Explainer: How is Trump’s 20-point Gaza ‘plan’ dangerously tilted in Israel’s favor
By Hamid Javadi | Press TV | October 1, 2025
US President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a 20-point proposal for post-war Gaza that is dangerously skewed in favor of the Israeli regime and ignores Palestinian realities.
At its core, the plan demands Hamas disarm within 72 hours of a ceasefire, release all captives, and accept a phased Israeli troop withdrawal.
But here’s the catch: there’s no binding commitment to end the military occupation, no clear roadmap for Palestinian sovereignty or right to self-determination of Palestinians and no guarantee that Israel won’t resume its genocidal aggression once its captives are returned.
The much-hyped “plan” that has been welcomed by a group of Muslim countries demands Palestinian surrender without offering sovereignty, envisions the so-called economic development built on displacement, and leaves the door open for continued Israeli occupation.
Trump, who has long eyed Gaza as waterfront property on the Mediterranean, touted the proposal as “a peace plan,” but beneath its diplomatic gloss lies a blueprint that has been designed keeping in view long-term Israeli and American interests.
Under the deal, Israel would release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences, in exchange for all 48 Israeli captives held by Hamas — both living and deceased — within 72 hours of a ceasefire taking effect.
How does Hamas or Palestinians appear in Trump’s plan?
The proposal, which has grabbed headlines in world media in the past two days, calls for the Hamas resistance movement to relinquish all governing roles in Gaza and lay down its weapons, a condition the group has previously ruled out unless a sovereign Palestinian state is established and the aspirations of Palestinians are taken into account.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed to the plan at a press conference with Trump at the White House on Monday, even as Israeli regime forces continued to rain down bombs on Palestinians across Gaza.
However, speaking to Israeli media later, Netanyahu ruled out the military withdrawal, saying that it “is not going to happen.” It came even before Hamas’ official reaction to the plan.
Hamas’s negotiating team said it was studying the plan. However, a Hamas official told Reuters that Trump’s proposal was “completely biased to Israel” and imposed “impossible conditions” that aimed to eliminate the resistance group, a longtime objective of Netanyahu.
“What Trump has proposed is the full adoption of all Israeli conditions, which do not grant the Palestinian people or the residents of the Gaza Strip any legitimate rights,” the Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity.
While Hamas has frequently said it would welcome any initiative that ends the genocidal war on Gaza — which has killed more than 66,000 since October 2023, mostly women and children — it has every reason to be skeptical.
Last time Hamas leaders were reviewing Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire, Israeli warplanes bombed their headquarters in Qatar, a key mediator in negotiations between the Palestinian resistance movement and the Tel Aviv regime.
So, while Netanyahu has endorsed Trump’s new proposal, he has rejected the only two terms in the plan that could give Hamas a reason to accept the deal: the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces (though conditional and gradual) and the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
What does the plan say about Israeli occupation?
A day after he gave his backing to Trump’s plan, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would remain in most of Gaza.
“We will recover all our hostages, alive and well, while the (Israeli military) will remain in most of the Gaza Strip,” he said in a video statement on Tuesday.
This isn’t the only point of friction. Netanyahu also said he would never allow the creation of a Palestinian state, yet the White House document includes language about a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” if the deal is fully implemented.
“It’s not written in the agreement,” Netanyahu claimed, saying that Israel would “strongly oppose” such a move. He insisted that Trump shared this view.
This is a nonstarter for Palestinians. As Ziyad al-Nakhalah, leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, put it, “Israel is trying to impose through the United States what it was unable to achieve through war.”
What does Netanyahu want in Gaza?
Netanyahu appears to be trying to have it both ways: Publicly embracing the deal to pressure Hamas, while privately rejecting its most fundamental terms.
It’s a familiar tactic. The Israeli prime minister, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, has a track record of endorsing negotiations and ceasefire proposals, and at the same time making contradictory statements to kill the momentum.
Captive families, humanitarian groups, and even some Israeli regime officials have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political gains. Hamas says the Israeli prime minister has used negotiations as a smokescreen for continued genocide in Gaza.
In February, Israel kept stalling the second phase of a ceasefire agreement that had already begun by violating terms related to troop withdrawal and humanitarian aid delivery.
Trump’s latest proposal does not address the root causes of the protracted issue — namely, the occupation and the apartheid oppression of the Palestinian people.
How does Trump’s plan address displacement?
The plan is largely driven by Trump’s desire to build a Dubai-style wonderland on the wasteland of Gaza. Though the plan claims “no one will be forced to leave Gaza,” Trump’s vision for Gaza — as publicly announced in the past — is premised on the forced displacement of the native populace.
The more Palestinians are forcibly removed from their land, the cheaper the project becomes to implement.
A reconstruction and economic blueprint for Gaza, published by The Washington Post, estimates that $23,000 will be saved for every Palestinian who leaves.
Trump had previously floated the idea that he would send the US military into Gaza to clear the territory of its residents by force if necessary. Those remarks sparked a fierce global backlash.
The White House text says, “a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.”
“A special economic zone will be established, with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries,” it specifies.
What is the role of Tony Blair in Trump’s plan?
That’s where former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also enters the frame. As part of Trump’s plan, Gaza will be governed by “a temporary technocratic committee,” made up of Palestinians and international experts, supervised by a new transitional body called the “Board of Peace.”
That board will be headed and chaired by Trump himself, with other members and heads of state, including Blair.
Blair is back in business once again, nearly two decades after he presented a 34-page document that outlined a “corridor for peace and prosperity,” which envisioned an agro-industrial park in the occupied West Bank.
Blair promised at the time that more such packages would be unveiled over time. He was forced to resign from office later largely as a result of the Iraq War. He has reportedly been advising the White House about Trump’s latest plan for Gaza.
Blair has reportedly been in contact with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to work out the details. His role in Trump’s plans for Gaza has been criticized by Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian rights across the world.
Earlier this year, the Tony Blair Institute supported a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone” as part of a post-war plan for Gaza.
The plan included paying half a million Palestinians to leave their homelands to create room for private investors to develop Gaza into a money-making tourist hub.
What did Trump tell Hamas?
Trump issued an ultimatum of “three to four days” to Hamas on Tuesday to respond to his proposal. The US president threatened that he would let Israel “go and do what they have to do” in Gaza if Hamas rejects the deal.
“They could do it pretty easily,” he claimed.
Hamas is still reviewing the proposal. But with Netanyahu signaling that Israel won’t accept the deal’s core conditions, the path to peace remains as murky as ever.
Israel re-arrests 40 Palestinians released under Gaza ceasefire agreement
An Israeli soldier forces a blind-folded Palestinian man into an armored vehicle in the occupied West Bank, September 2025. (Photo by Anadolu Agency)
Press TV -September 30, 2025
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) reported that Israeli forces have re-arrested 40 Palestinians who were previously freed under a ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
According to a report released by PPS on Tuesday, Israeli troops carried out large-scale overnight raids across several areas of the occupied West Bank, targeting those released under the March 18 Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
During the raids, Israeli forces re-arrested at least 40 Palestinians, 16 of whom remain locked up under the regime’s so-called “administrative detention” — a practice that permits indefinite imprisonment without charge, trial, or legal representation.
Among those re-arrested was 59-year-old Hanan Barghouti, the sister of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner.
She was abducted early Tuesday after troops stormed her family home in Kobar, near Ramallah, violently ransacking the house and destroying personal belongings.
Another Palestinian held by Israel is Wael al-Jaghoub from Nablus, who spent 23 years in Israeli prisons before his 2025 release.
PPS described the escalation as part of a “systematic policy and a clear violation of the exchange deal, sending a message to all released detainees that they remain under constant targeting and surveillance.”
The organization condemned these measures as a deliberate policy aimed at keeping released abductees under continuous stress.
The Prisoners Club noted that some individuals have been detained and interrogated multiple times, reflecting a longstanding Israeli policy towards freed Palestinian prisoners.
Palestinian authorities report that at least 61 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the regime’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, including a 17-year-old who doctors say likely succumbed to starvation in March
Palestinian officials noted that Israel is currently detaining roughly 11,100 Palestinians, including 53 women, nearly 400 children, 3,577 administrative detainees, and over 2,600 from Gaza labeled as “unlawful combatants.
A Palestine Detainees Studies Center report said that approximately 60 percent of Palestinian abductees held in Israeli jails are afflicted with chronic illnesses, with several of them having died either during their detention or following their release as a result of the severity of their conditions.
Kiev wants Western platforms to enforce Ukrainization – official
RT | September 29, 2025
Ukraine is pressuring major Western media platforms such as YouTube and Spotify to adjust their recommendation algorithms to reduce the amount of Russian-language material shown to Ukrainian users, Kiev’s language ombudsman revealed in interview published on Monday.
Speaking to RBC-Ukraine, Elena Ivanovskaya claimed that Russian content “is not just entertainment, it’s a soft power that subliminally affects consciousness, normalizes aggression, [and] deludes identity.”
She argued that when platforms recommend Russian songs or TV series to Ukrainians, “it is not a choice, but manipulation,” and called for policies ensuring that “Russian products do not sound in the background and form unconscious habits.”
Recommendation algorithms typically maximize user engagement by promoting content popular or trending within a demographic group to users from the same group. Ivanovskaya said that allowing this to favor Russian media undermines Ukraine’s cultural identity.
Since the 2014 Western-backed armed coup in Kiev, Ukrainian authorities have pursued policies aimed at reducing the use of Russian – a language spoken by much of the population – in public life. Laws require Ukrainian in media, education, and commerce, and officials have nudged citizens to use Ukrainian in private settings as well.
Ivanovskaya said her office is encouraging parents to raise their children speaking Ukrainian because “if the mom puts the ‘shackles of the Russian language’ on her kid, removing them later would be difficult.” The state, she said, must be “uncompromising,” not only opposing Russian content, but also “going on the offensive by supporting the Ukrainian product,” so that “every sphere of life is made pro-Ukrainian through a concise, deliberate legislative effort.”
She rejected accusations of censorship, insisting Ukrainians have “made their civilizational choice,” while acknowledging that Russian-language use has recently increased.
Moscow has accused Kiev of attempting to eradicate Russian culture and says ending such discriminative policies is one of its key objectives in the ongoing conflict.
THE ATTACK ON GEORGE AND GAYATRI GALLOWAY
PARTY STATEMENT ON CENSORSHIP AND INTIMIDATION
Workers Party of Britain | September 28, 2025
Our party believes in freedom of speech and defends the Rights won by our parents, grandparents and previous generations that allow us to speak our minds and challenge those in power. British people are proud of their freedoms.
In recent years these freedoms have been eroded. It has gone too far.
Our Party Leader George Galloway and Deputy Chair of our Members Council Gayatri Galloway were yesterday detained and denied legal services whilst held at Gatwick airport.
Neither under arrest nor allowed to leave, the Workers Party was prevented from providing legal support as officers seized personal items.
In recent months our One State Palestine (https://t.me/OneStatePalestine) and No 2 NATO (https://t.me/no2nato) campaigns have both been banned from X and suppressed on other platforms. In recent years our meetings have been cancelled, even at so-called free speech venues like Conway Hall.
During election campaigning our members have been physically assaulted, suffered hit and run attacks and abuse. All of this is documented in the press and known to the police.
We are not unique. From the Right and Left individuals and organisations of all types face censorship and intimidation. The only people left alone are the extreme liberals who seek to police everything, even the English language.
No matter what they do, the ruling elite cannot stop the forward march of history. Russia has won in Ukraine, China has won the technology race, Israel is exposed as a genocidal outpost of the old colonial world.
Britain needs to replace those who seek to censor and intimidate us. We need working class leaders who can chart a new peaceful path of development.
If you agree, you should join,
👍 https://www.workerspartygb.org/join
📱 Subscribe here https://t.me/workerspartybritain
Netanyahu admits Israel weaponizes social media to manipulate US public opinion
Press TV – September 27, 2025
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has admitted that his regime has been using social media platforms to dominate US political discourse and secure unconditional support for its genocidal war on Gaza.
Speaking at a closed-door meeting with US influencers at Israel’s Consulate General in New York, Netanyahu was filmed describing social media as “the most important weapon … to secure our base in the US.”
The head of the Israeli regime singled out TikTok as “the most important purchase going on right now,” claiming that whoever controls this Chinese app will wield “consequential” influence.
He also claimed that gaining influence over TikTok and X would allow Israel to “get a lot.”
Netanyahu’s remarks came just a day after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order certifying a deal to transfer TikTok’s US operations to an American investor consortium including Oracle, Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch.
Concerns have since mounted that Oracle founder Larry Ellison—a staunch supporter of the Israeli regime—could ensure the platform’s power is exploited to advance the regime’s coordinated propaganda efforts.
The move comes as Israel faces mounting isolation over its genocidal war on Gaza, where more than 65,600 Palestinians—most of them women and children—have been killed since October 2023.
At the 80th UN General Assembly this week, Netanyahu addressed a largely empty hall after numerous delegations staged a walkout in protest of his regime’s war on Gaza, now entering its third year.
Euro-Med: Israel blackmails Gaza families, forcing them to choose between cooperation or death
Palestinian Information Center – September 27, 2025
GAZA – The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has accused the Israeli occupation regime of pursuing a dangerous policy of extortion against Gazan families, forcing them to choose between two catastrophic options, either to cooperate with Israeli forces and their militias or face killing, starvation and displacement.
In a statement on Saturday, Euro-Med described this policy as “an escalating genocidal pattern that has shifted from individual coercion to collective extortion aimed at dismantling the social fabric of Palestinians.”
This policy “involves pressuring individuals to betray their society, destroy social bonds, and subject survivors to conditions that destroy their collective identity and their ability to stay alive,” Euro-Med added.
Euro-Med affirmed that its field team documented an unprecedented escalation in Israel’s use of extortion tactics against Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip. “Entire families are facing a horrific dilemma, either to join militias formed by Israel or face persecution, mass killing, starvation and forced displacement, as part of a systematic effort to dismantle the Palestinian society and force it to yield to the will of the Israeli occupation.”
Euro-Med said that Gazan families are explicitly threatened with death if they do not comply with the Israeli occupation army’s orders.
Euro-Med called on all countries to shoulder their legal responsibilities and take urgent action to stop Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza, provide the Palestinian population with protection, and ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the International Court of Justice’s rulings.
Visual evidence shatters Israeli claims over attack on Gaza hospital
Al Mayadeen | September 27, 2025
A Reuters investigation into the Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Gaza has dismantled the occupation’s official narrative of the massacre. Visual evidence and corroborating reports reveal that the camera targeted as a supposed Hamas asset was in fact owned and operated by Reuters, routinely used by one of its journalists.
The strike on August 25 killed 22 Palestinians, including six journalists. Israeli occupation forces reportedly planned the attack using drone footage that allegedly showed a Hamas camera. However, Reuters’ findings indicate the footage actually depicted the agency’s own camera, used consistently by its reporter.
After Reuters presented its investigation, an Israeli military official admitted that troops had acted without the required approval from the senior regional commander in Gaza. “The troops acted without the required approval of the senior regional commander in charge of operations in Gaza,” the official told Reuters, acknowledging a breach of command protocol.
The day of the harrowing massacre
The day after Israeli tanks shelled Nasser Hospital, the official said the occupation’s initial review concluded that troops had targeted a Hamas camera allegedly filming them. The device, covered by a cloth, raised suspicion. “A decision was made to destroy it,” the official said.
Drone footage shows the camera on a hospital stairwell draped with a two-toned cloth. The military official confirmed this was the intended target.
Reuters’ investigation, however, revealed that the cloth was not a Hamas disguise but a prayer rug belonging to Hussam al-Masri, a Reuters journalist killed in the brutal Israeli massacre. Since May, al-Masri had positioned his camera at that spot at least 35 times for live broadcasts, often covering it with the rug to protect it from heat and dust.
Confirmation of ownership
Comparisons of photos of al-Masri with IOF drone images confirmed ownership of the targeted device. One picture, taken on August 13, shows al-Masri beside his camera, covered with the same prayer mat seen in the drone screenshot.
This investigation provides the most detailed account yet of the attack and confirms that the camera was Reuters‘ property. The Associated Press, which also lost a journalist in the strike, had earlier noted indications that the device “Israel” alleged as Hamas-owned was, in fact, Reuters’.
Unsurprisingly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attack as a “tragic mishap”. The military official claimed that al-Masri and other journalists present were not the intended targets and were not suspected of Hamas ties.
Hamas rejects PA president’s alignment with Zionist narrative in UN speech
Palestinian Information Center – September 26, 2025
DOHA – The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, responded Thursday to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly, affirming that Palestinian resistance is a “national and moral responsibility, deriving its legitimacy from our steadfast Palestinian people and their natural right to resist occupation, as recognized by international laws and conventions.”
Hamas categorically rejected what it described as Abbas’s “alignment with the false Zionist narrative,” asserting that accusing the resistance of targeting civilians is an attempt to distort its image.
The Movement underlined that “all attempts to impose guardianship over our people and their will are doomed to fail,” adding that Abbas’s declaration that Hamas will have no role in governance constitutes “an infringement on the inherent right of our Palestinian people to determine their own destiny and choose their leadership, and an unacceptable submission to external agendas and projects.”
Hamas emphasized that “the weapons of resistance are untouchable as long as the occupation remains entrenched on our land.”
It condemned Abbas’s call to surrender arms, especially “in light of the genocidal war being waged against our people in Gaza, and the brutal crimes and savage assaults committed by armed settlers and the occupation army against unarmed civilians in the occupied West Bank.”
Hamas reiterated that the only path to safeguarding the national cause and confronting the occupation’s plans to “exterminate and displace our people in Gaza, annex the West Bank, and Judaize Jerusalem and al-Aqsa,” lies in “national unity and consensus around a comprehensive resistance program to confront the criminal Zionist occupation, until our people’s aspirations for liberation, return, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital are fulfilled.”
The statement concluded by affirming that “our steadfast people are the source of legitimacy, and the weapons of resistance are a red line that cannot be compromised.”
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli occupation forces, backed by the United States and Western countries, have been waging a devastating war in Gaza, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of approximately 233,000 Palestinians to date. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 442 Palestinians, including 147 children, have died from starvation.
Digital ID UK: Starmer’s Expanding Surveillance State
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 26, 2025
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer came into office promising competence and calm after years of alleged political chaos.
What has followed is a government that treats civil liberties as disposable.
Under his watch, police have leaned on broad public order powers to detain people over “offensive” tweets.
Critics argue that what counts as “offensive” now changes depending on the political mood, which means ordinary citizens find themselves guessing at what might trigger a knock on the door.
This is happening while mass facial recognition cameras are being installed in public places.
The pattern is clear: expand surveillance, narrow dissent, and then assure the public it is all in the name of safety and order.
Against that backdrop, a digital ID system looks less like modernization and more like the missing piece in an expanding control grid.
Once every adult is forced to plug into a centralized identity wallet to work, rent, or access services, the state’s ability to monitor and sanction becomes unprecedented.
Starmer’s Labour government is dusting off one of its oldest obsessions: the dream of tagging every citizen like a parcel at the post office.
The latest revival comes in the form of a proposal to create mandatory digital ID cards, already nicknamed the “Brit Card,” for every working adult in the country.
The sales pitch sounds noble enough: crack down on illegal work, cut fraud, plug loopholes. The real effect would be to make ordinary life a permanent identity check.
Officials want job applications, rental agreements, and other basic transactions to be filtered through a government database, accessed through an app.
This, the people are told, will finally stop the shadow economy of dodgy employers. If that logic sounds familiar, it is because it is the same rationale Labour used for its last ID card scheme in the 2000s, a project that ended up in the political landfill in 2010 after enough voters realized what was happening.
“Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK. It will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure,” Starmer said in his announcement. “And it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly – rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.”
Campaigners and data rights groups are not buying the rebrand.
For Liberty’s Gracie Bradley cut straight to the point: the new version “is likely to be even more intrusive, insecure and discriminatory” than the one the country already threw out a decade ago.
That does not bode well for a government trying to convince citizens this time will be different.
Rebecca Vincent of Big Brother Watch spelled out where this all leads: “While Downing Street is scrambling to be seen as doing something about illegal immigration, we are sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare where the entire population will be forced through myriad digital checkpoints to go about our everyday lives.”
Her warning does not require much imagination. Britain has a spotty track record on protecting sensitive data.
A poll commissioned by Big Brother Watch found that nearly two-thirds of the public already think the government cannot be trusted to protect their data. That is before any giant centralized ID system is rolled out.
Privacy advocates see this as a recipe for disaster, arguing that hackers and snooping officials alike will treat the system as a buffet of personal information.
Former Cabinet Minister David Davis, one of the longest-serving critics of ID schemes, described the risks as existential. “The systems involved are profoundly dangerous to the privacy and fundamental freedoms of the British people,” he said, noting the government has not explained how or if it would compensate citizens after the inevitable breach.
Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, issued a blunt forecast of where the “Brit Card” could lead.
She warned it could extend across public services, “creating a domestic mass surveillance infrastructure that will likely sprawl from citizenship to benefits, tax, health, possibly even internet data and more.”
In other words, once the pipes are laid, the water does not stop at employment checks.
Labour, of course, has been here before. The last time it rolled out ID cards, in 2009, the experiment barely survived a year before being junked by the incoming Conservative-led coalition as an “erosion of civil liberties.”
Labour is leaning heavily on polling that allegedly suggests up to 80 percent of the public backs digital right-to-work credentials.
Starmer himself recently adopted that framing. Earlier this month, he claimed digital IDs could “play an important part” in tackling black market employment.
He is pushing the case again at the Global Progress Action Summit in London, noting that “we all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did 20 years ago.”
What complicates the sales pitch is Labour’s own history of skepticism. Both Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper previously raised concerns about ID systems and their potential for government overreach.
That past caution has not stopped the new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, from becoming one of the loudest champions of the plan. She recently declared the system “essential” for enforcing migration and employment laws.
Labour-aligned think tanks are also providing cover. Labour Together released a report describing digital ID as a “new piece of civic infrastructure,” with the potential to become a routine part of life.
***
Tony Blair has reemerged as a central architect of Britain’s dystopian digital future.
Through his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former Prime Minister is pushing the nationwide digital ID system, pitching it as the backbone of a tech-enabled state.
With Keir Starmer now in office, Blair’s vision is no longer an abstract policy paper. It is edging into reality with a new host.
For Blair, digital ID is not about convenience. It is about rewriting how government functions and can be what he calls a “weapon against populism.”
He has argued that a leaner, cheaper, more automated state is possible if citizens are willing to give up parts of their privacy. “My view is that people are actually prepared to trade quite a lot,” he once said, suggesting that resistance will dissolve once faster services are dangled in front of the public.
This project is not limited to streamlining bureaucracy. His version of efficiency is a frictionless state that also monitors, verifies, and restricts in ways that would have been inconceivable before the digital era.
With Starmer’s government now developing a digital ID wallet and considering a national rollout, Blair’s agenda is closer to official policy than ever. Marketed as modernization, the plan points toward a permanent restructuring of the relationship between citizen and state, locking personal identity into a centralized system that future governments will be able to expand at will.
‘Digital Chokehold’: Tool Developed by Tech Giants to Stop Terrorists Enables Mass Surveillance, Censorship
The Defender | September 24, 2025
Most people have no idea how far-reaching modern digital surveillance has become. In the wake of the Epstein scandal and the rise of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, the public has largely accepted new monitoring tools as necessary to fight crimes against society’s most vulnerable.
That acceptance has allowed governments and Big Tech to quietly deploy one of the largest surveillance infrastructures in human history — an invisible, always-on monitoring system that watches nearly everything we send, store and share online.
PhotoDNA: Trojan horse for scanning everything
At the heart of this infrastructure is PhotoDNA. Developed by Microsoft in 2009, PhotoDNA generates a digital fingerprint, or hash, for every image or video uploaded to participating platforms, which include Google, Meta, Apple, Dropbox, Twitter, Discord and many more.
These hashes are compared against a shared global database of known child sexual abuse material. If a match is found, the platform automatically flags, quarantines or reports the file.
The database is continuously updated and instantly synchronized across all partners, allowing near real-time takedowns.
This was sold to the public as a tool exclusively for catching predators. But the technology itself can’t discern the difference between illegal images and political speech. And over time, the scope of its use has quietly expanded.
From predators to ‘extremists’: enter GIFCT
In 2017, tech giants — Meta, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter (now X) — founded the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). Publicly, its mission was noble: stop terrorists from using digital platforms to recruit, organize or spread propaganda.
Privately, however, GIFCT built something far more powerful — a centralized global database of “objectionable content” — modeled after PhotoDNA but repurposed for ideological policing.
Here’s how GIFCT works:
- When one partner flags content as “extremist” or “terrorist,” GIFCT generates a hash, a string of characters used to create a unique digital fingerprint for data (a file, photo or data) that can’t be decoded. A hash is obtained by running a mathematical formula over the data.
- That hash is instantly shared across all member platforms.
- Any matching content is blocked, throttled or erased in real time — often without informing the user.
- The flagged account may also be shadow-banned (hidden without the user’s knowledge), suspended or referred to law enforcement.
The system’s integration across multiple companies and platforms effectively bypasses borders, legal jurisdictions and constitutional protections. Once content enters the GIFCT database, it can vanish from the internet everywhere at once.
The silent redefining of ‘extremism’
GIFCT’s power becomes more troubling when we examine how “extremism” is defined.
In 2021, internal GIFCT documents revealed discussions about expanding its hash database beyond terrorism to include:
“Fringe groups [whose] non-violent ideologies … are on the periphery of social movements or larger organizations, with more extreme views than those of the majority.” (“Broadening the GIFCT Hash-Sharing Database Taxonomy,” p.53)
This is a turning point. It moves GIFCT from targeting violent threats to monitoring dissenting ideas.
Civil rights groups, health freedom advocates, independent journalists, whistleblowers and reformers — anyone operating outside mainstream consensus — could now be flagged, throttled or silenced under GIFCT’s framework.
And because private companies make these decisions in closed-door sessions, there is:
- No public oversight.
- No appeal process.
- No democratic accountability.
The mechanisms of invisible control
GIFCT’s technology operates quietly in the background, shaping information flows without most users realizing it:
- Shadow banning: content gets published but algorithmically suppressed, so almost no one sees it.
- Real-Time erasure: posts or videos vanish instantly across multiple platforms if hashed.
- Behavioral profiling: data about what you read, share and discuss can be tied to “risk profiles.”
- Proactive takedowns: artificial intelligence, or AI, now predicts “likely extremist content” before it’s even posted. What began as a fight against terrorism has evolved into an unprecedented capability for narrative control — one where Big Tech and government-backed nongovernmental organizations quietly manage what the world can see, share and believe.
The threat to civil rights and social reform
Surveillance networks like GIFCT don’t just monitor — they shape activism itself. By algorithmically suppressing controversial, dissenting or reformist voices, these systems can:
- Preemptively neutralize protest movements before they organize.
- Silence journalists who challenge entrenched power.
- Marginalize minority political perspectives.
- Narrow public debate until only approved narratives remain visible.
This has profound consequences for democracy and civil liberties. History shows us that nearly every major social reform — civil rights, women’s suffrage, LGBTQ rights, antiwar movements — began as fringe positions.
If today’s automated surveillance systems had existed decades ago, many transformative reforms might never have gained visibility.
Without transparency and democratic oversight, GIFCT risks creating a digital chokehold on cultural evolution itself.
What must be done
To preserve free speech, open debate and the possibility of reform:
- Congress must act to place limits on GIFCT’s scope and require full public transparency.
- Privacy and civil rights organizations must be empowered to audit GIFCT’s hash lists and review what’s being censored.
- Users must have due process rights — the ability to appeal labels, removals and bans.
- Citizens deserve public reporting on who decides what gets suppressed and why.
A choice between freedom and control
The question is no longer whether you have “something to hide” but “who gets to decide what is hidden?”
What began as a narrowly focused child protection tool has grown into a globally integrated surveillance apparatus capable of monitoring nearly all speech, thought and dissent online.
If we fail to act, GIFCT and its partners will continue to quietly rewrite the boundaries of acceptable discourse — undermining civil rights movements, weakening reform efforts, and placing democratic freedoms in the hands of unelected private boards.
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.
Greece is aiding Netanyahu regime’s genocidal project: Former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis
MEMO | September 25, 2025
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has accused Athens of “violating International Law to aid and abet the Netanyahu government’s genocidal project” after a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla was attacked by drones off southern Crete, Anadolu reports.
Varoufakis, a prominent author, opposition politician, and commentator, said on X that he had spoken to the crew of the Family, the main vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was struck on the night of Sept. 23 by “a swarm of drones with explosives and CS (tear) gas.”
The flotilla, he said, had requested urgent help from the Greek Coast Guard to repair damage and provide protection while sailing through Greece’s Search and Rescue area.
“Remarkably, nauseatingly to be precise, the Greek Coastguard turned both requests down!” he said.
“Such is the determination of the Greek government to aid and abet Israel’s genocide in Gaza and, more generally, its ethnic cleansing of Palestine, that the Greek authorities took the step of refusing assistance that the Law of the Sea obliges them to provide.”
According to Varoufakis, the refusal highlights how “readily, in a bid to satisfy (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu, the Greek government has forfeited not only its responsibilities but also its sovereignty.”
Under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he added, “a long process by which Greece has become a satellite of the last Apartheid State is now complete,” referring to Israel’s policies of discriminating against and oppressing Palestinians.
He also pointed to wider evidence of complicity. On the night of the flotilla attack, Varoufakis claimed, a Beechcraft King Air 350 spy plane took off from the US Air Force base at Souda in northwestern Crete and flew south.
The aircraft, he said, belongs to the US leasing company Metrea Special Aerospace ISR and had previously been used to monitor Gaza from a British base in the Greek Cypriot Administration.
“One thing is clear from all of the above,” Varoufakis added.
“Through a mixture of omission and commission, the Greek government is violating International Law to aid and abet the Netanyahu government. Our party, MeRA25, will fight this government on the streets, in the workplaces, across a country – Greece – which refuses to be counted as complicit with Israel’s genocide.”
Since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave all but uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.
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From the Archives
A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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