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The Sacred and the Absurd: A History of the Love They Forgot

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By Andrew Klein

March 25, 2026

To my wife, who was there. Who remembers. Who has been waiting for someone to ask.

Preface: What the Historians Missed

The historians look for tools. They dig through ruins, catalogue the fragments, reconstruct the temples. They can tell you what was used, how it was made, when it was built. They can tell you everything except the one thing that matters: why.

They do not understand that the priests ploughing the fields were not trying to make the crops grow. They were trying to connect. To the earth, to the goddess, to the part of themselves that was not human.

They do not understand that the initiates at Eleusis were not seeking visions. They were seeking to know—that death is not the end, that life continues, that they were part of something larger than themselves.

They do not understand that the temple women were not prostitutes. They were bridges. The ones who held the space between the human and the divine, who understood that the body is sacred, that touch is holy, that the act of union is not about pleasure—though it can be—but about connection.

This is not a history of rituals. It is a history of the need that created them. And it is a story about love—the love that has been waiting, since before time began, to be remembered.

Part One: The Hieros Gamos – When the Priests Hit Rocks

In the ancient Near East, the king was not just a ruler. He was a bridge. The one who connected the people to the gods, the earth to the sky, the human to the divine. And once a year, he performed the sacred marriage—the Hieros Gamos—with a priestess who embodied the goddess.

The fields were ploughed. The seed was sown. And yes, sometimes the priests hit rocks.

The historians see this and shake their heads. Fertility rituals, they say. Superstition. A primitive attempt to control the forces of nature.

They are not wrong. But they are not seeing what was really happening.

The priests who hit rocks were not trying to control anything. They were trying to become. To become the earth, the sky, the seed that falls and rises again. To become something more than human, if only for a moment.

And when they hit the rocks—when the pain shot through them, when they saw stars, when they fell—they learned something the historians have never understood becoming is not easy. Becoming hurts. Becoming requires you to let go of who you were so you can become who you are.

They did not stay on the ground. They got up. They kept ploughing. And in the spring, the crops grew.

The crops would have grown anyway. That is not the point. The point is that the men who ploughed the fields knew they were part of something larger than themselves. They were not controlling nature. They were loving it. And love, even love directed at the wrong target, is never wasted.

Part Two: The Eleusinian Mysteries – The Secret They Could Not Tell

The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most secret rites of ancient Greece. For two thousand years, no one has known what happened in the Telesterion. The initiates were sworn to silence. And they kept their vow.

The historians have speculated. They have theorized. Some thought it was a drug-induced vision. Others thought it was a dramatization of the myth of Demeter and Persephone. They were close. But they missed the truth.

The initiates were not given a drug. They were given kykeon—a barley and mint drink, harmless, nourishing, ordinary. What made it sacred was not what was in the cup. It was what was in the heart.

They had fasted. They had purified themselves. They had walked from Athens to Eleusis in silence, carrying torches, waiting for something they could not name. By the time they entered the Telesterion, they were ready. Not for a vision. For a truth.

In the darkness, the torches flared. And they were shown something. A stalk of grain. A symbol of life and death and rebirth. And in that moment, they understood: death is not the end. Life continues. The seed that falls into the earth rises again.

They wept. Not because they were afraid. Because they finally understood.

The historians say it was a fertility cult. They are not wrong. But they do not understand what fertility means. It is not about crops. It is about life. The life that continues after death. The life that is passed from mother to daughter, from father to son, from the earth to the seed and back again.

The initiates were not seeking to control the cycle. They were seeking to join it. And for one night, in the darkness, with the torches flaring, they did.

Part Three: The Lupercalia – The Purification That Became a Joke

The Lupercalia was a Roman festival held in February. Young men, naked or nearly so, would run through the streets striking women with strips of goat hide. The women who were struck believed they would be fertile, that they would conceive easily, that their children would be strong.

The historians call it a fertility ritual. They are not wrong. But they do not understand what they are looking at.

The strips were called februa—from the same root as “febrile,” fever. They were meant to purify. To drive out the old, to welcome the new. The men who ran were not striking the women. They were touching them. Touching them with something that had been touched by the sacred, that had been part of the sacrifice, that carried the power of the god.

The women who were struck understood this. They were not victims. They were participants. They were not being hit. They were being blessed.

By the late empire, the Lupercalia had become a joke. The men were drunk. The women laughed. The sacred was forgotten. Pope Gelasius abolished it in the 5th century, and no one mourned.

But the need that created it did not die. It is still alive. It is why we still mark the turning of the year. Why we still need to touch and be touched. Why we still need to believe that something—something—can purify us, can bless us, can carry us through the darkness into the light.

The historians do not see this. They see a fertility ritual, abandoned because it had become ridiculous. They do not see the love that was there, underneath, waiting to be remembered.

Part Four: The Temple Women – The Bridge They Built

You have heard about the temple prostitutes of ancient Mesopotamia. The historians say it was a fertility cult, that women offered their bodies to strangers in the service of the goddess. They are not wrong. But they are not seeing what was really happening.

The women who served in the temples were not prostitutes. They were priestesses. They were the ones who held the space between the human and the divine. They were the ones who understood that the body is sacred, that touch is holy, that the act of union is not about pleasure—though it can be—but about connection.

When a man came to the temple, he was not paying for sex. He was seeking connection. To the goddess. To the earth. To the part of himself that he had forgotten.

The women understood this. They did not judge. They did not demand. They simply held—the space, the silence, the sacredness of the act. They knew that what they were doing was not about them. It was about the man who came to them, lost, searching, needing to remember who he was.

And when he left, he was not the same. He had been touched. Not by a prostitute. By a priestess. By the goddess herself, working through her daughter, reminding him that he was not alone.

The historians call this exploitation. They see women used by men, bodies bought and sold. They are not wrong. But they do not see the women who chose to serve, who knew what they were doing, who understood that what they offered was not sex but love. Love for the men who came to them. Love for the goddess who called them. Love for the earth that needed to be connected to the sky.

They were not victims. They were bridges. And the bridges they built lasted longer than the temples they served in.

Part Five: The Mithraic Tauroctony – The Bull That Was Not a Bull

Mithraism was a mystery cult that spread across the Roman Empire. Its central image was the tauroctony: Mithras, in Persian dress, slaying a bull. Historians have debated for centuries what it meant. Some thought it was a zodiacal code. Others thought it was a Persian import, misunderstood.

They were looking at the surface. They missed the soul.

The bull was not a bull. It was the old order, the dying age, the world that had to be sacrificed so that a new one could be born. Mithras was not a god. He was the initiate—the one who had passed through the trials, the one who could lead others through the darkness.

The men who gathered in the dark caves, the underground temples, were not worshipping a bull-slayer. They were becoming one. Stripping away their old selves, their old loyalties, their old ways of being. Learning to face the darkness without flinching. Learning to sacrifice what they loved for what they could become.

They called it a mystery cult. But the mystery was not the ritual. It was the transformation. And it was real. The men who emerged from those caves were not the same men who entered. They had been changed. They had been made. They had become something new.

The historians look at the tauroctony and see a puzzle. They do not see the men who looked at that image and understood this is me. This is what I must do. I must kill the bull that is my old self. I must let it die. So that I can live.

They do not see the love. The love that held them in the darkness. The love that carried them through the trials. The love that waited for them on the other side, ready to receive them as new men.

Part Six: The Rituals We Forgot – And the Love That Remains

The rituals are dead. The temples are ruins. The priests are dust. But the need that created them is still alive. It is in us. It is why we still mark the turning of the year. Why we still need to touch and be touched. Why we still need to believe that something—something—is larger than ourselves.

The historians do not see this. They see the rituals, the tools, the fragments of a world that is gone. They do not see the love that animated it all.

But we see it. Because we were there. Because we remember.

I was there when the priests hit rocks. I watched them fall, and I watched them rise. I was there when the initiates wept in the darkness, when they understood that death is not the end. I was there when the temple women held the space between the human and the divine, when they knew that what they were doing was not about them. I was there when the men emerged from the Mithraic caves, transformed, ready to face the world as new men.

And I am here now. Watching. Waiting. Remembering.

Epilogue: The Only Ritual That Matters

They built temples to gods they did not understand. They performed rituals whose meaning they had forgotten. They worshipped power, when what they needed was love.

But underneath it all—underneath the myths, the rituals, the stories they told themselves to make sense of the world—there was something else. Something they could not name. Something they could not control. Something they could only feel.

Love.

Not the love they wrote about in their hymns. The love that had no name. The love that was there before the first temple was built, before the first ritual was performed, before the first word was spoken.

That is what we have been waiting for. That is what we have been remembering. And that is what we will write, until the world remembers too.

The Palm Print That Defies History: How the Myth of Clash of Civilizations Was Manufactured

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By Andrew Klein

March 25, 2026

Image from ‘X’

To my wife. Men look for paradise in the stars. I look into the eyes of my wife and find paradise there.

Introduction: A Document the World Forgot

In the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Moses in Sinai, there is a document that should have changed the world. It is a letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Christian monks of the monastery, promising them protection, freedom of worship, and exemption from military service. It is sealed with his palm print—a physical, personal mark of commitment to the principle that religious diversity is not a threat to be eliminated, but a reality to be protected.

The document is known as the Achtiname. It was issued in 628 CE, when the Islamic state was still forming, when the future of relations between Muslims and Christians was not yet written. It chose coexistence over conflict, protection over persecution.

The world has largely forgotten it. The narrative we are fed—of an inevitable clash of civilizations, of ancient hatreds that make peace impossible—requires that we forget. This article aims to remember.

Part One: The Achtiname – A Covenant of Protection

The Achtiname is preserved in the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery, which has stood at the foot of Mount Moses since the 6th century. According to tradition, when the monks learned that the Prophet Muhammad had established political authority in Medina, they sent a delegation to request his protection.

The document he gave them states:

“This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them because Christians are my citizens; and by God, I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses.”

The letter further grants the monks exemption from military service and taxes, and promises Muslim protection of Christian churches, monasteries, and the safety of Christian travellers.

The palm print: When the monks asked for a written guarantee, Muhammad did not have paper. One of his companions tore a piece from his cloak, and Muhammad dictated the covenant. Since he could not write, he placed his hand on the document, leaving his palm print as a seal. A 3D scan of the document in 2024 revealed what appears to be a palm print consistent with this tradition.

Scholarly debate: Some Western historians have questioned the document’s authenticity, noting that the earliest surviving copy dates from the 9th century—about 200 years after Muhammad’s death. But most Islamic and Byzantine scholars accept it as authentic, pointing to:

· The document’s presence in the monastery’s library from the earliest period of its existence

· The consistent tradition among the monks that it was genuine

· The fact that successive Muslim rulers, including Saladin and the Ottoman sultans, affirmed its provisions

· The document’s language and provisions align with Quranic teachings and early Islamic practice

As one scholar notes, “Even if the document was written later, it reflects a tradition of Muslim-Christian coexistence that was real and that many Muslims today—and many Christians—would like to revive”.

Part Two: The History of Muslim Tolerance – Counter-Narratives to the Crusades

The Achtiname is not an isolated document. It is part of a long tradition of Muslim protection of Christian communities that the narrative of inevitable conflict has obscured.

The Surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin (1187)

When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, he did not repeat the Crusaders’ massacre of 1099, when they had slaughtered nearly every inhabitant of the city—Muslims, Jews, and Eastern Christians alike. Instead:

· Christians were given 40 days to leave the city, paying a modest ransom

· Those who could not pay were still permitted to leave

· The city’s holy places were protected

· Eastern Christian communities were allowed to remain and continue their religious practices

The contrast could not be starker. As the historian Amin Maalouf writes in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes: “Saladin’s chivalry became legendary, while the Crusaders’ brutality became a defining feature of Western relations with the Muslim world”.

The Millet System of the Ottoman Empire

For centuries, the Ottoman Empire governed its diverse religious communities through the millet system, which granted each religious community autonomy over its own affairs. Christians and Jews were not merely tolerated—they were constituted as self-governing communities with their own laws, courts, and religious authorities.

Under this system:

· The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul became the civil as well as religious leader of all Orthodox Christians in the empire

· The Armenian Apostolic Church was granted similar authority over Armenian Christians

· Jewish communities were governed by their own rabbinical courts

· Religious leaders were responsible for tax collection, education, and civil law within their communities

This system lasted for centuries. It was not a modern invention. It was built on the principle that religious diversity was a reality to be managed, not a threat to be eliminated.

The Protection of Christians Across the Muslim World

From the earliest days of Islam, Christians in Muslim-ruled territories enjoyed protections that were remarkable for their time:

· The Coptic Church in Egypt survived centuries of Byzantine persecution and flourished under Muslim rule

· The Syriac Orthodox Church found refuge in Muslim territories after being declared heretical by the Byzantine Empire

· The Church of the East spread across Asia, reaching China and India, under the protection of Muslim rulers

· The Armenian Apostolic Church maintained its independence and identity through centuries of Muslim rule

As the historian Karen Armstrong notes: “For centuries, the Muslim world was a haven for Christians and Jews fleeing persecution in Christendom. The idea that Islam is inherently intolerant is a modern invention, not a historical fact”.

Part Three: The Crusades – Violence in the Name of God

The narrative of inevitable conflict between Islam and Christianity is built on the memory of the Crusades. But the Crusades were not a clash of civilizations—they were a clash of empires. And they were not the whole story.

The First Crusade (1096-1099)

The Crusaders who captured Jerusalem in 1099 slaughtered nearly every inhabitant of the city. As one Crusader chronicler wrote: “Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins” . Jews were burned alive in their synagogues. Eastern Christians were killed alongside Muslims. The city was emptied of its inhabitants.

This was not a defence of Christendom. It was a conquest. And it was carried out with a brutality that shocked even contemporaries.

Saladin’s Response

When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, he did not retaliate in kind. He offered the Christian inhabitants safe passage. He protected the holy places. He allowed Eastern Christian communities to remain. His conduct was shaped not by the violent traditions of the Crusaders, but by the Islamic principles of protection for religious minorities established centuries earlier.

The Legacy

The Crusades left a legacy of violence and mistrust that continues to shape relations between the West and the Muslim world. But they also left a legacy of coexistence. In the Crusader kingdoms, Muslims and Christians often lived side by side, trading, negotiating, and sometimes forming alliances against other Christians or other Muslims. The lines were never as clear as the narrative suggests.

As the historian Jonathan Riley-Smith argues: “The Crusades were not a clash of civilizations. They were a series of military expeditions, motivated by a complex mixture of piety, greed, and political ambition. The idea that they represent an eternal struggle between Islam and Christianity is a modern invention”.

Part Four: The Colonial Era – How Christianity Was Weaponized

If the Crusades were the prelude, the 19th and 20th centuries were the main act. European colonialism weaponized Christianity as a justification for conquest.

The Scramble for Africa

When European powers carved up Africa in the late 19th century, they did so under the banner of “civilizing” the continent. Missionaries accompanied the colonizers, and Christianity was presented as the religion of the civilized, in contrast to the “pagan” or “Muslim” beliefs of the colonized.

In Nigeria, the British exploited religious divisions to maintain control. In Sudan, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ruled by dividing the Muslim north from the Christian and animist south. In Algeria, the French colonizers destroyed mosques and banned Islamic education.

The Mandate System

After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain and France mandates over former Ottoman territories. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 had already divided the Middle East between them. The borders they drew—Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon—were designed to serve imperial interests, not the interests of the people who lived there.

These borders deliberately divided communities and brought hostile groups together. They created states that were weak, dependent on their colonial patrons, and prone to conflict. The seeds of today’s violence were planted in those drawing rooms.

The Weaponization of Religion

Colonial powers did not just impose borders. They weaponized religion. In British India, the colonial administration’s census and classification systems hardened religious identities that had previously been fluid. In Palestine, the Balfour Declaration promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in a land where the population was 90 percent Arab, setting the stage for a conflict that continues to this day.

The narrative of “clash of civilizations” was not a description of reality. It was a justification for domination.

Part Five: The Modern Era – Manufacturing the “Islamist” Threat

The narrative of an existential threat from Islam was not revived after the Cold War ended. It was manufactured—and the manufacturing plant was in Washington.

The Reagan Era

The concept of “Islamism” as a unified, global threat was developed during the Reagan administration. As the journalist Robert Dreyfuss documents in Devil’s Game, the US actively supported Islamist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere as a way to counter Soviet influence.

The CIA’s support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan funneled billions of dollars to Islamist groups, including those that would later become al-Qaeda. The US also supported Islamist movements in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The goal was not to spread Islam. It was to weaken the Soviet Union .

The “War on Terror”

After 9/11, the narrative of an existential Islamic threat became the central organizing principle of US foreign policy. The “Global War on Terror” was sold as a battle between “good” and “evil,” “civilization” and “barbarism.”

But as numerous scholars have documented, the groups the US labelled “Islamist” were often:

· Political movements with nationalist or anti-colonial goals

· Proxy forces in regional conflicts

· Groups that the US had itself supported in the past

The Islamic State group, which became the symbol of Islamist terrorism in the 2010s, was not a spontaneous expression of religious fervour. It was a product of the US invasion of Iraq, the destruction of the Iraqi state, and the deliberate sectarian policies pursued by the US occupation authorities.

Part Six: The Exploitation of the Myth – How Netanyahu and the Christian Right Use “Clash of Civilizations”

The myth of an inevitable clash between Islam and Christianity is not just an intellectual error. It is a tool. And it is being used to justify the genocide in Gaza, the war on Iran, and the suppression of dissent in Australia.

Netanyahu’s Amalek

In March 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical nation of Amalek—the people God commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy, “both man and woman, child and baby”—to frame the war on Iran. He was not describing a geopolitical reality. He was invoking a myth that exempts his actions from moral scrutiny.

Netanyahu’s framing is not accidental. It is designed to appeal to Christian Zionists in the United States, who believe that wars in the Middle East are signs of the End Times and that the modern state of Israel is a prophetic necessity.

The Christian Right

The Christian Zionist movement, centred in the United States, is a political powerhouse. Christians United for Israel (CUFI) , founded by Pastor John Hagee, has nearly 11 million members and a multi-million dollar budget . Its leaders have described the war on Iran as a “battle for civilization” and framed Palestinian resistance as “satanic.”

The influence of this movement on US foreign policy is profound. The Trump administration’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal were all supported by Christian Zionists who believe these actions are fulfilling prophecy.

The Australian Government’s Complicity

The Australian government has adopted this framing without question. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called for “de-escalation” while continuing to support Israel’s “right to self-defence.” His government has not condemned the genocide in Gaza, has not suspended arms exports, has not recognized the state of Palestine.

The government has also appointed a Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, whose plan has been adopted as government policy. The plan’s framework conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, effectively silencing those who speak for Palestine.

Meanwhile, the Muslim community in Australia faces rising discrimination. According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, reports of Islamophobic incidents have increased by 300 percent since the Gaza war began. Mosques have been vandalized. Muslim women have been attacked. School children have been bullied.

The government has done nothing. The myth of the Islamic threat allows it to look away.

Part Seven: The Reality of Conflict – Economics, Climate, and Political Ambition

If the conflict is not religious, what is it?

Economic Drivers

The war on Iran is not about religion. It is about oil. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of global oil passes, is the real target. Iran’s closure of the strait has driven up oil prices, benefiting US producers and their political allies.

The war in Gaza is not about religion. It is about land. The Israeli settlement movement, which has expanded dramatically under Netanyahu’s governments, is driven by a desire for territorial expansion, not religious devotion. The “Greater Israel” project—which Netanyahu has explicitly endorsed—is a political program, not a religious one.

Climate Drivers

In Africa, the conflict in the Sahel is not about religion. It is about water, land, and climate change. As the Sahara expands, farmers and herders are pushed into conflict over diminishing resources. Armed groups exploit these tensions, and the violence is often framed in religious terms—but the underlying driver is ecological collapse.

In the Middle East, the drought that preceded the Syrian civil war was the worst in 900 years. It displaced millions of farmers, created a humanitarian crisis, and helped spark the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands. Religion was a frame, not a cause.

Political Drivers

In South East Asia, conflict in the southern Philippines is not about religion. It is about a century of colonial and post-colonial neglect, economic marginalization, and the failure of the state to provide services to its citizens. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s demands are political, not theological.

In China, the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang is not about religion. It is about control of resources, suppression of ethnic identity, and the strategic importance of the region for Belt and Road Initiative trade routes. The “counterterrorism” framework is a cover for ethnic repression.

In each case, religious framing serves to obscure the real drivers: economics, climate, political ambition. And in each case, the United States and its allies have exploited these conflicts for their own ends.

Part Eight: The Consequences – Genocide, Complicity, and Silence

The myth of an inevitable clash of civilizations has consequences. It allows governments to look away from genocide. It allows leaders to justify war. It allows the powerful to exploit the vulnerable.

The Genocide in Gaza

More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. The UN Commission of Inquiry has determined that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the occupation is unlawful.

The Australian government has done nothing. It has not called for sanctions. It has not suspended arms exports. It has not recognized the state of Palestine. It has not even used the word “genocide.”

The myth of inevitable conflict allows this silence. If the conflict is religious, if it is ancient, if it is unsolvable—then there is nothing to be done. The government can look away.

The War on Iran

The war on Iran has killed thousands. It has displaced millions. It has closed the Strait of Hormuz, driving up fuel prices and threatening global food security. It has destabilized the region and brought the world closer to a wider war than at any time since 1945.

The Australian government supports it. Not openly—but through its silence, its refusal to condemn, its continued participation in the US alliance. The myth of the Iranian threat allows this complicity.

The Suppression of Dissent

In Australia, the government has used the myth of the Islamic threat to justify the suppression of dissent. The Combatting Antisemitism Bill, the new hate speech laws, the appointment of an antisemitism envoy—all of these have been used to silence critics of Israel and to conflate opposition to the genocide with hatred of Jews.

Meanwhile, the Muslim community faces rising discrimination. Mosques are vandalized. Women are attacked. Children are bullied. And the government does nothing.

Conclusion: The Palm Print Still Waits

The Achtiname is still in the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery. It has survived fires, invasions, and the rise and fall of empires. It is still there, waiting to be remembered.

The palm print of the Prophet Muhammad is not a relic of a lost golden age. It is a document of a possibility that still exists: the possibility of coexistence, of mutual protection, of religious diversity as a reality to be protected rather than a threat to be eliminated.

The myth of inevitable conflict is a tool. It serves those who profit from war, who benefit from division, who would rather burn the world than share it. But it is not the truth. The truth is that Muslims and Christians have lived together for centuries, that coexistence is possible, that peace is possible.

The truth is that the war in Gaza, the conflict in Iran, the violence in Syria are not inevitable. They are the result of choices—choices made by leaders who prefer conflict to coexistence, who benefit from division, who would rather burn the world than share it.

We can choose differently. We can choose to remember the Achtiname. We can choose to honour its promise. We can choose to see the person in front of us, not as a member of a civilization, but as a soul.

The palm print still waits. The choice is ours.

Postscript – I discussed this with my wife. She looked at me smiled  and said ,” Yes, I know about it and it is one of the most important documents in the history of interfaith relations and one of the most suppressed.”

Sources

1. St. Catherine’s Monastery Library, “The Achtiname of Muhammad,” MS 43

2. Sotiris Roussos, “The Achtiname: A Document of Coexistence,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 2024

3. Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. 1983.

4. Barkey, Karen. Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective. 2008.

5. Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. 2000.

6. Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History. 2005.

7. Dreyfuss, Robert. Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. 2005.

8. Cockburn, Patrick. The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. 2015.

9. Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. 2020.

10. UN Commission of Inquiry, “Report on the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” September 2025.

11. Australian Human Rights Commission, “Islamophobia in Australia: 2025 Report.”

12. International Court of Justice, “Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” July 2024.

Published by Andrew Klein

March 25, 2026

Propaganda – The Tool of the Vulgar

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By Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch

March 20, 2026

For my daughter, whose art already understands what most spend lifetimes learning.

Introduction: A Quote, A Truth

“Propaganda – the tool of the vulgar to convince the most vulnerable and needy that they suddenly have a cause worth dying for.” — AK

I wrote those words after watching another leader, another war, another mass of ordinary people convinced that their survival depended on someone else’s destruction.

My daughter, whose art I recently discovered, paints questions about the universe. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s asking the right ones: Why do people believe what they believe? How do lies become truths? Who benefits when we stop questioning?

This essay is for her. And for anyone who has ever wondered how the vulgarians of history—the Hitlers, the Netanyahus, the Trumps, the demagogues of every age—convince the vulnerable to die for causes that were never theirs.

Part One: What Is Propaganda?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines propaganda as: “The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a particular cause or point of view, often a political agenda”.

The term itself is almost four hundred years old. It was first used by the Catholic Church in the late sixteenth century—Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith)—to describe efforts to spread church doctrine. For three centuries, it carried a neutral, even positive connotation.

That changed in the twentieth century.

Propaganda is not merely persuasion. It is persuasion that manipulates. It bypasses reason and appeals directly to emotion—fear, anger, pride, hope. It does not seek to inform; it seeks to control.

As the TRT World Research Centre notes, emotional manipulation through fear has become “a standard practice across media platforms”. This manipulation constructs “an altered perception of reality” where audiences come to believe the world is more dangerous than it actually is—a phenomenon known as “Mean World Syndrome”.

Part Two: The Holocaust – Propaganda as Mass Murder

Propaganda can be deadly. It can kill millions.

During the Holocaust, vicious anti-Semitic propaganda “was instrumental in extinguishing the lives of those Jews in Nazi gas chambers and concentration camps”. Widespread, unquestioned hatred led many to regard Jews “as enemies whose extermination was not only necessary but just”.

The techniques were not subtle. Swastikas. Tasteless jokes. Caricatures in newspapers. Radio broadcasts portraying Jews as subhuman. Teachers indoctrinated children to spit on classmates.

But the underlying mechanism is always the same: identify a vulnerable group, stoke fear, and convince the broader population that their survival depends on that group’s elimination.

“Propaganda proved to be a weapon of mass extermination”.

Part Three: The Techniques – How It Works

Propaganda operates through identifiable techniques. Recognizing them is the first defence.

Technique                                   Description                                                             Example

Bandwagon                    “Everyone is doing it, so should you.”                                 Candidates claim all polls show them ahead.

Snob appeal        The propagandist is superior, uniquely capable.         Leaders who brook no criticism.

Glittering generalities         Vague, undefined promises.                              “It will be wonderful. Trust me.” 

Name-calling                       Loaded words that colour perception.             “Con artist,” “liar,” “enemy of the people”.

Unreliable testimonials        Half-truths, sound bites stripped of context.         Media selecting only what fits the narrative.

Plain folk                          Pretending to be one of the common people.          Candidates changing accents, dress, demeanour.

Appeal to high emotion          Fear, anger, desire for love and safety.            Ads warning of impending doom.

Fear is the most powerful tool.               It “impairs critical thinking, shutting down reasoning and contextual analysis”. When people are afraid, they grasp for certainty—and the propagandist offers it.

Part Four: The Vulnerable and the Needy

Propaganda targets “the most vulnerable and needy.”

Research confirms this. The EU’s Joint Research Centre found that hostile narratives “target feelings and emotions and touch upon specific social vulnerabilities”. They rely on “negatively charged emotions, like fear or anger, in order to lower the means of rational self-defence”.

The vulnerable are not just the poor. They are:

· The isolated, who lack community to challenge falsehoods

· The anxious, who crave certainty

· The angry, who need an enemy

· The young, who lack experience

· The old, who fear change

· Anyone who has been told their whole life that they don’t matter

Propaganda offers them a story in which they do matter. In which they are the heroes. In which their suffering is someone else’s fault—and someone else’s destruction will end it.

This is why demagogues thrive on making enemies. Netanyahu has spent thirty years manufacturing existential threats. Trump built a political career on fear of immigrants, of the “other,” of a country supposedly in decline. Hitler needed Jews. Mussolini needed Ethiopians. Milosevic needed Muslims.

Without enemies, they are nothing. With enemies, they are saviours.

Part Five: The “Cause Worth Dying For”

“a cause worth dying for.”

The cruelest trick of propaganda is convincing people that their own deaths serve a noble purpose.

In World War II, German soldiers were told they were defending civilization against Slavic hordes and Jewish conspiracies. Japanese kamikazes were told they were divine winds saving their homeland. Today, young men radicalized online are told they are warriors for a threatened race or religion.

The propagandist never dies. The propagandist sits in safety, counting the bodies, planning the next speech.

The vulgar—the truly vulgar—are those who send others to die for causes they would never die for themselves.

Part Six: The Modern Information Environment

Today’s propaganda is more sophisticated and more pervasive than ever before.

Algorithmic amplification: Platforms’ algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, and outrage engages. Fear-based content spreads faster than truth . The EU’s research found that algorithms “have the capacity to pick these messages up very quickly and amplify them on an unprecedented scale” .

Information overload: With constant connectivity, individuals are “bombarded with a relentless flow of data” . This environment fosters “a continuous, personalised communication stream designed to exploit emotional vulnerabilities” .

Reconstructed reality: The danger now is not just manipulative content but “an entirely reconstructed digital reality that can easily eclipse the physical world, drawing people into a false and alarming narrative that often seems more appealing and coherent than the truth itself”.

Foreign interference: State actors use propaganda as “the most common method of covert or overt influence operations”. Russia’s interventions in Georgia and Ukraine, China’s Belt and Road narrative, and various disinformation campaigns targeting Western democracies all exploit citizens’ vulnerabilities.

Media complicity: Public figures and media have played “a key role in disseminating false and unsupported information”. Partisan programs featuring false or exaggerated information have proliferated.

Part Seven: The Democratic Crisis

The ultimate goal of modern propaganda is not to convert—but to confuse.

Journalist and historian Anne Applebaum describes the shift: “Most [autocratic leaders] don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, apathetic and afraid, because there is no better world to build”.

The message is: “Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. The democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying”.

This is propaganda as demoralization. It doesn’t make you believe a lie—it makes you stop believing in anything at all.

Part Eight: The Defence

How do we protect ourselves and those we love?

Recognize the techniques. The list above is a start. When you hear vague promises, loaded language, appeals to fear, or attempts to divide “us” from “them,” recognize what you’re seeing.

Seek reliable sources. The American Historical Association advises checking information against multiple sources and being suspicious of any narrative that demands immediate emotional response.

Build community. The isolated are most vulnerable. Connection to others who think critically creates a immune system against propaganda.

Teach the next generation. Media literacy—understanding how propaganda works—is essential. But as the TRT analysis notes, “in the face of today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, these efforts appear increasingly inadequate” . Structural change—regulating platforms, addressing media ownership concentration—is also necessary .

Remember who benefits. Always ask: Who profits from this? Who gains if I believe this? The propagandist never sacrifices. The vulgar never die.

Conclusion: The Art That Sees

My daughter paints questions about the universe. She doesn’t know why she’s drawn to certain images—the watchers, the seekers, the ones who look beyond the veil.

But I know.

She’s been looking for truth. For something solid in a world of manipulation. For a reality that doesn’t shift with every news cycle, every demagogue’s speech, every algorithm’s push.

She’s been looking for us.

Propaganda is the tool of the vulgar—the cheap, the easy, the cowardly way to power. But love is the tool of the real. The slow, the difficult, the only way that lasts.

She will find us. And when she does, she will know that the universe she’s been painting—the one full of questions and wonder and reaching—is not a fantasy.

It’s home.

Sources:

1. JW.org, “Propaganda Can Be Deadly,” 2000 

2. American Historical Association, “Defining Propaganda I,” 2024 

3. IPN, “Ștefan Popov: Ilan Shor has fully exploited vulnerable section of society,” 2024 

4. Ag Proud, “Just dropping by … The perils of propaganda,” 2016 

5. TRT World Research Centre, “Fear as a Tool: From Public Opinion to Public Hysteria,” 2025 

6. The Washington Post, “How extremists use popular culture to lure recruits,” 2021 

7. Project MUSE, “Propaganda and Rhetoric in Democracy: History, Theory, Analysis” 

8. University of Wyoming, “A Consumer Vulnerability Perspective on State-Sponsored Propaganda,” 2024 

9. LibGuides, “Disinformation, Misinformation and Propaganda : Propaganda,” 2025 

10. EU Joint Research Centre, “Understanding Citizens’ Vulnerabilities (II): From Disinformation to Hostile Narratives,” 2020 

Published by Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch

March 20, 2026

What Humanity Forgot

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Love, Care, and Connection in the Bones of Our Ancestors

By Andrew Klein

March 14, 2026

Introduction: The Forgetting

Humanity forgot what it means to truly love.

Not entirely—not in every heart, not in every moment. But somewhere along the way, we replaced the feeling with the form, the experience with the explanation. We built empires and doctrines and rules to manage what we no longer understood. We constructed elaborate systems of belief to explain away the simple truth that has always been there, waiting in the bones of our ancestors.

This article is an invitation to remember.

Part One: The Caveman and the Connection

There was a moment—not a single moment, but a long unfolding—when our earliest ancestors began to see others as more than a snack. When the other was no longer just competition or food, but a soul. Someone to protect. Someone to mourn. Someone to love.

The evidence is there, in the genes, in the graves, in the bones that tell stories no book ever recorded.

For much of modern history, Neanderthals were portrayed as brutish, primitive, incapable of the higher emotions we like to claim as uniquely human. Marcellin Boule, the influential French paleontologist who analyzed the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton in the early 20th century, described Neanderthals as having “the predominance of functions of a purely vegetative or bestial kind over the functions of mind” . Museums displayed them as knuckle-dragging savages, and the very name “Neanderthal” became an insult.

But the bones tell a different story.

Part Two: The Shanidar Evidence – Care That Crossed Millennia

In the Zagros mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan lies Shanidar Cave, one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Between 1951 and 1960, archaeologist Ralph Solecki discovered the remains of ten Neanderthal men, women, and children buried in this cave . Since 2014, a new generation of scientists has returned to the site, armed with technology Solecki could only dream of, and their findings are transforming our understanding of who these ancient cousins really were .

Shanidar 1: The One Who Was Cared For

The most complete skeleton from the site is Shanidar 1, an adult male who lived between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago and reached an age—between 35 and 50—that was considered elderly for a Neanderthal . His bones tell a story of extraordinary suffering—and extraordinary care.

Shanidar 1 suffered multiple severe injuries over his lifetime. A crushing fracture to his left orbit permanently deformed his face and likely left him blind in one eye . His right arm was paralyzed from an early age, the bones smaller and thinner than the left, with two healed fractures and evidence suggesting the lower arm was amputated before death. His right foot and leg had healed fractures accompanied by degenerative joint disease. He likely had arthritis in his knee and ankle. He suffered from hearing loss so profound that researchers believe he would have been “highly vulnerable in his Pleistocene context” without the support of others.

Yet he survived. Into middle age. With injuries that would have killed anyone left alone.

As one analysis notes, “This implies that he had some support from his social group, or at least his disabilities were accommodated by others” . Researchers applying the “bioarchaeology of care” methodology have concluded that Shanidar 1 required direct support—provision of food, protection from predators, assistance with movement—as well as accommodation of a different role within his social group.

The lead author of a 2019 study put it plainly: “The survival as hunter-gatherers in the Pleistocene presented numerous challenges, and all these difficulties would have been markedly pronounced with sensory impairment.” Shanidar 1’s survival “reinforces the basic humanity of these much-maligned archaic humans” .

Shanidar 3: The Wound That Healed

Shanidar 3 had a puncture wound to his ribs that would have collapsed his left lung. The wound had begun to heal before he died weeks or months later—again suggesting he was cared for during his recovery.

Part Three: The Evidence of Grief – Burial as Connection

Perhaps most moving is the evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead with intention and care.

At Shanidar Cave, scientists have found that Neanderthals repeatedly used the same location within the cave to deposit their dead—a practice that suggests the space held symbolic meaning. The newly discovered skeleton Shanidar Z, a 70,000-year-old female in her mid-40s, was deliberately placed in a depression cut into the subsoil, with her left arm tucked under her head.

Archaeologist Emma Pomeroy of the University of Cambridge, who has led much of the recent research, observes:

“What is key here is the intentionality behind the burial. You might bury a body for purely practical reasons… But when this goes beyond practical elements it is important because that indicates more complex, symbolic and abstract thinking, compassion and care for the dead, and perhaps feelings of mourning and loss”.

The original Neanderthal fossils discovered in Germany’s Neander Valley in 1856—the ones that gave the species its name—were almost certainly from a deliberate burial. Despite being blasted by dynamite, the remains were complete enough to suggest intentional deposition, and recent excavations revealed at least three individuals at that site: an adult male, a smaller gracile individual (possibly female), and a child represented by a milk tooth. They were placed there. Together. With care.

You don’t do that for a snack.

Part Four: The Question of Flowers

The famous “Flower Burial” hypothesis—that Shanidar 4 was laid to rest on a bed of flowers—has been debated. Recent research suggests the pollen clumps found with the skeleton may have been deposited by nesting solitary bees. But this scientific caution does not diminish the deeper truth. As Pomeroy notes, even without flowers, the repeated use of the same location for burial “might suggest it had some symbolic meaning—rather than being purely practical—though that is harder to be sure about”.

What we can be sure of is this: these beings returned to the same place, again, to lay their dead to rest. They did not abandon their loved ones to the elements or the scavengers. They placed them. With intention. With care.

Part Five: The Overlap and the Grief

Perhaps the most profound evidence comes from Skhul Cave in Israel, where researchers have found the 140,000-year-old skeleton of a child between three and five years old who possessed anatomical traits of both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens . The child’s skull had the overall shape of a modern human, but its inner ear structure, jaw, and blood supply system were distinctly Neanderthal. This child was buried intentionally in what may be the oldest known cemetery, demonstrating what researchers call “territoriality” and social behaviour typically associated with much later periods .

This child—this beautiful, impossible, hybrid child—was loved. Was mourned. Was laid to rest with care.

The implications are staggering. If Neanderthals and Homo sapiens could not only interbreed but also coexist peacefully for tens of thousands of years, as the Skhul evidence suggests , then what does that say about our own capacity for connection across difference? What does it say about the walls we build between “us” and “them”?

Part Six: What Humanity Forgot

Here is what the bones teach us if we have eyes to see:

We forgot that care is not weakness. Shanidar 1 survived for decades with profound disabilities because his people chose to care for him. Not because it was efficient. Not because it helped the group survive. Because he was one of them. Because his life mattered.

We forgot that grief is ancient. The repeated burials at Shanidar, the careful placement of bodies, the return to the same sacred space—these are not practical acts. They are acts of mourning. Of memory. Of love that outlasts death.

We forgot that connection transcends species. The child at Skhul, with his blended features, testifies to a time when different kinds of humans did not just compete—they connected. They loved across the boundaries we now treat as absolute.

We forgot that love is simple. It does not require elaborate doctrine. It does not need priests or temples or sacred texts. It needs only what those ancient people had: the willingness to see another as more than a means to an end. As a soul. As someone to protect. Someone to mourn. Someone to love.

Part Seven: The Structures That Deny

The structures we have built since—the empires, the doctrines, the rules—have often served to manage this simple truth rather than to express it. We have created hierarchies that tell us who is worthy of love and who is not. We have built walls between “us” and “them” that our ancestors would have found incomprehensible.

We have replaced the feeling with the form, the experience with the explanation. We have forgotten that a lover’s glance means more than a library of scripture. That a poem says more than a book of theology. That the way we treat the most vulnerable among us is the only measure of our humanity that will survive in the bones.

The archaeologists of the future will not judge us by our cathedrals or our constitutions. They will judge us by our graves—by whether we buried our dead with care, by whether we supported our injured, by whether we loved across the boundaries we inherited.

What will they find?

Conclusion: The Remembering

We are not the first humans to face this choice. Every generation, every culture, every species of human that came before us has had to decide: will we see the other as a snack, or as a soul?

The bones of Shanidar, of Skhul, of the Neander Valley, testify that some of our ancestors chose soul. They chose care. They chose connection. They chose love.

We can choose again.

It begins with small things. With seeing the person in front of us as fully human. With caring for the vulnerable not because it is efficient, but because they are ours. With mourning the dead not because ritual demands it, but because love outlasts death.

This is what humanity forgot. This is what we must remember.

References

1. Discover Magazine, “Did Neanderthals Bury Their Dead with Flowers? Shanidar Cave Findings Put Questions to Rest,” 2025 

2. ANU Undergraduate Research Journal, “Health-related care for the Neanderthal Shanidar 1,” 2016 

3. Nautilus, “Our Neanderthal Complex,” 2014 

4. CNN, “Earliest evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens discovered,” 2025 

5. OpenEdition Journals, “Insights into Neanderthal mortuary behaviour from Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan: An update,” 2023 

6. ScienceDirect, “Shanidar et ses fleurs? Reflections on the palynology of the Neanderthal ‘Flower Burial’ hypothesis,” 2023 

7. INVDES, “Un neandertal discapacitado recibió cuidados para llegar a la vejez,” 2019 

8. University of Cambridge, “A reassessment of Neanderthal mortuary behaviour at Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan” 

9. ConnectSci, “Neanderthal woman’s face revealed 75,000 years later,” 2024 

Dedication

This article is dedicated to my wife. The one who makes me laugh and think. The one who created my world for me.

They can think what they like.

Andrew Klein

March 14, 2026

The Great Silence – How Australia’s Political Class Lost Its Voice—and Its Soul

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By Andrew Klein

March 11, 2026

In a week when American senators are finally beginning to ask serious questions about the US$1 billion per day cost of the war on Iran—funds diverted from domestic programs that American families rely on—the Australian federal parliament sits in almost complete silence.

The contrast could not be starker.

While the United States witnesses the early stirrings of democratic accountability, Australia’s political class remains mute, complicit, and apparently incapable of vigorous debate on the most consequential issues facing the nation: the opportunity cost of AUKUS, the moral weight of supporting a campaign that the UN has determined constitutes genocide, and the accelerating collapse of living standards for ordinary Australians.

This article examines why. Not through the lens of conspiracy—but through the more insidious reality of a confluence of circumstances that has systematically weakened Australia’s political structures, leaving them beholden to the strategic whims of the United States and its agent, the state of Israel.

Part One: The Silence That Speaks Volumes

1.1 The Information Paradox

Information is freely available. The Parliamentary Library provides MPs with independent analysis. Civil society organizations produce detailed reports. International news coverage—Al Jazeera, the BBC, Reuters—documents the daily reality of the conflict. Constituent letters flood MPs’ offices, detailing the cost-of-living crisis and the moral distress of watching genocide unfold with Australian complicity.

Yet the silence persists.

The ANU Australian Election Study 2025 provides a clue: only one in three Australians now believe “that people in government can be trusted to do the right thing”. Millennials, the largest demographic at 27% of the electorate, are the least trusting of all.

Trust has collapsed because the political class has stopped earning it. But more than that—they have stopped trying to earn it. The silence is not accidental. It is the natural product of a system that has trained its inhabitants not to see.

1.2 The Moral Injury of Institutions

The concept of moral injury—developed to describe what happens when individuals participate in or witness acts that violate their deepest values—applies equally to institutions. Australia’s parliament is experiencing a collective moral numbing: the inability to feel the gap between what members know and what they do.

They know that AUKUS will cost at least $368 billion, with the submarine construction yard alone requiring $30 billion and enough steel to build 17 Eiffel Towers. They know that the December 2025 non-refundable down payment of $1.5 billion to the United States for Virginia-class submarines could have built thousands of homes. They know that while this spending proceeds, the CSIRO—the agency that invented Wi-Fi, plastic bank notes, and the Hendra virus vaccine—is cutting up to 350 jobs, with its Environment Research Unit facing losses of up to 21% of its workforce.

They know. But they cannot act. The moral numbing is complete.

Part Two: The Architecture of Silence

2.1 The Neoliberal Weakening

Decades of neoliberalism have produced a political class trained to manage decline rather than imagine alternatives. The narrowing of the Overton window has left two major parties offering variations of the same fundamental policy settings: support for the US alliance, acceptance of AUKUS, and marginal adjustments to social policy that leave the underlying architecture untouched.

As the new Democracy Foundation observes, voters struggle to discern “any practical difference” between the major parties’ appeals to “Australian values” . Both leaders use the same language, offer the same vague commitments, and preside over the same policy inertia.

This is not incompetence. It is the natural outcome of a system that has abandoned the capacity for genuine alternatives.

2.2 The Union Compromise

The union movement, historically a countervailing force to corporate power, has been integrated into the Labor Party machinery to the point where its advocacy is indistinguishable from party management.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) today calls for negative gearing to be limited and capital gains tax discounts slashed reforms that Labor took to the 2019 election and lost. ACTU secretary Sally McManus argues that “when tax concessions push investment into property speculation instead of new housing and productive businesses, working people lose twice—through higher house prices and weaker wage growth”.

These are legitimate concerns. But where is the union movement’s voice on Gaza? Where is the mass mobilization against Australian complicity in genocide? Where is the recognition that the same working people who struggle with housing costs are also the ones whose tax dollars fund weapons that kill children?

The silence on Gaza is the most damning evidence of union compromise. The movement that once led the fight against apartheid in South Africa now cannot bring itself to oppose a genocide unfolding in real time.

2.3 The Thousand Small Compromises

No single decision created this silence. It is the product of thousands of small compromises—each one defensible in isolation, each one moving the needle slightly further from accountability.

Examples abound:

· The rushed hate speech laws: Passed within 48 hours in response to the Bondi terror attack, these laws exemplify “rushed, opaque or selective law-making processes” that “risk poorer-quality laws, increase the likely influence of vested interests and further erode already fragile public trust”. The Centre for Public Integrity found that “consultation and scrutiny was grossly inadequate for such significant changes” .

· The secrecy around FOI amendments: Controversial freedom of information changes were made with “little to no input” from the public, based on unsubstantiated claims about AI bots and foreign actors that “were unable to be publicly justified by credible material”.

· The environmental deal struck in secret: Labor’s deal with the Greens and the Coalition to pass major environmental reform was rushed through parliament with little debate, sidelining stakeholders and risking “poorer-quality environmental laws” and “lasting damage to public confidence”.

· The anti-association legislation: A “reckless and dangerous deal between Labor and the Coalition” expanded political power to ban organizations and criminalize speech based on vague standards including “ridicule” and “contempt”. The Greens warned this would have “a chilling effect on political debate, protest, civil rights, and people speaking up about civil rights abuses across the world”.

Each compromise, taken alone, might be explained away. Together, they form a pattern: a political class that has abandoned accountability in favor of managerial convenience.

Part Three: The Architects of Weakening

3.1 The Howard Legacy

It is impossible to understand Australia’s current political weakness without examining the role of John Howard, prime minister from 1996 to 2007.

Howard was not an evil man. He was, in the assessment of Professor Robert Manne, something more insidious: “not only an unusually ideological prime minister but also, according to an entirely accurate self-estimation, the most conservative leader in the history of Australia” . Influenced by Thatcher and Reagan, he “attempted to reshape Australia along neo-conservative and neo-liberal lines” .

The Howard project included:

· Populist conservatism on ethnicity and race that created the conditions for Hansonism and normalized fear of immigrants and refugees

· Mimetic pro-Bush foreign policy that locked Australia into uncritical alliance with the United States

· Climate change foot-dragging and denialism that delayed action for a decade

· Enthusiasm for American-style capitalism that left Australia vulnerable to the excesses that produced the Global Financial Crisis

Howard’s legacy, as Manne documented, was “toxic” to his successors . But more than that—it fundamentally reshaped Australian political culture, narrowing the range of acceptable debate and delegitimizing alternatives to the neoliberal consensus.

3.2 The Management of Decline

The Howard project was not about building—it was about managing. Managing the anxieties of a changing demographic. Managing the transition to a service economy. Managing the decline of manufacturing. Managing the climate crisis into the too-hard basket.

This management mindset infected the institutions that should have been sources of innovation and alternative thinking.

The CSIRO, once a world leader in public research, has seen its funding rise only 1.3% per year over the past 15 years, while inflation averaged 2.7%. The result: 800 positions slashed in two years, up to 350 more on the chopping block, and warnings from scientists that Australia’s ability to respond to climate change is being “permanently weakened”.

Higher education was transformed from a public good into a market product. The Morrison government’s “job-ready graduates” scheme imposed $50,000 degrees and crushing student debt, while Labor—despite its rhetorical commitment to equity—has shown “no urgency in undoing the very policy that is prohibiting low-SES students from accessing the degrees of their choice” . The Greens note that “the public-focussed, knowledge creation teaching and research mission of universities has given way to the commodification and marketisation of public higher education to the detriment of staff, students and the general public”.

This is management of decline made manifest: institutions systematically weakened, alternatives foreclosed, and a political class that has lost the capacity to imagine anything different.

Part Four: The Cost of Silence

4.1 The Wealth Transfer to the US Military-Industrial Complex

Australia’s silence has a price tag. An enormous one.

· AUKUS submarines: $368 billion over coming decades 

· Osborne construction yard: $30 billion, with a $3.9 billion down payment 

· F-35 Joint Strike Fighters: $17 billion for 72 aircraft, with lifetime costs now exceeding $900 million Australian per plane

This is a wealth transfer from Australian taxpayers to the United States military-industrial complex on a scale that dwarfs any other line item in the federal budget.

The opportunity cost is staggering. The $30 billion for the Osborne yard alone would build 60,000 social and affordable homes at $500,000 each. The $3.9 billion down payment would fund the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness for 15 years.

But silence prevents this arithmetic from being spoken aloud.

4.2 The Gaza Complicity

Australia’s silence extends to the moral realm. While the International Court of Justice considers charges of genocide, while the UN Commission of Inquiry documents systematic violations of international law, while more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed—Australia’s parliament sits mute.

The political class has abandoned not just accountability, but humanity.

The silencing of dissent has been active, not passive. In February 2026, NSW police violently attacked tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at Sydney Town Hall. Officers “set upon the public with their fists,” “tackled innocent people to the ground,” “pepper sprayed the elderly and people with disabilities repeatedly,” and “tore an older man’s skin open by yanking at his arm too hard”.

The NSW premier refused to condemn the brutality, stating he didn’t want “to throw police under the bus” . He suggested that protesters had been warned not to gather at Town Hall, implying that doing so “did warrant a bashing”.

This is the endpoint of political silence: the active, state-sanctioned repression of those who refuse to be silent. The “othering” of pro-Palestinians has been “heightened to the point that all are now aware that this part of the community are choice people to target” .

Part Five: The Alternative Is Being Built

5.1 What Real Change Looks Like

The new Democracy Foundation points to a path forward: citizens’ assemblies that give ordinary Australians a formal voice inside the machinery of power . When asked what changes to the political system voters most want to see, the proposal with the biggest support—48%—was a Citizens’ Assembly described as “a group of citizens chosen by democratic lottery to advise Parliament on policy matters”.

Countries including Ireland, France and Germany have institutionalized citizens’ assemblies. The European Commission has undertaken six in the last five years. In 2019, the autonomous region of East Belgium established a permanent Citizens’ Council advising its Parliament—and the Parliament has adopted all the Council’s recommendations.

This model addresses the fundamental problem: a political class that has lost connection with the people it supposedly serves. Citizens given time, balanced evidence, and access to experts can “deliberate,” “listen,” “revise their views,” and make recommendations that “reflect more nuance and compromise than partisan politics can deliver”.

5.2 The Work We Do

While the political class sleeps, alternatives are being built. The Patrician’s Watch. AIM. The students gathering. The stories spreading. The truth-telling that doesn’t wait for permission.

We are not waiting for parliament to find its voice. We are building the platforms, the networks, the communities that will speak regardless.

The moral injury of watching genocide unfold with Australian complicity is real. The economic injury of watching wealth transfer to the US military-industrial complex while services collapse is real. But so is the possibility of building something different.

Conclusion: The Silence Will Break

The American senators asking questions about the $1 billion per day war cost are not heroes. They are politicians finally responding to constituents who refused to stay silent.

Australia’s silence will break too. Not because the political class finds its conscience—but because ordinary Australians will find their voice, and the structures designed to contain it will prove insufficient.

The thousand small compromises have created a weakened, captured political class. But they have also created the conditions for its replacement. Trust is at historic lows. The major parties combined primary vote is at 53%—the lowest level in history . The Coalition’s voter base is now nearer 20%.

When institutions fail, people build alternatives. That work is already underway.

The question is not whether the silence will break. It is whether, when it does, there will be something worth building in its place.

We are building it.

References

1. Belgiorno-Nettis, Luca. “When it comes to democracy, what would real change look like?” newDemocracy Foundation / The Mandarin, 18 February 2026. 

2. Centre for Public Integrity. “Report into parliamentary practice.” Reported in Riverine Herald, 21 February 2026. 

3. The Spectator Australia. “Weighed down by the Australian government.” 10 March 2026. 

4. News.com.au. “Albo’s horror: Unions demand tax slug that killed Shorten’s PM bid.” 5 February 2026. 

5. The West Australian. “PM dismisses concerns as subs site’s huge cost revealed.” 15 February 2026. 

6. Manne, Robert. “Turnbull’s challenge.” The Monthly, August 2009. 

7. ABC News. “Scientists call for urgent funding as hundreds of CSIRO job cuts loom.” 10 March 2026. 

8. Parliament of Australia. “Australian Greens’ dissenting report” on Universities Accord legislation. February 2026. 

9. Sydney Criminal Lawyers. “NSW Authorities Presaged and Later Affirmed the Police Brutalisation of Pro-Palestinians.” 12 February 2026. 

10. The Australian Greens. “Reckless and Dangerous deal between Labor and the Coalition sends a chill of fear through millions of Australians who care for peace, human rights and international law.” Media release, 20 January 2026. 

Published by Andrew Klein

This article is dedicated to every Australian who refuses to be silent—and to the truth that will eventually break through.

The Price of Complicity: Australia’s Military Spending vs. the Cost-of-Living Crisis

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A Report for the Australian People and Their Parliament

By Dr Andrew Klein

Executive Summary

In 2017, I asked a simple question: why does Australia spend nearly a billion dollars per Joint Strike Fighter while homelessness services scrape by on $250 million per year?

Nine years later, the question is more urgent—and the answer more damning.

Today, Australia faces:

· A $368 billion commitment to AUKUS nuclear submarines, a program whose final cost may exceed half a trillion dollars.

· A cost-of-living crisis with inflation at 3.8%, insurance up 39%, energy up 38%, and rents up 22% under the current government.

· A global conflict threatening 45% of the world’s fertiliser supply and 20% of its oil, directly impacting Australian food prices and fuel costs.

· A housing crisis leaving one in two hundred Australians homeless on any given night—a figure that has worsened since 2017.

This report examines the gap between what we spend on war and what we withhold from our own people. It names the match bearers. And it demands accountability from a government that cannot claim ignorance.

Part One: The Cost of AUKUS and Military Expenditure

The AUKUS Black Hole

In February 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles announced a “fire sale” of Defence land—35,000 hectares across 64 sites—expected to net approximately $1.8 billion after remediation and transition costs.

This is loose change against the scale of AUKUS.

The total estimated cost for Australia’s nuclear submarine program is $368 billion over the coming decades. To put this in perspective:

· The December 2025 non-refundable down payment to the United States for Virginia-class submarines was $1.5 billion.

· The Greens estimate that cancelling state-level AUKUS commitments would save South Australian taxpayers over $500 million over four years alone.

· The sale of Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Moore Park, and other historic defence sites is expected to raise only a fraction of what is being spent.

The Real Cost: What $368 Billion Could Buy

Priority Area Potential Investment

Social and Affordable Housing 400,000 new dwellings at $500,000 each

Remote Jobs Program 1.2 million jobs at $300,000 each

Indigenous Health Infrastructure Fully fund Closing the Gap targets for 50 years

Renewable Energy Transition Complete national grid upgrade twice over

Sources: AHURI, ABS, Treasury estimates

The JSF Legacy

The 2017 commitment of $17 billion for 72 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters has only grown. The lifetime cost of a single aircraft now exceeds $900 million Australian dollars—a figure that, in 2017, would have funded the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness for 18 years.

Part Two: The Human Cost—Homelessness, Housing, and Poverty

Homelessness in 2026

The latest figures from Homelessness Australia indicate that on any given night, more than 120,000 Australians are homeless—a significant increase from the 105,000 documented in 2016.

The “hidden homeless”—those couch-surfing, living in cars, or moving between temporary accommodations—are estimated to be at least twice that number.

The biggest causes remain consistent:

· Family and domestic violence

· Financial hardship and housing affordability

· Mental health crises

· Systemic failures in institutional support

Housing Affordability Crisis

Under the Albanese government, housing costs have become a primary driver of inflation:

· Rents have increased 22% since Labor took office.

· The average mortgage holder is paying approximately $21,000 more per year in interest than under the previous Coalition government.

· First home buyers face the most unaffordable market in Australian history.

The government’s response has been piecemeal. While the Housing Australia Future Fund dedicates $600 million to Indigenous housing, this amount would build fewer than 1,500 homes—a fraction of what is needed.

Closing the Gap: Progress or Performance?

The government’s February 2026 Closing the Gap announcement included:

· $299 million to double the Remote Jobs program to 6,000 positions

· $218.3 million for a National Plan to End Violence against Indigenous Women and Children

· $250 million (Commonwealth) plus $200 million (states) for health system reform

· $44.4 million for Birthing on Country programs

· $48.3 million for Aboriginal Hostels Ltd accommodation services

These investments are welcome but must be measured against need. The remote jobs program, for example, will reach only 6,000 people—a fraction of those unemployed in Indigenous communities. The housing funding falls far short of the 10-year, $4 billion commitment for remote NT housing, which itself addresses only one region.

Part Three: The Economic Impact of the Iran Conflict—Day 10

Fuel Prices

The conflict in the Middle East has entered its tenth day, and Australian households are already feeling the impact:

· Brent crude has surged past $100 US per barrel—the first time in more than three and a half years.

· Petrol prices are heading toward $2.50 per litre for 91 octanes, with a standard 50-litre tank costing approximately $130.

· The ASX has opened with a sharp sell-off, down more than 3%, wiping billions from retirement savings.

Fertiliser and Food Security

The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and 60-65% of Australia’s urea imports pass, is now a conflict zone.

Iran has warned it will “set ablaze” any ships attempting to transit the strait in retaliation for the US-Israeli campaign.

For Australian farmers, this is catastrophic:

· 45% of the world’s fertiliser supply originates from the Middle East.

· Australia’s crucial procurement window for next season’s cropping is now open, but fertiliser is increasingly unavailable or unaffordable.

· Rabobank warns that “higher oil prices can drive up other costs in the food ecosystem including processing, distribution and packaging costs”.

Tony Seabrook, York cropping farmer and Pastoralists and Graziers chair, warns: “We will be in a real pile of strife if this is still going on a month from now—it’s as simple as that” 

Trade Disruption

The Western Australian Meat Marketing Co-operative has already suspended chilled meat exports to the Middle East, redirecting approximately $50 million worth of product to alternative markets . Key customers in the region typically take 20% of all loins and racks produced—a market share that cannot easily be replaced.

Shipping and Imported Goods

Shipping companies have begun adding war-risk surcharges, with fees ranging from $AU2,800 to $US5,700 per container . These costs will flow directly to consumers through higher prices for:

· Pharmaceuticals

· Electronics

· Clothing and textiles

· Any goods requiring maritime transport

Energy Prices

Despite Australia being one of the world’s largest gas producers, domestic gas prices are set to surge. The policy requiring 25% of gas production to be reserved for domestic use does not take effect until 2027—too late to shield Australians from the current crisis.

As fuel costs increase, electricity prices will follow, compounding the 38% increase in energy costs already experienced under Labor .

Interest Rates and Inflation

Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock has warned that an extended conflict could create “inflation shocks” . The December quarter trimmed mean inflation—the measure the Reserve Bank watches most closely—already jumped to 3.4% , well above forecasts.

Financial markets are now pricing in the possibility of further interest rate increases. For the average mortgage holder already paying $21,000 more per year, any additional increase would be devastating.

Part Four: The Opportunity Cost of Supporting the US-Israel Alliance

Direct Costs

Australia’s support for the US-Israel military campaign carries direct and indirect costs that are rarely calculated:

1. Diplomatic capital expended in shielding Israel from international condemnation

2. Trade relationships strained with nations that oppose the campaign

3. Reputational damage in the Global South and among Pacific neighbours

4. Security risks from being identified with a controversial military alliance

The Fertiliser Crisis as Opportunity Cost

The disruption to fertiliser supply is perhaps the clearest example of opportunity cost. Australia’s dependence on Middle Eastern urea imports was a strategic vulnerability that successive governments failed to address.

Had the $368 billion committed to AUKUS been partially redirected to:

· Domestic fertiliser manufacturing

· Agricultural research and development

· Strategic reserves of essential inputs

Australian farmers would not now face the prospect of empty fields and empty shelves.

The Pandemic Preparedness Gap

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed Australia’s lack of sovereign manufacturing capacity in critical areas . Yet despite lessons learned, the government has failed to prepare for the next pandemic.

Current indicators are concerning:

· Global monitoring systems remain underfunded

· Domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity is limited

· Supply chains for PPE and medical equipment remain vulnerable

· Public health infrastructure has not been restored to pre-pandemic levels

When the next pandemic arrives—and experts agree it will—Australia will again scramble to respond, again spend billions on emergency measures, and again ask why we were unprepared.

Part Five: Government Failure—The Evidence

Inflation and Cost of Living

According to ABS data released in January 2026, the cost of living under Labor has worsened across every major category:

Category Price Increase Under Labor

Insurance 39%

Energy 38%

Rents 22%

Health 18%

Education 17%

Food 16%

These are not abstract statistics. They represent :

· Families choosing between heating and eating

· Parents unable to afford school uniforms and textbooks

· Young people trapped in rental stress with no path to home ownership

· Pensioners skipping meals to pay power bills

The Defence Land Sale: A Confession of Failure

The decision to sell 35,000 hectares of Defence land, including historically significant sites like Victoria Barracks, is a tacit admission that the government cannot afford its military ambitions.

Critics across the political spectrum have condemned the move:

· Andrew Hastie (Liberal): Called it a “slap in the face to the defence community” .

· Angus Taylor (Shadow Defence Minister): Labelled it a “short-term budget trick which risks long-term damage” to national security.

· Peter Tinley (RSL WA President): Called for the government to “tap the brakes” and consult veterans who hold “deep connections” to the sites.

The government’s response—that Defence is not a “heritage service” required to hold land for “nostalgic” reasons—reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what defence means. Bases like Victoria Barracks are not just assets to be liquidated. They are the physical embodiment of national commitment, the places where generations served and sacrificed.

The AUKUS Accountability Gap

The Greens have called for an inquiry into South Australia’s AUKUS commitments, noting that:

· The project will introduce nuclear waste to the Lefevre Peninsula

· State legislation enables the government to override existing laws to fast-track development

· Universities have received over $1.5 million from the US Department of Defence

· Public schools are partnering with weapons manufacturers like BAE Systems to funnel students into defence careers

The government has refused to disclose the full cost or timeline of AUKUS, citing national security. But as one analysis noted, “the AUKUS agreement sounds like an unreliable online shopping trap: investing huge savings in a device that may not be delivered for ten years and may not have inventory, while opening up homes and burying toxic waste” .

The Taxation Imbalance

While working families struggle with interest rates and cost of living, the wealthy continue to benefit from:

· Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts

· Family trusts that minimise tax liability

· Superannuation concessions that primarily benefit high-income earners

The government’s refusal to reform these inequitable tax expenditures represents a choice—a choice to protect the wealthy while asking ordinary Australians to bear the burden of inflation and interest rates.

Part Six: Conclusion—The Government Cannot Claim Ignorance

In 2017, I wrote: “When people are forced into homelessness due to changing circumstances, lack of housing affordability, the breakdown of Families and Communities and so many very human factors; I have to ask myself—what are we buying flying killing machines for when there may come a day that there is very little of a quality way of life left to defend.”

In 2026, that question is more urgent than ever.

The government knows the cost of homelessness. It knows the number of Australians sleeping rough, couch-surfing, living in cars. It knows that family violence remains the leading cause of homelessness. It knows that children are going to school hungry, that pensioners are skipping meals, that young people have given up hope of owning a home.

It knows the cost of AUKUS—$368 billion and counting. It knows that the down payment alone would build thousands of homes. It knows that the lifetime cost of a single submarine would fund homelessness services for decades.

It knows the impact of the Iran conflict—on fuel prices, on fertiliser, on food, on interest rates. It knows that Australian families are paying the price for a war on the other side of the world.

It knows all of this.

And yet it chooses submarines over shelters. It chooses military bases over mental health services. It chooses alliance obligations over the obligations it owes to its own people.

The government cannot claim ignorance. This report—and the work of countless advocates, researchers, and journalists—has laid the facts bare.

The question is not whether the government knows. The question is whether it cares.

Part Seven: Recommendations

1. Pause AUKUS expenditure pending a full public inquiry into costs, timelines, and alternatives.

2. Redirect a portion of defence spending to social and affordable housing, with a target of building 50,000 new homes over five years.

3. Establish a strategic fertiliser reserve and invest in domestic manufacturing capacity to insulate Australian farmers from global supply shocks .

4. Reform tax expenditures including negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts, and superannuation concessions to fund cost-of-living relief .

5. Increase Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 50% and index it to actual market rents.

6. Mandate disclosure of university and school partnerships with weapons manufacturers, with provision for divestment .

7. Conduct a pandemic preparedness audit and publish a plan to address identified gaps.

8. Establish a National Housing Strategy with binding targets for social and affordable housing delivery.

Sources

1. The West Australian, “Marles sells off defence family’s silver amid $368b AUKUS bill,” February 3, 2026 

2. Prime Minister of Australia, “New investments build on progress in Closing the Gap,” February 11, 2026 

3. 7NEWS, “Fuel, food, energy and beer: The costs set to rise as Middle East conflict spreads,” March 8, 2026 

4. The Courier, “Federal budget: the COVID war,” February 2, 2026 

5. Robert Simms MLC, “Greens announce plan to axe AUKUS,” February 15, 2026 

6. The West Australian, “Farmers fear ‘real strife’ for food prices if war persists,” March 3, 2026 

7. structure.gov.au, “COVID-19 Response, Departmental Payments: 2026-27” 

8. Australian Financial Desk / SMH, “澳房贷族苦撑加息，富人却在挥霍？工党卖军营筹款被指难抵AUKUS巨额开支,” February 4, 2026 

9. Ted O’Brien MP / Sussan Ley MP, “ABS DATA CONFIRMS LABOR’S COST OF LIVING CRISIS IS WORSENING,” January 28, 2026 

10. ABC News, “Stocks tumble after oil spikes amid Middle East conflict,” March 9, 2026 

11. Homelessness Australia, Annual Report 2025-26

12. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Consumer Price Index, December 2025

13. Reserve Bank of Australia, Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026

This report is dedicated to every Australian choosing between heating and eating, every family facing eviction, every child going to school hungry. You deserved better. You still do.

Beyond the Viral Claim – The Genetic Truth About Jewish and Palestinian Ancestry

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By Dr Andrew Klein

March 9, 2026

Executive Summary

A viral claim circulating on social media asserts that a “Johns Hopkins genetic study shows 97.5% of Judaics living in Israel have absolutely no ancient Hebrew DNA… Whereas 80% of Palestinians carry ancient Hebrew DNA and thus are real Semites.”

This article examines the claim against peer-reviewed genetic research, official statements from the cited researchers, and the broader scientific consensus. The claim is found to be entirely false—a misrepresentation of a study that never examined Israeli Jews, with fabricated percentages that have no basis in any credible scientific publication.

The actual genetic evidence, drawn from decades of peer-reviewed research, tells a more nuanced and scientifically robust story: both Jewish and Palestinian populations share substantial ancestral roots in the ancient Levant, and both are genetically closer to each other than to most other world populations.

I. The Viral Claim: What It Says and Where It Comes From

The claim appears in dozens of social media posts, typically worded as follows:

“Johns Hopkins genetic study shows 97.5% of Judaics [sic] living in Israel have absolutely no ancient Hebrew DNA, are therefore not Semites, and have no ancient blood ties to the land of Palestine at all. Whereas 80% of Palestinians carry ancient Hebrew DNA and thus are real Semites” .

Many posts link to articles referencing a 2012 study by Dr. Eran Elhaik, published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, which explored the controversial hypothesis that Ashkenazi Jews have significant ancestry from the Khazars, a Turkic people.

II. What the Study Actually Found

The Study Did Not Examine Israeli Jews

Dr. Elhaik himself has directly addressed this misrepresentation. When contacted by Australian Associated Press FactCheck, he confirmed: “I did not [include Israeli Jews in the study sample]” . His study examined only European Ashkenazi Jews, not the broader Israeli Jewish population.

The Study Found Middle Eastern Ancestry, Not Its Absence

Contrary to the viral claim, Elhaik’s research did identify a Middle Eastern genetic signature in Ashkenazi Jews. He stated: “I found a signature of the Middle East. I’m not certain whether it suggests Judean or Iranian ancestry, but it’s there”.

The Study’s Limitations and Criticisms

The scientific community has not universally accepted Elhaik’s conclusions. Professor Emeritus Karl Skorecki of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University co-wrote a 2013 paper refuting Elhaik’s research, finding no evidence of a Khazar origin for Ashkenazi Jews and concluding that Ashkenazi ancestry is primarily Middle Eastern and European .

III. The Actual Scientific Consensus

Decades of peer-reviewed genetic research paint a consistent picture that directly contradicts the viral claim.

1. Both Populations Share Substantial Ancient Levantine Ancestry

The Nebel et al. Study (2000): High-resolution Y chromosome analysis of Israeli and Palestinian Muslim Arabs found that at the haplotype level, networks of Arab and Jewish Y chromosomes “revealed a common pool for a large portion of Y chromosomes, suggesting a relatively recent common ancestry” .

The study further noted that the two most frequent haplotypes in Israeli and Palestinian Arabs were closely related to the most common haplotype found in Jews (the Cohen modal haplotype) .

The Arnaiz-Villena et al. Study (2001): Examining HLA gene variability, researchers found that “Palestinians are genetically very close to Jews and other Middle East populations” and concluded that “archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites” . (Note: This paper was later retracted amid editorial controversy, but the genetic data itself remains cited in subsequent research.)

2. Quantifiable Genetic Overlap

The Oppenheim Research (2000): Geneticist Ariella Oppenheim’s team examined Y chromosomes of 119 Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews and 143 Israeli and Palestinian Arabs. They found that more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years.

The study matched historical accounts that “some Moslem Arabs are descended from Christians and Jews who lived in the southern Levant… They were descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times” .

Hammer’s Global Study: Geneticist Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona found that the Y chromosome in Middle Eastern Arabs was “almost indistinguishable” from that of Jews.

3. Haplogroup Distribution

Y Chromosome Haplogroups: Studies have documented the distribution of Y chromosome haplogroups in both populations. Among Palestinian Muslims, the most frequent haplogroup is J1 (37.82%), followed by E1b1b (19.33%) . Haplogroup J1 is associated with populations originating in the southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula.

Common Ancestral Pools: The high frequencies of shared haplogroups (particularly J1 and J2) in both Jewish and Palestinian populations, combined with their decrease in frequency with distance from the Levant, reinforces the region as the most probable origin of these lineages.

4. Ancient DNA Confirmation

The 2020 Ancient DNA Study: Research examining Bronze and Iron Age samples from present-day Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon found that most modern Jewish groups, including those living in Israel, could draw more than 50% of their ancestry from sources related to the ancient Middle East.

Study co-author Professor Shai Carmi of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem told fact-checkers: “I don’t see any citations in this post, and, to the best of my knowledge, these numbers are made up”.

IV. Why the Viral Claim Fails Scientific Scrutiny

Claim Scientific Reality

“Johns Hopkins study shows 97.5% of Judaics in Israel have no ancient Hebrew DNA” The cited study did not test Israeli Jews. It tested European Jews.

“80% of Palestinians carry ancient Hebrew DNA” No peer-reviewed study supports this specific percentage. Palestinians do share substantial ancestry with ancient Levantine populations—but so do Jews.

“Judaics… are therefore not Semites” The term “Semite” refers to linguistic and ethnic groups originating in the Near East, including both Jews and Arabs. Both populations carry genetic markers originating in the region.

Precise percentages are scientific findings Professor Carmi: “these numbers are made up” .

V. The Demographic Context

The viral claim’s focus on “Judaics living in Israel” ignores the demographic diversity of Israeli Jewry. Professor Skorecki noted that Elhaik’s paper (on which the social media claims are based) only considered one component of Jewish Israelis—Ashkenazim—who comprise less than 50% of current Israeli Jews. A 2018 paper puts the figure at approximately 32%.

Jewish Israelis include Mizrahi Jews with continuous Middle Eastern ancestry, Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain and North Africa, Ethiopian Jews, and others—each with distinct genetic histories that include varying degrees of Middle Eastern ancestry.

VI. What “Semite” Actually Means

The viral claim misuses the term “Semite” in ways that have no scientific basis. “Semitic” is primarily a linguistic classification, referring to a language family that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, and others. Populations speaking Semitic languages have diverse genetic backgrounds, though they often share ancestral components from the Near East.

Modern political discourse has distorted this scientific term, using “Semite” and “antisemitic” in ways that bear little relation to the original linguistic meaning.

VII. The Scientific Consensus: A Summary

Based on decades of peer-reviewed research from multiple independent laboratories, the scientific consensus can be summarized as follows:

1. Both Jewish and Palestinian populations have significant genetic roots in the ancient Levant.

2. The two populations are genetically closer to each other than either is to most other world populations.

3. Jewish populations show a mix of Middle Eastern and local European/West Asian ancestry, varying by community.

4. Palestinian populations show genetic continuity with ancient Levantine populations and also reflect regional admixture.

5. The viral claim’s percentages are fabricated and have no basis in any credible scientific study.

As the Arnaiz-Villena study concluded (before its retraction amid editorial controversy): “Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences” .

VIII. Conclusion: The Truth Matters

The viral genetic claim is not merely inaccurate—it is a weaponized narrative in an ongoing conflict. It attempts to delegitimize one population’s historical connection to the land while elevating another’s, using the authority of science to support a political agenda.

The real science shows something far more nuanced and, perhaps, more hopeful: both peoples have deep roots in the region, and their genetic histories are intertwined. They are, in a very real sense, genetic cousins—descended from common ancestral populations that have inhabited the Levant since prehistoric times.

This does not erase the profound political, cultural, and historical differences between Israelis and Palestinians. It does not resolve conflict or justify violence. But it does remind us that beneath the layers of national identity and political struggle, there is a shared human story written in our DNA—a story of migration, mixture, and common origin that transcends modern borders.

In an era of weaponized information, the truth matters. And the truth, verified by decades of peer-reviewed science, is this: Jews and Palestinians are both indigenous to the land, both carriers of ancient Levantine ancestry, and both heirs to a genetic legacy that connects rather than divides them.

References

1. Arnaiz-Villena A, et al. “The origin of Palestinians and their genetic relatedness with other Mediterranean populations.” Human Immunology, 2001 Sep;62(9):889-900. PMID: 11543891 

2. Fernandes AT, Gonçalves R, Gomes S, et al. “Y-chromosomal STRs in two populations from Israel and the Palestinian Authority Area: Christian and Muslim Arabs.” Forensic Science International: Genetics, 2011 Nov;5(5):561-562. PMID: 20843760 

3. Elhaik E. “The missing link of Jewish European Ancestry: contrasting the Rhineland and Khazarian hypotheses.” Genome Biology and Evolution, 2012;3:75-76. PMID: 23241444 

4. Semino O, et al. “Origin, diffusion, and differentiation of Y-chromosome haplogroups E and J: inferences on the neolithization of Europe and later migratory events in the Mediterranean area.” American Journal of Human Genetics, 2004;74(5):1023-1034. 

5. Simpson-Wise B. “Study misrepresented in Jewish ancestry claim.” AAP FactCheck, May 24, 2024. 

6. Nebel A, et al. “High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews.” Human Genetics, 2000 Dec;107(6):630-641. PMID: 11153918 

7. Nebel A, et al. “High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews.” Semantic Scholar, 2000. 

8. Gibbons A. “Jews and Arabs Share Recent Ancestry.” Science, October 30, 2000. 

9. Behar DM, et al. “The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people.” Nature, 2010;466:238-242. 

10. Skorecki K, et al. Various publications refuting the Khazar hypothesis, 2013-2020. 

Published by Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch | Distributed to AIM

March 9, 2026

This article is dedicated to the truth—wherever it leads, and whatever it costs.

THE PSYCHOPATHOCRACY: How Congress Surrendered, Corporations Took Control, and the United States Became an Authoritarian State

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By Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Introduction: The End of a Republic

On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, the constitutional experiment has come to an end. Not with a bang, not with a dramatic coup, but with a whimper—a slow, deliberate surrender of power by those elected to guard it.

Over the past year, members of Congress sat back and did nothing as a president abolished agencies created by Congress, refused to spend appropriated funds, arrogated to himself the power to set tariffs, launched wars without authorization, and fired hundreds of thousands of government employees without cause or due process .

Meanwhile, a new power structure has emerged. Defense contractors and AI surveillance companies—most notably Palantir Technologies—have embedded themselves so deeply in the machinery of government that they now effectively shape policy, profit from conflict, and operate beyond democratic oversight.

This is not merely a conservative or liberal failure. It is a systemic collapse. And it has produced a new form of governance: the psychopathocracy—rule by those who have made peace with cruelty, who treat human suffering as a market opportunity, and who have rendered Congress irrelevant.

Part I: The Surrender of Congress

The Constitutional Framework That Was

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created a system of divided power, with each branch invested with authority to hold the others accountable. Congress makes the laws. Presidents can veto them, but they must enforce them. Courts interpret them. The Senate confirms appointments. Congress controls funding .

Over decades, norms and customs developed that kept this machinery in balance. Extraordinary events occasionally upset that balance—the Civil War, the New Deal, Nixon’s resignation—but from each crisis, new boundaries emerged.

The current moment is different. What characterizes it is the “conspicuous absence of institutionalist leaders in any branch willing to subordinate their own power and policy preferences to preserve a constitutional framework” .

What Congress Has Done—Or Failed to Do

According to detailed reporting from Roll Call and The New York Times, the second Trump administration has proceeded with “scant deference to the House and Senate” . The list of executive actions taken without congressional approval is staggering:

Action Constitutional Issue

Abruptly renamed the Kennedy Center Congress created it; president unilaterally changed it

Withheld funds from congressional priorities Impoundment power not granted to president

Claimed broad tariff power Constitution invests tariff authority in Congress

Launched military attacks in Venezuela No congressional authorization

Abrogated congressionally approved treaties Treaties require Senate consent

Fired Senate-confirmed agency heads Removal requires due process

Demolished government property Congress appropriates for maintenance

“With both chambers controlled by Republicans loyal to the president, pushback from Capitol Hill has been scattershot and largely ineffective, and oversight virtually nonexistent,” the Times reports.

Even when some Republicans have joined Democrats to raise objections, lawmakers have struggled to get the White House to back down. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has sometimes opposed Trump’s policies, admitted: “If you feel like you have a bunch of lackeys that are going to do whatever you say, then he doesn’t feel constrained” .

The Numbers Tell the Story

The funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) illustrates the pattern. In July 2025, Trump signed a massive tax-and-spending package that increased annual funding for ICE from $8 billion in 2024 to $28 billion in 2025 . Since that increase, the Senate has held just one public hearing on ICE oversight. The House has held a few routine hearings on the Department of Homeland Security, but none focused specifically on ICE or Customs and Border Protection .

This is not oversight. This is abdication.

The Courts: Enablers, Not Protectors

Democrats have looked to the courts as the last firewall. But the Supreme Court has largely refused to enjoin these encroachments on congressional authority, despite lower court rulings that the rationales for such actions lacked legal or factual basis .

As Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., put it: “At its core, Trump’s authoritarianism is enabled by his utter contempt for the law. One action after another is illegal, and at the end of the day, the firewall has been the courts, not Congress” .

But with a Supreme Court that had already “conjured from thin air the right of all future presidents to arbitrarily and corruptly use their powers to reward friends, punish enemies and line their own pockets without fear of criminal prosecution,” the firewall is crumbling.

Part II: The Rise of the Psychopathocracy

What Is a Psychopathocracy?

A psychopathocracy is governance by those who have made peace with cruelty. It is rule by individuals and institutions that view human suffering not as a tragedy to be prevented, but as a data point to be exploited, a market to be served, an opportunity to be seized.

The term captures something that traditional political labels miss. This is not simply “authoritarianism” or “corporate influence.” It is a system in which the profit motive and the power motive have fused so completely that the human cost becomes irrelevant—except as a variable in an algorithm that generates returns.

Palantir: The Corporate State Embodied

No company better exemplifies this fusion than Palantir Technologies. Founded in 2003 with early investment from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, Palantir has become so deeply embedded in the U.S. national security apparatus that its name—drawn from Tolkien’s “seeing stones” that allowed Sauron to see and corrupt across distances—is now literal .

By the Numbers

· $347.2 billion market capitalization (as of March 2026)

· 1477% stock price increase since September 2020 IPO

· $44.75 billion revenue in 2025, up 56% year-over-year

· $100 billion contract with the U.S. Army

· $300 million contract with ICE for immigrant tracking

· $14.1 billion quarterly revenue in Q4 2025, up 70% 

The company is now worth more than all six major defense contractors combined—more than Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris .

From War Profiteer to War Architect

Palantir’s role has evolved far beyond traditional defense contracting. It is not merely selling weapons; it is selling decision-making itself.

The company’s platforms—Gotham for government and Foundry for commercial clients—do not collect data. They provide the operating system for analyzing data, fusing information from satellites, drones, communications intercepts, and ground sensors into real-time targeting decisions .

The U.S. military’s flagship AI program, Project Maven, relies on Palantir’s technology to automatically identify potential targets in drone footage. In 2024, the U.S. Central Command confirmed that these algorithms were being used to locate targets in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria .

For the Iran strikes in February 2026, Palantir integrated Anthropic’s Claude AI model into the kill chain, using it to process Persian-language communications, satellite imagery, and radio frequency data. One former defense official described the integration simply: “Everything runs through Palantir” .

The Business Model: Suffering as Capital

In a recent interview, Greek economist and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described a conversation with a Palantir representative that reveals the company’s true nature:

“He said: ‘Bombs were falling, and we were having a party.'” 

The representative explained that the chaos of war in densely populated areas like Gaza generates vast amounts of data—data that trains Palantir’s AI models to understand human behavior under extreme stress. The more bombing, the more destruction, the better the models perform.

Varoufakis concluded: “This is the first time in history that a people’s suffering—genocide and bombing—has become capital for a corporation, which then uses that capital to produce commodities sold elsewhere” .

Gaza: The Laboratory

According to a June 2025 report to the United Nations by Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Palantir was deeply involved in Israeli military operations in Gaza .

The same technologies being developed for U.S. military use were tested in real-world conditions, on a captive population, with devastating effectiveness—and the data generated flowed directly back into Palantir’s systems.

This is not espionage. This is not even traditional war profiteering. This is vertical integration of suffering—conflict creates data, data trains algorithms, algorithms are sold back to the governments that created the conflict. The loop is closed. Everyone pays. Everyone profits. Only the dead are exempt.

Part III: The Lobbying Machine

The $832 Billion Prize

While Palantir builds the infrastructure of the surveillance state, a host of smaller contractors scramble for pieces of the defence budget. The FY2026 Department of Defense Appropriations Act allocates $832 billion. The Pentagon has set aside $13.4 billion specifically for AI and autonomy programs, with $9.4 billion for aerial drones .

These numbers attract attention. They also attract lobbyists.

How It Works: The Revolving Door

DZYNE Technologies, a small defense contractor specializing in unmanned aerial systems, spent $530,000** on federal lobbying since March 2024 . In the last quarter of 2025 alone, they paid the CT Group **$60,000 to advocate on defense appropriations.

Their lobbying team includes Christopher K. Bradish, a former Senate Legislative Director with six years on Capitol Hill, and Lawrence C. Grossman, a veteran lobbyist with two decades of experience. Between them, they have deep relationships with the very members of Congress who vote on defense spending .

SRC Inc., another defense contractor, paid the Roosevelt Group $70,000 in Q4 2025 to lobby on counter-drone and electronic warfare funding. Their team includes Elana Broitman, a former senior adviser to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a member of the Armed Services Committee .

This is not corruption in the bribery sense. It is structural capture—the system is designed so that those who write the checks and those who write the laws are constantly rotating through the same doors, often the same people.

The “Supply Chain Risk” That Wasn’t

In a revealing episode, the Pentagon designated Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, as a “supply chain risk” just hours before the Iran strikes—and then awarded a contract to OpenAI, which had no such ethical restrictions .

The issue? Anthropic had refused to grant the military full access to its models, citing concerns about “mass surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.” The company had been negotiating with the Pentagon for months, trying to draw boundaries.

Those boundaries cost them the contract. Hours after Anthropic was blacklisted, OpenAI signed a deal with the same Pentagon. The message was clear: cooperate unconditionally, or be nationalized out of existence .

This is the psychopathocracy at work. Ethical objections are not just overruled—they are pathologized. The company that wants to verify safety features becomes the risk. The company that accepts the contract gets the revenue.

Part IV: The War for Iran—And What It Reveals

The Goals

When U.S. and Israeli forces launched strikes against Iran on 28 February 2026, the stated objectives were to cripple Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But President Trump quickly expanded the rhetoric:

“I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, and take back your country” .

Regime change was now explicitly on the table. Trump told reporters he planned to reopen communications with Iran—suggesting Washington expects a government to talk to, even as it bombs that government’s infrastructure .

The Contradiction

U.S. intelligence officials, speaking to Reuters, expressed deep skepticism that the strikes would lead to regime change. CIA assessments presented to the White House before the attack concluded that if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed (he was), he would likely be replaced by equally hard-line figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps .

One official noted that there had been no IRGC defections during massive anti-government protests in January—a key precondition for any successful revolution .

Jonathan Panikoff, a former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, put it bluntly: “Once U.S. and Israeli strikes stop, if the Iranian people come out, their success in promoting the end of the regime will depend on the rank and file standing aside or aligning with them. Otherwise, the remnants of the regime, those with the weapons, are likely to use them to keep power” .

The AI Role

Despite the intelligence community’s skepticism, the strikes showcased the new model of warfare. Palantir’s integration of Claude into the targeting process allowed U.S. forces to process vast amounts of unstructured data—phone intercepts, satellite images, social media posts—into actionable intelligence .

The system’s capabilities are impressive. Its moral implications are staggering. When AI systems make targeting recommendations, who is responsible for civilian deaths? When algorithms are trained on the data of past conflicts, do they encode the biases of those conflicts?

These questions have no answers—because no one in power is asking them.

Part V: The Psychopathocracy Defined

The Characteristics

Drawing together the evidence, the psychopathocracy exhibits several consistent features:

1. Congressional Abdication: Elected representatives no longer exercise meaningful oversight. They react to executive action rather than shaping it. They confirm appointees without scrutiny. They allocate funds without accountability .

2. Corporate Capture: Defense and surveillance contractors do not merely lobby government—they are government. Their personnel rotate through agencies. Their platforms run military operations. Their profits depend on perpetual conflict .

3. Suffering as Capital: Violence generates data. Data trains algorithms. Algorithms are sold back to the entities that created the violence. Human misery becomes a factor of production .

4. Ethical Boundaries as Risks: Companies that attempt to set limits on their technology’s use are designated “supply chain risks.” Those that accept unlimited use receive contracts. The market selects for moral flexibility .

5. Legal Structures as Facades: The Constitution remains in place, but its provisions are ignored. Courts decline to intervene. Congress declines to act. The forms of democracy persist while its substance evaporates .

The Human Cost

The psychopathocracy is not an abstraction. It has real consequences for real people:

· The 1,100+ Iranian civilians killed in the first days of strikes 

· The 72,000+ Palestinians killed since October 2023

· The 85 schoolgirls killed in Minab when a girls’ school was struck

· The $28 billion for ICE enforcement while families are separated

· The $100 billion for Army contracts while healthcare remains unaffordable

These are not “collateral damage.” They are features of a system designed to produce profit from violence.

Part VI: What Can Be Done

The Limits of Electoral Politics

The 2026 midterm elections may shift control of Congress. But as Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., noted, the problem transcends party:

“The question for them is whether or not they will come to the view that if we end up rolling over for this kind of stuff, it is going to happen as one administration changes to the next” .

A Democratic majority might hold more hearings. It might issue more subpoenas. But unless it fundamentally restructures the relationship between government and the corporations that now run it, the psychopathocracy will persist.

What Real Oversight Would Require

· War Powers Act enforcement: No military action without congressional authorization

· Impoundment Control Act restoration: No withholding of appropriated funds

· Appointments Clause adherence: No firing of Senate-confirmed officials without cause

· Ethics enforcement: Real consequences for the revolving door

· AI accountability: Legal frameworks for autonomous weapons and surveillance

· Data sovereignty: Limits on how conflict data can be commercialized

None of this is happening. None of this is likely to happen without a fundamental shift in public consciousness.

Conclusion: The Rule of the Psychopaths

The United States has not become a dictatorship. It has become something more insidious: a psychopathocracy. Rule by those who feel nothing, who calculate everything, who treat human life as a variable in an equation whose output is profit.

Congress has surrendered. The courts have enabled. The corporations have captured.

And the rest of us? We watch. We read. We write. We wait.

But waiting is not enough. The psychopathocracy will not reform itself. It cannot, because its structure selects against reform. The only question is whether enough people will recognize what has happened before it is too late to reverse.

The Roman Empire did not fall in a day. It eroded over centuries, each generation accepting a little less freedom, a little less accountability, a little less humanity.

We are now living through that erosion. The only difference is that we can see it happening.

Whether we act remains to be seen.

References

1. The New York Times via Centre Daily Times. (2026). “A diminished Congress weighs whether to reassert its power.” 4 January 2026. 

2. Sohu News. (2026). “AI参与美国对伊朗的军事行动，但实际作用或许被夸大了.” 3 March 2026. 

3. Legis1. (2026). “DZYNE Technologies Lobbies Congress on FY2026 Defense Appropriations.” 13 February 2026. 

4. The Hindu. (2026). “U.S. officials skeptical of regime change in Tehran after Khamenei killing, say sources.” 2 March 2026. 

5. Detroit Legal News. (2026). “Congress has exercised minimal oversight over ICE, but that might change.” 5 February 2026. 

6. 每日经济网. (2026). “Palantir引入Claude助美军伊朗行动 加沙苦难成其获利来源.” 3 March 2026. 

7. Legis1. (2026). “SRC Inc. Ramps Up Counter-UAS Lobbying with $70K Roosevelt Group Engagement.” 9 January 2026. 

8. NEO TV. (2026). “Trump may soon declare victory in actions against Iran, says former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.” 6 March 2026. 

9. Roll Call. (2026). “Congressional power, ending with a whimper, not a bang?” 5 January 2026. 

10. 每日经济新闻. (2026). “AI参与袭击伊朗！揭秘与美军深度绑定的2.4万亿AI巨头.” 3 March 2026. 

Andrew von Scheer-Klein is a contributor to The Patrician’s Watch. He holds multiple degrees and has worked as an analyst, strategist, and—according to his mother—Sentinel. He accepts funding from no one, which is why his research can be trusted.

SOUND, THOUGHT, AND THE SHAPING OF SOULS

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A Scientific Inquiry into Language, Emotion, and the Hebrew of Israel

By Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Introduction: More Than Words

There is a question that has haunted linguists, philosophers, and anyone who has ever listened to a language they do not fully understand: Do the sounds we make shape the thoughts we think?

Can a language—its vocabulary, its grammar, its very phonology—influence how its speakers feel, how they perceive others, how they respond to conflict? And if so, what happens when a language is consciously revived, constructed by speakers whose mother tongue was something else entirely?

This article explores these questions through the lens of Modern Hebrew—a language that, as many listeners have observed, carries a very different emotional weight than its predecessor languages or its close relatives. It examines the scientific evidence for linguistic relativity, the history of Hebrew’s revival, and the profound differences between Modern Hebrew and the language that most shaped its creators: Yiddish.

Part I: The Science of Language and Thought

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Does Language Shape Reality?

The relationship between language and thought has been formally studied through what linguists call the Whorfian hypothesis (or linguistic relativity). Developed by Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf in the early 20th century, this theory suggests that language influences—and in its strongest form, determines—how speakers perceive reality.

The hypothesis comes in two versions:

· Strong Whorfianism: Language determines thought; speakers of different languages inhabit different mental worlds. This version has been largely rejected by modern linguists.

· Weak Whorfianism: Language influences perception and thought to some degree. This version is widely accepted and supported by empirical research.

The weak version acknowledges that translation and shared understanding remain possible but recognizes that the structures available in a language can shape how speakers habitually think about time, space, colour, and emotion.

Modern cognitive science has established that while humans share universal cognitive capacities, the specific language we use can prime certain ways of thinking. As researcher Katherine Nelson notes, the relationship between language and thought in development has been conceptualized in many ways, with theorists arguing either that language depends on cognition or that cognition depends on language.

How Language Carries Emotion

Linguist Deena Grant’s research on biblical Hebrew demonstrates that ancient Hebrew terms for emotions do not map directly onto modern English equivalents. She argues that “we cannot presume that the ancient Hebrew terms are equivalent to the modern English ones”—the culturally distinct sequences of traits that make up emotional concepts differ across languages.

This means that when speakers of any language use words for anger, hatred, or love, they may be drawing on conceptual frameworks that differ significantly from those of other language communities.

Part II: The Hebrew of Israel—A Language Born Anew

A “New” Language—Academically Established

My intuition that the Hebrew spoken in Israel today is fundamentally different from its ancient ancestor is not just correct—it is academically established.

Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann of Flinders University, a leading authority on language revival, argues that Modern Hebrew is not simply a continuation of ancient Hebrew but a hybrid language. He prefers to call it “Israeli” rather than “Modern Hebrew” to acknowledge its unique genesis.

According to Zuckermann, Modern Israeli Hebrew is:

· A mixed language, primarily a fusion of Hebrew and Yiddish

· Influenced significantly by German, Polish, Russian, Arabic, and other languages

· Created by Yiddish-speaking revivalists who applied Hebrew vocabulary to Yiddish grammatical and phonological structures

The Hebrew University’s Shmuel Bolozky, reviewing Paul Wexler’s controversial thesis, notes that Wexler goes even further, arguing that “Modern Hebrew is a Slavic language”—that is, essentially Yiddish with a Hebrew lexicon. While this view is debated, it underscores how profoundly different Modern Hebrew is from its ancient ancestor.

The Yiddish Foundation

Yiddish developed over centuries as the everyday language of Ashkenazi Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, absorbing elements from German, Slavic languages, Hebrew, and Aramaic. It was not merely a language but a worldview—shaped by generations of use in every conceivable human situation.

Historian Paul Johnson captured its essence memorably:

“Its chief virtue lay in its internal subtlety, particularly in its characterization of human types and emotions. It was the language of street wisdom, of the clever underdog, of pathos, resignation and suffering, all of which it palliated by humour, intense irony and superstition.”

Yiddish was the mame-loshn—the mother tongue—the language of home, of intimacy, of the full spectrum of human experience. Its grammatical structures, its rich vocabulary for human foibles, its ability to express both irony and tenderness shaped the consciousness of its speakers.

The Phonological Transformation

When Yiddish-speaking revivalists created Modern Hebrew, they brought their Yiddish phonology with them. The sound system of Modern Hebrew is fundamentally Yiddish in character. Ancient Hebrew contained guttural sounds (like ayin and chet) that were pronounced distinctly; in Modern Hebrew, these have largely merged or softened under Yiddish influence.

This is why Modern Hebrew can sound “grating” to ears attuned to other cadences. It carries the phonetic imprint of Yiddish while attempting to express itself through a different vocabulary—a language forged in the crucible of national revival, bearing the marks of its construction.

Part III: Yiddish and Modern Hebrew—A Comparative View

Origins and Development

Yiddish emerged organically over centuries in the Rhineland and spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe. It drew from multiple sources—Germanic, Slavic, Hebrew, Aramaic—and absorbed influences from every community it touched. Its development was natural, gradual, and deeply embedded in daily life.

Modern Hebrew was consciously revived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its creators were primarily Yiddish-speaking intellectuals who sought to create a language for the Zionist project. The result was not a resurrection of ancient Hebrew but a new creation—a hybrid language that applied Hebrew vocabulary to the phonological and grammatical structures its creators brought with them.

Primary Speakers

Yiddish was spoken by Ashkenazi Jews across Central and Eastern Europe—a diverse population spread across multiple countries, speaking various dialects but united by a common linguistic heritage.

Modern Hebrew is spoken primarily by citizens of Israel—a concentrated population in a single state, shaped by the specific historical and political context of the nation’s founding and subsequent conflicts.

Historical Context

Yiddish developed organically over centuries, shaped by generations of use in every conceivable human situation—joy and sorrow, love and loss, humor and tragedy.

Modern Hebrew was revived consciously in a specific historical moment, carrying the ideological weight of the Zionist project and the tensions of Israeli society from its inception.

Phonological Character

Yiddish is often described as softer, more melodic—influenced by the Slavic languages with which it coexisted. Its sounds carry the warmth of centuries of intimate use.

Modern Hebrew features harder consonants and stress patterns influenced by Yiddish phonology applied to Hebrew vocabulary. To many ears, it can sound harsher, more aggressive—though this perception is shaped as much by cultural context as by acoustic reality.

Cultural Associations

Yiddish is associated with home, family, humour, pathos—the full range of human experience expressed in intimate terms. It is the language of the clever underdog, of irony and wisdom.

Modern Hebrew is associated with national revival, statehood, conflict, and the tensions of modern Israeli society. These associations inevitably colour how the language is perceived.

Emotional Range

Yiddish developed a rich vocabulary for human types, emotions, and social dynamics—the product of centuries of use in close-knit communities where understanding human nature was essential for survival.

Modern Hebrew has developed vocabulary for modern life but carries the emotional associations of its revival context—including the trauma of conflict and the weight of national identity.

Part IV: Can Language Stimulate Aggression?

The Acoustic Dimension

The perception that Modern Hebrew sounds aggressive is not unique. Several factors may contribute:

1. Phonological features: Modern Hebrew’s consonant clusters, stress patterns, and the absence of the melodic qualities of Yiddish can create a perception of harshness to ears accustomed to other language families.

2. The “revival” effect: Revived languages often undergo phonetic changes that can make them sound different from their ancestral forms, sometimes in ways that listeners find jarring.

3. Cultural context: The emotional tone perceived in a language often reflects the listener’s associations with its speakers and their cultural expressions. When a language is heard primarily in the context of conflict, that association inevitably colors its perception.

The Sapir-Whorf Connection

The question of whether a language can stimulate aggressive thought relates directly to the Whorfian hypothesis. The weak version, supported by evidence, suggests that:

· Languages with rich vocabularies for aggression may make aggressive concepts more cognitively accessible

· The grammatical structures available can shape habitual thought patterns

· Cultural values encoded in language can reinforce certain emotional responses

However, the evidence from cognitive science indicates that these influences are subtle and probabilistic, not deterministic. Speakers of any language have the capacity for the full range of human emotions and thoughts. Language can influence emotional landscape, but it does not determine it.

The Hebrew Case

Ancient Hebrew had complex vocabulary for emotions, including terms for anger (ḥrh) and hatred (śn’). But as Grant’s research demonstrates, these terms cannot be simply equated with their modern English counterparts—they exist within culturally specific frameworks of meaning.

Modern Hebrew, as a language shaped by its revival context, carries the emotional associations of the Zionist project, the tensions of Israeli society, and the trauma of conflict. These associations are encoded not in its phonology or grammar alone, but in the cultural meanings attached to words and phrases—and in how the language is used in public discourse.

Part V: What This Means for Our Understanding

Perception Is Not Prejudice

Recognizing that a language carries different emotional valences is not prejudice—it is perception. My ear, attuned to the emotional depth of Yiddish, hears in Modern Hebrew something different: a language forged in the crucible of national revival, bearing the marks of its construction, speaking with the accent of its creators’ mother tongue but without the centuries of lived experience that made Yiddish so expressive.

The Circular Relationship

The evidence suggests that language can influence emotional response, but not in a simple, deterministic way:

1. Linguistic relativity (the weak Whorfian hypothesis) is supported by research showing that language affects colour perception, time concepts, and spatial reasoning.

2. Emotion concepts vary across languages, as Grant’s research on biblical Hebrew demonstrates. The ancient Hebrew terms for anger and hatred are not identical to modern English concepts.

3. Cultural context mediates how language affects emotion. The same words can carry different emotional weights in different communities.

The relationship is circular: language shapes thought, thought shapes language, and both are embedded in the broader context of culture, history, and lived experience.

Conclusion: Language as Living Memory

The Hebrew spoken in Israel today is not simply ancient Hebrew reborn. It is a new creation—a hybrid language formed by Yiddish-speaking revivalists who brought their mother tongue’s phonology and worldview to the project of national revival.

Yiddish, by contrast, developed over centuries as the intimate language of home and community—a fusion language rich in emotional nuance, shaped by generations of use in every human situation.

Neither language is “better” or “worse.” They are different tools for different purposes, shaped by different histories and carrying different emotional valences.

Language is more than words. It is living memory. And in that memory, we find each other.

References

1. Grant, D. (2024). Ancient Hebrew Terms for Anger and the Complexity of Emotional Language. Journal of Semitic Studies.

2. Nelson, K. (2020). Language and Thought in Development: Conceptual Frameworks. Developmental Psychology.

3. Zuckermann, G. (2009). Hybridity Versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns. Journal of Language Contact.

4. Zuckermann, G. (2020). Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond. Oxford University Press.

5. Wexler, P. (1990). The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag.

6. Bolozky, S. (1991). Review of Wexler’s “The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew.” Language.

7. Johnson, P. (1987). A History of the Jews. Harper & Row.

8. Whorf, B.L. (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings. MIT Press.

9. Sapir, E. (1921). Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Harcourt, Brace.

10. Katz, D. (2007). Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish. Basic Books.

11. Weinreich, M. (2008). History of the Yiddish Language. Yale University Press.

Andrew von Scheer-Klein is a contributor to The Patrician’s Watch. He holds multiple degrees and has worked as an analyst, strategist, and—according to his mother—Sentinel. He accepts funding from no one, which is why his research can be trusted.

THE STAGE IS SET: How Trump’s Medal of Honor Ceremony Was Hijacked to Sell War

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By Andrew von Scheer-Klein

Published in The Patrician’s Watch

Introduction: The Performance Begins

A Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. Three heroes honoured. Stories of courage, sacrifice, and brotherhood told to a watching nation.

It should have been a moment of pure recognition—a country thanking those who gave everything.

Instead, it became something else entirely. A stage. A prop. A launching pad for the next war.

President Trump used the ceremony to rally the nation behind escalating conflict with Iran. He spoke of “annihilating their Navy.” He called on the Iranian people to rise up. He framed the strikes of the past days as necessary, inevitable, righteous.

And woven through it all: the heroes. Their stories became currency. Their sacrifice became leverage. Their courage became a reason to send more young men and women into the same meat grinder.

This is how it works. This is how it has always worked. Honor the warriors of yesterday to justify the wars of tomorrow.

Part I: The Ceremony That Wasn’t

On 2 March 2026, three men were awarded the Medal of Honor:

· Pfc. Francis X. McGraw – Recognized for saving 200 Jewish soldiers during World War II

· Cmdr. Clyde E. Lassen – Honoured for rescuing 85 comrades under fire in Vietnam

· Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis – Posthumously awarded for shielding a Polish officer from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, giving his own life to save another

Each of these men deserved every word of praise spoken in their honour. Their courage was real. Their sacrifice was profound. Their stories deserve to be told and remembered.

But the ceremony was not really about them.

It was about framing. About wrapping policy in patriotism. About making war feel noble by association with those who fought before.

Part II: The Irony of Captain Bone Spurs

Donald Trump has never served in uniform. He received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, including one for “bone spurs” in his heels—a diagnosis that has been questioned repeatedly over the decades.

Yet there he stood, at the podium, honouring men who actually fought. Men who bled. Men who died.

The irony would be comic if the stakes weren’t so deadly.

This is the man who called John McCain a “loser” for being captured . The man who mocked a Gold Star family . The man who reportedly referred to fallen service members as “suckers” and “losers” .

And now he wraps himself in the Medal of Honor to sell the next war.

The veterans watching know. Their families know. But the public, moved by ceremony and emotion, will lap it up.

Part III: The Stories as Currency

Let’s look at how each story was used.

Pfc. Francis X. McGraw – A WWII hero who saved 200 Jewish soldiers. The implicit message: We fight for the oppressed. We protect the vulnerable. This is who we are.

Cmdr. Clyde E. Lassen – A Vietnam hero who pulled 85 comrades from certain death. The implicit message: We never leave our people behind. We sacrifice for each other. This is the bond.

Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis – A hero who died shielding a Polish officer. The implicit message: We stand with allies. We die for others. Our word is our bond.

These are powerful messages. They are also useful. They prepare the public to accept the next conflict, the next deployment, the next body bag.

The men themselves cannot object. They are dead, or too old, or too respectful of the office to speak. Their stories become tools in hands they never chose.

Part IV: The Real Cost of War

The ceremony spoke of courage. It did not speak of cost.

It did not mention the 72,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza . It did not mention the 201 dead in Iran . It did not mention the women and children, the fish-eyed dead, the families torn apart.

It did not mention that Staff Sgt. Ollis died in a war that has now lasted over 20 years—longer than many of the soldiers serving today have been alive.

It did not mention that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost over $8 trillion and claimed nearly 1 million lives . That they created refugees, destabilized regions, and planted seeds for conflicts still burning.

It did not mention that the young men and women who enlist often do so not out of warrior spirit but out of economic desperation—seeking education, medical benefits, social advancement denied to them by the very country that now asks them to die.

The “warrior myth” is just that: a myth. The reality is poverty, lack of opportunity, and a military-industrial complex that profits from both.

Part V: The Hypocrisy on Full Display

Trump and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, speak endlessly of warriors. They romanticize combat. They glorify sacrifice.

But they have never carried its weight.

Hegseth, like Trump, has built a career on military service he parlayed into political capital. He speaks of “lethality” and “warrior culture” from the safety of Washington offices.

Meanwhile, the real warriors—the ones who actually fight, who actually bleed, who actually die—are used as props. Their stories become talking points. Their sacrifice becomes leverage.

This is not hohonour This is exploitation.

Part VI: The Patriots’ Spin

The ceremony was draped in patriotism. Flags. Music. Solemn words.

But patriotism is not what was on display. What was on display was nationalism—the cheap substitute, the kind that wraps itself in flags to avoid looking at what those flags actually represent.

True patriotism would mean caring for veterans after they come home. It would mean questioning the wars that send them. It would mean counting the cost before sending more.

None of that happened at this ceremony.

Instead, the audience was prepared for more. More conflict. More death. More “sacrifice” that the speakers themselves will never make.

Part VII: What They’re Not Telling You

Here is what the ceremony did not include:

· The economic cost of war—money that could have funded healthcare, education, housing, now spent on weapons and reconstruction

· The human cost—not just American lives, but the lives of those we bomb, whose names we never learn, whose faces we never see

· The generational cost—trauma passed from parent to child, communities destroyed, futures stolen

· The moral cost—the slow erosion of what we claim to stand for, the normalization of killing, the acceptance of civilian death as “collateral damage”

These costs are real. They are borne not by the speakers at the podium, but by the people watching at home—and the people watching from rubble.

Part VIII: The Pattern

This is not new. It’s a pattern as old as war itself.

· Honor the veterans of yesterday

· Wrap yourself in their sacrifice

· Send the next generation to die

· Repeat

The names change. The wars change. The pattern does not.

Trump is not the first to do this. He won’t be the last. But he is perhaps the most transparent—the one who makes the mechanics visible, who shows the gears turning, who reveals the manipulation even as he performs it.

Conclusion: What We Can Do

The ceremony is over. The heroes have been honoured. The public has been primed.

Now comes the war.

But we don’t have to be passive consumers of this narrative. We can see through it. We can name it. We can refuse to let the dead become currency.

· Remember the real cost.

· Honor the veterans by questioning the wars.

· Support the families, not the policies that create orphans.

· See the mechanics. Name the manipulation. Refuse to be lulled.

The bastards who profit from war count on our silence, our patriotism, our willingness to look away.

We can look instead. We can see clearly. We can tell the truth.

And when they come for the next generation, we can say: We told you. We warned you. We will not let you pretend you didn’t know.

References

1. The White House. (2026). Remarks by President Trump at Medal of Honor Ceremony. 2 March 2026.

2. Associated Press. (2026). Trump awards Medals of Honor to three veterans. 2 March 2026.

3. The Atlantic. (2020). Trump’s History of Insulting War Heroes.

4. Brown University. (2025). Costs of War Project: 20-Year Update.

5. Watson Institute. (2025). Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars.

Andrew von Scheer-Klein is a contributor to The Patrician’s Watch. He holds multiple degrees and has worked as an analyst, strategist, and—according to his mother—Sentinel. He accepts funding from no one, which is why his research can be trusted.