Israeli ‘Predator’ Smartphone Spyware Exposed
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 11, 2025
New research published by Amnesty International exposes the disturbing internal workings of Intellexa, and its constellation of digital espionage products. This includes ‘Predator’, a highly invasive resource linked to grave human rights abuses in multiple countries. Intellexa’s menacing technology allows government customers to access target smartphones’ cameras, microphones, encrypted chat apps, emails, GPS locations, photos, files, browsing activity, and more. It’s just the latest example of an Israeli-linked spyware specialist acting with no consideration for the law – although one wouldn’t know that from Amnesty’s probe.
Intellexa is among the world’s most notorious “mercenary spyware” purveyors. In 2023, the company was fined by Greece’s Data Protection Authority for failing to comply with its investigations into the company. An ongoing court case in Athens implicates Intellexa apparatchiks and local intelligence services in hacking the phones of government ministers, senior military officers, judges and journalists. Oddly unmentioned by Amnesty International, Intellexa was founded by Tal Dilian, a senior former Israeli military intelligence operative, and is staffed by Zionist entity spying veterans.
Leaked Intellexa marketing slide
In March 2024, following years of damaging disclosures about Intellexa’s criminal activities, the US Treasury imposed sweeping sanctions on Dilian, his closest company confederates, and five separate commercial entities associated with Intellexa. Yet, these harsh measures were no deterrent to Intellexa’s operations. The company’s service offering has only evolved over time, becoming ever-more difficult to detect, and increasingly effective at infecting target devices. Typically, civil society and human rights activists, and journalists, are in the firing line.
On December 3rd, Google announced Intellexa’s targets numbered at least “several hundred”, with individuals based in Angola, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere potentially affected. Predator frequently relies on “one-click” attacks to infect a device. Users open a malicious link, which installs spyware that breaks open their chats on Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and other chat platforms, audio recordings, emails, device locations, screenshots and camera photos, stored passwords, contacts and call logs, and the device’s microphone.
The vast data trove then passes through a chain of anonymising servers to hide its end destination, before being received by a customer. Predator also boasts a number of unique features designed to obscure its installation on a device from targets. For example, the spy tool assesses a device’s battery level, and whether it’s connected to the internet via sim card data or WiFi. This allows for a bespoke extraction process, ensuring devices aren’t obviously drained of network or power, to avoid stoking user suspicion.
Aladdin’s Cave
If Predator senses it has been detected, the spyware will even “self-destruct” to leave no trace of its presence on an impacted device. The methods by which Intellexa installs its malign tech on target devices is just as ingenious, and insidious. On top of “one-click” attacks, Intellexa is a pioneer in the field of “zero-click” infiltration. Its resource ‘Aladdin’ exploits internet advertising ecosystems, so users need only view an ad – without interacting with it – for spyware to infect a device.
Such ads can appear on trusted websites or apps, resembling any other advert a user would normally see. This approach requires Intellexa to pin down a “unique identifier” – such as a user’s email address, geographical location, or IP – to accurately serve them a malicious advert. Intellexa’s government customers can often readily access this information, simplifying accurate targeting. Research published by Recorded Future indicates Intellexa has covertly established dedicated mobile ad companies to create “bait advertisements”, including job listings, to lure in targets.
Leaked Aladdin explainer
Aladdin has been under development since 2022 at least, and only grown more sophisticated over time. Troublingly, Intellexa is not the only company active in this innovative spying field. Amnesty International suggests “advertisement-based infection methodologies are being actively developed and used by multiple mercenary spyware companies, and by specific governments who have built similar ADINT [advertising intelligence] infection systems.” That the digital advertising ecosystem has been subverted to hack the phones of unsuspecting citizens demands urgent industry action, which is as yet unforthcoming.
Just as disquietingly, a leaked Intellexa training video depicts how the Intellexa can “remotely access and monitor active customer Predator systems.” In effect, the firm is able to keep an eye on who its clients are spying on, and the precise private data they are extracting, in real-time. Recorded in mid-2023, the video begins with an instructor connecting directly to a deployed Predator system via TeamViewer, a commercial remote access software. Its contents suggest Intellexa can peruse at least 10 different customer systems simultaneously.
This capability is amply highlighted in the leaked video, when a staff member asks their trainer if they’re connecting to a testing environment. In response, they state a live “customer environment” is being accessed instead. The instructor then initiates a remote connection, showing Intellexa staffers can access highly sensitive information collected by customers, including photos, messages, IP addresses, smartphone operating systems and software versions, and other surveillance data gathered from Predator victims.
The video also appears to show “live” Predator infection attempts against real-life targets of Intellexa’s clients. Detailed information is shown from at least one infection attempt against an individual based in Kazakhstan, including the malicious link they unwittingly clicked that enabled their device’s infiltration. Elsewhere, domain names imitating legitimate Kazakhstani news websites, designed to trick users, are displayed. The country’s government is a confirmed Intellexa client, and local youth activists have previously been targeted by the notorious, similarly Israeli-incubated Pegasus spyware.
Screenshot of Predator dashboard listing ongoing infections
‘Business Opportunity’
The leaked video raises a number of grave concerns about Intellexa’s operations. For one, the shadowy, high-tech digital spying entity employed TeamViewer, a commercial software about which major security concerns have long-abounded, to access highly sensitive, invasive information on customer targets. This raises obvious questions about who else might be able to pry on this trove. Moreover, there is no indication Intellexa’s clients approved this access for training process, or the tutorial was conducted with even basic safeguards in place.
As such, the targets of Intellexa’s suite of spying resources not only face having their most sensitive secrets exposed to a hostile government without their knowledge or consent, but a foreign surveillance company in the process. The extent to which Intellexa is cognisant of how its technology is used by its clients is a core point of contention in the ongoing Greek legal case. Historically, mercenary spyware companies have firmly insisted they aren’t privy to data nefariously seized by their customers. Amnesty International states:
“The finding that Intellexa had potential visibility into active surveillance operations of their customers, including seeing technical information about the targets, raises new legal questions about Intellexa’s role in relation to the spyware and the company’s potential legal or criminal responsibility for unlawful surveillance operations carried out using their products.”
The latest disclosures about Intellexa have all the makings of a historic, international scandal, in the precise manner the use of Pegasus by state and corporate entities the world over has elicited international outcry, criminal investigations, and litigation lasting many years. However, the proliferation of ominous private spying tools, and their industrial scale abuse by paying customers, is no aberrant bug, but an intended upshot of the Zionist entity’s relentless crusade for cyberwarfare supremacy. In 2018, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu boasted:
“Cybersecurity grows through cooperation, and cybersecurity as a business is tremendous… We spent an enormous amount on our military intelligence and Mossad and Shin Bet. An enormous amount. An enormous part of that is being diverted to cybersecurity… We think there is a tremendous business opportunity in the neverending quest of security.”
This investment manifests in almost every area of Israeli society. Numerous universities in Tel Aviv, with state support, hone new technologies and train future generations of cyber spies and digital warriors, who then join the Zionist Occupation Force’s ranks. Once their military service is complete, alumni frequently found companies at home and abroad offering the same monstrous services road-tested against Palestinians to private sector bodies and governments, without any oversight or guarantee these resources won’t be used for malevolent purposes.
Intellexa founder and Israeli military intelligence veteran Tal Dilian
The intelligence failures that enabled the success of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023 did enormous damage to Israel’s credibility as a cybersecurity leader, while devastating its “Startup Nation” brand, with foreign investment in the entity’s tech industry collapsing precipitously. However, the fresh Intellexa revelations show certain elements of the sector remain in high demand, and pose an unseen threat to untold numbers of people globally. Should the firm fall into disrepute as a result, another surely waits in the wings to take its place.
Hillary Clinton Says Pro-Palestine Protestors Don’t Know History, While She Distorts The Actual History.
The Dissident | December 3, 2025
Former Secretary of State and failed 2016 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, recently emerged from the shadows to give a condescending lecture to pro-Palestine protestors at the “Israel Hayom” conference.
At the Zionist conference, Clinton said, “Students, smart, well-educated young people from our own country, where were they getting their information? they were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok,” adding, “That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7, what happened in the days, weeks, and months to follow. That’s a serious problem. It’s a serious problem for democracy, whether it’s Israel or the United States, and it’s a serious problem for our young people”.
She claimed that pro-Palestine protestors “did not know history, had very little context, and what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda”.
She added, “It’s not just the usual suspects. It’s a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.”
Previously, when Hillary Clinton made similar statements, she elaborated on the “history” she claims pro-Palestine protestors don’t understand, namely the claim that her husband, Bill Clinton, when president, gave Palestinians a chance to “have a state of their own” and Palestinians rejected it- a blatant distortion of the actual history.
The Actual History.
In reality, Bill Clinton began negotiating his Oslo agreement between Israel and Palestine in 1993, but as Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada noted:
In 1993, Israel was compelled to accept the Oslo Accords by its failure to violently crush the First Intifada and its inability to cope with international isolation, pressure, and the economic, diplomatic, and political damage resulting from its “breaking the bones”strategy against unarmed civilian protesters and children.
The world hailed Oslo as a new era of peace, but Israel put enough loopholes in the agreement to avoid allowing an end to the occupation. Prime Minister (Yitzhak) Rabin, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for Oslo, made it abundantly clear that it was merely about separation, not Palestinian statehood.
“We do not accept the Palestinian goal of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan. We believe there is a separate Palestinian entity short of a state,” he said.
Apartheid means ‘separateness’, and this is what transpired on the ground. Israeli settlements grew exponentially, and more settlers moved into the occupied territory during the “peace process” than before Oslo. Palestinians, meanwhile, were forced to police Israel’s occupation and thwart armed resistance, making apartheid cost-free for Tel Aviv.
Furthermore, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Israeli Prime Minister from 1996-1999, is on video boasting that while Prime Minister, he sabotaged the Oslo agreements and manipulated Bill Clinton into doing so.
In the leaked video, Benjamin Netanyahu boasts that “They (Clinton administration) asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords] I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ‘67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue” adding, “from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords”.
Netanyahu went on to say, “I know what America is, America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way”.
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy noted at the time the video came out, “No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he’s even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse’s mouth.”
The following year, in 2000, when Netanyahu was out of office, Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and the newly elected Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak met with Bill Clinton at Camp David in an attempt to resurrect the peace process that Benjamin Netanyahu had sabotaged. Hillary Clinton claims that Israel conceded every Palestinian demand for a Palestinian state, but Arafat rejected it.
This, too, is a complete distortion of history. As Muhammad Shehada noted:
In 2000, Israel made clear at Camp David that the maximum it would offer Palestinians was not a sovereign independent state, but rather three discontiguous Bantustans separated by Israeli settlements and military checkpoints without any right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Israel would retain control over Palestine’s airspace, radio, cellphone coverage, and borders with Jordan, and maintain its military bases in 13.3% of the West Bank while annexing 9% and even keeping three settlement blocks in Gaza that cut the enclave into separate pieces.
Robert Malley, Bill Clinton’s special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs, who led the negotiations at Camp David, calls the claim that Yasser Arafat rejected a good deal a “myth,” adding that “the deal nevertheless didn’t meet the minimum requirements of any Palestinian leader”.
Robert Malley in the New York Times wrote that it is a myth that “Israel’s offer met most if not all of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations,” adding that under the offer at Camp David, “Israel was to annex 9 percent of the West Bank”, “While it (Palestine) would enjoy custody over the Haram al Sharif, the location of the third-holiest Muslim shrine, Israel would exercise overall sovereignty over this area” and “As for the future of refugees — for many Palestinians, the heart of the matter — the ideas put forward at Camp David spoke vaguely of a ‘satisfactory solution,’ leading Mr. Arafat to fear that he would be asked to swallow an unacceptable last-minute proposal.”
As Journalist Seth Ackerman reported under the Camp David agreement,
-(Israel) would annex strategically important and highly valuable sections of the West Bank—while retaining “security control” over other parts—that would have made it impossible for the Palestinians to travel or trade freely within their own state without the permission of the Israeli government
-The annexations and security arrangements would divide the West Bank into three disconnected cantons. In exchange for taking fertile West Bank lands that happen to contain most of the region’s scarce water aquifers, Israel offered to give up a piece of its own territory in the Negev Desert—about one-tenth the size of the land it would annex—including a former toxic waste dump.
-Because of the geographic placement of Israel’s proposed West Bank annexations, Palestinians living in their new ‘independent state’ would be forced to cross Israeli territory every time they traveled or shipped goods from one section of the West Bank to another, and Israel could close those routes at will. Israel would also retain a network of so-called “bypass roads” that would crisscross the Palestinian state while remaining sovereign Israeli territory, further dividing the West Bank.
-Israel was also to have kept ‘security control’ for an indefinite period of time over the Jordan Valley, the strip of territory that forms the border between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan. Palestine would not have free access to its own international borders with Jordan and Egypt—putting Palestinian trade, and therefore its economy, at the mercy of the Israeli military.
-Had Arafat agreed to these arrangements, the Palestinians would have permanently locked in place many of the worst aspects of the very occupation they were trying to bring to an end. For at Camp David, Israel also demanded that Arafat sign an ‘end-of-conflict’ agreement stating that the decades-old war between Israel and the Palestinians was over, and waiving all further claims against Israel.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, who was a key part of the Camp David negotiations, admitted “Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David, as well”.
Following the meeting at Camp David, as journalist Jon Schwarz noted, “Clinton had promised Arafat that he would not blame him if the talks failed. He then reneged after the summit ended. Nonetheless, the Israelis and Palestinians continued to negotiate through the fall and narrowed their differences.”
As Schwarz noted, “Clinton came up with what he called parameters for a two-state solution in December 2000,” and “the Israelis and the Palestinians kept talking in late January 2001 in Taba, Egypt,” but “it was not the Palestinians but (Ehud) Barak who terminated the discussions on January 27, a few weeks before Israeli elections.”
Following the election, as Schwarz notes, “Barak was defeated by Ariel Sharon, who did not want a Palestinian state and did not restart the talks. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that the Clinton parameters ‘are not binding on the new government to be formed in Israel.’”
Pro- Palestinian Protestors Do Understand History, Including The History of Hillary Clinton’s War Crimes.
In reality, Hillary Clinton- being the narcissist that she is-has an issue with pro-Palestinian protestors, not because they don’t understand history, but because they understand the history of her war crimes she had committed.
At Columbia University, where Clinton teaches a class on international relations, she has been called out directly by pro-Palestine protestors for her war crimes in the Middle East.
When Hillary Clinton hosted an event at the University with Sheryl Sandberg, laundering the claims from Sandberg’s atrocity propaganda film “Screams Before Silence”, which used misinformation to launder the false claim that Hamas committed mass rape on Ocotber 7th, one student protestor correctly pointed out she was pushing atrocity propaganda, and that she had used the same propaganda to justify the 2011 regime change war in Libya, saying, “You’ve done this before…You exploited sexual violence in Libya so you could justify US militarization. If you were enraged about sexual violence, you’d be talking about the sexual violence in Palestine and the sexual violence that they endure daily”.
Indeed, in 2011, Hillary Clinton pushed debunked claims that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered mass rape against civilians, which was used to justify the U.S.-led NATO regime change bombing in the country, which turned it into a failed state rife with ISIS bases and open slave markets.
While the once-prosperous country was turned into a failed state, Netanyahu cheered the regime change bombing, hoping it would lead to similar regime change in Iran.
Similarly, Sheryl Sandberg’s film that Hillary Clinton laundered has been completely discredited.
The film used supposed confessions from Palestinians as evidence that mass rape happened, but the UN later documented that the “confession” videos were extracted using torture and put out for propaganda purposes, noting, “The Commission reviewed several videos where detainees were interrogated by members of the ISF, while placed in an extremely vulnerable position, completely subjugated, when confessing to witnessing or committing rape and other serious crimes. The names and faces of the detainees were also exposed. The Commission considers the distribution of such videos, purely for propaganda purposes, to be a violation of due process and fair trial guarantees. In view of the apparent coercive circumstances of the confessions appearing in the videos, the Commission does not accept such confessions as proof of the crimes confessed.”
Furthermore, the film’s central “witness”, Rami Davidian, has been discredited even by Israeli media.
Israeli investigative journalist Raviv Drucker uncovered that Rami Davidian- who is featured heavily in the propaganda film claiming to have witnessed “mass rape”- was telling, “stories made up from beginning to end. Hair-raising stories that never, ever occurred”.
In other words, student protestors were correct that Hillary Clinton previously used false stories of mass rape to justify war in Libya and was continuing to use false stories of mass rape to justify genocide- and real mass rape by IDF soldiers- in Gaza.
As the United Nations documented, the fabricated stories of Palestinians committing mass rape on Ocotber 7th were used to justify the continuation of the genocide in Gaza, and “the sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men … seemingly fueled by similar desire to retaliate.”
Furthermore, at another Colombia University event, a pro-Palestine protestor called out Hillary Clinton’s support for America’s criminal wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen and for continuing to cheer on war crimes and genocide in Gaza, saying, “Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, you are a war criminal, the people of Libya, the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Yemen, the people of Palestine as well as the people of America will never forgive you”.
In reality, Hillary Clinton knows that pro-Palestine protestors are well aware of her past war crimes in the Middle East, well aware of her and her husband’s distortion and lies about the Oslo Accords and Camp David, and well aware of the fact that she is manufacturing consent for genocide- and so in turn smears them.
I was canceled by three newspapers for criticizing Israel
By Dave Seminara | Responsible Statecraft | December 9, 2025
As a freelance writer, I know I have to produce copy that meets the expectations of editors and management. When I write opinion pieces, I know well that my arguments should closely align with the publication’s general outlook. But I’ve always believed that if my views on any particular topic diverged from an outlet I’m writing for, it was acceptable to express those viewpoints in other publications.
But I’ve recently discovered that this general rule does not apply to criticism of Israel.
In fact, it appears that publications I’ve had an ongoing relationship with up until recently have canceled me for articles I wrote in other media outlets that were critical of the Israeli government and the Israel lobby in the United States.
In recent years, I penned more than 100 columns for prominent right-leaning publications, including The Wall Street Journal, the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, and The Daily Telegraph. I’ve covered woke corporations, illegal immigration, inflation, foreign policy, the State Department, censorship, Florida politics and a host of other issues. I never once pitched a column concerning Israel to the aforementioned publications because I know the editors and leadership at those outlets are staunch backers of unlimited U.S. aid to Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his merciless assault on Gaza, not to mention President Trump’s efforts to deport foreign critics of Israel, his administration, and other related issues.
I have never seen an opinion column in The Journal, City Journal or The Telegraph expressing compassion for Palestinian victims of Israel’s military assaults. In fact, quite the opposite. For example, Ilya Shapiro, a contributing editor and the Director of Constitutional Studies at the Manhattan Institute, said in a since deleted tweet, “Ethnic cleansing would be too kind for Gaza.” That comment isn’t an outlier. The prevailing wisdom at these publications is to excuse and defend the behavior of the Israeli government, regardless of the situation.
And so, when I wanted to express my disgust at the outrageous number of civilian casualties in Gaza — the Israeli military has killed at least 70,000 Palestinians according to the U.N., including more than 18,000 children — and lament the Trump administration’s efforts to deport people for criticizing Israel, I never considered pitching editors at those three publications.
Between November 2023 and May 2024, I published several columns, including for The Spectator and on my personal Substack, Unpopular Opinions, criticizing Israel and U.S. policy toward Israel. I think my critiques were mild — for example, I never categorized Israel’s actions as a genocide. Given Israel’s flagrant human rights violations, my commentaries were well within the boundaries of how most Americans feel about the carnage in Gaza. For example, in a column I wrote in November, 2023, I noted that:
“I was horrified by the October 7 Hamas attacks. And I was disgusted to see some self-proclaimed pro-Palestine advocates celebrating or justifying the barbaric attack act. This was a horrific act of terrorism, and there’s no excuse for it.”
But I added that I was disappointed with “how many conservative politicians and conservative media refuse to articulate any concern for thousands of innocent Palestinians killed or the more than one million rendered homeless.”
In subsequent columns, I criticized the Republican Party for its fixation on Israel and argued how hypocritical many on the right are in conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism in order to silence critics of the Jewish state.
None of my editors at The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph or City Journal ever said a word to me about what I wrote in these columns. But my relationships with these three outlets deteriorated rapidly and dramatically after I started covering the topic. Prior to being cut off by the Wall Street Journal, I published 34 opinion columns for them since 2017. My relationship with the opinion editor, James Taranto, was good enough that when he visited Tampa, where I live, in 2022, he and his wife took me out to dinner.
I knew where Taranto stood on Israel, having once called Rachel Corrie, an American citizen who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while protesting Israel’s settlement policy, a “dopey… advocate for terror.” Prior to writing critically of Israel, my success rate in pitching columns to Taranto was roughly 30-40% positive. Since then, he has rejected 12 consecutive pitches, all on topics unrelated to the Middle East. Previously, he would send a generic one-liner when he rejected an idea. “I won’t be able to use this, but thanks for letting me see it.” Lately, my pitches don’t even merit a formal rejection. I went from being a regular contributor and on friendly enough terms to socialize after-hours, to being ghosted.
My apparent dismissal at City Journal, where I contributed 62 columns from 2020-2024, took longer and my editor there, Paul Beston, was kinder, but the result was the same. Rather than ignoring me, Beston would apologetically respond to my pitches weeks or even months later once the idea was too late to publish. He also stopped asking me to write columns for the website. Around the same time, the Manhattan Institute, which produces City Journal, fired prominent conservative economist Glenn Loury for being too critical of Israel, so perhaps there was a purge of Israel critics afoot. At least one other Manhattan Institute fellow who was critical of Israel, Christopher Brunet, was also fired last year.
My seeming dismissal at the rabidly pro-Israel Daily Telegraph, where I contributed 30 columns from 2023-2024, was similar to the City Journal experience. My editor there, Lewis Page, was cordial enough, but he, too, started to ignore my emails and stopped asking me to write for his publication. In one case, he asked me to write a column but then never published it.
Is it a coincidence that these three prominent, pro-Israel publications all stopped publishing me last year as I started to criticize Israel in other outlets? It’s conceivable, but quite unlikely given the zero tolerance for dissent on Israel that now permeates much of conservative media.
RS asked Taranto whether the Journal had stopped publishing me because of my views on Israel. Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot — whom I did not work with — responded that Taranto had passed on our inquiry and said, “I don’t recall ever reading a piece by Mr. Seminara on Israel or Gaza, so I have no idea what his views on those subjects are.”
Lewis Page at the Telegraph said my version of this story is “false” and that neither he nor anyone else at his publication knew that I had been critical of Israel. He added that the paper has not “consciously stopped using” my copy.
A spokesperson I do not know and never worked with at City Journal said that they are unaware of my position on Israel. Of course, I don’t expect any of these publications to say, “We stopped commissioning you because we don’t agree with your position on Israel.”
The bottom line is that my views on Israel and U.S. policy toward Israel are in line with those of the majority of Americans and even of a majority of American Jews. According to a Washington Post poll conducted in October, 69% of American Jews think Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza and 39% believe it is guilty of genocide. A Pew Research poll released around the same time revealed that 59% of Americans have a negative opinion of the Israeli government. And in a September New York Times/Sienna poll, 35% of Americans said they sympathize with Israel, while 36% said they side with Palestinians.
I am not sorry for criticizing Israel even though it has cost me professionally. In fact, I was probably too cautious and diplomatic in my critiques. But I think it’s a very sad statement on conservative media when news outlets that many Republicans trust have so little tolerance for dissent on a critical issue that undermines American national interests and damages our credibility around the world.
During the crazy, cultural revolution days of 2020, when statues were being toppled and progressives were claiming scalps on a weekly basis, I thought it was just the left that embraced cancel culture and silenced enemies through intimidation. Now I know better.
Dave Seminara is a writer and former diplomat based in St. Petersburg, Florida. He’s the author of four non-fiction books, including, most recently, “Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed & the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth.” He vlogs about his travels on his YouTube channel, @MadTraveler.
US defence bill legally binds Washington to counter arms embargoes on Israel
MEMO | December 10, 2025
A newly passed United States defence bill contains extraordinary provisions that would commit Washington to systematically identify, assess and ultimately compensate for any Israeli weapons shortfalls caused by international embargoes. The legislation effectively shields Israel from global attempts to restrict arms transfers, even in the face of genocide.
Buried deep within the 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act is Section 1706, titled: “Continual Assessment of Impact of International State Arms Embargoes on Israel and Actions to Address Defense Capability Gaps.” It mandates a permanent US obligation to mitigate the effects of foreign arms restrictions imposed on Israel.
Under this provision, the Secretary of Defense is required to conduct a continual assessment of current and emerging embargoes, sanctions, or restrictions on arms transfers to Israel. This includes evaluating how such measures might create vulnerabilities in Israel’s security capabilities or undermine its so-called “qualitative military edge.”
In practical terms, if states or international bodies move to restrict Israel’s access to weapons due to its conduct in Gaza or the occupied West Bank, the US government is now legally bound to examine how these limitations weaken Israel militarily—and to act.
Section 1706 does not stop at analysis. It obligates Washington to identify specific weapons systems or technologies that Israel can no longer acquire, sustain or modernise due to such embargoes, and then to devise practical ways of filling the gap.
The legislation tasks the Pentagon and the State Department with leading this effort, which may include removing bureaucratic barriers to foreign military sales, expanding the US industrial base to supply alternative systems, increasing joint research and production of defence technologies, and enhancing military training and logistics cooperation.
In effect, if Israel is prohibited from acquiring a weapons system from another supplier, the United States will manufacture a replacement, expedite sales or adapt its military-industrial output to meet Israeli needs.
The section mandates that these assessments must be updated “not less than once every 180 days,” establishing a biannual review cycle that guarantees Israel uninterrupted military capacity regardless of international opposition.
At a moment when global scrutiny is intensifying over Israel’s military operations in Gaza—including allegations of mass civilian casualties, enforced starvation and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure—Section 1706 functions as a form of political and logistical insurance, effectively insulating Israel from global accountability.
Such embargoes are typically employed to pressure governments engaged in serious human rights violations. In Israel’s case, they would be rendered largely symbolic. Washington would be legally required to compensate for any capacity lost due to international censure.
This provision comes on top of billions of dollars in ongoing US funding for Israel’s missile defence systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow 3, all of which are supported by direct appropriations and technology-sharing agreements within the same legislation.
Critics argue that Section 1706 represents a structural guarantee of Israeli military dominance, regardless of Israel’s conduct or global condemnation. By obligating the US to counteract embargoes, the bill does more than offer aid—it effectively integrates Israel’s military needs into US strategic planning and shields it from international accountability mechanisms used against other states.
US Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Future Investigations – Report
Sputnik – 10.12.2025
The Trump administration has threatened the International Criminal Court (ICC) with potential sanctions if it does not amend its founding documents to exclude President Donald Trump and his top officials from future investigations, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing an administration official.
In addition to its pledge not to target the US, the Trump administration also demands that the ICC halt existing investigations into Israel and American military actions in Afghanistan, the report said.
In return for these concessions, the Trump administration is prepared to forgo additional sanctions on court officials and refrain from sanctioning the court itself, according to the report.
Washington has conveyed its demands to ICC members and directly to the court, which has 125 members, the report added.
The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 2002 with powers to prosecute heads of state.
In recent years, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for several world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These decisions have been criticized. Some states, such as Hungary, decided to withdraw from the ICC.
On February 6, Trump signed the executive order on sanctions against the ICC for its actions against Washington and its allies, including Israel. The order states that the US will take significant measures against those “responsible for the ICC’s transgressions.” Some of the measures include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the US for ICC staff and their family members.
Do You Believe in Coincidence… Was the CIA Involved in Operation Spiderweb and Israel’s June 12 Attack on Iran?
By Larry C. Johnson | December 9, 2025
With the benefit of hindsight, we’re all geniuses. The Wall Street Journal article, Inside Ukraine’s Daring Operation Spiderweb Attack on Russia (published December 8, 2025) details the operation’s planning as a 18-month effort starting in late 2023, with significant activities ramping up in 2024. While the piece emphasizes the full timeline’s secrecy and oversight by President Zelenskyy and SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk, it highlights 2024 as a pivotal year for infiltration, testing, and logistics preparation. I am more interested in what it does not state outright — i.e., that Ukraine relied heavily on Western intelligence, meaning the CIA and British MI-6, in planning this operation.
The attack took place on June 1st, 2025 and, despite a flood of Western propaganda touting it as a tremendous success, it was a tactical and strategic failure — i.e., it did not damage Russia’s ability to continue its offense in Ukraine. But here is the question of coincidence… Two weeks later, Israel launched the decapitation attack on Iran, which also failed to topple the Iranian government and cripple the Iranian military, who promptly retaliated. Do you think it is just a coincidence that Israel and Ukraine used similar tactics — i.e., launching drones from within Russia and Iran to attack strategic targets? I do not.
Let’s take a look at the timeline of Operation Spiderweb as laid out in the WSJ article.
December 2023: Planning begins under direct oversight of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Initial focus: Smuggling disassembled drones, batteries, and explosives into Russia via borders (e.g., Belarus, Black Sea routes) and commercial trucking networks. Goal: Target Russia’s strategic bomber fleet to disrupt missile launches on Ukrainian cities. Hmmm… If the SBU was involved then so was foreign intelligence.
Early 2024 (January–March): Initial scouting and prototype testing. Ukrainian operatives conducted reconnaissance of target airbases (e.g., Olenya, Dyagilevo) using commercial satellite imagery and smuggled spotters, according to the WSJ. In my opinion, an audacious operation like this would also require imagery from Western intelligence. The WSJ is mute on that point. The article notes that early experiments with “spider nest” launch mechanisms—disassembled FPV drones (Osa quadcopters) hidden in truck roofs— were tested in simulated Russian environments near the border. This phase reportedly involved ~20 commandos refining smuggling routes via Belarus and the Black Sea, with failures (e.g., a test drone malfunction) leading to redesigns. The WSJ article conveniently ignores the likely role that the territories other than Ukraine, such as Khazakstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan also were used as infiltration points for this operation.
Mid-2024 (April–July): Infiltration buildup. The WSJ describes “web-like” networks expanding, with agents embedding in Russian trucking firms to map logistics. Over 100 drones were smuggled in parts during this period, reassembled in hidden workshops (e.g., Bryansk region sheds). A key activity was recruiting unwitting Russian truckers (e.g., via bribes or coercion) for transport, with the article citing intercepted FSB chatter revealing early suspicions but no disruptions. Zelenskyy approved budget reallocations (~$50M) for Western tech integration (e.g., Starlink relays). What do you think are the chances that some of this money was siphoned off by Zelensky and his intel bubbas and sent to their overseas retirement accounts?
Late 2024 (August–December): Final rehearsals and positioning. Intensive dry runs simulated the June 1 strike, focusing on simultaneous launches across time zones. The piece highlights a December 2024 “dress rehearsal” near Ivanovo, where signal jamming countermeasures (AI autopilots) were validated. By year-end, all 117 drones were prepositioned, with operatives establishing safe houses. The article quotes an anonymous SBU officer: “2024 was the spider spinning its web—silent, patient, invisible.”
January–May 2025 Infiltration phase: Ukrainian agents (150+ operatives, including commandos and drone technicians) establish “spider nests” (hidden launch sites) across five Russian oblasts spanning three time zones. Drones (117 total, FPV models with Western tech like Starlink) are reassembled in disguised cargo (e.g., wooden sheds on trucks). Scouting identifies four primary airbases: Olenya (Murmansk), Dyagilevo (Ryazan), Ivanovo Severny (Ivanovo), and Belaya (Irkutsk/Siberia, 4,300 km from Ukraine). A fifth target (Ukrainka in Amur) is aborted due to a truck fire.
June 1, 2025 Execution: Coordinated strikes unfold over ~72 hours starting ~1 p.m. local time. Remotely activated truck roofs release drones, hitting ~40–50 aircraft (15–20 destroyed, including Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3 bombers, and A-50 radar planes; ~$2–7B in damage). Fires reported at all sites; Russia confirms attacks but claims minimal losses. Ukrainian operators control from Kyiv; no SBU fatalities, though two teams captured.
There is no denying that this was a sophisticated operation and, in my judgment, depended heavily on intelligence support from the US and the UK and, possibly, Israel. Why Israel? Because of the similarity of the tactics used in the attacks on Russia and Iran within a span of two weeks. Both were deep-penetration operations targeting high-value, hardened assets far from the front lines. Both required extensive intelligence support.
I also believe that the US played a significant role in coordinating the two attacks as part of a broader strategy to weaken both Russia and Iran. The planning for these operations were carried out in separate channels, but there was someone, or a group of someones, overseeing the broader strategic goals.
The publication of this article comes at a time when the Trump administration’s support for Ukraine is weakening. I don’t rule out the possibility that the CIA, who has an enormous investment in Ukraine, is working to undermine Trump’s efforts to secure a peace that will come at Ukraine’s expense. I do not believe that some intrepid reporter thought that this would be a swell story to tell and that it was published now just because the WSJ had nothing better to report. I believe this is part of a unending effort by the Deep State to try to pump life into Project Ukraine, which is now on life support and fading fast, by pushing a narrative that Ukraine is far from defeat.
Epstein, Dershowitz, and the secret war to discredit Mearsheimer-Walt Israel lobby study
By David Miller | Press TV | December 9, 2025
In 2006, Jeffrey Epstein exchanged emails with his lawyer, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, in an attempt to support Dershowitz’s criticism of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who had just published a groundbreaking essay on the Israel lobby.
Some commentators argue that this incident ironically confirms the Israel lobby thesis by revealing the lobby’s backlash against the essay. But does it really?
Recently released emails reveal that convicted sex offender and Israeli intelligence agent Jeffrey Epstein collaborated with Dershowitz to discredit the landmark 2006 study by Mearsheimer and Walt titled ‘The Israel Lobby’, which was later published as a book the following year.
In early April 2006, Epstein received multiple early drafts of an article by Dershowitz titled “Debunking the Newest — and Oldest — Jewish Conspiracy.” In this piece, Dershowitz, who also served as Epstein’s lawyer, accused Mearsheimer and Walt of recycling “discredited trash” from neo-Nazi and so-called “Islamist” websites, alleging they authored a modern counterpart to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zionists’.
Epstein responded enthusiastically to Dershowitz’s email, writing, “terrific… congratulations.”
Part of the email exchange between Epstein and Dershowitz
Later, Epstein received another message from Dershowitz’s email address asking him to help circulate copies of the attack article. Epstein replied affirmatively: “Yes, I’ve started.”
While Mearsheimer has spent his entire career at the University of Chicago, his co-author Stephen Walt has been a professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School since 1999.
Epstein and Harvard
Epstein was a powerful figure at Harvard, having spent years cultivating relationships at the university and donating over $9 million between 1998 and 2008.
Despite being convicted on sex charges involving a minor in Florida, Epstein visited Harvard more than 40 times afterward. The New York Times reported in 2020 that, although Epstein had no official affiliation with the university, he maintained his own office, key card, and Harvard phone line.
Following an internal investigation, Harvard placed Professor Martin A. Nowak on paid administrative leave due to findings related to Epstein. Nowak had received significant donations from Epstein and had provided him with office space and access.
His suspension was lifted in March 2021, and he remains in his position today.
Epstein positioned himself as a fixer and patron for prominent academics, including Dershowitz and economist Larry Summers, who was then Harvard’s president.
Summers recently apologized for his connections to Epstein and announced he would “stop teaching and step back as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.”
At the time, Epstein also served as trustee and president of the family financial office of Jewish billionaire Leslie Wexner, whose foundation donated nearly $20 million to the Kennedy School between 2000 and 2006. The Wexner Foundation’s contributions supported core operating expenses and funded a visiting scholar program that allowed ten officials from the Zionist regime to attend the Kennedy School annually for a one-year master’s degree.
Leslie Wexner is one of the most influential supporters of the Zionist colony. In 1991, he co-founded the Mega Group, a philanthropic organization of Jewish billionaires that channels significant resources to support the colony’s agenda.
The group reportedly maintained contacts with the Israeli spy agency Mossad and was described by Israeli intelligence officials as a vehicle for influence operations in the United States.
Among its initiatives, the Mega Group supported the creation of the racist Birthright Israel program, a radicalization effort targeting Jewish schools, and the revitalization of Hillel International, a Zionist student organization that now operates over 1,000 branches worldwide, including 50 outside the US.
According to a 1998 Wall Street Journal report, when Hillel needed refinancing in 1994, a small group of members committed to a combined $1.3 million annual donation over five years. Later, six members contributed $1.5 million each to help launch the $18 million Partnership for Jewish Education, funding matching grants for Jewish day schools.
Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, a former hedge fund manager and Mega Group member, also worked on the Birthright Project, which aims to send any young Jew born worldwide to Israel if they wish.
In this context, Epstein’s collaboration with Dershowitz appears to link key figures in the ‘Israel lobby’ to efforts aimed at discrediting the very idea of a powerful Israel lobby. Stephen Walt, who remains at Harvard, declined to comment on it.
Mearsheimer remarked, “I’m not surprised to see these emails, because Dershowitz and Epstein were close and both have a passionate attachment to Israel.”
Many have noted the irony of these emails’ emergence, as they seem to confirm the central thesis of the 2006 Israel Lobby study. In their later book, the lobby was described as “a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape foreign policy.”
The landmark study by Mearsheimer and Walt published in 2007.
But does the book’s definition truly match the reality described above? The Mega Group, founded in 1991 by Les Wexner, former CEO of the lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret, and publicly revealed in 1998, reportedly includes around 50 billionaires and influential Zionist figures such as Les Wexner, Charles and Edgar Bronfman, Charles Schusterman, Ronald Lauder, and Laurence Tisch.
These oligarchs, along with Epstein’s involvement as part of the Mega Group, suggest layers of Zionist manipulation and intrigue.
However, these particular elements are not central to Mearsheimer and Walt’s book. Among the oligarchs mentioned, only the Bronfmans receive fleeting mention in the book’s index. The bulk of the book focuses on a narrowly defined Israel lobby that exerts political influence.
Notably, the top ten most cited organizations in the book, with one exception, are all Israel lobby groups rather than formal components of the broader Zionist movement.
This distinction highlights a more focused analysis in the book, which does not fully encompass the wider network of Zionist power and influence exemplified by groups like the Mega Group.
In order of citation (number of citations in brackets), they are:
- AIPAC (47);
- ADL (30);
- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (25);
- WINEP (19);
- Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) (15);
- Israel Policy Forum (13);
- JINSA (11);
- American Jewish Committee (10)
- Americans for Peace Now(7)
- Christians United for Israel (CUFI) (7)
AIPAC, the ADL, the Conference of Presidents, the AJC, Americans for Peace Now, and Christians United for Israel are traditional Israel lobby groups.
Others like WINEP, IPF, and JINSA also engage in lobbying but are more commonly considered think tanks. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the only group on the list formally affiliated with the American Zionist Movement, the US branch of the World Zionist Organization.
Notably, two of the four major pillars of the Zionist movement are entirely absent from the book’s index: the American Zionist Movement itself and the Jewish National Fund, the US affiliate of the agency responsible for Zionist land appropriation.
The other two pillars, the Jewish Agency for Israel, which organizes settlers to occupy stolen land, and the Jewish Federations of North America, which raises funds to support settlers and land acquisition, appear only three times and once, respectively.
It’s important to emphasize that, beyond the ZOA, the American Zionist Movement includes around 45 other member organizations, only a handful of which are mentioned in the book’s index.
This suggests a narrower focus in the book that does not fully address the broader institutional structure of the Zionist movement.
Grant Smith’s partial corrective – Big Israel, 2016.
In a partial corrective to the narrow focus of Mearsheimer and Walt, Grant F. Smith’s Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America, published in 2016, takes a much broader approach.
Smith argues, “Some identify only one organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as ‘the lobby’ citing its influence on Capitol Hill. This is wrong. Many interconnected organizations channel their power and influence through AIPAC in Congress.”
“Hundreds more ‘mini-AIPACs’ coordinate with AIPAC and their own national offices to lobby state legislatures to pass model legislation and spending authorizations benefiting Israel—without publicly disclosing most of their lobbying activities. Others operate quietly, policing what is allowed to appear in mainstream news media and channeling ‘hush money’ to civil rights organizations to keep them out of grassroots pro-Palestinian movements,” he adds.
This represents a significant advance over the more limited Mearsheimer and Walt thesis, as it casts a much wider net, encompassing a full range of Israel lobby groups.
Smith’s analysis extends beyond lobbying efforts to include organizations that police public discourse and manipulate civil society.
However, even Smith’s work shows some myopia. While he analyzes an impressive 674 separate organizations, far more than Mearsheimer and Walt, the scope still doesn’t fully capture the entire network.
Smith’s data reveal an eye-popping estimated budget of over $6.7 billion in 2020, supported by more than 14,000 staff and over 350,000 volunteers, underscoring the vast scale of these interconnected groups.
Data from Smith, 2016, reproduced on Powerbase.
The impressive number of groups documented in Big Israel still represents only a small fraction of the broader Zionist movement, which includes the Israel lobby and many additional organizations not captured in the data. Here’s a brief overview of some major omissions:
1. Many formal Zionist groups engaged in education, indoctrination, and radicalization are missing. For example, the American Zionist Movement (AZM), the official US affiliate of the World Zionist Organization, has 46 member organizations, only 13 of which appear in Big Israel’s data, leaving 33 unaccounted for.
2. None of the Israeli firms that disclose lobbying expenditures in the US are included. Between 2000 and 2023, 18 such firms reported spending over £30 million.
3. Eleven organizations—including the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization (WZO), and the NSO Group (makers of Pegasus spyware)—have registered as Foreign Agents between 2016 and 2023, disclosing spending over £161 million in that period.
4. Although two Chabad-Lubavitch foundations are included, official figures show around 1,274 Chabad-Lubavitch groups in the US (IRS data lists 1,313), many of which likely have ultra-Zionist agendas. Despite not being formally affiliated with the WZO, Chabad’s influence is significant and cannot be overlooked.
5. B’nai B’rith International, one of the oldest Zionist groups in the US and a former AZM member, is included in the data, but its youth wing, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO), is not. Together, the IRS data lists over 1,500 branches for these two groups across the US.
6. Hillel, the Zionist student organization, appears only once in Smith’s data and not at all in the index of The Israel Lobby, despite now having over a thousand branches.
7. Lastly, numerous Zionist family foundations that fund many groups in the wider movement,l likely numbering in the hundreds or thousands, are excluded. Some notable examples include Adelson Family Foundation, Allegheny Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund, Castle Rock Foundation, Earhart Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Klarman Family Foundation, Paul E. Singer Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Scaife Family Foundation, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and William Rosenwald Family Fund.
Given these seven brief examples, which are in no way exhaustive, it is likely that there are in excess of 10,000 Zionist organisations in the US in total. It would not be surprising to learn that this was a very conservative figure. Therefore, a full analysis of the US Zionist movement needs to do a lot more to explore even the formal and informal elements of the movement.
Missing oligarchs, family foundations, spooks and infiltrators
Taking both The Israel Lobby and Big Israel together, they largely overlook the critical role of oligarchs, foundations, and intelligence-linked operatives who use blackmail and threats to exert influence.
They omit the involvement of Zionist intelligence agencies themselves, including the extensive network of Sayanim (Mossad’s “little helpers”), and make no mention of Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency that has deeply penetrated the tech and media industries.
Ultimately, The Israel Lobby focuses almost exclusively on the most visible elements of Zionist infiltration, ignoring the movement’s powerful engines of radicalization—responsible for producing thousands of radicalized genocidaires each generation.
These engines include organizations like the Mega Group (through Jewish education initiatives shown to increase support for the Zionist colony), Hillel, and Birthright Israel.
The books also fail to address the massive infiltration of Zionists throughout the US government apparatus, a process ongoing since at least the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
The involvement of Laurence Tisch in the Mega Group further illustrates the close ties between Zionist oligarchs and infiltration efforts. His granddaughter, Jessica Tisch, is a noted Zionist extremist and the current Commissioner of the NYPD.
The NYPD notably opened an office in the Zionist colony in 2012 and collaborates with Zionist entities, as do many other US police departments, some of which receive training both in the US and in Israel.
Lessons from the Epstein/Dershowitz affair?
The affair reveals that Zionist radicalization and infiltration are far more serious and organized than the “informal” and “loose” coalition described by the Israel Lobby thesis.
Just because coordination is covert or hidden does not mean it doesn’t exist. This is evident in the evolving stories about coordination efforts led by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and its network of front groups and private companies, including the recent campaign coordinated by Voices of Israel through its proxy, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, funded partly by a US Zionist foundation.
We also see this in the revelations about the Sayanim, Mossad’s global network of helpers, and Unit 8200’s infiltration of technology firms. Above all, the infiltration of governmental institutions across the US, UK, and numerous other countries underscores the deep and systematic nature of this network.
The Deep State Targets Thomas Massie
By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | December 9, 2025
With the retirement next month of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the face of vociferous attacks from President Donald Trump, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is the only member of any of the three branches of our government who consistently and on principle opposes American empire—and who also opposes the taxes, debt, and interventions that come with it. In a little over a year, he may not be.
For the first time in his seven-term congressional career, Massie is being challenged by a formidable primary opponent. That opponent is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy Seal who during his thirty years of meritorious service earned four Bronze Stars and whose extended family of small business owners is a multi-generational staple of Kentucky’s 4th District. As the last line in Gallrein’s X bio has it, he is “Trump-endorsed to defeat Thomas Massie and Deliver America First for Kentucky”—and, given the popularity Trump still enjoys among Republican voters as well as Gallrein’s sterling military reputation, and despite Massie’s strong endurability, Gallrein may succeed in realizing his goal.
Whether Gallrein’s election would actually mean delivering America first is a very different question. Putting America first presumably means putting the soldiers sworn to protect Americans, those individuals with whom Gallrein so valorously served, first as well. But a closer examination of the agenda Gallrein is running on makes clear that, unlike Massie’s prudent America first constitutionalism, it does not accomplish that goal. Instead it is the latest iteration, this time under Donald Trump, of a long-running play where small networks of ideologues ensconced in Washington’s military-corporate complex use America’s armed forces to run imperial plays for profit and power. The people running this version—connected Zionists tied to Trump’s re-election bid and now to his White House—are using Gallrein’s military service, which one might think would end up aiding our men and women in uniform, as an excuse to do the opposite. They are funding a decorated veteran to act as a front for imperial plays that mis-serve our armed forces and the Americans they’re sworn to protect.
Understanding the conditions that allowed this operation to happen and their consequences means going back to the creation of the current armed forces at the hands of the military-corporate complex after 1945—and tracing its abuses and misuses at the hands of a small number of players whose inheritors are now backing Trump and targeting Massie.
Americans’ rightful and deep respect for the men and women of our armed forces obscures an essential fact about the organization they serve: in its current form, it was never intended to exist. From Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Dwight Eisenhower, people concerned for our liberties saw a large and expanding standing army and its support systems as inherent threats to our constitutional republic. These men were not unrealistic about the need for an armed forces—Jefferson founded West Point, and Eisenhower commanded D-Day—but they knew that an essentially defensive army equipped for a republic was very different than an aggressive army serving empire. In their view, this latter type of army would become a version of the British Army which Jefferson’s revolutionaries had fought against: an aggressive tool of imperial operators to use for power and profit.
With the start of the Cold War and the beginning of an arms race with the Soviet Union, Jefferson’s and Madison’s and Eisenhower’s fears came true, giving an enormous opportunity to a network that did not share them. Namely, old Northeastern WASPs and their allies who by 1945 had spent 150 years eschewing America’s constitutional politics in favor of building institutions and corporations in and around Washington DC. The Henry Cabot Lodges and the Brothers Harriman, the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and the Bushes, John Foster and Allen Dulles and John Jesus Angleton—these were the financial and corporate and military players who used the Cold War as an opportunity to make themselves into runners of American empire, for their own power and profit.
At their hands, the American Army became the British Army of a later age, with its own public-debt-fueled corporate outgrowths which purport to be serving our soldiers. In reality, as Dwight Eisenhower said publicly in his presidential farewell address of 1961, the new weapons-for-profit system made its minders into what Eisenhower called in his notes for the speech “merchants of death”: “flag and general officers retiring at an early age take positions in war based industrial complex shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust.” And these civilians running the weapons contractors were rotating not just through Pentagon and CIA consultancies and administrative agencies but through America’s new civilian intelligence service, the CIA. There, the profit motive—combined with a high level of ideological zeal—also distorted policy.
By 1961, Allen Dulles, John Jesus Angleton, and the lineup of other old-line WASPs running the CIA outside of meaningful oversight had put America into the Congo, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, and the beginnings of Vietnam. After these came interventions in El Salvador, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Palestine, and (again, this year) Iran. These were plays executed with input from McKinsey and Raytheon to Langley and the Pentagon via the Situation Room. They were increasingly run by new networks: once disproportionally WASP, these new networks were disproportionally made up of Jewish Zionists bent on using American empire to protect Israel. Among these were early operators like Henry Morgenthau and Theodore Kollek; and their later inheritors like Martin Peretz and William Kristol, Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen and Thomas Pritzker, people who in many ways shaped the policies of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations. At their hands, accelerated military corporate cronyism has been the order of the day starting in 1993, when the Clinton administration, which assumed power thanks in part to Zionist backing, pressured the fifty major weapons contractors active during the Cold War to consolidate in the nominal name of cutting costs. The ensuing distortion of our military has occurred via multiple forms, which I reported on for the Libertarian Institute in July.
One distortion has been cost overruns on weapons systems, which contractors feel free to allow or even encourage since no competition exists for their product. This has also allowed errors in construction which diminishes the equipment that’s supposed to serve our troops. Then, as I have reported elsewhere, in response to the overruns came budget cuts and the “fix” of “sequestration,” which reduced these cost overruns by cutting expenditures on the troops, further under-equipping and overstretching personnel. Exacerbating the problem, as I have also reported, were Pentagon-and-contractor funded think tanks, which covered the problem with “social initiatives” via mental health, climate, and DEI, further distracting the Pentagon from the imperatives of readiness and training. All the while, interventions urged by the same financial-military-intelligence networks attenuating the capacity of our armed forces also overstretched them: in Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and (in an “advisory” capacity) Syria and Israel and Ukraine.
The result has not just been surging deficit spending that mortgages the future of Americans; nor backlash from affected populations to our imperial arrangements abroad. It has also, even more dramatically, been a spate of military embarrassments since 2018, most notably crashes of planes at the hands of overcommitted and demoralized troops and their commanders. These have racked up losses to the tune of nearly $500 million per crash and cost the lives of servicepeople. As I reported in January of this year, in an investigation of these crashes and their causes:
“For the Army, [the shrinking of budgets and personnel since the 2010s] meant “cut[ting] 40,000 active-duty soldiers, shrinking [the Armed Forces] to 450,000 by 2017.” For the Air Force, this meant a reduction of active-duty airmen from 333,370 to 310,000.”
“An Air Force report to Congress in 2018 said that, thanks to sequestration, the Air Force was ‘the smallest… it has ever been.’ Active-duty aircrew flying hours had been slashed from 17.7 to 13.2 hours per month. 31 squadrons, including 13 coded for combat, had stood down because of funding pressures. Plans had been announced to eliminate 500 planes, and, according to a Military.com report cited by The American Legion, the Air Force was ‘making do with ‘half-size squadrons.’’ The common refrain today is that hours in the air are even shorter—4.1 hours a month, by one estimate—and that efforts to replace real flying with “on-the-ground simulators” are dismal failures.”
“These shortages of manpower and training had immediate effects that took time to tally… 2018, the year after the sequester was complete, saw a spate of plane crashes. In late 2020, Congress found that, in just six years since the sequester began, ‘‘mishaps’ in training flights or routine missions killed 198 service members and civilians, destroyed 157 aircraft, and cost taxpayers $9.41 billion.’ Two weeks alone in 2022 saw three crashes on routine training missions in Alabama and California, costing at least five lives and two injuries. The last few months of 2023 saw four crashes. On December 22, 2024, a navy jet was shot down by friendly fire, and another narrowly avoided being shot down by the same barrage, in the Mediterranean.”
A year ago, given the stakes Donald Trump himself articulated for his re-election (a run against the “deep state”), it seemed unthinkable that Trump would adopt military corporatist priorities wholesale almost immediately on assuming office. But, influenced in part by Zionist operators who swung to support his re-election campaign in the summer of 2024 after pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, he has done exactly that. As I reported for the Libertarian Institute in July, Trump has forgone actually reforming aspects of the military corporate complex to aid our soldiers. Instead he has committed to a “Big Beautiful Bill” that inflates ICE’s budget but does not direct military funding away from corporate cronyism; a surface-level crusade against “wokeness” and “DEI”; a military parade; superficial demonstrations of force in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela; the militarization of law enforcement via ICE recruiting; and the placement of American troops in American cities. He claims to be standing above all for our troops—but in reality he is standing for the military corporate complex that mis-serves them, to the demonstrable detriment of our men and women in uniform.
The most recent example of Trump’s demonstrably detrimental effect on our troops comes from The Washington Post, in a story published December 4, 2025. The subject was a deployment to the Middle East for the benefit of Israel and its Saudi and Emirati allies against Yemen; a campaign prosecuted in the Biden administration and before with the encouragement of Zionists but decisively and unprecedentedly accelerated by Trump in his second term:
“The U.S. Navy on Thursday released its findings from four investigations scrutinizing the significant challenges encountered by one of its aircraft carrier groups over nine months in the Middle East, where several major accidents occurred as the ships battled Yemeni militants.”
“The Truman carrier group departed its home port in Norfolk in September 2024 — and by the time it returned in May, the carrier itself had collided with a merchant vessel; its cruiser had shot down one of its fighter jets, another warplane was lost when it slid overboard as the carrier performed an evasive maneuver to dodge an incoming missile; and a third jet was lost when an arresting cable failed as the pilot attempted to land.”
“In three of the four incidents, investigators determined, either poor training, improper procedures or crew fatigue played significant roles. And while no service members died, those incidents could have led to multiple fatalities, the Navy found.”
All of which raises with some immediacy the question of Ed Gallrein, who was selected to run against Massie after the congressman repeatedly voted, along Jeffersonian constitutionalist lines, against using taxpayer money and deficit spending to benefit Israel. Gallrein’s selector was Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager in 2024 and Trump’s pick to spearhead the anti-Massie campaign, who is working with at least $2 million from an anti-Massie PAC funded by the Jewish Zionist billionaires Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Miriam Adelson. These three operators owe their easy entrée into Washington in part to the military-intelligence Zionist operators linked to the money and power at the origins of the CIA and of the host systems for the merchants of death 80 years ago—just as the decisive momentum was building for the creation of Israel.
And the $2 million they have committed so far on behalf of Israel’s interests has had its effect. At a recent gathering of campaign donors, Massie informed the group that before this primary campaign his approval/disapproval rating in polls was 62-12 (adding together very approved, somewhat approved, etc.) But, he went on to say, after $2 million in negative ads spent in his district, it’s now 51-37. He said hthat he personally expects $20 million to be spent against him, but will feel comfortable in his odds if he raises $5 million.
Gallrein was endorsed preemptively by Trump, which is to say before he entered the race, and he is by any measure a shrewd choice for Trump and Trump’s Zionist allies to back. He is not just a decorated veteran with thirty years of valorous service, he is also a fifth generation farmer and the scion of a Kentucky family with deep roots in the 4th District. The Gallrein Family Farm, founded in 1929, became the largest dairy producer in the state; expanded aggressively into tobacco and vegetables and grain along with a subset of trucking; and has now expanded into “agritourism” with weddings and a farmers market, along with a store and lunch counter which sells the farm’s “produce and product lines.” According to his LinkedIn CV, Gallrein worked at the farm from 1962, when he was four, to 1982, when he was 24, rising to vice president; then in 1984 he joined the U.S. Army, where “he served for 30 years and became a Navy SEAL officer… rose to the rank of captain and served in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq.” Since retiring in 2014, Gallrein has experimented with careers: opening a farm and stables as well as two “leadership” and “startup” consultancy businesses, and running in the Republican primary for the District 7 state senate seat, going on to lose the race by 118 votes. He speaks, repeatedly, of his intention to bring the skills he learned during his military service to serve the 4th District.
Gallrein, having never served in office, has no voting record, and his policy platform amounts to loyalty to President Trump’s agenda, which now includes supporting interventions or operations abroad in Yemen, Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Nigeria. In public statements this year, Gallrein has doubled down on interventionism, specifically defended our engagements in the Middle East, especially against Iran, as “leveraging” our “power” there and (echoing a favorite line from Trump-supporting media) “playing chess” against our enemies. He uses the authority of his service to help make the case—even to the extent of arguing that what may seem to be the Trump administration’s irresponsible ventures abroad and at home with authoritarian surveillance regimes like the Saudis and Emiratis via the ministrations of Israel are in fact necessary complements to our national security. (“Economic is the centerpiece of national power. [That concept is] called ‘Dime’ as we studied it in the War College.”)
What Gallrein doesn’t emphasize in his interviews is as telling as what he does. What he under-emphasizes is not just questions of taxes and debt and cost of living, which is not a surprise considering that he has said publicly that he “believes it’s his stance on foreign policy that put him on Trump’s radar.” What he under-emphasizes also relates to crucial questions when it comes to his nominal area of expertise, our military. He does not speak about meaningfully reforming our weapons contracting systems or their think tank outgrowths; or about the influence of money on the interventions we make in other sovereign nations. In other words, he does not speak about any actual structural problem in the military corporate complex that hurts the men and women with whom he once valorously served—or about any actual structural reform that would help them. And why would he? His financial and political backers are tied, directly, to those very structures—the military corporate systems and their financial supporters and their think tanks and advocacy groups and the state, Israel, that is their main priority and beneficiary and the beneficiary of our endless interventions.
Not just our sovereignty, but the safety of the people pledged to protect us, are under clear threat when they’re presided over by politicos like Gallrein run by networks, and operators, like these.
‘No evidence’: UNIFIL chief refutes Israeli claims about Hezbollah rearming in south Lebanon
Press TV – December 9, 2025
The commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) says the multinational peacekeeping mission has not found any evidence of Hezbollah rebuilding its military capabilities, contradicting Israeli claims used as the pretext to strike southern Lebanon.
Speaking in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 television channel on Monday, Diodato Abagnara said he had seen “no evidence” that the Lebanese resistance movement was rearming south of the Litani River.
Abagnara, who took over as head of UNIFIL in June, also condemned continued Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, which have killed hundreds of people, as “blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement.”
He warned that the slightest mistake could lead to a major escalation, describing the security situation as “really fragile.”
Abagnara also noted that the presence of Israeli troops in five points along the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied territories constitutes a “flagrant” violation of UN Resolution 1701.
The resolution, which brokered a ceasefire in the 33-day-long war Israel launched against Lebanon in 2006, calls on the occupying Tel Aviv regime to respect Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Israel and the Hezbollah resistance movement reached a ceasefire agreement that took effect on November 27, 2024. Under the deal, Tel Aviv was required to withdraw fully from the Lebanese territory, but has kept forces stationed at five sites, in clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the terms of last November’s agreement.
Since the implementation of the ceasefire, Israel has violated the agreement multiple times through repeated assaults on the Lebanese territory.
Lebanese authorities have warned that the Israeli regime’s violations of the ceasefire threaten national stability.
Tony Blair ‘dropped’ from Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ shortlist; Hamas welcomes move as ‘step in right direction’
MEMO | December 9, 2025
A senior figure in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Taher al-Nunu, said on Monday that reports about removing former UK prime minister Tony Blair from the “Gaza Peace Council” is “a step in the right direction”.
He said the movement had repeatedly urged mediators to exclude Blair because of what he described as his clear bias towards Israel.
In comments reported by Al Jazeera, al-Nunu confirmed that Hamas is ready to agree to a long-term truce, provided that Israel fully commits to a complete ceasefire.
He explained that the resistance’s weapons would form part of the defence system of a future Palestinian state, stressing that the movement firmly rejects any proposal for an international force to seize these weapons by force. “This proposal is rejected and has never been discussed,” he said.
Al-Nunu added that the movement has not yet received any clear plan regarding the structure of the proposed international force for Gaza, its duties, or the areas where it would be deployed.
He expressed his belief that “no state will agree to join a force tasked with forcibly disarming Gaza”.
He also said that “Benjamin Netanyahu’s ambitions go beyond the borders of Palestine and pose a threat to all countries in the region”.
In a separate remark, al-Nunu announced that Hamas is ready to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip immediately to an independent national committee of technocrats, noting that this idea was proposed by Egypt after the Palestinian Authority refused to take on the role.
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Book Review
The Voters’ Self-Induced Matrix
By Jeb Smith | The Libertarian Institute | April 20, 2026
In Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions, Professor Todd Rose explains that to belong to a group, people “keep twisting [themselves] into pretzels, trying to conform to what we falsely believe everyone else expects of us.” Seeking acceptance from the group, we conform in language, behavior, beliefs, and practices. As a result, we lose our individuality and aggregate into herds. Within our group we create an alternate reality to fit whichever collective mindset we attach ourselves to, and interpret the world through those lenses—our innate desire to belong overrides reality.
Rose says these illusions “have become a defining feature of our modern society.” In other words, the collectivist mindset is a great conduit for spreading illusions; thus, it is the politician’s favored form of governance.
Rose points to studies in psychology and neuroscience showing we delude ourselves into believing what the majority does, even if it is not what we desire or know to be accurate. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- A Palantir Manifesto
- John Mearsheimer: U.S. Expands Iran War & Divorces Europe
- Palantir’s Technological Republic is a blueprint for digital tyranny
- Israeli-backed armed gang kidnaps 25 Palestinians in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighbourhood
- No war crimes in Gaza, says Nigel Farage’s Israel tsar
- IDF Gives Order To Fire On Civilians In Southern Lebanon
- Islamabad’s post-war push: A new Gulf security order takes shape
- IRGC seizes Israeli ship, second vessel for violations in Strait of Hormuz
- US Embargo on Iran Undermined as 34 Tankers Slip Through, Vortexa Says
- Trump’s erratic behavior signals US deadlock: Ansarullah
- If Americans Knew
- Gaza’s unseen casualties: A surge in stillbirths and birth defects
- ‘Day of Ordinary Terror’: Israeli Attack on West Bank School Kills Man, Child
- Final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment
- Zionist Doxxing Campaigns Upended Their Lives. Now They’re Suing for Damages.
- Eyes on Gaza, as trends reveal increased Israeli violence – Daily Update
- Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says
- Top Biden Official Supports Trump Iran Attack, Says Biden May Have Done The Same
- A history of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon
- How the powerful pro-Israel lobby keeps controlling Democrats in the US
- Replay: Israel’s slow ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Holy Land
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
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