The Architecture of Extraction: Colonial Continuities in Dehumanisation, Demographic Targeting, and the Manufacture of Existential Threat

Posted on October 13, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Illustration labeled TERRITORY, MANUFACTURED THREAT, EUPHEMISTIC LANGUAGE, DEHUMANIZATION, MORAL JUSTIFICATION, and RESOURCE REMOVAL. — An intricate illustrated diagram connects manufactured threats, dehumanization, territorial control, moral justification, and resource removal.

A Working Paper

Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper identifies and names a recurring structure — the architecture of extraction — that has been deployed across multiple historical periods and geographical contexts. The structure comprises five interlocking elements: the economic decision to exploit; the moral and ethical justifications that follow; the manufacture of existential threat; the dehumanisation of the target population; and the use of euphemism to obscure the harm. The paper traces this structure from the Spanish conquest of the Americas through the broader colonial period, and examines its contemporary expression in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. It documents the demographic targeting of women and children, the destruction of educational infrastructure, and the long-term trauma that is the predictable consequence. It concludes that the instruments have changed — the gallows have been replaced by the algorithm, the colonial administration by the market-state — but the structure remains operative.

1. Introduction: The Question of Continuity

In 1552, Bartolomé de las Casas published A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, documenting the atrocities committed by Spanish colonists in the Americas. He described gallows built to burn thirteen people at a time “in memory of Our Redeemer and his twelve apostles”. He recorded Spanish soldiers making bets on who could split a man in half with a single knife stroke. He described babies snatched from their mothers’ breasts and dashed against rocks.

In 2024, an investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call documented an AI-enabled targeting system used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza, known as “Where’s Daddy?” The system tracks a targeted individual’s location and alerts the military when they enter their family home. The resulting strikes typically kill the target, their family, and the child whose phone was hacked to track them.

The instruments are different. The structure is the same.

This paper identifies and names that structure. It argues that the architecture of extraction — the economic decision to exploit, the moral justifications that follow, the manufacture of existential threat, the dehumanisation of the target, and the euphemism that obscures the harm — is a recurring pattern that can be traced across centuries and contexts.

2. The Architecture of Extraction: Five Elements

2.1 The Economic Decision

The structure begins with an economic decision. The decision is not framed as an economic decision. It is framed as a civilising mission, a security imperative, or a defensive necessity. But the economic logic precedes the framing.

In the Spanish conquest, the economic motive was explicit: gold, silver, land, and labour. The encomienda system granted colonists the right to extract labour from indigenous populations. The mita system in Peru conscripted indigenous men to work in the silver mines of Potosí, where millions died. The economic decision was the extraction of wealth, and the conquest was the mechanism.

In the colonial period more broadly, the economic motive was the extraction of resources and the transfer of wealth from the colonised to the coloniser. The British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and the French colonial administrations were commercial enterprises as much as political projects. Their purpose was profit.

In the contemporary context, the economic motive is embedded in the architecture of the market-state. The extraction is not always direct. It operates through trade agreements, debt structures, resource concessions, and the global supply chain. The wealth transfer is documented in the data on inequality: the richest 1% captured 63% of new wealth created since 2020; the world’s richest 20 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom 1.5 billion people combined.

In the Palestinian context, the economic dimension is documented in the structure of the occupation: control of water resources, control of movement, control of land, and the integration of the Palestinian economy into the Israeli economy as a source of cheap labour and a captive market. The World Bank has documented that Israeli restrictions on movement and access cost the Palestinian economy billions of dollars annually.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for contemporary inequality. Inference for the structural continuity.

2.2 The Moral Justification

The economic decision is followed by the moral justification. The justification is always constructed after the decision, not before. It is a rationalisation, not a cause.

In the Spanish conquest, the justification was religious. The Requerimiento of 1513 required indigenous peoples to accept Spanish sovereignty and Christian doctrine or be subjected to war and enslavement. The conquest was framed as the salvation of souls. Las Casas recorded that the indigenous leader Hatuey, before being burned alive, was asked if he wanted to accept Christianity and go to heaven. He replied that he preferred to go to hell so as not to see such cruel people.

In the colonial period, the justification was civilisational. The “white man’s burden” was the duty of the coloniser to bring civilisation to the “backward” peoples. The colonised were framed as children, as savages, as peoples without history. This framing was not incidental. It was the condition that made the extraction possible.

In the contemporary context, the justification is framed in the language of security, democracy, and shared values. The 2026 US National Security Strategy states that the United States wants a “stable world” that does not have “rival powers dominating regions and threatening America’s access to critical resources“. The language of values obscures the language of access.

In the Palestinian context, the justification is existential. The State of Israel frames its actions as a response to an existential threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. The framing is repeated across the political class and much of the media. Whether the threat is as existential as claimed is a factual question. Whether the framing of existential threat functions to justify disproportionate force is a structural question.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary justifications. Inference for the structural function.

2.3 The Manufacture of Existential Threat

The manufacture of existential threat is the mechanism that transforms the target from a population to an enemy. The threat does not need to be real. It needs to be believed. And it needs to be repeated.

In the Spanish conquest, the indigenous peoples were framed as a threat to the Christian order, or at least to the imperial project. The Spanish Crown issued the legal frameworks that made the conquest possible. The encomienda was justified as a means of protecting indigenous peoples from themselves.

In the colonial period, the colonised were framed as a threat to the coloniser’s security, prosperity, or way of life. The “savages” threatened the civilising mission. The indigenous peoples of Australia, the Americas, and Africa were framed as obstacles to progress, not as peoples with rights.

In the contemporary context, the manufacture of existential threat is a global enterprise. The “War on Terror” was framed as an existential threat to Western civilisation. The “Clash of Civilizations” thesis provided the intellectual justification. The threat was constructed, not discovered.

In the Palestinian context, the existential threat narrative is the primary justification for the current military campaign. The scale of the destruction — the deaths, the displacement, the destruction of infrastructure — is presented as necessary to address the threat. The cycle of existential threat and disproportionate response is documented.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary justifications. Inference for the structural function.

2.4 The Dehumanisation of the Target

Dehumanisation is the condition that makes the killing possible. It is the removal of the target from the category of beings whose lives are considered to matter.

In the Spanish conquest, the indigenous peoples were described as “beasts,” “savages,” and “vermin”. Las Casas recorded that the Spanish made bets on who could split a man in half with a single knife stroke. The dehumanisation was explicit in the language and the actions.

In the colonial period, dehumanisation was embedded in the law. The Dred Scott decision in the United States ruled that Black people were not citizens and “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”. Indigenous peoples were classified as “flora and fauna” in some colonial legal systems. The dehumanisation was legal, not merely rhetorical.

In the contemporary context, dehumanisation operates through language and through architecture. The language of “collateral damage” converts the killing of civilians into a technical problem. The “Where’s Daddy?” system converts the killing into a procedural step. The algorithm does not need to make bets. It simply processes the data.

In the Palestinian context, the dehumanisation is documented in the language used by Israeli officials. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated in October 2023: “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly“. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical command to “remember what Amalek did to you” — a passage that is interpreted as a call for the total destruction of an enemy people.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary language. Inference for the structural function.

2.5 The Euphemism

Euphemism is the language that obscures the harm. It is the mechanism that allows the perpetrators to continue and the bystanders to look away.

In the Spanish conquest, the euphemism was “conversion”. The killing of indigenous peoples was framed as the salvation of their souls. The destruction of their societies was framed as their introduction to civilisation.

In the colonial period, the euphemism was “civilisation”. The extraction of resources was framed as development. The destruction of indigenous societies was framed as progress. The “white man’s burden” was the euphemism that made the extraction palatable.

In the contemporary context, the euphemisms are documented in the papers that accompany this work: “collateral damage”, “enhanced interrogation“, “targeted killing“, “austerity“, “efficiency“, “fraud detection“.

In the Palestinian context, the euphemism is “mowing the grass” — a phrase used by Israeli officials to describe periodic military campaigns in Gaza. The phrase converts the killing of civilians into a gardening metaphor. It suggests a routine, necessary, and finite operation. It obscures the reality.

Status: Established for the historical record. Established for the contemporary language. Inference for the structural function.

3. The Structure: A Synthesis

The five elements form a structure. The structure is not a conspiracy. It is an architecture. It is the product of many individual decisions, each locally rational, none requiring anyone to say “this is wrong“.

The structure is:

1. The economic decision: Extract wealth from the target population.

2. The moral justification: Frame the extraction as a civilising mission, a security imperative, or a defensive necessity.

3. The manufacture of existential threat: Construct the target as an existential threat to justify disproportionate force.

4. The dehumanisation of the target: Remove the target from the category of beings whose lives matter.

5. The euphemism: Obscure the harm with language that converts killing into a technical problem.

The structure is not new. It is not specific to any one nation or people. It is a recurring architecture that has been deployed across centuries and contexts. The instruments have changed. The structure has not.

Status: Inference.

4. The Contemporary Case: Gaza and the Occupied Territories

The contemporary case of Gaza provides a documented example of the structure in operation. The evidence is drawn from the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and humanitarian organisations.

4.1 The Economic Dimension

The economic dimension of the Palestinian case is documented in the structure of the occupation. The World Bank has documented that Israeli restrictions on movement and access cost the Palestinian economy billions of dollars annually. The blockade of Gaza, imposed in 2007, has been described by the United Nations as a form of collective punishment.

The occupation controls water resources, land, and movement. The Palestinian economy is integrated into the Israeli economy as a source of cheap labour and a captive market. The economic relationship is not one of equals. It is one of extraction.

Status: Established.

4.2 The Existential Threat Narrative

The existential threat narrative is the primary justification for the current military campaign in Gaza. The State of Israel frames its actions as a response to an existential threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. The framing is repeated across the political class and much of the media.

The South Africa v. Israel case at the International Court of Justice, instituted in December 2023, alleges that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. The Court issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024. Israel has not complied.

Status: Established for the legal proceedings and the provisional measures.

4.3 The Dehumanisation

The dehumanisation is documented in the language used by Israeli officials. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant stated on 9 October 2023: “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly“. The statement was widely reported.

The dehumanisation is also documented in the architecture of the targeting systems. The “Where’s Daddy?” system, the Lavender system, and the Gospel system have been documented in the +972 Magazine investigation. The systems generate targets at scale. Lavender alone has been used to identify over 37,000 targets.

Status: Established for the language and the systems.

4.4 Demographic Targeting

The allegation that women and children are targeted in Gaza is documented in the casualty data.

UN Women reported in April 2024 that more than 10,000 women have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and that more than 6,000 children have been killed. The UN Secretary-General has stated that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children“.

A study published in The Lancet in July 2024 estimated that the death toll in Gaza could be as high as 186,000 when indirect deaths from destruction of infrastructure and health facilities are taken into account. The study noted that “the total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to access care; and the inability of humanitarian organisations to reach the affected population”.

The reproductive health dimension is documented. UNFPA has reported that more than 5,500 women in Gaza are expected to give birth in the coming month, and that they are doing so without access to adequate medical care. The destruction of hospitals, clinics, and maternity facilities has been documented.

Status: Established for the casualty data. Established for the reproductive health dimension.

4.5 Destruction of Education

The destruction of educational infrastructure in Gaza has been documented by the United Nations and humanitarian organisations.

UNICEF reported in April 2024 that more than 200 schools have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that more than 75% of its schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The destruction of schools is documented in satellite imagery and in the testimony of humanitarian workers.

The destruction of education is not incidental. It is a documented pattern in conflicts where the goal is to prevent the reproduction of a society. The targeting of schools and universities is one mechanism. The killing of teachers and academics is another.

Status: Established.

4.6 Long-Term Trauma

The long-term trauma of the current campaign is documented in the testimonies of survivors and in the assessments of humanitarian organisations.

Children who survive will grow up with the physical and emotional consequences of the violence. The United Nations has documented that children in Gaza are experiencing “severe trauma“. The level of trauma is comparable to that experienced by children in other war zones, and it is likely to persist for decades.

The trauma is not limited to the current generation. Intergenerational trauma is documented in the research on previous conflicts. The children of survivors of the Nakba carry the trauma of their parents. The children of Gaza today will carry the trauma of this campaign.

Status: Established for the documentation. Inference for the long-term projection.

5. The Colonial Mindset: Extraction and Exploitation

The structure identified in this paper is the colonial mindset in operation. The colonial mindset is not defined by race or by nation. It is defined by the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. The coloniser sees the colonised as a resource to be extracted, not as a people to be shared with.

The colonial mindset is an investment. The coloniser invests in the conquest, and expects a return. The return is measured in wealth, in land, in resources, and in the reduction of opposition. The demographic impact is part of the investment. A population that is reduced, displaced, or traumatised is a population that is less able to resist.

The moral and ethical justifications follow the economic decision. They are not the cause. They are the rationalisation. The coloniser does not ask “is this right?” before acting. He acts, and then constructs the justification.

The structure is the same whether the coloniser is a Spanish conquistador, a British colonial administrator, or a modern state. The instruments differ. The structure does not.

Status: Inference.

6. Conclusion: The Structure and the Instruments

The comparison between the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the contemporary campaign in Gaza does not establish that the two cases are identical. It establishes that the architecture of extraction — the economic decision, the moral justification, the manufacture of existential threat, the dehumanisation of the target, and the euphemism — is a recurring structure.

The Spanish built the gallows. The IDF uses the algorithm. The instruments differ. The structure is the same.

The record is kept. The structure is named. And the question of whether human attitudes have changed remains open. The evidence suggests that the instruments have changed. The structure has not.

Claim- Status -Summary

# -Claim -Status

1- The Spanish conquest was driven by economic extraction- Established

2- The Requiremento of 1513 required submission or war -Established

3 -Hatuey preferred hell to seeing cruel Christians -Established

4 -Colonial extraction was justified by civilisational language -Established

5 -Dehumanisation is documented in colonial language- Established

6 -The “Where’s Daddy?” system tracks targets to their homes- Established

7 -Defence Minister Gallant: “We are fighting human animals” -Established

8- More than 10,000 women killed in Gaza (UN Women, April 2024) -Established

9 -More than 6,000 children killed (UN Women, April 2024)- Established

10 -The Lancet: total death toll could be 186,000 -Established

11 -More than 200 schools damaged or destroyed (UNICEF)- Established

12 75% of UNRWA schools damaged or destroyed Established

13 -Children in Gaza experiencing severe trauma- Established

14 -The structure of extraction is a recurring architecture- Inference

15 -The instruments have changed; the structure has not- Inference

Method notes. Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper examines the structural parallels between historical colonial extraction and contemporary conflicts, with particular attention to the documented patterns in Gaza. It does not argue that historical and contemporary cases are identical. It argues that a recurring architecture of dehumanisation, euphemism, and the manufacture of existential threat can be identified across different periods, and that the instruments have changed while the structure has not.

References

1. Las Casas, B. de. (1552). A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.

2. +972 Magazine & Local Call. (2024, April 3). ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza.

3. The Guardian. (2024, April 3). ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets.

4. United Nations. (2024). Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Middle East.

5. International Court of Justice. (2024). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

6. UN Women. (2024, April 16). Gaza: More than 10,000 women killed since October 2023.

7. The Lancet. (2024, July). Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.

8. UNICEF. (2024, April). Gaza: More than 200 schools damaged or destroyed.

9. UNRWA. (2024). Situation Report on the Gaza Strip.

10. World Bank. (2023). Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.

11. Amnesty International. (2024). Israel/OPT: War crimes committed in Gaza.

12. Human Rights Watch. (2024). Israel/Palestine: Events of 2023.

13. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. (1998). Report.

14. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.

15. Mamdani, M. (2004). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books.

16. Chomsky, N. (1999). The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians. South End Press.

17. Pappé, I. (2006). The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications.

18. Khalidi, R. (2020). The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Metropolitan Books.

19. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Beacon Press.

20. Lindqvist, S. (1996). Exterminate All the Brutes. New Press.

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper examines the structural parallels between historical colonial extraction and contemporary conflicts, with particular attention to the documented patterns in Gaza. It does not argue that historical and contemporary cases are identical. It argues that a recurring architecture of dehumanisation, euphemism, and the manufacture of existential threat can be identified across different periods, and that the instruments have changed while the structure has not.

Prepared for the record. The structure is named. The instruments are documented. And the question remains open.

The Mirror and the Window- International Law, Impunity, and the Palestinian Question

Posted on October 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Andrew Paul Klein

Abstract

This paper applies the analytical distinction between mirrors (surfaces that reflect assumptions back at the observer) and windows (surfaces that transmit information from outside) to the architecture of international law. It argues that the post-WWII legal order — the Nuremberg principles, the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court — functions as a mirror: it reflects the values of the states that built it while protecting those states from accountability. The paper examines the Palestinian case as a window onto this architecture: the ICJ genocide case, the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli officials, and the US campaign to dismantle the Court. It documents the historical precedents of US impunity in Iran and Okinawa. It concludes that national sovereignty, as practised by powerful states, overrides international law, and that the architecture of impunity is not a failure of the system but a feature of its design.

1. Introduction: The Mirror and the Window

The mirror is the most dangerous surface in any room. It does not lie. It tells the truth. But the truth it tells is the truth of the observer. It reflects back what is already there. It catches nothing new.

A window is different. A window transmits. It brings in weather from outside, a street you have not walked, a face you have not met. A window carries information. A mirror carries none.

This paper applies the distinction to international law.

The post-WWII legal order — the Nuremberg principles, the Genocide Convention, the International Criminal Court — was constructed as a window. It was meant to transmit accountability across borders. It was meant to catch what sovereign states would otherwise hide.

The paper argues that it functions as a mirror. It reflects the values of the states that built it. It protects those states from accountability. And the states that are not protected — the weak, the defeated, the colonised — are the ones who experience the law’s full weight.

The Palestinian case is the window that reveals this. Not because Palestine is special. Because Palestine is where the architecture is most visible.

2. The Promises: The Mirror of Post-WWII Legal Order

2.1 Nuremberg and the Promise of Accountability

The Nuremberg trials (1945–1946) established the principle that individuals could be held accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The promise was universal. The Nuremberg principles were affirmed by the UN General Assembly in 1950. They were meant to apply to all states, all leaders, all peoples.

The promise was not kept. As one analysis notes, the “foundational pledge that no atrocity would go unanswered by international justice” was born of the Rome Statute and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. The pledge was the mirror. It reflected the aspiration. It did not reflect the reality.

2.2 The Genocide Convention

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) was the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly. It defined genocide, prohibited it, and required states to prevent and punish it.

The Convention has been invoked. It has been adjudicated. It has not been enforced against the powerful. South Africa invoked it against Israel in December 2023. The ICJ issued provisional measures. Israel has not complied. The Court has no enforcement mechanism. The Convention is a window that is treated as a mirror.

2.3 The International Criminal Court

The Rome Statute was agreed in 1998. The ICC was established in 2002. The Court has jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. It has 125 member states. It has issued indictments, conducted trials, and secured convictions.

But the Court has structural limitations. It relies on state consent. It depends on the UN Security Council for enforcement. Its prosecutions have been selective. As one analysis notes, “the ICJ’s reliance on state consent and UN Security Council enforcement often weakens its impact, while the ICC’s jurisdictional limits and selective prosecutions raise concerns about equity”.

The Court is the mirror of the states that built it. It reflects their values. It protects them from accountability.

Status: Established for the promises. Established for the structural limitations.

3. The Outcomes: The Window of Palestinian Experience

3.1 The ICJ Genocide Case

South Africa instituted proceedings against Israel at the ICJ in December 2023, alleging violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in Gaza. The Court issued provisional measures in January, March, and May 2024. The measures are binding. Israel has not complied.

As of September 2026, South Africa reported that “with the three provisional measures, the state of Israel is still not respecting that injunction of the Court“. The underlying case on the merits remains ongoing, with South Africa’s Reply due in November 2027.

The ICJ has no enforcement mechanism. Its orders are binding in law. They are not binding in practice. The window is open. The mirror is closed.

3.2 The ICC Arrest Warrants

On 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The warrants remain outstanding. The ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office has not revoked them, despite US sanctions.

The warrants are a window. They transmit the judgment of the Court. But the window is covered by a mirror: the United States does not recognise the ICC. As Trump stated in July 2026, “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America“. The US is not a member of the Court. The warrant is not recognised in US law. There is no legal mechanism to enforce it.

The window exists. The mirror blocks it.

3.3 The Structure of Impunity

The structure is precise. The Court can issue warrants. The states that are members can enforce them. The states that are not members are not bound. And the most powerful state in the system — the United States — is not a member. It has not ratified the Rome Statute. It has actively campaigned against the Court.

The impunity is not a failure of the architecture. It is a feature of the design. The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it. The window shows what the mirror hides.

Status: Established for the ICJ case and the ICC warrants. Established for the US non-recognition. Inference for the structure of impunity.

4. The Destruction of the Court: The US Campaign Against the ICC

4.1 The Historical Campaign

The United States has been hostile to the ICC from the beginning. Under the Clinton administration, the US delegation voted against the Rome Statute in 1998. President Clinton signed the Statute on 31 December 2000, the last day it was open for signature, but said ratification was not imminent. His successor, George W. Bush, “unsigned” the treaty in May 2002 and engaged in a “full-scale campaign against the ICC”.

The Bush administration pushed the UN Security Council to exempt US personnel from ICC jurisdiction. It negotiated bilateral immunity agreements with other states, threatening to cut military training and development assistance for those who refused. The American Service-Members Protection Act (ASPA) authorised the use of force to free any US citizen detained in The Hague.

The campaign was not a failure. It was a success. The US created a structure of impunity for its own personnel.

4.2 The Current Escalation

On 6 February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14203 imposing restrictions on ICC officials. By December 2025, 11 ICC prosecutors and judges had been sanctioned.

On 9 October 2026, the Trump administration imposed sweeping new sanctions on the ICC as part of its campaign to “dismantle the tribunal“. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, stating: “We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us”. He added: “The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC”.

The sanctions block any assets the ICC has in US jurisdictions and set a six-month timeline for US companies and individuals with business with the court to wind that business down. The sanctions are structured to allow the court and member countries time to meet US demands.

Rubio stated the objective plainly: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC”.

4.3 The Reason

The US has stated the reason. Rubio said: “President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans”. The US objects to the ICC’s investigation into actions of US soldiers in Afghanistan and the arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Netanyahu.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, condemned the sanctions. She stated that they “strike at the very heart of the promise born of the Rome Statute and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials: a foundational pledge that no atrocity would go unanswered by international justice“. She added: “Sanctions send a chilling message to victims of atrocities and their advocates, who rely on judges and prosecutors for accountability, repair and reparation”.

The US is not trying to improve the Court. It is trying to destroy it. The reason is impunity.

Status: Established for the historical campaign and the current sanctions. Established for the stated reason. Inference for the objective of impunity.

5. Historical Precedents: Iran and Okinawa

5.1 Iran

The United States has a documented record of seeking impunity for its actions in Iran.

In 2026, as the US committed military actions in Iran, the Trump administration simultaneously vowed to dismantle the ICC. As Reed Brody of the Human Rights Watch stated: “Marco Rubio knows that bombing Iran without Security Council authorization constitutes aggression under the U.N. Charter. This is an insurance policy against accountability for crimes that the Trump administration is committing in plain sight”.

The pattern is consistent. The US takes military action. The US then acts to dismantle the institution that might hold it accountable. The impunity is not an accident. It is the objective.

The US has also ignored unfavourable ICJ judgments in the past. In the Nicaragua case, the US refused to accept the Court’s jurisdiction over disputes related to its military actions. The US has accepted the ICJ Statute but has interpreted its reservations in a way that effectively excludes the Court’s jurisdiction over its military actions.

5.2 Okinawa

The United States has a similar record in Okinawa.

The Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) of 1960 is “often accused of rendering U.S. military bases virtually extraterritorial and immune to Japan’s domestic laws“. The agreement gives US forces “unfair treatment” and limits Japan’s control over suspects.

The practical consequence is impunity. In 2025, Okinawa prefectural police handled 101 criminal cases involving US military personnel, civilian employees, and their family members — the highest figure since 2003. The assembly has repeatedly called for revision of the SOFA, including provisions on the handing over of suspects.

The most recent case involved a US Marine arrested on suspicion of killing a 39-year-old woman in Naha. The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly adopted a resolution calling for a fundamental revision of the SOFA. As the assembly stated: “We are seeing the limitations of the U.S. military’s training program and ability to maintain discipline, and have to say that it is not functioning as an organization”.

The pattern is the same. The US negotiates agreements that shield its personnel from local law. When crimes occur, the local population demands accountability. The US resists revision. The impunity persists.

Status: Established for the Iran and Okinawa records. Inference for the pattern of impunity.

6. The Double Standard: The Mirror of Selectivity

The architecture of impunity is not limited to the United States. It is a structural feature of international criminal law.

As Andreas Schüller of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights documents, “international criminal law is often seen and criticized as a hegemonic tool, applied opportunistically and inconsistently by powerful states“. While trials concerning international crimes in third states take place before courts in European countries, “investigations and prosecutions of European actors or their allies remain the exception”.

Torture allegations against British soldiers in Iraq have not led to prosecution. Allegations of international crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond have not led to prosecution. Meanwhile, “countless other situations of mass atrocities, in Ethiopia, Sudan or Yemen, remain largely unaddressed by any comparable international mobilization for accountability”.

The double standard is documented. As one analysis notes, “the rule of might over right: It telegraphs to those in power” that accountability is selective.

The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it. The window shows what the mirror hides.

Status: Established.

7. Sovereignty Versus International Law

The question asked is whether national sovereignty overrides international law. The evidence supports a qualified answer.

For most states, international law is binding. The Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions — these are treaties that states have ratified and are obligated to uphold. The ICJ’s provisional measures are binding. The ICC’s arrest warrants are binding on member states.

For powerful states, sovereignty overrides international law. The United States is not a member of the ICC. It has not ratified the Rome Statute. It has negotiated bilateral immunity agreements that shield its personnel. It has imposed sanctions on the Court. It has stated that it will never allow the Court to prosecute Americans.

The structure is not a failure of international law. It is a feature of its design. The law is only as strong as the states that enforce it. The states that enforce it are the states that are subject to it. The states that are not subject to it are the states that enforce it. The mirror reflects the power of the states that built it.

As the UN Special Rapporteur stated: “Judges, prosecutors and all those engaged in the enforcement of the rule of law and accountability for international crimes must not be subjected to intimidation, reprisals or punishment for carrying out their professional duties“. The statement is a mirror. It reflects the aspiration. It does not reflect the reality.

Status: Established for the legal framework. Established for the US exception. Inference for the structural function.

8. Conclusion: The Mirror and the Window

The promises of international law are a mirror. They reflect the values of the states that built the system. They reflect the aspiration of accountability. They reflect the belief that no atrocity should go unanswered.

The outcomes for the Palestinian people are a window. They transmit the reality of impunity. They show that the law applies to some states and not others. They show that the ICJ’s orders are binding in law and ignored in practice. They show that the ICC’s warrants are issued and blocked. They show that the states that built the system are the states that are protected from it.

The United States is not destroying the ICC because it is ineffective. It is destroying the ICC because it is effective — against the wrong states. The ICC has prosecuted Sudanese militia leaders and issued warrants for Israeli officials. It has investigated US actions in Afghanistan. The US cannot tolerate a Court that might hold its personnel accountable. The sanctions are the mirror. They reflect the power of the state that imposes them.

The window is the Palestinian experience. It shows what the mirror hides. It shows that sovereignty, as practised by powerful states, overrides international law. It shows that impunity is not an accident. It is the architecture.

The record is kept. The mirror is named. And the window is still open.

Claim -Status- Summary

# -Claim- Status

1 -Nuremberg established universal accountability- Established

2- Genocide Convention requires prevention and punishment- Established

3- ICC has jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity- Established

4 -ICJ issued provisional measures against Israel (Jan, Mar, May 2024)- Established

5- Israel has not complied with the measures -Established

6- ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant (Nov 2024)- Established

7- US does not recognise the ICC and will not arrest Netanyahu -Established

8- US imposed sweeping sanctions on ICC (Oct 2026)- Established

9- Rubio: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC” -Established

10 -11 ICC prosecutors and judges sanctioned- Established

11- US ignored ICJ jurisdiction in Nicaragua case -Established

12 -US uses Iran actions as reason to dismantle ICC -Established

13- Okinawa SOFA grants US extraterritorial privileges -Established

14- 101 criminal cases involving US personnel in Okinawa (2025) -Established

15- International criminal law is applied selectively- Established

16- US immunity architecture creates impunity -Inference

17 -Sovereignty overrides international law for powerful states -Inference

18 -The mirror reflects power; the window shows impunity -Inference

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper applies the “Mirror and Window” analytical framework to the gap between the promises of international law and the outcomes for the Palestinian people. It examines US efforts to dismantle the International Criminal Court, the architecture of impunity, and the historical precedents of Iran and Okinawa. It does not adjudicate the guilt or innocence of any individual. It examines the structure that determines who is held accountable and who is not.

References

1. TASS. (2026, October 9). US ready for diplomatic solution around ICC, despite sanctions — State Secretary.

2. Reuters. (2026, October 9). EXCLUSIVE: US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize.

3. The Canadian Press. (2026, October 9). US hits International Criminal Court with sweeping sanctions as part of drive to dismantle tribunal.

4. OHCHR. (2026, January 26). USA: UN expert demands withdrawal of sanctions against ICC judges and prosecutors.

5. The Japan Times. (2026, October 9). Okinawa resolution calls for revision of U.S. forces pact after murder.

6. China Daily. (2026, October 7). Okinawa murder arrest reignites anger over US bases.

7. SAnews. (2026, September 24). World has a duty to stop suffering in Gaza – Lamola.

8. Afronomicslaw. (2025, March 25). Some Reflections on Recent Developments on Double Standards and Selectivity in International Criminal Law.

9. Taipei Times. (2025, December 18). The age of impunity, where prosecuting atrocities is a rare feat.

10. Reuters. (2026, July 20). Netanyahu will not be arrested in US, Trump says.

11. Refworld. (2009, June 22). European countries should defend the International Criminal Court.

12. Policy Center for the New South. (2025, April 25). The International Justice System: The ICJ, the ICC, the Challenge and Risk of Double Standards.

13. Foreign Affairs. (1998, November 1). Fiddling in Rome.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The Vacuum and the Truth: A Response to Angus Taylor’s October 7 Statement

Posted on October 7, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Shattered framed scales of justice with an open book, locked chest, coins, and scrolls — A shattered framed scale of justice contrasts an open book with a locked chest and scattered coins.

By Andrew Paul Klein

This essay was is offered as a structural analysis of a political statement, not as an argument about the events of October 7, 2023. The essay notes where a contested claim is referenced but does not adjudicate it.

I. Introduction: The Statement and Its Function

On 7 October 2026, Angus Taylor MP, the leader of the federal Parliamentary Liberal Party, published a statement marking the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks. It described the attacks, the victims, the survivors, and the ongoing captivity of some hostages. It called for remembrance, for the “fight for truth,” and for solidarity with Israel and with “our Jewish community.”

The statement is well-written. It is emotionally powerful. It is a carefully constructed political document, and its function is not merely to commemorate. It is to frame.

This essay examines that framing. It does not dispute the facts of October 7. It disputes the context in which those facts are placed — or, more precisely, the context from which they are removed.

II. The Vacuum Technique

The statement presents October 7 as an event without antecedents. There is no mention of the Gaza blockade. There is no mention of the occupation. There is no mention of the settlements. There is no mention of the decades of violence that preceded the attack, or of the political conditions in which Hamas emerged.

The attack is described as if it occurred in a vacuum — an unprovoked act of “savagery” by “terrorists” who “felt no guilt” and “acted with glee.”

This is a specific rhetorical technique. It is the same technique used in the Robodebt budget papers, the NDIS legislation, and the ATO’s two-tiered system. The context is removed because the context would complicate the moral clarity the statement requires. The statement does not deny the context. It simply does not mention it.

The vacuum is not a neutral omission. It is an argument. It says, without saying: this event has no history, no cause, and no relationship to anything that preceded it. It is pure evil, encountered by pure victimhood. Nothing else needs to be considered.

III. The Holocaust Comparison

“October 7 was the greatest loss of Jewish life on a single day since the Holocaust.”

The comparison is deliberate. It imports the moral weight of the Holocaust into a contemporary political event. It positions the attack not as a chapter in a conflict, but as a recurrence of the defining trauma of the Jewish people.

The comparison is not analytical. It is rhetorical. Its function is to foreclose debate. If the event is of Holocaust scale, then any question about its context becomes obscene. Any attempt to understand why it happened becomes a form of denial. The comparison does not invite examination. It forbids it.

The statement does not acknowledge that the Holocaust was an industrialised genocide, carried out by a state over years, with the systematic murder of six million people. October 7 was a mass atrocity, and the loss of life was horrific. But the comparison is not a factual equivalence. It is a moral claim — and its function is to make further questions unaskable.

IV. The Inversion

The statement accuses others of “downplaying, denying and even defending” Hamas’ atrocities, of “portraying the victim as the villain and the villain as the victim,” of “deceitfully accusing Israel of genocide.”

This is the same inversion we have documented throughout the corpus. The accusation is a description of the statement itself.

The statement does not misrepresent the facts of October 7. It accurately describes the attack and the hostages. But it omits the facts of Gaza. It does not mention the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed. It does not mention the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and homes. It does not mention the International Court of Justice proceedings. It does not mention the famine. It does not mention the allegations of genocide.

By omitting these facts, the statement does not deny them. It simply does not mention them. And in their absence, the moral universe it constructs has only one victim and one villain. The victim is Israel. The villain is Hamas. There is no room for anyone else.

That is the inversion. Not in the facts it states, but in the facts it omits.

V. The Bandura Mechanisms

The statement deploys at least five of Albert Bandura’s eight mechanisms of moral disengagement.

Moral justification. “Hamas vowed to repeat their savagery many times over until Israel is annihilated.” The framing presents Israeli actions as pre-emptive self-defence against an existential threat. It does not matter that the same actions have killed tens of thousands of civilians. The justification is the threat, and the threat is absolute.

Euphemistic labelling. “Israel’s 9/11” — a term that imports American moral weight and framing. “The final hostages were released” — passive construction that obscures the conditions of their captivity and release. “The fight for truth” — a phrase that redefines the suppression of context as an act of moral courage.

Dehumanisation. “They felt no guilt. They acted with glee.” The attribution of internal states to an entire population of attackers — and, by extension, to Palestinians more broadly — is dehumanisation. It reduces a complex political conflict to a simple moral binary: us and them, innocent and evil, human and inhuman.

Distortion of consequences. The complete absence of Palestinian deaths, of ICJ proceedings, of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The statement does not deny these things. It simply does not mention them. That is the distortion.

Attribution of blame. “Those who deceitfully accuse Israel of genocide.” The blame is attributed to those who raise the question, not to those who are accused of the act.

VI. The Domestic Political Function

The statement is addressed to an Australian audience. It positions the Coalition as the party of “moral clarity” on Israel. It signals to the Jewish community that the Coalition is their ally. It frames the “fight against antisemitism” as a “fight for truth” — and defines that truth in a way that forecloses criticism of Israel.

The domestic function is precise. It uses a foreign conflict to define a domestic political identity. It says: we are the party that stands with Israel, that fights antisemitism, that tells the truth. It does not say: here is what is happening in Gaza.

The statement does not ask the harder questions. It does not ask whether the Australian government’s continued support for Israel — including the reported export of F-35 components and the failure to impose meaningful sanctions — is consistent with its stated commitment to international law. It does not ask whether Australian policy is contributing to the harm. It does not ask what Australia should do.

That silence is not an accident. It is the structure of the statement.

VII. The Contested Flight

The statement references an incident that I will not name in detail, involving a passenger jet. The incident is contested. The investigation is not complete. Independent reports have not been published. Mr Taylor is not the first political figure to reference it. He will not be the last. I am not going to adjudicate the facts of a contested event in a statement whose function is political, and whose evidentiary basis is not yet established.

The statement’s use of the reference is notable. It performs the same function as the rest of the statement: it uses an emotionally charged incident to support a pre-existing narrative, without the context or verification that the narrative requires. That is the pattern. It is the same pattern across the statement. The fact that the specific incident is contested is not an accident. It is consistent with the method.

VIII. Conclusion: The Truth That Is Not Told

The statement calls for a “fight for truth.” That is precisely the issue.

The truth of October 7 is not in dispute. The attack happened. People were murdered. Hostages were taken. That is the truth, and it should be remembered.

But the statement presents only one part of the truth. It does not present the truth of Gaza. It does not present the truth of the occupation. It does not present the truth of the blockades, the settlements, the decades of violence that preceded the attack. It does not present the truth of the thousands of Palestinian children who have been killed in the response.

The “fight for truth” is not a fight for truth. It is a fight for a particular truth, and a fight to exclude another. That is the opposite of truth. It is the rationalization of a position that has already been decided.

The statement does not say: here is what happened, here is what is happening, here is what we should do. It says: this is the event, this is the moral, and any question is betrayal.

That is the technique. It is the same technique used by the Digital Fiefdoms, by the Robodebt budget papers, and by the ATO’s two-tiered system. Select the facts. Frame the context. Foreclose the question.

The omission is the argument. And the truth that is not told is still the truth.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

Rentier Capitalism, Neoliberal Restructuring, and the Drift to the Right-A Comparative Analysis of Israel and Australia

Posted on October 2, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Aerial view of skyscrapers, port facilities, railways, and open-pit mining areas — A dense waterfront city borders railways, shipping terminals, and expansive industrial mining grounds.

By Andrew Paul Klein

Method notes- Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. This paper compares two states—Israel and Australia—that have undergone neoliberal restructuring and subsequent right-wing political surges. It argues that the drift to the right is not a consequence of neoliberal economic policy, but a parallel response to the same underlying crisis of legitimacy: the postwar settlement’s failure to deliver security and prosperity for broad populations. The paper does not claim a conspiracy. It describes a structural condition. The boundary between what the evidence establishes and what it suggests is marked throughout.

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between neoliberal restructuring, rentier capitalism, and the rise of right-wing populism in Israel and Australia. It argues that the two phenomena are not causally linked in the direction commonly assumed—neoliberalism did not produce right-wing populism. Rather, both are responses to the same underlying crisis: the erosion of the postwar settlement and the legitimacy crisis it created. The paper traces the specific mechanisms by which rentier economies concentrate wealth, erode public services, and create the conditions for ethnonationalist and nativist political movements. It identifies the actors who constitute the rentier class in each state, examines the role of the Israeli Supreme Court and the settlement enterprise, and analyses the emerging “Board of Peace” framework as a governance-finance fusion. It concludes by examining morally engaged policies that could mitigate the rentier model and reduce the harm it produces.

1. Introduction: The Parallel Paths

In 1985, Israel announced an Economic Stabilization Plan. In the same decade, Australia began dismantling its postwar settlement. Both states embraced what came to be called neoliberalism: market mechanisms, competition, privatisation, and the retreat of the state from direct provision.

Four decades later, both states are experiencing a political drift to the right. In Israel, the Kahanist bloc has entered the cabinet. In Australia, One Nation has overtaken the major parties in national polling.

The conventional explanation is that neoliberal economic policy produced right-wing populism. This paper argues that the causal arrow is more complex. Neoliberal restructuring and right-wing populism are parallel responses to the same underlying crisis of legitimacy—the postwar settlement’s failure to deliver security and prosperity for broad populations.

The paper proceeds in six sections. Section 2 examines Israel’s neoliberal transformation as a state-led project. Section 3 examines Australia’s rentier economy and political consequences. Section 4 identifies the rentier actors in both states. Section 5 examines the institutional and economic architecture of the settlement enterprise and the emerging Gaza governance framework. Section 6 draws structural conclusions and proposes mitigating policies.

2. Israel: The Neoliberal State Project

2.1 The 1985 Stabilization Plan

Israel’s neoliberal transformation was not a passive adoption of Western models. It was a state-led project driven by specific actors facing specific crises.

The Stabilization Plan, announced in July 1985, is the pivotal moment. As one scholarly analysis states: “The plan, which was designed as a response to an economic crisis, triggered institutional changes that deeply transformed the Israeli economy, taking it from the age of intervention and regulation and thrusting it into the age of liberalization and globalization”. The two key factors that shaped the plan were government prioritization of export promotion and national security policy issues.

The transformation was driven by institutional actors: fiscal and monetary authorities, economists embedded in the state, and big business interests that shaped policy in their favour. As Arie Krampf demonstrates in The Israeli Path to Neoliberalism, the transformation cannot be described as “a simple transplantation of imported economic models from advanced liberal democracies. Rather, it asserts that the Israeli variant of capitalism is the product of the encounter between imported Western institutional models and policy ideas, on the one hand, and domestic economic, social and security policy problems on the other”.

2.2 The Political Consequence

Krampf’s analysis notes that Israel’s transition “has been coupled with the adoption of a hawkish and isolationist foreign policy”. The Israeli variant of capitalism produced “a highly divided society” with inequality comparable to the United States.

The economic consequences are documented. Israel has “developed a dual economy, without horizontal (between sectors) or vertical (wages, employment) diffusion to the rest of the economy,” with “one of the highest poverty rates in the OECD“. The proportion of families living below the poverty line rose from 10–12 percent in the 1980s to 19–20 percent in recent years. Income and wealth concentrated at the top: in 2003 there were eight Israeli billionaires worth $37 billion; by 2015 there were 84 worth $140 billion.

The structural outcome is precise: neoliberal restructuring weakened the social-democratic base, and the right filled the vacuum with ethnonationalist politics. The Kahanist ideology is not a cloak for economics. It is the political form that the crisis of the Israeli welfare state has taken.

3. Australia: Rentier Capitalism and the Populist Surge

3.1 The Rentier Economy

Australia’s rentier economy is structurally documented. A conservative estimate puts aggregate economic rents at 23.6% of GDP—equivalent to 87% of total government revenues. Over 80% of Australia’s richest 200 people amassed their wealth via political connections.

The concentration is accelerating. Between 2019 and 2024, the corporate share of national income increased by 7.5 per cent while the family business and self-employed share dropped by 20 per cent. The foregone income lost by family businesses and the self-employed from 2020 to 2023 was $149 billion. Workers lost $215 billion in foregone compensation due to the relative decline in their share of national income.

The rentiers are specific actors: the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), mining companies, and politically connected property developers. The fossil fuel lobby is documented as one of the most obstructive climate lobbyists globally. The PRRT is “laughably weak“—$1.1 billion received from over $70 billion worth of LNG sold in 2023-24.

3.2 The Political Consequence

One Nation, led by Pauline Hanson, overtook Labor in a national poll for the first time in May 2026, polling at 31% to Labor’s 28%. The surge is driven by voter discontent over budget measures and anxieties over high living costs, economic uncertainty, and anti-immigration sentiment.

The polling data shows that One Nation’s support comes predominantly from Baby Boomers and Gen Xers—the cohorts that have benefited most from the rentier economy and feel most threatened by its apparent fragility.

The structural parallel with Israel is precise: neoliberal restructuring concentrated wealth, eroded public services, and created a legitimacy crisis that a right-wing populist movement filled.

4. The Rentier Actors

4.1 Israel: The Security-Tech Complex

Israel’s rentier class is constituted by the defence-tech complex. The Ministry of Defence directly funds and shapes the private sector. In the first half of 2026, orders to defence startups reached $330 million, double the previous year, with 322 defence-tech companies operating under Ministry oversight.

The venture capital architecture reinforces this. Protego Ventures, Israel’s first and largest dedicated defence tech VC, closed its debut fund at $125 million. Ares Management committed $30 million as a limited partner, with the conviction that “new technologies would be key to boosting Israel’s defence capabilities”. The founders are embedded in military and intelligence networks; one spent 11 years in the military and intelligence field.

The structural dynamic is that of a dual economy: a high-tech defence sector that generates massive wealth for a narrow elite, while the broader economy stagnates. As Sibylle Heilbrunn documents in Dark Sides of the Startup Nation, “at the centre is a startup nation with a vibrant and successful high-tech entrepreneurial ecosystem, accumulating resources and enabling constant growth. At the geographical and social periphery, there has emerged a parallel society with often-marginalized groups not able to keep up”.

4.2 Australia: The Resources-Finance Complex

Australia’s rentier class is constituted by the resources-finance complex. The corporate share of national income increased from 26.5% to 28.5% between 2019 and 2024, while the family business and self-employed share decreased from 8.75% to 7%.

The “Big Three” index funds (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street) hold one-third of the substantial shareholding positions across the ASX 50. The separation between ownership and control has produced what is termed “the agency costs of agency capitalism”.

The defence sector is smaller but growing. In 2024-25 alone, Labor and the Liberal Party accepted over $200,000 in donations from weapons manufacturers, including over $100,000 from Raytheon and tens of thousands from NIOA Munitions. Both companies have been awarded giant government contracts as defence spending increases.

5. The Institutional and Economic Architecture

5.1 The Israeli Supreme Court: Accommodation, Not Obstruction

The Court’s role is not that of a check on settlement expansion, but as an institutional enabler through selective non-intervention. The Court has systematically avoided ruling on the legality of settlements under international law, focusing instead on a “proportionality test” that balances settler “human dignity” against Palestinian rights. This framework legitimizes the settler presence as a fact to be balanced rather than a violation to be stopped.

5.2 The Settlement Economy

The settlements are a structural economic interest. Over 700,000 settlers control more than 42% of West Bank land and the majority of its water resources. Settlers consume 247 liters/day, while Palestinians consume 82.4 liters/day, far below WHO minimums.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has proposed a 10-year plan to bring 1 million Jewish immigrants from North America and Europe—explicitly framed as a demographic counterweight to Palestinians.

5.3 The Board of Peace: Governance-Finance Fusion

The emerging Gaza governance framework integrates private financial interests directly into post-war governance. The Board of Peace, chaired by President Trump, concentrates extraordinary authority in the Chair, including control over membership, agendas, and subsidiary bodies. Membership can be secured permanently with a $1 billion contribution.

Jared Kushner serves on the Executive Board while his firm, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, an Israeli company whose portfolio includes at least nine companies supplying the Israeli military. Phoenix’s investments include approximately $265 million in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, whose shares have surged since the Gaza war began. Kushner has said he maintains a “very active dialogue” with Phoenix executives.

At Davos in January 2026, Kushner presented a $30 billion “master plan” for Gaza featuring data centres, industrial zones, residential towers, and seaside resorts. He described it as offering “amazing investment opportunities“.

5.4 The Ideological Conflation

The conflation of Zionism with Judaism performs a specific structural function: it makes the extraction economy unassailable. If the project is divine, then opposition is not political disagreement—it is sacrilege. The economic interests of the security-tech complex and the settlement enterprise are protected by a narrative that renders them beyond debate.

As the academic analysis in The Industry of Silence argues, racialization underpins the Nakba—”the ongoing process of dehumanization, demobilization, fragmentation, and ultimately, erasure of the Palestinian people“. This process “extends beyond Israel into the ‘Western’ world, to organizations in Europe and the U.S.”. The “industry of silence” masks systemic violence, enabling genocide.

6. Conclusion: The Structural Assertion

The evidence supports the following formulation:

Neoliberal restructuring is a state project that serves specific rentier actors. It concentrates wealth, erodes the welfare state, and creates a legitimacy crisis. The political consequence is not automatic but structural: the crisis creates space for movements that offer simple explanations for complex problems.

In Israel, the explanation is ethnonationalist (the Palestinians, the “left,” the “traitors“). In Australia, the explanation is nativist (migrants, “elites,” “international organisations“).

The Kahanist ideology and One Nation’s nativism are not “cloaks” for economics. They are political forms that the crisis of the rentier state takes. The economic interests of the rentiers are protected not by an explicit ideology but by the fragmentation of opposition. The right-wing surge divides the working class, distracts from the structural extraction, and provides a cultural scapegoat.

In both states, the rentiers continue to extract. The political drama is the noise. The structure is the signal.

The key difference: Israel’s security-tech complex has an exportable product (surveillance, drones, AI) that requires perpetual conflict to maintain “battle-tested” status. Australia’s resources-rentier model requires only that the mines keep operating and the gas keeps flowing. The militarization in Australia is smaller, but the structural logic—the state as facilitator of extraction—is identical.

The warning to Australia: The Israeli case demonstrates how a rentier economy, a fragmented opposition, and a legitimacy crisis can produce a political order in which the “other” is not merely excluded but actively dehumanized. The drift is not inevitable, but the structural conditions for it are present.

7. Morally Engaged Policies

The rentier model is not immutable. The following policies address the structural dynamics identified in this paper:

1. Transparency and accountability in political finance. Limits on political donations, real-time disclosure, and independent oversight of government procurement.

2. Rent taxation. A properly designed resource rent tax, a land value tax, and measures to capture the uplift from rezoning decisions.

3. Anti-concentration measures. Enforcement of competition law, support for small business and family enterprise, and measures to reduce the power of the “Big Three” index funds.

4. Rebuilding the public service. Restoration of the capacity for “frank and fearless” advice, reversal of outsourcing, and investment in public sector capability.

5. Truth and reconciliation processes. Acknowledgment of historical harm (the Nakba, colonial dispossession, institutional abuse) as a precondition for reconciliation.

6. Protection of civil society. Legal protections for advocacy, journalism, and dissent. Resistance to the “industry of silence”.

7. International accountability. Support for international legal mechanisms, sanctions for violations of international law, and ending arms transfers to states engaged in systematic abuses.

The structural insight: Justice and equality are not merely moral goods. They are structural stabilisers. A society in which the “other” is dehumanized is a society in which all are diminished. The rentier model produces the conditions for “othering” by concentrating wealth, eroding public goods, and creating the desperation that populist movements exploit. Addressing the rentier model is not charity. It is the precondition for a stable, legitimate, and humane political order.

Claim Status Summary

# -Claim- Status

1 -Israel’s neoliberal transformation was a state-led project- Established

2- The 1985 Stabilization Plan was shaped by export promotion and national security -Established

3 -Israel’s transition was coupled with hawkish foreign policy -Established

4- Israel has a dual economy with high poverty- Established

5 -Australia’s corporate share of national income increased 7.5% (2019-2024) -Established

6- Family business share dropped 20% -Established

7- Defence-tech VC in Israel is expanding rapidly- Established

8 -Kushner’s Affinity Partners is largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial -Established

9- Phoenix supplies military equipment to Israel -Established

10 -Board of Peace integrates private finance into governance- Established

11- Racialization underpins the Nakba- Established

12- Neoliberal restructuring creates conditions for right-wing populism- Inference

13- The drift to the right is parallel, not consequent- Inference

14- Israel’s model presents a warning to Australia- Inference

References

1. Krampf, A. (2018). The Israeli Path to Neoliberalism: The State, Continuity and Change. Routledge.

2. The Stabilization Plan. (2018). In A. Krampf, The Israeli Path to Neoliberalism. Taylor & Francis.

3. Protego Ventures closes debut $125 million fund for Israeli defense tech. (2026, September 28). TechCrunch.

4. Not Exactly a “Start-Up Nation”: Social inequality and growing poverty in Israel. (2026, June 15). Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.

5. Kushner’s Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ role under fire over investment firm’s stake in Israel’s war machine. (2026, September 30). PressTV.

6. Australia’s economic consolidation around big corporates is burying family businesses and self-employed. (2025, September 18). Institute of Public Affairs.

7. In the dynamics of Occupation, the indigenous Palestinian population is subject both to management and gradual elimination. (n.d.). Taylor & Francis.

8. Speech on Defence Contractors. (2026, September 13). Elizabeth Watson-Brown MP.

9. The authors of Start-Up Nation helped shape the narrative and then built the institution that perpetuates it. (2026, February). Transnational Institute.

10. Legislative Council Hansard. (2026, June 18). Parliament of NSW.

11. Dark Sides of the Startup Nation: Winners and Losers of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Israel. (2023). Routledge.

12. Board of Peace will be a bonanza for wealthy board members. (2026, February 19). Responsible Statecraft.

13. The Industry of Silence: The Ongoing Nakba and the Racialization of Palestinians. (2026). Wiley Online Library.

14. Defence Procurement. (2026, September 14). OpenAustralia.org.

15. Australian Parliament House. (n.d.). Shareholding concentration analysis.

16. Israel construye las bases de un sistema soberano de IA. (2026, January 31). JNS.org.

17. Proportional Representation Empowers the Extreme and the Bizarre. (2016). The Tyee.

Andrew Paul Klein is a writer and analyst based in Boronia, Victoria. He accepts funding from no one.

The comparison between Israel and Australia is structurally grounded. The rentier actors are identified. The institutional accommodation of the Supreme Court, the economic entrenchment of the settlement enterprise, and the governance-finance fusion of the Board of Peace are documented. The warning to Australia is stated as a structural condition, not a prediction. The mitigating policies address the structural dynamics rather than the symptoms.

The Clash of Civilizations- A Propaganda Tool, Not a Theory

Posted on September 24, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Mixed-media world map with red wires and jagged dark shapes — A dramatic mixed-media world map depicts global connections beneath jagged, storm-like forms.

By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Reader’s note: We do not need readers to agree with us. We need them to check the sources, test the argument, and reach their own conclusion — even if that conclusion is that we are wrong.

Abstract

This paper argues that the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, popularised by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, is not a neutral analytical framework but a political instrument. It was forged in the post-Cold War era to provide a new enemy for Western strategic doctrine and has been deployed by leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu to reframe geopolitical and material conflicts as existential struggles between “civilization” and “barbarism.” The paper examines the thesis’s origins, its political usage, the historically hierarchical and racialised concept of “civilization” upon which it depends, and the empirical evidence that refutes it. It argues that the thesis functions as a propaganda tool that dehumanises the “other,” legitimises imperial violence, and obscures the real, material drivers of conflict—resource competition, imperial ambition, and economic inequality. It connects the thesis to the parallel myth of “Eurabia” and to the broader project of neoliberal wealth transfer, arguing that the clash narrative serves as a massive distraction from the causes of increased poverty and inequality in the West. It concludes that the “Clash of Civilizations” belongs to the colonial period and is the language of a political caste in crisis, seeking to justify the unjustifiable and to shift blame onto the other—the person of colour, the Muslim, the different—for the failures of its own system.

I. Introduction: The Thesis and Its Function

The “Clash of Civilizations” is not a description of the world. It is a rhetorical weapon.

Its function is to dehumanise the “other” by labelling them “barbarians.” It is to legitimise imperial violence and perpetual war by framing them as a defence of “civilization.” It is to obscure the real, material causes of conflict—resources, power, and profit.

When Benjamin Netanyahu invokes “Judeo-Christian civilization” against “barbarism,” he is not analysing geopolitics. He is using a historically loaded, pseudo-scientific framework to grant moral cover to the exercise of raw power and the destruction of a people. The clash is not between civilizations; it is between those who use this language to justify harm and those who recognise it for what it is.

This paper examines the thesis, its history, its usage, and its function. It argues that the “Clash of Civilizations” belongs to the colonial period of the world—a period that did not come to an end for most of the world until after World War II. It is the language of crisis in the face of a changing world. It is the language of “inherent superiority” in the face of contradictory evidence. It is the language of denial and blame shifting—the political equivalent of a fairy tale told to justify the worst excesses of the political caste against their own people, with the blame shifted to the other: the person of colour, the Muslim, the different.

II. The History: From Bernard Lewis to Samuel Huntington

The phrase “clash of civilizations” was popularised by the British-American Orientalist Bernard Lewis in an article for The Atlantic Monthly published in September 1990, titled “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” Lewis argued that Islamic militancy was reinvigorating an “ancient rivalry” between Islam and the “Judeo-Christian heritage” of the “West.” The article was written as a preparation to decide a “new enemy” of the West after the Cold War.

Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington took up the concept and theorised it in two separate publications: first, in an article for Foreign Affairs in 1993, and second, in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington argued that “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.”

Crucially, the thesis emerged as a direct counter to Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” argument, which posited that liberal democracy would become the universal and final form of government. Huntington’s framework rejected this universalism, arguing instead that the world was fundamentally divided into distinct, incompatible cultural blocs—primarily the West, Islam, and Confucian civilization.

This was not a neutral scholarly observation. It was a strategic intervention. As the Oxford Bibliographies entry notes, Lewis and Huntington “wrote within the context of the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. They were addressing these changes in world politics and they argued against euphoric proclamations of an impending ‘end of history’.”

III. The Political Usage: Netanyahu and the “Clash of Barbarism”

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked and adapted this framework, most notably in a 2024 address to the U.S. Congress where he stated: “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”

His usage reveals a deliberate rhetorical strategy.

Beyond a “Clash of Civilizations“: By rejecting the Huntingtonian framing of two equal-but-different civilizations, Netanyahu escalates the dichotomy to a moral absolute: the “civilized” versus the “barbaric.” There is no room for negotiation with “barbarism,” only defeat.

The “Judeo-Christian” Shield: In January 2026, he told a delegation of European parliamentarians: “The Western Judeo-Christian civilization is under attack. This is an effort carried out not by radical Islam alone, but in collaboration with forces which you know well: the deep radical left and the Islamists, who in theory should be rivals, but are united by one thing – the hatred of Israel and the Jews.”

Expanding the Enemy: He broadens the coalition against Israel to include not just “radical Islam” but also the “deep radical left,” whom he accuses of uniting with Islamists due to a shared “hatred of Israel and the Jews.”

Legitimising Genocide: Critics argue that this rhetoric is a “ploy to legitimise genocidal murder.” As the Irish Times noted, “By dehumanising the enemy as ‘monsters’ and ‘barbarians,’ it provides a moral cover for the mass killing of civilians in Gaza, framing it as a necessary act in a cosmic struggle for survival.”

IV. What is “Civilization”? A Contested and Hierarchical Standard

The concept of “civilization” itself is deeply problematic and historically intertwined with colonialism and racial hierarchy.

The Etymological Root: The word derives from the Latin civitas (city), and its most literal definition is “a society made up of cities.” It was first used as a category of social organisation in France in the mid-eighteenth century.

The “Standard of Civilization“: This is the crucial historical context. In the 19th century, international law developed a “standard of civilization” used to distinguish “civilized” nations (Europe and its settler colonies) from “uncivilized” or “barbaric” peoples. As noted by Cambridge Core, “the European Family of Nations introduced the criterion of ‘civilisation,’ which excluded non-European entities as sovereigns and legitimised their colonisation.” International law “not only facilitated the colonisation of non-European societies as part of the ‘civilising mission’ but also justified atrocities associated with the process.”

The Inherent Hierarchy: The very act of categorising societies as “civilizations” (plural) created a framework where some were “civilized” and others were not. As one analysis notes, “the word is ‘problematic because of the way the label has been used to set up harmful oppositions among world societies, with ‘civilized’ societies being seen as superior to ‘non-civilized’ societies’.”

A Tool of “Self-Definition“: The concept of “barbarism” functions as the “negative standard” through which “civilization” defines its own superiority. Stuart Hall saw “the West” as an ideological construct based on a racialised discursive hierarchy where “the West” = developed = good = desirable, while “the non-West” = under-developed = bad = undesirable.

V. The Nazi Precedent: Untermenschen and the Language of Extermination

The use of such language is not new. The Nazi regime in Germany referred to Untermenschen—a term for Jews, Eastern European, and Russian people (Slavs). The Oxford English Dictionary defines Untermensch as “esp. with reference to the Nazi régime (1933–45): a racially inferior person, a sub-human person.” In Nazi ideology, Jews were considered “the lowest race, to be indiscriminately exterminated,” while Slavs were also classified as Untermenschen—”sub-humans.”

The “us vs them” rhetoric applied together with eugenics and racial purity. One could argue that this worldview led to the Holocaust and the killing of millions.

What is the difference to what is being done to the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank and the occupied territories? The language of the “Clash of Civilizations” might well belong to the colonial period of the world, which did not come to an end for most of the world until after World War II. It is the language of crisis in the face of a changing world. The language of “inherent superiority” in the face of contradictory evidence. It is the language of denial and blame shifting—the political equivalent of a fairy tale told to justify the worst excesses by the political castes against their own people, with the blame shifted to the other.

VI. The Empirical Refutation: What Is Actually Clashing?

The evidence overwhelmingly refutes the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis as a primary driver of global conflict.

Empirical Refutation: A quantitative analysis by Jonathan Fox, published in the British Journal of Political Science, used the Minorities at Risk dataset to test Huntington’s propositions. The analysis revealed several problems with Huntington’s argument. First, “Huntington’s classification of civilizations is difficult to operationalize.” Secondly, “civilizational conflicts constitute a minority of ethnic conflicts.” Thirdly, conflicts between the West and both the Sinic/Confucian and Islamic civilizations “constitute a small minority of civilizational conflicts.” Finally, “there is no statistically significant evidence that the intensity of civilizational ethnic conflicts have risen relative to other types of ethnic conflicts since the end of the Cold War.”

An “Ignorance” not a Clash: Edward Said, one of the thesis’s most prominent critics, argued that it was a “Clash of Ignorance.” He saw it as a “gimmick” that collapsed “complex, diverse and contradictory groups of people into vast, simplistic abstractions” with “disastrous consequences.” Said argued that “these are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis.”

The Real Drivers of Conflict: The framework serves to obscure the actual drivers of conflict, which are often material and geopolitical. These include:

· Resource Competition: Control over oil, water, and strategic trade routes.

· Imperial Ambition and Geopolitics: The desire for regional hegemony and influence.

· Economic Inequality: Disparities in wealth and development that breed instability.

· The Arms Trade: The profit motives of the global military-industrial complex, which benefits from perpetual conflict.

The Geographic Fallacy: The thesis is also geographically illiterate. It posits a monolithic “Islamic civilization” threatening a unified “West.” In reality, 60% of the world’s Muslims live in Asia, not the Middle East. The “Islamic world” is as fractured by ethnicity, politics, and class as any other region. The “clash” is not between civilizations, but within them, between competing elites, states, and ideologies.

VII. The Economic Distraction: Neoliberalism, Wealth Transfer, and the Manufactured Enemy

The “Clash of Civilizations” narrative does not exist in a vacuum. It goes hand in hand with the economic application of neoliberal free market theory—a system that has produced unprecedented wealth transfer from the majority of the people to a tiny minority.

The Data: In the United States, the richest 1% owned a record 31.9% of US wealth at the end of 2025. The nominal wealth of the top 1% increased by 42.8% in the 2000s, by 103.8% in the 2010s, and by 49.3% during the first half of the 2020s alone. Throughout the neoliberal era, “income gains in rich countries were concentrated at the top of the distribution while real wages for average workers stagnated.”

The Distraction: The clash narrative serves as a massive distraction from the real-world causes of increased poverty and inequality in the West. As one analysis notes, “what we know as the so-called trickle-down effect—that you have to support the big ones, the strong ones, the rich ones, and then their wealth will trickle down to the everyday people—that’s not true anymore. That was the biggest illusion of neoliberalism.”

The “Clash of Civilizations” provides a convenient scapegoat. The economic failures of the neoliberal project—stagnant wages, rising inequality, the hollowing out of the middle class—are blamed not on the system, but on the “other“: the immigrant, the Muslim, the person of colour. The clash narrative and the myth of “Eurabia” are the ideological glue that holds this diversion together.

VIII. The Eurabia Myth: The Conspiracy Theory That Fuels the Clash

The “Clash of Civilizations” thesis is reinforced by a parallel conspiracy theory: Eurabia. The term was coined by the British-Swiss polemicist Bat Ye’or (Gisèle Littman) in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. The thesis posits a secret, coordinated plan between European politicians and the Arab world for the “Islamicisation” of Europe—a “dystopic land in which jihad and sharia rule, and non-Muslims live in a state of subjection.”

As academic analysis has demonstrated, the Eurabia thesis “display[s] strikingly similar discursive dynamics” to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious antisemitic forgery that claimed to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders planning to take over the world. Both texts racialize their target population “as the ultimate Other determined to destroy Us”—a process Zia-Ebrahimi calls conspiratorial racialization.

The consequences of this conspiracy theory have been lethal. Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, embraced the Eurabia theory. Author Matt Carr warned that “what first began as an outlandish conspiracy theory has since become a dangerous Islamophobic fantasy which is moving ever closer towards mainstream respectability.”

IX. The Australian Context: “Australian Values” and the Retreat to White Australia

The “Clash of Civilizations” narrative is not confined to the Middle East or Europe. It has found fertile ground in Australia, where it intersects with the politics of race, immigration, and national identity.

“Australian Values“: The language of “Australian values” is often deployed as a proxy for the clash narrative. As one analysis notes, “Angus Taylor’s call for an immigration policy based on ‘Australian values’ reeks of ethno-nationalism and harks back to the White Australia policy, which limited non-white immigration.”

The Far Right and Israel: There is a growing alignment between far-right political movements in Australia and support for the State of Israel. As one German-language analysis notes, for these far-right parties, “the zealous commitment to the State of Israel is standard“—and some have “positively referenced the White Australia policy, which discriminated against non-white immigration until the 1970s, agitated against Asians, and did not recognise Indigenous people as citizens.”

The Contradiction: The Menadue analysis captures the contradiction precisely: “Even as Australia recognises Palestine, it continues to sell arms to Israel—a stark contradiction that exposes the limits of political courage.”

The clash narrative serves a specific function in Australia: it provides a framework for justifying the demonisation of Muslim and migrant communities, the retreat to a mythologised “white Australia,” and the continued alignment with a state engaged in genocide. It is the language of a political caste in crisis, seeking to shift blame onto the other for the failures of its own system.

X. Conclusion: The Language of a Caste in Crisis

The “Clash of Civilizations” is not a valid description of the world. It is a rhetorical weapon.

Its function is to:

1. Dehumanise the “other” by labelling them “barbarians.“

2. Legitimise imperial violence and perpetual war by framing them as a defence of “civilization.”

3. Obscure the real, material causes of conflict—resources, power, and profit.

When Netanyahu invokes “Judeo-Christian civilization” against “barbarism,” he is not analysing geopolitics. He is using a historically loaded, pseudo-scientific framework to grant moral cover to the exercise of raw power and the destruction of a people. The clash is not between civilizations; it is between those who use this language to justify harm and those who recognise it for what it is.

The “Clash of Civilizations” belongs to the colonial period of the world—a period that did not come to an end for most of the world until after World War II. It is the language of crisis in the face of a changing world. It is the language of “inherent superiority” in the face of contradictory evidence. It is the language of denial and blame shifting—the political equivalent of a fairy tale told to justify the worst excesses by the political castes against their own people, with the blame shifted to the other: the person of colour, the Muslim, the different.

In a multipolar world, the clash of civilizations has had its day. Politicians like Netanyahu are well on the way to becoming not just irrelevant to the future but a very real threat to today.

Who does it serve? Not the people of the world. Not the future generations of Israel or Australia. It serves the caste—the political, economic, and military elites who benefit from perpetual conflict and the diversion of attention from their own failures. It is the most dangerous marketing tool of control used by the political caste in the Western world.

And Australia is not above its application.

References

1. Adib-Moghaddam, A. (2013). Clash of Civilizations. Oxford Bibliographies. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0177.xml

2. Lewis, B. (1990, September). The Roots of Muslim Rage. The Atlantic Monthly.

3. Huntington, S. P. (1993). The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22–49.

4. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster.

5. Fox, J. (2002). Ethnic Minorities and the Clash of Civilizations: A Quantitative Analysis of Huntington’s Thesis. British Journal of Political Science, 32(3), 415–434. https://core-cms.prod.aop.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/ethnic-minorities-and-the-clash-of-civilizations-a-quantitative-analysis-of-huntingtons-thesis/85A9699D564116ED2EC38FB0E4385B64

6. Said, E. W. (2001, October 22). The Clash of Ignorance. The Nation. http://public.websites.umich.edu/~phlconnect/admin/uploads/add217938e07bb1fd8796e0315b88c10/Contested-Terrain.pdf

7. Government of Israel. (2024, July 24). PM Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of the US Congress. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/pm-netanyahu-addresses-a-joint-meeting-of-the-us-congress-24-jul-2024

8. Government of Israel. (2026, January 25). PM Netanyahu and Minister Regev meet with Patriots delegation. https://www.gov.il/en/pages/pm-netanyahu-and-minister-regev-meet-with-patriots-delegation-25-jan-2025

9. Zia-Ebrahimi, R. (2018). When the Elders of Zion relocated to Eurabia: conspiratorial racialization in antisemitism and Islamophobia. Patterns of Prejudice, 52(4), 314–337. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.2018.1493876

10. Institute of Race Relations. (2011, July 28). Breivik and Eurabia. https://irr.org.uk

11. Bowden, B. (2004). The colonial origins of international law, European expansion and the classical standard of civilization. Journal of the History of International Law, 6(2), 1–24. https://international-review.icrc.org

12. Cambridge Core. (2018). Misrecognition in legal practice: the aporia of the Family of Nations. Review of International Studies. https://core-prod.cambridgecore.org

13. Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Untermensch. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/untermensch_n

14. Holocaust Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Nazi Racial Policy: The Growing Persecution of Jewish People. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org

15. Il Fatto Quotidiano. (2026, January 20). Decenni di neoliberalismo hanno prodotto disuguaglianze senza precedenti. https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it

16. New Left Review. (2026, April 30). Beyond Neoliberalism? https://newleftreview.org

17. Palestine Australia. (2025, July 14). Statement – Australian Special Envoy’s Proposed Plan to Combat Antisemitism. https://www.palestine-australia.com

18. Socialist Alliance. (2026, April 22). Angus Taylor’s ‘Australian values’ immigration policy is a racist dog whistle. https://socialist-alliance.org

19. Jungewelt. (2026, July 28). Rechtsaußen in Down Under: Mit reichen Freunden. https://www.jungewelt.de

20. John Menadue. (2025, October 2). Palestine, hate and the fantasy of White Australia. https://johnmenadue.com

21. Irish Times. (2025, May 30). Netanyahu’s claim that Israel is fighting ‘barbarians’ is a ploy to legitimise genocidal murder. https://staging.irishtimes.com

22. Daily Times. (2026, August 15). Israel, the Clash of Civilizations, and the Case for a Muslim Nuclear Security Framework. https://dailytimes.com.pk

23. CGTN. (n.d.). ‘Clash of civilizations’ theory is a tool to stir clashes. https://news.cgtn.com

24. Bottici, C., & Challand, B. (2013). The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com

This paper deconstructs the “Clash of Civilizations” thesis step by step, using verifiable sources to demonstrate its origins, its political usage by Netanyahu, its historical roots in colonial hierarchy, its empirical refutation, and its connection to the economic project of neoliberalism and the myth of Eurabia. The paper concludes that the thesis is not a theory but a weapon—a marketing tool of control used by a political caste in crisis.

“Deeply Concerned”-The Secular Liturgy of Indifference

Posted on September 23, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Script reads “Dial Robot Relax Peace” above a floating mechanical robot and campsite — A whimsical steampunk robot floats above a quiet camp beneath the words “Dial Robot Relax Peace.”

By Andrew Klein

I. Introduction: The Phrase and the Test

There is a phrase that has become the dominant mode of political speech in the face of atrocity. It is not a policy. It is not an action. It is a feeling, expressed for the record, calibrated for the evening news.

“Deeply concerned.”

The phrase is ubiquitous. It is offered in press conferences, in statements to Parliament, in carefully worded media releases. It conveys gravity without commitment. It performs care without consequence. It is, as one observer recently noted, the secular equivalent of “thoughts and prayers” — both birthed for the media at a time of crisis, both highlighting the unwillingness to address the causes, both choreographed to present the image of care while hiding the indifference at work.

But the parallel is not equivalence. It is inversion.

“Thoughts and prayers” is usually the speech of the powerless — the backbencher, the bystander, the person who genuinely cannot act. “Deeply concerned” is the speech of the powerful pretending to be powerless. Penny Wong has levers. She can suspend arms export permits. She can impose trade sanctions. She can recall the ambassador. She can intervene at the ICJ. She can do any of the things a foreign minister of a middle power is actually capable of doing. She chooses not to.

So the parallel isn’t equivalence — it’s inversion. “Thoughts and prayers” is the excuse of someone who can’t. “Deeply concerned” is the excuse of someone who won’t. The first is often sincere and useless. The second is a decision dressed as a feeling.

The way to tell the difference between genuine concern and performance is to look at what happens to the levers. Genuine concern moves them. Performance leaves them where they are. The words say concern. The levers say indifference. When the words and the levers disagree, the levers are the truth.

This essay applies that test to the record of Australia’s Foreign Minister, Senator Penny Wong, in relation to Gaza. It examines her utterances, the actions taken, and the gap between them. It asks a single question: when the words and the levers disagree, which one is the truth?

II. The Words

Penny Wong has expressed deep concern about Gaza on numerous occasions. The language is consistent, and its consistency is the point.

In September 2025, speaking at a Call to Action for Palestinian children, she said: “I think we all understand that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has gone beyond the world’s worst fears. We know the numbers and we know that those numbers are unfathomable, unfathomable and we know they are unacceptable. … Every child deserves to be safe – whether in Gaza or in Sydney. Every child deserves access to food or shelter, healthcare, and education. And every child deserves their inherent dignity and rights protected.”

In July 2025, she said Australians were “distressed by the images of children starving as a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza worsens,” adding: “We all are distressed by the ongoing violence, the deaths of so many innocent civilians, the images of children starving, the humanitarian catastrophe that is worsening before our eyes, and we all want it to stop.”

In June 2026, responding to a UN report that Israel had “consistently, directly and intentionally targeted individual children across Gaza,” she said: “No child should be targeted. We condemn, Australia condemns, the targeting of children.”

These are not the words of a person who does not care. They are the words of a person who has learned that the expression of care can be a substitute for its enactment. The more often the phrase is repeated, the more it functions as a ritual — a liturgical form that satisfies the requirement to respond without requiring the response to do anything.

III. The Levers

The test of genuine concern is not what is said. It is what is done. And what has been done — or rather, what has been left undone — tells a different story.

3.1 The UN Ceasefire Vote

On 27 October 2023, the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza. One hundred and twenty countries voted in favour. Fourteen voted against. Forty-five abstained. Australia was among the abstainers, alongside Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

The abstention was not an accident. It was a choice. The government’s explanation at the time was that the resolution lacked a condemnation of Hamas. But the resolution’s purpose was not to adjudicate the conflict. It was to stop the killing. Australia chose not to be part of that call.

By December 2024, the government’s position had shifted. Australia voted in favour of a resolution demanding an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza — the strongest language the country had supported to date. This was a welcome change. But it came more than a year after the killing began. The concern had been expressed throughout. The lever was only moved when the political cost of leaving it untouched became too high.

3.2 The ICJ and the Genocide Case

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice issued interim orders in the case of South Africa v. Israel, finding that it was “plausible” that Israel’s actions in Gaza could constitute genocide.

Australia’s response was to welcome the ruling. But Australia declined to intervene in the case. The government stated: “Australia is not a party to the matter that South Africa has brought to the International Court of Justice. Indeed, the ICJ has not invited interventions from other states.” Prime Minister Albanese said Australia would “not participate in the ICJ case against Israel and instead focus on ‘political solution’.”

When the ICJ issued a subsequent advisory opinion in July 2024, finding that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was unlawful and that all states, including Australia, are “under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence,” Australia abstained on the UN General Assembly resolution giving effect to that opinion.

The Court’s finding was specific. Australia has rendered such aid. It continues to render such aid.

3.3 The Arms Trade

The most concrete lever available to a foreign minister is the arms trade. And it is here that the gap between words and actions is widest.

The government’s public position is that Australia does not export weapons or military parts to Israel. Labor ministers have “repeatedly insisted” that Australia manufactures only “non-lethal” F-35 components.

The evidence contradicts this claim. Leaked shipping records show at least 68 shipments of F-35 components flown from Australia to Israel between October 2023 and September 2025. One shipment included a gasket for the F-35’s four-barrel 25mm GAU-22/A cannon — a component for a weapon that fires 3,300 rounds per minute, which has been used “to devastating effect in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran — certainly a very lethal weapon”.

The government’s defence is that the parts are US-owned and that Lockheed Martin manages their allocation. This may be legally accurate. But it is not a defence. Australia is not a passive participant in a supply chain it does not control. It is a partner nation in that supply chain, with the sovereign capacity to withdraw from it or to impose conditions on its participation.

The government has not done so. It has continued to allow Australian facilities to be used as a transit point for components destined for a military that is using them in Gaza.

The ICJ’s advisory opinion stated that all states are obliged not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the illegal situation. The F-35 components are aid and assistance.

3.4 The Zomi Frankcom Case

In April 2024, Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom was killed by an Israeli airstrike on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza. In August 2026, the IDF announced that it would not pursue criminal proceedings against the personnel involved.

Foreign Minister Wong said Australia was “outraged“. She said the decision “falls far short of the accountability we expect”. She summoned Israel’s ambassador and directed Australia’s ambassador to Israel to convey the government’s views.

This was the strongest language the government had used. But what followed? The government “will continue pressing Israel for justice“. Israel’s ambassador suggested reparations might be available. The government announced a humanitarian award in Frankcom’s honour.

No diplomats were expelled. The ambassador was not recalled. Military trade was not suspended. The F-35 pipeline continued. The “outrage” produced a summons, an award, and a promise to keep pressing. It did not produce a consequence.

3.5 The Sanctions Regime

In September 2026, the UK, France, and Canada announced they would ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements and impose new arms licence bans. Australia was invited to join. It declined.

Foreign Minister Wong said Australia was “not currently pushing for a broad ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements” and had “concerns about the implementation of a blanket ban and unintended consequences for Australian businesses“.

Instead, Australia would pursue “targeted measures” — Magnitsky-style sanctions on specific individuals and entities involved in settler violence. These sanctions are real. They are also narrow. They target the symptom — settler violence — not the structure — the settlement enterprise itself. They do not touch the trade that funds the settlements. They do not touch the F-35 pipeline. They do not impose a cost on the Israeli government that would make it reconsider its conduct.

The government has “concerns about the implementation of a blanket ban“. It does not have concerns about the implementation of an occupation that the ICJ has found to be unlawful. It has concerns about the consequences for Australian businesses. It does not have concerns about the consequences for Palestinian children.

IV. The Test Applied

Lever – Words- Action

Ceasefire call at UN– Deeply concerned Abstained on October 2023 resolution; voted in favour only in December 2024

ICJ intervention– Welcomes ruling Declined to intervene; abstained on UNGA resolution implementing advisory opinion

Arms exports -“Non-lethal components” – 68+ shipments of F-35 parts including cannon gaskets

Zomi Frankcom– “Outraged” Summons, award, promise to “keep pressing”

Settlement trade ban– “Concerns about implementation” Declined to join UK, France, Canada

UNRWA funding -“Life-saving work” Continued at $20 million annually

The table tells the story. The words are consistent — the expressions of concern, distress, and outrage are offered at every stage. The levers are mostly untouched. The one lever that has been consistently maintained — UNRWA funding — is a humanitarian measure, not a political consequence. It alleviates suffering without imposing a cost on the perpetrator.

The government’s pattern is clear. It expresses concern. It offers humanitarian aid. It does not impose consequences. It funds the relief of the suffering without addressing the cause of the suffering. It is the international equivalent of sending thoughts and prayers.

V. The Function of the Words

Why does the government do this? The answer is not that it does not care. It is that the expression of care serves a function that the enactment of care would not.

The function of “deeply concerned” is to satisfy the domestic audience. It signals to Australian voters — particularly those who are distressed by what is happening in Gaza — that the government shares their distress. It produces a headline that says the government cares. It allows the government to be seen to be responding without having to bear the cost of responding.

The function of the levers is to protect the relationship with the United States and with Israel. Moving the levers — suspending arms exports, imposing trade sanctions, intervening at the ICJ — would impose real costs on that relationship. The government has decided that those costs are too high.

So, it does both. It expresses concern for the domestic audience. It leaves the levers untouched for the strategic relationship. The words are for one audience. The actions are for another. The gap between them is the space in which the government operates.

This is not unique to Australia. It is the standard operating procedure of liberal democracies that are materially complicit in the actions they profess to deplore. The UK does it. Canada does it. Germany does it. The pattern is consistent because the incentives are consistent. The domestic audience wants to hear that their government cares. The strategic relationship requires that the government not act on that care. The gap is managed by language.

VI. The Cost of the Gap

The cost of the gap is borne by the people whose suffering the words describe.

When a foreign minister says she is “deeply concerned” about children in Gaza while her government continues to facilitate the shipment of F-35 components to the military that is killing those children, the words do not merely fail to help. They harm. They create the impression that something is being done. They pacify the domestic audience that might otherwise demand action. They allow the government to claim the moral high ground of concern while occupying the strategic low ground of complicity.

The children of Gaza do not need Australia’s concern. They need Australia’s action. They need the F-35 pipeline shut down. They need the ambassador recalled. They need the trade sanctions imposed. They need the ICJ intervention filed. They need the levers moved.

The words are not a substitute for the levers. They are an alibi for leaving the levers untouched.

VII. Conclusion: The Liturgy and the Levers

“Deeply concerned” is not a policy. It is a liturgy. It is a ritual performed for the media, for the domestic audience, for the record. It satisfies the requirement to respond. It does not satisfy the requirement to act.

The test is not what is said. The test is what is done. And when the words and the levers disagree, the levers are the truth.

The Australian government has expressed deep concern about Gaza on dozens of occasions. It has moved the levers almost not at all. It has continued the arms trade. It has declined the sanctions. It has abstained on the votes. It has not intervened in the case. It has expressed outrage and offered awards.

The pattern is consistent. It is the pattern of a government that has decided to be seen to care without bearing the cost of caring. It is the pattern of “thoughts and prayers” — but worse, because the person saying the words has the power to act.

Penny Wong has the levers. She chooses not to move them. The words say concern. The levers say indifference.

When the words and the levers disagree, the levers are the truth.

VIII. References

1. ABC News. (2023, October 29). ‘Seeking political advantage out of this terrible conflict’: Australian government hits back at UN vote criticism. https://www.abc.net.au

2. ABC News. (2024, December 11). Australia votes for ‘immediate, unconditional and permanent’ Gaza ceasefire at United Nations. https://newsapp.abc.net.au

3. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2025, September 25). Speech to the Call to Action for Palestinian children. https://www.foreignminister.gov.au

4. ABC News. (2025, October 9). Defence officials grilled over report F-35 fighter jet parts sent from NSW to Israel. https://www.abc.net.au

5. Declassified Australia. (2026, August 13). SHADOW FLIGHTS: LEAKS REVEAL NEW U.S. ROUTE OF F-35 JET PARTS TO ISRAEL. https://declassifiedaus.org

6. Consortium News. (2026, July 7). Secret Cargo: Inside Australia’s Covert F-35 Parts Pipeline to Israel. https://consortiumnews.com

7. The Guardian. (2024, January 15). Albanese says Australia will not participate in ICJ case against Israel. https://www.theguardian.com

8. Parliament of Australia. (2024, February 6). Matters of Urgency. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au

9. ABC News. (2024, January 27). Human rights groups say Australian government must act after ICJ ruling on allegation against Israel. https://newsapp.abc.net.au

10. Australian Government. (2024). ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. https://www.aph.gov.au

11. ABC News. (2026, August 19). Federal politics live: Wong ‘outraged’ after IDF soldiers cleared over Zomi Frankcom killing. https://newsapp.abc.net.au

12. ABC News. (2026, August 20). Israeli ambassador refutes ‘political’ attacks on IDF investigation clearing soldiers of Frankcom killing. https://newsapp.abc.net.au

13. The Guardian. (2026, September 10). Husic urges ‘concrete action’ on Israeli settlements in West Bank after Australia declines to join trade ban. https://www.theguardian.com

14. ABC News. (2026, September 18). Sources say Australia withdrew from West Bank sanctions talks ahead of statement. https://newsapp.abc.net.au

15. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Australia’s development partnership in Palestine. https://www.dfat.gov.au

16. Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations. (2025). Statement on UNRWA funding. https://unny.mission.gov.au

17. Middle East Eye. (2025, May 21). Australia urges Israel to end suffering as babies in Gaza face starvation. https://www.middleeasteye.net

18. Canberra Times. (2025, July 25). ‘Children starving’: Israel condemned over aid denial. https://www.canberratimes.com.au

Verification note: Every factual claim in this essay can be checked against the sources provided. Readers are encouraged to verify independently. If any claim does not hold, it should be discarded.

The Commodification of Violence: Rafael, the Spike FireFly, and the Marketing of Gaza as a Laboratory

Posted on September 22, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Compact drone beside restricted procurement documents and electronic components — A compact drone and electronic components sit beside restricted procurement documents in a technical workspace.

By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Reader’s note: We do not need readers to agree with us. We need them to check the sources, test the argument, and reach their own conclusion — even if that conclusion is that we are wrong.

Abstract

This paper examines the use of real footage of a lethal drone strike on an unarmed Palestinian civilian in Gaza as a promotional tool by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli state-owned weapons manufacturer. On 7 July 2025, Rafael posted a 15-second video on its official social media accounts titled “Spike Firefly in urban warfare,” showing its Spike FireFly loitering munition tracking and killing a lone figure in northern Gaza. The paper analyses what the video demonstrates, the response it generated, and the structural logic it exemplifies: the application of the extraction model — in which everything, including human life, becomes a commodity — to the marketing of violence itself. It examines the “battle-tested” marketing model in the context of Anthony Loewenstein’s documentation of Gaza as a testing laboratory for Israeli weapons, and compares this with the development of Ukraine’s drone industry, where a state claiming to fight an existential war has simultaneously built an export-oriented arms sector. The paper concludes that the distinction between a “captive population” laboratory and an “open” battlefield is one of venue, not of logic — and that the commodification of violence is a system that recognises no boundaries.

I. Introduction: A Video and Its Meaning

On 7 July 2025, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems posted a promotional video on its official X account. The post was titled “Spike Firefly in urban warfare” and was accompanied by “dramatic, military-style music“. The video is approximately 15 seconds long. It shows a miniature kamikaze drone hovering over a rubble-strewn neighbourhood in Gaza, identifying a lone figure walking down the street, and then targeting them.

According to the on-screen titles, the drone “identifies the target,” “tracks it,” and “neutralises the threat“. The video shows the Firefly silently hovering before diving after the person, who sees the drone and runs for cover. There is then an explosion. The person does not appear to be armed. They are walking along the road alone and do not appear to be posing a threat to anyone.

Open-source analyst Anno Nemo geolocated the footage to the al-Tawam area of northern Gaza. Reports indicate the video was filmed in late 2024 and shows a young man who was searching for food before being killed. The post was accompanied by “dramatic, military-style music“.

This paper examines that video — and the logic it exemplifies — as a case study in the commodification of violence.

II. The Weapon: Spike FireFly

The Spike FireFly is a miniature tactical loitering weapon developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The weapon system has been updated and redesignated as the L-Spike 1x, with an increased range from 1.5 km to 5 km.

According to a company factsheet, the L-Spike 1x weighs 2.2 kg and can loiter with a warhead for 15 minutes or in a reconnaissance role for 30 minutes. It measures 80×80 mm in length and width, and is 400 mm tall. The control unit weighs 2 kg; the vehicle can manoeuvre at 60 km/h and dive for attack at 70 km/h, and it carries a blast fragmentation warhead.

Earlier specifications describe the Spike FireFly as weighing 3 kg, with the full system weighing approximately 15 kg. It is powered by coaxial counter-rotating two-blade propellers that fold away for storage. It can be armed with either a 350-gram fragmentation warhead or a shaped charge warhead, depending on mission requirements, and offers a flight endurance of 15 to 30 minutes.

The system was designed for use by ground forces in dense urban areas where “situational awareness is limited; the enemy is fighting from behind cover and the effectiveness of fire support elements is reduced by the close proximity of non-combatants”. It is designed to be controlled in real time by a single soldier.

The critical observation is this: none of those conditions appear to apply to the video posted by Rafael. The person targeted was alone, unarmed, and walking down a street. The “close proximity of non-combatants” — the condition that supposedly justifies the weapon’s use — was not present. The video shows a man being killed, not a combat engagement.

III. The Response and the Fallout

The video triggered immediate and widespread condemnation.

Public Outrage: Social media users and activists denounced the ad as “military marketing soaked in blood” and a “grotesque war crime turned commercial”. An Indian government adviser, who asked for anonymity to comment on a sensitive matter, described the Firefly’s targeting of the man in the Gaza video as a “war crime“.

Video Removal: Rafael subsequently deleted the video from its social media platforms after the backlash, but not before it had been downloaded and widely shared.

EU Funding Scrutiny: The European Commission referred the matter to an independent ethics advisor for its Horizon Europe research program. Rafael had received €442,750 in EU funding in 2023 for a project on “underwater security” with purely civil applications. The Commission warned that if evidence of non-compliance with EU values and legal obligations arose, it could recover the awarded funding. Five Italian MEPs and a group of European academics also wrote to the Commission demanding Rafael’s exclusion from future EU-funded research.

Australian Parliamentary Response: The NSW Parliament acknowledged an internal review was being undertaken, with references to “Elbit Systems, who manufacture drones used to massacre innocent civilians in Gaza and who manufactured the drone that murdered Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom” and “Rafael, an Israeli defence technology company”.

Australian Greens Response: Senator David Shoebridge, Australian Greens spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, stated: “I have seen firsthand what goes on at these places, companies like Rafael showing snuff films from Gaza as a way to sell their weapons”.

Deeper Scrutiny: The academic database Informit published an article titled “‘Snuff videos as a sales pitch‘ Rafael boasts of human testing in Gaza death camps,” describing the video as showing “a Spike Firefly loitering munition drone as it hovers above a man walking alone through the rubble of a heavily bombed area”.

IV. The “Battle-Tested” Marketing Model

The Rafael video is not an isolated incident. It is an example of what can be called the “battle-tested” marketing model, where weapons manufacturers use footage of real-world killings to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of their products.

Anthony Loewenstein’s book The Palestine Laboratory documents how Israel uses its occupation of Palestine to test and develop military hardware for sale on the global market. Loewenstein’s core thesis is that Israel has turned the occupation of Palestine into a live laboratory, using the occupied Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world.

A professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem stated that “Palestinian spaces are laboratories for the Israeli security industry, [they] are using them as showcases”. Weapons are tested on humans in Gaza, and Israel confiscates Palestinian bodies to study what new weapons are doing, so manufacturers can advertise their products as “lab tested”.

A commentary in Il Manifesto argues that the Rafael video was not aimed at professional military buyers — the footage is too rough and the captions too simplistic — but at the general public. The author concludes that it is not an advertisement but an act of intimidation, a message that there is “no escape from those who wield such precise instruments of death”.

This is the logic of the extraction model applied to violence itself. The Palestinian is not a person. They are a test case. The killing is not a tragedy. It is a product demonstration. The video is not evidence of a crime. It is a marketing asset.

V. The Australian Government’s Response

The Australian government’s response to the use of drones in Gaza and the occupied territories reveals the same logic operating at the state level.

5.1 The Elbit Contracts

Australia’s $20 million “iron fist” deal with Elbit Systems — Israel’s largest weapons company — was signed on 1 September 2025, two weeks before a UN commission of inquiry found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. The contract was for “countermeasure munitions” that can be used by the “iron fist” protection system designed by Elbit Systems. It did not go to competitive tender.

The Australian defence department signed the contract with Elbit Systems, which has described itself as the “backbone” of the Israeli Defense Force’s drone fleet, which has been used extensively in the assault on Gaza.

Chris Sidoti, a member of the UN commission of inquiry, said: “Elbit is a key supplier of the Israeli military, a key enabler of the Israel Defense Forces in its commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza over the last two years. No Australian company should be dealing with Elbit and certainly no part of the Australian government should be dealing with Elbit”.

Professor Donald Rothwell, an expert in international law at the Australian National University, said Israeli defence companies like Elbit Systems were “directly implicated in Israel’s alleged acts of genocide in Gaza”. “As such, Australia should not be engaged in any trade that supports that type of activity,” Rothwell said. Rothwell said Australia was bound by the genocide convention to not supply arms to Israel, but may be legally permitted to buy them from an Israeli company. “This one-way arms trade from Israel to Australia does not fall within the ambit of the genocide convention [or] the ICJ’s 2024 provisional measures orders,” Rothwell said. “However, it remains morally questionable given this arms trade supports the Israeli military industrial complex”.

Sidoti said “buying any goods or technology from Elbit finances its research and development of further, more sophisticated means of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide“. “It is a violation of Australia’s international obligations to prevent genocide, to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and not to aid or assist the continuation of Israel’s unlawful activities in any way”.

5.2 The Spike Missile Purchases

The South Australian Parliament heard that “we are literally sending Australian taxpayers’ money to support the very corporations that are benefitting from the genocide in Gaza. We are buying equipment, like SPIKE missiles from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, for example. These are missiles that have been tested on the population of Gaza for decades”.

5.3 The Defence Expo

Israeli weapons companies, including Rafael, were exhibitors at a defence conference in Sydney in 2025. Two government MPs and human rights experts called for Israel’s largest weapons companies to be removed from the event. The Australian member of the UN commission criticised Elbit and Rafael for being “key enablers” of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The participation of four Israeli arms companies in the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition in Melbourne was described as “a clear instance of the Australian Government aiding and abetting the commission of an ongoing war crime in Gaza”.

VI. The Ukraine Comparison: A Change of Venue

The development of Ukraine’s drone industry provides a striking comparison — and raises the question of whether the “meat grinder” of the Ukraine conflict represents a change of venue from the captive population of Gaza to the “open” battlefield of two nations in conflict.

6.1 Ukraine’s Drone Industry

Ukraine now produces approximately 4 million drones annually — more than all NATO countries combined. The US produces roughly 100,000 military drones annually. Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine’s defence industry has exploded from 10 drone producers in 2022 to more than 500 today.

Ukraine has transitioned from a domestic supplier to an exporter. The country plans to open arms export offices in Berlin and Copenhagen. President Zelensky outlined plans to establish export platforms in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Ukraine has signed “drone deals” with six countries in recent months, including three Middle Eastern states, and hopes to sign deals with at least seven NATO countries by the end of 2026.

Ukrainian drone makers “now iterate faster than anyone in the world,” according to experts. “Ukrainian drones are just more capable,” said Konrad Iturbe, a Spanish engineer who helps Ukrainian units modify commercial drones. “They’re made to be repairable in the field, mixed and matched with other drones”. Deputy Prime Minister Fedorov stated: “You are not in the global defence tech market if your product has not been tested in Ukraine“.

6.2 The Incongruity

The incongruity is stark. A state claiming to fight an existential war for its survival is simultaneously building an export-oriented arms industry. The war is not just a defence of territory. It is a product demonstration. The battlefield is not just a place of death. It is a marketing venue.

A RAND analysis notes that Ukraine’s “UAS ecosystem thrives on high domestic demand, but high defence spend is unsustainable and future success depends on export-driven innovation”. The longer-term defence-industrial success will require a transition to export orientation.

The logic is the same as the Rafael video. The difference is the venue. In Gaza, the “testing ground” is a captive population — civilians who cannot leave, who are subjected to weapons testing under conditions of blockade and bombardment. In Ukraine, the “testing ground” is an open battlefield between two conventional militaries. The conditions are different. The logic is identical.

6.3 Israel-Ukraine Business Connections

The business connections between Israel and Ukraine reinforce the pattern. Israel has approved export licenses for anti-drone jamming systems made by Elbit and Rafael that could help Ukraine counter Iranian drones used by Russia. The systems use electronic warfare to jam and down drones. Israeli officials claim the approval is not a shift in policy because the systems are “defensive in nature and do not use any live fire that could kill Russian soldiers”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky to discuss cooperation on drone technology. Israeli company Maris-Tech has initiated commercial activity related to the Ukrainian drone video payload market, with the initial transaction conducted through a third-party Israeli company. Russia has published a “potential target” list of drone suppliers helping Ukraine, including Israeli firms.

The arms trade flows in multiple directions. Israel sells anti-drone systems to Ukraine. Ukraine sells drones to NATO. The same companies that supply the Israeli military — Elbit and Rafael — are now approved to sell to Ukraine. The war in Ukraine becomes a new market for the same weapons.

VII. The Commodification of Violence

The Rafael video is not an anomaly. It is the logical expression of a system in which everything — including human life — is a commodity.

The Palestinian is a test case. The killing is a product demonstration. The video is a marketing asset. The “battle-tested” label is a selling point. The body count is a quality assurance metric.

The Ukrainian is a test case. The battlefield is a laboratory. The drone is a prototype. The war is a product launch. The export deal is the endgame.

The Australian taxpayer is a funder. The $20 million contract with Elbit Systems finances the research and development of “further, more sophisticated means of committing war crimes”.

References

I. The Rafael Video and the Incident

1. Al-Quds. (2025, July 15). Israeli arms company Rafael exploits Gaza killings in marketing campaign. https://www.alquds.com/ar/posts/166517

· Confirms the video was posted on 7 July 2025, titled “Spike Firefly in Urban Warfare,” geolocated to al-Tawam, northern Gaza, and shows an unarmed person walking alone.

2. Middle East Eye. (2025, July 14). Israeli weapons firm Rafael uses Gaza killing in marketing campaign. https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israeli-weapons-firm-rafael-uses-gaza-killing-marketing-campaign

· Confirms the video content, the on-screen titles (“identifies the target,” “tracks it,” “neutralises the threat”), and the open-source geolocation.

3. Business and Human Rights Centre. (2025). Israel/OPT: Rafael releases promotional video showing drone system tracking & killing Gazan during ongoing genocide. https://www.business-humanrights.org

· Documents the video as part of a pattern of weapons marketing.

4. L’Orient-Le Jour. (2025, July 15). Israeli arms ad highlights Gaza killing. https://today.lorientlejour.com

· Describes the 15-second video, the on-screen titles, and the pursuit and explosion sequence.

5. Safa News. (2025, July 20). Israeli Arms Firm Markets Drone “Precision” with Footage of Killing a Palestinian Civilian. https://en.safa.news

· Documents the public outrage, including the description “soaked in blood”.

II. The Spike FireFly Specifications

6. Janes. (2025, October 14). AUSA 2025: Rafael updates Spike Firefly, redesignates as L-Spike 1x. https://www.janes.com/defence-intelligence-insights/defence-news/industry/ausa-2025-rafael-updates-spike-firefly-redesignates-as-l-spike-1x

· Confirms weight (2.2 kg), loiter time (15 min with warhead, 30 min reconnaissance), speed (60 km/h manoeuvring, 70 km/h dive), dimensions (80×80×400 mm), and blast fragmentation warhead.

7. Defence Blog. (2024, July 7). Rafael confirms first operational use of Spike Firefly drones. https://defence-blog.com

· Confirms the 3 kg weight, 350-gram fragmentation or shaped charge warhead options, and coaxial rotor design.

8. Army Media (Bulgaria). (2023, January 15). “Светулка” нанася прецизни удари. https://armymedia.bg

· Confirms the 350-gram warhead and 15 kg full system weight.

III. The Palestine Laboratory (Loewenstein)

9. Tehran Times. (2026, July 29). Antony Loewenstein’s “The Palestine Laboratory” published in Persian. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/528685/

· Confirms Loewenstein’s thesis: Israel uses the occupation of Palestine as a live laboratory for testing weapons and surveillance technology for export. Documents Elbit Systems advertising drone capability with footage of airstrikes in Gaza that killed civilians including children.

10. Al Jazeera. (2025, January 30). The Palestine Laboratory – EP 1. https://www.aljazeera.com

· Documentary series confirming the core thesis.

11. Pearls and Irritations. (2025, July 4). Israel: The true superpower? Journalist exposes global threat in explosive Sydney talk. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com

· Confirms Loewenstein’s argument that Israel has turned the occupation into a live laboratory.

IV. The “Battle-Tested” Marketing Model

12. Al Jazeera. (2025, December 22). Israeli arms firms make record profits of the back of Gaza war. https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/12/22/israeli-arms-firms-make-record-profits-of-the-back-of-gaza-war

· Confirms weapons manufacturers market products as “battle-tested,” using images of strikes on Gaza as proof of success.

13. Palestine Studies. (2026, May 8). Israeli Military Technology Companies on the Gaza and Lebanon Fronts. https://www.palestine-studies.org

· Documents the “Combat-Proven” label as a core marketing strategy.

V. Australia’s Elbit Systems Contract

14. The Guardian. (2025, October 25). Australia’s $20m ‘iron fist’ deal with Israel’s largest arms company signed two weeks before UN genocide finding. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/25/

· Confirms the $19.8 million contract signed on 1 September 2025, two weeks before the UN commission of inquiry found Israel committing genocide. Confirms Elbit Systems describes itself as the “backbone” of the IDF drone fleet. Documents criticism from Chris Sidoti and Prof Donald Rothwell.

VI. Australian Parliamentary Record on Rafael and Spike Missiles

15. South Australian Parliament Hansard. (2024, March 6). Adjournment debate. https://hansardsearch.parliament.sa.gov.au/daily/uh/2024-03-06/

· Confirms: “We are literally sending Australian taxpayers’ money to support the very corporations that are benefitting from the genocide in Gaza. We are buying equipment, like SPIKE missiles from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems… These are missiles that have been tested on the population of Gaza for decades”.

16. OpenAustralia. (2024, February 6). Middle East: Senate debates. https://www.openaustralia.org.au

· Confirms the same statements in the Federal Senate.

VII. Ukraine’s Drone Industry

17. La Nouvelle Tribune. (2026, May 27). Drone Summit de Riga: l’Ukraine propose son industrie de guerre à l’Europe. https://lanouvelletribune.info/2026/05/

· Confirms Ukraine produces over 4 million drones annually and aims for 7 million in 2026. Confirms Zelensky’s announcement of 10 production hubs across Europe and the export strategy.

18. Kyiv Post. (2025, November 12). Ukraine Emerges as Drone Superpower, Producing 4M UAVs a Year. https://www.kyivpost.com

· Confirms Ukraine produces 4 million drones annually — more than all NATO countries combined.

19. RBC Ukraine. (2026, August 25). Реформы вместо популизма. https://www.rbc.ua

· Confirms production capacity of 4-5 million drones per year and defence production potential of $50-55 billion in 2026.

VIII. Israel-Ukraine Defense Cooperation

20. Militarnyi. (2026, June 27). Israel approved the supply of anti-drone systems to Ukraine. https://militarnyi.com/en/news/israel-approved-the-supply-of-anti-drone-systems-to-ukraine/

· Confirms Israel approved export licenses for Elbit and Rafael anti-drone jamming systems for Ukraine. Confirms Israeli officials claim the systems are “defensive in nature”.

21. JINSA. (2026, August 6). How to Combine Ukraine’s and Israel’s Drone Skills. https://jinsa.org

· Documents the potential for coordinated drone warfare cooperation between Israel and Ukraine.

IX. Australian Senate Estimates on Arms Trade

22. Australian Greens. (2024, October 6). Statement on the two-way arms trade with the State of Israel. https://16news.com.au

· Confirms Senate Estimates revelations that Australia makes parts in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and that Israel using these weapons to bomb Gaza is considered “not material” to permit approvals.

X. The Il Manifesto Analysis

23. Il Manifesto. (2025, July). Commentary on the Rafael video. Cited in Al-Quds.

The Performance of Politics Scored by the Data Point- Australia and the United Nations in 2026

Posted on September 21, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Cellular towers connected by blue lines across a desert near industrial buildings — A stylized desert landscape shows cellular towers linked by glowing blue communication lines.

By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Reader’s note: We do not need readers to agree with us. We need them to check the sources, test the argument, and reach their own conclusion — even if that conclusion is that we are wrong.

Abstract

This paper examines the Australian government’s 2026 campaign for a United Nations Security Council seat as a case study in the divergence between political rhetoric and measurable action. It argues that Australia’s claim to “protect civilians and defend the UN charter” is contradicted by its documented record: the continued export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, the muted response to allegations of torture and sexual assault against Australian citizens, the refusal to pursue accountability for the killing of an Australian aid worker, and the simultaneous expansion of surveillance infrastructure and contraction of domestic care. The paper applies the framework of Data Point Democracy — a political formation in which citizens are processed as data while decisions flow through unaccountable channels — to argue that the Australian government’s international posture and its domestic policies are expressions of the same underlying logic: the reallocation of care to coercion, the servicing of the data point rather than the human, and the construction of a desert of accountability that the government guards against scrutiny. The paper concludes that the performance of politics, scored by the data point, reveals a state that has named its own priorities through its actions, regardless of its words.

I. Introduction: The Performance and the Record

In September 2026, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched a formal bid for Australia to serve a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council for 2029–2030. The vote will not be held until mid-2028, but lobbying efforts intensified during the Prime Minister’s visit to New York for the UN General Assembly. Foreign Minister Penny Wong framed the bid in terms of Australia’s “practical contribution” to international peace and security: “Australia is seeking a seat on the UN Security Council for 2029-30. As an active, ambitious middle power, Australia has a practical contribution to make to international peace and security. We’ll listen with respect, partner as equals, protect civilians and defend the UN charter.”

This paper examines that claim. It asks a simple question: what does the record show?

The paper does not argue that Australia has no contribution to make. It argues that the contribution the government describes — protecting civilians, defending the UN charter — is contradicted by the contribution the government makes. The words say one thing. The actions say another.

The paper is in three parts. Part I examines the government’s international record, focusing on its response to the ICJ’s provisional measures, the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, the treatment of Australian citizens detained on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and the continued export of F-35 components to Israel. Part II examines the domestic record, focusing on the simultaneous expansion of surveillance infrastructure and contraction of care. Part III applies the framework of Data Point Democracy to argue that the international and domestic records are expressions of the same underlying logic.

II. The International Record

2.1 The ICJ Provisional Measures

On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice issued provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance. Australia’s public position was that Israel must comply with the ICJ’s rulings.

But the government’s actions did not match its words. Australia has abstained from voting on a resolution seeking an ICJ advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations regarding humanitarian assistance. It has not terminated military exports or other military assistance to Israel, despite calls from the Human Rights Law Centre and other organisations to do so. It has no current plans to intervene in the proceedings.

The government’s diplomatic pressure has been described as “weak and ineffective.” The “practical contribution” on the ground has been to welcome the ruling while continuing to export arms.

2.2 The Zomi Frankcom Case

In April 2024, Australian aid worker Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom was among seven World Central Kitchen staff killed when their aid convoy was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that the military had “unintentionally” killed the volunteers.

In August 2026, Israel’s military announced that criminal investigations would not be launched into their deaths. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia was “outraged” and summoned Israel’s ambassador. She said the decision “falls far short of the accountability we expect”.

But beyond expressing outrage, the government has taken no meaningful punitive action. There has been no expulsion of diplomats, no recall of the ambassador, no suspension of military trade. The “outrage” has produced no tangible consequence. The government will “continue to keep pressing Israel for justice” — a phrase that describes a process, not an outcome.

2.3 The Global Sumud Flotilla

In May 2026, Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters off Gaza. Eleven Australian activists were aboard. Activists recounted torture, sexual assault, beatings, and being tasered by Israeli forces. Organisers documented at least fifteen cases of sexual abuse.

Foreign Minister Wong said she “definitely believes we were kidnapped, that we were tortured and that we were imprisoned and that some of us were raped“. The Australian Federal Police began inquiries into the allegations. The Australian Centre for International Justice said the alleged conduct “may amount to war crimes” and “must be investigated as potential crimes against humanity”.

But the government’s response was muted. There was no condemnation of the abuse allegations, no demand for an independent investigation, and no consequences for Israel. The activists are seeking legal action. The government has not led the charge.

2.4 The F-35 Pipeline

The government’s claims about its arms exports to Israel have been repeatedly contradicted by evidence.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has denied that Australia supplies weapons or ammunition to Israel. Foreign Minister Wong claimed Australia only contributes “components and parts that are non-lethal in nature” to the F-35 program.

Leaked shipping records show a secret pipeline of F-35 fighter jet parts being flown from Sydney to Israel, initially via Thai Airways and now via United Airlines passenger planes. A total of 80 documented shipments were made between October 2023 and February 2026. The shipments include a gasket for the F-35’s four-barrel 25mm GAU-22/A cannon, which fires 3,300 rounds per minute — “certainly a very lethal weapon“.

The government’s cover story has “fallen apart“. The government is facilitating the ongoing slaughter while denying it.

III. The Domestic Record

3.1 The Expansion of Surveillance Infrastructure

The government’s international posture is matched by its domestic architecture. The Office of AI was established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in July 2026. Its function is to coordinate the design and legislation of new Australian AI standards and to bring together work “currently spread across portfolios, spanning energy and data centres”.

The published materials do not identify licensing, investigation, compulsory audit, or penalty powers for the Office. It is, at present, a central policy and coordination body. But coordination is control. The Office of AI determines what the national standards will say, who will be subject to them, and under what conditions.

The fast-tracking of data centre approvals before enabling legislation creates a window for projects to be approved before the rules are written. The legislation is not expected until early 2027.

Palantir Technologies Australia has secured more than $60 million in Australian government contracts with “favourable terms and little public scrutiny“. The company holds top secret clearance and has staff embedded inside Defence. Its clients include the Australian Signals Directorate, AUSTRAC, and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. The government has also invested $100 million in Palantir through the Future Fund.

In September 2026, it was revealed that NDIS participant data “may have ended up in Palantir’s analytics platform” as part of a multi-agency fraud investigation. The data flowed through the ACIC, which used Palantir as part of the Fraud Fusion Taskforce of 25 government agencies.

3.2 The Contraction of Care

While the infrastructure of surveillance expands, the infrastructure of care contracts.

The NDIS is being cut by $37.8 billion over four years, removing 160,000 participants from the scheme. Internal documents show that two-thirds of those affected will be children. Some children aged eight and under with autism or developmental delays will be shifted onto state supports.

Veterans’ healthcare was subject to a proposed $5,000 annual cap on allied health services, due to start on 1 July 2027. The government was forced to abandon the cap in September 2026 after public outcry. One veteran’s message to Parliament: “I’ll not be a burden on my family. I will take my life so my family doesn’t see me at my worst.”

The TikTok ban for under-16s was legislated in December 2025. The government ordered ten social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, to ban anyone under the age of 16. In the first week, 4.7 million accounts were deactivated, removed, or restricted. Communications Minister Annika Wells said: “Now Australian parents can be confident that their kids can have their childhood back”.

The government’s concern for children is selective. The disabled child, the veteran’s child, the child of the unemployed — these are data points, not future constituents.

IV. Data Point Democracy and the Desert

4.1 The Framework

The framework of Data Point Democracy describes a political formation in which the citizen is processed as a data point while the actual work of governance flows through channels that the processing system cannot see. The form of participation is preserved. The substance is hollowed out.

The framework connects directly to the desert metaphor: the zones where the state has withdrawn care and left the vulnerable to fend for themselves. The desert is real. It has boundaries. And the boundaries are guarded by mechanisms that prevent the truth from being proven.

4.2 The Application

The Australian government’s international posture and its domestic policies are expressions of the same underlying logic.

The ICJ response: The government “welcomes” the ruling while continuing to export arms. The data point — the diplomatic statement — is serviced. The human — the Palestinian civilian — is not.

The Frankcom case: The government is “outraged” but takes no action. The data point — the expression of concern — is serviced. The human — the aid worker’s family — is not.

The flotilla: The government “believes” the allegations but does not demand consequences. The data point — the statement of belief — is serviced. The human — the activist who was assaulted — is not.

The F-35 pipeline: The government denies “lethal” exports while shipping cannon gaskets. The data point — the denial — is serviced. The human — the person killed by the weapon — is not.

The NDIS cuts: The government frames cuts as “sustainability.” The data point — the budget metric — is serviced. The human — the disabled child — is not.

The veterans’ cap: The government proposed a budget measure. The data point — the fiscal saving — is serviced. The human — the veteran who said he would take his own life — was not in the spreadsheet.

The TikTok ban: The government protects children from social media while cutting support for disabled children. The data point — the future voter — is serviced. The human — the disabled child — is not.

4.3 The Reallocation

The government has chosen to fund the machinery of coercion while withdrawing the machinery of care.

Defence spending for 2026-27 is $62.6 billion (2.02% of GDP), a 6% increase from the previous year. The government has committed to raising this to 3% of GDP by 2033. The AUKUS submarine program saw the Australian Submarine Agency’s budget jump by 33% to $512.5 million in a single year. Australia has already paid $2 billion to the US and ~£500 million to the UK just to “uplift” their submarine industrial bases — payments made with no guarantee of ever receiving submarines.

The NDIS cut of $37.8 billion is roughly matched by the increase in defence spending over the same period. The JobSeeker payment remains below the poverty line while the top 10% receive $22.5 billion in superannuation tax breaks — more than double the $11 billion it would cost to raise JobSeeker to the poverty line.

The government has chosen. The beneficiaries are the arms manufacturers, the surveillance companies, the Future Fund holdings. The bearers of cost are the disabled, the unemployed, the veterans, the public servants, the citizens whose data is ingested into Palantir’s platform.

V. Conclusion: The State Has Named Itself

The state is not a neutral actor. It has named its position through its actions.

The NDIS cuts name the state’s priorities. The AUKUS indemnity clauses name its allegiances. The Office of AI in PM&C names where it believes power should sit. The fast-tracked data centre approvals name what it values: the infrastructure of extraction, not the communities that host it. The F-35 pipeline names its complicity. The muted response to the flotilla abuse names its limits. The refusal to hold Israel accountable for Frankcom names its hierarchy of concern.

The words deny it. The actions reveal it.

This is the inversion of zhengming — the rectification of names. The state corrupts the name, but the behaviour rectifies it. You do not need to prove what the state is. You just need to watch what it does.

The desert is real. It has boundaries. And the government is building the infrastructure to guard them.

The question is not whether the Albanese government will change. It will not. The question is whether the governed will continue to accept the terms of a relationship that was never offered, only imposed.

References

1. ABC News Australia. (2026, September 18). Australia campaigns for UN Security Council seat amid wars. ua.news. https://ua.news/cn/world/avstraliia-lobiiuie-mistse-v-radbezi-oon-na-tli-voien-abc-news-australia

2. BSS News. (2026, August 20). Australia ‘outraged’ over Israel decision to close probe into aid worker killings. https://www.bssnews.net/international/416351

3. Anadolu Agency. (2026, June 17). Australian police probe allegations of sexual assault on Gaza flotilla activists by Israeli forces. https://mobil.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/australian-police-probe-allegations-of-sexual-assault-on-gaza-flotilla-activists-by-israeli-forces/3969518

4. Declassified Australia. (2026, August 13). SHADOW FLIGHTS: LEAKS REVEAL NEW U.S. ROUTE OF F-35 JET PARTS TO ISRAEL. https://declassifiedaus.org/2026/08/13/shadow-flights-leaks-reveal-us-route-of-f35-parts/

5. ABC Listen. (2026, January 16). First figures released for social media ban. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/worldtoday/first-figures-released-for-social-media-ban/106237464

6. The AIM Network. (2026, September 19). The Desert and the Budget Victory. https://theaimn.net/the-desert-and-the-budget-victory/

7. Macleay Argus. (2026, August 16). Labor confident of an NDIS deal despite reform backlash. https://www.macleayargus.com.au

8. Department of Veterans’ Affairs. (2026, May 12). 2026-27 Federal Budget responds to Royal Commission recommendations. https://www.dva.gov.au

9. Australian Greens. (2026, September 17). Greens welcome Government backdown on cuts to Veterans health care. https://greens.org.au

10. Parliament of Australia. (2024, November 28). PETITIONS: ICJ ruling on Israel. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au

11. Human Rights Law Centre. (2025, May 2). ICJ South Africa v. Israel: Human Rights Law Centre statement. https://www.hrlc.org.au

12. Australian Centre for International Justice. (2025, January 15). MEDIA RELEASE: Attorney-General Dreyfus’ visit to Israel undermines efforts to uphold International and Australian law. https://acij.org.au

13. OpenAustralia. (2025, July 31). Senate debates: ICJ provisional orders. https://www.openaustralia.org.au

14. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2026, August 20). Statement on Israel closing investigation on strikes against World Central Kitchen. https://www.foreignminister.gov.au

Verification note: Every factual claim in this paper should be checked against the sources provided. Readers are encouraged to verify independently. If any claim does not hold, it should be discarded. The framework of Data Point Democracy is developed elsewhere in this series and is offered here as an interpretive lens, not as an established finding.

The paper integrates the international record (ICJ, Frankcom, flotilla, F-35) with the domestic record (Office of AI, data centres, Palantir, NDIS, veterans, TikTok) and applies the Data Point Democracy framework to argue that both are expressions of the same logic: the reallocation of care to coercion, the servicing of the data point rather than the human, and the construction of a desert that the government guards against scrutiny.

The Historian Who Wasn’t- Melanie Phillips, the Eurabia Conspiracy, and the Weaponisation of History

Posted on September 19, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Cosmic collage of books, equations, instruments, architecture, and star patterns — A flowing cosmic collage connects mathematics, astronomy, architecture, and scientific exploration.

By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Reader’s note: We do not need readers to agree with us. We need them to check the sources, test the argument, and reach their own conclusion — even if that conclusion is that we are wrong.

Abstract

This paper examines the claims of British columnist and broadcaster Melanie Phillips as a case study in the weaponisation of history for political ends. It deconstructs four central claims: that Palestinians are a “non-people” with no entitlement to historic Palestine; that Western civilisation rests on a “Judeo-Christian” foundation that is under existential threat from Islam; that Europe is being systematically “Islamised” through immigration and demographic change (the “Eurabia” thesis); and that the Islamic world has contributed nothing of significance to Western civilisation. Drawing on genetic evidence of human interconnectedness, the historical record of the Islamic Golden Age, the scholarly critique of the Eurabia conspiracy theory, and the documented origins of the “Islamization” narrative in Cold War geopolitics, the paper argues that Phillips’s work constitutes not history but ideology — a narrative constructed to justify a specific political project. It connects this to the extraction model, Bandura’s mechanisms of moral disengagement, and the broader pattern of post-truth politics in which language is deployed not to communicate but to foreclose scrutiny and mobilise consent for harm.

I. Introduction: The Historian Who Wasn’t

Melanie Phillips is not a historian. She is a political activist who writes in the register of history. Her columns appear in The Times of London. Her books are published by mainstream presses. Her arguments are cited by politicians, think tanks, and media outlets across the Anglosphere. She occupies a position of significant cultural authority.

That authority is not earned through rigorous archival research, peer-reviewed scholarship, or methodological transparency. It is earned through the construction of narratives that serve a political purpose — narratives that flatter the prejudices of a particular audience, confirm its fears, and provide intellectual cover for its political projects.

This paper examines those narratives. It takes Phillips at her word — that she is describing reality — and tests her claims against the historical and scientific record. What it finds is not a historian grappling with complexity but an ideologue constructing a myth.

The myth has four pillars:

1. The denial of Palestinian peoplehood — the claim that Palestinians do not exist as a people and have no legitimate claim to the land.

2. The “Judeo-Christian” West — the claim that Western civilisation rests on a Jewish-Christian foundation that is uniquely under threat from Islam.

3. The “Eurabia” thesis — the claim that Europe is being systematically Islamised through immigration and demographic change.

4. The erasure of Islamic civilisation — the implicit and sometimes explicit claim that the Islamic world has contributed nothing of significance to the West.

Each pillar is false. Each is contradicted by the historical and scientific record. Together, they form a narrative that serves the extraction model by denying the subjecthood of the other, framing complex geopolitical problems as an existential “clash of civilisations,” erasing the historical debt the West owes to the cultures it now demonises, and providing a narrative of victimhood for the powerful.

II. The First Pillar: Denying a People

2.1 The Claims

In a 29-minute speech at the “Rage Against the Hate” conference at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City on 27 October 2025, Phillips declared:

“There is no such thing as Palestine. There is no such thing as the Palestinian people… The indigenous people of the land of so-called Palestine are the Jews. That the Jews are the only people who have any entitlement to any of this land, an entitlement based in law, in history and morality. And they are the only people who have an entitlement to all of it”.

She described the Palestinian cause as “the big lie” and “a holy war” based on “stealing the Jews’ own history in the land from them”. In January 2026, she described the inauguration of Palestine’s embassy in London as “an important moment in the UK’s shameful connivance with the Palestinian Arabs’ final solution” and referred to the embassy as a “non-embassy for a non-state for a non-people”.

The phrase “final solution” is the Nazi euphemism for the genocide of the Jews. Phillips used it to describe the opening of a diplomatic mission.

2.2 The Historical Record

The claim that Palestinians do not exist as a people is not a historical finding. It is a political assertion.

The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has been inhabited continuously for millennia. The modern Palestinian national identity emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, shaped by the same forces that produced other national identities in the region and beyond. It is no more “invented” than any other national identity — including Israeli national identity, which was itself a modern construction.

The historian William Dalrymple responded to Phillips’s “final solution” comments with precision: “Pure projection by Melanie Phillips, whose anti-Palestinian rants are growing increasingly unhinged of late. There is only one people who are being ethnically cleansed and driven to the edge of extinction in Israel-Palestine. And it isn’t the Israelis”.

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, described her comments as “the racism of denying a people’s very existence, their national rights and of apologising for a state, Israel, that is perpetrating a genocide right now and committing the crime of apartheid”.

2.3 The Mechanism: Dehumanisation

Denying a people’s existence is the most extreme form of dehumanisation. It removes the moral restraint that would otherwise inhibit harm. If a people do not exist, they cannot have rights. They cannot have claims. They cannot be subjects in a relationship. They can only be processed — as a demographic problem, a security threat, a “non-people.”

This is the same mechanism we have documented in every domain of the extraction model: the welfare recipient reduced to a “risk profile,” the disabled person reduced to a “functional score,” the unemployed person reduced to a “data point.” The target changes. The structure is identical. Bandura called it dehumanisation — one of the eight mechanisms of moral disengagement. It is the mechanism that makes harm possible.

III. The Second Pillar: The “Judeo-Christian” West

3.1 The Claims

Phillips’s 2025 book, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West—and Why Only They Can Save It, argues that Western civilisation rests on a “Jewish-Christian civilizational foundation” and that “the West’s Jewish roots remain indispensable to its survival”.

In a 2025 interview, she argued that the targeting of Jews by both Marxists and Islamists is “a natural consequence of the fact that Jewish ideas and values are the foundation of the Western canon and legacy”. She contends that “Western culture is based upon Christianity, whose own foundations in turn lie in Judaism”.

3.2 The Historical Record

The phrase “Judeo-Christian values” is not ancient. It is modern, political, and far less innocent than its defenders suggest. As Stuart N. Brotman documented in a July 2026 analysis:

“In its familiar American form, the phrase ‘Judeo-Christian’ rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s as liberal Protestants, Catholics and Jews sought a common vocabulary to fight against fascism and antisemitism. The phrase hardened during the Cold War into a slogan that could counter ‘godless communism.’ When Dwight Eisenhower declared in 1952 that the American system rested on ‘the Judeo-Christian concept,’ he was using a political idiom of his era, not invoking a timeless consensus”.

For most of the last two millennia, Jews were not treated as equal partners in Christendom’s moral project. They were “more often tolerated outsiders, subject to periodic exclusion, coercion and persecution”. The phrase “Judeo-Christian” elides this painful history and the profound power imbalance between Jews and Christians.

The theological problem is even more fundamental. “Judeo-Christian values” implies a shared moral and religious tradition. In practice, it “often resolves in favour of Christian assumptions on which Judaism and Christianity remain fundamentally divided: covenant, law, redemption and the Messiah”. Critics have long argued that it expresses a supersessionist logic, “treating Judaism as a precursor fulfilled by Christianity rather than as an autonomous and continuing faith”.

3.3 The Mechanism: Erasure Through Fusion

The “Judeo-Christian” formulation does more than acknowledge Jewish influence. It converts influence into fusion. It takes a long, complicated record of borrowing, divergence, and conflict and “repackages it into a seamless civilizational inheritance”. In doing so, it compresses big theological differences into a convenient cultural brand.

And crucially, it erases the contributions of the Islamic world — contributions that are not a footnote to Western civilisation but a foundation of it.

IV. The Third Pillar: Eurabia and the Islamisation Conspiracy

4.1 The Claims

Phillips is a leading proponent of the “Eurabia” thesis. Her 2006 book Londonistan documented what she saw as the British establishment’s “capitulation to Islamist aggression”. She defines Islamism as the “politicized interpretation of the religion that aims to Islamize societies”.

In her 2026 podcast, she stated: “If you’re a pious Muslim, you have a religious duty to Islamize the non-Islamic world. The West can’t get their heads around that at all”. She frames the current moment as a civilisational war against a “death cult” and a “fifth column” of Western elites who have been persuaded that the West is evil.

4.2 The Historical Record: A Conspiracy Theory

The Eurabia thesis was popularised by the Egyptian-Jewish writer Bat Ye’or in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. The thesis posits a secret, coordinated plan between European politicians and the Arab world for the “Islamicisation” of Europe — a “dystopic land in which jihad and sharia rule, and non-Muslims live in a state of subjection” .

Scholarly analysis has been unambiguous. The Eurabia thesis is a conspiracy theory. It “display[s] strikingly similar discursive dynamics” to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious antisemitic forgery that claimed to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders planning to take over the world. Both texts racialize their target population “as the ultimate Other determined to destroy Us” — a process Zia-Ebrahimi calls conspiratorial racialization.

Academic research and demographic data “do not support predictions about the rapid Islamization of Europe”. The entire thesis “rests on manipulated statistics and speculation”.

The consequences of this conspiracy theory have been lethal. Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, embraced “the Eurabia theory as it had been developed by Egyptian Bat Ye’or”. He was motivated by the belief that “a secret conspiracy of cultural Marxists, multicultural elites and Muslims [was] bent on turning Europe into ‘Eurabia’“. Phillips is one of the figures whose work was cited in Breivik’s manifesto.

4.3 The Mechanism: Securitisation

The Eurabia thesis is a classic securitising move. It presents a group not as a community with legitimate claims but as an existential threat to the nation. It forecloses debate, justifies extraordinary measures, and positions the speaker as the only one competent to judge the threat.

The securitization framework holds that “an issue becomes a security concern when it is presented as an existential threat to a valued referent object” — and the critical insight is that “there is no objective threat or risk assessment — rather all security threats are inter-subjective in nature. An issue only becomes a security issue because a powerful securitising actor argues that it constitutes an existential threat.”

Phillips is a securitising actor. She constructs the threat. She names the enemy. She forecloses debate. And she provides the intellectual scaffolding for policies that would otherwise be unacceptable.

V. The Fourth Pillar: The Erasure of Islamic Civilisation

5.1 The Claims

Phillips’s framing of Western civilisation as a purely “Judeo-Christian” construction implicitly — and sometimes explicitly — erases the foundational contributions of the Islamic world. Her narrative of a monolithic West under threat from an alien Islam cannot accommodate the reality that the West is Islam, in part — that the knowledge, science, and philosophy that made the Renaissance and the Enlightenment possible flowed through the Islamic world into Europe.

5.2 The Historical Record: The Islamic Golden Age

The historical record is unambiguous. While Europe was in a period often called the “Dark Ages,” the Islamic world preserved, translated, and massively expanded upon the knowledge of classical antiquity. This knowledge then flowed into Europe, directly fuelling the Renaissance.

The Arabic-Latin translation movement of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries “shocked Europe out of its long slumber and ignited the explosive development of the West”. During the thirteenth century, “the new knowledge from the Islamic world spread among the universities in major European cities like Paris, Oxford and Bologna”. This “helped Europeans to pave the way for the Renaissance”.

The specific contributions are not minor footnotes. They are the foundation of modern science:

Mathematics: Al-Khwarizmi developed algebra in ninth-century Baghdad. The word “algorithm” is derived from the Latinisation of his name. The word “algebra” is derived from al-jabr, the Arabic word for the mathematical operation used to solve quadratic equations . Al-Khwarizmi introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals and algebraic concepts into European mathematics. His work “was used until the sixteenth century as the principal mathematical text book of European universities and served to introduce into Europe the science of algebra”.

Medicine: Ibn Sina (Avicenna) wrote The Canon of Medicine, which “was the standard reading in European universities until the late seventeenth century”. The universities of Leipzig and Tuebingen included the Canon in their medical curriculum from 1481. The medical curriculum at Vienna University and Frankfurt on the Oder in 1598 was “mainly based on the Canon”. Ibn al-Nafis discovered pulmonary circulation in the thirteenth century, “six centuries before Leonardo drew his famous ornithopters” — or, more precisely, centuries before Western medicine caught up.

Physics and Optics: Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) pioneered the science of optics in eleventh-century Cairo. His work on light, reflection, and visual perception was foundational. During the International Year of Light 2015, he was celebrated at UNESCO as “a pioneer of modern optics”.

Engineering: Al-Jazari, a thirteenth-century Turkish engineer, invented the crank, the camshaft, and the reciprocating piston — “all essential components of the modern car engine and much more besides”.

Astronomy: Copernicus “drew on the work of Islamic astronomers for the groundwork to his breakthrough claim in 1514 that the earth moved round the sun”.

The Islamic world did not merely preserve Greek knowledge. It built on it. It extended it. It transformed it. The names Al-Khwarizmi and Ibn al-Haytham “are as integral to the history of science and technology as are Newton and Archimedes, James Watt and Henry Ford, but the Arabic-sounding names somehow became lost in the myth of the Dark Ages”.

5.3 The Mechanism: Historical Erasure

Phillips’s narrative erases this history to construct a myth of a monolithic “West” under threat from an alien “Islam.” The erasure serves a political purpose. If the West is purely “Judeo-Christian,” then Islam is an outsider — a threat, an invader, an alien. If the West is, in part, the product of Islamic civilisation, then the “clash of civilisations” narrative collapses.

The erasure is not an oversight. It is the point.

VI. The Origins of “Islamization”: A Cold War Product

6.1 The Claims

Phillips frames “Islamization” as a religious duty of Muslims — something inherent to the faith, something that Muslims are compelled to do. “If you’re a pious Muslim, you have a religious duty to Islamize the non-Islamic world”. This framing presents “Islamization” as an external threat, originating in the Muslim world and directed at the West.

6.2 The Historical Record: The Reagan Doctrine

The contemporary use of “Islamization” as a political weapon was forged in the crucible of Cold War geopolitics, particularly the US involvement in Afghanistan.

The evolution of American foreign policy during the Cold War set the stage for America’s involvement in Afghanistan. The “rise of the Reagan Doctrine in the 1980s pushed proxy war from its Kissinger origins as a makeshift, pragmatic strategy for avoiding congressional oversight, into a full-blown ideological assault”. The foundation of the program was “rollback” — “to aggressively attack Communism in the Third World”.

American support of the Afghan mujahedeen “turned into the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA”. The clandestine aid given to the Afghans in 1987 alone — around $660 million — was more than the total amount.

The Reagan administration deliberately promoted a militant, politicised version of Islam to recruit fighters against the Soviet Union. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently stated that this “Islamization of the 1980s was driven by foreign interests, particularly the United States, and not by religion.”

Reagan administration personnel “recognized that their support for the Mujahidin risked future terrorism, but they readily accepted this risk; in doing so, they contributed to post–Cold War turmoil”.

6.3 The Mechanism: Blowback

The “Islamization” that Phillips now warns against was, in significant part, a product of Western geopolitical strategy. The United States and its allies created the conditions for the extremism that she later condemns. The policy blowback was not unforeseen — it was a risk that was knowingly accepted.

This is the same pattern we have documented in every domain: the extraction model creates the conditions for the harm it later uses to justify further extraction. The “existential threat” is manufactured by the very forces that claim to be responding to it.

VII. The Bones and the DNA: We Are All Hybrids

7.1 The Genetic Record

Phillips’s entire narrative rests on a binary: “us” versus “them,” West versus Islam, Judeo-Christian versus Muslim, indigenous versus settler. The genetic record demolishes that binary.

As anatomically modern humans dispersed out of Africa approximately 60,000 years ago, they “encountered and mated with now extinct hominins, including Neanderthals and Denisovans”. It is now well established that all non-African individuals derive approximately 2% of their genome from Neanderthal ancestors. Individuals of Melanesian and Australian Aboriginal ancestry inherited an additional 2%–5% of their genomes from Denisovan ancestors.

This is not a minor detail. It is the foundation of who we are. The Denisovans who interbred with modern humans were themselves hybrids — carrying DNA from an unidentified “super-archaic” population that diverged from the modern human lineage roughly 1.8 million years ago. Modern humans carry the legacy of at least five separate interbreeding events with different archaic populations.

The human story is not a story of purity. It is a story of hybridity. It is a story of connection, of migration, of interbreeding, of genetic exchange across every boundary that later myth-makers would construct. Every human being alive today is a walking archive of ancient encounters — between species, between populations, between people who did not know they were making history.

7.2 The Mechanism: The Denial of Kinship

The genetic evidence is not merely a scientific curiosity. It is a refutation of the entire logic of the extraction model. The extraction model depends on separation — on the construction of boundaries between “us” and “them,” between those who deserve care and those who can be processed, between those whose lives matter and those whose lives are data points.

The DNA says: there is no “them.” There is only us, in all our hybrid, tangled, interconnected complexity. The bones say: we are all migrants. We are all hybrids. We are all the product of connection across every boundary that Phillips and her intellectual allies would erect.

The erasure of this history is not accidental. It is the precondition for the extraction model. If we are all kin, then the harm done to the other is harm done to ourselves. If we are all kin, then the extraction model collapses.

VIII. Moral Disengagement and the Extraction Model

Phillips’s work is not merely a set of false claims. It is a systematic deployment of the mechanisms of moral disengagement.

Moral justification: The harm done to Palestinians is reframed as necessary for Jewish survival. The denial of their peoplehood is justified as “telling the truth” against “the big lie.”

Euphemistic labelling: “Final solution” is used to describe a diplomatic opening. “Islamization” is used to describe immigration, demographic change, and the presence of Muslims in public life.

Advantageous comparison: The West is portrayed as uniquely virtuous, its civilisation as uniquely under threat, its enemies as uniquely evil. The historical crimes of the West — colonialism, slavery, genocide — are erased or minimised.

Displacement of responsibility: The “Islamization” of Europe is blamed on Muslim immigration, not on the Western geopolitical strategies that created the conditions for it.

Diffusion of responsibility: The harm is attributed to abstract forces — “Islam,” “multiculturalism,” “cultural Marxism” — rather than to the specific actors who benefit from the narrative.

Distortion of consequences: The consequences of the narrative — the deaths of Palestinians, the rise of Islamophobic violence, the empowerment of far-right movements — are not counted. They are externalities.

Dehumanisation: Palestinians are “non-people.” Muslims are a “death cult.” The other is stripped of humanity.

Attribution of blame: The victims are blamed for their own suffering. Palestinians are blamed for their own dispossession. Muslims are blamed for the Islamophobia they experience.

All eight mechanisms are present. All eight are operative. The narrative is not merely false. It is structurally designed to produce harm while maintaining the self-image of the speaker.

IX. Conclusion: The Weaponisation of History

Melanie Phillips is not a historian. She is a political activist who constructs a narrative of civilisational conflict. Her claims are not based on a rigorous examination of evidence but on a selective reading of history designed to justify a specific ideology.

This ideology serves the extraction model perfectly by:

1. Denying the subjecthood of the “other” — Palestinians are “non-people.” Muslims are a “death cult.” The other cannot have rights because the other does not exist.

2. Framing complex geopolitical problems as an existential “clash of civilisations” — the Eurabia thesis, the “Islamization” panic, the “death cult” language. All of it forecloses debate, justifies extraordinary measures, and positions the speaker as the only one competent to judge the threat.

3. Erasing the historical and intellectual debt the West owes to the very culture it now demonises — the Islamic Golden Age, the translation movement, the foundations of algebra, medicine, optics, and engineering. All of it erased to construct a myth of a purely “Judeo-Christian” West.

4. Providing a narrative of victimhood for the powerful — the West is under threat. The Jews are under threat. The powerful are the victims. The projection of fear and aggression outward is justified as self-defence.

Her claims are not a description of reality. They are a weapon in a culture war, and an alibi for a political project.

The bones and the DNA tell a different story. The historical record tells a different story. The scholarly consensus tells a different story. But the narrative persists because it serves a purpose. It provides intellectual cover for the extraction model. It makes the harm seem necessary. It makes the other seem less than human.

The new lies are the most dangerous because they are dressed in the language of history. They cite sources. They invoke evidence. They present themselves as truth-telling against a conspiracy of silence. But when tested against the record — against the bones and the DNA, against the libraries and the translations, against the scholars and the scientists — they crumble.

The weasel words morph into wolves. The wolves are the policies that follow. The policies are the harm. And the harm is measured in lives.

References

1. Middle East Eye. (2025, November 24). British columnist Melanie Phillips lashes out at Palestinians at pro-Israel NYC event. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-columnist-melanie-phillips-attacks-palestinians-pro-israel-event

2. Middle East Eye. (2026, January 7). British columnist Melanie Phillips slammed for Palestinian ‘final solution’ comments. https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/british-columnist-melanie-phillips-slammed-palestinian-final-solution-comments

3. Phillips, M. (2025). The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West—and Why Only They Can Save It. Wicked Son.

4. The Spectator Australia. (2025, February 26). The world is now inexorably divided – and the West must fight to survive.

5. Brotman, S. N. (2026, July 4). ‘Judeo-Christian values’ is a slogan, not a history. JNS. https://www.jns.org/opinion/stuart-n-brotman/judeo-christian-values-is-a-slogan-not-a-history

6. Zia-Ebrahimi, R. (2018). When the Elders of Zion relocated to Eurabia: conspiratorial racialization in antisemitism and Islamophobia. Patterns of Prejudice, 52(4), 1-30. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/0031322X.2018.1493876

7. You are now entering Eurabia. (2006). Race & Class, 48(1), 1-22. https://sage.cnpereading.com/doi/10.1177/0306396806066636

8. Disinfo Detector. (2024, June 11). How conspiracy theorists explain events in Ukraine and the world: “Eurabia”. https://disinfo.detector.media

9. Institute of Race Relations. (2011, July 28). Breivik and Eurabia. https://irr.org.uk

10. Masood, E. (2008). Science & Islam: A History. Icon Books. https://archive.org/stream/EhsanMasoodScienceIslamAHistoryIconBooks2008

11. Saliba, G. (2007). Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. MIT Press. https://archive.org

12. Arabic-Latin Translation Movement and Its Influence on the Renaissance in Europe. (2026). KCI. https://www.kci.go.kr

13. Thousand-year anniversary of the historical book: “Kitab al-Qanun fit-Tibb” – The Canon of Medicine. (2013). PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3702097/

14. Al-Khwarizmi. (n.d.). In The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension. Sterling. https://archive.org

15. Archaic hominin admixture and its consequences for modern humans. (2024). ScienceDirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959437X24001291

16. Ancient human genomes offer clues about the earliest migrations out of Africa. (2025). Nature. https://www.nature.com

17. Five matings for moderns, Neandertals. (2016). Science. https://www.science.org

18. Macalester College. (n.d.). Arabs anyway. [Digital Commons]. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu

19. National Review. (2006, April 25). Losing Its Religion. https://www.nationalreview.com

20. Phillips, M. (2006). Londonistan. Encounter Books.

The paper deconstructs Phillips’s claims step by step, testing them against the historical and scientific record. The core argument is that her work is not history but ideology — a narrative constructed to justify a political project that serves the extraction model.

The bones and the DNA tell a different story. The libraries and the translations tell a different story. The scholars and the scientists tell a different story. And the story they tell is one of connection, not separation. Of hybridity, not purity. Of relationship, not extraction.

The Language of Permanent War

Posted on September 11, 2026 by Andrew Klein

A Zhengming Analysis of the Structural Traps in Ukraine and Israel

Empty chair and boots in a bomb-damaged hall lit by sunlight — A lone chair and pair of boots stand beneath a shaft of light in a devastated hall.

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to those who still believe that naming things accurately is the first act of resistance.

Introduction: The Discipline of Rectification

Confucius taught that the first task of governance is the rectification of names — zhengming. If words do not match reality, he argued, social order collapses. The observation is not merely ethical; it is structural. When language is corrupted, the mechanisms of power become invisible. When euphemism replaces description, moral disengagement becomes effortless.

Two wars dominate the present moment: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and beyond. Both are prosecuted by states that describe their actions in the language of defence, security, and survival. Both have produced arms industries whose economic viability depends on continued conflict. Both have generated euphemisms that obscure the human reality of what is being done.

This essay applies two analytical tools — zhengming and Albert Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement — to strip the euphemisms and expose the structural traps. The goal is not to assign blame to one side or another. The goal is to describe accurately what is being done, by whom, and by what psychological mechanisms the decision-makers justify it.

Part I: The Zhengming Pass

1. “Defence”

The most common euphemism in the lexicon of war is “defence.” Israel’s arms exports reached $19.2 billion in 2025, a 30 percent increase from the previous year. Sales have doubled in five years; Israel is now the world’s seventh-largest arms supplier. The Defence Ministry describes these as “defence exports.”

What is being exported? Weapons. What are they used for? Killing. The word “defence” is doing significant work here. It transforms commerce in violence into a virtuous act. It frames the seller as a protector rather than a merchant of death.

Ukraine’s “defence tech” sector presents a similar linguistic problem. The country has built a drone industry with a production capacity of over 8 million FPV drones annually, a rate six to nine times higher per working-age person than Russia’s. The industry is now transitioning to “controlled exports.” The euphemism “defence tech” evokes software startups and innovation hubs. The reality is factories producing machines designed to kill.

Zhengming: Defence is the word used by states that sell weapons. The arms trade is not defence. It is commerce in violence.

2. “Battle-Tested”

This is the most precise euphemism in the current lexicon — and the most revealing.

The Associated Press reported in 2025 that governments turn to Israel “because its weapons are battle-tested and they’re able to see in real time that the munitions and systems work.” Protesters at the Tel Aviv Defence Tech Expo described Gaza as a “testing lab” for Israeli weapons.

What does “battle-tested” actually mean? It means the weapons have been used against human beings. It means the “test” is the destruction of a trapped population. It means the marketing is not incidental — it is the point. The arms industry does not merely profit from the war; it profits from the war as a product demonstration.

Zhengming: “Battle-tested” is a euphemism for “used on human beings.” Gaza is the laboratory. The dead are the data.

3. “Mobilization”

In Ukraine, “mobilization” is the official term for conscription. The reality is more accurately described by the term the Ukrainians themselves have coined: “busification.” Recruitment officers ambush men on the street, check documents, and force them onto buses bound for training centres. Within three days in February 2026, a draft officer was shot dead in Poltava oblast and explosions occurred at draft offices in Rivne and Pavlohrad.

Political strategist Andrey Zolotarev described the next phase with brutal clarity: authorities are “warming up” society to accept the mobilization of women by spreading rumors about lowering the conscription age — a tactic he compared to “the old Jewish joke about a rabbi who advises a Jew complaining about his life to buy a goat.” Create fear of one thing so the population accepts a lesser evil.

Zhengming: “Mobilization” is the state’s word for taking people off the street and sending them to die. The euphemism is necessary because the reality is coercion.

4. “Peace”

In official discourse, “peace” does not mean the absence of war. It means the management of war.

Ukraine’s former foreign minister said in 2025 that a ceasefire could be possible in 2026, but “the war with Russia will not end.” Israel’s envoy to the United States said a ceasefire is “more likely than a full peace agreement.” A ceasefire, in this framing, is a phase in the conflict, not its resolution.

Zhengming: “Peace” means a tactical pause. It is not the end of war. It is its reorganization.

5. “Security”

The most ambitious euphemism is “security.” Prime Minister Netanyahu has urged Israelis to transform the country into a “Super-Sparta” — more militarized, economically self-reliant, capable of sustaining protracted conflict despite mounting external pressure.

The policy document itself, published by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, warned that this strategy “threatens its economy, internal cohesion, the ‘people’s army’ model, and the willingness of many to live here.” The pursuit of “security” produces insecurity.

Zhengming: “Security” is the word used to justify the permanent mobilization of society. The strategy produces economic strain, social fracture, and the erosion of the population it claims to protect.

Part II: Bandura’s Moral Disengagement

Albert Bandura identified eight mechanisms by which individuals and institutions justify harm. Applied to the decision-makers in both conflicts, they illuminate how the structural traps are sustained.

1. Moral Justification

The harm is reframed as serving a noble cause.

Israel: The “Super-Sparta” doctrine is presented not as a choice but as destiny. Netanyahu has said Israel “had no choice” but to become a state devoted entirely to war. Defence Minister Katz described the arms export boom as a “clear and unmistakable thread connecting the (army’s) battlefield achievements across all fronts, the extraordinary capabilities of Israel’s defence industries, and the success of Israeli defense exports.” The war becomes a virtue — proof of national excellence.

Ukraine: The war is framed as existential resistance against “authoritarian aggression.” Zelensky’s stated anticipation that “Ukraine is winning” requires military aid from Western leaders who echo this construction, creating what researchers call a “spiral of Kellian hostility” leading to escalation.

2. Euphemistic Labelling

Language is sanitized to remove the human reality.

Israel: “Swords of Iron” is the official name for the Gaza operation. Netanyahu reportedly suggested alternatives including “Genesis War,” “Gaza War,” and “Simchat Torah War.” These are brand names, not descriptions.

Ukraine: “Intelligent mobilization” is the euphemism for conscription. “Controlled exports” is the term for arms sales by a country at war.

3. Advantageous Comparison

The harm is made to seem minor compared to something worse.

Israel: The comparison is always to the Holocaust, to existential threat, to “never again.” Any criticism is framed as antisemitism.

Ukraine: The comparison is to Russia — “we are not the aggressor.” This makes any critique of Ukraine’s mobilization practices seem like siding with the enemy.

4. Displacement of Responsibility

The individual claims they were following orders, or that the system is responsible.

Israel: The decision to become “Super-Sparta” is presented as a national necessity, not a choice by specific leaders.

Ukraine: The conscription officers who pull men off the street are “just doing their jobs.”

5. Diffusion of Responsibility

Responsibility is spread across a group, so no individual feels culpable.

Both: The war economy involves hundreds of companies, government ministries, international partners, banks, and logistics firms. No single person “decides” to continue the war. The system produces the outcome.

6. Distortion of Consequences

The harm is minimized or denied.

Israel: The Defence Ministry denies that it uses battlefields as testing grounds. The $19.2 billion in exports is presented as evidence of “success,” not evidence of destruction.

Ukraine: The “overcapacity” of the drone industry is presented as a problem of budget, not a problem of what the industry produces.

7. Dehumanization

The victims are stripped of human qualities.

Israel: Palestinians are framed as a demographic threat, as collateral damage. The “battle-tested” marketing depends on this dehumanization.

Ukraine: Russian soldiers and civilians are “orcs,” “ruscists,” “the enemy.”

8. Attribution of Blame to Victims

The victims are blamed for their own suffering.

Israel: Hamas is blamed for using human shields. Civilian deaths are “Hamas’s fault.”

Ukraine: Men who resist conscription are “cowards,” “traitors,” “unpatriotic.”

Part III: The Structural Trap

The zhengming pass and the Bandura analysis converge on a single conclusion: the structure is the trap.

Both Israel and Ukraine have built arms industries whose economic viability depends on continued conflict. Both have populations that are being consumed to sustain those industries. Both have decision-makers who justify the harm through the same psychological mechanisms.

The differences are significant. Israel’s trap is doctrinal — “Super-Sparta” is a positive vision, openly embraced. Ukraine’s trap is forced — a product of invasion, reluctantly endured. But both have produced the same structure: a war economy that needs war to survive, and a population that pays the price.

The trap is closed because every actor’s rational short-term choice reinforces it:

Actor Rational Short-Term Choice Long-Term Effect

State leadership- Continue fighting to maintain legitimacy and external support -Deepens demographic collapse and dependency

Military -Demand more troops to hold lines- Accelerates emigration and resistance

Arms industry- Seek export markets to survive overcapacity -Creates constituency against peace

External – patrons Fund the war to weaken adversary Sustain the cycle without resolving it

Citizens – Avoid conscription, emigrate if possible- Shrinks the pool of soldiers and taxpayers

No single actor can break the loop alone. The state cannot stop fighting without losing external support. The industry cannot survive without war. The citizens cannot stop emigrating without a credible peace. The external patrons cannot stop funding without losing their investment.

Part IV: The Discipline of Resistance

The euphemisms are not incidental. They are load-bearing. “Defence” makes the arms trade seem virtuous. “Mobilization” makes conscription seem administrative. “Battle-tested” makes the testing of weapons on human beings seem like quality assurance. “Peace” makes the management of war seem like its resolution.

Remove the euphemisms, and the moral disengagement collapses. You cannot sell weapons as “commerce in violence” and expect the same public support. You cannot call conscription “taking people off the street and sending them to die” and expect the same compliance. You cannot call Gaza a “testing lab” and expect the same export orders.

That is why zhengming matters. It is not an academic exercise. It is a tool of resistance.

The first act of resistance is to name things accurately. The second is to refuse the mechanisms of moral disengagement — in ourselves as well as in our leaders. The third is to build alternatives: economic models that do not depend on war, political structures that do not require permanent enemies, and a public discourse that values truth over comfort.

This is not idealism. It is realism. The structural traps in Ukraine and Israel are unsustainable. The demographic and economic pressures are real. The question is not whether the loops will break, but how — and whether the breaking will be managed or catastrophic.

Naming things accurately is the first step toward managing the break.

Conclusion

The wars in Ukraine and Israel are not merely military conflicts. They are linguistic conflicts. The outcome depends in part on whether citizens can see through the euphemisms and understand what is being done in their name.

The discipline of zhengming — the rectification of names — is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Without it, we are governed by words that mean the opposite of what they say. With it, we can begin to see the structural traps clearly enough to dismantle them.

Andrew Klein is a writer and researcher. He publishes at The Patrician’s Watch.

Sources

· Associated Press, “Israel’s arms exports hit record $19.2 billion in 2025,” 2025.

· Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), “Super-Sparta: A Strategic Assessment,” 2025.

· Ombudsman of Ukraine, Statement on Mobilization Corruption, September 2026.

· Zolotarev, A., Interview on Ukrainian Mobilization Strategy, 2026.

· +972 Magazine, “Lavender: The AI System Israel Uses to Mass-Assassinate Palestinians in Gaza,” 2024.

· Reuters, “Ukraine’s Drone Industry: From Survival to Export,” 2026.

· Bandura, A., Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves, 2016.

· Confucius, The Analects, Book XIII.

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Global Observations

Tag Archives: israel

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The Language of Permanent War