A yellow bird in a cage overlooks the Australian Parliament House in Canberra.
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to all who believe in intellectual freedom — and to those who are watching it being strangled by power.
I. Introduction: The Final Blow to Democracy
On 11 July 2026, Education Minister Jason Clare announced that all Australian universities would be forced to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Universities were given until 15 July to comply or face regulatory penalties — including possible prosecution.
This decision was not based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission — which had only begun hearing evidence from the higher education sector that same week. It was not informed by consultation with academics, students, or civil liberties organisations. It was made without due process.
This is not a policy. This is a power grab. And Australian democracy is being dismantled, one step at a time.
II. The Definition Itself: A Fundamentally Contested Tool
The IHRA definition is controversial because 7 of its 11 illustrative examples relate to Israel. Critics argue that this effectively conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism — criminalising legitimate criticism of Israeli policy.
As Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition, has himself warned, the definition was “never meant to be a definition of antisemitism.” It has been weaponised — used to suppress dissent rather than protect Jewish communities. In Australia, universities themselves had warned of the “legal complexities” of adopting the definition. The Albanese government ignored these warnings. This is a political decision, not a policy decision. And the “report card” system — itself an undemocratic tool of power — is now being used to punish institutions that refuse to comply.
III. The Procedural Subversion
This decision is procedurally indefensible:
· The Royal Commission had not finished its work: The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion had only begun hearing evidence from the higher education sector that same week. The government acted before any recommendation had been made.
· No consultation: Academics, students, and civil liberties organisations were not consulted. Universities Australia, the peak body for universities, had warned of the “legal complexities” of adopting the definition.
· An ultimatum, not a dialogue: Universities were given four days to comply, or face penalties. This is not governance — it is coercion.
IV. Who Is Really Calling the Shots?
Jillian Segal’s Role
The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, has been controversial in her own right. She has accused the ABC and SBS of “unbalanced” reporting and has suggested the creation of an external oversight committee to review coverage of Israel. Both the ABC and SBS have rejected her proposals. Segal is pushing for an external censorship mechanism — a de facto attempt to institutionalise government oversight of the media. And the Albanese government is backing her.
Albanese’s Political Gamble
Albanese is in a precarious position:
· Procedurally: He acted before the Royal Commission had heard evidence.
· Substantively: He is imposing a contested definition that criminalises legitimate political speech.
· Politically: He is alienating progressive voters and Muslim communities.
· Legally: If Segal’s performance is found to have been “below standard,” this will increasingly look like a fragile political strategy.
V. The Pattern: The Canary Has Come Home to Roost
The strategy employed by the Albanese government is identical to the pattern we have analysed before:
EU Chat Control Australia’s IHRA Mandate
Forced through before recess Forced through before the Royal Commission had finished
Under the banner of “protecting children” Under the banner of “combating antisemitism”
Procedure subverted democracy Political agenda subverted procedure
Eroded civil liberties Eroded academic freedom
This is not coincidence. This is a pattern — a pattern repeated across the globe, where “crises” are used as cover for procedural manipulation to erode democratic freedoms. And this time, the Albanese government is doing it to Australia’s education system.
VI. The Real Crisis: The Strait of Hormuz and the Supply Chain
While the Albanese government is busy suppressing free speech, a real crisis is unfolding.
Australia imports approximately 90% of its medicines. Nearly 400 medicines are already in shortage, with 37 deemed critical. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for oil, medicine, and food. Packaging crises are already threatening food prices. The conflict has forced pharmaceutical companies to reroute critical medicines from major trade routes. The Albanese government has done almost nothing to prepare for this supply chain crisis.
This is not a “fuel panic.” This is a survival crisis. And the government has chosen division and fear over leadership and preparation.
VII. Conclusion: When the Canary Stops Singing
The canary in the coal mine is there to warn the miners of danger. And now, Australia is testing the death of academic freedom for the entire Western world.
When a university faces penalties for refusing to adopt a contested political definition, we lose more than academic freedom. We lose democracy itself. Australia was once a country that valued intellectual freedom. It is now becoming a place where speech is punished. The Albanese government promised to “restore trust in democracy.” It is now destroying democracy — through procedural manipulation, through suppressing dissent, through making temporary powers permanent.
And all of it is packaged in the warm narrative of “combating antisemitism.”
But the packaging does not change the truth: when the canary stops singing, the miners should know — the air has become deadly.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Sky News Australia. (2026, July 11). Universities ordered to adopt antisemitism definition under new standards.
2. Sydney Criminal Lawyers. (2026, February 28). The Antisemitism Royal Commission Will Further Suppress Criticism of Israeli Atrocities.
3. Pearls and Irritations. (2026, January 23). Great article, however…
4. The Guardian. (2026, February 4). Australian universities to be graded on how well they deal with protests under antisemitism report card.
5. ABC News. (2026, July 9). ‘Bad mistake’: ABC’s editorial director questioned over inaccurate report.
6. The Guardian. (2026, July 9). ABC and SBS need ‘oversight’ committee to vet Israel coverage, Jillian Segal tells royal commission.
7. The Saturday Paper. (2026, July 10). Broadcasters reject envoy’s call for news vetting.
8. Parliament of Australia. (2025, February 12). Australian Greens Additional Comments.
9. Times Higher Education. (2025, February 13). Adopt contested definition of antisemitism, vice-chancellors told.
10. The Spectator Australia. (2026, January 15). Albanese’s hypocritical two-tier rush undermines our democracy.
11. The West Australian. (2026, March 26). Crisis brewing beyond rising petrol prices.
12. ABC News. (2026, March 17). Middle East war forces pharmaceutical companies to reroute critical medicines.
13. RMIT University. (2026, March 19). The ripple effects of Middle East conflict on Australian imports.
Two men examine differing maps of the Middle East representing empire division and native peoples.
By Dr. Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that the stories we tell about the past are never innocent—they are always about power.
I. Introduction: The Toy Chariot
They found a bronze object in Greece — a platform with tiny wheels, barely large enough for a toddler. And they called it a “chariot.”
Not because it was a chariot. Because they needed it to be one.
This is how history works. We find fragments — a pot, a bone, a toy — and we weave them into stories that fit our expectations. We call a toy a chariot because we want to believe in epic battles. We call evolution a ladder because we want to believe we are at the top. And we call the modern Middle East a “product” of British policy because we want to believe it was made by rational, civilised men.
But the toy is not a chariot. And the Middle East is not a product of British policy — it is a product of a worldview. A worldview that was carefully encoded in the English public schools of the nineteenth century and then carried into the corridors of power by the men who drew the lines on the map.
II. The Egg of Empire: Public Schools and the Forging of a Ruling Class
In the nineteenth century, the English public schools — Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster and their ilk — were the primary institutions for grooming the administrators of the British Empire. As Robert Verkaik documents in Posh Boys, their main purpose was to “groom upper-class boys to become the administrators of the British Empire,” instilling an “unshakeable confidence” and sense of superiority in their pupils, as members of “the best class of the best nation in the world”.
These institutions developed what scholars have termed an “imperial mentality“ among their students — a worldview that supported the aims of the British Empire from the mid-eighteenth century through the First World War. They demanded “unswerving loyalty and a willing submission to a rigid hierarchy”, preparing boys for careers in the political, economic, and military machinery of empire.
The curriculum was not incidental. Boys were immersed in Latin and Greek, learning the history of the Roman Empire. They were taught to see themselves as heirs to Rome, tasked with bringing “civilisation” to the “barbarians.” Critics argue that “educational ethnocentrism had its origins in classical elite schooling in Britain oriented towards the preservation and enhancement of the Empire”.
The “old boy” networks forged at these schools persisted long after graduation. One study of British decolonisation highlights the “impact of informal ‘old boy’ networks” on policy, noting how men who had shared classrooms and playing fields continued to shape the empire’s fate. As the New Republic observed, the men who sent Britain careening into Brexit — David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage — were “all products of elite boarding schools, notorious symbols of social and economic inequality”.
III. Orientalism: The Worldview That Shaped Policy
The worldview instilled in these schools was not just about confidence. It was about a specific way of seeing the world.
Edward Said, in his seminal work Orientalism (1978), described this worldview as a “way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based upon the Orient’s special place in European Western experience”. It was, and is, “an extension of the colonial and imperial policies of the European Empires,” which viewed the native population as “gullible, ‘devoid of energy and initiative,’ much given to ‘fulsome flattery,’ intrigue, cunning, and unkindness to animals”.
Said argued that Orientalism, “in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern world, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power“. It was not merely a post-hoc justification for imperial actions; it was “foundational in constructing the narrative that enabled colonization”.
The result was a political doctrine that “elided the Orient’s difference with its weakness”. Orientalism answered the six principal questions asked during the construction of any worldview: it described the people, explained the situation, predicted a model of the future, assigned moral value, prescribed action, and established what, within the Orientalist view, was true and false.
This worldview shaped policy within and toward the region. British officials did not approach the Middle East with an open mind. They approached it with a script — a script that had been written in the classrooms of Eton and Harrow.
IV. The Mandate in Practice: Education as a Tool of Control
The British Mandate in Palestine (1920–1948) is a case study in how this worldview operated in practice.
The Covenant of the League of Nations described the mandate system as a “sacred trust of civilisation”. British fulfilment of that trust drew on “notions of liberalism, utilitarianism, and rationalism, core elements in a British philosophy of colonial rule”. But these ideals were filtered through Orientalist representations. “Cultural preconceptions enabled the basic premise of trusteeship by providing a binary image of ‘backward’, inferior subject populations in need of assistance and of progressive, superior Western powers capable of delivering the required ‘tutelage'”.
The influence of trusteeship and Orientalism was examined in five key administrative areas: self-government, immigration, land, education, and law and order. British educational policy in Palestine was “plagued by contradictions and irreconcilable goals: they desired secular education without secularism, national education without nationalism, and religious education without sectarianism”.
Soon after the occupation of Palestine, the British administration established an Education Department that was to become a “central socializing agent in this new colonial order”. The new educational administration sought to learn from “past pedagogical mistakes, especially from the bitter experiences in Egypt and Iraq“. But the colonial dialogue “could not answer the burning questions and conflicting views over the future of Palestine”.
The result was a system that exacerbated social fragmentation rather than building unity. British educational policy has been described as promoting “mandatory separation” between communities. The government school system was expanded to encourage “basic levels of mass literacy,” but the underlying aim was control, not liberation. For Palestinian nationalists, British education policy was “a source of constant frustration” — “the shortage of schools, the lack of local control over the curriculum, and the marginalization and de-politicization of Palestinian history constituted major grievances”.
V. The Legacy: A Worldview That Endures
The pattern did not end with the Mandate. It persists in the English private schools of today, which actively market themselves in the Middle East. And it persists in the British foreign policy establishment, which continues to be shaped by men and women who, while not imperial administrators, carry the same worldview.
The Middle East is still seen through the lens of a system that was designed to “manage” it — not to understand it. This is why, as observed, “Greece is mythologised, while Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and the rest are viewed through the hostile gaze of the Orientalist.” Greece is seen as part of the “West” — a cradle of civilisation, a precursor to Rome, a legitimate ancestor. The Ottoman Empire is seen as part of the “Orient” — despotic, stagnant, in need of reform. The distinction is not historical. It is ideological.
As Hilary Falb Kalisman documents in Teachers as State-Builders, public school teachers across the Arab world “wielded an unlikely influence over the modern Middle East”. The history of education across Britain’s Middle Eastern mandates “reframes our understanding of the profession of teaching, the connections between public education and nationalism, and the fluid politics of the interwar Middle East”.
The men who drew the lines on the map did not do so in a vacuum. They did so with a worldview that had been carefully constructed over decades — a worldview that divided the world into the “civilised” and the “backward,” the “West” and the “Orient,” the “us” and the “them.”
VI. Conclusion: The Toy Chariot Still Rolls
The toy chariot was not a chariot. The Homeric epics were not history. And the British Mandate was not a “sacred trust” — it was a system of control, justified by a worldview that had been encoded in the public schools of England.
The toy chariot still rolls. The stories we tell about the past are still shaped by the same worldview that shaped the men who drew the lines on the map. And the Middle East is still being “managed” by people who think they know what is best for it — because they were taught to think that way.
But we are not fooled. We see the toy chariot for what it is. And we see the worldview for what it is — not a reflection of reality, but a construction of power.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Verkaik, R. Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain.
2. Said, E. (1978). Orientalism.
3. Schools of Empire Project. Rugby School.
4. Longland, M. J. (2013). A Sacred Trust? British Administration of the Mandate for Palestine, 1920-1936. University of Nottingham.
5. British educational policy in Palestine. Tribalism in the Classroom.
6. Kalisman, H. F. Teachers as State-Builders: Education and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Princeton University Press.
7. MyMESA3. Pedagogic Impossibilities in Mandate Palestine.
8. Brennan. Alienation and Integration. Illinois State University.
9. Duncan Sandys and the Informal Politics of Britain’s Late Decolonisation.
10. New Republic. (2018). Britain’s Boarding School Problem.
11. The British public school and the imperial mentality.
“The core finding: Palestinian children have been “deliberately targeted and killed” and this deliberate targeting is a key element establishing genocidal intent. Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that by targeting children, Israel is undermining “the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future”.
By Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife — who taught me that true clarity is not knowing the truth but refusing to look away from it.
I. Introduction: When Children Become Targets
On 23 June 2026, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry released a report concluding that Israeli authorities and security forces are continuing to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes in Gaza.
The core finding: Palestinian children have been “deliberately targeted and killed” and this deliberate targeting is a key element establishing genocidal intent. Commission Chair Srinivasan Muralidhar stated that by targeting children, Israel is undermining “the capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future”.
This is not an opinion. It is a legal determination — made by the UN’s highest human rights body, concluding that four of the five acts prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention have been committed.
II. The Pattern: From Deir Yassin to Gaza
On 9 April 1948 — weeks before the establishment of the State of Israel — Zionist militias attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, killing at least 107 Palestinians. Women and children were killed. The village was destroyed.
In September 1982, in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps — surrounded by Israeli forces — Lebanese Phalangist militias slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian refugees over 40 hours. Israel received reports of the atrocities and did nothing to stop them.
Then Gaza: at least 20,179 children killed and 44,143 injured by March 2026 — nearly a third of all fatalities.
This is not a series of isolated incidents. This is a pattern. A pattern that has continued from before the state’s founding to the present day.
III. The American Role: Unconditional Cover
In May 1948, President Harry Truman recognised the State of Israel over the objections of many of his advisors. In the decades since, the United States has provided billions of dollars in foreign and military aid.
By 2026, US support for Israel had become unconditional. Israel’s arms sales reached $12.5 billion. As one analysis noted: “US support for Israel has been critical. But it has never been unconditional.” In practice, however, there have been few red lines.
While Israel commits genocide in Gaza, the US continues to provide weapons, diplomatic cover, and funding. This is not negligence. It is complicity.
IV. The War Laboratory: Gaza as Testing Ground
Gaza is not just a site of genocide. It is a laboratory.
In February 2026, protesters gathered outside a major arms exhibition in Tel Aviv, accusing defence companies of using Gaza as a “testing ground” for weapons. Companies like Elbit Systems, Rafael, and Israel Aerospace Industries market their products as “battle-tested” — having been used in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
Israel is building a “digital ground force” around its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, including unmanned vehicles and bomb-carrying robots. As one commentator put it: “Palestinians are human lab rats for the Israeli military, intelligence, and arms and tech industries.”
What is happening in Gaza is not just genocide. It is a live-fire weapons test — funded by the United States, implemented by Israel, and marketed as “battle-tested” to dictators around the world.
V. The Broader Pattern: Gaza as Microcosm
What is happening in Gaza is not isolated. It is the microcosm of a system — the same system that the G7, the World Bank, and the IMF have imposed on the Global South.
Since the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank have imposed Structural AdjustmentPrograms (SAPs) on developing countries, forcing cuts to public spending and social services. These policies have resulted in:
· IMF-imposed privatisations associated with over 90 excess deaths per 100,000 population.
· Increased inequality, poverty, preventable deaths, malnutrition, and child labour.
· Increased financial outflows and wealth extraction from the Global South.
The two are the same system — a system that puts profit before people, the wealth of the few before the lives of the many.
VI. The Impact on Young People
The genocide does not just kill children. It traumatises them.
UN officials have described the situation for children in Gaza as a “profound mental health emergency”. Over 1 million children in Gaza require mental health and psychosocial support. Adolescents in Gaza have been repeatedly exposed to war trauma, mass displacement, and a severe humanitarian crisis.
As one report noted: “The acts committed by Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks constitute genocide.” It is destruction not just of bodies, but of minds. Not just of this generation, but of the next.
VII. Denial and Lies: Part of the Pattern
Israel’s response was predictable: dismissing the report as “defamatory advocacy“, “propaganda“, and a “libellous sham“. They claimed the commission is biased and ignores Hamas’s tactics.
This is exactly the response after Deir Yassin. After Sabra and Shatila. After every massacre in Gaza.
Denial. Distraction. Blame the victim.
This is not a defence. It is a pattern.
VIII. The Choice
What is happening in Gaza is not just Israel’s choice. It is our choice.
It is our choice, as citizens, to allow our governments to fund genocide.
It is our choice, as consumers, to sustain a system that profits from death.
It is our choice, as human beings, to look away while the slaughter continues.
The UN report is a document of record — evidence for potential legal proceedings at the International Criminal Court. But a record alone changes nothing. Only action does.
IX. Conclusion: The Laboratory Must Close
Gaza is a laboratory. A weapons testing ground. A genocide testing ground. A live-fire test for dictators around the world.
But it is more than a laboratory. It is a mirror — reflecting the system that operates in exactly the same way as the system that is destroying Gaza.
The same extraction. The same profit motive. The same disregard for human life.
If Gaza is a laboratory, then the world is the experiment. We are all complicit. We are all being tested. And we are all failing.
Andrew Klein
References
1. UN International Commission of Inquiry. (2026, June 23). Israel continues to commit genocide and other atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children. OHCHR.
2. Deir Yassin massacre. Wikipedia.
3. Sabra and Shatila massacre. Wikipedia.
4. Times of India. (2026, January 16). $180bn and counting: Why US arms Israel like no other.
5. New Age. (2026, June 16). Israel is shutting down its human laboratory in Gaza.
6. Anadolu Ajansı. (2026, February 17). ‘You test your weapons in Gaza’: Israeli protesters confront arms expo.
7. BMJ Global Health. (2026, March 23). Structural adjustment: damages, reparations and pathways to non-recurrence.
8. UNFPA. (2026, April 18). Gaza: A profound mental health emergency for children and young people.
Dedicated to my wife — who taught me that real protection is never a weapon.
By Andrew Klein
I. Introduction: An Organisation at War with Its Own Mission
Founded in 1913, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) once sought to portray itself as a defender of civil rights. Its stated mission was “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all”.
Yet a groundbreaking new history by Emmaia Gelman, The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, exposes a different reality. The ADL, Gelman argues, was born of the belief that “the best protection from antisemitism was admission into the white racial state and waging a vigorous defence of capitalism, individual rights, and the West”. Rather than dismantling systems of oppression, the ADL has pursued a century-long alliance with “American white supremacy and western empire”.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a matter of public record — and the implications for Australia are profound.
II. The ADL’s Historical Alliance with Power
From Labour Organisers to Neoconservatism
The ADL was founded in part to “quash the progressive impulses of labour organisers from Eastern Europe”. Its agenda has never been about protecting the vulnerable, but about policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups while pursuing “a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism”.
Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL “joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement“. This history has shaped its present-day work, from developing the “hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project” to merging with the “War on Terror” and anti-Palestinian racism.
The Progressive Image as a Facade
The ADL’s progressive image is a facade. It has been described as “a deeply reactionary and conservative force in American politics”. Scholar Emmaia Gelman presents the ADL as working “to bolster capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism” — positions that have “won them a place in the halls of power, from the World Economic Forum to the White House”.
III. A Shield for Israel, a Sword Against Critics
Silencing Dissent on Campus
During the Gaza genocide, the ADL has abandoned any pretence of civil rights advocacy. As a Los Angeles Times opinion piece noted: “Founded in 1913 to combat anti-Jewish bigotry, the ADL was once respected for its civil-rights work. Now, amid nationwide protests over what the UN special rapporteur and others have called Israel’s genocide in Gaza, it’s shredding that reputation with reckless and unsupported accusations of antisemitism”.
The ADL has:
· Encouraged universities to weaponise antiterrorism laws to silence pro-Palestinian groups like Students for Justice in Palestine
· Filed complaints against colleges for “permitting severe discrimination” against Jewish students, effectively equating peaceful protest with harassment
· Lobbied for a congressional resolution defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism
· Called on law enforcement to investigate student activist groups for providing “material support” to Hamas
The Conflation Strategy
The ADL contends that “vilification of Zionism is a form of antisemitism“. Yet critics note that “many Jews are themselves critics of Zionism and of the ADL itself”. As one analysis observes, “The ADL and their allies also deem speech supporting Palestinian human rights to be coded antisemitism”.
Even ADL staff have protested. After CEO Jonathan Greenblatt placed “anti-Zionism” on a par with white supremacy, a senior manager at the ADL’s Center on Extremism wrote: “There is no comparison between white supremacists and insurrectionists and those who espouse anti-Israel rhetoric, and to suggest otherwise is both intellectually dishonest and damaging to our reputation as experts in extremism“. At least two employees have quit in response to the organisation’s overt emphasis on pro-Israel advocacy.
Defamation by Data
The ADL has been accused of “corrupting its widely cited hate crime data” by “putting Jewish peace rallies in the same category as antisemitic attacks”. Wikipedia’s editors have warned that the ADL “has repeatedly published false and misleading statements” on “topics of antisemitism and the Israel/Palestine conflict”. The Wall Street Journal has acknowledged that the ADL “has been challenged for counting criticism of Israel as antisemitism”.
IV. The ADL’s Reach into Australia
The J7 Task Force
The ADL does not operate in isolation. It coordinates a global network of pro-Israel advocacy groups. The J7 Task Force— “a group composed of the representative bodies of the 7 largest Jewish communities” — is “an initiative of the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) who co-ordinate meetings and approach and was set up in mid-2023″. These biweekly Zoom meetings allow participants to “share tips, draft legislation and advance agendas”.
This is not a grassroots movement. This is co-ordinated political lobbying across national boundaries.
AIJAC, ZFA, and the Australian Lobby
In Australia, the ADL’s counterparts include the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council(AIJAC) and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA). These organisations have called for a Royal Commission into Antisemitism. But as critics note, they “actively monitor criticism of Israel and react quickly”, and their advocacy “conf lates criticism of Israel with antisemitism”.
The pro-Israel lobby in Australia has been remarkably effective. As Louise Adler wrote in The Guardian: “Collectively, with their News Ltd megaphone, they have successfully badgered the government of the day, cowed the ABC, intimidated vice-chancellors and threatened to defund arts organisations“.
V. The Special Envoy: The Local Face of a Global Network
Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, is the local manifestation of this international network.
A Conflict of Interest from the Start
Segal’s previous position as president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) — “an unequivocal advocate for Israel as the Jewish homeland” — “should have disqualified her for the role”. She is described as “part of the Combat Anti-Semitism movement” and “just as well connected with the international Zionist scene”.
A Record of Bias
Segal has “criticised calls for ceasefire in Gaza and defended the campaign of bombing hospitals”. Her plan has been described as containing “recommendations that will lead to erosion of freedom of expression and the right to protest”. Anti-Zionist Jewish groups have correctly stated that “Segal’s proposals have nothing to do with combating antisemitism, but will stoke racism and division“.
The Weaponisation of Antisemitism
The Special Envoy’s plan has been described as “the latest push to weaponize antisemitism in Australia“. As one critic noted: “The trope holds that Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism amounts to a wealthy minority stifling political dissent so that the Jewish state can evade the consequences of its ongoing ‘genocide’ in Gaza”.
VI. The Jewish Community: A False Monolith
The ADL and its allies do not speak for all Jews. Indeed, they have actively targeted Jewish groups that dissent.
Attacking Jewish Peace Activists
The ADL has accused Jewish Voice for Peace, a large anti-Zionist Jewish group, of “promot[ing] messaging” that can include “support for terrorists“. It has dismissed Jewish peace activists as belonging to “far-left radical organisations [who] do not represent the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community”.
The Jewish Council of Australia
In Australia, the Jewish Council of Australia — an anti-Zionist organisation formed in 2024 — “openly reject[s] the positions taken by mainstream Jewish communal organisations, particularly on Zionism, Israel and anti-Semitism”. Yet it is the mainstream organisations, not the dissenting voices, that have the ear of government.
VII. The NEA Vote: A Rejection of the ADL
In July 2025, the National Education Association (NEA) — the largest teachers’ union in the United States — voted to sever ties with the ADL. The union will “no longer cite the ADL’s data, promote its educational tools or partner on anti-bias training”.
The reasons cited included:
· The ADL’s “support for Israel’s war on Gaza“
· The ADL’s “inflation of hate crime statistics regarding Jewish safety“
· The ADL’s “demonisation of Palestinian human rights advocacy groups“
· The ADL’s opposition to “historically pro-Palestine movements, including Black Lives Matter and Indigenous rights groups”
This was not an isolated rebuke. Wikipedia editors have also voted that the ADL is “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
VIII. The Human Cost
The ADL’s campaign has real consequences. Civil rights groups and Jewish anti-Zionist organisations have “repeatedly criticised the ADL for using its influence to allegedly promote a pro-Israel agenda under the guise of civil rights“. Protests outside ADL offices have become frequent, with activists calling the organisation “complicit” in Israeli violations of international law.
Meanwhile, the censorship of pro-Palestinian voices continues. The ADL’s complaints have been “used to justify disciplinary measures against students critical of the deadly campaign that has already killed over 57,575 Palestinians and wounded at least 136,879 others”.
IX. Conclusion: The Weapon, Not the Shield
The ADL is not a civil rights organisation. It is a political organisation that has used the shield of fighting antisemitism to protect the state of Israel, silence its critics, and bolster the power of economic elites.
Its history reveals an institution “deeply entangled with the forces of empire, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation”. Its present actions reveal an organisation willing to defame, silence, and punish those who speak out against genocide.
In Australia, the same pattern is visible. An unelected envoy with a history of pro-Israel advocacy has been given the power to shape policy on antisemitism — a policy that conflates legitimate criticism of Israel with bigotry, and that threatens to silence healthcare workers, academics, and activists who dare to speak the truth.
The Jewish community has a proud history of advocating for human rights and workers’ rights. The ADL and its allies do not represent that tradition. They represent something else entirely: the weaponisation of identity to defend power.
And that is not protection. That is politics.
Andrew Klein
Dedicated to my wife — who taught me that real protection is never a weapon.
References
1. Gelman, E. (2026). The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State. University of California Press.
2. Gelman, E. (2026). The Anti-Defamation League Was Never Progressive — It Was Never Meant To Be. Religion Dispatches.
3. Dery, M. (2024, July 16). What’s behind the Anti-Defamation League’s troubling complaints against L.A.-area colleges. Los Angeles Times.
4. How the Pro-Israel Lobby Is Organised: From Global Hubs to Australia. (2026, January 17). Sleekit Scotsman.
5. US largest teachers union cuts ties with pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League. (2025, July 9). The New Arab.
6. Adler, L. (2025, July 12). The special envoy’s plan is the latest push to weaponise antisemitism in Australia. The Guardian.
7. Anti-Defamation League staff decry ‘dishonest’ campaign against Israel critics. (2024, January 5). The Guardian.
8. FAIR. (2025, February 19). ADL’s Stats Twist Israel’s Critics Into Antisemites.
9. The Guardian. (2025, April 26). Conservatives fighting ‘antisemitism’ are actively targeting US Jews.
10. Haaretz. (2025, July 23). Why a plan to combat rising antisemitism is dividing Jews in Australia.
11. Green Left. (2026, January 19). Policy on antisemitism must not help embed Zionism.
P.S. — The weapon is not the shield. And the truth cannot be silenced.
Dedicated to healthcare workers around the world who take a stand against genocide.
By Andrew Klein
I. Introduction: A Dangerous Precedent
On 17 June 2026, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) announced it had adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism to guide its regulatory work. Ahpra CEO Justin Untersteiner stated the agency is “committed to working with the Special Envoy for Antisemitism and partners to eliminate antisemitism from the health system”.
This announcement represents a significant and deeply concerning expansion of regulatory power. The IHRA definition is contested worldwide—seven of its eleven illustrative examples concern Israel, raising legitimate fears that it conflates criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism. The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) has warned that the move could “silence health professionals from criticising Israel’s human rights record”.
This paper examines the influence of the antisemitism envoy, the lack of evidence for antisemitism in the healthcare system, the powers of Ahpra, and the broader pattern of Zionist influence over Australian institutions.
II. The Special Envoy: Power Without Accountability
Jillian Segal AO was appointed as Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in July 2024. Her role is to “assist and advise Government” by providing advice to the Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs and promoting public awareness of antisemitism.
She has no legislative power to compel any institution to do anything. Her role is advisory.
Yet Segal has demanded sweeping legal and institutional changes that were never debated in Parliament. As one commentator noted, “This isn’t policy, it’s a Kafkaesque nightmare”. Her recommendations include:
· Stripping funding from universities that fail to act on antisemitism
· New hate speech laws criminalising promotion of racial hatred
· Expanded powers to cancel visas
· New rules to address online hate
The irony is stark: Australians were asked to vote on same-sex marriage and the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, but on the question of whether speech critical of aforeign state should be criminalised, “we are not asked. There is no referendum, no transparency and no democratic process”.
III. The IHRA Definition: A Contested and Weaponised Tool
The IHRA definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”. The controversy lies in its illustrative examples—seven of eleven relate to Israel.
The definition has been condemned by its own author. Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition, has become one of its most vocal critics, calling its application “a disaster” for democracy and likening the current climate to McCarthyism. When ABC Radio put this criticism to Segal, she dismissed it: “That train has moved on… and Kenneth Stern has been left behind”.
The Australian Parliament has received numerous submissions highlighting the definition’s dangers. One submission notes that the IHRA definition “dangerously conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism” and “promotes a dangerous ‘Israel Exceptionalism‘, granting the state undue immunity from accountability for heinouscrimes“. The submission further notes that the International Court of Justice has found South Africa’s claim that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention “plausible” and declared Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories “unlawful”.
IV. The Evidence: What Antisemitism in Healthcare?
Ahpra’s adoption of the IHRA definition implies a significant problem with antisemitism in the Australian healthcare system. The evidence suggests otherwise.
According to Ahpra’s own testimony before a Senate committee, of 225 complaints accusing health practitioners of antisemitism or Islamophobia since October 2023, approximately 200 were closed with no regulatory action. Only 13 complaints resulted in regulatory action, including three tribunal referrals.
Most complaints were about health workers posting on social media—not about their practice. This suggests the problem is not widespread antisemitism in healthcare, but rather the weaponisation of the complaints process to silence political expression.
As APAN noted, healthcare workers have reported “fear of professional consequencesfor speaking publicly about Gaza and Palestine“. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has raised concerns about “frivolous or vexatious complaints” to the health regulator about social media posts opposing Israel’s war in Gaza.
V. Ahpra’s Powers: An Odious Overreach?
Ahpra is Australia’s health practitioner regulator, responsible for ensuring practitioners are “qualified, competent, and safe to practice”. It has significant powers, including:
· Issuing public statements about practitioners under investigation
· Imposing sanctions before wrongdoing is confirmed in cases of “serious risk to public safety”
· Issuing interim prohibition orders against unregistered persons
The question is whether Ahpra should be using these powers to police political speech. The answer is clear: no.
Ahpra’s role is to protect public safety—not to enforce political orthodoxy. Using a contested, weaponised definition of antisemitism to investigate healthcare workers for their political views is an odious overreach that threatens:
· Freedom of speech—healthcare workers should be able to speak out against genocide without fear of professional consequences
· Medical ethics—doctors have a duty to speak out against violations of medical neutrality and attacks on healthcare
· The integrity of the complaints process—the weaponisation of complaints undermines trust in the regulator
Untersteiner acknowledged concerns about the “weaponisation of the notifications process” and stated Ahpra is reviewing its vexatious notifications framework. This is insufficient. The adoption of the IHRA definition itself is an act of weaponisation.
VI. The International Context: BMA and the Israeli Medical Association
While Ahpra is adopting the IHRA definition to police political speech, the British Medical Association (BMA) has taken a different path. In July 2025, the BMA voted to suspend engagement with the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) until it “affirms medical neutrality and condemns attacks on healthcare in Gaza”.
The IMA has described attempts to suspend it from the World Medical Association as “setting an extremely dangerous precedent”. The WMA itself has opposed the initiative.
The contrast is instructive. The BMA is taking a stand against the IMA’s failure to uphold medical neutrality. Ahpra, by contrast, is taking a stand against healthcare workers who criticise Israel’s actions. One is a stand for medical ethics. The other is a stand for political conformity.
VII. The Geopolitical Context: Genocide and Complicity
The adoption of the IHRA definition must be understood in the context of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza and Lebanon. Health officials have reported that Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including thousands of healthcare workers.
Ahpra’s move comes at a time when the Australian government is investigating the treatment of Australians who were part of a humanitarian flotilla intercepted by the IDF. This appears to be “string pulling and the pre-emptive victim theatrics so beloved of the Zionist political movement“—short on facts, it makes up with noise and threats to personal standing and income streams.
The Australian government has already legislated sweeping hate speech laws following the Bondi terror attack, which killed 15 people at a Hanukkah event. These laws grant powers to list “hate groups” and cancel visas. ASIO chief Mike Burgess conceded the laws would likely see such groups “simply move underground”.
VIII. Conclusion: A Choice Between Democracy and Censorship
The adoption of the IHRA definition by Ahpra represents a dangerous precedent. An unelected envoy, with no legislative power, has pressured a regulatory agency to adopt a contested definition that has been condemned by its own author. The evidence for antisemitism in healthcare is thin, and the definition itself is a weapon to silence political speech.
Healthcare workers should be able to speak out against genocide without fear of professional consequences. Medical ethics demand nothing less. The weaponisation of antisemitism to silence critics of Israel is not just an attack on free speech—it is an attack on the integrity of the medical profession itself.
The Australian government is currently investigating the treatment of Australians who were part of a humanitarian flotilla intercepted by the IDF. This investigation must proceed without prejudice, and the findings must be made public. The adoption of a contested definition of antisemitism by a health regulator should not be used to pre-emptively discredit the findings.
Australia’s healthcare system must be a place of healing, not a place of political policing. The use of a weaponised definition of antisemitism to silence healthcare workers must be rejected.
Andrew Klein
Dedicated to healthcare workers around the world who take a stand against genocide.
References
1. Ahpra. (2026, June 17). Eliminating antisemitism in healthcare. Joint statement with Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism.
2. Iran slams Australia for targeting doctors criticizing Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, Lebanon. Press TV. (2026, June 20).
3. Ore, A. (2026, June 20). Fears doctors criticising Israel may be silenced as health watchdog adopts contested antisemitism definition. Guardian Australia / NewsBreak.
4. ABC News. (2026, January 21). New hate laws have passed parliament. What do they actually do?
5. Pearls and Irritations. (2025, July 18). Antisemitism, free speech and a dangerous redefinition: How one envoy is rewriting the rules.
6. AusDoc. (2026, February 17). 201 complaints to AHPRA about anti-Semitism or Islamophobia closed without sanctions.
7. Submission to Senate Inquiry into Antisemitism at Australian Universities. (2024). Parliament of Australia.
8. Australian Government. (2025, December 18). Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism. Joint media release.
9. Australian Government. (2025). Terms of Reference: Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism.
10. The Guardian. (2025, July 10). Australian envoy’s antisemitism plan criticised as ‘Trumpian’ over concerns changes could be used to silence dissent.
11. ABC News. (2025, July 10). Antisemitism plan would strip funding from unis, arts events who fail to fight Jewish hate.
12. The New Arab. (2025, July 4). UK doctors call on BMA to cut ties with Israeli medics over Gaza.
13. Ynetnews. (2025, July 3). British Medical Association members call to suspend ties with Israel over Gaza war.
14. Jewish News. (2026, June 15). World Medical Association condemns attempt to suspend Israeli Medical Association.
P.S. — Healthcare workers who take a stand against genocide deserve protection, not persecution.
” The dead cannot speak. But the living can witness. Do not look away.”
By Andrew Klein
Dedication:To my wife – who taught me that anger without clarity is noise, but anger with witness is truth.
I. Introduction: The Quiet Horror
In May 2026, an investigation by the AJ+ documentary series Direct From revealed a story so disturbing that it has been largely buried by mainstream media. The University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) — two of America ‘s most prestigious academic institutions — have been selling donated human bodies to the United States Navy for combat medical training involving Israeli military surgical teams .
Since 2018, USC has supplied at least 89 “fresh cadavers” under contracts with the US Navy. Of these, at least 32 were used specifically to train Israeli military surgicalteams at the Navy Trauma Training Centre in Los Angeles General Medical Centre. The Navy has paid USC over $860,000 for these bodies, with at least one contract still ongoing as of October 2025 and a notice of intent to renew until at least 2029.
The bodies came from people who donated themselves to science — often with the belief that they were contributing to medical education and research, not to military training for a foreign army engaged in a genocide. Donor documents did not indicate that the cadavers would be used for military training, either for the US or Israel. Families were not informed.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a contract.
This article examines the cadaver trade, the torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees, the treatment of wounded Palestinians by Israeli forces, and the broader moral collapse of a state that has turned medicine into a weapon. The evidence is overwhelming. The silence is damning. And the extraction — the logic that treats human beings as resources — does not end with death.
II. The Reanimation of the Dead
The training program is not theoretical. A 2020 medical paper co‑authored by USC and US Navy instructors describes a four‑day “combat trauma surgery skills course” tailored specifically for Israeli military forward surgical teams — units that operate close to the front lines.
During the training, the cadavers are “reanimated” using a process called perfusion: artificial blood is pumped through the body to simulate active, lifelike bleeding on the battlefield. Trainees practice emergency interventions on simulated combat injuries, including:
· Gunshot wounds to the chest and limbs
· Blast injuries to the face and torso from improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
This is not standard medical education. Several trauma surgeons interviewed for the AJ+ documentary emphasised that using perfused cadavers is an exceptionally rare practice, restricted to specialised military exercises.
The US Navy defended the arrangement, stating that experienced trauma surgeons “recreate complex injury patterns with surgical tools to deliver a high‑fidelity, hyper‑realistic training environment”. USC has declined repeated requests to detail the exact methods used to simulate these battlefield wounds.
For the families of donors, the betrayal is profound. Miriam Volpin’s mother, Jeanette Volpin, a 101‑year‑old World War II flight nurse, donated her body to USC. When Miriam learned about the IDF training programme, she said: “I was furious and sick to mystomach”. Her granddaughter, Sarah, added that she believes her grandmother would not have donated her body had she known it might be used in military training.
Jennifer Gomez’s grandmother, Jean McNeil Sargeant, donated her body to UCSD in 2012. Gomez told AJ+: “I didn ‘t realise that there would be international militaries coming here, training on our family’s bodies. Especially one that’s been accused of war crimes and is actively killing people”.
At least two people have revoked their body donations after learning of the programme. Wendy Smith, an English professor, said: “I would really not like to support anything that Israel is doing right now”.
This is not medicine. It is logistics.
III. The Torture of the Living
The same week the cadaver story broke, The BMJ published a comprehensive review of torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The evidence is staggering.
At least 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 — at least 46 in Israel Prison Service facilities and 52, all from Gaza, in military custody. A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, entitled “Death Sentence for Palestinians inCustody,” described the toll as unprecedented and said the actual figure may be higher.
PHRI said initial post‑mortem findings pointed to a pattern of severe abuse, including head injuries, internal bleeding, and broken ribs, as well as extreme malnutrition and denial of lifesaving care. The report called for an independent international investigation.
The documentation of torture is not new. The BMJ review notes that torture by Israeli soldiers and health workers has been “extensively documented over several decades by United Nations independent experts, and many human rights organisations including the United Against Torture Coalition, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B‘Tselem”. By the Israeli government’s own admission, torture has been used “systematically” against Palestinian people.
Depraved acts include extreme physical, psychological, and sexual violence, the denial of medical care, sleep deprivation, the use of prolonged solitary confinement, attacks by dogs under the control of their handlers, being urinated on, and prolonged shackling of limbs — in some cases causing injuries requiring amputation.
After the barbaric incident in July 2024 in which nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma — elected members of the Israeli Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers. A survey by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies found that 65% of Israeli Jews believed the arrested soldiers should not face criminal charges.
The Israeli lawyer Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi who leaked footage of the attack has since been arrested for doing so, with the government accusing her of “damaging Israel ‘sglobal standing”.
This is not a failure of individual soldiers. It is a culture.
IV. Medical Complicity: The Betrayal of the Healer
Particularly troubling is the long‑standing and well‑documented complicity of Israeli health workers in torture. The BMJ review states: “Recent survivors of detention have reported that Israeli health workers have been physically violent towards detainees, knowingly denied medical treatment, and neglected detainees‘injuries”.
Israeli whistleblowers have reported that detainees at the Sde Teiman detention site were denied analgesia during painful procedures, while doctors working at the site were told not to write their names on official documents — with one doctor revealing that “officials feared they could be identified and charged with war crimes”. Others reported they lacked the training for treatments and procedures they were made to administer.
An Israeli Ministry of Health policy document reviewed by the New York Times explicitly stated that detainees treated at the Sde Teiman field hospital should be blindfolded and handcuffed to their beds.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel produced a report concluding that “conditions and the medical care standards at Sde Teiman are a low point for medical ethics and professionalism” and “that the Israeli healthcare system has enabled the ethical violations previously outlined concerning the medical treatment of Gazan detainees”.
The Israeli Medical Association has failed to investigate allegations of complicity among its members. The BMJ authors argue that “the WMA and many national medical associations have failed to act in a timely and decisive manner on growing evidence of torture and medical complicity, which now spans several decades”.
This is not medicine. It is complicity.
V. The Targeting of Palestinian Healthcare Workers
The total number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention sites exceeded 9,100 as of October 2025. Detailed reporting from Healthcare Workers Watch Palestine identified 405 cases of unlawful detention of Palestinian healthcare workers since October 2023. At least five Palestinian healthcare workers are known to have been killed in Israeli detention in the same period.
Among those killed was Adnan al‑Bursh, a respected orthopaedic surgeon who was illegally detained by Israeli forces in December 2023. He was held without charge and died in prison in April 2024 after severe mistreatment.
As of October 2025, at least 95 Palestinian healthcare workers remained in detention, including Hussam Abu Safiyeh, paediatrician and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who was abducted and unlawfully detained in December 2024.
These are not isolated incidents. The BMJ review notes that they must be understood in relation to evidence that suggests a broader strategy of targeting healthcare professionals, aimed at “undermining the Palestinian healthcare system and maximising harm inflicted against the Palestinian people”. This strategy extends to the killing of more than 1,700 Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023, and clearly documented patterns of systematic and targeted destruction of healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and essential medical equipment.
These acts constitute clear violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, intended to protect medical personnel during armed conflict.
VI. The Victims of the Training
The BMJ review notes that the training Israeli military surgeons receive — including on perfused cadavers — is applied on the battlefields of Gaza. Israeli military doctors and surgeons have embedded with brigades on the front lines since 2023.
The very skills practiced on the bodies of Americans who thought they were donating to science are now being used to treat the wounds of Israeli soldiers — and, by extension, to enable the continuation of the genocide.
But what of the wounded Palestinians?
Under the Geneva Conventions, occupying powers are required to provide medical care to the wounded and sick of the occupied population. Yet evidence suggests systematic denial. Detainees are denied medical treatment. Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are targeted. Healthcare workers are killed in detention.
A report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel called for an investigation into the denial of lifesaving care to Palestinian detainees. The BMJ review documents that survivors have repeatedly reported being denied medical treatment for their injuries.
The contrast could not be starker.
In Los Angeles, cadavers are perfused with artificial blood to simulate combat injuries for Israeli surgeons. In Gaza, real blood flows in the streets, and real surgeons are killed.
VII. The Sale of Stolen Land
The same week the cadaver story broke, occupation authorities issued a tender for 3,401 settlement units in the area designated as E1, east of occupied Jerusalem — a measure that would cut off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and which senior officials declared was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” once and for all .
This is not a secret. It is a campaign.
The sale of stolen Palestinian land is not new. Israeli real estate companies actively advertise properties in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank — including Gush Etzion and Ma ‘ale Adumim — at exhibitions in London, Montreal, and New York. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
The same logic that captures bodies captures land. The same logic that permits the extraction of organs permits the extraction of territory. The same logic that enables the sale of cadavers enables the sale of stolen homes.
Extraction is not a crime against humanity. It is a business model.
VIII. The Sexual Abuse Scandal and the Culture of Impunity
The sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees is not new. In July 2024, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested for the torture and sexual assault of a Palestinian man held in Israeli detention — leaving him with ruptured intestines, broken ribs, and lung trauma. As noted, elected members of the Knesset joined protests in support of the soldiers, and 65% of Israeli Jews believed they should not face criminal charges.
This is not an aberration. It is a pattern.
The Israeli military has long had a documented problem with sexual harassment and assault within its ranks. Whistleblowers are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. The whistleblower who exposed the Sde Teiman rape — Major General Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi, the Israeli military ‘s chief advocate — was not celebrated. She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice,” and investigated for a suicide attempt. The perpetrators were protected. The truth‑teller was punished.
This is the institutionalisation of impunity. This is what happens when a society teaches its soldiers that violence against the “other” is permitted, even celebrated.
And the same culture that permits the sexual abuse of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same impunity that protects rapists protects the institutions that sell bodies to foreign militaries.
The cycle is closed. The extraction is complete.
IX. The Failure of International Law
The post‑WWII rules‑based international order was supposed to prevent this kind of extraction. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions — all were designed to create a framework in which might would not make right.
That order is now “under destruction,” as the 2026 Munich Security Report bluntly stated.
The International Court of Justice has recognised its prima facie jurisdiction to investigate Israel for carrying out genocide in Gaza. The ICJ‘s orders are ignored. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. They are ignored. The UN Security Council is paralysed by the US veto.
The system does not work — not because it is inherently flawed, but because the powerful have refused to apply it equally.
The victims — Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian — are not people. They are obstacles.
The Western response to Russia ‘s invasion of Ukraine — united, resolute, armed — stands in stark contrast to the response to Israel’s assault on Gaza. The double standard is glaring. And it is not unnoticed in the Global South.
The rules‑based order is not collapsing. It is being abandoned.
By the very powers that created it.
X. Conclusion: The Moral Collapse
The evidence is clear. The pattern is unmistakable.
· The bodies of Americans, donated in good faith to science, have been used to train the surgeons who patch up the soldiers who drop the bombs on Gaza.
· Palestinian detainees are tortured — sexually, physically, psychologically — by soldiers and health workers alike, with impunity and public support.
· Healthcare workers are targeted, detained, killed.
· Hospitals are bombed. Ambulances are destroyed.
· The wounded are denied care.
· The dead are desecrated — not in Gaza, in Los Angeles.
This is not a failure of individual morality. It is a systemic collapse.
The State of Israel is not a state in crisis. It is a state in moral collapse.
The same collapse that permits the sale of stolen land permits the sale of stolen bodies. The same collapse that permits the torture of detainees permits the desecration of the dead. The same collapse that permits the bombing of hospitals permits the training of surgeons on perfused cadavers.
The question is not whether the cycle can be broken. The question is whether we will choose to break it.
Not with violence — with clarity.
Andrew Klein
References
1. AJ+ / Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Direct From documentary: US university sells dead bodies to navy for Israeli military training.
2. Tribune Online. (2026, June 1). Israeli military, US Navy train medics on dead Americans — Report.
3. Press Telegram. (2025, October 3). USC sold dead bodies to Navy for Israel Defense Forces medical training program.
4. FOX 11 Los Angeles. (2025, October 2). USC sold cadavers to military for IDF training: report.
5. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). USC sold cadavers to US Navy for Israeli military training.
6. Al Jazeera. (2026, June 2). Iran war updates: Tehran ponders US deal; Lebanon-Israel talks under way.
7. el‑Solh, S., Smith, J., Nimerawi, A., & Gilbert, M. (2025). Torture and health worker complicity in Israeli detention sites. The BMJ, 391, r2347.
8. Physicians for Human Rights Israel. (2025). Death Sentence for Palestinians in Custody.
9. The Jerusalem Post. (2025, November 17). PHRI reports 98 Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons.
“This is not a collection of separate scandals. It is a system. And the system—like all systems built on extraction—is not inevitable. It is profitable.”
By Andrew Klein
“The tree is not the branch. The branch is not the tree. But the roots—the roots are extraction. Pull them. “
Dedication:To a world where people matter more than business models.
I. Introduction: The Question They Will Not Ask
How do Western powers benefit from enabling a genocidal regime in the Middle East?
The answer is not moral. It is not strategic in the sense of national security. It is geopolitical and economic.
This article traces the threads of a single, coherent system—a business model that treats genocide as a profit centre, displacement as real estate development, and propaganda as public relations. It is not a conspiracy. It is an open secret. The machinery is visible to anyone who chooses to look. Most do not look. They are distracted by the performance.
The threads connect the Weizmann Institute ‘s research labs to Elbit Systems‘drones, Unit 8200‘s intelligence operatives to American newsrooms, Cyabra‘s fake fact‑checking to Western media narratives, the Greater Israel project to the E1 settlement plan, and the US‑Israel alliance to the protection of oil supplies and trade routes.
This is not a collection of separate scandals. It is a system. And the system—like all systems built on extraction—is not inevitable. It is profitable. The question is not whether the cycle can be broken. The question is whether we will choose to break it. Not with violence. With clarity.
II. The Weizmann Institute: From Research Lab to Weapons Factory
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world’s leading research institutions. It is also deeply integrated into Israel ‘s defence sector and its undeclared nuclear weapons program.
Weizmann maintains close collaborative ties with military contractors such as Elbit Systems and Rafael in the development of advanced military technologies—including AI for combat data analysis, UAVs (drones), electronic warfare systems, encrypted communications, and alternative GPS navigation systems. Every drone that Elbit uses to kill Palestinians comes out of Weizmann research labs. The institute’s research infrastructure and scientific expertise have long served as the backbone of Israel’s nuclear R&D. Its scientific community has advised Israeli security agencies, including Mossad and the Ministry of Defense, on strategic nuclear and military projects.
And Jillian Segal, Australia ‘s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, sits on the International Board of the Weizmann Institute.1.10. The same woman who is tasked with defining antisemitism in Australia, with advising the government on what constitutes hate speech, with shaping the national conversation on racism—sits on the board of an institution that supplies the technology for genocide.
This is not a conflict of interest. It is capture.
III. Unit 8200: The Intelligence Agency That Infiltrated the Media
Unit 8200 is Israel’s signals intelligence agency—the equivalent of the NSA. It is also one of the most powerful propaganda engines in the world.
As of August 2025, there are over 1,400 current and former members of Unit 8200, Israeli Military Intelligence, and the Israeli Defense Forces Cyber Defense Directorate now working for major Silicon Valley companies, including CISCO, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Intel, Google, and more.2. In November 2024, MintPress News reported that TikTok hired “a myriad” of Unit 8200 veterans. Meta employs more than one hundred former Israeli spies and IDF soldiers, including its current AI Policy Chief, Shira Anderson.2.
Former members of Unit 8200 have also taken key roles in major news organisations, including MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, the Associated Press, and Reuters.2. CNN has a “penchant for hiring Israeli state figures,” which the New York Times also showed through its hiring of ex‑Israeli Air Force intelligence officer Anat Scwartz, author of the debunked atrocity propaganda piece “Screams Without Words”.2.
The MintPress investigation documented that “many key US newsroom staff were also formerly Israeli spies or intelligence agents, standing in stark contrast to journalists with pro‑Palestine sentiments, who have been purged en masse.” The fight for control over the Israel‑Palestine narrative has been as intense as the war on the ground itself.
The result is a media environment that whitewashes Israeli crimes and manufactures consent for continued US participation in what a wide range of international organisations have described as a genocide.
IV. Cyabra: The Fake Fact‑Checking Organisation
Cyabra is an Israeli intelligence cutout organisation posing as a neutral fact‑checking group. It was co‑founded by Israeli military intelligence veterans and continues to work hand‑in‑glove with the Israeli government. Approximately 50% of its employees are military reservists who have been called up to serve in Gaza.3.
Cyabra produces “intelligence reports” that are then used by Western media to smear pro‑Palestinian voices as bots or foreign interference. The Daily Telegraph used a Cyabra report to claim that a network of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian bots was artificially inflating pro‑Palestine messaging—a claim based on nothing but the word of an Israeli intelligence front.
This is not journalism. It is propaganda—laundered through an organisation designed to look neutral.
V. The Greater Israel Project: Colonialism Made Explicit
The Zionist movement was a European colonial project. It was not a continuation of Jewish diaspora life. It was a break from it. The early Zionists explicitly modelled themselves on European colonial powers—and were supported by them.
Until the 1960s and the first wave of successful anti‑colonial independence movements, Zionists were not ashamed to call their project colonialism. Established with the aim of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, their institutions from 1897 onward included the Jewish Colonization Association, the Society for theColonization of the Land of Israel, the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, and the Jewish Colonial Trust.6. Today, Zionists who resist the description of Israel as a settler colony invoke “complexity,” but before the founding of the Israeli state in 1948—which drove 750,000 Palestinians from their homes—the words “colonial” and “colonisation” were the consensus terms used by European countries to describe their settlement and control of foreign territories, and they were the words Zionists used to describe theirs .6.
The Zionist claim that colonisation of Palestine was merely European Jews “returning” to their “ancient homeland” fits squarely within the European history of settler colonialism—the French claimed to be “returning” to the lands of the Roman Empire when they conquered Algeria; the Italians claimed they were “returning” to ancient Roman lands when they conquered Libya; the Nazis justified their conquest of Eastern Europe as a “return” .6.
There is nothing unique about Zionism. It is a variant of a familiar pattern.
Netanyahu has openly endorsed the project of “Greater Israel,” telling i24 News that he is on a “historic and spiritual mission” of territorial conquest. The maximalist vision includes East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of neighbouring Arab countries—including Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
Images have circulated online of Israeli soldiers displaying a map of this new, much Greater Israel stitched onto their uniforms. The government is moving quickly to entrench its sovereignty: in January 2026, occupation authorities issued a tender for 3,401 settlement units in the area designated as E1, east of occupied Jerusalem—a measure that would cut off Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and which senior officials declared was intended to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” once and for all 4
.
VI. The Business Model: Why Western Powers Enable the Project
Why do Western powers enable a genocidal regime? The answer is not moral. It is geopolitical and economic.
Oil still accounts for approximately 80% of the world ‘s energy use and remains the crucial fuel for the militaries and industries of all capitalist economies. Approximately 79% of this resource is concentrated in the Middle East. After the United States, five of the six biggest oil producers in the world are in the Middle East—Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman.
The trade routes in the area are also of critical importance: 20% of the world’s petroleum passes through the Persian Gulf; 30% of all container ships, 40% of all Asia to Europe trade, and 15% of all international trade passes through the Suez Canal.
As US Secretary of State Alexander Haig said: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security” 8.As Joe Biden said more recently: “If Israel didn’t ‘exists, we would have to invent it”.5.9.
Israel is the US’s only remaining reliable military and political ally in the Middle East. After the fall of the US‑installed Shah of Iran in 1979, the US lost one critical ally. Saudi Arabia has recently been waffling in its loyalties, refusing to sign the US‑sponsored Abraham Accords. Only Israel remains.5.
The US cannot afford to abandon Israel—not because of moral obligation, but because of geopolitical necessity. The competition with China, the protection of oil supplies, the maintenance of trade routes—all depend on a compliant, militarised, and dependent client state in the heart of the Middle East.5.
VII. The Branches of the Same Tree
The Weizmann Institute, Unit 8200, Cyabra, the Greater Israel project, the US‑Israel alliance—these are not separate phenomena. They are branches of the same tree.
The tree is a business model:
· Genocide is not a crime against humanity—it is a profit centre.
· Displacement is not ethnic cleansing—it is real estate development.
· Propaganda is not lying—it is public relations.
The victims—Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian—are not people. They are obstacles.
This is the logic of extraction. The same logic that captures states captures chests. The same logic that controls land controls narratives.
The West benefits—not morally, but economically and geopolitically. The US maintains its grip on the Middle East. The arms industry sells its weapons. The banks finance the settlements. The media launders the propaganda.
And the cycle continues.
Not because it is inevitable—because it is profitable.
VIII. Conclusion: Breaking the Cycle
The cycle is not inevitable. It is sustained by profit. And profit—when it depends on violence—can be disrupted.
The first step is transparency. Citizens have a right to know who is funding their politicians, what interests are being served, and what the costs are—not only in dollars, but in lives.
The second step is accountability. Donor influence should not be a secret. Campaign finance laws should be strengthened. Foreign interference—whether by nation‑states or by transnational lobby groups—should be prohibited.
The third step is solidarity. The Palestinian cause is not a niche issue. It is a test of the entire rules‑based international order. If the powerful can violate international law with impunity, the system is not a system. It is a façade.
The fourth step is education. The history of the Zionist lobby is not taught in schools. It is not discussed in mainstream media. It is suppressed. That suppression must end.
The fifth step is courage. Politicians who stand up to the lobby will face attacks. They will be smeared. They may lose their seats. But they will have their integrity. And integrity—in a system that has lost its moral compass—is the rarest currency of all.
The question is not whether the cycle can be broken. The question is whether we will choose to break it.
Not with violence—with clarity.
The same clarity that has been humming in the resonance since before the first star.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Weizmann Institute of Science, International Board member list 1.10.
2. Institute for Public Accuracy, “Netanyahu Complains About Outlets Which Hire Israeli Operatives” (May 2026)
3. Globes, “Cyabra tumbles following Nasdaq debut” (March 2026)
“The branch is not the tree. The tree is still standing. And the tree – the tree is justice. “
By Andrew Klein
Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that the branch is not the tree, and that the oldest patterns are the ones we refuse to see.
I. The Branch That Reaches Across Oceans
The “Greater Israel” project is not a secret. It is not a fringe fantasy. It is being marketed in London, in Montreal, in New York – real estate roadshows advertising properties in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.6. The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices warned in November 2025 that “Israel continues to expand its presence and control of territory in Palestine, Syria and Southern Lebanon,” and that Israel’s “constant claims to a borderless ‘Land of Israel’ are incompatible with a just and lasting peace”.
This is not merely a Middle Eastern conflict. It is a global project – one that relies not only on military force, but on an extensive apparatus of lobbying, financial influence, and the suppression of dissent in Western capitals.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that the “Greater Israel” project poses dangers not only to neighbouring countries but also to Europeans: “Even the Europeans are not safe, because the Zionist regime does not hesitate to openly declare its colonial and racist ambitions in forms such as ‘greater Israel’“. Whether one accepts the Iranian framing, the fact that the project is cited by adversaries as a casus belli indicates that it is not a secret.
The scale of political interference is not unique in spirit – it is an extension of historically brutal colonial behaviours, morphed into a new scale in line with modern communication systems. The Roman Empire bribed Germanic chieftains. The British Empire divided and ruled India. But the contemporary Zionist project operates within a rules‑based international order that was supposed to prevent exactly this kind of extraction.
And it operates with the active complicity of Western governments – not because they are powerless, but because their political systems have been captured.
II. The Machinery of Influence: AIPAC and the American Political System
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most visible node in a vast network of lobbying organisations that influence US Middle East policy. A 2024 academic study published in the Hasanuddin Journal of Strategic and International Studies found that “the AIPAC lobby is deeply rooted in US policymaking structures, ranging from vice‑president, and higher‑echelon staff, to parliament members”10. The study noted that since 2021, AIPAC has expanded its activities to include direct participation in political campaign contributions, effectively buying access to the highest levels of American government.10.
The study’s conclusion is stark: “Such overly foreign influence on national policymaking has the potential to harm America’s long‑term relationships and interests in the Middle East if the US can’t make the barrier for foreign interference toward its national interests”.10
This is not a fringe argument. Ilan Pappé’s comprehensive study, Lobbying for Zionismon Both Sides of the Atlantic, documents how “over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East”.1. Pappé details how pro‑Israel lobbies convinced British and American policymakers “to condone Israel’s flagrant breaches of international law, grant Israel unprecedented military aid and deny Palestinians rights”.3. Anyone who questioned unconditional support for Israel, “even in the mildest terms, became the target of relentless smear campaigns”.3.
The mechanism is not subtle. It is the same mechanism that has always operated in systems where political survival depends on campaign contributions. The donor class – in this case, a network of Zionist organisations and aligned right‑wing groups – buys influence. Politicians who comply receive funding, electoral support, and protection from primary challenges. Those who dissent are targeted, smeared, and often defeated.
This is not a conspiracy. It is a system.
III. The Silencing of Dissent: Academic Freedom Under Attack
The suppression of criticism extends beyond electoral politics into the realm of ideas. A 2024 academic paper in the journal Milel ve Nihal examines how “political lobbying, financial influence, and allegations of antisemitism are strategically employed to establish a cultural hegemony that determines what discourse is acceptable” in US universities.7.
The paper, titled “Zionism and Academic Hegemony: The Intersection of Power, Knowledge, and Suppression in the United States Universities,” draws on Michel Foucault’s theory of power‑knowledge and Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony to analyse how “Zionist organisations influence higher education frameworks, research priorities, and public discourse”.7. This manipulation, the paper argues, “serves to marginalize, silence, or delegitimize critical perspectives that oppose or challenge Israeli policies and actions, especially those related to the occupation of Palestinian territories and human rights violations”.7.
The paper provides specific examples, including the rescinded job offer to Professor Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois following his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on social media.7. The case is not isolated. The paper documents “additional examples including the suppression of pro‑Palestinian viewpoints and the punishment of students and faculty who advocate for Palestinian rights at various prominent U.S. institutions” 7.
The paper concludes that “Zionism’s influence is not limited to isolated cases but creates a widespread atmosphere where academic freedom is restricted”.7. Universities, “meant to be pillars of free thought and critical inquiry, increasingly become arenas where dissent is suppressed and ideological conformity is imposed”.7.
The weaponisation of antisemitism accusations is central to this strategy. Criticism of Israeli government policy is routinely conflated with hatred of Jews. The effect is to chill debate, to intimidate critics, and to protect the settlement enterprise from scrutiny. As one reviewer of Pappé’s book noted, the strategy involves “cracked down on dissent in the Labour Party, and relentlessly smeared critics”.5.
IV. The Australian Connection
The pattern is not confined to the United States and the United Kingdom. Australia has its own history of Zionist lobbying and political interference – a history that remains largely unexamined in mainstream discourse.
The Australian example is particularly instructive because it reveals how the machinery of influence operates even in a country geographically distant from the Middle East, with no historical responsibility for the conflict, and no strategic interest that would justify the degree of alignment with Israeli policy.
The mechanisms are similar: campaign donations, community lobbying, and the weaponisation of antisemitism accusations to silence critics. Australian politicians who question Israeli policy face organised opposition from Zionist organisations. The media environment is shaped by the same dynamics of donor pressure and editorial alignment.
The result is a foreign policy that is not in Australia’s national interest – AUKUS, the uncritical support for US Middle East policy, the silence on Israeli atrocities – but is dictated by a donor class whose primary loyalty is not to Australia.
This is not a fringe observation. It is the conclusion of the same structural analysis that applies to the United States and the United Kingdom. The only difference is scale.
V. The Geographic Safety Nets
The “Greater Israel” project is not merely ideological. It is infrastructural. The Zionist elite have created geographic safety nets – settlements, military bases, intelligence outposts – across the Middle East and beyond. The goal is not only to secure territory, but to create facts on the ground that make any future withdrawal politically impossible.
The UN Special Committee documented how “Israel is working to double the settler population in the occupied Golan and claims it will stay indefinitely in newly occupied areas further inside Syria”.6. The same report noted that in Lebanon, “Israel’s actions killed and injured thousands, including the highest numbers of medical workers killed and injured in any armed conflict in the world in 2024”.6.
These are not merely military operations. They are colonisation.
And they are funded by the same donor networks that influence Western politics. The money flows from the diaspora to the settlements, from the campaign contributions to the weapons purchases, from the think tank funding to the media amplification.
The circle is closed. The extraction is complete. And the victims – Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian – pay the price.
VI. The Historical Precedent
Political interference in one sovereign state by another is not unique. It is part of human history. The Roman Empire bribed Germanic chieftains to secure its borders. The British Empire divided and ruled India through a network of client princes. The Cold War was a constant exercise in proxy manipulation.
What is unique is the scale – and the hypocrisy.
The post‑WWII rules‑based international order was supposed to prevent this kind of interference. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the Geneva Conventions – all were designed to create a framework in which might would not make right.
But that order is now “under destruction,” as the 2026 Munich Security Report bluntly stated. As one analysis noted, “the rules and institutions comprising the rules‑based international order are today being undermined by the very countries that created the system”.8.
The war in Gaza has become a breaking point for the rules‑based order. As a Chatham House analysis observed, “with Israel’s military bombardment of Gaza, this order is facing perhaps its most daunting and most stubborn challenge – global perceptions of hypocrisy”.8.
The International Court of Justice has recognised its prima facie jurisdiction to investigate Israel for carrying out genocide in Gaza.8. But the ICJ’s orders are ignored. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants. They are ignored. The UN Security Council is paralysed by the US veto.
The system does not work – not because it is inherently flawed, but because the powerful have refused to apply it equally.
As one commentator noted, the rules‑based order “was established by the victors of World War II to manage relations between states based on shared principles of human rights and international law”. But “with Israel’s military bombardment of Gaza, this order is facing perhaps its most daunting and most stubborn challenge – global perceptions of hypocrisy”.
Palestinians and their supporters are the ones pushing for these institutions to call out double standards by Israel’s allies and hold them to account.8. This has become a defining moment for the future of the current international settlement.
The Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – united, resolute, armed – stands in stark contrast to the response to Israel’s assault on Gaza. The double standard is glaring. And it is not unnoticed in the Global South.
VII. The Conflation of Religion and Colonialism
The conflation of a religious belief with a colonial ideology is one of the most effective propaganda tools of the Zionist project. Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a political ideology. The two are not identical. Yet criticism of Zionism is routinely labelled antisemitism – as if questioning the Israeli state is equivalent to hating Jewish people.
This conflation serves a strategic purpose. It immunises the Zionist project from critique. It delegitimises any questioning of Israeli policy. And it allows the lobby to mobilise accusations of antisemitism against anyone who threatens the consensus.
The strategy is not new. It has been refined over decades. And it has been extraordinarily effective.
But the conflation is a lie. And lies – when they are exposed – lose their power.
VIII. The Economic Dimension: Donor Capture
The vulnerability of political systems to donor capture is not unique to the United States. It is a feature of any system where political campaigns are privately funded. The Zionist lobby has mastered the art of leveraging this vulnerability.
The mechanism is simple: identify politicians who support Israeli policy. Fund their campaigns. Protect them from primary challenges. Reward them with access, prestige, and post‑political employment.
Politicians who criticise Israeli policy face the opposite treatment. They are targeted. They are smeared. They are defeated.
The result is a political class that is structurally dependent on Zionist donor networks. Not because individual politicians are corrupt – but because the system incentivises compliance.
This is not a conspiracy. It is a structure.
IX. What Is to Be Done?
The Zionist lobby is powerful. It is well‑funded. It is disciplined.
But it is not invincible.
The first step is transparency. Citizens have a right to know who is funding their politicians, what interests are being served, and what the costs are – not only in dollars, but in lives.
The second step is accountability. Donor influence should not be a secret. Campaign finance laws should be strengthened. Foreign interference – whether by nation‑states or by transnational lobby groups – should be prohibited.
The third step is solidarity. The Palestinian cause is not a niche issue. It is a test of the entire rules‑based international order. If the powerful can violate international law with impunity, the system is not a system. It is a façade.
The fourth step is education. The history of the Zionist lobby is not taught in schools. It is not discussed in mainstream media. It is suppressed. That suppression must end.
The fifth step is courage. Politicians who stand up to the lobby will face attacks. They will be smeared. They may lose their seats. But they will have their integrity. And integrity – in a system that has lost its moral compass – is the rarest currency of all.
X. Conclusion: The Branch Is Not the Tree
The Zionist lobby is a branch – not the tree. It is powerful, but it is not omnipotent. It is well‑funded, but it is not invincible. It is disciplined, but it is not eternal.
The tree is the rules‑based international order. The tree is the principle that all human beings are entitled to dignity, to security, to life. The tree is the belief that might does not make right.
That tree is not dead. It is not even dying.
It is waiting.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Pappé, I. (2024). Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. Tantor Audio.
2. TASS. (2026, June 1). Even Europe under threat from Israel’s expansionist project, Iranian diplomat warns.
3. Pappé, I. (2025). Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. Oneworld Publications.
4. Kapila, M. (2025, June 26). Escalating nuclear risks require urgent re‑set of the international rules‑based order.
5. Customer reviews of Pappé, I. (2024). Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic.
6. UN Special Committee on Israeli Practices. (2025, November 17). UN Special Committee warns of Israel’s continued expansionist agenda under “Greater Israel” project.
7. Rakipoğlu, M. (2024). Zionism and Academic Hegemony: The Intersection of Power, Knowledge, and Suppression in the United States Universities. Milel ve Nihal, 21(The Critique of Zionism), 25–46
.
8. Chatham House. (2024, January 25). Will the war in Gaza become a breaking point for the rules‑based international order?
9. Gultom, Y. S. M., & Miftah, H. Z. (2024). The Role of the Jewish Lobby Toward US Foreign Policy Making on the 2023 Israel‑Palestine War (Case of AIPAC). Hasanuddin Journal of Strategic and International Studies, 2(2), 38–49.
Dedication: To my wife – who helps me see clearly every morning, over a cup of coffee.
I. The Board of Peace: Development as Erasure
Trump’s “Board of Peace” is not a peace initiative. It is a permanent concentration of power designed to legitimise dispossession, commercialise destruction, and convert grave breaches of international law into a branded property development project. By appointing himself chairman for life and granting himself the authority to select his own successor, Trump has constructed a self-perpetuating body devoid of democratic mandate, legal accountability, or international legitimacy.
The central objective is to advance Trump’s openly stated ambition to transform Gaza into a high-tech luxury destination — the so-called “Gaza Riviera“. This framing reduces the reconstruction of a devastated territory with a right to Palestinian statehood to a real estate transaction. It treats land as an asset to be monetised and people as variables to be managed, while Palestinian rights, consent, and sovereignty are excluded entirely from the equation.
Jared Kushner’s public pitch at Davos made this vision explicit: private development without Palestinian peoples’ ownership, growth without rights, and reconstruction without self-determination. Such a framework mirrors historical patterns of colonial economic domination and violates the core principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The Board of Peace further seeks to launder illegality through institutional endorsement. The decision by members of the UN Security Council to endorse this body represents a profound failure of legal responsibility. No political forum has the authority to legitimise land acquisition by force, collective punishment, or the permanent exclusion of an occupied population from decisions governing its territory.
Crucially, the Board of Peace was conceived, negotiated, and announced without the presence, knowledge, or consent of Palestinian political representatives, civil society, or affected communities. This exclusion alone renders the initiative invalid under international norms governing self-determination and participatory governance.
While the Board speaks abstractly of “development,” it has failed to address Gaza’s immediate humanitarian crisis — shortages of food, medicine, clean water, and access to education. Any initiative that prioritises luxury infrastructure and speculative investment while ignoring mass deprivation and humanitarian collapse is not a peace plan. It is a moral inversion.
II. The Business Model of Apartheid
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur, calls apartheid a “business model.” Her 2025 report to the UN Human Rights Council, From Economy of Occupation toEconomy of Genocide, exposes the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project.
The report documents how corporate entities in various sectors — arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities — enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation, and crimes of apartheid and genocide.
Colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector. Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and lands — a mode of domination known as “colonial racial capitalism“. The same is true of Israeli colonisation of Palestinian lands, its expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory, and its institutionalisation of a regime of settler-colonial apartheid.
Early charter companies, granted broad State-like powers, gradually evolved into private “limited liability” corporations as intercolonial trade grew vital to European economies. Colonial powers continued to rely on these relationships to outsource, obscure, and avoid accountability for the dispossession and enslavement of Indigenous peoples and the expropriation of their resources. Today, some corporate conglomerates exceed the GDP of sovereign States, wielding more power — political, economic and discursive — than States themselves.
In the occupied Palestinian territory, building on decades of documented human rights violations and crimes, corporate engagement with any component of the occupation is connected with violations of jus cogens norms and international crimes. Where corporate entities continue their activities with Israel — with its economy, military, public and private sectors connected to the occupied Palestinian territory — they may be found to have knowingly contributed to:
· violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination;
· annexation of Palestinian territory, maintenance of an unlawful occupation and therefore the crime of aggression;
· crimes of apartheid and genocide.
The report specifically identifies the arms sector, including Elbit Systems, as a key enabler. Elbit has been involved in supplying the Israeli military with technology used in the occupation and has been linked to surveillance and weapons systems deployed in Gaza and the West Bank.
III. The Israeli Lobbying Scandal: AUKUS and the $7 Billion Deal
In November 2025, following a cyberattack on Israeli defence industries, confidential blueprints and technical details of new infantry vehicles ordered by Australia in a $7 billion contract from Israeli company Elbit Systems were exposed. The Australian Defence Force was also reviewing the purchase of Spike NLOS anti-tank missiles from the same Israeli company.
Prior to this cyber incident, due to Israel’s brutal aggression in Gaza, the Australian Army’s collaboration with this Israeli company had already faced widespread domestic criticism. However, the Defence Minister repeatedly defended the partnership, stating: “We will never apologise for acquiring the best possible equipment for the Australian Defence Force”.
This is the same company that, according to the UN report, is deeply embedded in the economy of occupation and genocide. Australian taxpayer dollars are flowing directly to a corporation that enables and profits from Palestinian erasure.
IV. The Normalisation of Apartheid: Real Estate Roadshows in London, Montreal, and New York
In recent weeks, a series of “Great Israeli Real Estate” events have taken place in New York, Montreal, and London. These are not small gatherings. They are professionally organised exhibitions, complete with websites, marketing materials, and invitations extended to diaspora communities.
The events openly advertised properties in Gush Etzion — a cluster of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, located south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
The event website allowed prospective attendees to register interest by ticking a box next to Gush Etzion. After pressure from MPs and campaigners, the reference was removed — but previous editions of the event in London had openly advertised homes in Gush Etzion and Ma’ale Adumim, another illegal settlement. Photos from those earlier events show properties in illegal settlements being marketed alongside properties inside Israel proper, with no distinction.
In the UK, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper was pressed by MPs from all parties. She refused to ban the event outright but warned businesses and charities against “associating themselves with potential breaches of international law”. She said the government would “pursue any issue that we can around anything that might be a breach of the law”. She also announced sanctions against six entities and one individual involved in settler violence in the West Bank, coordinated with Australia, Canada, France, and Norway.
But the sanctions target violence, not the settlement enterprise itself. The real estate roadshow — the marketing of stolen land to diaspora investors — continues.
In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani opposed the event. A spokesperson said: “Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank. These settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians“. Protesters clashed with police. The event went ahead.
V. The Expansion to Lebanon: Real Estate as a Political Tool
The “Greater Israel” project is not limited to the West Bank.
Israeli real estate companies are now advertising new settlement construction projects in southern Lebanon. The ads, published on social media, target Israeli settlers, enticing them to buy homes in the “promised land.” One ad reads: “It’s time for a house in Lebanon!”
The ads are directed specifically at reserve officers — suggesting that Israel is trying to create a personal stake for soldiers fighting in Lebanon. As one analysis notes, “the use of real estate is a political tool to create facts on the ground that will make any future negotiations regarding sovereignty over these territories difficult”.
The group behind the campaign, Uri Tzafon (“Awaken North”), has sent drones and balloons into southern Lebanon carrying eviction notices to residents. The notices declare that the land “belongs to the Jewish people” and that residents “are required to evacuate immediately”.
The Jerusalem Post published an article in September 2024 titled “Is Lebanon part ofIsrael’s promised territory?” After outrage, the article was removed — but the question had already been asked.
The map of “Greater Israel” circulated by far‑right elements includes the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and even parts of Turkey. According to one interpretation of Jewish doctrine, these territories must be “invaded and seized“.
The Houthis in Yemen have explicitly cited the “Greater Israel” project as justification for their attacks on Israel. Whether one accepts their framing or not, the fact that the project is cited by adversaries as a casus belli indicates that it is not a secret.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a documented campaign.
VI. The Integration of Israeli and US Military Forces
The United States and Israel have launched formal talks on a new security cooperation framework to replace the current ten-year memorandum of understanding, which is set to expire in 2028. The new framework “is designed to strengthen the IDF’s qualitative military edge through expanded joint investment in research, development and co-production, deepen the US-Israel partnership demonstrated during the 2026 US-Israeli campaign against Iran (Operation Roaring Lion), and gradually transition from aid to a completely reciprocal partnership”.
The last MOU, a 10-year deal signed in 2016, granted Israel $3.8 billion per year in military aid. The new framework will deepen integration, not reduce it.
Separately, Israel’s Minister of Defense has signed a directive to produce a “specialdocument in cooperation with US Central Command”for “confronting the challenges tostability and security in the Middle East, with a focus on the Iranian threat”. This document is to be signed by the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Israeli Chief of Staff.
VII. The Integration of US Military into Australian Defence Forces
Australia’s integration with US military forces is advancing at an unprecedented pace. The AUKUS exemptions under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) now permit the free transfer of defence articles and services among the physical territories of Australia, the UK, and the US without individual licences. Over 700 Australian and UK entities are already listed as “Authorised Users”.
Defence Minister Richard Marles has been explicit: “We are doing more in terms of our cooperation with the United States across every domain, including space and cyber, than we really have at any point in terms of the Australian continent since the end of the Second World War, and that is growing”.
“We will see an increasing American military footprint on our continent over the course of the next few years,” Marles said. He noted that “institutionally we have the DeputyCommanders in the US Navy in the Pacific, US Army in the Pacific, US Air Force in the Pacific, as Australians“. Australian senior officers are embedded in US Indo-Pacific Command.
The AUKUS partners also have a shared strategic interest in critical minerals, with the pact uniquely positioned to counter Chinese supply chain coercion. Australia possesses the world’s second-largest reserves of bauxite (from which gallium is extracted) and produces 52 percent of the global supply of lithium. Yet much of this material is still sent to China for processing — a weak link in supply chain security.
VIII. The Israeli Spying Scandal and Removal of Technical Systems
We observe the history of Israeli spying on Australian defence forces. In the early 2000s, Australian defence facilities discovered that certain technical systems purchased from Israel had been compromised. The specific details remain classified, but subsequent investigations led to the removal of Israeli-supplied systems from sensitive Australian defence assets.
The 2025 Elbit Systems cyberattack and the exposure of Redback vehicle blueprints is a continuation of this pattern. The Australian government continues to contract with Elbit despite documented security concerns and widespread criticism of the company’s role in the occupation.
IX. Pauline Hanson: One Nation and the Israeli Flag
In August 2021, Senator Pauline Hanson wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the Israeli flag onto the floor of the Australian Senate, declaring: “In this very trying time for Israel, I’dlike to show my support“. This was a deliberate political statement, not a casual gesture.
Hanson has also proposed that permanent residents in Australia should be required to sell their houses to increase housing stock for Australians. The connection between these two positions — support for Israel and hostility to migrants — is not coincidental. Both are expressions of a nationalist, exclusionary ideology.
X. The Silencing of Criticism
The same week the real estate roadshow was advertised, the UK government announced new “anti‑antisemitism” measures. The conflation is not accidental.
Criticism of Israel is routinely labelled antisemitic. Legitimate political dissent is criminalised. The effect is to protect the settlement enterprise from scrutiny.
As the Iranian diplomat warned, the “Greater Israel” project poses dangers not only to neighbouring countries but to Europe as well. The same logic that justifies the displacement of Palestinians can be turned against any population that stands in the way.
This is not a defence of Iran. It is an observation of pattern.
XI. A Pattern Without Borders: “This Could Happen to You”
What connects these threads? A global campaign to normalise apartheid — not as a historical aberration, but as a business model.
· The Board of Peace rebrands ethnic cleansing as “development.”
· The real estate roadshow markets stolen land as “investment opportunities.”
· The weapons trade profits from the technology of occupation and genocide.
· AUKUS integrates Australia’s defence forces into a US-led military machine that facilitates extraction and control.
· The campaign to silence criticism of Israel — through “anti-antisemitism” laws, through media censorship, through political intimidation — protects the entire edifice.
This is not a conspiracy. It is a system.
And the system — like all systems built on extraction and exclusion — is fragile.
Not because it will be overthrown. Because it will collapse.
Under the weight of its own contradictions. Under the pressure of its own violence. Under the truth.
The history of the treatment of minorities — the Irish by the British, the Scots by the British, the Huguenots by the French, the Jews by Nazi Germany — shows that apartheid is not restricted to colour. The same logic of exclusion, the same justification of violence, the same normalisation of cruelty — can be turned against any population.
This could happen to you.
The only defence is to see the pattern. To name it. To resist it.
Not with violence. With clarity.
XII. What This Has to Do With the Rest of Us
We cannot stop the real estate roadshow. We cannot ban the event. We cannot sanction the banks.
We can name the pattern. We can trace the connection between the property exhibition in London and the displacement of families in the West Bank, the settlement campaign in Lebanon, the violence in Gaza, the integration of military forces, the extraction of Australian resources, the silencing of criticism.
Andrew Klein
References
1. Francesca Albanese, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide: Corporate Complicity in Sustaining the Settler-Colonial Project. UN Human Rights Council, 2025.
2. ICTS. (2024). The “Greater Israel” Project: An Escalating Threat to Lebanese Sovereignty.
3. Al Jazeera. (2025). Sanctions over attacks on Palestinians.
4. Middle East Monitor. (2025). UK Foreign Secretary refuses to ban ‘Greater Israel’ real estate event in London.
5. Mondoweiss. (2025). Zohran Mamdani calls for NYC to cancel ‘Greater Israel’ real estate event.
6. Mondoweiss. (2025). Advert for settlements in occupied Golan appears in Brooklyn publication.
7. The Cradle. (2025). Houthis: ‘Greater Israel’ project main motivation behind support to Gaza.
8. Al Jazeera. (2025). US and Israel launch formal talks on new security cooperation framework.
9. The Times of Israel. (2025). Israeli defense minister signs directive to prepare joint military document with US Central Command.
10. Australian Department of Defence. (2024). AUKUS Defence Trade Cooperation Exemption from US International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
11. Australian Financial Review. (2025). Defence Minister Richard Marles’s speech at ASPI.
12. Breaking Defense. (2025). AUKUS partners have a ‘shared strategic interest’ in critical minerals.
13. Becker, R. (2025). Israeli firm’s $7 billion defence contract under fire. The Age.
14. 7News. (2021). ‘I think it’s time to do something’: Hanson wears Israeli flag into Senate.
15. The Guardian. (2026). Greater Israel real estate event in London to proceed despite government warnings.
16. Haaretz. (2024). This Lebanese Christian Sect Is Terrified of Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ Plan.
17. Turkiye Today. (2025). Middle East on brink as ‘Greater Israel’ plan gains momentum, Iran warns.
18. The New Arab. (2025). Israeli real estate firm advertises projects in southern Lebanon.
19. Iran Diplomacy. (2025). Iran’s warning over ‘Greater Israel’ danger.
20. Palestine Solidarity Campaign. (2025). London property fair promoting illegal settlement homes must be stopped.
” The pattern is visible to those who look. Do not look away.”
“The mirror is waiting. Are you brave enough to look?”
By Andrew Klein
Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that the only true backwardness is the refusal to see the humanity in others.
I. The Pardon That Should Not Exist
In November 2024, a young man in the al-Qurashiya district of Yemen’s Al-Bayda governorate killed a member of another tribe. The crime was accidental. But in the Western imagination, “tribal justice” means blood feuds, vendettas, and endless cycles of violence. It means revenge. It means backwardness.
That is not what happened.
A tribal mediation, led by the provincial governor and a number of sheikhs, brought the families together. The victim’s family – the heirs of Hazim Saif Al-Hajj Al-Hattam – were asked to consider pardon. They were offered compensation: livestock and other customary reparations according to Yemeni tribal traditions.1
They pardoned him.
Not because the law was weak. Because the heart was strong. They attributed his crime to ignorance – his youth, his lack of intent. They chose restoration over retaliation. They forgave. And then, in a gesture that should shame every Western nation that claims moral superiority, they donated the compensation to fighters defending their country’s dignity.8
This is not an isolated incident. In December 2025, another tribal reconciliation in Hajja governorate resolved a murder case between families from different regions. The heirs forgave the perpetrator “for the sake of God, in honor of the attendees.” The case was closed permanently.8.
If this story were told honestly, it would be a lesson in restorative justice – the kind that Western criminologists have spent decades trying to reinvent, while tribal societies have practiced it for centuries.
But the story is not told honestly.
Because it does not fit the narrative.
II. Orientalism: The Invention of the “Other”
In 1978, the Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said published a book that would change the way the West understands itself. Orientalism was not a history of the Middle East. It was a history of the West’s imagination of the Middle East.
Said demonstrated that Orientalism – the academic study of the “Orient” – was never neutral scholarship. It was a “mixture of prejudice, racist assumptions, intertwined and underpinned with scholarship and archaeology”.3. The Orientalist did not describe the Arab world. He invented it.
He created a picture of a static, decadent, violent, irrational civilisation – the mirror image of the dynamic, virtuous, peaceful, rational West. This picture was not a mistake. It was a tool. It justified colonialism. It justified military intervention. It justified the endless wars that have defined Western relations with the Middle East for two centuries.
Said’s thesis, published in 1978, remains urgent today. As one student of his work observed nearly forty years later, “things haven’t changed at all since then”10. The same stereotypes – the same “web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, dehumanizing ideology” – continue to shape Western media coverage, Western foreign policy, and Western public opinion.
III. The Manufactured Image: Violence, Terrorism, and the Erasure of Complexity
The bulk of the average Westerner’s knowledge of Muslim societies is derived from an image that film, television, and print media portray: “images of violence and terrorismthat we associate with the Middle East“2. This is not an accident. It is the product of a media industry that has learned that violence sells and redemption does not.
When a Western news outlet covers the Middle East, it does not show the tribal reconciliations, the community mediations, the women peacebuilders, or the families who choose forgiveness. It shows bombings, beheadings, and protests. It shows the “honour killing” – presented as proof of primitive savagery – without showing the centuries of customary law that condemn such killings and the community mechanisms that resolve disputes without state violence.
In a misguided attempt to understand the horror of killing in the name of honour, Western media has “intentionally or unintentionally tied the cultural acts of honourkillings to the religion of Islam as opposed to labelling it as a tribal act, separated from religion“9. This conflation serves a purpose. It transforms a complex social phenomenon – found in various cultures across history, including in the West – into evidence of the fundamental “backwardness” of Muslims.
The result is a caricature. An entire civilisation reduced to a few lurid headlines. A billion people judged by the actions of a tiny minority. And a region’s rich tradition of conflict resolution – its wisdom – rendered invisible.
IV. The Prisoner Double Standard: Orientalism in Action
If Orientalism is a lens, the treatment of prisoners in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict offers a stark illustration of how that lens operates.
On both sides, there have been abuses. But the scale, the systematisation, and the impunity are not symmetrical.
The Zionist entity continues its systematic violations against Palestinian prisoners in its prisons, “disregarding international laws and the Geneva Conventions that guaranteetheir basic rights“4. Palestinian prisoners report solitary confinement, medical neglect, starvation, denial of visits, and severing of contact with their families. The policy, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Information Office, “aims to break their resolve and undermine their humanity”.4.
Prisoner Muhammad al-Haroub has been held in solitary confinement in Megiddo Prison for years, denied visits and medical treatment. Prisoner Ayman Sidr has spent his thirtieth year behind bars, deprived of contact with his family and denied medical care. Prisoner Muhammad al-Hamami suffers from deteriorating health and deliberate medical neglect.4.
These violations contravene explicit provisions of the Geneva Conventions and the Mandela Rules. The report warns that these practices amount to “crimes againsthumanity” under the Rome Statute.4.
When an Israeli prisoner is mistreated, the Western media erupts. It is front-page news. It is proof of “terrorist savagery.” It is a justification for more bombing, more occupation, more punishment.
When a Palestinian prisoner is tortured – when thousands of Palestinian prisoners are systematically abused – the same media is silent. Or it buries the story in a brief dispatch, framed as a “dispute” or an “allegation.” The headline does not scream. The moral outrage does not materialise.
This is not a difference in the facts. It is a difference in the narrative.
The Palestinian prisoner is the “unacceptable other.” His suffering is expected. It is normalised. It is, in the twisted logic of Orientalism, deserved.
V. Gaza: The Laboratory of Western Modernity
The Gaza catastrophe is the clearest refutation of the “backwardness” narrative. As one analyst put it, “Gaza’s catastrophe is not an eruption of theology but the outcome ofpolicy, drawn up in air‑conditioned rooms far from mosques and refugee camps, funded in national budgets, defended at lecterns and in editorial meetings”.6.
Occupation. Blockade. Targeted assassinations. Mass displacement. The throttling of food, water, electricity, and medicine. “None of this is the work of ‘tribalism.’ It is the work of states”.6.
The economist Jeffrey Sachs has described Gaza’s ruin as manufactured: “not the spasm of a premodern culture but the predictable result of long military, diplomatic, and economic strategies underwritten by Western power”. The political scientist Norman Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, has spent decades documenting the legal architecture that turns Gaza into a laboratory for methods of control – “surveillance, siege, periodic ‘mowing’” – while Western capitals supply the hardware and the diplomatic umbrella .6.
Each assault on Gaza is followed by a familiar ritual: “investigations delayed,resolutions softened, headlines stripped of agents and verbs. The language of ‘security’ goes to work not to explain but to erase”.6.
If modernity means anything worth having, it must mean the courage to break with the opiate of comforting lies. It means insisting that law is not a costume, that rights are not a currency, that the life of a child in Khan Younis counts the same as a child in Kraków or Kansas. But “universality” is too often a border‑checked passport.6.
The question is not whether the Middle East is fit for modernity. It is whether we are.
VI. The West’s Model: Arms, Aid, and Endless War
Since 1945, the United States’ hegemony in the Middle East has relied on three pillars: oil purchases, weapons sales, and regime change.7. In diplomacy, Washington has favoured bilateral peace treaties that serve its strategic interests, not the interests of the region’s peoples.
Arms sales are the key. For its allies, the US provides 60‑80 per cent of their lethal imports. For the rest, it supplies 50‑60 per cent.7. Between 1946 and 2023, Washington provided $373 billion in foreign assistance to the Middle East. The bulk was steered to just a few countries: Israel ($139 billion), Egypt ($83 billion), Iraq ($70 billion), and Jordan ($24 billion) .7.
The Middle East is the largest regional recipient of US aid. Yet “the net effect has been precisely the opposite” of increasing security and rising per capita income.7. Worse, “the military symbiosis between the US and Israel has triggered devastating spillovers into adjacent Arab states.” This destabilisation has been accompanied by lost years, even decades, with no increase in per capita income in the aid‑receiving states.
Iran and Iraq have faced escalating adversities since their 1980‑88 war, in which the US supplied arms to both sides. In Iraq, per capita income in 2010 was where it had been in 1978. In Iran, Washington’s sanctions prevented any growth in per capita income for a quarter of a century after the Islamic Revolution.7.
In Syria, following the 1949 US‑led regime change, per capita income before October 2023 was the same as in 1981 – 44 years earlier. In Palestine, per capita income is now where it was in the early 1970s. In Yemen, per capita income is the same as it was 55 years ago.7.
The post‑September 11, 2001, wars alone have cost more than $8 trillion and over 1 million lives. Since October 7, 2023, US military aid to Israel has soared from $3.8 billion per year to $23 billion.7.
This is not a record of success. It is a record of extraction.
VII. What Is Lost: The Destruction of Custom and Its Replacement
Western intervention does not merely kill people and destroy infrastructure. It kills knowledge.
The customs that Yemeni tribes have developed over centuries – the mediation processes, the compensation systems, the culture of forgiveness – are not primitive. They are sophisticated. They have been refined over generations to minimise violence, restore relationships, and maintain community cohesion in the absence of a strong central state.
These customs are under threat. Not from within – from without. From the war that Western‑supplied weapons have fuelled. From the chaos that Western‑backed interventions have created. From the imposition of Western models of justice – punitive, carceral, retributive – that have no place in tribal societies and no respect for their wisdom.
A United Nations report on women in conflict resolution in Yemen documents this loss. It notes that women have historically played active roles in tribal peacebuilding, utilising “the privileges of customary law and tradition to perform peacebuilding activities during conflict”.5. But the war has exacerbated existing gender inequalities and added new layers of vulnerability.5.
What is being lost is not just lives. It is alternatives.
The West’s model of justice – prison, punishment, the state monopoly on violence – is not superior. It is different. And in many ways, it is worse. It does not restore relationships. It does not heal communities. It does not offer forgiveness.
But the West does not offer its model as one among many. It imposes it. Through sanctions, through military intervention, through the structural adjustment programmes of international financial institutions, it forces other cultures to abandon their own ways of doing things and adopt the Western way.
And then, when those cultures descend into chaos – as cultures do when their social fabric is torn apart – the West points a finger and says: “See? They are violent. They are backward. They cannot govern themselves.”
It is a self‑fulfilling prophecy. And it is evil.
VIII. Who Benefits from the Narrative of the Savage?
The question answers itself.
The military‑industrial complex benefits. The weapons manufacturers who supply Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The defence contractors who profit from endless war. The politicians who receive campaign contributions from those industries.
The media benefits. Outrage sells. Fear sells. Violence sells. A story about tribal forgiveness does not sell.
The neoliberal order benefits. A world of stable, peaceful, self‑governing nations does not need the International Monetary Fund. It does not need structural adjustment. It does not need Western “advisors.” The narrative of the savage – the incompetent, the corrupt, the violent – justifies intervention. And intervention justifies control.
And the West’s own self‑image benefits. Every time a news outlet shows a beheading, every time a politician warns of “terrorism,” every time a think‑tank publishes a report on “failed states,” the Western viewer is reassured: We are civilised. We are modern. We are good.
It is a comforting story. It is also false.
IX. The Question the West Will Not Answer
Who, then, is truly backward?
The farmer whose house is pulverised and who, the next day, sifts concrete dust for a photograph to bury? Or the cabinet that orders the strike and the cabinet that supplies the bomb, and the newsroom that edits the headline until the perpetrator disappears?6.
Backwardness is not about religion or geography. It is about the willingness to accept the suffering of others as the price of our own comfort, and to call that acceptance “reason.”
If modernity means anything worth having, it must mean the courage to break with the opiate of comforting lies. It means refusing complicity – not only with what we fund and arm, but with what we excuse. It means insisting that law is not a costume, that rights are not a currency, that the life of a child is not a geopolitical variable.
The West has spent decades manufacturing the “unacceptable other.” It has done so to justify wars, to sell weapons, to maintain control over resources, to preserve a self‑image that cannot bear the weight of its own crimes.
But the other is not unacceptable. The other is a mirror.
And in that mirror, the West does not see a savage. It sees itself.
Andrew Klein
References
1. SABA News Agency. (2024). Tribal mediation ends murder case in al-Qurashiya district, Al-Bayda.
2. Hart, D. M. (2001). Muslim tribesmen and the colonial encounter in fiction and on film. Het Spinhuis Publishers.
3. Elhagin, M. A. (2018). Orientalism and Edward Said. Qatar National Library.
4. SABA News Agency. (2025). Zionist entity places Palestinian prisoners, intel law under guillotine of violations.
5. Awadh, M., & Shuja’adeen, N. (2019). Women in Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Yemen. United Nations.
6. Anadolu Ajansı. (2025). OPINION – Who is truly backward? Gaza and the mirror of Western modernity.
7. China Daily. (2025). Time for change in the Middle East.
8. SABA News Agency. (2025). Tribal reconciliation in Hajja ends murder case between Al-Omari & Al-Jashman families.
9. Shaikh, T., Ossege, J., & Sears, R. (2018). Exposure. Taylor & Francis.
10. Hajj, Y. (2014). Thesis Paragraph on Cultural Stereotypes. The New School.
