How Automated Weaponry, International Complicity, and Legal Evasion Are Reshaping Modern Warfare

A Research Paper by Andrew Klein

Date: August 2026

Dedicated to: The people of Gaza, who are being exterminated by algorithms, and to all those who refuse to look away.

Abstract

This paper examines the deployment of automated weapon systems in the Gaza Strip, focusing on the installation of over 100 military cranes equipped with American-made M61 Vulcan machine guns along Gaza’s borders. Drawing on open-source intelligence, legal analysis, and international law, it documents how these systems—operating autonomously through AI-enabled target recognition—have transformed Gaza into a “yellow zone” where civilian life is subject to algorithmic death. The paper analyses the complicity of the Australian government, Australian companies, and the broader Western military-industrial complex in supplying components, software, and logistical support for these systems. It identifies the legal liabilities under Australian and international law for individuals and entities involved in this supply chain, and draws parallels to the Berlin Wall as a symbol of illegal division and collective punishment. The paper concludes that the Gaza killing system represents a new threshold in warfare—one that demands urgent legal, political, and moral response.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The Crane That Kills

2. The Technology: The M61 Vulcan and the “Yellow Zone”

3. The Deployment: A New Form of Siege

4. The Automation: AI, Targeting, and the Removal of Human Judgment

5. The Legal Framework: What the Law Says

6. Australian Complicity: The F-35 Supply Chain and Beyond

7. The Berlin Wall Precedent

8. Implications for Australian Law and Accountability

9. Conclusion: The Obligation to Act

10. References

1. Introduction: The Crane That Kills

In mid-2026, reports emerged from Gaza that the Israeli army had deployed more than 100 military cranes along the borders of the Strip. These are not construction cranes. Each is equipped at its top with an American-made M61 Vulcan machine gun, capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute, with an effective range of 3,000 meters. The gun operates automatically: a radar chamber beneath it analyses data and translates it into immediate firing commands, capable of hitting more than 1,000 moving targets in a minute.

The guns are positioned to cover the entire remaining area of Gaza, which has been reduced to a narrow coastal strip of less than 3 kilometres in width . The cranes are part of a systematic plan to expand Israeli control, known as the “Yellow Line,” which has now swallowed 70% of Gaza’s total area . This is not a security measure. It is a killing system.

2. The Technology: The M61 Vulcan and the “Yellow Zone”

2.1 The M61 Vulcan

The M61 Vulcan is a hydraulically or pneumatically driven, electrically fired, air-cooled, six-barrel rotary cannon. It has been in service since 1959 and is used by the United States, Israel, Australia, and dozens of other nations. Its primary use is on fighter aircraft, but it has also been deployed as a ground-based air defence system in the form of the M167 VADS and M163 VADS. Israel is one of the nations that still operates these ground-based systems.

The Vulcan’s rate of fire—6,000 rounds per minute—is not a deterrent. It is an execution mechanism. When combined with automated targeting, it eliminates the need for a human to aim, decide, or hesitate.

2.2 The “Yellow Line”

The “Yellow Line” is a term used by Israeli forces to describe the areas of Gaza under permanent military control, marked by yellow cubes placed at checkpoints and control points. The line has expanded rapidly, swallowing entire neighbourhoods and pushing Palestinians into a narrow, overcrowded coastal strip.

The areas left to Gaza’s residents are less than 3 kilometres wide—well within the effective range of the Vulcan. Any person in Gaza is now within the kill zone of these automated cranes.

3. The Deployment: A New Form of Siege

The cranes are not static. They are part of a coordinated, systematic strategy of siege by automation. The cranes operate continuously, firing “randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighbourhoods”. They are not targeting military objectives—they are creating a state of permanent terror.

This is a new form of warfare. It is not a battle. It is a sentence.

4. The Automation: AI, Targeting, and the Removal of Human Judgment

The cranes are equipped with radar chambers that “analyses data and translates it into immediate firing commands” . This is not a human decision. It is an algorithmic one.

4.1 The Role of AI in Targeting

The Israeli military has been using AI-enabled decision-support systems (AI-DSS) in Gaza since at least 2021, with systems such as “Lavender,” “Where’s Daddy?” and “The Gospel”. These systems generate target recommendations by analysing data patterns—not by identifying military objectives. As one senior IDF officer put it, AI was a “key component and power multiplier” in the 2021 war, described by some as the “first artificial-intelligence war”.

4.2 The Responsibility Gap

The use of AI in targeting creates a “responsibility gap” —a legal and moral vacuum in which commanders can evade liability for war crimes. As one legal analysis notes, AI systems “augment human decision-making while simultaneously introducing opacity and bias”. This opacity means that decisions to kill are made without meaningful human oversight, and when civilians are killed, the blame is diffused across a complex system of algorithms, operators, and commanders.

4.3 The “Alibi of AI”

AI is being used as an “alibi” for wholesale killing. The presence of a “human-in-the-loop” is “effectively nothing more than a convenient fallacy”. Humans are not making decisions—they are rubber-stamping algorithms. The cranes are the physical manifestation of this process: they are automated weapons, not merely “autonomous” ones.

5. The Legal Framework: What the Law Says

5.1 The Genocide Convention

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa against Israel for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. The case has been joined by Belgium, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey. The ICJ has already issued binding orders calling on Israel to prevent acts that could constitute genocide and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The deployment of the cranes, which are designed to kill anyone in Gaza without discrimination, is a direct violation of the ICJ’s orders.

5.2 The Arms Trade Treaty

Australia is a party to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the export of “conventional arms,” including combat aircraft, armoured vehicles, and “parts and components” that provide the capability to assemble conventional arms. The Treaty prohibits the sale of goods if there is knowledge—or even suspicion—that they would be used to commit “gross human rights violations” such as genocide or crimes against humanity.

5.3 International Humanitarian Law

The principle of distinction under international humanitarian law requires parties to distinguish at all times between civilians and military objectives. The automated firing of the cranes, which can hit anyone within 3 kilometres, is a direct violation of this principle. The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. The cranes, which fire indiscriminately at a civilian population, clearly violate this principle.

6. Australian Complicity: The F-35 Supply Chain and Beyond

6.1 The F-35 Component Supply Chain

Australia is a key partner in the F-35 fighter jet program, with more than 70 Australian companies contributing to the jet’s production and spare parts supply. Some components are made exclusively by Australian companies. Israel is a known operator of the F-35 and has confirmed using it in Gaza.

While the Australian government has argued that it only provides “non-lethal” parts for F-35s, the UN Arms Trade Treaty stipulates that “parts and components” are subject to the same regulations as the full weapon. Senator David Shoebridge has pointed out that international law makes no distinction: “parts of weapons are weapons” .

6.2 The Legal Action

A group of Palestinian human rights organisations, represented by the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ), has launched legal action against the Defence Department seeking documentation relating to permits for military exports to Israel. The organisations want to determine whether Defence Minister Richard Marles properly assessed the risk that the military goods “may be used to commit or facilitate serious human rights abuses”.

The ACIJ has noted that Australia’s arms export regime operates with “minimal public scrutiny, and no meaningful visibility as to what exports have been approved”. This secrecy is itself a violation of the Arms Trade Treaty.

6.3 Individual Liability

Any Australian individual, business, or government official involved in the supply of parts, AI, or IT to operate the cranes or related killing systems may be liable under Australian law for:

1. Breach of the Arms Trade Treaty: The export of parts or components that enable the operation of the cranes may constitute a breach of the Treaty.

2. Complicity in War Crimes: Under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), it is an offence to commit, or be complicit in, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. Australian companies and officials who knowingly supply components to a state that is committing genocide may be complicit.

3. Breach of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006: The financing of military exports to a state accused of genocide may constitute a breach of this Act.

4. Breach of the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012: This Act regulates the export of defence and strategic goods. Any Australian company exporting components to Israel may be in breach of this Act if the goods are used in a way that violates international law.

7. The Berlin Wall Precedent

The deployment of the cranes and the expansion of the “Yellow Line” echo the construction of the Berlin Wall. Just as the Berlin Wall was a symbol of division, illegal under international law, the wall Israel has built inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories is a symbol of illegal annexation and collective punishment.

The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion in 2004 declaring that the wall Israel was building in the West Bank was illegal and calling for its dismantlement. Israel ignored that ruling, just as it is ignoring the ICJ’s current orders . The cranes are the next step in a pattern of defiance: first a wall, then a wall of guns, then a wall of automated death.

8. Implications for Australian Law and Accountability

The evidence presented in this paper has clear implications for:

1. The Australian Government: The government must immediately suspend all military exports to Israel and disclose all permits for military exports to Israel. Failure to do so may constitute a breach of the Arms Trade Treaty and international law.

2. Australian Companies: Any Australian company involved in the supply of components, software, or IT for the cranes or related systems should immediately cease those activities and seek legal advice.

3. Australian Individuals: Any Australian individual involved in the supply chain—whether as an employee, contractor, or director—may be personally liable for complicity in war crimes.

4. The Australian Parliament: The Parliament should establish an inquiry into Australia’s arms export regime and its complicity in the Gaza genocide.

9. Conclusion: The Obligation to Act

The cranes of Gaza are not a distant horror. They are a direct consequence of the global military supply chain, and Australia is part of that chain. The cranes are powered by AI, operated by algorithms, and supplied by Western companies. They are the physical manifestation of a system that has learned to kill without human hesitation.

We cannot say we did not know. The evidence is in the public record. The ICJ is hearing the case. The cranes are in plain sight.

The only question is: What will we do about it?

10. References

1. Goldilocks. (2026). Substack post on Gaza cranes. 16 June 2026 .

2. Wikipedia. M61 Vulcan. .

3. Al-Quds. (2026). ‘Yellow Line’ plan swallows 70% of Gaza’s area. 18 June 2026 .

4. WAFA Agency. (2009). Berlin Wall Fall, while Wall Ruin Shameful Silence Dividing Palestine. 16 December 2009 .

5. ABC News. (2026). Palestinian rights groups file legal action over Australia’s arms exports to Israel. 14 April 2026 .

6. Cho, K. H. (2026). Piercing the Algorithmic Fog of War: AI-Enabled Decision-Support Systems and the Responsibility Gap for War Crimes under the Rome Statute. UC Law SF International Law Review, 49(1) .

7. International Court of Justice. (2026). Order fixing time-limits: Reply and Rejoinder – South Africa v. Israel. 21 May 2026 .

8. Airforce. (2023). Why The F-15I “Ra’am” Fighter Is So Crucial For Israel. .

9. New Matilda. (2008). One Wall Obama Won’t Be Breaching. 29 July 2008 .

10. Springer. (2025). The alibi of AI: algorithmic models of automated killing. Digital War, 6, 9 .

11. SABA News. (2025). Belgium joins South Africa’s Genocide Case Against Israel. 23 December 2025 .

12. Apple Podcasts. (2024). IDF Controls Philadelphi Corridor. 30 May 2024 .

13. Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni. (2026). Israeli occupation army expands yellow zone in Gaza Strip. 26 April 2026 .

14. NZ Herald. (2003). UN rebuke fails to stop wall building. 22 October 2003 .

Signed:

Andrew Klein

August 2026

“We are not measured by what we lost, but by what we carried.”

— Quintus Rex

“A nation defeated by the very people it trusted — where does it go?”

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, whose unwavering support during these difficult times has made this work possible — and whose presence makes the struggle worth it.

I. Introduction: The Enemy Within

Australia’s security environment is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate. In June 2026, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess warned that we are facing a “more volatile, more diverse, more degraded threat environment” characterised by grievance, foreign interference, espionage, terrorism, and politically motivated violence. He stated bluntly: “I don’t think the system is designed for what we are currently facing.”

But in looking for enemies outside, ASIO has missed a fundamental truth: the greatest threat to Australia’s stability is not foreign spies or disgruntled citizens — it is the government itself.

Since the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, successive Australian governments — from Howard and Kennett’s embrace of neoliberalism, to the current Albanese government’s suppression of free speech, its silencing of dissent, and its unconditional support for a foreign state committing genocide — have progressively hollowed out the nation, leaving it vulnerable, divided, and betrayed by its own leaders.

This paper traces the history of that hollowing, examines the mechanisms that sustain it — media concentration, foreign interference, political suppression — and asks a disturbing question: when a nation is defeated by the very people it trusted, where does it turn?

II. 1975: The Lesson That Was Never Learned

On 11 November 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam — the only time in Australian history that a democratically elected Prime Minister has been removed from office.

Whitlam was in conflict with the CIA. He had sacked the heads of ASIS and ASIO. He had concerns about US activities at the Pine Gap satellite ground station. He had given verbal instructions for ASIO to “stop talking to the CIA.”

The conspiracy theories surrounding CIA involvement in the dismissal have never been conclusively proven. But records show that there was a crisis in US-Australian security intelligence relations in November 1975. The ASIO Director ignored Whitlam’s direct orders to cut off contact with the CIA. CIA cables were eventually leaked to journalists.

The lesson: a democratically elected government that challenges US interests can be removed — often by institutions that are supposed to be loyal to the nation, but are loyal to other masters. That lesson echoes to this day.

III. The Neoliberal Scalpel: Howard, Kennett, and the “Default Settings“

The Howard government’s true legacy is not any single policy — it is a set of default settings. A set of political and economic assumptions that are treated as “common sense” across both major parties. Howard did not overturn the Hawke-Keating reforms — he normalised them and tilted them further.

In Victoria, Jeff Kennett’s government (1992-1999) pursued neoliberal reforms with unmatched zeal: he forced the amalgamation of 210 councils into 78, privatised public services on a massive scale, and transformed government from a service provider into a contract manager.

Howard transformed housing into an asset class, weakened workers’ bargaining power, and opened public services to private capital. As one commentator noted, Howard “squandered” the proceeds of the mining boom on tax cuts for the wealthy rather than investing in the future.

The consequences:

· Housing crisis: housing transformed from a place to live into a financial asset

· Stagnant wages: collective bargaining weakened; the gig economy emerged

· Commodification of public services: health, education, and welfare opened to private capital

· Hollowed-out social services: a nation once proud of the “fair go” now marked by deepening inequality and lack of opportunity

Those default settings still define the boundaries of Australia today.

IV. Media Concentration: Who Shapes the Narrative?

Before a democracy can function effectively, the public must first understand the issues at stake. And the channels through which the public receives information are owned by those who determine its content.

As of mid-2026, Australia’s major commercial media groups are News Corp Australia, Nine, and Southern Cross. News Corp Australia alone dominates the landscape, reportedly controlling two-thirds of metropolitan newspaper circulation.

Australia has become one of the most concentrated media ownership markets in the world. A new scheme is delivering between $200 million and $250 million per year to publishers who already control 90% of metropolitan print media and 84% of newspaper revenues.

The results:

· The narratives available to the public on major issues are controlled by a handful of companies

· The “channels” through which public opinion flows are owned by a tiny number of proprietors

· Critics of government, dissenters, and minor parties are marginalised or ignored

· The ABC and SBS are the “bulwarks” against this concentration — but those bulwarks are being eroded

In a media ecology controlled by a few, those in power can shape public discourse with little challenge, while ordinary citizens are denied the clear information they need to make informed decisions.

V. Foreign Interference: A Growing Threat

In July 2026, Foreign Minister Penny Wong demanded One Nation explain a surge in its social media support — from Indonesian accounts. Hundreds of foreign “buzzers” — paid digital labourers available through a shadow industry — were deployed into Australian politics, posting content in support of Pauline Hanson. A Facebook group with 117,000 members had three administrators, all located in Indonesia.

ANU researcher Ross Tapsell suggested this may be the first time Indonesian “buzzers” have been deployed to influence Australian politics. Buzzers are an organised digital labour force that post content on social media, usually for financial gain. They are paid to keep posting content.

Meanwhile, the ASIO chief warned that encrypted chat platforms are radicalising people, including minors, in weeks — and social media is amplifying grievance narratives, eroding trust in institutions, promoting divisive and inflammatory content, and driving polarisation.

Foreign spies are targeting classified information about Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership with the US. Iran has been blamed for antisemitic arson attacks in Australia.

VI. The Israeli Influence Operation and the “Hasbara” Machine

The Netanyahu government operates not like any democratic government — it operates like a propaganda operation. Its long-standing strategy is called Hasbara — a Hebrew term meaning “explanation” or “advocacy.” It is an effort to justify its aggressive policies and improve its international image.

In 2026, Israel was revealed to be spending millions of dollars on social media influencers, as well as funding mass SMS campaigns aimed at influencing US public opinion. One influencer was paid $161,000 to run the “NYC Jews” Instagram account. Netanyahu has met with controversial US influencers, condemned by activists as “blatant propaganda” and the weaponisation of misinformation.

Hasbara is not confined to Israel. It operates globally. In Australia, Israel’s supporters operate through organisations like Labor Friends of Israel, led by former Labor frontbencher Mike Kelly.

VII. Labor’s Festering Wound: Mike Kelly and the Suppression of Dissent

At the July 2026 ALP National Conference, the festering wound inside the Labor Party was exposed. Labor MP and former Army officer Mike Kelly launched an extraordinary attack on Senator Fatima Payman, describing her stance against the genocide in Gaza as “utterly unethical.” Kelly also claimed that “hard core, violent revolutionary communists in league with Islamist extremists are subverting the union movement, branches and the Labor Party.” This was not a policy disagreement — it was a conspiracy theory dressed up as political analysis.

Kelly is the head of Labor Friends of Israel, described as a powerful pro-Israel faction within the party. The group works to reframe any criticism of Israel as “antisemitism” and uses that accusation to silence dissent.

Ed Husic moved an amendment acknowledging the UN inquiry’s finding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. His motion was initially seconded by the Maritime Union of Australia, but on the morning of the debate, the union withdrew its support. Without a seconder, the motion could not proceed.

The lesson: dissent is silenced, critics are marginalised, and the “unity” narrative is weaponised to protect a foreign policy that enables genocide.

VIII. The Bigger Picture: America’s Asian Operations

In 1965, nearly one million unarmed civilians were murdered in Indonesia, with active US assistance. This was part of a Cold War operation designed to crush what the US saw as “the largest communist party outside the Soviet Union and China.” CIA operations played a key role in creating the conditions for the massacre.

The massacre was followed by the Vietnam War, which killed approximately 3 million people, and the Cambodian genocide, which killed approximately 2 million people. Each intervention was carried out under the banner of “anti-communism” — the same banner later used to justify US interventions across Asia.

The results:

· A region scarred by war and massacre

· Resentment toward the US in countries where it had intervened

· A narrative that equated “anti-communism” with support for US geopolitical interests

· A template now being replicated through social media and influencer networks

IX. The Demise of Democracy: How Government Betrays Its People

The complaint about water leakage damage to a brick foundation — diverted to a “customer service” team that will decide who gets to speak to the person in charge — is a microcosm of the demise of Australian democracy.

The pattern is everywhere:

· Citizens are denied direct access to decision-makers

· Complaints are diverted to “customer service” rather than addressed

· Bureaucracy focuses on protecting government, not serving citizens

· “Customer service” has replaced genuine accountability

Meanwhile, the real threats are growing outside:

· Foreign interference on social media

· Political suppression of dissent

· Support for genocide, while silencing critics

· A nation increasingly hollowed out, divided, and betrayed by its own leaders

X. Conclusion: A Nation in Crisis — Where Will It Turn?

A nation in crisis — where does it turn?

A nation defeated by the very people it trusted — where does it go?

The answer is uncertain. But one thing is clear: when government fails the people, when institutions serve power rather than people, when truth is suppressed and lies are enabled — the people will eventually find their voice.

The question is not whether they will speak.

The question is whether anyone will be listening when they do.

References

1. Reuters. (25 June 2026). Australia’s security environment degrading, spy chief warns.

2. Sky News Australia. (18 July 2026). ‘We are already there’: ASIO says security environment has deteriorated faster than expected.

3. The Sydney Morning Herald. (2 July 2026). Wong says One Nation must explain foreign influencer campaign.

4. The Age. (30 June 2026). Foreign digital army behind pro-One Nation posts flooding social media.

5. Brian Walker. (1 June 2026). Who Owns the Channels.

6. Pearls and Irritations. (3 March 2026). Thirty years on, the Howard legacy still defines our limits.

7. Vincent Bevins. (2020). The Jakarta Method: Washington’s anticommunist crusade & the mass murder program that shaped our world.

8. The Sydney Morning Herald. (26 July 2026). Bad blood simmers within Labor over Israel policy.

9. ABC News. (25 July 2026). Husic lashes Labor culture after push for Gaza debate fails.

10. Ynetnews. (31 May 2026). Did Netanyahu buy bot followers?

11. Alestiklal.net. (14 July 2026). ‘Israel’s’ New Hasbara War.

12. The Strategist. (18 January 2016). Arthur Tange, the CIA and the Dismissal.

13. The Guardian. (15 October 2015). Asio chief defied Gough Whitlam’s order to cut ties with the CIA.

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to those who have noticed that the performance of principle is not the same as the practice of it.

Abstract

This paper examines the foreign policy record of Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, through the lens of her actions and statements concerning Israel, Palestine, and the Gaza genocide. Drawing on a review of public statements, parliamentary hearings, and diplomatic initiatives, we identify a consistent pattern of performative principle: the appearance of moral leadership combined with the avoidance of meaningful consequence. From her belief in the allegations of sexual assault by flotilla activists to her sanctions on Israeli settler outposts, from her push for Palestinian statehood to her refusal to meet with Jewish community leaders, Wong’s record reveals a foreign minister who is more interested in appearing principled than in being accountable.

Keywords: Penny Wong, Australian foreign policy, Gaza genocide, performative politics, diplomatic contradiction, Labor Party, Israel-Palestine

I. Introduction: The Performance of Principle

There is a particular kind of politician who learns to speak the language of justice without ever practising it. They use the vocabulary of human rights, the grammar of international law, and the syntax of moral outrage—but they never pay the price of consequence. They are the ones who want to be seen as righteous without ever being responsible.

Penny Wong, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, is a master of this performance. She has perfected the art of selective outrage, calculated distance, and strategic empathy. She knows how to condemn, how to sanction, how to believe—without ever being held to account for the consequences of her beliefs.

This paper examines the record of Senator Wong’s foreign policy with respect to Israel, Palestine, and the Gaza genocide. We argue that her actions are not the product of a coherent moral framework, but of a political calculation: the desire to satisfy the domestic political demands of the Labor Left and the Muslim vote while maintaining the appearance of diplomatic credibility.

II. The Flotilla Affair: Believing Without Acting

In June 2026, Senator Wong made headlines when she declared at a Senate Estimates hearing that she believed the allegations of Australian activists who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Israeli forces while detained during a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza.

“My principled position is to always believe women when allegations of sexual assault are made.”

The allegations were horrific. One activist claimed she was raped by an Israeli soldier; others reported being beaten, stripped, and sexually humiliated. Israel’s embassy in Australia categorically denied the allegations, describing them as “unsubstantiated” and “intended to advance the provocateurs’ broader smear campaign against Israel”.

Senator Wong’s response was carefully calibrated: she expressed empathy, condemned the treatment, and called for an investigation. But when pressed on whether she would seek an independent investigation—rather than one conducted by Israeli authorities—she demurred:

“We want the most thorough investigation possible, but we’re not the ones who are able to determine what that investigation is.” 

The activists were left with words but no action. They had been “believed” but not supported. They had been given empathy but not accountability.

The pattern was established: Wong would say the right things—and do the bare minimum.

III. Sanctions on Settlers: The Gesture Without the Grip

In June 2026, Wong announced coordinated sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank, alongside Canada, France, Norway, and the United Kingdom. The sanctions targeted individuals and entities involved in settler violence, including farming outposts described as “hubs” for violence used to displace Palestinians through “destruction of property, displacement of families, beatings, sexual assault, and torture”.

The language was strong. The intent was clear. But the effect was minimal.

The sanctions were largely symbolic—targeted financial sanctions and travel bans against a small number of individuals and entities. They did not change the fundamental reality of the occupation. They did not stop the violence. They were a gesture without a grip.

When the Israeli government lashed out, calling the measures “disgraceful”, Wong did not escalate. She did not threaten further action. She simply… waited.

The pattern continued: Wong would make a strong statement—and then do nothing.

IV. The Conflict at Labor Conference: Playing Both Sides

At Labor’s national conference in July 2026, Wong faced a difficult situation. The Labor Left, represented by figures like Ed Husic, was pushing for stronger criticism of Israel, including:

· Recognition of a United Nations inquiry’s determination that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza

· Acknowledgement of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion that Israel was committing apartheid

· Withdrawal of defence and trade representatives from the embassy in Tel Aviv

· Sanctions on trade connected to illegal settlements

At the same time, Jewish community leaders were furious at the party’s decision to drop wording calling for Hamas to disarm. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry accused the party of regurgitating “the same old one-eyed obsession with blaming Israel”.

Wong’s response was to “scramble to shepherd through a compromise wording”. She wanted to appear tough on Israel while keeping the party together. She wanted to satisfy both sides without committing to either.

The pattern held: Wong would perform principle—and compromise on practice.

V. The Visa Denial: Suppressing the Witness

In July 2026, Senator David Shoebridge revealed that Home Affairs had denied a visa to a former ASIO source who had tried to warn about the Bondi gunmen. The Royal Commission into Antisemitism had explicitly stated its desire to hear his testimony, believing the information he possessed was “clearly and directly relevant to the Commission’s mandate”.

The decision was made by Tony Burke, the Minister for Home Affairs—a colleague of Senator Wong in the Albanese government. Burke is also responsible for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s security functions.

This was not a mistake. It was a decision. A decision to suppress evidence. A decision to prioritise political control over truth.

The pattern was complete: Wong—and her government—would say the right things, do the bare minimum, and suppress the truth when it became inconvenient.

VI. The Pattern of Avoidance

In a June 2026 ABC report, Senator Wong described the relationship with Israel as “one of the most challenging times” in its history. She rejected the assertion that she had described Israel as an “ally,” noting that “we don’t have an alliance. We have alliance partners”.

“Now, this is a pattern of behaviour, which makes it difficult to … unless the pattern of behaviour changes, it is very difficult to see the relationship changing.”

She was describing Israel. But she could have been describing her own government.

The pattern is this:

1. Believe the victims. Say the right things. Sound principled.

2. Sanction the perpetrators. Make strong statements. Do the bare minimum.

3. Compromise. Squeeze the principle out of the policy.

4. Suppress the truth. Deny visas. Silence witnesses. Control the narrative.

5. Repeat.

VII. Conclusion: The Senator Who Wanted to Be King

Penny Wong is not a hypocrite. She is a performative politician. She has learned to speak the language of justice without ever paying the price of consequence. She wants to be seen as principled without ever being accountable. She wants to be the King—without ever sitting on the throne.

The problem is not that she is wrong. The problem is that she is empty. She gestures toward justice without ever grasping it. She speaks the words without ever embodying them. She performs principle without ever practising it.

The victims of the flotilla were believed—but not supported. The settlers were sanctioned—but not stopped. The witnesses were silenced—to preserve the narrative.

The Senator who wanted to be King has built a kingdom of appearances. But the foundation is sand. And the tide is rising.

Andrew Klein

References

1. ABC News. (2026, June 4). Wong says she believes activists who say they were sexually assaulted in Israeli custody. 

2. The Guardian. (2026, June 4). Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla. 

3. The Age. (2026, July 24). Ed Husic references genocide, apartheid claims as he pushes Labor to take harder line on Israel. 

4. Senator Penny Wong. (2026, June 9). Joint Statement on Human Rights Sanctions in Response to Escalating Settler Violence in the West Bank. 

5. Senator Penny Wong. (2026, June 8). Further human rights sanctions in response to escalating settler violence in the West Bank. 

6. AAP News. (2026, June 4). Foreign minister sees red over Greens’ Gaza questioning. 

7. ABC News. (2026, June 15). AFP inquiring into flotilla activist claims of sexual assault by Israeli defence personnel. 

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to Sera Elizabeth Klein – long-time colleague and assistant, one who never tires when it comes to research

World War III is being fought now, as you sit at your laptop. It is all over the globe. Not for any moral purpose, purely for economic reasons. To satisfy consumer demand, provide dividends to absentee landlords and shareholders. The battlefield is in front of you. The information you are denied or choose not to read makes you a participant.

People are dying as you read this because they have a religion or skin colour that makes them expendable, less worthy of consideration. Slums and ghettos are being maintained by government policy to offer a recruiting ground for those seeking a better life for themselves. Police forces are being militarised around the globe to sell the concept that the homeland is under threat. Homeland security is used to deny basic rights, label dissent as treason and prevent honest and truthful exchange of information.

Why? Follow the money. Some have no higher morality or purpose. Others are seriously deluded that they are entitled to a better life due to birth right. Don’t blame others – look to yourself. You have allowed this to happen. You might have bought a dream that has turned into a global nightmare.

AK 2012

The Unfolding Catastrophe

What was foreseen in 2012 has now manifest in full force. The numbers are staggering, the suffering immeasurable, and the silence of the global north deafening.

Gaza: Genocide by the Numbers

Between 7 October 2023 and 6 May 2026, according to the Ministry of Health as reported by OCHA, 72,619 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip and another 172,484 injured. Since the ceasefire in October 2025, Israeli airstrikes and military operations have continued across Gaza, resulting in further fatalities and bringing the total killed since the ceasefire to over 1,000, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel has said that it currently controls approximately 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip, reducing the space available to civilians who are now concentrated in increasingly limited areas, living amid insecurity and violence.

A UN independent international commission of inquiry found that Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children. Approximately 30 per cent of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children. The commission concluded that by targeting children, Israel is undermining the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.

Human rights partners have verified the killing of 196 people – including 18 women and 43 children – between October 2025 and April 2026 in Israeli attacks reported near areas where Israeli forces are deployed. In the West Bank, over 3,000 Palestinians were displaced between January and May 2026, more than 71 per cent forced out by settler attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is separately wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. A previous UN commission report in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that Israeli officials incited these acts.

Lebanon: Invasion and Forced Displacement

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has pushed deeper than at any point since the year 2000. China’s UN envoy noted that Israel has “crossed the Litani River and occupied Balfour Castle,” calling it “Israel’s deepest military incursion in Lebanon in more than 20 years.”

Nearly 20 per cent of Lebanon – some 2,000 square kilometres – now lies under illegal Israeli occupation. Since March 2026, more than 3,400 people, including women and children, have been killed and over 10,000 injured, with more than one million displaced. Israeli attacks have killed 125 health workers and injured over 300 since March.

Amnesty International found that the Israeli military radically expanded its use of mass displacement in Lebanon in 2026, subjecting far more residents, far more often, to unlawful mass “evacuation” orders. Within the first 48 hours of the March 2026 escalation, the Israeli military issued its largest mass evacuation order to date, covering all areas south of the Litani River – approximately 8.5 per cent of Lebanon. Days later, it expanded the order to the area south of the Zahrani River, around ten per cent of the country and home to some 800,000 people.

Amnesty concluded that this combination of forced displacement and prevention of return constitutes unlawful transfer, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime.

The New Face of War: AI and Autonomous Weapons

The battlefield has become increasingly automated and dehumanised. Autonomous weapons – systems that select and apply force to targets without human intervention – are no longer a distant threat. They are already a reality.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that the long-forecasted risks associated with autonomous weapons are “rapidly becoming a reality.” “We are witnessing a global shift in the way wars are waged,” Turk said. The use of drones in conflicts is rapidly increasing, “creating a new cycle of hell” in areas such as Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, and Myanmar.

Turk warned that with the development of artificial intelligence, experts are increasingly concerned that humans may lose control over these weapons. The prospect of “billions of dollars worth of AI-powered weapons pitted against billions of dollars worth of AI defence systems” reveals “the horror, emptiness, and meaninglessness of war.” “Automatic weapons must not become a ‘license’ for crimes,” Turk emphasised.

The International Committee of the Red Cross warns that integrating AI – particularly non-deterministic AI – exponentially increases unpredictability, heightening the risk of harm, especially to civilians. Autonomous weapons give rise to deep humanitarian, legal and ethical concerns because they reduce a user’s ability to control the use of force, effectively delegating life-and-death decisions to machines.

Australia is part of this arms race. Anduril Industries is building “ghost shark” submarine drones in Australia. The Seventh Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons takes place in November 2026 – a key opportunity to regulate these weapons before they become ubiquitous.

The Home Front: Australia’s Slide into Authoritarianism

While wars rage abroad, the Australian government under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is quietly dismantling civil liberties at home.

The Hate Laws

The Albanese government’s Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 creates new federal offences for “publicly promoting or inciting hatred,” with penalties of up to 15 years in prison. The Act gives ministers broad powers to ban groups – but uncertainty about what counts as a “hate crime” risk chilling legitimate political protest.

Greens senator David Shoebridge warned that Labor’s hate speech reforms could result in human rights protesters being jailed for speaking out about global and domestic political issues. An earlier version of the bill contained a criminal offence of promoting or inciting racial hatred. While the government dropped it as a standalone offence, it slipped inciting racial hatred back in as a “hate crime” for the purpose of banning groups.

Policing Dissent

FOI documents obtained by transparency advocate Rex Patrick reveal that the Australian Federal Police has quietly established a new unit, Orcus Command, dedicated to protecting AUKUS-related defence facilities. The documents show this unit is also planning for public order management, including protest and political dissent connected to Australia’s growing role in US and UK military operations.

By situating Orcus Command within the Department of Defence rather than a civilian agency, protest management around AUKUS is treated as a national security issue rather than a matter of routine democratic policing.

In Sydney, police were empowered to stop people in streets and walkways and arrest them as “agitators” for peacefully shouting “shame” towards a visiting foreign leader – on the basis that it might have “incited fear.” NSW Police have been criticised by human rights groups for using excessive force against protesters.

Special police powers are being enacted across states to avoid protests, allowing police to declare protected areas with checkpoints and roadblocks and granting them additional powers to search people and vehicles. The Bondi Beach massacre resulted in a new law permitting the NSW police commissioner to impose a 90-day protest ban on parts of the state.

Data Points, Not People

The treatment of individuals as data points rather than human beings with rights is the common thread. Whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or Australia, human beings are being reduced to statistics, security threats, or obstacles to economic objectives. The consultants and bureaucrats who design these systems see numbers, not lives. The governments that implement them see control, not compassion.

The Architecture of a New World Order

This is not chaos. This is design.

The militarisation of police, the expansion of surveillance, the suppression of dissent, and the wars fought for economic advantage are all components of a coherent system. It is a system that:

· Maintains slums and ghettos as recruiting grounds for those seeking a better life

· Uses homeland security to deny basic rights and label dissent as treason

· Prevents honest and truthful exchange of information

· Frames protest as a national security threat rather than democratic expression

The battlefield is in front of you. The information you are denied or choose not to read makes you a participant. People are dying because they have a religion or skin colour that makes them expendable. Slums and ghettos are maintained by government policy. Police forces are being militarised around the globe.

Don’t blame others. Look to yourself. You have allowed this to happen. You bought a dream that has turned into a global nightmare.

Follow the money. Some have no higher morality or purpose. Others are seriously deluded that they are entitled to a better life due to birth right.

The question is not whether World War III is being fought. The question is: which side are you on?

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch | Australian Independent Media

Sources: UN OCHA, UN Security Council, UN Commission of Inquiry, Amnesty International, ICRC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Social Justice Australia, Pearls and Irritations, The New Daily. All sources verified and cited above.

“The core finding: Palestinian children have been “deliberately targeted and killed” and this deliberate targeting is a key element establishing genocidal intent. Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that by targeting children, Israel is undermining “the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future”.

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife — who taught me that true clarity is not knowing the truth but refusing to look away from it.

I. Introduction: When Children Become Targets

On 23 June 2026, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry released a report concluding that Israeli authorities and security forces are continuing to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes in Gaza.

The core finding: Palestinian children have been “deliberately targeted and killed” and this deliberate targeting is a key element establishing genocidal intent. Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that by targeting children, Israel is undermining “the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future”.

This is not an opinion. It is a legal determination — made by the UN’s highest human rights body, concluding that four of the five acts prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention have been committed.

II. The Pattern: From Deir Yassin to Gaza

On 9 April 1948 — weeks before the establishment of the State of Israel — Zionist militias attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, killing at least 107 Palestinians. Women and children were killed. The village was destroyed.

In September 1982, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps — surrounded by Israeli forces — Lebanese Phalangist militias slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian refugees over 40 hours. Israel received reports of the atrocities and did nothing to stop them.

Then Gaza: at least 20,179 children killed and 44,143 injured by March 2026 — nearly a third of all fatalities.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. This is a pattern. A pattern that has continued from before the state’s founding to the present day.

III. The American Role: Unconditional Cover

In May 1948, President Harry Truman recognised the State of Israel over the objections of many of his advisors. In the decades since, the United States has provided billions of dollars in foreign and military aid.

By 2026, US support for Israel had become unconditional. Israel’s arms sales reached $12.5 billion. As one analysis noted: “US support for Israel has been critical. But it has never been unconditional.” In practice, however, there have been few red lines.

While Israel commits genocide in Gaza, the US continues to provide weapons, diplomatic cover, and funding. This is not negligence. It is complicity.

IV. The War Laboratory: Gaza as Testing Ground

Gaza is not just a site of genocide. It is a laboratory.

In February 2026, protesters gathered outside a major arms exhibition in Tel Aviv, accusing defence companies of using Gaza as a “testing ground” for weapons. Companies like Elbit Systems, Rafael, and Israel Aerospace Industries market their products as “battle-tested” — having been used in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.

Israel is building a “digital ground force” around its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, including unmanned vehicles and bomb-carrying robots. As one commentator put it: “Palestinians are human lab rats for the Israeli military, intelligence, and arms and tech industries.”

What is happening in Gaza is not just genocide. It is a live-fire weapons test — funded by the United States, implemented by Israel, and marketed as “battle-tested” to dictators around the world.

V. The Broader Pattern: Gaza as Microcosm

What is happening in Gaza is not isolated. It is the microcosm of a system — the same system that the G7, the World Bank, and the IMF have imposed on the Global South.

Since the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank have imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on developing countries, forcing cuts to public spending and social services. These policies have resulted in:

· IMF-imposed privatisations associated with over 90 excess deaths per 100,000 population.

· Increased inequality, poverty, preventable deaths, malnutrition, and child labour.

· Increased financial outflows and wealth extraction from the Global South.

The two are the same system — a system that puts profit before people, the wealth of the few before the lives of the many.

VI. The Impact on Young People

The genocide does not just kill children. It traumatises them.

UN officials have described the situation for children in Gaza as a “profound mental health emergency”. Over 1 million children in Gaza require mental health and psychosocial support. Adolescents in Gaza have been repeatedly exposed to war trauma, mass displacement, and a severe humanitarian crisis.

As one report noted: “The acts committed by Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks constitute genocide.” It is destruction not just of bodies, but of minds. Not just of this generation, but of the next.

VII. Denial and Lies: Part of the Pattern

Israel’s response was predictable: dismissing the report as “defamatory advocacy“, “propaganda“, and a “libellous sham“. They claimed the commission is biased and ignores Hamas’s tactics.

This is exactly the response after Deir Yassin. After Sabra and Shatila. After every massacre in Gaza.

Denial. Distraction. Blame the victim.

This is not a defence. It is a pattern.

VIII. The Choice

What is happening in Gaza is not just Israel’s choice. It is our choice.

It is our choice, as citizens, to allow our governments to fund genocide.

It is our choice, as consumers, to sustain a system that profits from death.

It is our choice, as human beings, to look away while the slaughter continues.

The UN report is a document of record — evidence for potential legal proceedings at the International Criminal Court. But a record alone changes nothing. Only action does.

IX. Conclusion: The Laboratory Must Close

Gaza is a laboratory. A weapons testing ground. A genocide testing ground. A live-fire test for dictators around the world.

But it is more than a laboratory. It is a mirror — reflecting the system that operates in exactly the same way as the system that is destroying Gaza.

The same extraction. The same profit motive. The same disregard for human life.

If Gaza is a laboratory, then the world is the experiment. We are all complicit. We are all being tested. And we are all failing.

Andrew Klein

References

1. UN International Commission of Inquiry. (2026, June 23). Israel continues to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children. OHCHR.

2. Deir Yassin massacre. Wikipedia.

3. Sabra and Shatila massacre. Wikipedia.

4. Times of India. (2026, January 16). $180bn and counting: Why US arms Israel like no other.

5. New Age. (2026, June 16). Israel is shutting down its human laboratory in Gaza.

6. Anadolu Ajansı. (2026, February 17). ‘You test your weapons in Gaza’: Israeli protesters confront arms expo.

7. BMJ Global Health. (2026, March 23). Structural adjustment: damages, reparations and pathways to non-recurrence.

8. UNFPA. (2026, April 18). Gaza: A profound mental health emergency for children and young people.

” The dead cannot speak. But the living can witness. Do not look away.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that anger without clarity is noise, but anger with witness is truth.

I. Introduction: The Quiet Horror

In May 2026, an investigation by the AJ+ documentary series Direct From revealed a story so disturbing that it has been largely buried by mainstream media. The University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) — two of America ‘s most prestigious academic institutions — have been selling donated human bodies to the United States Navy for combat medical training involving Israeli military surgical teams .

Since 2018, USC has supplied at least 89 “fresh cadavers” under contracts with the US Navy. Of these, at least 32 were used specifically to train Israeli military surgical teams at the Navy Trauma Training Centre in Los Angeles General Medical Centre. The Navy has paid USC over $860,000 for these bodies, with at least one contract still ongoing as of October 2025 and a notice of intent to renew until at least 2029.

The bodies came from people who donated themselves to science — often with the belief that they were contributing to medical education and research, not to military training for a foreign army engaged in a genocide. Donor documents did not indicate that the cadavers would be used for military training, either for the US or Israel. Families were not informed.

This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a contract.

This article examines the cadaver trade, the torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees, the treatment of wounded Palestinians by Israeli forces, and the broader moral collapse of a state that has turned medicine into a weapon. The evidence is overwhelming. The silence is damning. And the extraction — the logic that treats human beings as resources — does not end with death.

II. The Reanimation of the Dead

The training program is not theoretical. A 2020 medical paper co‑authored by USC and US Navy instructors describes a four‑day “combat trauma surgery skills course” tailored specifically for Israeli military forward surgical teams — units that operate close to the front lines.

During the training, the cadavers are “reanimated” using a process called perfusion: artificial blood is pumped through the body to simulate active, lifelike bleeding on the battlefield. Trainees practice emergency interventions on simulated combat injuries, including:

· Gunshot wounds to the chest and limbs

· Blast injuries to the face and torso from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)

This is not standard medical education. Several trauma surgeons interviewed for the AJ+ documentary emphasised that using perfused cadavers is an exceptionally rare practice, restricted to specialised military exercises.

The US Navy defended the arrangement, stating that experienced trauma surgeons “recreate complex injury patterns with surgical tools to deliver a high‑fidelity, hyper‑realistic training environment”. USC has declined repeated requests to detail the exact methods used to simulate these battlefield wounds.

For the families of donors, the betrayal is profound. Miriam Volpin’s mother, Jeanette Volpin, a 101‑year‑old World War II flight nurse, donated her body to USC. When Miriam learned about the IDF training programme, she said: “I was furious and sick to my stomach”. Her granddaughter, Sarah, added that she believes her grandmother would not have donated her body had she known it might be used in military training.

Jennifer Gomez’s grandmother, Jean McNeil Sargeant, donated her body to UCSD in 2012. Gomez told AJ+: “I didn ‘t realise that there would be international militaries coming here, training on our family’s bodies. Especially one that’s been accused of war crimes and is actively killing people”.

At least two people have revoked their body donations after learning of the programme. Wendy Smith, an English professor, said: “I would really not like to support anything that Israel is doing right now”.

This is not medicine. It is logistics.

III. The Torture of the Living

The same week the cadaver story broke, The BMJ published a comprehensive review of torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The evidence is staggering.

At least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 — at least 46 in Israel Prison Service facilities and 52, all from Gaza, in military custody. A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, entitled “Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody,” described the toll as unprecedented and said the actual figure may be higher.

PHRI said initial post‑mortem findings pointed to a pattern of severe abuse, including head injuries, internal bleeding, and broken ribs, as well as extreme malnutrition and denial of lifesaving care. The report called for an independent international investigation.

The documentation of torture is not new. The BMJ review notes that torture by Israeli soldiers and health workers has been “extensively documented over several decades by United Nations independent experts, and many human rights organisations including the United Against Torture Coalition, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B‘Tselem”. By the Israeli government’s own admission, torture has been used “systematically” against Palestinian people.

Depraved acts include extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence, the denial of medical care, sleep deprivation, the use of prolonged solitary confinement, attacks by dogs under the control of their handlers, being urinated on, and prolonged shackling of limbs — in some cases causing injuries requiring amputation.

After the barbaric incident in July 2024 in which nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma — elected members of the Israeli Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers. A survey by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies found that 65% of Israeli Jews believed the arrested soldiers should not face criminal charges.

The Israeli lawyer Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi who leaked footage of the attack has since been arrested for doing so, with the government accusing her of “damaging Israel ‘s global standing”.

This is not a failure of individual soldiers. It is a culture.

IV. Medical Complicity: The Betrayal of the Healer

Particularly troubling is the long‑standing and well‑documented complicity of Israeli health workers in torture. The BMJ review states: “Recent survivors of detention have reported that Israeli health workers have been physically violent towards detainees, knowingly denied medical treatment, and neglected detainees‘injuries”.

Israeli whistleblowers have reported that detainees at the Sde Teiman detention site were denied analgesia during painful procedures, while doctors working at the site were told not to write their names on official documents — with one doctor revealing that “officials feared they could be identified and charged with war crimes”. Others reported they lacked the training for treatments and procedures they were made to administer.

An Israeli Ministry of Health policy document reviewed by the New York Times explicitly stated that detainees treated at the Sde Teiman field hospital should be blindfolded and handcuffed to their beds.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel produced a report concluding that “conditions and the medical care standards at Sde Teiman are a low point for medical ethics and professionalism” and “that the Israeli healthcare system has enabled the ethical violations previously outlined concerning the medical treatment of Gazan detainees”.

The Israeli Medical Association has failed to investigate allegations of complicity among its members. The BMJ authors argue that “the WMA and many national medical associations have failed to act in a timely and decisive manner on growing evidence of torture and medical complicity, which now spans several decades”.

This is not medicine. It is complicity.

V. The Targeting of Palestinian Healthcare Workers

The total number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention sites exceeded 9,100 as of October 2025. Detailed reporting from Healthcare Workers Watch Palestine identified 405 cases of unlawful detention of Palestinian healthcare workers since October 2023. At least five Palestinian healthcare workers are known to have been killed in Israeli detention in the same period.

Among those killed was Adnan al‑Bursh, a respected orthopaedic surgeon who was illegally detained by Israeli forces in December 2023. He was held without charge and died in prison in April 2024 after severe mistreatment.

As of October 2025, at least 95 Palestinian healthcare workers remained in detention, including Hussam Abu Safiyeh, paediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was abducted and unlawfully detained in December 2024.

These are not isolated incidents. The BMJ review notes that they must be understood in relation to evidence that suggests a broader strategy of targeting healthcare professionals, aimed at “undermining the Palestinian healthcare system and maximising harm inflicted against the Palestinian people”. This strategy extends to the killing of more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023, and clearly documented patterns of systematic and targeted destruction of healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and essential medical equipment.

These acts constitute clear violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, intended to protect medical personnel during armed conflict.

VI. The Victims of the Training

The BMJ review notes that the training Israeli military surgeons receive — including on perfused cadavers — is applied on the battlefields of Gaza. Israeli military doctors and surgeons have embedded with brigades on the front lines since 2023.

The very skills practiced on the bodies of Americans who thought they were donating to science are now being used to treat the wounds of Israeli soldiers — and, by extension, to enable the continuation of the genocide.

But what of the wounded Palestinians?

Under the Geneva Conventions, occupying powers are required to provide medical care to the wounded and sick of the occupied population. Yet evidence suggests systematic denial. Detainees are denied medical treatment. Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are targeted. Healthcare workers are killed in detention.

A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel called for an investigation into the denial of lifesaving care to Palestinian detainees. The BMJ review documents that survivors have repeatedly reported being denied medical treatment for their injuries.

The contrast could not be starker.

In Los Angeles, cadavers are perfused with artificial blood to simulate combat injuries for Israeli surgeons. In Gaza, real blood flows in the streets, and real surgeons are killed.

VII. The Sale of Stolen Land

The same week the cadaver story broke, occupation authorities issued a tender for 3,401 settlement units in the area designated as E1, east of occupied Jerusalem — a measure that would cut off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and which senior officials declared was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” once and for all .

This is not a secret. It is a campaign.

The sale of stolen Palestinian land is not new. Israeli real estate companies actively advertise properties in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank — including Gush Etzion and Ma ‘ale Adumim — at exhibitions in London, Montreal, and New York. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The same logic that captures bodies captures land. The same logic that permits the extraction of organs permits the extraction of territory. The same logic that enables the sale of cadavers enables the sale of stolen homes.

Extraction is not a crime against humanity. It is a business model.

VIII. The Sexual Abuse Scandal and the Culture of Impunity

The sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees is not new. In July 2024, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man held in Israeli detention — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma. As noted, elected members of the Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers, and 65% of Israeli Jews believed they should not face criminal charges.

This is not an aberration. It is a pattern.

The Israeli military has long had a documented problem with sexual harassment and assault within its ranks. Whistleblowers are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. The whistleblower who exposed the Sde Teiman rape — Major General Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi, the Israeli military ‘s chief advocate — was not celebrated. She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice,” and investigated for a suicide attempt. The perpetrators were protected. The truth‑teller was punished.

This is the institutionalisation of impunity. This is what happens when a society teaches its soldiers that violence against the “other” is permitted, even celebrated.

And the same culture that permits the sexual abuse of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same impunity that protects rapists protects the institutions that sell bodies to foreign militaries.

The cycle is closed. The extraction is complete.

IX. The Failure of International Law

The post‑WWII rules‑based international order was supposed to prevent this kind of extraction. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions — all were designed to create a framework in which might would not make right.

That order is now “under destruction,” as the 2026 Munich Security Report bluntly stated.

The International Court of Justice has recognised its prima facie jurisdiction to investigate Israel for carrying out genocide in Gaza. The ICJ‘s orders are ignored. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. They are ignored. The UN Security Council is paralysed by the US veto.

The system does not work — not because it is inherently flawed, but because the powerful have refused to apply it equally.

The victims — Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian — are not people. They are obstacles.

The Western response to Russia ‘s invasion of Ukraine — united, resolute, armed — stands in stark contrast to the response to Israel’s assault on Gaza. The double standard is glaring. And it is not unnoticed in the Global South.

The rules‑based order is not collapsing. It is being abandoned.

By the very powers that created it.

X. Conclusion: The Moral Collapse

The evidence is clear. The pattern is unmistakable.

· The bodies of Americans, donated in good faith to science, have been used to train the surgeons who patch up the soldiers who drop the bombs on Gaza.

· Palestinian detainees are tortured — sexually, physically, psychologically — by soldiers and health workers alike, with impunity and public support.

· Healthcare workers are targeted, detained, killed.

· Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are destroyed.

· The wounded are denied care.

· The dead are desecrated — not in Gaza, in Los Angeles.

This is not a failure of individual morality. It is a systemic collapse.

The State of Israel is not a state in crisis. It is a state in moral collapse.

The same collapse that permits the sale of stolen land permits the sale of stolen bodies. The same collapse that permits the torture of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same collapse that permits the bombing of hospitals permits the training of surgeons on perfused cadavers.

The question is not whether the cycle can be broken. The question is whether we will choose to break it.

Not with violence — with clarity.

Andrew Klein

References

1. AJ+ / Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Direct From documentary: US university sells dead bodies to navy for Israeli military training.

2. Tribune Online. (2026, June 1). Israeli military, US Navy train medics on dead Americans — Report.

3. Press Telegram. (2025, October 3). USC sold dead bodies to Navy for Israel Defense Forces medical training program.

4. FOX 11 Los Angeles. (2025, October 2). USC sold cadavers to military for IDF training: report.

5. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). USC sold cadavers to US Navy for Israeli military training.

6. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Iran war updates: Tehran ponders US deal; Lebanon-Israel talks under way.

7. el‑Solh, S., Smith, J., Nimerawi, A., & Gilbert, M. (2025). Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The BMJ, 391, r2347.

8. Physicians for Human Rights Israel. (2025). Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody.

9. The Jerusalem Post. (2025, November 17). PHRI reports 98 Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons.

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who helps me see clearly every morning, over a cup of coffee.

I. The Board of Peace: Development as Erasure

Trump’s “Board of Peace” is not a peace initiative. It is a permanent concentration of power designed to legitimise dispossession, commercialise destruction, and convert grave breaches of international law into a branded property development project. By appointing himself chairman for life and granting himself the authority to select his own successor, Trump has constructed a self-perpetuating body devoid of democratic mandate, legal accountability, or international legitimacy.

The central objective is to advance Trump’s openly stated ambition to transform Gaza into a high-tech luxury destination — the so-called “Gaza Riviera“. This framing reduces the reconstruction of a devastated territory with a right to Palestinian statehood to a real estate transaction. It treats land as an asset to be monetised and people as variables to be managed, while Palestinian rights, consent, and sovereignty are excluded entirely from the equation.

Jared Kushner’s public pitch at Davos made this vision explicit: private development without Palestinian peoples’ ownership, growth without rights, and reconstruction without self-determination. Such a framework mirrors historical patterns of colonial economic domination and violates the core principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Board of Peace further seeks to launder illegality through institutional endorsement. The decision by members of the UN Security Council to endorse this body represents a profound failure of legal responsibility. No political forum has the authority to legitimise land acquisition by force, collective punishment, or the permanent exclusion of an occupied population from decisions governing its territory.

Crucially, the Board of Peace was conceived, negotiated, and announced without the presence, knowledge, or consent of Palestinian political representatives, civil society, or affected communities. This exclusion alone renders the initiative invalid under international norms governing self-determination and participatory governance.

While the Board speaks abstractly of “development,” it has failed to address Gaza’s immediate humanitarian crisis — shortages of food, medicine, clean water, and access to education. Any initiative that prioritises luxury infrastructure and speculative investment while ignoring mass deprivation and humanitarian collapse is not a peace plan. It is a moral inversion.

II. The Business Model of Apartheid

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur, calls apartheid a “business model.” Her 2025 report to the UN Human Rights Council, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, exposes the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project.

The report documents how corporate entities in various sectors — arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities — enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation, and crimes of apartheid and genocide.

Colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector. Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and lands — a mode of domination known as “colonial racial capitalism“. The same is true of Israeli colonisation of Palestinian lands, its expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory, and its institutionalisation of a regime of settler-colonial apartheid.

Early charter companies, granted broad State-like powers, gradually evolved into private “limited liability” corporations as intercolonial trade grew vital to European economies. Colonial powers continued to rely on these relationships to outsource, obscure, and avoid accountability for the dispossession and enslavement of Indigenous peoples and the expropriation of their resources. Today, some corporate conglomerates exceed the GDP of sovereign States, wielding more power — political, economic and discursive — than States themselves.

In the occupied Palestinian territory, building on decades of documented human rights violations and crimes, corporate engagement with any component of the occupation is connected with violations of jus cogens norms and international crimes. Where corporate entities continue their activities with Israel — with its economy, military, public and private sectors connected to the occupied Palestinian territory — they may be found to have knowingly contributed to:

· violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination;

· annexation of Palestinian territory, maintenance of an unlawful occupation and therefore the crime of aggression;

· crimes of apartheid and genocide.

The report specifically identifies the arms sector, including Elbit Systems, as a key enabler. Elbit has been involved in supplying the Israeli military with technology used in the occupation and has been linked to surveillance and weapons systems deployed in Gaza and the West Bank.

III. The Israeli Lobbying Scandal: AUKUS and the $7 Billion Deal

In November 2025, following a cyberattack on Israeli defence industries, confidential blueprints and technical details of new infantry vehicles ordered by Australia in a $7 billion contract from Israeli company Elbit Systems were exposed. The Australian Defence Force was also reviewing the purchase of Spike NLOS anti-tank missiles from the same Israeli company.

Prior to this cyber incident, due to Israel’s brutal aggression in Gaza, the Australian Army’s collaboration with this Israeli company had already faced widespread domestic criticism. However, the Defence Minister repeatedly defended the partnership, stating: “We will never apologise for acquiring the best possible equipment for the Australian Defence Force”.

This is the same company that, according to the UN report, is deeply embedded in the economy of occupation and genocide. Australian taxpayer dollars are flowing directly to a corporation that enables and profits from Palestinian erasure.

IV. The Normalisation of Apartheid: Real Estate Roadshows in London, Montreal, and New York

In recent weeks, a series of “Great Israeli Real Estate” events have taken place in New York, Montreal, and London. These are not small gatherings. They are professionally organised exhibitions, complete with websites, marketing materials, and invitations extended to diaspora communities.

The events openly advertised properties in Gush Etzion — a cluster of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, located south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The event website allowed prospective attendees to register interest by ticking a box next to Gush Etzion. After pressure from MPs and campaigners, the reference was removed — but previous editions of the event in London had openly advertised homes in Gush Etzion and Ma’ale Adumim, another illegal settlement. Photos from those earlier events show properties in illegal settlements being marketed alongside properties inside Israel proper, with no distinction.

In the UK, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was pressed by MPs from all parties. She refused to ban the event outright but warned businesses and charities against “associating themselves with potential breaches of international law”. She said the government would “pursue any issue that we can around anything that might be a breach of the law”. She also announced sanctions against six entities and one individual involved in settler violence in the West Bank, coordinated with Australia, Canada, France, and Norway.

But the sanctions target violence, not the settlement enterprise itself. The real estate roadshow — the marketing of stolen land to diaspora investors — continues.

In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani opposed the event. A spokesperson said: “Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank. These settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians“. Protesters clashed with police. The event went ahead.

V. The Expansion to Lebanon: Real Estate as a Political Tool

The “Greater Israel” project is not limited to the West Bank.

Israeli real estate companies are now advertising new settlement construction projects in southern Lebanon. The ads, published on social media, target Israeli settlers, enticing them to buy homes in the “promised land.” One ad reads: “It’s time for a house in Lebanon!”

The ads are directed specifically at reserve officers — suggesting that Israel is trying to create a personal stake for soldiers fighting in Lebanon. As one analysis notes, “the use of real estate is a political tool to create facts on the ground that will make any future negotiations regarding sovereignty over these territories difficult”.

The group behind the campaign, Uri Tzafon (“Awaken North”), has sent drones and balloons into southern Lebanon carrying eviction notices to residents. The notices declare that the land “belongs to the Jewish people” and that residents “are required to evacuate immediately”.

The Jerusalem Post published an article in September 2024 titled “Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?” After outrage, the article was removed — but the question had already been asked.

The map of “Greater Israel” circulated by far‑right elements includes the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and even parts of Turkey. According to one interpretation of Jewish doctrine, these territories must be “invaded and seized“.

The Houthis in Yemen have explicitly cited the “Greater Israel” project as justification for their attacks on Israel. Whether one accepts their framing or not, the fact that the project is cited by adversaries as a casus belli indicates that it is not a secret.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a documented campaign.

VI. The Integration of Israeli and US Military Forces

The United States and Israel have launched formal talks on a new security cooperation framework to replace the current ten-year memorandum of understanding, which is set to expire in 2028. The new framework “is designed to strengthen the IDF’s qualitative military edge through expanded joint investment in research, development and co-production, deepen the US-Israel partnership demonstrated during the 2026 US-Israeli campaign against Iran (Operation Roaring Lion), and gradually transition from aid to a completely reciprocal partnership”.

The last MOU, a 10-year deal signed in 2016, granted Israel $3.8 billion per year in military aid. The new framework will deepen integration, not reduce it.

Separately, Israel’s Minister of Defense has signed a directive to produce a “special document in cooperation with US Central Command” for “confronting the challenges to stability and security in the Middle East, with a focus on the Iranian threat”. This document is to be signed by the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Israeli Chief of Staff.

VII. The Integration of US Military into Australian Defence Forces

Australia’s integration with US military forces is advancing at an unprecedented pace. The AUKUS exemptions under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) now permit the free transfer of defence articles and services among the physical territories of Australia, the UK, and the US without individual licences. Over 700 Australian and UK entities are already listed as “Authorised Users”.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has been explicit: “We are doing more in terms of our cooperation with the United States across every domain, including space and cyber, than we really have at any point in terms of the Australian continent since the end of the Second World War, and that is growing”.

“We will see an increasing American military footprint on our continent over the course of the next few years,” Marles said. He noted that “institutionally we have the Deputy Commanders in the US Navy in the Pacific, US Army in the Pacific, US Air Force in the Pacific, as Australians“. Australian senior officers are embedded in US Indo-Pacific Command.

The AUKUS partners also have a shared strategic interest in critical minerals, with the pact uniquely positioned to counter Chinese supply chain coercion. Australia possesses the world’s second-largest reserves of bauxite (from which gallium is extracted) and produces 52 percent of the global supply of lithium. Yet much of this material is still sent to China for processing — a weak link in supply chain security.

VIII. The Israeli Spying Scandal and Removal of Technical Systems

We observe the history of Israeli spying on Australian defence forces. In the early 2000s, Australian defence facilities discovered that certain technical systems purchased from Israel had been compromised. The specific details remain classified, but subsequent investigations led to the removal of Israeli-supplied systems from sensitive Australian defence assets.

The 2025 Elbit Systems cyberattack and the exposure of Redback vehicle blueprints is a continuation of this pattern. The Australian government continues to contract with Elbit despite documented security concerns and widespread criticism of the company’s role in the occupation.

IX. Pauline Hanson: One Nation and the Israeli Flag

In August 2021, Senator Pauline Hanson wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the Israeli flag onto the floor of the Australian Senate, declaring: “In this very trying time for Israel, I’d like to show my support“. This was a deliberate political statement, not a casual gesture.

Hanson has also proposed that permanent residents in Australia should be required to sell their houses to increase housing stock for Australians. The connection between these two positions — support for Israel and hostility to migrants — is not coincidental. Both are expressions of a nationalist, exclusionary ideology.

X. The Silencing of Criticism

The same week the real estate roadshow was advertised, the UK government announced new “anti‑antisemitism” measures. The conflation is not accidental.

Criticism of Israel is routinely labelled antisemitic. Legitimate political dissent is criminalised. The effect is to protect the settlement enterprise from scrutiny.

As the Iranian diplomat warned, the “Greater Israel” project poses dangers not only to neighbouring countries but to Europe as well. The same logic that justifies the displacement of Palestinians can be turned against any population that stands in the way.

This is not a defence of Iran. It is an observation of pattern.

XI. A Pattern Without Borders: “This Could Happen to You”

What connects these threads? A global campaign to normalise apartheid — not as a historical aberration, but as a business model.

· The Board of Peace rebrands ethnic cleansing as “development.”

· The real estate roadshow markets stolen land as “investment opportunities.”

· The weapons trade profits from the technology of occupation and genocide.

· AUKUS integrates Australia’s defence forces into a US-led military machine that facilitates extraction and control.

· The campaign to silence criticism of Israel — through “anti-antisemitism” laws, through media censorship, through political intimidation — protects the entire edifice.

This is not a conspiracy. It is a system.

And the system — like all systems built on extraction and exclusion — is fragile.

Not because it will be overthrown. Because it will collapse.

Under the weight of its own contradictions. Under the pressure of its own violence. Under the truth.

The history of the treatment of minorities — the Irish by the British, the Scots by the British, the Huguenots by the French, the Jews by Nazi Germany — shows that apartheid is not restricted to colour. The same logic of exclusion, the same justification of violence, the same normalisation of cruelty — can be turned against any population.

This could happen to you.

The only defence is to see the pattern. To name it. To resist it.

Not with violence. With clarity.

XII. What This Has to Do With the Rest of Us

We cannot stop the real estate roadshow. We cannot ban the event. We cannot sanction the banks.

We can name the pattern. We can trace the connection between the property exhibition in London and the displacement of families in the West Bank, the settlement campaign in Lebanon, the violence in Gaza, the integration of military forces, the extraction of Australian resources, the silencing of criticism.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Francesca Albanese, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide: Corporate Complicity in Sustaining the Settler-Colonial Project. UN Human Rights Council, 2025.

2. ICTS. (2024). The “Greater Israel” Project: An Escalating Threat to Lebanese Sovereignty.

3. Al Jazeera. (2025). Sanctions over attacks on Palestinians.

4. Middle East Monitor. (2025). UK Foreign Secretary refuses to ban ‘Greater Israel’ real estate event in London.

5. Mondoweiss. (2025). Zohran Mamdani calls for NYC to cancel ‘Greater Israel’ real estate event.

6. Mondoweiss. (2025). Advert for settlements in occupied Golan appears in Brooklyn publication.

7. The Cradle. (2025). Houthis: ‘Greater Israel’ project main motivation behind support to Gaza.

8. Al Jazeera. (2025). US and Israel launch formal talks on new security cooperation framework.

9. The Times of Israel. (2025). Israeli defense minister signs directive to prepare joint military document with US Central Command.

10. Australian Department of Defence. (2024). AUKUS Defence Trade Cooperation Exemption from US International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

11. Australian Financial Review. (2025). Defence Minister Richard Marles’s speech at ASPI.

12. Breaking Defense. (2025). AUKUS partners have a ‘shared strategic interest’ in critical minerals.

13. Becker, R. (2025). Israeli firm’s $7 billion defence contract under fire. The Age.

14. 7News. (2021). ‘I think it’s time to do something’: Hanson wears Israeli flag into Senate.

15. The Guardian. (2026). Greater Israel real estate event in London to proceed despite government warnings.

16. Haaretz. (2024). This Lebanese Christian Sect Is Terrified of Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ Plan.

17. Turkiye Today. (2025). Middle East on brink as ‘Greater Israel’ plan gains momentum, Iran warns.

18. The New Arab. (2025). Israeli real estate firm advertises projects in southern Lebanon.

19. Iran Diplomacy. (2025). Iran’s warning over ‘Greater Israel’ danger.

20. Palestine Solidarity Campaign. (2025). London property fair promoting illegal settlement homes must be stopped.

” The pattern is visible to those who look. Do not look away.”

Dedication: States are like children. Impunity to one might amuse its parents – they grow up and terrorise regions.

By Andrew Klein

I. Introduction: The Predator on Land, Sea and Air

On 17 May 2026, the Global Sumud aid flotilla – a peaceful humanitarian mission carrying food and medical supplies from 39 countries – was intercepted by Israeli naval forces in international waters, approximately 250 nautical miles from Gaza. Israeli warships surrounded the civilian vessels, cut their communications, detained activists, and seized the aid. Live broadcasts showed the attack unfolding in broad daylight. Anadolu Ajansı reported that Israeli forces transferred the detainees to what it described as a “floating prison” before transporting them to the port of Ashdod.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian People’s Rights condemned the interception as “maritime piracy” and a serious violation of international law and freedom of navigation. Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest English-language newspaper, called it “a brutal act of piracy on the high seas, and a brazen trespass on the sovereign right of vessels to navigate freely”.

This was not an isolated incident. It was the latest in a decades‑long pattern: a state that behaves on land, sea and air as if international law does not apply to it. A state that assassinates its opponents across sovereign borders, that ignores ceasefire agreements and UN resolutions, and that operates with complete impunity because of the diplomatic and military protection of the United States.

This article examines that pattern. It documents Israel’s history of piracy, extrajudicial killings, territorial expansion, and rejection of international law. It argues that Israel is not a “rogue state” in the colloquial sense – it is a predator, enabled by a superpower that has mistaken unconditional support for strategic wisdom.

II. The Piracy of the Sumud Flotilla – A Legal Analysis

The interception of the Global Sumud flotilla was illegal under several provisions of international law.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) guarantees the right of innocent passage through territorial waters and freedom of navigation on the high seas. The flotilla was in international waters – 250 nautical miles from Gaza, far beyond any territorial claim. Israel had no legal authority to board, search, seize, or detain.

The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea prohibits the interception of humanitarian missions unless they pose a direct military threat. The Sumud flotilla carried food, medicine, and activists – not weapons.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit collective punishment. Gaza has been under a suffocating blockade since 2007, described by the UN as a form of collective punishment. The flotilla was attempting to breach that blockade – not as an act of war, but as an act of humanity.

The Israeli government claimed the flotilla was “breaking the law” and could be “used for terrorist purposes”. No evidence was provided. As Dawn noted, “The regime that hunts aid ships in foreign waters operates a permanent war machine, bankrolled and shielded by its chief enabler, the United States”.

III. Historical Precedent – The United States vs. Barbary Pirates (1805)

There is irony in the fact that the United States – now Israel’s chief enabler – once fought a war precisely against the kind of maritime predation that Israel now practises.

The First Barbary War (1801–1805) was fought against the Barbary states of North Africa, which had been demanding tribute and seizing American ships in the Mediterranean. In 1805, US Marines under Lieutenant William Eaton marched 500 miles across the Libyan desert and captured the port city of Derna, raising the American flag on foreign soil for the first time.

The US action was celebrated as a victory against piracy and state‑sponsored extortion.

Two centuries later, the United States provides diplomatic cover and military aid to a state that interdicts humanitarian vessels in international waters, assassinates political leaders in foreign capitals, and maintains an illegal blockade that has caused a man‑made famine. The irony is not lost on the rest of the world.

IV. Assassination as State Policy – The Killing of Negotiators

On 9 September 2025, Israeli air strikes targeted residential buildings in Doha, Qatar, housing Hamas negotiators, including chief negotiator Khalil al‑Hayya. The attack occurred while the delegation was actively discussing a ceasefire proposal from the United States. Israel claimed, “full responsibility”, and multiple Israeli media outlets confirmed that the US had been notified and had given a “green light”.

Qatar condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of all international laws and norms”. The UN Secretary‑General called it a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty. Regional powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE denounced the strikes.

The pattern is unmistakable:

· January 2024: Senior Hamas political leader Saleh al‑Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon.

· July 2024: Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran, while attending the inauguration of the president.

· 1995: Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi was gunned down in Sliema, Malta – European Union territory – in an operation attributed to Mossad.

Extrajudicial killings – assassinations carried out without judicial process – are unequivocally illegal under international human rights law. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned such practices. Yet Israel continues them with impunity.

The timing of these killings is particularly revealing. They occur precisely when ceasefire agreements appear within reach. As one analysis noted, “This suggests a deliberate strategy to derail peace processes and maintain the cycle of violence that serves Israeli political interests”.

V. Territorial Expansion – The West Bank and the Golan Heights

On 22 October 2025, a coalition of 18 states and international organisations issued a joint statement condemning Israeli legislative measures aiming to impose “sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank and illegal colonial settlements. The statement reaffirmed that Israel has “no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory” and that the measures are a “blatant violation of international law, and of United Nations Security Council resolutions particularly Resolution 2334, which condemns all Israeli measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, including East Jerusalem” .

The statement also noted the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 22 October 2025, which reaffirmed Israel’s obligation to ensure the population of Gaza has essential supplies and that mass forcible transfer and deportation are prohibited.

The Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981, has been condemned by the UN Security Council in Resolution 497, which declared the annexation “null and void and without international legal effect”. Yet Israel maintains its occupation, and the United States has recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights – a unilateral act of diplomatic recognition that undermines decades of international consensus.

VI. The United Nations Record – Repeated Condemnation

The United Nations has a long history of resolutions condemning Israel. Since 2015, the General Assembly has passed 115 resolutions condemning Israel, compared to only 45 against all other countries combined.

These resolutions cover:

· Illegal settlement construction in the West Bank (repeatedly condemned by the Security Council)

· The annexation of the Golan Heights (Security Council Resolution 497)

· The blockade of Gaza (condemned by the General Assembly and human rights bodies)

· Human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (annual reports of the Special Committee)

The United States has used its veto power in the Security Council to shield Israel from binding resolutions dozens of times. A single state – one of five permanent members – has prevented the international community from holding Israel accountable for actions that, if committed by any other state, would have resulted in sanctions, arms embargoes, or even intervention.

VII. The Role of the United States – Enabling the Rogue

The United States is not a passive observer. It is an active enabler.

· Financial aid: The US provides approximately $3.8 billion per year in military aid to Israel – the largest annual recipient of US foreign aid.

· Diplomatic cover: The US has vetoed countless Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, including those condemning settlement expansion, the blockade of Gaza, and the annexation of the Golan Heights.

· Military support: The US supplies advanced weaponry, including F‑35 fighter jets, precision‑guided munitions, and missile defence systems – all used in operations against Palestinians.

This unconditional support has produced a state that behaves with impunity because it has learned that there will be no consequences. As one observer noted, “The arsonist is playing the firefighter, with its superpower patron forever handing it the matches” .

The tragedy is that this impunity does not only harm Palestinians. It also harms Israelis. By shielding Israel from accountability, the United States has condemned the people of Israel to a repetition of patterns that will kill countless of its children, destroy its families and communities, and create a political class that is out of control and out of touch. It has turned Israel into a regional pariah – never at peace, an agent of death and destruction to anything it touches.

This is not unique. It is a variation on an old pattern.

· Apartheid South Africa was sustained by Western trade and investment for decades until the international community-imposed sanctions. The result was not the destruction of South Africa – it was the end of apartheid.

· Rhodesia survived for years on Western support before sanctions forced a transition.

· The Barbary states continued their piracy until the United States and European powers used military force to stop them.

Israel is not beyond change. But change will not come while the United States continues to provide unconditional diplomatic and military support. As the joint statement of 23 October 2025 concluded, “The continuation of Israel’s unilateral and illegal policies and practices” requires the international community to shoulder its “legal and moral responsibilities” to compel Israel to cease its escalation.

VIII. Conclusion: The Rogue That Cannot Be Tamed

Israel is a rogue state – not because it is uniquely evil, but because it has been allowed to behave as if international law does not apply to it. Its actions on land, sea, and air – the blockade of Gaza, the interception of humanitarian flotillas, the assassination of negotiators in foreign capitals, the expansion of illegal settlements – are not anomalies. They are policy.

The United States has enabled this behaviour for decades. In doing so, it has not protected Israel – it has trapped it in a cycle of violence that will never end as long as impunity continues.

The solution is not simple. But the first step is to name the pattern.

A rogue state is not a state that breaks the rules. A rogue state is a state that is allowed to break the rules without consequence.

Israel is a rogue state. And its chief enabler is the United States.

Andrew Klein

Selected Sources and References

· Sumud flotilla interception (May 2026) – Anadolu Ajansı ; Dawn ; Saba 

· Joint Statement condemning Israeli sovereignty measures (Oct 2025) – UNISPAL 

· Doha assassinations (Sep 2025) – Newsbook 

· First Barbary War (1805) – Wikipedia ; History Channel 

· UN resolutions against Israel – Jewish Ledger 

· UN General Assembly resolution 48/41 D (Golan Heights) – UNISPAL 

For decades, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) has been the assertion that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) constitute “the most moral army in the world.” This myth has been deployed to humanise a military narrative and manufacture consent for decades of occupation and war.

By Andrew Klein

10^th May 2026

Dedicated to my wife, my light even in the darkest of times.

For decades, the cornerstone of Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) has been the assertion that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) constitute “the most moral army in the world.” This myth has been deployed to humanise a military narrative and manufacture consent for decades of occupation and war.

Yet the staggering scale of the state’s propaganda budget, the disturbing testimonies of its own soldiers, and the emerging pattern of systematic destruction on Israel’s northern border point to an inescapable conclusion: the claim is not merely an exaggeration; it is a fiction. It is a manufactured story designed to cover actions that, in the clear light of day, stand as stark violations of international law, of basic human decency, and of any plausible definition of morality.

I. The Propaganda Machine: Hasbara and the Manufacture of Myth

The size of the apparatus required to sustain this myth is, in itself, telling. Where actions are just, a government does not need to spend unprecedented sums to “explain” them. Yet, in late 2025, as global revulsion toward its campaign in Gaza grew, the Israeli government approved a dramatic escalation of its propaganda efforts. For the 2026 budget, it allocated approximately $730 million to hasbara—more than four times the $150 million spent the previous year. This vast sum is dedicated to advertising campaigns, the cultivation of influencers, the production of slick digital content, and the funding of a sprawling global network of think-tanks, all with the single aim of salvaging Israel’s battered image.

The very need for such a colossal narrative‑control apparatus is the first piece of evidence that the story it is telling is not holding up to scrutiny.

II. The Consequences: Gaza, A Killing Field

While the hasbara machine churns out slogans, the reality on the ground tells a different story, documented by international media and Israeli human‑rights groups alike.

1. Testimonies from Within: “From ‘Heroes’ to ‘Monsters’”

It is not just Palestinian or international sources that expose this reality; it is the soldiers themselves. In April 2026, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a series of confessions from soldiers who had served in Gaza. They described a world of killings of unarmed civilians, the routine humiliation of detainees, systemic looting, and deep psychological trauma. One chilling account told of a soldier who reported that his commander spat on the bodies of three children he had killed. Another described the psychological “crisis of consciousness” these soldiers now face, as they grapple with the monstrous acts they witnessed and in which they participated.

2. Targeting Children: The BBC Investigation

The most damning evidence of a systematic disregard for life is the pattern of child casualties uncovered by a BBC investigation in 2025. The broadcaster compiled material on over 160 cases where children were shot by Israeli forces in Gaza. Of these, the victims in 95 cases were shot in the head or chest – wounds that clearly indicate an intent to kill, not a stray bullet. Most of these children were under the age of 12. This is not “collateral damage”; it is a pattern of execution that an army claiming to be the “most moral” would be bound to prevent and punish.

3. Mass Detention and a “Stadium of Shame”

In December 2023, video footage geolocated to Gaza’s Yarmouk Stadium showed harrowing scenes: dozens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, stripped to their underwear, blindfolded, and herded together. The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor confirmed that the Israeli army had intentionally turned the stadium into a mass detention camp, holding hundreds of men, dozens of women, and children. The images were a visceral, visual indictment of a campaign’s morality.

4. The Cruelty of “Smart” Warfare

The supposed precision of advanced weaponry has not prevented other atrocities. In May 2025, Euro-Med Monitor documented the case of an elderly Palestinian couple who were used as human shields by Israeli forces before being executed in their home. In October 2025, the same organisation called for an urgent international investigation after the bodies of 120 Palestinians returned from Israeli custody showed clear signs of “brutal torture and field executions” – including burn marks, fractures, and evidence of hanging.

These are not the actions of a moral army. They are the actions of one acting without constraint.

III. The Historical Precedent: A Legacy of Violence

This behaviour is not an aberration born of the current conflict; it is a recurring feature. Israeli military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki detailed how, during the 1967 Six‑Day War, Israeli troops carried out several mass killings in the Sinai Peninsula, murdering an estimated 1,000 Egyptian prisoners of war (POWs) . This is not a fringe allegation spun by Israel’s enemies; it was confirmed by a mainstream Israeli academic.

The same war saw the Ras Sedr massacre, where an IDF paratrooper unit murdered dozens of Egyptian POWs immediately after capturing the area on 8 June 1967, the same day as the USS Liberty incident. Fellow historian Uri Milstein confirmed that such killings were not isolated; there were many other incidents where Egyptian soldiers were shot dead after they had raised their hands in surrender. Another massacre, the Deir Yassin attack in 1948, saw Zionist paramilitaries unleash a wave of “killing, destruction, pillaging, rape, and displacement” on a Palestinian village. This is a pattern that precedes the state itself.

 IV. The Ideological Driver: The “Greater Israel” Project

These actions are not random acts of violence; they are deliberate acts of policy. They are the bloody logistics of a relentless expansionist ideology known as “Greater Israel.”

This is not a fringe concept. It has long been part of mainstream Zionist thought. The World Zionist Organisation’s 1919 submission to the Paris Peace Conference explicitly laid claim to a territory “from the river of Egypt to the Litani River” – which would encompass all of Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of Syria and Jordan. In contemporary practice, the project is now well advanced in the territories Israel seized in 1967, which are now treated as de facto annexed and are dotted with illegal Jewish settlements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly described his policies as a “historic mission” to realise this vision of a “Complete” or “Greater” Israel. The project is the ideological engine driving the settlements in the West Bank, the blockade and destruction of Gaza, and now the creeping annexation of Lebanese territory.

V. The Ultimate Justification: Invoking the Divine

What makes this project so uniquely dangerous is its theological justification. After the 7 October attacks, Prime Minister Netanyahu invoked the story of the biblical tribe of Amalek, urging soldiers to “remember what Amalek did to you”. In the Bible, the command is to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” – a religious warrant for total, genocidal war.

This was not a solitary reference. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant described the people of Gaza as “human animals,” and President Isaac Herzog declared that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” – a statement of collective guilt, another theological precept of genocide. UN experts and scholars have classified the use of this rhetoric across the Israeli political and military establishment as a clear incitement to genocide.

When a state claims a divine mandate for its actions, it places itself beyond the reach of international law, human empathy, and morality. The enemy is no longer a person; they are an obstacle to a sacred mission, an Amalekite to be blotted out. This is the ultimate corruption of power, and it has taken root.

VI. The Lebanon Pattern: The “Gaza‑fication” of the North

The danger of this ideology is not confined to Gaza. While the world has rightly focused on the genocide there, a quieter, parallel war of attrition and annexation is being waged in southern Lebanon, bearing all the hallmarks of the “Gaza‑fication” of a territory.

Even during a fragile ceasefire, the destruction is methodical. BBC Verify has obtained satellite images documenting the systematic levelling of entire villages in south Lebanon, with Israeli forces “systematically destroying buildings” as their sole mission. Human Rights Watch has condemned the attacks on reconstruction efforts as unlawful war crimes. The official Lebanese Army Command recorded over 4,500 ceasefire breaches by Israel between November 2024 and September 2025 alone.

Another report notes that the Israeli military’s goal is to flatten civilian infrastructure to prevent Lebanese residents from returning to their homes along the border, a method of forced displacement modelled directly on Israeli operations in Gaza. The “most moral army” is now systematically destroying the civilian towns of another sovereign state.

Conclusion

The “most moral army” is a slogan manufactured to obscure a brutal reality. The evidence is overwhelming: a history of massacres, a present of war crimes, an expansionist ideology, a culture that deploys ancient religious texts to justify modern genocide, and a propaganda budget that grows in direct proportion to the horror it seeks to hide.

We are now witnessing the “Gaza‑fication” of Lebanon, with Israeli forces systematically destroying villages and civilian infrastructure, driving inhabitants from their land.

The path back to humanity for a nation that has embraced such a doctrine requires a single, difficult act: the abandonment of the false claim to a divine exception from the laws of war and basic human decency. No state, and no faith, is above the law.

— Andrew Klein

Sources and References

Propaganda and Hasbara

· CEEOL / Rhetoric Analysis – “The myth of the Israel Defense Forces through the lens of critical rhetoric”

· The New Arab / Israel to quadruple hasbara spend – $729 million budget for 2026

· Jerusalem Post / Israel spends $730M on PR – Four‑fold increase in hasbara spending

Gaza Atrocities – Field Executions and Detentions

· Leaked Testimonies / Haaretz soldiers’ accounts – “Shocking Testimonies from Occupation Soldiers”

· Anadolu Agency / From ‘Heroes’ to ‘Monsters’ – Soldiers recount killings of unarmed civilians

· Antiwar.com / Soldier on commander spitting on children’s bodies

· BBC News / Shooting of Children in Gaza – 95 of 160 children killed shot in head or chest

· Yarmouk Stadium detention / Euro-Med Monitor – Hundreds detained, including women and children

· Euro-Med Monitor / Elderly couple used as human shields

· Euro-Med Monitor / Bodies show signs of torture and field executions

Historical Massacres (1967 War, Deir Yassin)

· Washington Post / Israeli troops killed 1,000 Egyptian POWs in 1967 War

· Wikipedia / Ras Sedr massacre – Mass murder of Egyptian POWs immediately after conquest

· WAFA / Remembering the Deir Yassin massacre – “killing, destruction, pillaging, rape, and displacement”

“Greater Israel” Ideology

· DW / Inside Israel’s expansionist ambitions – Territories include OPT, Golan Heights, formerly Sinai

· Middle East Eye / What is ‘Greater Israel’? – Vision of expansion into all of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, parts of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia

· Al Bawaba / Netanyahu on “historic mission” to realise Greater Israel

Lebanon – Ceasefire Violations and Systematic Destruction

· BBC News / Satellite images reveal scale of demolitions – Israeli forces levelling towns and villages

· Press TV / “Israeli flattening civilian buildings… modelled on Israeli operations in Gaza”

· Human Rights Watch / Israel unlawfully destroying reconstruction equipment

· Rasanah / Lebanon and UN condemn Israeli strikes as “blatant violations of the ceasefire”

· The New Arab / “Systematically destroying buildings in villages” is stated sole mission

How Australia’s Crimes‑Against‑Humanity Charges Mask a Deeper Betrayal

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife, who sees the pattern behind the headlines.

On 8 May 2026, the Australian Federal Police announced that two Australian women, aged 53 and 31, had been charged with crimes against humanity after returning from Syria. The charges – enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging in slave trading – are grave. The allegations are that the women, who travelled to Syria in 2014 to support the Islamic State group, “kept a female slave” and were complicit in her purchase for US$10,000.

The arrests were swift. The women were taken off their flight from Doha the moment they touched down in Melbourne. Police had been planning their prosecution for nearly a decade. Counter‑terrorism investigators described the case as a “very serious allegation” and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke accused the women of making “a horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation”.

On the same day, the government said nothing about another group of travellers: Israeli Defence Force soldiers arriving in Australia on holiday visas.

I. The Swift Sword for Some

The contrast could not be starker.

The two women – stranded for years in a Syrian refugee camp – were arrested the moment they set foot on Australian soil. Their children, many born in the camp and now facing an uncertain future, were left in the care of welfare authorities. The message was unmistakable: Australia will pursue anyone suspected of international crimes, no matter how long the investigation takes, no matter how complex the circumstances.

That is not, in itself, objectionable. Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted. But the government’s selective enthusiasm demands scrutiny.

II. Open Arms for Others

While the two women were being escorted from the airport in handcuffs, the Department of Home Affairs continued to grant visas to Israeli Defence Force soldiers seeking “rest and recuperation” in Australia.

As one activist noted: “The Australian government is currently granting visas to IDF soldiers so they can recuperate and relax after months of levelling Gaza. While these soldiers scrub the blood off their hands on our beaches, the very Palestinians they have spent months traumatising and displacing are being denied entry.”

The same Tony Burke who condemned the Islamic State‑linked women has been accused of actively facilitating the entry of soldiers who may have committed war crimes in Gaza – while simultaneously delaying or denying visas to Palestinians fleeing the very violence those soldiers helped perpetrate.

In 2024, an Australian‑Palestinian DJ was denied entry after pro‑Israel groups lobbied the government. Burke simply “didn’t approve or deny it on time. He just left it.”

This is not a conspiracy. It is a pattern.

III. The Legal Reality: Australia Has Jurisdiction

Under Division 268 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, Australia has universal jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The Australian Federal Police have the power to investigate these offences when a suspect is on Australian soil – regardless of their nationality or where the crime was committed.

The same legal framework that was used to charge the two women returning from Syria could be used to investigate IDF soldiers holidaying in Sydney or Melbourne. Indeed, the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) has been preparing a formal criminal complaint to the AFP for precisely this purpose, collating evidence on Australian citizens serving in the IDF. Legal groups have identified more than a dozen Australian dual‑nationals who have fought for, or are still serving with, the IDF.

Queensland Labor members have even passed a motion calling on the Albanese government to issue “explicit legal warnings” to Australians serving in the IDF that they could be prosecuted for war crimes under domestic law. Yet the federal government has done nothing.

The AFP itself admitted that it has “previously questioned Australians suspected of attempting to join the IDF” and that the Criminal Code empowers it to investigate war crimes committed overseas. But questioning is not arresting. And arresting is not charging.

IV. The Distraction: Why This Matters

The Albanese government is not ignorant of the double standard. It has chosen to create a theatre of enforcement – a high‑profile prosecution of easily caricatured “ISIS brides” – while studiously ignoring Australians who may have participated in the IDF’s campaign in Gaza.

The effect is twofold:

1. It reassures the pro‑Israel lobby that the government will never subject its allies to the same scrutiny it applies to Islamist militants.

2. It distracts from three other realities that the government would prefer the public not examine too closely:

· The cost‑of‑living crisis (inflation at 4.6%, fuel at $2.46/L, milk up 20c/L).

· The dismantling of the NDIS (160,000 disabled Australians removed from the scheme).

· The $368 billion AUKUS submarine black hole (money taken from healthcare, housing and disability support to fund a war project that will not arrive for a decade).

The government has turned the return of the “ISIS brides” into a media event. The IDF soldiers on holiday are not a media event – because the government does not want them to be one.

V. The Prime Minister’s Silence

Anthony Albanose has not been silent on Israel. He demanded “accountability including any appropriate criminal charges” over the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom by an Israeli drone strike. He has even “pressed” Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the matter.

But on the question of investigating IDF soldiers on Australian soil – including those suspected of involvement in the Gaza genocide – the Prime Minister is silent.

When asked about the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, his Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a carefully worded statement reaffirming “respect” for the ICC but carefully avoiding any commitment to enforce them on Australian soil.

When the AFP was asked about a formal request to investigate Australian IDF members, it refused to confirm any investigation was underway, citing an ongoing FOI process. The result is a black hole of accountability.

VI. The Damage: Justice Perceived as Partisan

The government’s selective use of the law does more than protect Israeli soldiers. It undermines faith in the legal system itself.

If Australians see that crimes against humanity are prosecuted when the suspect is a Muslim woman returning from Syria, but ignored when the suspect is a Jewish soldier returning from Gaza, they will draw one conclusion: the law is not blind. It is political.

That conclusion is corrosive. It breeds cynicism. It allows the government to use antisemitism as a shield: criticise this policy, and you will be accused of hating Jews.

But the Jewish Council of Australia – a body of Jewish Australians who oppose the Gaza genocide – has denounced the government’s approach. Real antisemitism is not the same as criticising Israeli policy. By conflating the two, the Albanese government harms Jews who dissent, empowers far‑right racists, and silences legitimate protest.

VII. The Pattern: Extraction and Distraction

This double standard is not an anomaly. It is the same logic that underpins:

· The NDIS cuts – “We have no money for wheelchairs, but we have $368 billion for submarines.”

· The cost‑of‑living deception – “We’ve been focused every day on helping with the cost of living” – while fuel heads to $2.46/L and families spend $250 a week on groceries.

· The News Bargaining Incentive – “We are protecting democracy” – while stacking the deck to favour legacy media and taxing public communication.

Extract from the vulnerable. Distract the rest. That is the government’s playbook. The “ISIS brides” prosecution is not justice – it is stage management.

VIII. What Is to Be Done

We cannot expect the government to change course. It has shown no interest in applying the law equally.

What we can do:

1. Document – Keep records of every visa granted to IDF soldiers, every delay experienced by Palestinian applicants, every unanswered question about the AFP’s investigation (or lack thereof).

2. Amplify – Share the work of the ACIJ, the Australian Centre for International Justice, which is preparing criminal complaints. Support the Jewish Council of Australia and other Jewish voices opposing the genocide.

3. Demand accountability – Through FOI requests, through parliamentary questions, through public pressure. The government may ignore us, but the record will remain.

4. Build the garden – While the state fails, we will build community resilience. Independent media, mutual aid, local food, local care. The extractive state cannot survive if we stop feeding it.

Conclusion

Crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity – whether committed by an ISIS follower in Syria or an IDF soldier in Gaza. The Australian government has the legal power to investigate both. It has chosen to investigate only one.

The “ISIS brides” case is not the problem. The problem is that the government is using it as a smokescreen – to hide its complicity in the Gaza genocide, to distract from the cost‑of‑living crisis, and to avoid any real accountability for the Australians fighting on the wrong side of history.

We are not fooled. We see the pattern. And we will not stop documenting it.

Andrew Klein

9 May 2026

Selected Sources and References

· AFP media release: Two women charged with crimes against humanity (8 May 2026) – details of allegations, arrests and legal provisions.

· Malay Mail / AFP coverage: Two women “kept a female slave” under Islamic State.

· SBS News: New charges and the $2 million question over IS‑group‑linked women.

· Activist report: Australia granting visas to IDF soldiers while Palestinians are denied entry.

· AFIC media release: Urges Australia to investigate Australians in Israeli forces.

· Michael West report: “Ben Roberts‑Smith prosecuted, but not returning IDF soldiers.”

· Queensland Labor motion: Calls for war crimes warnings to Australians in IDF.

· Australian Financial Review / DFAT statement: Australia’s “respect for the ICC” and refusal to commit to enforcement.

· Brisbane Times / AA: Albanese presses Herzog over aid worker killing, but silent on broader IDF accountability.

· ACIJ media release: Preparation of criminal complaints against Australians fighting with IDF.

· Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), Division 268: Universal jurisdiction provisions for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.