “That’s clear bias.”
Davenport continued:
“Not only that, but then [Tuite] actually got on the phone with the doctor who wrote the medical exemption … [and] admitted that the reason why he’s rejecting it is because last time he accepted a medical exemption, he got his wrist slapped by New York State.”
New York schools fined for approving medical exemptions, case alleges
Tuite told the psychiatrist that the district faces “substantial fines” from the state’s health department for accepting any medical exemption that the state later deems invalid.
Davenport said Tuite isn’t the first person to claim that the New York State Department of Health will fine a district for allowing medical exemptions. According to Davenport, medical directors and school officials involved in lawsuits he files often make similar claims.
Davenport said they know that he will sue them for fees and damages, but they tell him that approving a medical exemption request and allowing the student into school would cost the district $2,000 per day.
“That is what they are being threatened with,” he said. “I don’t know how that message is being conveyed from the Department of Health to the schools and the school officials, but it is.”
Davenport hopes the new cases reinforce the precedent set by Doe v. Oceanside.
He also hopes the cases will send a message that New York school districts can no longer deny medical exemptions without facing judicial challenges.
Davenport said districts have generally assumed they would be “insulated” from meaningful judicial review, since families whose exemptions are denied must appeal to the state commissioner, and the commission historically sides with the school district.
“Not one final decision has ever resulted in the New York State Education Department overturning a school’s decision to deny a vaccine waiver. Not one,” Davenport said.
Now, however, families are taking their cases to federal court after the state commission fails to provide meaningful judicial review.
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.
Erasing evidence: Over 700 videos of Israeli crimes wiped off YouTube
Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2025
The Intercept on Wednesday revealed that YouTube has permanently removed the official channels of three major Palestinian human rights organizations, namely Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), erasing hundreds of videos that documented Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The deletions, which took place in early October, wiped years of footage that included investigative reports on the killing of Palestinian civilians, “Israel’s” destruction of homes, and the murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. YouTube confirmed to The Intercept that the decision followed a review prompted by US State Department sanctions against the three groups.
“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said, noting that the platform enforces restrictions against any entities sanctioned under US law.
YouTube bows to pressure
The Trump administration imposed the sanctions in September, targeting the organizations for their collaboration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant, who were charged with war crimes in Gaza.
Human rights advocates denounced YouTube’s move as politically motivated censorship. “I’m pretty shocked that YouTube is showing such a little backbone,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions. Succumbing to this arbitrary designation of these Palestinian organizations, to now censor them, is disappointing and pretty surprising.”
Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused YouTube of advancing Washington’s efforts to suppress accountability. “It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” she said. “Congress did not intend to allow the president to cut off the flow of information to the American public and the world, instead, information, including documents and videos, are specifically exempted under the statute that the president cited as his authority for issuing the ICC sanctions.”
YouTube silences Palestinian rights
The affected groups condemned the decision as a violation of free expression and an attempt to obstruct justice. Al Mezan said its channel was terminated abruptly on October 7, without warning. “Terminating the channel deprives us from reaching what we aspire to convey our message to, and fulfill our mission,” a spokesperson said, stressing that the move limits their ability to communicate with global audiences.
Al-Haq’s channel was deleted a few days earlier, on October 3, with YouTube claiming that its content “violates our guidelines.” The organization responded that “YouTube’s removal of a human rights organisation’s platform, carried out without prior warning, represents a serious failure of principle and an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.” It warned that US sanctions are “being used to cripple accountability work on Palestine and silence Palestinian voices and victims.”
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, described by the United Nations as Gaza’s oldest human rights organization, said the deletion “protects perpetrators from accountability.” Its representative, Basel al-Sourani, noted that “YouTube said that we were not following their policy on Community Guidelines, when all our work was basically presenting factual and evidence-based reporting on the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, especially since the start of the ongoing genocide on 7 October.” He added, “By doing this, YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims.”
Digital Censorship
The Intercept estimated that the deletions collectively erased more than 700 videos, ranging from field investigations to personal testimonies and short documentaries. Some of the content remains accessible on other platforms or through archived versions, but much of it has been lost. The organizations said they are now seeking alternatives outside the US to ensure their work remains available to the public.
The takedowns come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration and “Israel” to undermine the ICC and limit exposure of Israeli actions in Gaza. “They are basically allowing the Trump administration to dictate what information they share with the global audience,” Whitson warned. “It’s not going to end with Palestine.”
Michigan Bill Would Protect Parents Who Seek Second Medical Opinion for Kids
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 3, 2025
A bill introduced in Michigan would protect parents’ rights to seek a second opinion for their children’s medical treatment by barring the state from holding parents liable for child neglect if they seek medical opinions from another physician or healthcare professional.
Under current Michigan law, authorities can hold parents liable for medical neglect if they refuse a healthcare provider’s recommended treatment, even if they are seeking a second opinion, according to The Hillsdalian.
However, House Bill 5163 states that parents or guardians do not commit child neglect if they refuse a recommended treatment while “actively seeking a second opinion” from another health professional.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wortz, a Republican, is pending before the House Committee on Families and Veterans. It has 14 co-sponsors, including some Democrats.
Wortz, who is in her first term, told The Defender that her bill is similar to laws currently in effect in Missouri and Texas.
She said she drafted the bill after her office received reports from two families who “have had allegations made against them, and filed and reported to CPS [Children’s Protective Services], because of seeking a second opinion.”
According to Wortz, one family has a daughter with a permanent cancer diagnosis. Physicians recommended radiation and chemotherapy, but the child’s parents sought a second opinion and chose a treatment plan that included dietary changes and supplements.
Wortz said “a large university hospital” reported those parents for neglect.
In another instance, physicians recommended removing a young boy’s appendix. The child’s parents sought two additional medical opinions and chose a course of antibiotic treatment, which “fixed the issue.” Yet the child’s initial physician reported the parents for neglect.
Wortz said state legislators were “shocked” to hear about incidents involving CPS and several examples of the government being weaponized “against good parents.” She said the failure of the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services in responding to CPS cases must be addressed.
“It’s really quite appalling to see where they’re failing to do their job, [and] these situations where it seems like a medical professional injects their personal opinion, whether that’s for financial gain, or just ego, that then these parents are targeted,” Wortz said.
CHD ‘opened my eyes’ to the importance of ‘seeking alternative opinions’
Wortz said she is working to get a version of the bill introduced in the Michigan Senate. Unlike the House, Democrats hold a majority in the state Senate.
“I’m hopeful that I can find a Democrat legislator on the Senate side that would be willing to take up this legislation as well, because that’s where we stand the best chance of this moving forward,” Wortz said.
Wortz said Children’s Health Defense (CHD) influenced her decision to introduce and support bills promoting medical freedom, including Michigan House Bill 4475, which she co-sponsored. Introduced in May, the bill would “prohibit discriminatory practices, policies, and customs” based on vaccination status.
CHD “opened my eyes and led me down a track of investigating and seeking alternative opinions other than just what your medical doctor tells you,” Wortz said. “I have four children myself, and when COVID-19 hit in 2020, the science and the numbers that they were telling us daily on the media just were not adding up to me.”
Texas, Missouri, England enacted policies protecting right to second opinion
According to the Family Justice Resource Center, Texas Senate Bill 1578 — signed into law in 2021 — lets parents accused of child abuse after questioning a recommended medical treatment obtain a second opinion from another physician.
Before the bill was passed, state lawmakers “heard from several parents who underwent a medically-based wrongful allegation of child abuse.”
A 1998 Missouri law requires health services corporations to “allow enrollees to seek a second medical opinion or consultation from a willing second physician” at no additional cost beyond what the enrollee would pay for an initial medical opinion or consultation from that second physician.
In 2015, lawmakers in Missouri proposed “Isaiah’s Law,” which would have protected parents and guardians from neglect charges when they sought a second opinion for their child’s treatment. The bill did not pass.
In England, “Martha’s rule” — in effect since 2024 — requires hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) to let parents seek an urgent second clinical opinion from other experts at the same hospital if they have concerns about their current care, the BBC reported.
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.
AI-powered drones used in Gaza genocide monitor US cities: Report
Press TV – November 3, 2025
AI-powered quadcopter drones deployed by the Israeli regime’s armed forces to commit genocide in Gaza have been reportedly operating over American cities, surveiling protesters and automatically uploading millions of images to a centralized evidence database.
A report published by the Grayzone news outlet on Sunday reveals that AI-powered drones manufactured by a company called Skydio are monitoring the majority of cities in the US.
According to the report, Skydio provided the original drone models to the Israeli armed forces immediately after the regime launched its genocidal assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, during which it killed at least 68,858 Palestinians and wounded 170,664 others, most of them women and children.
The Israeli regime extensively deployed the drones in its attacks on Palestinians, sending operational data back to Skydio to refine the technology.
Skydio maintains an office in the occupied Palestinian territories and partners with DefenSync, an Israeli military drone contractor that acts as an intermediary between drone manufacturers and the regime’s armed forces.
The company has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Israeli-American venture capitalists and funds extensive investments in the Occupied Lands.
Since 2023, Skydio has transformed from a relatively obscure startup into a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.
The report states that Skydio now holds contracts with more than 800 law enforcement and security agencies across the country, up from 320 in March last year as its drones are being deployed hundreds of times daily to monitor citizens in towns and cities nationwide.
Nearly every major American city has signed a contract with Skydio in the past 18 months, including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland, and Jacksonville.
In Miami, Skydio drones are reportedly being used to surveil protesters and students, while in Atlanta, the company has partnered with the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) to establish a permanent drone station within the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known as the Cop City.
Detroit recently spent nearly $300,000 on 14 Skydio drones, according to a city procurement report.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department (NYPD) recently told a drone news website that the NYPD launched more than 20,000 drone flights in less than a year, which translates to around 55 drone launches per day.
Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (ICE) purchased an X10D Skydio drone, which can automatically track and pursue a target. ICE has acquired 33 of these drones since July.
The AI system powering Skydio drones relies on Nvidia chips and allows them to operate without human control.
The drones are equipped with thermal imaging cameras and can function in GPS-denied environments. They can reconstruct buildings and other infrastructure in 3D and reach speeds of more than 30 miles per hour.
Norbert Bolz: ‘The EU has become a monster’
Those who fight against Brussels ‘are not anti-Europeans, but good Europeans’
Weltwoche | October 19, 2025
The European Union has become a “monster” that is increasingly undermining freedom and democracy—this is the criticism leveled by media scholar Norbert Bolz in an opinion piece for the newspaper Die Welt. He argues that the EU is no longer a community of free states, but a centralized “machine that constantly produces regulations and prohibitions,” which follows a “script” reminiscent of Kafka and Orwell.
Bolz, a professor emeritus and one of Germany’s most prominent conservative intellectuals, sees the original idea of a peaceful and economically united Europe as having been perverted. What began with free trade and freedom of movement has been replaced by bureaucratization, a lack of transparency, and authoritarian tendencies. As a concrete example, he cites the Digital Services Act and the planned chat surveillance: “This is about the methods of a totalitarian surveillance state that reads private communications and thus destroys privacy and freedom of expression.”
At the center of his criticism is EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. For Bolz, she embodies the “cold German face of a failed Europe.” He finds it particularly outrageous that she refuses to disclose the text messages she exchanged with the Pfizer CEO during the coronavirus pandemic.
Furthermore, he states that the EU lacks democratic legitimacy. “There is no separation of powers and no democracy,” writes Bolz. He contends that Brussels serves as a lever to push through nationally unpopular measures—for example, in the name of climate protection and corporate social responsibility. This practice enables left-wing and green parties, in particular, to circumvent the political will of their own populations.
According to Bolz, those who rebel against this development are not anti-Europeans, but good Europeans.
Max Blumenthal: Charlie Kirk Update – Middle East Plan Just BLEW UP
Dialogue Works | October 29, 2025
Imran Khan wasn’t overthrown — Pakistan was
Former Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan [ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images]
By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | October 30, 2025
From the barracks of Rawalpindi to the halls of Washington, a sordid alliance stalks the republic of Pakistan: a military caste addicted to power, a civilian class cowed into servitude, and a foreign patron ever ready to pull the leash. What unfolds is less a grand strategy than a tragicomedy: generals trading sovereignty for sinecures, soldiers harbouring contempt for their officers, and a once-promising democratic movement crushed under the twin weights of imperial ambition and martial tutelage.
At the summit of Pakistan’s national hierarchy sits the uniformed elite—high-command officers whose benefit resides not in defending the people, but in ensuring their own station remains unchallenged. The vast majority of junior officers and ordinary soldiers know the drill: they march at a command, live off state hand-outs, yet watch in silence as their rulers gamble everything in Islamabad’s corridors of power. Beneath their boots pulses a latent contempt: not for the institution of soldiering, but for the generals who confuse war-games with governance, who mistake subservience for sovereignty. They know the charade: a military that catalogues enemies abroad yet fails its citizens at home; a top brass more at ease with arms deals and alliances than with schools or clinics.
Meanwhile, in Washington and its allied capitals, they observe the last great outsourcing of empire. The US sees Pakistan not as an independent partner, but as a subcontractor—an air-strip here, a drone base there, a pliant nuclear state with acceptable risks. When Imran Khan—in office—moved, albeit imperfectly, toward a new Pakistan: one marked by social justice, independent foreign policy, and friendship with all nations, he ran head-first into this alliance. He derailed the pat-scripts: refused US basing rights, challenged embassy diktats, and dared to recast Kashmir and Palestine not as trophies of patronage but as tests of principle. His mistake was not corruption—it was defiance. And the consequence was swift: a regime-change operation dressed in parliamentary garb, a military and intelligence complex that salivated at the smell of capitulation, and a Washington that nodded, funded and quietly applauded.
From here the narrative spirals into farce. Pakistan’s flag-waving elite collect defence pacts as one might souvenirs—each a badge of fidelity to the imperial order, each certifying that the country’s violent and unjust alignments will continue unimpeded. The generals embrace those pacts not because they secure Pakistan—they don’t—but because they secure the elite’s privilege: a share of the deals, a veneer of patriotism, a shield against accountability. And while their generals trade in hardware and geopolitics, the cries of the oppressed vanish into night: Pashtun civilians bombed under the guise of “counter-terror,” Afghan refugees reviled as villains by a state that once nurtured their tormentors.
Yes, nuclear-armed Pakistan could not muster a single bullet for Gaza. It did not send a protection force. It does not lobby the United Nations for justice, despite the occasional meaningless rhetoric. Instead, it signs on to the next big defence contract, brushes its hands of the Palestinian plight, and turns its back on the ideal of Muslim solidarity. What kind of state is this that boasts nuclear weapons yet lacks the moral will to send aid—or more than a token gesture—to fellow victims of aggression? A state that lectures others on terrorism while shelling its own Pashtun tribes. A state so short on legitimacy it must invoke the bogeyman of the Afghan refugee, call entire populations “terrorists,” then crush any dissent with tanks and tear-gas.
Speaking of dissent—when Imran Khan’s movement rose, the state responded with idylls of terror. Cadres of young activists, women, students, social justice advocates—whether Karachi or Khyber—found themselves in dungeons sanctioned by a military-political complex. The hearings were stacked, the charges manufactured, the message simple: move for justice and you move into our sights. The generals clapped their hands, Washington twisted the strings, and the civilian face of Pakistan trembled. The officer class may nominally obey the high command—but in quiet mess halls and among soldiers’ wives the whispers of outrage gather: “Why are we policing our own people? Why is Urdu-speaking Karachi the victim of our operations? Why do we trespass into forests and valleys and call them terror zones?”
In the borderlands the farce becomes terrifyingly concrete. The army, having once nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan to secure “strategic depth,” now bombs them—and blames them for terrorism. In this brain-twist of national strategy, the creator is recast as the adversary, the patron transformed into the provoked. The Pashtun civilian watches as homes are razed near the Durand Line, as refugees arrive on Pakistani soil bearing the costs of wars Pakistan helped manufacture, and as the generals portray them as fifth-column terrorists. The irony would be comical were it not so brutal.
And what of Kashmir? In the so-called “free” Azad Kashmir of Pakistan, huge anti-government demonstrations rage. A region whose inhabitants yearn for dignity, not just slogans. Under Imran Khan, new polling suggested the unthinkable: Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir, despite seeing the abysmal conditions in Azad Kashmir, began to seriously consider joining Pakistan—not as another occupier but as a fortress of self-determination. The generals would rather you not notice that: they prefer the pre-scripted dispute, the perpetual conflict, the tortured rhetoric of “we stand with Kashmir” while the state stands with its own survival. The polls are telling: if Pakistan’s Kashmir policy is failing, the state itself is structurally unhealthy.
To be sure, the Pakistan military remains an institution of extraordinary capability. But capability is not legitimacy; nor is turf-control a foundation for national purpose. The generals continue to conflate war-power with nation-power, forgetting that true power is fostered by schools, by hospitals, by trust in institutions—and by consent, not coercion. And when a regime trades in foreign patronage—be it Washington’s dollars or Beijing’s infrastructure—but cannot deliver justice or dignity at home, the bargain has already been lost.
As the Iranian–Israeli conflict rages, as Gaza bleeds, and as the great-game intensifies in South Asia, Pakistan stands at a crossroads: obey its patrons, shrink its sovereignty, and reclaim the empire-client script—or reject the military’s primacy, embrace true independence, and build a republic that answers not to external powers but to its people. The generals will tell you that the choice is security; the civilians will whisper it is dignity.
Here is the truth the generals, the politicians, and the strategists don’t want you to admit: you cannot rule a nation by telling its people to be silent while you thunder abroad. You cannot build strategic depth on the graves of your own citizens. You cannot pretend to champion Palestine while allying with its oppressors. You cannot call yourself a sovereign state when your alliances define you more than your aspirations.
Pakistan’s military may still march on; its generals may still wield the levers of power; Washington may still fax orders and funnel funds. But the people—they are waking up. And once the echo of Imran Khan’s voice becomes a roar, no amount of bayonets, no arsenal of deals, no drums of war will silence it. The generals may hold the fortress of Rawalpindi, but they cannot hold the conscience of a nation. The struggle for that is already well underway—and the verdict will not wait.
The Global Purge Of Independent Leaders (2020-2022)
A chronological overview of leadership changes and the policy pivots that followed
Health And Truth and Mark Stronge | October 28, 2025
From early 2020 onward, a repeating script unfolded: a head of state voiced skepticism of lockdowns, PCR testing, or experimental mRNA vaccines; international agencies scolded them; chaos or “illness” struck; and within weeks new officials delivered full compliance and suddenly unlocked frozen aid money. The alignment was worldwide—different cultures, same choreography.
1. Burundi – Pierre Nkurunziza
In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza expelled the World Health Organization from his country in May 2020, saying foreign interference was undermining national sovereignty. He kept the nation open while neighboring states imposed severe restrictions. Merely two weeks after that decision he was dead, officially of a “heart attack,” though associates described him as being in vibrant health. His successor, Évariste Ndayishimiye, reversed course immediately, reopened WHO offices, and signed new vaccine and funding arrangements that brought Burundi back into the international fold.
- Backdrop: In spring 2020 the government halted WHO field work, accusing it of interfering with domestic affairs. Burundi rejected external pandemic restrictions and held public gatherings normally.
- Event: Nkurunziza died suddenly 8 June 2020 while still in office; official cause – cardiac arrest.
- Immediate shift: Successor Évariste Ndayishimiye re‑opened WHO offices, declared COVID‑19 a “national priority,” invited vaccine partnerships, and received roughly $24 million in rapid IMF assistance.
- Result: Burundi signed onto COVAX distribution in 2021 after having been one of the continent’s last hold‑outs.
2. Eswatini – Ambrose Dlamini
In Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini resisted extreme lockdown policies, insisting that starving citizens to stop a virus was immoral. In December 2020 he was taken to South Africa “for observation” and declared dead soon afterward. The royal government that replaced him moved quickly to impose strict curfews, accept COVAX vaccines, and collect foreign emergency aid.
- Backdrop: The businessman‑turned‑PM favoured balanced restrictions, warning that closing trade would worsen poverty.
- Event: Tested positive for SARS‑CoV‑2, transferred to South Africa, and died 13 Dec 2020.
- Aftermath: King Mswati III and his cabinet adopted curfews, mandatory masking, and joined regional COVAX planning.
- Economic follow‑up: The African Development Bank confirmed a $10 million grant under the COVID‑19 Response Support Programme in early 2021.
3. Ivory Coast – Hamed Bakayoko
A similar disappearance occurred in Ivory Coast. Hamed Bakayoko, the charismatic prime minister, had publicly encouraged herbal treatments and questioned the accuracy of PCR diagnostics. In March 2021 he died in Germany of “cancer,” barely eight months after his predecessor suffered a similar fate. His passing removed the last voice questioning WHO dependence. President Alassane Ouattara’s administration proceeded to import AstraZeneca doses through COVAX, and by summer the country was being praised for its “responsible leadership.”
- Backdrop: The popular Prime Minister promoted herbal remedies and localized treatment efforts while maintaining open borders for trade.
- Event: Died 3 Mar 2021 in Germany where he was under cancer treatment; preceded by the death of previous PM Amadou Gon Coulibaly eight months earlier.
- Aftermath: President Alassane Ouattara named Patrick Achi acting PM; by May, 504 000 AstraZeneca doses had been deployed through COVAX.
- Funding: World Bank approved $300 million for emergency health and education programmes that quarter.
4. Tanzania – John Magufuli
The next to fall was Tanzania’s John Magufuli, Africa’s most outspoken skeptic of mass testing and vaccines. He mocked the system by demonstrating that fruit and goats tested positive for COVID. After vanishing from public view in March 2021, the vice‑president announced that he had died of heart failure. His replacement, Samia Suluhu Hassan, promptly reversed every one of his policies, accepted a $600 million IMF “emergency” loan, reopened the gates to foreign pharmaceutical programs, and declared a massive vaccination drive before year’s end.
- Backdrop: Highly skeptical of PCR testing accuracy and mass vaccination; prioritized economic continuity.
- Event: Absent from view in March 2021 for two weeks; Vice President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced his death 17 March (heart failure).
- Aftermath: New administration reinstated public health briefings, reopened WHO cooperation, applied for IMF Rapid Credit Facility ($600 million approved Sept 2021).
- Policy transformation: Vaccine programmes, mask campaigns, and international data reporting began within ninety days.
5. Haiti – Jovenel Moïse
Then came Haiti, where Jovenel Moïse had rejected donated vaccine shipments, explaining that the country faced deeper issues of water and poverty. On July 7 2021, he was executed in his home by an armed team whose origins remain murky. Within three weeks, Haiti received half a million Moderna doses from COVAX and enjoyed renewed flows of Inter‑American Development Bank and USAID funding. The national policy flipped overnight.
- Backdrop: Refused early COVAX vaccine delivery, arguing sanitation and nutrition were greater priorities.
- Event: Assassinated 7 Jul 2021 by a commando team; political motives still contested.
- Aftermath: First COVAX shipment of 500 000 Moderna doses landed 14 July 2021.
- Financial context: Inter‑American Development Bank and USAID re‑released more than $60 million in suspended grants under the “COVID‑19 Recovery Program.”
6. Japan – Shinzo Abe → Yoshihide Suga → Fumio Kishida
In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe avoided harsh lockdowns and refused to make vaccination compulsory. In August 2020 he resigned citing chronic illness, a convenient exit for global interests irritated by Japan’s autonomy. His successor Yoshihide Suga approved emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine within weeks, and after political struggles Fumio Kishida continued the same line, expanding booster programs and digital health passes. When Abe, now a private citizen and public skeptic of global centralization, was assassinated in July 2022, the last independent conservative bastion in Japan’s establishment disappeared. The current government invested ¥4.5 trillion—about $40 billion—in mRNA infrastructure partnerships with Western firms.
- Backdrop: Abe resisted extreme lockdowns and mandatory passes; preferred voluntary distancing.
- Resignation: Aug 2020 due to chronic illness; Suga took over and immediately authorized Pfizer vaccine imports (Feb 2021).
- Transition: Kishida succeeded Suga Oct 2021 after election; expanded booster campaigns and health‑pass apps.
- Abe’s assassination: 8 Jul 2022 in Nara; investigation officially attributed to a personal grudge.
- Post‑event: Japan pledged ¥4.5 trillion (≈ $40 billion) in bio‑innovation investment partly for mRNA research.
7. Slovakia – Igor Matovič
Slovakia followed the pattern in March 2021 when Igor Matovič, who had attempted to purchase Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine outside the European Union’s centralized supply, was forced out after furious criticism from Brussels. His successor Eduard Heger rejoined the EU’s procurement framework and in return unlocked €6.3 billion in recovery funds.
- Backdrop: Purchased Sputnik V without EU approval to widen supply options.
- Event: Coalition crisis culminated March 2021 in his resignation.
- Aftermath: New PM Eduard Heger froze Sputnik imports, conformed to EU purchasing pool, and unlocked €6.3 billion EU Recovery Funds.
8. Czech Republic – Andrej Babiš
Nearby, the Czech Republic saw Prime Minister Andrej Babiš lose power at the end of 2021 after refusing to maintain endless pandemic states of emergency. His replacement Petr Fiala implemented vaccine passports and mass‑testing decrees soon afterward, bringing the nation into perfect accord with EU directives.
- Backdrop: Initially resisted heavy lockdowns, favored voluntary vaccination.
- Event: Lost October 2021 election amid strong pro‑mandate media push.
- Aftermath: Petr Fiala government mandated digital health passes (“Tečka” app) and extended state‑support contracts with Pfizer/Moderna.
9. Austria – Sebastian Kurz
Austria lost Sebastian Kurz the same year. Once a rising star who had questioned perpetual lockdowns, Kurz resigned under the weight of a corruption scandal in October 2021. Within days his successor announced Europe’s first universal vaccine mandate and qualified the country for €4.5 billion in European Stability Mechanism funding.
- Backdrop: Pushed for reopening and questioned perpetual emergency powers.
- Event: October 2021 resignation after prosecution alleged misuse of party funds.
- Aftermath: Successor Alexander Schallenberg announced universal vaccination January 2022; European Stability Mechanism distributed ≈ €4.5 billion in recovery funding.
10. United Kingdom – Boris Johnson
In the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson’s government had ended restrictions in mid‑2021 and refused to make vaccine passports a permanent condition of daily life. The press then exploded with “Partygate” scandals over gatherings during lockdown. Johnson resigned in 2022, replaced by Rishi Sunak, who restored Britain to full WHO cooperation and financed a £2 billion digital‑health‑ID system intended to prevent “misinformation.”
- Backdrop: Repealed many restrictions July 2021 (“Freedom Day”), angering zero‑COVID advocates.
- Event: Forced resignation mid‑2022 after “Partygate.”
- Aftermath: Rishi Sunak government supported the WHO pandemic‑treaty process and invested £2 billion in NHS digital ID infrastructure through Palantir‑backed data platforms. Within weeks of taking office, Downing Street announced negotiations with Moderna to establish a permanent mRNA‑manufacturing base — a 10‑year “strategic partnership” followed with construction of a mRNA vaccine research, development, and manufacturing centre in Harwell Science Park (Oxfordshire), projected to produce up to 250 million doses a year in a future outbreak. This collaboration was framed as part of the UK’s “100‑Day Mission” to deliver vaccines within 100 days of identifying a new pathogen; the mission itself originated from G7 and G20 pandemic‑preparedness pledges.
11. Sri Lanka – Gotabaya Rajapaksa
Half a world away in Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa argued that global supply sabotage and debt were worse problems than COVID. By mid‑2022 coordinated protests and economic chaos forced him to flee abroad. Within weeks, the IMF approved a $3 billion bailout that required health‑security reforms and the adoption of digital‑surveillance frameworks under WHO supervision.
- Backdrop: Advocated reopening, claimed economic sabotage larger threat than virus.
- Event: Mass protests July 2022 amid fuel and food shortages.
- Aftermath: New interim government signed a $3 billion IMF agreement mandating fiscal reform and health‑security modernization.
12. Brazil – Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil completed the second‑wave phase of this storyline. President Jair Bolsonaro ridiculed mask mandates, called lockdowns a luxury for the rich, and questioned vaccine safety. After two furious years of constant hostility from media conglomerates and international NGOs, he lost the 2022 election. Lula da Silva took office, rejoined WHO initiatives, and secured a $1.2 billion World Bank “preparedness” loan.
- Backdrop: Dismissed lockdowns as “hysteria,” resisted vaccine coercion.
- Event: Lost 2022 election to Lula da Silva after two years of hostile media coverage.
- Aftermath: Brazil re‑entered WHO initiatives, COVAX procurement, and secured World Bank Preparedness Loan ($1.2 billion).
13. Madagascar – Andry Rajoelina
Along the African coast to Madagascar, President Andry Rajoelina had introduced his own herbal remedy, COVID‑Organics, and rejected Western pharmacology. In 2021 an attempted coup shook the island, and under global pressure Rajoelina signed new agreements restoring WHO cooperation that same year so donor funding could return.
- Backdrop: Promoted herbal tonic “COVID‑Organics” (artemisia‑based), claiming national self‑reliance.
- Event: July 2021 coup attempt; several senior officers arrested.
- Aftermath: Rajoelina accepted WHO cooperation and external medical aid later that year, restoring aid flows suspended in 2020.
14. Romania – Vlad Voiculescu Minister of Health
Appointed in December 2020 under Prime Minister Florin Cîțu, Voiculescu quickly became one of Eastern Europe’s most outspoken advocates for data transparency within the vaccine‑procurement process.
He questioned:
- why the European Commission’s contracts with Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna were heavily redacted;
- the procedure for reporting adverse events and hospital bed usage;
- and financial allocation for Romania’s “Green Certificate” system.
In April 2021, Voiculescu alleged irregularities in the way national statistics on Covid mortality were reported (he said hospital figures were being “massaged” to fit EU targets).
Within 48 hours, Prime Minister Cîțu dismissed him (14 April 2021). That dismissal fractured the ruling coalition and was widely interpreted as pressure from Brussels and Bucharest business lobbies to restore “credibility” with EU health authorities.
- Backdrop: In 2021 Romanian minister objected to secrecy of EU vaccine contracts.
- Event: Dismissal and cabinet reshuffle.
- Aftermath:
- Florin Cîțu — Prime Minister (National Liberal Party), an economist trained in the US and a former banker, had emphasized cooperation with the European Commission’s Recovery Facility.
- Immediately after Voiculescu’s removal, Cîțu approved the formal implementation of the EU Digital COVID Certificate
- He signed Romania’s Recovery and Resilience Facility plan for €29 billion (approved September 2021).
- Cîțu later lost internal party support and was replaced by Nicolae Ciucă (2021 December).
- Raed Arafat — Secretary of State, Chief of the Department for Emergency Situations, a longtime figure in Romanian health management (specialist of Palestinian background), spearheaded the nationwide lockdown operations.
- He became polarizing — praised for emergency coordination but criticized for advocating strict curfews and mandatory digital passes.
- Through his influence, Romania aligned with EU Civil Protection Mechanisms and WHO technical advisories.
- Government enforced EU Digital COVID Certificates.
- Brussels released tranches of Recovery and Resilience Facility funds (€29 billion total plan).
- Florin Cîțu — Prime Minister (National Liberal Party), an economist trained in the US and a former banker, had emphasized cooperation with the European Commission’s Recovery Facility.
15. Bulgaria – Kostadin Angov
Appointed during the closing months of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s third administration, acting Health Minister Kostadin Angov (2020 – 2021) faced severe criticism from Brussels for Bulgaria’s slow vaccine rollout and limited transparency regarding distribution data. Angov and Borisov’s cabinet were accused of delaying orders through the EU’s joint procurement scheme, preferring to wait for additional safety results before committing to large Pfizer/Moderna contracts.
By late March 2021, Bulgaria had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the European Union and was publicly rebuked by the European Commission for “failure to utilize allocated supply quotas.”
Backdrop: By early 2021, Bulgaria’s center‑right government under Boyko Borisov had lost support amid apparent corruption scandals unrelated to health policy but amplified by public anger over uneven lockdown enforcement and vaccine delays. Multiple cabinet ministers, including acting Health Minister Angov, were called before parliamentary committees to justify the government’s refusal to impose stricter green‑pass rules or to publish full statistics on vaccine deliveries.
Event: In April 2021, Borisov’s GERB party failed to form a coalition following a general election; the president appointed Stefan Yanev as caretaker prime minister, and Stoycho Katsarov — a former deputy minister and health‑reform activist — assumed the health portfolio. Katsarov announced immediate compliance with EU digital pass protocols and promised rapid adoption of the COVID Certificates system, stating that “communication with Brussels must be restored through transparency and vaccination.”
Aftermath: Within three months of the caretaker cabinet’s installation, Bulgaria joined the EU Digital Green Certificate scheme (July 2021), issued its own national app, and implemented tightened entry controls for public venues. The European Commission then approved Bulgaria’s €6 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility allocation (approved December 2021) after earlier postponements linked to “governance deficiencies.”
Katsarov and Yanev argued the shift was strictly technocratic, yet domestic media framed it as the price of unlocking EU funds frozen under Borisov. Moreover, WHO country officers held joint press briefings in Sofia throughout autumn 2021, publicly graduating Bulgaria from a “non‑compliant” to a “fully aligned EU‑health partner.” Later that year a second caretaker cabinet retained the same policies to preserve continued Brussels cooperation.
Government Outcome: By the end of 2021 Bulgaria had moved from partial defiance to complete compliance with EU and WHO health requirements. The turnover of Borisov’s administration and replacement with technocratic caretaker officials effectively cleared the way for release of European recovery funds for health‑system modernization and digital infrastructure projects.
Summary of Sequence
- Initial reluctance to join EU vaccine mandates and delays in accepting digital certificate standards.
- Electoral defeat of incumbent government after months of European pressure and domestic unrest.
- Caretaker administration’s rapid embrace of EU and WHO frameworks.
- Approval of €6 billion in Recovery Funds and re‑establishment of good standing with Brussels.
16. Paraguay – Mario Abdo Benítez
Paraguay’s experience exemplifies how smaller Latin American economies were forced to align pandemic policies with international credit conditions. President Mario Abdo Benítez’s government initially emphasized economic stability over draconian lockdowns, warning that strict restrictions would devastate informal workers who make up more than 60% of the labour market. However, as domestic protests intensified and foreign creditors tightened lending conditions, the administration conceded to the IMF’s stipulations that pandemic‑response financing be tied to specific “public‑health governance commitments.” Once those commitments were accepted, loan disbursements resumed, showing how financial contingency mechanisms coerced health‑policy conformity.
- Backdrop: Through 2020 and early 2021 Paraguay maintained one of South America’s least restrictive lockdown regimes. The government was reluctant to mandate vaccinations or fully close borders with Brazil and Argentina.
- Event: In March 2021 mass protests erupted in Asunción over shortages of medical supplies and alleged corruption in procurement; opposition parties launched a failed impeachment attempt against President Abdo Benítez.
- Aftermath: To restore credit stability, the finance ministry agreed to conditions attached to an IMF Rapid Financing Instrument (≈ $274 million) earmarked for health expenditure auditing and expansion of surveillance systems. By late 2021 Paraguay was fully aligned with WHO and Pan American Health Organization recommendations.
- Outcome: Government stability was restored after external financing resumed, but policy autonomy remained limited by credit conditionality.
17. South Africa – Cyril Ramaphosa
South Africa began as a reluctant participant in strict global pandemic protocols. President Cyril Ramaphosa voiced concerns that extended lockdowns could fuel unrest and economic collapse, and he pushed for Africa‑wide vaccine intellectual‑property waivers rather than Western purchases. Nevertheless, as international ratings agencies threatened downgrades and IMF/World Bank assistance was made contingent on “strengthened public‑health governance,” South Africa shifted its course, introducing some of the continent’s strictest workplace vaccine rules.
- Backdrop: From early 2020 to mid‑2021 Ramaphosa’s cabinet clashed with business unions and community organizations over the cost of lockdowns versus public‑health benefit. Debt pressures soared following a 10% GDP contraction in 2020.
- Event: The National Treasury secured a $4.3 billion IMF loan (July 2020) and a World Bank loan of $750 million (Jan 2022) containing performance benchmarks for pandemic containment and “human capital protection”.
- Aftermath: By December 2021 South Africa announced mandatory vaccination for public‑sector employees and participation in the WHO vaccine passport initiative. Foreign aid disbursement and sovereign bond ratings stabilized only after these steps.
- Outcome: Policy alignment improved credit access but deepened domestic inequality and led to significant civil‑liberty litigation and ongoing parliamentary inquiries into procurement transparency.
18. Mexico – Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Mexico under Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) presented one of the last major cases of gradual capitulation to WHO and multilateral financial pressures. Initially AMLO resisted mandatory lockdowns and booster campaigns, insisting that national public‑health policy should focus on nutrition and poverty reduction. However, a combination of supply‑chain disruption, dollar liquidity concerns, and lobbying from international philanthropic networks (CEPI, GAVI, and the Gates Foundation) eventually pushed Mexico toward full policy compliance by 2022.
- Backdrop: Throughout 2020 Mexico’s Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer and Under‑secretary Hugo López‑Gatell advocated moderate restrictions and non‑coercive vaccine rollout. The country’s mortality surged during mid‑2021, provoking foreign and domestic pressure for a policy shift.
- Event: Facing threat of credit downgrades, the Finance Ministry began talks with the World Bank and IMF for infrastructure loans linked to public‑health reform. In December 2021 Mexico signed a joint memorandum of understanding with WHO and CEPI for “bio‑pharmaceutical collaboration and vaccine development capacity”.
- Aftermath: Through 2022 Mexico aligned its vaccine certification systems with the COVAX framework and expanded digital health records for the Ministry of Health, unlocking up to $1 billion in World Bank Covid‑response financing.
- Outcome: By 2023 Mexico was publicly touted by WHO offices as a “model for integrated pandemic response,” demonstrating how international credit leverage transformed a once‑independent policy line into strict adherence with global health‑security standards.
Summary of Observable Trends
- Chronology: Deaths of Nkurunziza, Dlamini, Bakayoko, Magufuli, and Moïse opened the sequence (Jun 2020 – Jul 2021). Political collapses in Europe, Asia, and the Americas followed through 2022.
- Policy effect: Every successor endorsed WHO recommendations and entered international funding arrangements that had been unavailable under predecessors.
- Financial trigger: Aid packages—IMF Rapid Credit, World Bank preparedness loans, EU Recovery mechanisms—were routinely disbursed within 30–90 days of the leadership change.
Key Takeaway
From 2020 to 2022, the result was unmistakable: national autonomy collapsed beneath a synchronized agenda linking public‑health compliance to economic salvation. Countries that resisted early, especially in Africa, suffered the hardest blows—five sitting leaders dead in one year. More powerful nations experienced subtler coups through scandal, protest, or economic blackmail, all producing the same end state.
What emerged from these parallel crises was not medical harmony but political homogenization. Each successor declared a “renewed partnership with science,” welcomed new funding from the IMF, World Bank, or GAVI, and ushered in digital‑compliance systems that now define post‑pandemic governance.
By the end of 2022 nearly every government on Earth—rich or poor, democratic or autocratic—had been brought into alignment. Differing flags, languages, and histories no longer prevented one shared choreography: resistance punished, obedience financed, and sovereignty quietly exchanged for a coordinated global script.
- IMF Press Release – Rapid Credit Facility for Burundi (June 2020).
- Reuters / AP Report – Death of Eswatini Prime Minister (Dec 2020).
- African Development Bank – COVID‑19 Response Support Programme (2021).
- World Bank – Ivory Coast Emergency Support Project (2021).
- IMF Press Release No. 21/210 – Tanzania RFI (Sept 2021).
- Associated Press – “President of Haiti Assassinated at Home” (July 2021).
- IDB Official Statement on Haiti Relief Funding (2021).
- Japan Cabinet Office – Resignation of PM Abe (Aug 2020).
- Nikkei Asia – “Japan Invests in mRNA Manufacturing” (2022).
- 1European Commission – Next Generation EU Fund Allocation to Slovakia (2021).
- Czech News Agency – Election Results and Policy Changes (2021).
- Austrian Prosecution Service – Kurz Investigation Report (2021).
- EU Council Press Release – Austria ESM Allocation (2022).
- UK Parliamentary Record – Digital Health Infrastructure Funding (2022).
- IMF Staff Report – Sri Lanka Extended Fund Facility (March 2023).
- World Bank – Brazil Pandemic Preparedness Loan (2022).
- WHO Madagascar Country Office – Cooperation Agreement (2021).
- European Commission – Romania RRF Approval (2021).
- European Commission – Bulgaria RRF Approval (2021).
- IMF Country Report – Paraguay Pandemic Financing (2021).
- IMF Country Report – South Africa Fiscal Support Arrangements (2021).
- WHO / CEPI Press Release – Mexico Cooperation Agreement (2022).
- IMF Country Report – Paraguay Rapid Financing Instrument 2021.
- BBC News Latin America – “Protests Rock Paraguay Over Pandemic Supplies,” March 2021.
- Finance Ministry of Paraguay – Press Release on IMF Commitments April 2021.
- South African Reserve Bank Annual Report 2021.
- IMF Press Release No. 20/315 – South Africa Loan Approval; World Bank Loan Press Brief 2022.
- Reuters – “South Africa Adopts Mandatory Public‑Sector Vaccination Policy,” December 2021.
- El Universal – “López‑Gatell Sabemos que no habrá vacunación obligatoria,” 2020.
- WHO / CEPI – Memorandum on Mexico Vaccine Collaboration, December 2021.
- World Bank – “Mexico COVID‑19 Emergency Response Project,” 2022.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch is Turning New York City into a Surveillance Colony
By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | October 29, 2025
In a recent report for the Libertarian Institute, I investigated Zionists’ role in creating the crisis point at which New York City now finds itself: caught between a colonial elite which has commandeered government and a progressive-socialist backlash to that elite which proposes to expand government. In this report, I will trace how, in response to the progressive-socialist threat to their power, Zionists and their allies are expanding government in new and frightening directions. The leading player in this operation, like in all good intelligence ops, is not a colorful or charismatic character. But she has all of the subtler qualities—connections, management prowess, presentational understatement—that the city’s minders look for in those who hold actual power.
Jessica Tisch, the New York Police Department Commissioner since 2024 who will definitely stay on if either Zohran Mamdani or Andrew Cuomo wins the mayoralty according to public statements made by both men, is the third generation of the billionaire Zionist family that has had prominent roles in shaping the city since the 1980s. Her grandfather, Laurence Tisch, bought CBS in the 1980s not long before his brother Robert bought the New York Giants, establishing the family, which had started in hotels and movie theaters, as the owner of two of the city’s landmark organizations. In the 1990s, Laurence Tisch was a member of The Study Group, the informal philanthropic Zionist gathering co-founded by Leslie Wexner and Charles Bronfman, which led directly and indirectly to the foundation of Taglit Birthright, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and various other projects for Zionist continuity. Laurence’s son and Jessica’s father, James Tisch, is the chairman of the Board of Leows Corporation, the family’s flagship business. James’ wife and Jessica’s mother, Merryl, was the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, responsible for supervising all educational activities in the state; and is the chair of the State University of New York Board of Trustees, responsible for supervising the state university system.
Within this context of a family involved in media, finance, philanthropy, and part-time politics, Jessica Tisch, who is now 44, charted her own specific path: from security to administration to the cusp of politics with the backing of money. She started in the NYPD in the decade of the September 11 attacks; continued in the department in the 2010s; moved in the first half of the 2020s to the Sanitation Department, arguably New York’s most important after police and fire. She has returned in the mid-2020s to the NYPD as its commissioner, while also widely being considered a potential future mayor. Like Mamdani, Tisch is a product, this time a direct one, of the decades of Zionist influence that preceded her rise. Like Mamdani, rewinding Tisch’s career shows how she is the capstone to a project of military policing that began in the 1990s and 2000s but that has sharpened under pressure into a full-blown project of social control.
That project began when crime rose in New York in the 1980s and 1990s in response to displacement and homelessness facilitated by WASPs, Zionists, and their allies co-opting city government to the benefit of finance and real estate. In response, Eric Breindel, the neoconservative Zionist editor of the New York Post who had extensive connections to Wall Street, arranged for the Post to back the then-longshot Rudolph W. Guiliani as a tough-on-crime candidate, delivering him Staten Island and so the city.
At the same time, Michael Steinhardt, the Zionist financier who was integral in the reinvention of Wall Street in the 1980s, became the major donor for the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which in turn was the major backer of President Bill Clinton, who shepherded to passage in Congress as his main legislative priority the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This act provided newly elected Mayor Giuliani and his police commissioner William Bratton federal funds for law enforcement, with certain conditions attached that increased local spending on policing as well as the size of the NYPD. The NYPD’s budget increased from $1.7 billion to $3.1 billion between 1993 and 2000, also leading to increased city spending, since, under the terms of the Clinton crime legislation, to receive federal funds the city had to spend funds of its own.
During this period, “crime”—defined as everything from murder to unlicensed street vending—fell in response to across-the-board enforcement. After 2001, Raymond Kelly, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s police commissioner, pushed this practice to its limit with the aggressive practice of “stop and frisk” in minority neighborhoods: a daily distillation of the broader disenfranchisement the black and Latino communities of New York had been experiencing since the 1970s.
Kelly also made sure that the NYPD would benefit from post-9/11 funding of counter-terrorism measures, measures which hinged heavily on techniques for surveillance. And it was by channeling this new priority for social control that Jessica Tisch made her career beginning in 2000s. Fresh out of Harvard, she took “an analyst position available in what was then the counterterrorism bureau” of the NYPD. According to a recent profile in The New York Times:
“Kelly…did not normally meet with applicants for such entry-level jobs, but he ended up interviewing her. ‘Probably because she was a Tisch,’ he said, adding that he had been impressed with her three Harvard degrees.”
“Probably because she was a Tisch” seems like a fair assessment of why the supervisor of 55,000 employees took the time to meet a twenty-something about an entry-level position. But Kelly and Tisch also shared the promising ground of a professional focus: Kelly was committed to surveillance-as-policing, and Tisch’s main interest was data and surveillance. At the NYPD, she began “developing the Domain Awareness System, one of the world’s largest networks of security cameras, including handling contracts to build and expand it.” According to a description of this work in a recent profile of Tisch in New York Magazine, she was Domain’s driving force and Domain her career-maker:
“… Tisch, 27, was tasked with figuring out what to do with more than $100 million in unspent grant money from the federal Department of Homeland Security, which had just built a surveillance network to prevent another terror attack downtown. What if, she asked, the Domain Awareness System went citywide? And what if, instead of trying to stop a suicide bomber, the system tried to spot all kinds of crooks? What if it included the NYPD’s trove of arrest reports and criminal histories? When Tisch sent the privacy guidelines for the system to the lawyers at the New York Civil Liberties Union, they retched…The bosses had the opposite reaction: ‘No, you’ve made it. Congratulations,’ the former colleague recalls them saying.”
Based on an initial grant of $350 million from the Department of Homeland Security and developed with Microsoft technology, the System consists today of “a surveillance network of more than 18,000 interconnected cameras—including those in the private sector—as well as law-enforcement databases.” The system, in one description, “assimilates data from several surveillance tools—license plate readers, closed-circuit television streams, facial recognition software and phone call histories—and uses it to identify people.” As these descriptions suggest, private corporations and nonprofits, for example Rockefeller University in Midtown East Manhattan, can buy in: providing their own cameras then linking them to the surveillance system run out of the NYPD. “And,” according to one report, “when Microsoft turns around and sells the technology to other cities, New York gets a cut.”
Tisch was not only one of the developers, if not the developer, of the system; she also so impressed Kelly with her tenacity dealing with the various technology sub-vendors put in play by the project that he moved her up through the ranks. (She also may have impressed Kelly with her access to funds; the nonprofit the New York Police Foundation, which her uncle chaired and where two of her family members still sit on the board, provided some of the early contributions for testing her surveillance system.) Within a decade, “she became the city’s first information technology commissioner… and within months she was in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, struggling to create a contact tracing system and then a vaccine distribution system.” Throughout this time, Tisch was working with at least one like-minded colleague from a similar background. This was fellow Harvard graduate Rebecca Ulam Weiner, the granddaughter of the Zionist nuclear scientist Stanislav Ulam of the Manhattan Project, whose view of her grandfather’s work is instructive:
“As someone whose job it is to keep secrets, I often wonder whether such an experiment [as the Manhattan Project] would be possible today, scientifically or socially.”
Fast forward to November 2024, and an embattled Mayor Eric Adams, whose allies in the black community have increasingly moved away from him even as powerful Zionists have edged closer, appointed Tisch Commissioner. He did this despite vocal concerns from civil liberties advocates that, in the words of one, “It’s really alarming to see a commissioner who built her career on the infrastructure of mass surveillance.” Weiner is Tisch’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, and has let it be known that her department “relies on a mind-boggling suite of assets that Americans might otherwise assume are controlled by the CIA, FBI, DHS, Secret Service, or other agencies.” These include:
“… a legion of intelligence analysts, counterassault and dignitary-protection teams, a flotilla of boats…surveillance aircraft, the nation’s biggest bomb squad, a counter-drone unit, a remote contingent of NYPD detectives… and a network of multilingual undercover operatives…”
Among this “remote contingent” is NYPD Detective Charlie Benaim, “[whose] office could be any squad room in Brooklyn, but for years [has been] an Israeli police station near Tel Aviv,” where “Benaim’s been feeding an endless stream of information, in real time, to his bosses back at One Police Plaza.” According to Weiner, Benaim’s function is “asking the New York question, when something is happening, what would it look like it if it were to happen in New York City, and more importantly than that, how do you prevent it?” A new model for Benaim in answering these questions, apparently, is the Hamas uprising of October 7. This suggests either that the NYPD expects a coordinated attack from foreign operators; or that New York’s security leaders see the city as potentially under siege by its own displaced and ghettoized underclass and plan to respond accordingly.
Telling in this regard is the fact that Tisch’s top priority as commissioner is “doubling down on data-driven policing and surveillance,” an aim which has “sparked fierce criticism from watchdog groups that New Yorkers are living in a surveillance state.” According to New York Magazine, Tisch’s proposed reforms fall along four lines. First, she wants to expand actual surveillance capacities by expanding the city’s camera network “to include more privately owned cameras.” Second, she wants to extend the contract of one of Domain’s less reliable components, “the ShotSpotter gunshot-detection system” which “may result in confirmed shootings only less than 15 percent of the time, according to the comptroller’s office,” a fact which Tisch dismisses, “arguing that something is better than nothing.” Third, she wants to use data collected “to surge police resources down to a single block,” allowing for the department to deploy overwhelming force to tackle individual incidents in small areas. (This means essentially treating city policing as counterinsurgency warfare, and it’s not too different than the LAPD tactics that led to the abuse of Rodney King and the fallout that followed.) Finally, “perhaps the biggest change is that she wants to use those same systems and processes to fight ‘chaos,’ not just crime,” meaning that minor noise disturbances or unusual behavior could qualify for police enforcement via surveillance and surges. (Again, this is a retread of the 1990s: “Giuliani-style crackdowns, only with better gear.”)
More instructively still, she feels this way despite at least one recent controversy suggesting that her policies have adverse effects on the very communities historically at the blunt end of militarized policing. According to The New York Times, in an August report, the NYPD used Domain Awareness System’s facial recognition software to identify and arrest for indecent exposure in April a 230 pound 6-foot-2 black man, Trevis Williams. The arrest was made even though a witness said that the offender was about 160 pounds and 5-foot-6 and even though “location data from [Williams’s] phone put him about 12 miles away at the time.” According to the Times, the fact that “a facial recognition program plucked his image from an array of mug shots and the woman identified him as the flasher was enough to land Williams in jail.” This is despite the fact that “other police departments… require investigators to gather more facts before putting a suspect identified by facial recognition into a photo lineup,” and despite advocacy from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union to “ban… the use of facial recognition by the police because of the risk of misidentification.”
“In the blink of an eye, your whole life could change,” Williams told the Times about his experience, adding that he still gets panic attacks since his April arrest and subsequent imprisonment. The Times investigation did not report asking for a comment from the NYPD or its Commissioner. Nor did it report that, as early as 2019, 11,000 cases per year were being investigated by the NYPD with the help of facial recognition software.
Despite collateral damage from her policies, positive media profiles of “Commish Tisch” and her subordinates have been plentiful since her accession. In an April 2025 report in The News section of The New York Times, the paper had the following to say about her: She has “an unlikely and remarkable career”; is “the daughter and granddaughter of two strong women, neither of whom came from money”; “learned hard work by example”; is “talkative and purposeful, but circumspect”; is a “no-nonsense technocrat” and “incredibly competent”; commands “a huge amount of respect”; is “very businesslike,” “[takes] no guff,” and should run for mayor. New York Magazine, the city’s go-to venue for fashion and culture commentary, had run an equally complimentary profile in March of 2025 that included the same political prediction.
And, the month before New York Magazine’s profile of Tisch, Vanity Fair ran a profile of Tisch’s deputy Weiner titled “NYPD Confidential.” Headed by a black-and-white photo of Weiner flanked by members of her squad that seemed ripped from a promotional poster of Captain America, the article’s text gave its subject an equally marquee treatment, describing her as “laser focused,” “unfazed,” “poised, cultivated, pin-sharp, convivial, boundlessly curious, charmingly profane,” and “a lightning-quick study” who had “a wicked sense of humor.” All three of these profiles also emphasized, as The New York Times’ editorial board regularly emphasizes, a recent rise in crime in the city without honing in on its obvious causes: financialization, gentrification, and displacement.
The Times is owned by the Sulzberger Family, whose members are ambivalent about Zionism but who have deep connections to Zionists. (Their executive editor, Joseph Kahn, is the son of a committed Zionist corporatist and runs in the billionaire Zionist milieu; their editorial page is dominated by Jewish Zionists of all political persuasions; and the former head of the Sulzberger family wealth office now heads Bill Ackman’s.) Vanity Fair is still owned by the Newhouse Family, which, as I reported in my recent investigation on the rise of Zionist power in New York, was vital to that project thanks to its ownership of Conde Nast. New York Magazine is dependent for its scoops on access to the city’s financial and philanthropic elite, many of them Zionists—its recent profile subjects include not just Jessica Tisch but Barry Diller and Diane Von Furstenberg and Bill Ackman. The message from these media venues seems clear: the Zionist financial powers of New York are squarely behind Jessica Tisch, and want their readers to know it.
It is not, in this context, a coincidence that the Times ran an article soon after Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary citing anonymous sources to report that Mamdani was being urged to keep Tisch on if he wins the mayoralty as a “steady pair of hands.” It is also not a coincidence that this story came during a period when Dan Loeb and Bill Ackman, younger Zionist financial-philanthropic operators, were attacking Mamdani as soft-on-crime almost daily and shifting their funding focus to Mamdani’s Independent mayoral competitor, Mayor Eric Adams, to the point of personally vetting Adams’s campaign manager before the position was filled. What this suggested at the time was a pincer movement, in which attacks by Loeb and Ackman pressured Mamdani into keeping Tisch on as a sign of faith in the establishment and détente with Zionism.
And, in late October, with Mamdani still attacked by connected Zionist players for purportedly making Jews feel unsafe despite the fact that he has attracted significant Jewish support, this is exactly what occurred. On October 22, Mamdani announced, four days after Andrew Cuomo had announced the same, that he would ask Tisch to stay on should he win the election. The reported terms on which this “ask” was made are not encouraging when it comes to Mamdani’s leverage over Tisch if he is elected mayor. Details in The New York Times painted a scenario in which Mamdani had publicly (and factually erroneously) made Tisch the poster child for safety in the city without extracting any concessions from her camp in return. According to the Times,
“… Mr. Mamdani confirmed his decision during the final televised debate before the Nov. 4 election. ‘Commissioner Tisch took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs,’ Mr. Mamdani said at the debate. “I’ve said time and again that my litmus test for that position will be excellence’… Ms. Tisch’s allies have signaled for months that she would want to stay in the job regardless of the election’s outcome. [Mamdani] campaign officials declined to detail any conversations between the candidate and the commissioner, but said they were confident she would accept. Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for Ms. Tisch, referred a reporter back to an earlier statement from the commissioner stressing that ‘it is not appropriate for the police commissioner to be directly involved or to seem to be involved in electoral politics.’”
Tisch’s strategic mix of aggressive behind-the-scenes lobbying and Olympian public detachment sends a message: as New York Magazine put it less than twenty-four hours after Mamdani made the announcement, she is “the Heiress Who Could Make or Break the Socialist Mayor.” Not long after this article ran, Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, ended five months of ostentatious non-endorsement of Mamdani with a statement endorsing Mamdani—specifically praising his willingness to keep on Tisch. Already, then, thanks to a series of private maneuvers and public feints, Tisch has been placed in the driver’s seat: the establishment’s cooperation with Mamdani is clearly conditioned on Mamdani’s continued acceptance of her.
One difficulty of critiquing moves like these is that the conflation of “Jewish power” and New York is an old trope, in part because New York has been since the early twentieth century a Jewish city. So it should be emphasized, as I have emphasized in my previous report on this topic, that New York’s problem is not a problem of Jewish power. It is a problem of government-tied financialization at the hands of a small number of WASPs and then a small number of Zionists, and it has come at the expense of the people who live in the city, among them many Jews. Now, with a direct threat to Zionists’ influence in the person of Zohran Mamdani, the operation is out front. Zionist financiers have sent one of their own to occupy the most powerful security position in the city, and they are intent on keeping her there. If they fail to install their ally Andrew Cuomo in the mayoralty, which will give Tisch carte blanche, the prospect of them working to sabotage a Mamdani mayoralty in the lead-up to a Tisch For Mayor campaign in 2029 is a very real one.
They will likely do this much like they managed the securance of Jessica Tisch’s job: with media attacks meant to maximize pressure on Mamdani; followed by private assurances to Mamdani that the attacks will stop if concessions follow. These public-private feints, in turn, will push Mamdani into concessions which will make him lose face with his base, isolating him between an unfriendly establishment and a disillusioned electorate. (This trend is already occurring, albeit at the edges, after Mamdani’s public commitment to keeping Tisch, whom many Mamdani voters see as a threat to civil liberties.) Tisch’s allies will manage these plays with the help of The New York Times and other organs of influence (the Conde Nast publications, New York Magazine, the New York Post) which by their own admission are pining for technocratic government predicated on what they call “effective management.”
But there is another equally bad outcome that could accrue should Mamdani win the mayoralty and Tisch stay on as police commissioner. This is the fusion of the most dangerous potential aspect of socialism, total government direction of the economy, with the most dangerous potential aspect of Zionism: total techno-military colonial control. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to see how, under a de facto power-sharing agreement between Mamdani and Tisch (Mamdani in charge of domestic welfare, Tisch in charge of security) the worst impulses of both systems will merge to create a city government which is totalistically involved in every aspect of its citizens’ lives, Singapore transfused with Sweden. This outcome for a city which for a century has been read as a triumph of American individualism would be, to understate the case, a seismic shift.
Kyiv wants land, not people: former US State Department adviser warns
By Uriel Araujo | October 29, 2025
James Carden, former US State Department Russia Policy Adviser has faced criticism in certain circles over his otherwise underreported comments during a recent interview to Australian Sky News — especially for mentioning some hard truths about the ethnopolitics of Ukraine.
In that interview, Mr. Carden noted that, like HIMARS or F-16s, Tomahawks won’t be a gamechanger, and argued that Putin’s proposal — EU but not NATO membership — was a fair enough bargain. When the host replied that, in this case, that would involve land concessions as part of a land-for-peace deal, the former State Department Adviser argued that the land Kyiv would be ceding is a land that: “they themselves have been attacking since 2014. The Ukrainians are being a bit disingenuous here… They claim to want the land in the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine. But they don’t want the ethnic Russian citizens on that land. So they’ve been doing everything that they can to disenfranchise those people.”
These comments are not ill-informed or dishonest and they merit some attention. In fact, they are quite accurate.
For years, Kyiv’s policies have systematically sidelined a significant chunk of Ukraine’s population. According to the country’s last census in 2001 — the only one since independence in 1991 — “ethnic Russians” accounted for 17.3 percent of the populace, which is over 8 million people. The numbers don’t catch all the nuance here: Ukraine is, pure and simple, a deeply bilingual society, with Russian as the native language (in other surveys) for at least 29 percent nationwide, a percentage that gets far higher in the east and south.
It is true that a 2024 study by linguist Volodymyr Kulyk shows a decline in everyday Russian use in Ukraine since 2022, with streets renamed, statues of Russians taken down and “Russian literature taken off the shelves of bookshops”, as Lancaster University PhD researcher Oleksandra Osypenko puts it. While in 2012 only 44% Ukrainians primarily spoke Ukrainian and 34% Russian, by December 2022 Ukrainian had risen to 57.4% and Russian had fallen to 14.8%, with the remaining 27.8 percent reporting employing both. This means that 42.6% of Ukrainians (that is 14.8 plus 27.8) still use the Russian language routinely, even after three years of open war, with censored media, and all “pro-Russian” parties having been banned; and after at least 11 years of Ukrainization policies.
High rates of intermarriage blur the lines even further; and, from a social science perspective, many folks toggle between “Russian” and “Ukrainian” identities depending on the context, as I’ve noticed myself during fieldwork in 2019.
Yet, back in August 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Donbass residents who ‘feel russkiye [ethnic Russians]’ to move to Russia. At the time, I argued that this was one of the most russophobic statements from a high-ranking Ukrainian official since World War II; which is an ironic enough twist, considering the fact that in 2019 Zelensky (a Russian speaker himself) was widely described as a candidate courting the Russian and pro-Russian minority, and rode to power on promises to protect precisely these Russian-identifying folks in the east.
The 2014 ultranationalist Maidan revolution, backed by Washington (despite its far-right elements), has ushered in a surge of Ukrainian chauvinism that verges on negationism about the country’s pluri-ethnic realities. Language laws tell part of the tale. The 2017 education reform made Ukrainian the sole public-school language; by March 2023, Ukraine expanded media censorship and raised TV Ukrainian-language quotas to 90% by 2024, while banning non-Ukrainian languages in key areas.
Oleksiy Danilov, then secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, put it starkly in a 2023 interview: “The Russian language must completely disappear from our territory.” No wonder Ukrainian philosopher Sergei Datsyuk warned that such moves could spark an “internal civil war” worse than the external one, and even Oleksiy Arestovich, Zelensky’s former adviser, echoed the alarm.
The truth is that such “internal civil war” kicked off nearly a decade ago in Donbass, as scholar Serhiy Kudelia frames it, under artillery barrages that turned it into Europe’s “forgotten war” until 2022. Kyiv has been bombing Russians (in Donbass) for a decade, while disenfranchising them.
This is no hyperbole: experts like Nicolai N. Petro, a US Fulbright scholar in Ukraine in 2013-2014 and ex-State Department specialist on the Soviet Union, have documented how Ukrainian policies erode civil rights for ethnic minorities, especially Russian speakers.
The Venice Commission, Europe’s go-to body for democratic standards, criticized Ukraine’s 2022 Law on National Minorities for restricting publishing, media, and education in minority languages, urging revisions to meet international standards. Despite this, Deputy PM Olga Stefanishyna dismissed it all by claiming: “there is no Russian minority in Ukraine.”
Moreover, for many, Ukraine’s history is inextricably tied to Russia’s; a 2021 survey, taken six months before the full-scale escalation, found over 40 percent of Ukrainians nationwide — and nearly two-thirds in the east and south — agreeing with Putin that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”.
Yet Ukraine’s rigid unitary state, with its top-down nationalism, clashes hard against Russia’s matryoshka model of multinational autonomy — with 22 ethnic republics within the Russian Federation. Granting Donbass similar autonomy, for instance, could have eased tensions, but it would have demanded a constitutional overhaul.
In the broader post-Soviet mess, Ukraine’s woes look less unique. Frozen conflicts across the region — Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh — show how borders remain volatile. In this context, Crimea and Donbass have been hot topics for decades.
The hard truth is that if Kyiv won militarily (unlikely), more Donbass shelling and displacement would likely follow. Carden’s point stands: without addressing internal ethnopolitics, Ukraine cannot secure peace; for peace means embracing all its people, not just the land they stand on.
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
Zelensky says he ‘doesn’t care’ if claim used to oust Odessa mayor is fake
RT | October 28, 2025
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said he is unconcerned about whether the evidence used to oust former Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov was fake.
Zelensky fired the mayor of the southern city earlier this month over accusations that he holds a Russian passport. The allegations have reportedly since been shown to contain false information, with the passport number that Ukrainian investigators claimed was Trukhanov’s actually belonging to a woman from Siberia who recently crossed the Russian border.
Zelensky defended his decision to journalists on Tuesday, admitting he did not question the evidence presented by investigators.
”How many passports he has, which are real, which are fake, who made them? Frankly speaking, I do not care,” Zelensky said, as quoted by Ukrinform. “Is it 100% true that he is a Russian citizen? [Investigators] tell me ‘yes’.”
Trukhanov was one of several people stripped of Ukrainian citizenship earlier this month under Zelensky’s decree targeting individuals accused of secretly holding Russian passports. His administration has since been replaced by one appointed directly by the central government.
Trukhanov has said the allegations against him are based on fabrications and that he is the victim of a political purge. In an interview following his removal, he compared his situation to the Stalin-era repressions, arguing that there is no viable path for appeal under Zelensky’s rule.
International media outlets have also criticized the move. The Spectator described it as “a step too far,” suggesting it served as a warning to other local leaders that dissent would not be tolerated.
Reports have pointed to growing friction between Zelensky and prominent mayors, including Kiev’s Vitaly Klitschko, who accused the Ukrainian leader of consolidating power and edging toward a dictatorship.
Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year, but he continues to govern under martial law, after declining to transfer authority to the speaker of parliament as required by the Ukrainian Constitution.
Israeli military company establishes first branch in UAE
MEMO | October 27, 2025
The Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported on Sunday that the Israeli government has approved the establishment of a branch of Controp Precision Technologies Ltd in the United Arab Emirates. The move has been described as an “unprecedented security and economic step” since the signing of the normalisation agreements in 2020.
Controp Precision Technologies Ltd specialises in designing and manufacturing EO/IR systems used for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting missions across air, land, and maritime domains. The company provides its solutions to the defence, homeland security, and other related sectors.
According to the newspaper, the new company, named Controp Emirates Ltd, will operate within Abu Dhabi’s free trade zone (ADGM). It will be fully owned by the Israeli parent company and will operate under strict security supervision from Israel’s Ministry of Defence.
The purpose of the new branch is to enable the company to manufacture and market its advanced electro-optical systems locally in the UAE, as well as to provide maintenance and technical support services.
The total investment in the first phase is estimated at around 30 million US dollars, funded through Controp shares and owner loans. The branch will be managed by an Israeli chief executive, while full control will remain with the parent company.
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Allies Don’t Need Lobbies
By Jay Knott | Dissident Voice | September 24, 2013
In a recent article on Counterpunch, Rob Urie defended the traditional Marxist analysis of US policy in the Middle East. He argues that support for Israel is driven primarily by economic interest, not the Jewish lobby.
He starts by paying tribute to the idea that Western societies are uniquely racist. He says that the “Western narrative” claims there is an “Arab character”, and that this is “antique racist blather”. He gives no definition of these terms. Further, he establishes his credentials as part of the dominant current in the American left by claiming that “over a million people in Iraq died so ‘we’ in the West can drive SUVs.”1
When he tries to criticize bourgeois economics, he makes it clear he doesn’t understand the developments it has made since Marx’s day, using the mathematical discipline known as “game theory”. He dismisses the basic abstraction of economic theory, the idea of the rational individual, on the grounds that it is “devoid of history, culture and political context”. But abstractions are always devoid of something.
He defends a more concrete economic theory, mostly Marxist, with some input from another theorist of capitalist crisis, Hyman Minsky. This concrete theory leads him to the view that US activity in the Middle East is primarily driven by rational capitalist motives, the need to secure a supply of oil.
“Taking the totality of circumstance — former oil company executives launching war on an oil rich nation on a pretext they publicly proclaimed they didn’t believe shortly before taking office — and that upon launching their war proved to be non-existent, requires a willingness to overlook the obvious — that the war on Iraq was for oil, that is difficult to support.”1
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood him, but based on what he says in the rest of the article, this convoluted sentence seems to argue that, because president Bush and vice-president Cheney attacked Iraq on false premises, and they also said it was all about oil, and they are former oil executives, and Iraq has a lot of oil, it’s difficult to deny US attacks on Iraq are all about oil.
In fact, it’s not hard at all. As Urie points out, at times Bush and co. said that attacking Iraq was “protecting the world’s supply of oil.”1 But, as he also points out, they are congenital liars. Why should we believe them when they say they are trying to “protect” the oil supply? Protect it against what? When politicians “admit” attacks on Middle Eastern countries are wars for oil, they are parroting the neo-con party line, feeding the public, both left and right, with a plausible-sounding pretext. For right-wingers, “it’s a war for oil” is a reason to support war, and for leftists, it’s a way to feel better by complaining impotently about corporate greed. Both approaches help the war drive. … continue
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