Kidnapped By the Washington Cartel
By Eric Striker • Unz Review • January 8, 2026
Washington’s snatching of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his visibly brutalized wife, Cilia, has been widely condemned as naked criminality. Supporters of US interventionism have taken to justifying the attack under the guise of the Monroe, or “Donroe,” Doctrine, while leaders of the American left such as Bernie Sanders have largely ignored the moral implications by fixating on the legalistic aspect of the spectacle.
Practically nothing substantial has been presented to the public justifying military intervention in Venezuela. US officials have made half-hearted attempts at blowing the cobwebs off the Reagan-era Cold War boogeyman trope, but the Venezuelan state of Maduro last year spent only 18% of its GDP on public expenditures, making the US (37%) twice as “communist.” It should also be noted that Venezuela’s Communist Party has long been part of the heterogenous US-backed anti-Maduro opposition and is perceived inside the country as a front for the CIA.
The next ginned up fable accuses Maduro, in a Brooklyn federal court case overseen by 92-year-old Zionist Jew Alvin Hellerstein, of being a global cocaine kingpin.
The original Department of Justice case was cobbled together during Trump’s first term but was pursued heavily by the successive Biden administration, which introduced a $25 million dollar bounty in hopes that someone inside the regime would capture Maduro for them. Critics have dismissed the charges as both baseless and hypocritical, pointing out that several current US-installed leaders in Latin America are running actual narco regimes. The well of irony goes deeper: the very Delta Force unit responsible for capturing Maduro is itself a violent cocaine trafficking ring, as journalists documenting JSOC operator’s use of military planes to import millions of dollars worth of cocaine from Colombia to Fort Bragg for both personal use and illicit profit have shown.
The last excuse, tossed to the nihilists in the MAGA base as red meat, is that America wants to steal the oil to make gas prices cheaper. During World War II, the United States strong-armed Venezuelan oil into the hands of American businesses to fuel the Allied war effort, but the 30 to 50 million barrels of oil Trump is demanding for America is only enough to last two months. Venezuela’s low-quality crude requires refining infrastructure that experts believe could cost 10s of billions of dollars in investment and potentially a decade to come to fruition, meaning that the US would have to pay a hefty price to produce the product in order to “steal” it.
Military action for oil makes no sense. For nearly a decade, Maduro’s government has been desperately reaching out to the US to negotiate an end to the devastating sanctions crippling the Venezuelan economy and bring back American oil companies, with extraordinary gestures such as a $500,000 donation to Trump’s 2017 inauguration festivities. These overtures were ignored.
Realist arguments for removing opponents of the American empire from the Western Hemisphere also seem inadequate. Many nations that have strong links to Russia and China, such as Hungary, also have close relations to the Trump administration. Neither Russia or China are interested in or able to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, as the May 2024 8,000 word Sino-Russian joint statement calling for non-interventionism reveals.
The remaining outstanding issue, what separates friend-to-all Hungary from Venezuela and is likely real cause of the conflict is Maduro’s militant anti-Zionism, which has been put into practice through Hugo Chavez-era infrastructure of sanctions-busting trade with Iran, who the Zionist hawks in Washington are trying to isolate further. Venezuela has become an outlier in Latin America, where regimes propped up by the US are rapidly embracing the pro-Israel Isaac’s Accords. What exactly the Israelis want in Latin America remains a matter of speculation, but this question is important enough to compel Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to repeatedly declare her devotion to the Jewish state and openly plan to make Israel a central focus of her potential future government.
The notion that Trump was settling accounts on behalf of Israel, rather than America, appears to be taken for granted by both Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who cited the security interests of Israel for cause, as well as Maduro’s successor Delcy Rodriguez, who has publicly declared that the president’s kidnapping has “Zionist undertones.”
It is not yet clear if the British and French educated lawyer Rodriguez, the daughter of a communist guerrilla tortured to death by the CIA, is herself an American asset tasked with gradually taking apart the Bolivarian revolution from within, but the decision to keep her in power was made by the same group that murdered her father. The new president was initially purged from Hugo Chavez’s political circle in 2006, only to be brought back by Maduro in 2013 for her magical ability to operate around American sanctions and defeat diplomatic onslaughts.
Delcy’s power within the Maduro government grew after she was able to single-handedly defeat an attempt by the Organization of American States to officially ostracize Venezuela in 2017. She has been able to broker large sanctions violating underground financial transactions on behalf of her country in Europe and, as head of Venezuela’s oil sector, has been actively lobbying the US to return to take it over. She has been criticized in socialist circles for her campaign re-dollarizing the Venezuelan economy, which has exacerbated poverty and inequality in the country. Her links to enemies of Venezuela are an open secret and include secret meetings with mercenary leader Erik Prince even as his outfit was actively trying to overthrow Maduro. Her years of unusual unofficial welcome in Washington and the wealth it has provided some corrupt elements in the world of Chavismo has allowed her to accumulate enough power domestically to, over the years, root out elements suspicious of her rise.
For now, Rodriguez is urging calm and the armed forces appear to be taking her at her word that she is a good faith pragmatist rather than a traitor. The next six months of her presidency will be crucial as a boots on the ground intervention by America continues to loom.
The flood of fake videos on social media of showing celebrations of Maduro’s removal do not reflect the reality on the ground. Approval for Trump’s actions is a minority opinion in both the United States and Venezuela. General sentiment is that the populations of both America and Venezuela will suffer the consequences of yet another Washington military adventure if the Trump administration goes any further.
Supporters of American imperialism — again, a minority opinion — have sought to distance themselves from the spoiled “neo-conservative” brand and argue that this new emphasis on Latin America will be different from the disastrous War On Terror. But interventions of the kind just witnessed with Maduro in the Western Hemisphere have historically fared no better than Iraq.
A case that comes to mind is the 2009 US overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, who like Maduro, was abducted and taken to face trial in Costa Rica on flimsy drug charges. Successive American backed governments (including an actual cocaine trafficking president Trump recently pardoned) mismanaged Honduras to the point of making it the most violent country in the world. This situation provoked a massive exodus to the US, producing a large percentage of the hundreds of thousands of so-called Northern Triangle illegal immigrants, with Honduras regularly populating the bulk of the notorious migrant caravans. From 2010 and 2020, the Honduran population in the United States increased from 490,000 to at least 1.3 million, and this is only those we know of. More than 10% of Honduras’ population now lives in America, many of them illegally.
The removal of Maduro is a regime change campaign going back 20 years, with the blame for this latest conflict shared by Democrats and Republicans equally. The substance of Washington’s global terrorism is decided by permanent bureaucrats and high finance, with the president only serving to influence the style and execution.
Somaliland and the ‘Greater Israel’ project
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | January 7, 2026
More than a simple recognition of Somaliland, “Israel” is hatching a scheme alongside its Emirati allies aimed at a regional expansion agenda. For the so-called “Greater Israel” vision to come alive, dominance must be secured not only across West Asia and North Africa, but also throughout the Horn of Africa.
The recent decision by the occupying entity in “Tel Aviv” to recognize Somaliland as a State has triggered outrage across Africa and much of the Islamic World, while drawing condemnations from most Arab capitals, with the notable exception of Abu Dhabi.
For the most part, analysts have pointed to “Israel’s” desire to use Somaliland as a staging ground for aggression against Yemen as a primary motivation behind the move. Some have further noted that officials of the Zionist regime have expressed interest in ethnically cleansing Gaza’s people and forcibly transferring them to Somaliland. While these factors evidently inform Israeli decision-making, they do not exhaust its strategic calculus; yet the conspiracy goes much deeper.
On November 24, 2025, the influential Israeli think-tank Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) released a report detailing both the benefits and drawbacks of recognizing Somaliland. While the report acknowledged multiple strategic incentives for such a move, it ultimately advised against proceeding before the United States had done so.
The INSS had advocated against the move, hedging that such a declaration would further isolate “Israel” within the framework of the so-called “Abraham Accords”, triggering backlash on the international stage regarding the issue of Palestinian statehood.
So what changed since the Israeli think tank report?
Understanding the Israeli thinking here, such a move would not be made if they saw it as a net negative. Instead, the recognition was offered in a very public and brazen manner. In order to make sense, we therefore have to look at the broader picture.
To begin with, the normalization drive [“Abraham Accords”] has clearly stalled, at least in terms of any major developments in this regard. The last country to enter into the fold of the broader Trump administration-led normalization movement was Kazakhstan. For context, Astana already normalized ties with the Zionist regime back in 1992.
Although US President Donald Trump announced Kazakhstan’s declaration as a development of great significance, the move was clearly seen as a weak attempt at keeping the normalization project alive amid the conspicuous absence of Saudi Arabia. In parallel, an increasingly desperate Israeli entity has launched what it calls the “Isaac Accords”, a separate normalization project with Latin American nations that are client regimes of the US.
In other words, the Israelis were not actually in a position where they necessarily viewed recognition of Somaliland as an impediment to their normalization agenda. In fact, through projecting power in the Horn of Africa, they may even see it as an advancement of this project, especially given that some 6 million people who identify as belonging ethnically to Somaliland are Muslims.
Another element of the move is to assert their dominance and to lash out internationally over the wave of recognition, last September, for the state of Palestine.
In addition, the elephant in the room here is that the Israelis are currently pursuing a joint agenda with the United Arab Emirates, particularly in both the Horn of Africa and Northern Africa. This alliance seeks to co-opt sectarian movements, separatist groups, and to weaponize warlords in order to reshape the continent as a whole.
The Emirati and Israeli agendas are one in this regard. They are inseparable and connected on almost every conceivable level, this is to the point that the de facto head of intelligence operations for the UAE has long been a man named Mohammed Dahlan, well known for his alleged involvement with Mossad and the CIA; particularly in Africa.
The UAE’s proxy in Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), seized the Hadhramaut and al-Mahra provinces from Saudi-backed forces in early December, bringing around 80% of Yemen’s oil resources under their control. The STC’s militants have even been trained by “Israel”. The UAE’s move, which would not have come without Zionist backing, now threatens the stability of the Arabian Peninsula and triggered major backlash from Riyadh.
While “Israel” is reportedly seeking to build up a military presence near the strategically located port of Berbera in Somalia’s Somaliland, the UAE began constructing the Berbera airbase as early as 2017, securing access to it for a period of 25 years. Similarly, the UAE–Israeli alliance has extended to the establishment of a joint military presence on Yemen’s strategically located island of Socotra.
It is speculated that the Emirati-backed STC, in southern Yemen, may launch an offensive aimed at capturing the Ansar Allah-controlled port city of Hodeidah, likely receiving Israeli aerial support. The coastline of Somaliland lies only 300 to 500 kilometers from Ansar Allah-controlled lands, making such an air campaign much more manageable than launching strikes from occupied Palestine.
Furthermore, turning to “Israel’s” agenda in Somalia itself, it is clear that this is a calculated move that targets Türkiye. Ankara maintains enormous influence in Somalia and remains a strong proponent of the “One Somalia” agenda. Therefore, at a time of heightened regional tensions, especially in Syria, where both Turkish and Israeli forces are seeking to carve out zones of influence and establish red lines, “Tel Aviv’s” move appears to be another attempt to land a strategic blow on Ankara.
Together, the Emiratis and Israelis are adamant about combating the Muslim Brotherhood and any Islamic governments or groups that voice their concerns for the Palestinians, which is why they are lobbying Western governments so hard on these issues and running non-stop propaganda campaigns against so-called “radical Islam”.
In reality, the Israeli-UAE-backed militias in Yemen are riddled with al-Qaeda-linked fighters and hardline Takfiri Salafists. The STC’s toughest fighting force, known as the Southern Giants Brigades, is reportedly led by the core of experienced militants who are former al-Qaeda fighters. In Gaza, meanwhile, the UAE and the Zionist Entity are also backing five separate proxy militias with alleged links to ISIS.
The Emiratis and Israelis are huge fans of these Salafist militants, who are totally obedient to them and adopt a mass Takfir doctrine that they use to justify the mass slaughter of Muslims. This was the same exact strategy adopted inside Syria by the Zionists, using Wahhabi extremists to do their bidding, while dividing the Muslim World and paving the way for their expansionist agenda.
If the Zionist Entity is to achieve “Greater Israel”, the common misconception is that they wish to directly occupy the entire region between the River Nile and the Euphrates. According to the Zionist vision, they would rule as an empire instead, whereby they enter into formal alliances with countries broken up into ethno-regimes and sectarian rump States. Divide and conquer.
So, dividing Somalia, in order to help the Emirati proxy-militias secure a southern Yemeni State, is precisely in line with the Zionist agenda. They will attempt to rule these territories through proxy support, using their puppets to destroy the Palestinian cause. In the case of Somaliland, if they are to succeed, they would also certainly attempt to ethnically cleanse the population of Gaza there. In other words, Somaliland recognition isn’t a small, isolated move; it is a piece being strategically positioned on their wider chessboard.
Pakistan, the Gulf, and the high cost of Zionist alignment
By Junaid S. Ahmad | MEMO | January 6, 2026
Geopolitics is most dangerous not when it erupts, but when it reorganises quietly — when the ground shifts beneath familiar alliances while elites continue to speak the language of yesterday. The Gulf today is in precisely such a moment. What once masqueraded as a coherent bloc has fractured into rival power models, incompatible strategic visions, and diverging relationships to empire, Israel, and popular legitimacy. And Pakistan, true to form, is responding not with strategic intelligence but with institutional reflex — confusing obedience with balance and habit with foresight.
The rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is no longer a matter of speculation or diplomatic gossip. It is an open contradiction — political, military, and infrastructural. Yemen has exposed it. Israel has radicalised it. The United States, particularly under Trumpism, has weaponised it. And Pakistan’s ruling elite — military and civilian alike — has chosen to drift toward the most toxic pole of this fracture while reassuring itself that it is merely being “pragmatic.” It is not. It is being complicit.
Two Gulf projects, one moral abyss
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are still lazily grouped together by analysts who mistake shared authoritarianism for shared strategy. This is intellectual malpractice. The two monarchies are pursuing fundamentally different regional projects.
Saudi Arabia’s current posture — hardly virtuous, often cynical, and deeply reactionary — nevertheless reflects a begrudging recognition of reality. After years of disastrous interventionism, Riyadh wants consolidation. It wants borders quieted, fires contained, and regional fragmentation slowed. Its outreach to Iran, cautious engagement with the
Houthis, and growing hostility to separatist militias are not gestures of enlightenment but acts of self-preservation. Endless chaos undermines Saudi ambitions at home.
The Emirati project is the opposite — and far more dangerous. Abu Dhabi does not seek order through states; it seeks domination through fragments. Ports, islands, militias, mercenaries, logistics corridors, surveillance hubs — these are its tools. Sovereignty is irrelevant. Fragmentation is not a failure; it is a business model.
If Saudi Arabia is a reactionary status-quo power, the UAE is a hyperactive destabiliser — an empire of nodes, happy to burn regions so long as trade flows and leverage compounds.
Yemen: Where the lie finally died
Yemen is where the fiction of Gulf unity collapsed beyond repair. What began as a joint intervention has devolved into a struggle over whether Yemen will exist at all as a state. The House of Saud — bloodied, embarrassed, and exposed — now insists on a unified Yemeni authority capable of enforcing borders and agreements. The UAE has invested
instead in carving out a southern enclave: separatist militias, port control, island bases, and economic chokeholds.
For Riyadh, this is existential. A fragmented Yemen exports instability directly into Saudi territory and sabotages any negotiated settlement with the Houthis. For Abu Dhabi, fragmentation is leverage — control of chokepoints matters more than Yemen’s survival as a polity.
That Saudi Arabia has now openly bombed weapons shipments linked to UAE-backed forces and issued public warnings is extraordinary. Gulf disputes are traditionally smothered in silence. When they go kinetic and public, it signals not a spat but a structural rupture. Pakistan’s establishment sees this — and chooses denial.
Israel: The cancer at the core
To understand the Emirati recklessness, one must confront the real axis around which it revolves: Apartheid, genocidal Israel.
The Abraham Accords were not peace agreements; they were an integration pact into Zionist regional supremacy. Israel does not merely occupy Palestine; it exports a model — militarised impunity, surveillance capitalism, permanent war dressed as security. The UAE did not normalize with Israel reluctantly. It embraced Israel as a force multiplier.
Israel provides Abu Dhabi with access to Washington’s coercive machinery, advanced surveillance, cyberwarfare, and a propaganda ecosystem that converts mass death into “stability.” In return, the UAE provides geography, ports, islands, mercenaries, and political insulation — doing Israel’s dirty work where Tel Aviv prefers not to appear.
Sudan. Somaliland. Socotra. Cyprus. The Red Sea. These are not isolated projects; they are components of a Zionist–Emirati expansion strategy designed to insulate Israel from economic pressure and accountability while strangling any resistance corridor before it matures.
Israel is the disease. The UAE is its most enthusiastic carrier.
Pakistan’s elite: Zionism in uniform and suits
Pakistan’s tragedy is not that it lacks options. It is that its ruling elite lacks dignity.
Rather than reassess its position amid this fracture, Pakistan’s military–civilian elite clings to the rhetoric of “balance” while deepening structural entanglement with the Emirati–Israeli axis. Ports, airports, logistics terminals, military-linked corporations — these are not neutral investments. They are instruments of alignment.
Pakistan’s generals and their civilian accessories imagine they are playing geopolitics. In reality, they are being used as infrastructure — cheap, deniable, disposable. Their behaviour is not naïveté. It is covert Zionism: collaboration without confession, obedience without ideological honesty. They mouth solidarity with Palestine while embedding Pakistan’s economy and security apparatus deeper into a regional order built to protect Israel from consequences. This is not pragmatism. It is moral and strategic bankruptcy.
Venezuela: When empire drops the mask
The illusion that empire prefers subtlety should have died long ago. Venezuela put the lie to it.
When sanctions failed and proxy pressure proved insufficient, the United States escalated —directly. US special forces were involved in a scandalous operation that culminated in the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. This was not deniable proxy warfare. It was naked imperial contempt for sovereignty.
And what happens if Washington’s decapitation move fails at complete regime change in Caracas? Silence. Zero accountability. Empire simply moves on.
This is the future Pakistan’s elite is courting. When alignment fails to deliver stability, the costs will not be borne by Washington, Tel Aviv, or Abu Dhabi. They will be borne by Pakistan. Empire does not protect collaborators. It discards them.
Saudi Arabia: A lesser evil, still an evil
Saudi Arabia deserves no absolution. The House of Saud remains a reactionary monarchy, structurally hostile to popular sovereignty and deeply entangled with empire. Its version of “stability” is still oppression — merely quieter than the Emirati inferno.
Yet the difference matters. Saudi Arabia understands that Zionist expansionism generates perpetual instability. The UAE celebrates it. Riyadh conceals its servitude; Abu Dhabi flaunts it.
Pakistan’s elite has chosen to tilt slightly more towards the louder master.
Trumpism: Empire without shame
Hovering over this landscape is Trumpism — the ideological nakedness of empire. Trump dispenses with liberal hypocrisy entirely. Loyalty is transactional. Morality is a joke. Strongmen are preferred to institutions. Israel is sacred. Everyone else is expendable.
The UAE fits this worldview perfectly: ruthless, efficient, unburdened by public opinion. Pakistan’s rulers mistake proximity to this axis for relevance. In truth, it entrenches their subordination.
When things go wrong — as they inevitably will — Trumpism will shrug. Pakistan will bleed.
The reckoning Pakistan is avoiding
The Gulf is not merely fracturing; it is sorting. States will be forced to choose — between sovereignty and fragmentation, between justice and normalisation, between dignity and managed submission.
Pakistan’s establishment has already chosen. It just lacks the courage to admit it. History will not judge Pakistan for failing to be the Mafia Don of West Asia. It will judge it for failing to recognise a moral and strategic crossroads when it stood directly upon it.
The UAE will continue to burn regions in service of Zionism. Israel will continue its genocidal project. The United States will continue to kidnap, sanction, and discard. Saudi Arabia will continue to pretend restraint equals virtue.
And Pakistan — unless it breaks from habit — will continue confusing servitude for strategy.
Prof. Marandi on Iran & Venezuela: What’s Next?
TMJ News Network | January 5, 2026
Professor Mohammad Marandi joins TMJ News to break down the latest developments in Iran and Venezuela, unpacking how economic protests, sanctions, and media narratives are being weaponized once again to push long-standing U.S.-Israeli regime change agendas.
Israeli Intrigue in Venezuela?
By W.M. Peterson | Truth Blitzkrieg |January 5, 2026
“The question is: who’s really in charge? I know President Trump appears to be. I’m not convinced that’s the case because remember… you had this giant Israeli flag suddenly appear in the middle of the Republican convention. And certainly in my lifetime… I don’t know of a single instance where either the Democratic or Republican parties held a convention and hoisted a giant foreign flag… I’ve never heard of that before.” — Col. Douglas Macgregor on the Judging Freedom podcast with Judge Andrew Napolitano (Jan. 3, 2026)
Just four days after Benjamin Netanyahu appeared as a guest on Newsmax’s The Record with Greta van Sustern and informed the insufferable newscaster that Iran is “exporting terrorism… to Venezuela. They’re in cahoots with the Maduro regime… this has got to change,” it was announced that U.S. military forces had carried out a large scale operation against Venezuela, capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who will both “face the full wrath of American justice” after being indicted on drugs and weapons charges in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The capture of Maduro occurred exactly 36 years to the day after US Delta Forces captured Panamanian President/CIA informant Manuel Noriega, and it’s unlikely that Netanyahu’s recent visit to the U.S.– the fifth in 2025 by the international fugitive — and the American operation are unrelated. While talk of ‘stolen oil’ and ‘narco-terrorism’ currently dominates the mainstream discourse, the fact that Israel has been seeking regime change in Venezuela since the days of Hugo Chavez has gone virtually unreported.
Prior to Maduro’s predecessor Chavez winning Venezuela’s 1998 presidential election, relations between the naturally wealthy South American country and Israel had been relatively good. Venezuela voted in favor of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 — which allocated 55% of historic Palestine to the as-yet-unfounded Jewish state — and two years later voted in favor of Israeli membership to the UN. By the mid 1960s, Venezuela boasted a robust Jewish population equipped with an impressive communal structure of schools, synagogues and cultural centers organized by middle-to-upper-class members of the community. In 1967, Jewish ethnic solidarity inspired a large number of Venezuelan Jews to travel to Israel to fight alongside their co-religionists in the Six-Day War. Following the conflict, a large influx of Sephardic Jews from Morocco arrived and settled in Caracas contributing to the largest Jewish population in Venezuela’s history, numbering 30,000 at its peak, evenly split between Sephardim and Askenazim.
By the mid-2000s, however, relations between Venezuela and the Synagogue began to fray.
The first notable rift occurred in late 2004 following the assassination of Venezuelan state prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was killed by a car bomb at age 38. 1
At the time of his death Anderson had been investigating more than 400 people suspected of involvement in the Llaguno Overpass shootout and the failed 2002 coup d’état, during which Chavez was ousted from office for two days before being restored to power by popular support and a number of loyal military men. (Accusations of Jewish involvement in the coup were made at the time by pro-government newspaper Diario VEA, and later by Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia, Alexis Navarro.)
Suspicions of a possible Mossad dimension to the assassination plot were already high when Venezuelan authorities received a tip suggesting that weapons and explosives connected to the murder may have been transferred from the Club Magnum shooting range to the Colegio Hebraica Jewish school in Caracas, prompting Chavez to authorize his investigative police force DISIP to conduct an armed raid on the school on the morning of November 29, 2004. Chavez’s investigators intercepted busloads of kids and evacuated 1,500 students from the building while searching for any materials related to Anderson’s assassination. Ultimately nothing of value was found and the incident was loudly condemned by local and international Jewish organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who referred to it in typically melodramatic fashion as a “pogrom.”
Throughout the next two years Chavez’s rhetoric concerning Jewish power and influence became considerably more pointed, especially following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006. It was during this time that Chavez recalled his country’s ambassador to Israel and threatened to sever diplomatic ties with the Jewish state in protest of its military operation, describing it as a “new Holocaust” and “similar or, perhaps worse… than what the Nazis did.” Chavez further inflamed the sensibilities of Jews at home and abroad by traveling to Tehran and affirming that Venezuela would “stand by Iran at any time and under any condition.” 2
In January 2009, Chavez finally made good on his threat when Venezuela severed all diplomatic ties with the Jewish state due to its conduct in the 2009 Gaza War which left 1,400 Palestinians dead and over 5,000 wounded. Once again referring to the violence as a “Holocaust” and a “flagrant violation of International Law,” Chavez expelled Israel’s ambassador to Venezuela and called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to be tried for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. Shortly thereafter, foreign minister Nicolas Maduro met in Caracas with representatives from the Palestinian National Authority and Venezuela officially recognized the existence of a Palestinian State on April 27, 2009.
By this time Chavez was facing tremendous pressure from the international Jewish cabal and it was clear he had a target on his back. During a nationally broadcast speech in June 2010, Chavez condemned Israel as a “terrorist and murderous state,” and affirmed that “Israel is financing the Venezuelan opposition. There are even groups of Israeli terrorists, of the Mossad, who are after me trying to kill me.” Hugo Chavez died on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58 after a two year battle with cancer. He was succeeded as President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela by Nicolas Maduro who blamed his predecessor’s death on “a US plot.” 3
“Narco-Terrorism”
For months the Trump administration has been trying to claim that Maduro is responsible for trafficking boatloads of drugs into the United States; using the unfounded claim to justify deadly strikes on more than 30 small vessels in the Caribbean and what Trump referred to as “the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” Initially ‘The Donald’ tried claiming the boats were carrying fentanyl and that each extra-judicial U.S. strike would save 25,000 American lives. However, this outlandish conspiracy theory was hampered by the fact that no evidence exists showing that any significant level of fentanyl is produced in South America, as confirmed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
With the fentanyl narrative sinking faster than Maduro’s purported drug boats, the Trump administration pivoted seamlessly to talk of purloined oil and cocaine trafficking. While it’s true Venezuela plays a role in the international cocaine trade, the US doesn’t appear to be a significant destination as no direct trade route via sea is known to exist between the countries. In reality, far more cocaine and fentanyl enters America through Mexico and yet, curiously, socialist president Claudia Sheinbaum’s “narco-government” has thus far failed to register a blip anywhere near as noteworthy as Venezuela’s on Uncle Sam’s regime change radar.
Another overt contradiction in Trump’s ‘war on drugs’ narrative is the federal pardon he granted ex-president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had just recently begun serving a 45-year sentence after being convicted in a New York federal court for drug trafficking and firearms offenses and for receiving millions of dollars in bribes from drug cartels, including a $1 million bribe from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Despite having trafficked an estimated 400 tons of cocaine into the United States over a period of 18 years, Hernandez walked out of prison a free man on December 1, 2025, just days before the Honduran general election in which Trump endorsed Nasry Asfura, the candidate from Hernandez’s Honduran National Party, who himself was indicted by authorities in 2020 on charges of money laundering, embezzling public funds, fraud, and abuse of authority.
Trump’s support for Juan Orlando Hernandez and Nasry Asfura shouldn’t raise any eyebrows coming as it does from the man who pardoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard’s handler and is currently engaged in running interference for an international child sex trafficking ring. Indeed, Trump’s entire life has been spent swimming in the same swamp he promised to drain and now he’s being used as a tool for regime change in Venezuela and soon Iran. Disgraced attorney Alan Dershowitz, who staunchly defended Pollard in his 1991 book Chutzpah, recently told the media that “If President Trump wants to be known as the peace president, he has to be in support of regime change.”
I’m familiar with the arguments put forth by starry-eyed MAGA optimists suggesting there’s some America First motivation informing Trump’s decision-making. However, it seems more likely there’s a deeper play involving Israel that’s the driving force behind the conflict. This was hinted at when Fox News published an article claiming Maduro’s Venezuela has become “Hezbollah’s most important base of operations in the Western Hemisphere, strengthened by Iran’s growing footprint and the Maduro regime’s protection” and again when ultra-Zionist Ambassador Mike Huckabee informed the world that the US overthrow of Maduro was good news for Israel because of his country’s partnership with Iran and Hezbollah. Perhaps this explains why Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez believes the operation was imbued with a ‘Zionist tint’? When viewed in its entirety it’s hard to disagree. Capturing Venezuela’s vast oil reserves might even portend an immediate escalation in the Middle East by diminishing Iran’s primary geopolitical leverage, e.g., blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and I expect to see an escalation on that front in the coming weeks and months.
Whatever the case may be, you can rest assured knowing that the Trump administration is not waging a war on “narco-terrorism,” a completely meaningless propaganda term designed chiefly to promote regime change in Latin America. The illegal narcotics destroying the bodies and minds of Americans young and old are undoubtedly entering the country under CIA and Mossad auspices, just as they were in the 1980s during Iran-Contra when Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton — a “terrific guy” according to Trump — permitted the use of his Mena airstrip for the transport of an extraordinary amount of cocaine into the United States. A highly-placed conspirator within the Iran-Contra nexus was Jewish neoconservative Elliott Abrams (Trump’s US Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 – 2021), who recently advocated for regime change in Venezuela for the purpose of — among other things — reducing drug trafficking! Abrams, who crafted the 1998 PNAC letter demanding the removal of Saddam Hussein, was convicted in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts for his role in the Iran-Contra affair after entering into a plea agreement to avoid felony charges of perjury.
Evidentially, international gun/drug running isn’t much of a concern for Trump, so long as the perpetrators play for the right team. But hey, MAGA, be of good cheer, your white knight’s attack on Venezuela isn’t without its supporters…
NOTES:
- The Jewish Telegraph Agency reported on December 7, 2004 that Anderson “was assassinated in his car by a remote bomb planted in his cell phone… Comparisons of the style of Anderson’s assassination to Israeli targeted killings carried out by Israeli commandos abounded. In the best-known example, Israelis assassinated Hamas bomb-maker Yehiya Ayyash in 1996 using a booby-trapped cell phone.” ↩︎
- According to the World Conference Against Anti-Semitism, Chavez’s pro-government media published “an average of 45 [anti-Semitic] pieces per month” in 2008 and “more than five per day” during the January 2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. In early 2013 dozens of documents were leaked to the press showing that SEBIN, Venezuela’s premier intelligence agency, had been collecting “private information on prominent Venezuelan Jews, local Jewish organizations and Israeli diplomats in Latin America.” ↩︎
- The current leader of Venezuela’s opposition party, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Machado, has said that she is ready to take power. In a recent interview with the newspaper Israel Hayom, Machado was quoted as saying: “Venezuela will be Israel’s closest ally in Latin America. We rely on Israel’s support in dismantling Maduro’s crime regime and in the transition to democracy. Together we’ll lead a global struggle against crime and terror.” ↩︎
Israel is Having a Party After the Capture of Nicolás Maduro

José Niño Unfiltered | January 4, 2026
The recent capture of Nicolás Maduro served as a stark reminder that the true center of gravity in Western power politics is not the White House or the Pentagon, but the interests of a globally dispersed Zionist network that views nation-states as mere instruments in their quest to make the world safe for Jewish supremacy.
Israeli officials across the political spectrum rallied behind President Donald Trump’s successful operation to extract Maduro, with government ministers and opposition figures in the Israeli political establishment celebrating the move as a devastating blow to Iran’s global influence operations.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the praise, posting congratulations on social media that saluted Trump’s “decisive resolve and the brilliant action of your brave soldiers.” Netanyahu’s statement referenced “bold and historic leadership on behalf of freedom and justice” without explicitly naming the Venezuela operation, though the timing left little doubt about his message.
In another press conference, Netanyahu continued to praise the United States’ operation in Venezuela. He proclaimed:
“I express the full support of the Israeli government for the determined decision and decisive action of the United States regarding Venezuela.
This is about restoring freedom and justice to another region of the world.
Across Latin America, we are witnessing a historic shift — countries returning to the American axis and renewing ties with Israel.”
As previously recorded by this author, the strategic reorientation Netanyahu has mentioned is nowhere more evident than in the Isaac Accords, an initiative whose underlying objective is the normalization of a regional order that guarantees Jewish primacy in the Western Hemisphere.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar issued the most comprehensive endorsement from Tel Aviv, commending what he called America’s role as “leader of the free world” in executing the operation. Sa’ar specifically expressed hope for renewed diplomatic relations between Israel and Venezuela, which Caracas severed in 2009 over Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
“Israel commends the United States’ operation, led by President Trump, which acted as the leader of the free world,” Sa’ar wrote. “At this historic moment, Israel stands alongside the freedom-loving Venezuelan people, who have suffered under Maduro’s illegal tyranny.”
The foreign minister continued with pointed language about regional security threats. “Israel welcomes the removal of the dictator who led a network of drugs and terror and hopes for the return of democracy to the country and for friendly relations between the states,” he stated. “The people of Venezuela deserve to exercise their democratic rights. South America deserves a future free from the axis of terror and drugs.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli from the ruling Likud Party drew the most explicit connections between Maduro’s capture and threats facing Israel, framing the operation as a direct message to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“The capture of Nicolás Maduro is not only good news for the people dwelling in Caracas; it is also a devastating blow to the global axis of evil and a clear message to Khamenei,” Chikli declared. He elaborated on Venezuela’s alleged role in funding Iranian proxy networks. “Maduro did not run a country; he ran a criminal and drug empire that directly fueled Hezbollah and Iran.”
Chikli praised Trump’s approach as validation of hardline foreign policy. “President Trump’s decisive steps have once again proven that strong leadership is the only way to subdue dictators,” he wrote. “This is a direct battle between the values of freedom and the West and the dangerous alliance of radical Islam and communism.” He concluded simply that “the world is a safer place today.”
Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party joined the chorus with his own warning to Tehran. “The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela,” Lapid posted, issuing what analysts interpreted as a veiled threat amid ongoing protests in Iran over economic collapse.
Israeli security analysts view Maduro’s removal as potentially restricting Iranian Revolutionary Guard operations against Israeli targets throughout Latin America, cutting off weapons flows to the continent, and disrupting extensive oil smuggling operations between Venezuela and Iran that have helped Tehran evade sanctions.
The American political establishment, whose policies are demonstrably subservient to world Jewry, responded with equally fervent praise, viewing the capture of Nicolas Maduro as a significant strategic victory for the state of Israel.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee delivered some of the most forceful American praise for the operation, explicitly linking the Venezuela action to security concerns in his diplomatic posting. Speaking on Newsmax, Huckabee opened his reaction with religious fervor. “Well, my first reaction was to say, praise the Lord and thank you, President Trump,” the ambassador stated.
He then explained why Americans should view Venezuela through a Middle Eastern security lens. “A lot of people may not make the connection as to why this matters to us in the Middle East,” Huckabee said. “What they don’t know is that Hezbollah is very active in Venezuela.” The ambassador detailed the Iran connection that Israeli officials had emphasized. “There has been a 20-year partnership between Iran and Venezuela,” he explained. “The ties are deep, and Hezbollah operates in 12 different countries throughout South America.” In his conclusion remarks, Huckabee contended that the operation represented a global victory. “Good news for America, good news for the world,” he declared.
Welcome to Empire Judaica.
The chorus of approval from Israel and its advocates lays bare the grim reality for the American people: they are not citizens of a sovereign nation but unwitting actors in a geopolitical drama where they play supporting roles in a global imperium built for and by organized Jewry.
Israel and the politics of fragmentation: The hidden hand behind secessionist projects in Yemen, Somalia, and Libya
By Ahmed Asmar | MEMO | January 3, 2026
Israel’s malicious, meddling role in the Arab countries has long extended beyond direct military confrontation, as seen in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. For long, Tel Aviv has pursued a quieter yet dangerous strategy of encouraging fragmentation, weakening central states, and cultivating ties with separatist actors in fragile and war-torn countries. Today, this pattern is increasingly clear and visible in Yemen, Somalia, and Libya; three countries that suffer from prolonged conflicts, administrative collapse, and foreign interference. In each case, Israel’s footprint is not accidental; it serves a broader strategic doctrine aimed at dividing Arab countries, controlling critical waterways, and reshaping the regional balance of power to its advantage and dominance.
Yemen: secession as a gateway to normalisation
In Yemen, Israel’s indirect involvement surfaces through its alignment with the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC), a secessionist entity seeking to reestablish an independent state in southern Yemen. While the Yemeni conflict is often framed as a regional proxy war, the STC’s leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, has openly, and on several occasions, signaled willingness to normalize relations with Israel. He publicly declared that recognizing Israel is not an obstacle if southern Yemen’s independence is achieved; an extraordinary statement that was slammed by many Yemeni public figures and politicians.
This declaration is not merely rhetorical. Yemen’s southern geography grants access to some of the most sensitive maritime corridors in the world, particularly near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. For Israel, influence over forces operating near this chokepoint aligns with its long-standing objective of securing Red Sea navigation and countering its perceived regional adversaries. Supporting or encouraging secessionist forces in southern Yemen offers Israel a strategic foothold without formal military deployment, turning internal Yemeni fragmentation into a geopolitical asset, and posing a direct threat against the Arab countries, especially the littoral countries of the Red Sea – Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Somalia: Somaliland and the militarisation of recognition
Somalia presents an even clearer case of Israel exploiting separatism for strategic gain. The self-declared Republic of Somaliland, unrecognised by the international community, has actively sought foreign backing to legitimise its secession. Israel’s contacts and recognition of Somaliland’s de-facto authorities mark a dangerous precedent in international relations, and against the international law and the UN charter.
The strategic motivation is transparent. Somaliland’s coastline also overlooks the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned of the Israeli malicious plan behind such recognition, where he said that Israel seeks from recognising Somaliland to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, who experienced a two-year genocide, and most importantly, to host an Israeli military or intelligence base. These plans are added to the dangers of undermining Somalia’s territorial integrity and encouraging further fragmentations across the Horn of Africa.
Israel’s move to recognize a secessionist entity reflects how Israel exploits weak entities and divided states to move ahead with its expansionist and dominance strategies at the expense of the region and its people.
Libya: Haftar and the normalisation through the back door
Not far from the examples in Yemen and Somalia, in Libya, Israel’s role is more discreet but visible too. General Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya and has long sought international legitimacy, reportedly maintained contacts with Israeli officials as part of efforts to secure external backing. These interactions fit within a wider pattern of covert normalization between Israel and authoritarian or factional actors seeking foreign support in exchange for political concessions.
Libya’s fragmentation has turned it into fertile ground for foreign manipulation. Israel’s engagement with Haftar is surely not about peace or stability, but about influence, leverage, and having a close foot near its surrounding Arab countries.
Fragmentation as a strategic doctrine
Altogether, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya illustrate a consistent Israeli strategy: exploiting internal conflicts to advance a regional agenda based on fragmentation. This approach intersects with Israel’s ongoing territorial expansion and military aggression, from its occupation of Palestinian land to its violations of sovereignty in Syria and Lebanon. Fragmented Arab states are less capable of resisting Israeli policies and more exposed to normalization under opportunistic conditions.
Israel’s encouragement of secessionist movements is not about supporting self-determination; it is about redrawing the region into weaker, smaller entities incapable of collective action. This strategy directly threatens Arab national security as a whole, adding a new dimension to Israel’s expansionism.
At a time when the Arab world faces unprecedented challenges, recognising and confronting this hidden hand of fragmentation is essential. While ignoring Israel’s role in these secessionist projects risks allowing instability to become permanent, solely in favor of Israel in the region and beyond.
U.S. Ambassador To Israel, Mike Huckabee, Boasts That Regime Change In Venezuela Is Good For Israel.
The Dissident | January 3, 2026
On a recent appearance on Newsmax, the American Christian Zionist ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, boasted that Trump’s recent kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, was good for Israel.
In the interview, Huckabee boasted, “A lot of people may not make the connection as to why this matters to us in the Middle East, what they don’t know is that Hezbollah is very active in Venezuela, there has been a 20-year partnership between Iran and Venezuela… the ties are deep.”
Huckabee boasted that Trump’s regime change operation “Is going to make life for us much safer in the Middle East.”
Israel’s support for American wars in the Middle East is well known, but its support for war in Venezuela is often less discussed.
But just as Israel wants to take out states in the Middle East that were too sympathetic to Palestinians, they have also wanted to take out Venezuela due to the country’s support for Palestinians and Palestinian resistance under Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro.
As Middle East Eye noted in 2019, “Israel wants to see Maduro overthrown in Venezuela”.
The outlet noted that, “the US-Israeli support for overthrowing Maduro is part of a larger agenda to cement an anti-Palestinian campaign in Latin America at the expense of the Venezuelan people.”
The outlet noted that this was because “Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination was at its height during the Chavez years up until today, with the leadership making outspoken criticism of Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. Venezuela severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 over its military campaign in Gaza.”
A recent article in the outlet Israel Hayom, an Israeli newspaper funded by Zionist mega donor Miriam Addison- who Trump recently boasted “gave my campaign $250 million”- explained why Israel wants regime change in Venezuela, writing, “Since Hugo Chávez’s rise to power, Venezuela has become one of the most hostile countries to Israel and Zionism in Latin America” adding that Chavez, “severed diplomatic relations with Israel during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, accused Israel of ‘genocide against the Palestinian people’ and compared its policies to Nazi conduct”.
The outlet added that Maduro, “continued the anti-Israeli line with even more intensity. Thus, Venezuela, which previously maintained warm relations with Israel and even purchased security technologies from it, became a center of hostile propaganda toward Zionism”.
For this reason, Israel long cultivated a close relationship with Maria Corina Machado the U.S. asset in Venezuela who was used as a tool to advance Trump’s recent kidnapping of Maduro, and who hoped to be installed by the U.S. and Israel, only to be snubbed by Trump who said after the operation that she, “doesn’t have the support” to be installed as the leader of Venezuela.
Israel’s ruling Likud party, as far back as 2020, signed a cooperation agreement with Machado’s Vente Venezuela party, which promised to “bring the people of Israel closer to the people of Venezuela while advancing, together, the Western values to which both parties subscribe: freedom, liberty, and a market economy.”
In the aforementioned article in Israel Hayom, Machado promised that Venezuela will be “Israel’s closest ally in Latin America” if Maduro is removed and even heavily implied that Israel was directly taking part in the regime change operation, saying, “We rely on Israel’s support in dismantling Maduro’s crime regime”.
When asked by Israel Hayom how “Israel can support freedom movements in Venezuela without being accused of interference,” Machado signalled that Israel was already interfering in Venezuela and taking part in the regime change operation, saying, “Defending freedom, individual liberties, and democracy isn’t interference … Israel understands this”.
While oil is the most obvious motivation behind the kidnapping of Maduro, getting rid of one of the” hostile countries to Israel and Zionism in Latin America” and returning Venezuela to when it “maintained warm relations with Israel and even purchased security technologies from it” has undoubtedly played a role as well.
Proxy Regime: Understanding the UAE-Israeli Conspiracy in Yemen, Saudi Arabia
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 2, 2026
The reason why the recent feud between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen is important is that it paves the way to a totally different reality on the ground.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia were once viewed as a unified power in Yemen; any semblance of such an alliance is now crumbling. As Riyadh and Abu Dhabi remain at loggerheads, it is clear that Tel Aviv is a key driver of the escalation across Yemeni territory.
Saudi Arabia had recently released a sternly worded statement condemning their Gulf neighbors in the United Arab Emirates, following the armed takeover of the Hadramaut and al-Mahra provinces by the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces. Saudi airstrikes were also launched, largely on soft targets as a warning, which prompted the UAE to announce the withdrawal of all its forces from the country.
The war in Yemen is one of the most underreported and misrepresented conflicts in the region, which often makes it difficult to decipher what is truly transpiring. What is important to understand here is that Abu Dhabi’s role inside Yemen is in large part driven by Israeli interests, which will not only potentially lead to blowback against the UAE itself, but also aims to destabilize the entire Arabian Peninsula. This is part and parcel of forging a way forward toward the “Greater Israel Project”.
The reason why the recent feud between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen is important is that it paves the way to a totally different reality on the ground. In 2015, the Ansarallah movement took over the Yemeni capital of Sana’a and received the backing of roughly two-thirds of the nation’s armed forces in doing so.
As a revolutionary Islamic movement, Ansarallah’s seizure of power was interpreted as an immediate challenge to the rulers across Arabia. Considering the long history of violence between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in particular, it was no surprise that tensions immediately rose. Yet, the Saudi-led coalition that initiated the war on Yemen to overthrow the newly ushered in Ansarallah leadership (often incorrectly referred to as “the Houthis”), was not driven by its own interests alone.
In fact, the US, UK, and Israel were in the picture from the very start and it was former American President Barack Obama who gave the green light for the war, which eventually resulted in the deaths of around 400,000 people. Saudi Arabia, for its part, decided to back the deposed president of Yemen, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, using his position and control over what is called the “internationally recognized government” of Yemen as its excuse for legitimacy for action inside the country.
The United Arab Emirates had instead thrown its weight behind southern separatists in Yemen’s south, with the goal of securing the strategic port city of Aden. Prior to 1990, Yemen was divided between north and south, yet there has always been the presence of separatist elements there. Without delving into the nation’s long history, the British had strategically occupied southern Yemen, utilizing the strategic port of Aden as a tool of empire; the UAE clearly sees the geostrategic weight of this location also.
After years of horrifying war, mass starvation due to the Saudi-US-imposed blockade, and a situation that began to come to a stalemate, by early 2022 Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government had not only established a strong, rooted rule, but the Yemeni Armed Forces under its command had clearly made breakthroughs in military technology. It had launched devastating long-range drone and missile attacks against not only Saudi Arabia, but also the UAE, even making a point of striking the Emiratis while Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited.
It wasn’t long until a ceasefire was reached, brokered by the United Nations, one that has largely held until now. Following the ceasefire, in April of 2022, the Saudi government created what is known as the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). The PLC’s leader, sometimes referred to as the internationally recognized president of Yemen, is a man named Rashad al-Alimi, presiding over an eight-member council that is not elected by the Yemeni people.
The PLC, or “internationally recognized government,” was then based in Aden, and three of its seats were granted to members of the Emirati proxy group called the STC, the separatist militia that Abu Dhabi backed to seize Aden. Despite promising prosperity to the people in southern Yemen and not being under the same sanctions as Ansarallah’s government in Sana’a, the living conditions in the south continued to deteriorate and have since led to countless protests and even riots.
In early December, the STC suddenly swept over the eastern provinces of al-Mahra and Hadramaut, even forcing some Saudi-backed PLC officials to flee Aden. The Emirati proxy separatists have since openly declared their intent to divide Yemen and separate southern Yemen from the north, which is controlled by Ansarallah. This takeover meant that some 80% of the country’s oil resources fell into the hands of the Emirati-backed STC.
The takeover of these provinces also proved a massive threat to both Saudi and Omani security in the eyes of their leadership. The primary armed faction that fights for the southern separatist cause is called the “Southern Giants Brigades”, a large element of which are Salafist extremists, with former Al-Qaeda fighters forming the most experienced core of the militant organization.
Just as the UAE has been backing ISIS-linked gangs in the Gaza Strip to fight Hamas, it utilizes Salafist extremists in Yemen to fight its battles for it also. Evidently, such a powerful militia force is viewed rightly as a threat to regional stability.
Riyadh saw these recent developments as a major challenge to its regional project and stability. Not only because of the potential issues along its border, but also the birth of a new reality on the ground inside Yemen that will further weaken the “internationally recognized government” that they back.
If the UAE’s proxy forces succeed, despite the Emiratis withdrawing their own forces, then the STC will push for separation and undermine the Saudis’ role entirely. There is also a good chance that the Emirati proxy forces will launch an offensive aimed at seizing the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah from Ansarallah. Israel was seeking this outcome in early 2025, when it convinced the Trump administration to fight Ansarallah on its behalf, an attack which resulted in a resounding failure.
The Israelis not only maintain close ties with the Emirati-backed STC but have also directly participated in training their forces. Israel and the UAE have also established joint military positions in areas of Yemen, like the island of Socotra.
Recently, Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland as a nation. Little attention has been paid to the fact that the UAE has quietly recognized Somaliland also; in fact, the UAE-Israeli cooperation and support for the separatist movement in Somalia goes well beyond recognition.
The Somaliland connection is key here. Some analysts have mentioned the value of the Berbera Port area to Israel and focused on the Israeli desire to build a military presence there for the sake of attacking Yemen. While this is true, it was actually the UAE that began to build the Berbera airbase in Somaliland back in 2017 and has invested greatly in establishing a military foothold there.
The UAE-Israeli alliance to establish dominance in North Africa and the Horn of Africa is directly tied to Yemen. So much so that the Emiratis used militants from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—who are currently carrying out genocidal acts against the people of their own country—to fight in Yemen against Ansarallah.
All of this being said, if the UAE proxy forces succeed, it will certainly prove a major issue and lead to enormous bloodshed, yet the STC will not likely defeat Ansarallah, even with high-altitude air support provided by Israel. In fact, once Saudi Arabia is effectively out of the picture, Ansarallah will have one primary enemy to confront with full force: the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE, unlike Saudi Arabia, is a tiny country that is primarily made up of immigrants and foreign workers; it does not have a capable military, despite its Hollywood-style parades that it uses to try and demonstrate this. A sustained missile and drone attack campaign from the Yemeni Armed Forces will very likely be enough to force the UAE to wave the white flag.
Even if some kind of agreement is eventually reached as a result of the UAE being battered into submission—one that does not bring about an Ansarallah takeover that unifies the country—the Saudis will end up having to sign an agreement with Sana’a to properly end the conflict.
Riyadh understood this all well, which is why it quickly acted to draw red lines. It is more in Saudi Arabia’s interests to keep the status quo for now, because the UAE’s moves could end up creating a nightmare situation for it in the future. Saudi Arabia does not want a strong, unified Yemen under the control of Ansarallah; it will only accept a Yemeni leadership that bows to it, and like past Yemeni governments, bows to the West, while refusing to utilize the nation’s immense resource wealth and harness the power of its location.
Israel, on the other hand, most certainly will not accept a united Yemen under Ansarallah’s rule, but is adamant about “making them pay” for daring to impose a Red Sea blockade and fight in defense of Gaza. Therefore, the Israelis are willing to work with the UAE to totally destabilize the region in order to take a stab at dealing a major blow to Ansarallah and asserting their dominance.
It is unclear where exactly this is all heading, but it is possible that we may eventually see a drastic change in the situation on the ground, one which will perhaps lead to Saudi Arabia adopting a different posture toward the UAE altogether. It also appears that Tel Aviv is angry about Riyadh refusing to normalize ties, which could well have factored into this latest move. It is important to consider that the Emiratis will not move a fingernail without Israeli approval in this regard; they are, in essence, a proxy regime of Tel Aviv at this point.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
An Israeli role in the Trump-Epstein files controversy?
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | January 2, 2026
Given the gravity of the newly emerging evidence about US President Donald Trump’s connections to the infamous Jeffrey Epstein, many questions are now being posed about the implications of this case on the American leader’s conduct. Of specific concern is whether the Israelis have any hand in influencing Washington in this matter.
Although the recent groundbreaking revelations, proving Jeffrey Epstein’s dealings with the Israeli regime, have been completely ignored by the Western corporate media, the facts are the facts. Long branded nothing more than “conspiracy theories”, leaked documents, first obtained by the Handala hacker group, prove that amongst other affiliations, the infamous child sex trafficker and financer had made efforts to help former Israeli Premier, Ehud Barak, to overthrow the then Syrian government.
These documents, reported upon only in the independent media, should raise alarm bells about just how far the Israeli rabbit hole goes. It is clear by now that Epstein himself was a staunch supporter of the Israeli regime, maintained close ties to it and its officials, even going as far as helping to draft op-eds for a former Israeli Prime Minister.
On the other hand, as more information emerges about Donald Trump’s relationship with the infamous pedophile financier, the potential implications for his role grow increasingly serious. Trump, for his part, has throughout this year decided to shrug off the Epstein Files issue, arguing that it is a “hoax” and snapping at reporters when the issue is brought up. The American President has also claimed that it is mainly Democrats who were guilty in this case, an allegation he makes when he isn’t labelling it a “Democrat hoax”.
Trump’s usual antics of pivoting to blame “the Democrats” aren’t paying off for him in this instance however, as his base quarrel with the facts that continue to emerge. For example, back in 2024, Trump had claimed that “I was never on Epstein’s plane”, only for this to be disproven later. More recently, it was revealed that he had been on board the child sex trafficker’s plane far more times than previously believed.
Evidently, there is not enough evidence to deem the US President actually guilty and lock him in jail, but the documents do indeed beg further questions to say the least. For example, a letter was recently released, handwritten by Epstein and addressed to convicted child molester Larry Nassar, in which he wrote of Trump that he ‘shares our love for young, nubile girls’.
There was even a document alleging that Trump and Epstein had raped a girl. Although the Department Of Justice (DOJ) has downplayed the claim, said to date back decades, the allegation is made more disturbing by reports that the alleged victim was later found dead. While there is no way to substantiate this accusation, it doesn’t exactly look good for the President.
There are currently countless theories being spread about the Trump-Epstein case, one of the most popular is that the US President was caught up in a blackmail scheme. For this specific allegation, there is no documented evidence. Yet, it is certainly a natural conclusion to come to.
At the very least, it would certainly suit Israeli interests to leverage the negative press surrounding the Epstein Files to push the President into conceding to further demands, or even use the issue as media coverage for their own aggressive actions.
Although this theory is currently unproven, if the Israeli intelligence or even US intelligence, had any knowledge of the Epstein Files, or had managed to collect incriminating material from the pro-Israeli child sex trafficker, they could certainly be willing to use that information to their benefit. The worst-case scenario here would be that the theories regarding Epstein being a Mossad agent, used to secure blackmail on power people, is true, then that would certainly mean that the US is in for a world of trouble.
Unproven theories aside, the evidence is certainly shocking and it is clear that Epstein did indeed have ties to Israelis, while Trump’s campaign was bankrolled by a who’s who of Zionist Billionaire’s, including the infamous Miriam Adelson. In less than a year, Trump had already bombed Iran, fought a small war against Yemen, cracked down on his own people’s First Amendment rights, while implementing a vision for Gaza that makes him the de facto dictator there and uses US forces to do the dirty work of the Israelis.
If anything, Donald Trump has shown himself to be an extremely weak President, one that is easily bullied into submission, so even without the Epstein Files, he has been willing to toss the American Constitution and International Law in the bin. All of this does beg the question as to whether the Israelis will be able to effectively weaponize the Epstein debacle to their favor and extract their demands.
Did Netanyahu just ask Trump for another war — and get it?
By Trita Parsi – Responsible Statecraft – December 30, 2025
During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said that he will allow Israel to attack Iran once again to strike its ballistic missiles.
But what exactly does that mean? Will the U.S. be involved in the actual strikes? Will it “limit” its involvement to shooting down Iran’s retaliatory missiles?
If the former, Trump is not just “allowing” Israel to strike; the U.S. will actually be at war with Iran. This would be a betrayal of his promise to his base to keep America out of wars (he has, of course, violated that already).
Moreover, unlike the nuclear program, which incorporates a small number of known facilities, the missile program is spread throughout the country in a large number of hidden facilities, many of them probably unknown to the U.S./Israel.
Thus, Trump will likely not be able to frame this as mere “military action” rather than war. Nor will he likely be able to negotiate with Tehran a limited Iranian response since the missiles are Iran’s last line of defense — the last leg of its deterrence.
Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario. Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.
Even if Trump opts to “only” support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so.
The cost to the United States is great even in this scenario. Washington depleted 25% of its THAAD interceptors in the course of 12 days this past summer — for Israel’s war of choice, in a region four American Presidents have declared no longer is vital to U.S. national security.
As I wrote last week, every time Trump caves to Netanyahu and agrees to another war, it only prompts Israel to come back to Trump after a few months with another war plan for Americans to give their blood and tax dollars to.
This will go on endlessly until Trump decides to end it.
Trita Parsi is an Iranian-born Swedish writer and activist, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and founder and former president of the National Iranian American Council
Trump Says Hamas Will Be Given a ‘Short Period of Time’ to Disarm
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 30, 2025
President Donald Trump said that Hamas will be given a short period of time to disarm, threatening to be “hell to pay” if the Palestinian group refuses.
During a Press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump was asked about demilitarizing Hamas. “They will be given a very short period of time to disarm. If they don’t disarm, as they agreed to do, there will be hell to pay,” he said. If Hamas does not disarm, “it will be horrible for them, horrible. It’s going to be really, really bad for them.”
Trump suggested that Hamas would be disarmed by Middle Eastern countries, rather than the US or Israel, which are willing to commit forces to demilitarize Gaza.
However, Hamas did not agree to disarm under the October agreement. At the time, a US official told Fox News that the Israel and Hamas ceasefire agreement was negotiated at “lightning speed” and did not address several key issues. Two outstanding questions are what group will secure Gaza and whether Hamas will disarm.
Hamas has maintained that it will only disarm if it is in the process of creating an independent Palestinian state.
Since the signing of the truce earlier this year, Tel Aviv has taken several steps to block the creation of a Palestinian state, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeated his long-standing position against the two-state solution.

