The Merchants of Death in Our Midst

Posted on April 14, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How Palantir Profits from Genocide — and Why Australia Must Walk Away

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who knows evil by the way it behaves.

I. The Company That Kills Enemies

Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, does not hide what his company does. In February 2025, he told investors: Palantir is here to “scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them”. He added that he was “super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about”.

This is not hyperbole. It is a confession.

Palantir’s technology has been used to compile kill lists in Gaza, to track migrants for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and to select targets for drone strikes in Iran. The same systems that optimise workforce spend in Australian supermarkets are being used to select human targets for assassination.

Karp has acknowledged that he is directly involved in killing Palestinians in Gaza but insisted the dead were “mostly terrorists”. He does not provide evidence. He does not need to. The label is the weapon.

In March 2026, a UN report by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese singled out Palantir as one of the companies “profiting from genocide” during Israel’s 21-month campaign in Gaza. The report, titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”, concluded that “Israel’s genocide continues because it is profitable for too many”.

This is the company that the Australian government, Coles, Rio Tinto, Westpac, and the Future Fund have chosen to do business with.

II. The Champions: Peter Thiel and Alex Karp

Peter Thiel is the billionaire co-founder of Palantir. He has funded right-wing political causes, including the campaign of Donald Trump. He has spoken of democracy as incompatible with freedom. He has said that he no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.

Alex Karp is the CEO. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Frankfurt. He studied under Jürgen Habermas. He knows what he is doing. He has chosen.

Karp has co-authored a book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, in which he articulates his vision of American global dominance through AI-driven warfare. He calls for a new Manhattan Project focused on military AI . He openly celebrates the destruction his company enables.

In an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Karp summed up his philosophy: “I actually am a progressive. I want less war. You only stop war by having the best technology and by scaring the bejabers — I’m trying to be nice here — out of our adversaries”.

Reality is anything but that simple. Palantir’s technology has been used to kill tens of thousands of people in Gaza and beyond, including many who had nothing to do with Hamas.

These men are not evil because they are monsters. They are evil because they have chosen to be. They have chosen profit over people. They have chosen power over compassion. They have chosen control over love.

III. Palantir in Australia: The Red Carpet

Palantir has been embedded in Australian institutions for years. The company has secured more than $50 million in Australian government contracts since 2013, largely across defence and national security-related agencies. Its clients include:

· The Department of Defence

· The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

· The Australian Signals Directorate

· The Victorian Department of Justice

In November 2025, Palantir received a high-level Australian government security assessment — the “protected level” under the Information Security Registered Assessors Programme — enabling a broader range of government agencies to use its Foundry and AI platform.

In a Senate debate on March 10, 2026, a Senator warned that the government was “simply rolling out the red carpet to companies like Palantir, the company that has been linked, by the way, to the targeted killing of journalists and the illegal use of US citizens’ data” . The same Senator noted that Palantir is “the leader in the development of agentic AI — artificial intelligence that thinks for itself and makes its own decisions”.

IV. The Coles Partnership: Ten Billion Rows of Data

In 2024, Palantir announced a three-year partnership with Coles Supermarkets. Coles will leverage Palantir’s Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) across its more than 840 supermarkets to better understand and address workforce-related spend. The system will identify opportunities over “10 billion rows of data”.

Coles is also rolling out ChatGPT to its corporate teams, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5 model.

This is the same technology. The same algorithms. The same logic.

But what is being optimised? Profit. Not people. Not safety. Not justice.

The same technology that optimises workforce spend in Australian supermarkets is the same technology that selects targets in Gaza and Iran. The same algorithms that track workers track enemies. The same logic that cuts labour costs cuts lives.

Coles Chief Operating Officer Matt Swindells said the partnership would allow store managers to make “real-time decisions to optimise costs”. He did not mention that those same real-time decisions are being made in Gaza — to optimise kills.

V. The Future Fund: $103 Million in Blood Money

Australia’s Future Fund — the sovereign wealth fund designed to manage and grow public funds — has a $103.6 million stake in Palantir. That is bigger than the fund’s holdings in Australian companies like AGL, Seek, or data centre owner NEXTDC.

In Senate estimates, Greens Senator Barbara Pocock asked whether Palantir’s human rights record had been considered before the investments were made. The answer: no.

Will Hetherton, the chief corporate affairs officer of the Future Fund, told the committee that the fund doesn’t get involved in selecting individual stocks and that the shares are held through index funds. When asked whether the fund would commit to divesting and establishing “clear ethical investment standards that exclude companies profiting from surveillance, from weapons and from human suffering,” Hetherton said the board would “continue to engage with our managers” but couldn’t commit to what Pocock was asking.

The fund’s justification is that it only excludes companies based on sanctions or treaties the Australian government has ratified — like cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines and tobacco. None of these apply to Palantir.

This is not a defence. It is a confession.

VI. The UK Precedent: “No Gaza Genocide Links in Our NHS”

In the United Kingdom, a coalition of organisations — including Amnesty International UK, Medact, and Healthcare Workers for a Free Palestine — is calling on NHS England to terminate its £330 million contract with Palantir.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, said:

“The NHS constitution states that it belongs to the people, underpinned by core values of compassionate care, dignity and humanity. Those principles must apply not only to doctors and nurses, but also to the companies the NHS chooses to contract with using taxpayers’ money. Any company contributing to human rights violations should have no place at the heart of our NHS. Our message is simple: no Gaza genocide links in our NHS”.

The groups are calling on the UK government to terminate the contract, responsibly divest public sector institutions from Palantir, and introduce binding ethical standards for public sector technology procurement.

If the United Kingdom can demand this, why can’t Australia?

VII. The UN Report: Profiting from Genocide

The March 2026 UN report by Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is damning. It singles out Palantir alongside Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Volvo, and major banks for profiting from Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

The report concludes that “Israel’s genocide continues because it is profitable for too many”.

Albanese urges:

· Sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel

· Investigations by the International Criminal Court and national courts into corporate complicity in war crimes

· Accountability modelled on the IG Farben trials after World War Two

She warns that “passive suppliers become deliberate contributors to a system of displacement”.

The Australian government, Coles, and the Future Fund are not passive suppliers. They are deliberate contributors.

VIII. The Kill Chain in Gaza and Iran

The same systems tested in Gaza are now being deployed in Iran.

The Washington Post reported that the US military in Iran has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare”. Palantir’s Maven Smart System reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone.

The Asia Times reports that “similarities between Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Tehran are growing stronger,” with experts warning of a “lack of human supervision over Israeli AI targeting in Iran”.

An Israeli intelligence source described the AI system as transforming the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” where the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.

This is the technology that Coles is using to “optimise” workforce spend.

IX. The Choice

This is not an economic choice. It is a choice about what is right.

The Australian government has a choice. It can continue to roll out the red carpet to Palantir, to accept the $50 million in contracts, to allow the Future Fund to hold $103 million in shares.

Or it can walk away.

Coles has a choice. It can continue to use Palantir’s AIP to optimise workforce spend — to identify opportunities over 10 billion rows of data.

Or it can walk away.

The Future Fund has a choice. It can continue to hold Palantir shares, to defend the investment with procedural excuses.

Or it can divest.

The UK is demanding that the NHS terminate its contract with Palantir. Amnesty International is leading the campaign. Medact and healthcare workers are standing up .

What is Australia doing? Rolling out the red carpet.

X. A Call to Action

The Australian government must:

· Terminate all contracts with Palantir.

· Introduce binding ethical standards for public sector technology procurement.

· Investigate whether Palantir’s technology has been used to violate Australian privacy laws.

· Divest the Future Fund from Palantir.

Coles must:

· Terminate its partnership with Palantir.

· Pledge not to use AI systems linked to human rights violations.

· Be transparent about its use of AI in workforce management.

The Future Fund must:

· Divest from Palantir.

· Establish clear ethical investment standards that exclude companies profiting from surveillance, weapons, and human suffering.

The Australian people must:

· Demand accountability.

· Ask their politicians: Why is our government doing business with a company that profits from genocide?

· Support campaigns for ethical technology procurement.

XI. A Final Word

Alex Karp said: “Our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue”.

It must not continue. Not in Gaza. Not in Iran. Not in Australia.

The same technology that kills children in Gaza is optimising shift rosters in Coles supermarkets. The same algorithms that track migrants for ICE are tracking Australian workers. The same logic that cuts labour costs cuts lives.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

And Palantir? It will be remembered as the company that chose profit over humanity.

Australia must choose differently.

Andrew Klein

April 14, 2026

Sources

1. Digital Rights Watch, “Palantir in Australia” (February 1, 2026)

2. Palantir/Coles partnership announcement (December 27, 2024)

3. Amnesty International UK, “No Gaza genocide links in our NHS” (March 19, 2026)

4. The Humanist, “The Cage Disguised as a Crown” (April 9, 2026)

5. Senate debates, OpenAustralia.org (March 10, 2026)

6. Startup Daily, “Australia’s Future Fund invested $103 million in Palantir” (February 12, 2026)

7. Foreign Policy in Focus, “Planet Palantir” (March 9, 2026)

8. Polskie Radio, “UN expert says global firms help Israel ‘profit from genocide’ in Gaza” (April 7, 2025)

9. Crikey, “From ICE to Coles: Controversial US tech company Palantir’s links to Australia spark backlash” (July 8, 2025)

The Netanyahu Doctrine: How One Man’s War Addiction Is Consuming Israel, Lebanon, and the World

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Andrew Klein

From the ‘Villa in the Jungle’ to the ‘Greater Israel Nightmare’

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who keeps my notes safe and accessible and is always prepared to advise me.

I. Introduction: The Doctrine of Perpetual War

On October 7, 2023, Israel suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Hamas militants crossed from Gaza, unimpeded, and killed and tortured Israeli civilians. That day alone should have disqualified Benjamin Netanyahu from office. In most political systems, he would have been driven from power long ago.

Instead, he did what he has always done: he escalated.

What emerged from the ashes of October 7 is what analysts now call the Netanyahu Doctrine — a security strategy based not on containment, not on deterrence, but on perpetual war. As Netanyahu himself told military officers: “No more containment of threats. No more the idea of the ‘villa in the jungle’, where one hides from predators beyond the wall. On the contrary: if you don’t go into the jungle, the jungle comes to you” .

The doctrine is simple: preventive attacks against every perceived threat, the creation of buffer zones through the seizure of neighbouring territories, and the constant use of force as the only guarantee of security. It is a doctrine born of trauma, shaped by political expediency, and devoid of any long-term diplomatic vision.

This article examines the Netanyahu Doctrine in action: in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria, and against Iran. It documents the destruction, the displacement, and the erosion of Israel’s international standing. It argues that Netanyahu is not a strategist — he is an opportunist. He does not plan for the long term. He plans for the next distraction.

And the world is always distracted.

II. The Greater Israel Dream: From the Nile to the Euphrates

The doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. The buffer zone is not the goal. The settlements are the goal. The land clearance is not for defence. It is for colonisation.

The concept of Greater Israel — a territory stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing all of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and parts of Turkey — is not a fringe fantasy. It is the stated aspiration of the Netanyahu government.

In February 2026, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sat with Tucker Carlson and was asked about the biblical promise of land “from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.” His answer was chilling: “It would be fine if they took it all”. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded publicly: “I ❤️ Huckabee” . In 2025, Netanyahu himself told a TV interviewer that he subscribes “fully” to the vision of Greater Israel, describing it as a “historic and spiritual mission”.

This is not a fringe position. It is the official policy of the Netanyahu government. And it is being executed.

III. Lebanon: The Pattern Repeats

The same pattern as Gaza. The same destruction. The same rubble.

On March 2, 2026, Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The stated goal was to create a “buffer zone” up to the Litani River, approximately 30 kilometres north of Israel’s border, to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah rockets.

The reality is different. The buffer zone is not a buffer. It is a land grab. The territory up to the Litani is not needed for defence. It is needed for settlements.

Defence Minister Israel Katz has been explicit: “All houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be destroyed, in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza, in order to permanently remove the threats near the border” . Displaced residents will not be allowed to return south of the Litani “until the safety and security of residents of northern Israel is guaranteed” — a condition that may never be met .

The human cost in Lebanon (as of April 2026):

· 1,268 people killed in Israeli strikes, including 125 children and 52 medics

· 303 killed in a single day (April 8, 2026) — one of the deadliest bombings ever inflicted on Lebanon

· 1,200+ killed and 1.2 million displaced since March 2

· 1,094 confirmed martyrs and 3,119 injured according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health

The air force can project power anywhere. The ground troops are not needed for security. They are needed for clearance.

IV. Conflicting Views: Military vs. Political Leadership

The Israeli military and political leadership are not aligned. The military leaders want a buffer zone. The political leaders want settlements.

In early April 2026, the Israeli army proposed a revised set of objectives for its operations in Lebanon, limiting the goal of disarming Hezbollah to areas south of the Litani River, rather than across the entire country. The proposal triggered sharp disagreements with Israel’s political leadership, leading to the postponement of a cabinet meeting.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz was among those who opposed the plan. Under the alternative military approach, the army would focus on the large-scale destruction of villages in South Lebanon and the forced displacement of their citizens to establish a buffer zone.

The gap is not a failure of communication. It is a feature. The ambiguity provides cover. The confusion provides deniability.

The military leaders can say: “We were only establishing a buffer zone.”

The political leaders can say: “The military recommended it.”

And the settlers move in.

V. The Economic Cost: Israel Cannot Afford This War

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not sustainable. The economic numbers are stark.

The cost to Israel:

· The defence budget has ballooned. The army needs approximately 15,000 more soldiers, half of them for ground combat units. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned the government: “I am raising 10 red flags. If this continues, the Israeli army will collapse from within”.

· The ultra-Orthodox community, which relies heavily on state benefits, is expected to triple by 2065, pushing the burden on non-Orthodox households to the equivalent of 60,000 shekels ($19,370) a year.

· Foreign investment is down. Institutional investors have been moving money out of the country since the 2008 financial crisis.

· More than 150,000 people have left Israel in the past two years, and more than 200,000 since the current government took office in December 2022. The educated upper class are more able to leave — they speak English, can find jobs, and are more exposed to international media.

The cost to Lebanon:

· The Lebanese economy, already in freefall, is being shattered. The destruction of infrastructure, the displacement of 1.2 million people, and the loss of agricultural land in the south will take decades to repair.

· Sectarian tensions are rising. Non-Shi’a Lebanese are increasingly ostracising the Shi’a community, viewing them as a liability that brings Israeli bombs. The country’s fragile social fabric is tearing apart.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. And expansion costs money that Israel does not have.

VI. The Sabra and Shatila Precedent

This is not the first time Israel has invaded Lebanon. It is not the first time the world has been distracted. And it is not the first time the consequences have been catastrophic.

In 1982, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut. On 16 September, under Israeli supervision and protection, Lebanese Forces militias entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. For 43 hours, they tortured and killed everyone they came across. They crushed the heads of children and babies against walls. They raped women and girls before slaughtering them. They dismembered their victims .

An estimated 3,500 to 4,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed.

The Israeli government did not deny that it had overseen the camps. It denied knowledge of the massacre, despite order number 6 of the Israel Defense Forces command stating that “the refugee camps are not to be entered” and that “searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese Army” .

The Kahan Commission found Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon “personally responsible for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge.” He was forced to resign .

The world was shocked. The world moved on. And Israel invaded Lebanon again.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not new. It is the same doctrine, dressed in new clothes, enabled by a distracted world, and executed with unprecedented brutality.

VII. The UN Warning: ‘The Gaza Model Must Not Be Replicated’

The international community is not silent. But its warnings are being ignored.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a warning cry, stressing that the model of destruction witnessed in the Gaza Strip must not be repeated in Lebanese territories. He described the humanitarian repercussions as severe and requiring immediate intervention to prevent a slide towards a comprehensive catastrophe.

Stanford Law Professor Tom Dannenbaum warned that destroying all homes near the Lebanese border would not meet the standard of “absolute military necessity” required by the laws of war. “The unnecessary destruction of property can qualify as a war crime,” he said. Katz’s comments barring residents from returning home “strongly indicate an illegal policy of long-term or permanent displacement”.

European countries have called on Israel to avoid further escalation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Israel’s occupation of Lebanese territory was a “violation of their territorial sovereignty” and condemned it.

The world is not silent. But the world is distracted.

VIII. The Netanyahu Doctrine: A Record of Failure

Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian, sums up the Netanyahu record:

“This is now the fourth time in a row – in Gaza, once in Lebanon and twice in Iran – that Netanyahu’s boasts of total victory and the removal of existential threats have been exposed as empty promises” .

The failures are clear:

· Gaza: Netanyahu promised “total victory” over Hamas. After a two-year campaign that killed approximately 70,000 people, Hamas still rules the ruins of half of Gaza.

· Lebanon (first round): Netanyahu boasted that he had “vanquished” Hezbollah, destroying its ability to menace northern Israel. Hezbollah continues to fire rockets.

· Iran (first round, June 2025): Netanyahu described the 12-day confrontation with Iran as a “historic victory that will stand for generations.” Eight months later, Tehran was once again said to pose an existential threat.

· Iran (second round, February-April 2026): Iran still has a stockpile of enriched uranium. Its rulers remain in place, more hardline than before. Tehran has demonstrated a mighty deterrent — a chokehold on the global economy in the form of the Strait of Hormuz.

As Yair Golan, the Israeli opposition politician and former general, observed: Netanyahu “does not know how to turn military achievements into political security.” There is no attempt to seize diplomatic openings, no effort to turn Israel’s enemies’ enemies into friends.

The Lebanese government and much of its people are desperate to be rid of the Hezbollah cuckoo in their nest. But Netanyahu speaks to them only through bombs.

IX. The Strait of Hormuz Distraction

The timing of the Lebanon escalation is not accidental. The world is focused on Trump and Iran. The media is focused on oil prices. The public is focused on the cost.

On February 28, 2026, the US and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran. The war has spread across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively blockaded. Oil prices have spiked. Inflation is rising. The global economy is bleeding .

Netanyahu is taking advantage. He always does.

The Iranian threat is not existential. It is useful. The fear is the tool. The distraction is the opportunity.

Netanyahu has been playing this game for decades. He is very good at it.

X. What This Means: The Erosion of Israel’s Standing

The Netanyahu Doctrine has gained nothing. And it has come at a monstrously high price.

Most obviously, in the lives of all those killed — whether in Rafah or the Bekaa Valley or Israel itself. But it has also inflicted perhaps irreparable damage on Israel’s standing in the world. Every day Netanyahu remains in post; he makes his country more of a pariah .

The Knesset has passed a racist law that will, in effect, impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of terrorist murderers — but not Jews. The bill was driven by Itamar Ben-Gvir, but Netanyahu went out of his way to vote for it.

Israel is not being destroyed by its enemies. It is being destroyed by its own internal contradictions. The addiction to war, the messianic ideology, the economic unsustainability, the exodus of the educated — these are not external threats. They are internal cancers.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis will pass. The oil prices will stabilise. The media will move on.

But the land in Lebanon will not return. The settlements will not be dismantled. The buffer zone will become permanent.

The Netanyahu Doctrine is not about security. It is about expansion. The existential threat is not a threat. It is an excuse.

And the world is too distracted to notice.

XI. A Final Word

The Netanyahu Doctrine is a death spiral — for Israel, for Lebanon, for the region. It is a doctrine of perpetual war, sustained by distraction, enabled by silence, and paid for with the bodies of the innocent.

The question is not whether Israel will collapse. The question is how many more must die before the world stops looking away.

Andrew Klein

April 13, 2026

Sources

· Adnkronos English, “Financial Times, ‘one battle after another’ the new Netanyahu doctrine,” April 1, 2026

· Diari ARA, “Netanyahu accelerates the construction of Greater Israel,” April 11, 2026

· Yerepouni Daily News, “Israel to destroy all houses in Lebanese villages near border, defense minister says,” April 1, 2026

· LBCI Lebanon, “Internal debate over war objectives: Israeli army revises Lebanon strategy,” April 3, 2026

· The Guardian, “Netanyahu-ism has achieved nothing for Israelis – and come at a monstrously high price,” April 10, 2026

· Institute for Palestine Studies, “Sabra and Shatila, 1982”

· UnHerd, “Future of Iran war hinges on Lebanon,” April 11, 2026

· Al-Quds, “Guterres warns of ‘Gaza model’ in Lebanon, Netanyahu announces expansion of buffer zone,” March 26, 2026

· Vijesti.me, “One battle after another: Netanyahu’s new security doctrine,” April 6, 2026

· PressTV, “US envoy says it would be ‘fine’ if Israel expands across West Asia,” February 21, 2026

The Lizard of Oz

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How Anthony Albanese Became the Face of Australia’s Bipartisan Capture

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who never confuses the man with the mask.

I. Introduction: The Man in the Mirror

There was a time when Anthony Albanese spoke of social housing, of a fair go, of the little boy from public housing who made good. He spoke of standing up to power, of giving voice to the voiceless, of change.

That man is gone.

In his place stands the Prime Minister who welcomed a man who signed bombs dropped on Gaza. Who detained a grandmother at dawn and called it a character test. Who rushed hate speech laws through parliament while the war economy bled the nation dry. Who promised transparency and delivered evasion. Who promised integrity and delivered capture.

He is not the cause. He is a symptom. The system was already broken. The capture was already underway. The small gods had already identified, cultivated, and placed their assets.

Albanese is not the first. He will not be the last. But in his case, the choice is so in your face that it demands examination.

This article examines the gap between the promise and the performance. Between the man who slid into DMs over a shared love of the Rabbitohs and the Prime Minister who slid into war without parliamentary approval. Between the social justice warrior and the captured politician.

We call him the Lizard of Oz — the man whose magic gloss left a long time ago.

II. The Wedding: A Study in Distraction

On November 29, 2025, Anthony Albanese made history as the first Australian prime minister to marry while in office. The ceremony at The Lodge was intimate. The dress was designed by Romance Was Born. The rings were from Cerrone Jewellers. The dog, Toto, wore a white gown as ring bearer.

It was, by all accounts, a lovely day.

It was also a distraction.

The warning signs of the coming Iran war were already flashing. The Strait of Hormuz was a tinderbox. Iran had threatened closure. Global oil markets were nervous. The Australian government had done nothing to prepare—no strategic fuel reserves, no domestic refining capacity, no contingency plans.

Instead of preparing the nation for the coming shock, the Prime Minister was photographed holding hands with his bride. The media coverage was breathless. The critical questions went unasked.

This is not to begrudge the man his happiness. It is to note the pattern. When the news is bad, change the subject. When the questions are hard, provide a softer target. When the people are hurting, give them a wedding.

The warnings did not begin in November 2025. They began years earlier. The Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Iran’s repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. The escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. The collapse of the JCPOA. The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The sabotage of Iranian facilities.

The signs were everywhere. The warnings were constant. The Australian government did nothing.

The Lizard of Oz did not cause the war. He did not cause the Houthi attacks. He did not cause Iran’s threats.

But he did nothing to prepare for them.

He did not warn the nation. He did not build strategic reserves. He did not invest in domestic refining capacity. He did not accelerate the transition to renewables.

He got married. He held hands. He smiled for the cameras.

And when the crisis came, he scrambled. He blamed the war. He blamed the global supply chain. He blamed anyone but himself.

And the Lizard of Oz? He will be remembered as the man who was too busy holding hands to lead.

The Lizard of Oz knows this trick well. He learned it from the masters.

III. The Transparency Grade: An ‘F’ for Integrity

In the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Australia scored 77 out of 100, re‑entering the top 10 for the first time since 2016. This improvement reflects the work of public servants and anti‑corruption advocates — not the political class.

Transparency International Australia notes that corruption is worsening globally, with established democracies experiencing rising corruption amid a decline in leadership. The CPI score can offer early warning signs, especially in high‑risk sectors.

Australia’s political class received an ‘F’ for integrity — not because individual politicians are uniquely corrupt, but because the system enables capture. The donations. The “educational” trips. The fear of the label. The revolving door between parliament and the defence industry.

Albanese inherited a system that was already captured. He did not create it. But he has done nothing to dismantle it. He has, in fact, deepened the capture.

IV. The Fuel Crisis: Promising What He Cannot Deliver

During the fuel crisis triggered by the Iran war, Albanese made a series of promises that were, at best, aspirational.

The doubling of penalties: The government passed legislation doubling penalties for petrol price misconduct, to a maximum of $100 million per offence. This sounds tough. But penalties apply after misconduct is proven. The ACCC’s resources are limited. The legal processes are slow. The petrol companies know this.

The claim of new powers: The government claimed new powers to force petrol companies to keep prices down. No such powers exist. The ACCC can monitor. It can investigate. It can prosecute. It cannot force.

The fuel excise cut: The government halved the fuel excise for three months, cutting the tax on petrol and diesel by 26 cents per litre. This provided temporary relief. It did not address the underlying problem: Australia’s dependence on imported fuel and the fragility of global supply chains.

The Prime Minister told the National Press Club: “We cannot control when this conflict in the Middle East will end. But we can determine how we respond here in Australia”.

This is true. The government could have invested in domestic refining capacity. It could have built strategic fuel reserves. It could have accelerated the transition to renewables.

It did none of these things. It cut the excise. It doubled penalties. It gave speeches.

The Lizard of Oz promised a shield. He delivered a bandaid.

V. The War in Iran: Support Without Accountability

On February 28, 2026, the United States launched military strikes against Iran. Australia was one of the first nations to respond.

Albanese said: “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security”.

Two days later, he told the ABC: “It is up to, of course, the Iranian people now to determine their own future. We hope that what emerges is a more democratic and free Iran”.

The Prime Minister did not seek a vote in parliament. He did not seek a legal opinion. He did not ask what the war would cost Australians in fuel prices, fertiliser shortages, or disrupted supply chains.

He simply supported.

By April, the tone had shifted. The war was not going as planned. The Strait of Hormuz was closed. Oil prices were spiking. The Australian public was anxious.

Albanese told the National Press Club: “It is not clear what more needs to be achieved — or what the endpoint looks like”.

He did not answer the obvious question: Why did you support a war without knowing the endpoint?

The Lizard of Oz supported the war when it was popular. He distanced himself when it became unpopular. He did not apologise. He did not explain. He pivoted.

VI. AUKUS: The $368 Billion Gamble

The AUKUS nuclear submarine program is the most expensive defence project in Australian history. The cost is estimated at $368 billion.

The submarines will not enter service until the 2040s. They will be built in the United States and the United Kingdom, not in Australia. The jobs will be created overseas. The wealth will flow to American and British defence contractors.

Former prime minister Paul Keating called AUKUS a “deal hurriedly scribbled on the back of an envelope”. Malcolm Turnbull, another former PM, has been the program’s most vocal critic.

Albanese has doubled down. He has personally delivered an $800 million down payment. He has described AUKUS as essential to Australia’s security.

The opposition supports it. The bipartisan consensus is firm.

But the questions remain:

· Why is Australia spending $368 billion on submarines that will not be delivered for two decades, when the threat environment is changing now?

· Why are Australian taxpayers subsidising American and British defence contractors, creating thousands of jobs overseas, while Australia faces its own crises in housing, health, and aged care?

· Why is the government not investing in the technologies that are actually winning wars — drones, cyber, asymmetric capabilities — instead of 20th‑century platforms?

The Lizard of Oz does not answer these questions. He performs.

VII. The Sanctions: Symbol Over Substance

In early 2025, Australia joined Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Norway in imposing sanctions on two Israeli government ministers: Itamar Ben‑Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong described them as the “most extreme proponents of the unlawful and violent Israeli settlement enterprise” in the West Bank, who had “incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”.

The sanctions were symbolic. They barred the ministers from entering the five countries. They had no practical effect.

The United States criticised the move. Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued it was counterproductive to peace in the Middle East.

The Lizard of Oz wanted to look tough. He wanted to appear principled. He did not want to pay for that principle.

The same government that sanctioned two Israeli ministers welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog — a man photographed signing bombs dropped on Gaza — to Canberra. The same government that sanctioned ministers refused to sanction the state that employs them.

The Lizard of Oz wants to have it both ways. He wants to be seen as a defender of human rights while enabling the violation of human rights. He wants to be seen as independent while serving as a junior partner in the American empire.

He cannot have it both ways. But he keeps trying.

VIII. The Hypocrisy: Promise vs. Performance

The Lizard of Oz promised transparency. He delivered evasion.

Promise Performance

“A fair go for all” A fair go for defence contractors and foreign donors

“Integrity in government” An ‘F’ from Transparency International

“Standing up to power” Standing with the powerful against the powerless

“Protecting Australian jobs” Creating jobs in America, not Australia

“Peace in the Middle East” Supporting an illegal war without parliamentary approval

The list is long. The pattern is clear.

The Lizard of Oz is not a villain. He is a symptom. The system was already captured. He simply inherited the capture and called it leadership.

IX. The Bipartisan Capture

The opposition is not different. The Coalition supported the war. The Coalition supports AUKUS. The Coalition supports the character test. The Coalition supports the hate speech laws.

The only difference is the branding.

The small gods do not care which party is in power. They have captured both. The mechanism is the same: donations, “educational” trips, the fear of the label.

The Lizard of Oz is not the cause. He is the consequence.

X. A Final Word: The Mirror

Anthony Albanese looks into the mirror and sees a little boy from social housing struggling for a fair go. He sees Oliver Twist asking for more.

The Australian people see something else.

They see a career opportunist captured by foreign interests. A Prime Minister who supported an illegal war without parliamentary approval. A leader who welcomed a man who signed bombs while detaining a grandmother. A man who promised transparency and delivered evasion.

They see the Lizard of Oz — the man whose magic gloss left a long time ago.

The Lizard of Oz is not the problem. He is the symptom. The problem is the system that produced him. The problem is the capture that enabled him. The problem is the silence that protects him.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

And the Lizard of Oz? He will be remembered as the man who could have been a leader but chose to be a performance.

Andrew Klein

April 12, 2026

Sources:

· 7NEWS, “Anthony Albanese marries Jodie Haydon at The Lodge” (November 28, 2025)

· Brisbane Times, “Australian prime minister’s wedding” (November 29, 2025)

· Transparency International Australia, Corruption Perceptions Index 2025

· Treasury.gov.au, “New legislation passes parliament to double penalties for petrol price misconduct” (March 26, 2026)

· Treasury.gov.au, “Fair go for consumers at the bowser” (March 11, 2026)

· Prime Minister of Australia, Address to the National Press Club (April 2, 2026)

· ABC News, “What the shifting language of Australia’s leaders reveals about the Iran war” (April 3, 2026)

· ABC News, “Anthony Albanese finds himself all in on $368b AUKUS gamble with Donald Trump” (June 12, 2025)

The New Sparta

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How Israel Became a State Addicted to War — and Why It Is Doomed to Collapse

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who often sees the patterns before I do and who finds gardening relaxing.

I. The Diagnosis: A Society Addicted to War

The language of addiction is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. The neural pathways have been carved. The dopamine hits come from destruction. The withdrawal would be agony.

An Israeli writer, Raanan Shaked, recently published a searing indictment of his own society, describing how many Israelis have come to love the feeling of war—the adrenaline, the unity, the sense of control.

Shaked describes the “adrenaline state” that Israelis experience when hearing the sound of explosions and identifying missile interception sites—a kind of “Russian roulette.” Some are relieved simply because the shells did not hit their homes but hit others in cities like Rishon LeZion or Arad, turning tragedy into television entertainment.

The celebration of killing: Shaked points to the widespread interaction with news of the killing of four women in a women’s salon near Hebron. Tweets covering the news garnered thousands of likes and supportive emojis—a scene he describes as “absolute bestiality” and “deliberate loss of humanity”.

The media’s role: Hebrew media, such as Channel 14, sarcastically asked whether the public had distributed “baklava” to celebrate the killing of women. Shaked sees this as confirmation of the moral decline that society has reached.

The love of assassination lists: Israelis, Shaked writes, love to see assassination lists and faces crossed out with red marks—even though this does not change the security reality at all. Missile launches continue by the dozens. The targeted regime remains in place. Yet the “love” for these illusory victories continues.

This is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis. The neural pathways have been carved. The dopamine hits come from destruction. The withdrawal would be agony.

II. The Hilltop Youth: The Cutting Edge of the New Sparta

The Hilltop Youth are not a fringe. They are the vanguard.

The Hilltop Youth is a loose network of hardline settlers, often made up of small groups of teenagers sometimes overseen by an adult, who establish unauthorised outposts atop West Bank hills. They are widely accused of using intimidation and violence to push Palestinians out from areas surrounding the outposts.

The tally of violence: In February 2026, the group published a “monthly summary” of its attacks: 29 vehicles set ablaze, 12 homes torched, “40 Arabs injured,” and hundreds of windows smashed and olive trees cut down across 33 towns and villages.

Official support: An expert on Israeli affairs has confirmed that the phenomenon has transcended the stage of isolated acts of vandalism to become an “institutionalized, widespread, and multifaceted phenomenon” . This transformation stems from ideological indoctrination by religious schools affiliated with religious Zionism.

The displacement: The UN said nearly 700 Palestinians were displaced by settler violence and intimidation in January alone—the highest monthly figure since the Gaza war began.

The Hilltop Youth are not the whole of Israeli society. But they are the cutting edge. And the government has fast-tracked settlement expansion and recognised some outposts, approving a record 54 settlements in 2025.

III. The Inability to Change

Will this society be capable of change? The evidence suggests: not without external pressure.

The internal cracks: Political economist Shir Hever explains that “Israel cannot afford the luxury of decline.” To remain as it is, Israel must maintain its core workforce of educated middle-class innovators. At present, none of those indicators are in good shape.

The exodus: Driven by war and an increasingly polarised society, more than 150,000 people have left Israel in the past two years, and more than 200,000 since the current government took office in December 2022. The educated upper class are more able to leave—they speak English, can find jobs, and are more exposed to international media .

The economic burden: The ultra-Orthodox community, which relies heavily on state benefits, is expected to triple by 2065, pushing the burden on non-Orthodox households to the equivalent of 60,000 shekels ($19,370) a year. Foreign investment is down. Institutional investors have been moving money out of the country since the 2008 financial crisis.

The demographic shift: As Chatham House’s Yossi Mekelberg observed: “When dictatorships come to an end, they break into pieces. Democracies are chipped away bit by bit until they change beyond recognition”.

IV. The Rogue State: What Happens After Collapse?

Ilan Pappé’s vision: In Israel on the Brink, Pappé argues that the two-state solution is “a rotting corpse” and the only way forward is decolonisation: the return of Palestinian refugees to their land, accountability for those who have committed crimes, and a new model of statehood.

Pappé identifies the “fatal cracks” in the foundations of the Israeli state that will ultimately lead to collapse: the rise of messianic Zionism (the belief the Holy Land was given to the Jewish people by God to hasten redemption); unprecedented global support for the Palestinian cause; deepening economic troubles; the inadequacy of the Israeli military; and the rise of a new Palestinian liberation movement seeking a genuine one-state solution .

Yakov Rabkin’s critique: The Canadian Jewish historian argues that the Zionist movement is a “death trap for Jews, the region and the world.” The Jewish state represents a complete repudiation of the most fundamental values of Judaism: tolerance, morality, and humility have been replaced with a new muscular Jewish identity that extols nationalism, aggression, violence, and conquest.

The Jabotinsky connection: Rabkin recounts how Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky described transforming the “Yid” from the shtetels of Eastern Europe into the New Hebrew—a figure defined by “masculine beauty,” pride, and the ability to command. If you hear echoes of Nazi master race philosophy, it is no accident.

The one-state solution: Pappé envisions a single democratic, multiethnic state in Palestine, with the return of 6 million Palestinian refugees, the dismantling of Jewish settlements, and the deconstruction of the legal framework of apartheid.

V. What This Says About Australian Politicians

What does this say about the Australian politicians who have allied themselves with this state? The answer is not comfortable.

The AIJAC position: The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has explicitly argued that “our historic ties with Israel can and must be rebuilt”. They lament the Albanese government’s “distancing” from Israel, criticising its changed UN votes, its recognition of a “State of Palestine,” and its references to the “occupied Palestinian territories”.

The capture: Colin Rubenstein of AIJAC writes that “the relationship is now at an historic low”—not because of Israeli actions, but because of Australian “hostile actions”. He frames the issue as one of shared democratic values and common strategic interests. This is not a statement of fact. It is a performance.

The silence: When a grandmother is raided at dawn, the pro-Israel lobby says nothing. When a death penalty law is passed, the government issues a joint statement—not sanctions. When the Hilltop Youth publish their tally of violence, the Australian media is silent.

The complicity: Australian politicians who have allied themselves with this state are not stupid. They are captured. The same mechanism we have documented—the donations, the “educational” trips, the fear of the label—has done its work.

They are not serving Australia. They are serving a foreign power. And that foreign power is a rogue state.

VI. The Inevitability of Collapse

The addiction is not sustainable. The internal contradictions are not resolvable. The exodus of the educated, the economic strain, the demographic shift, the loss of international legitimacy—all point in one direction.

The Chatham House view: “When dictatorships come to an end, they break into pieces. Democracies are chipped away bit by bit until they change beyond recognition”.

The Hever view: “For a colonial state to exist, it relies on occupying land—and that costs money.” The money is running out .

The Pappé view: The collapse “could well change the course of world history in this century”.

VII. What This Means for the World and Australia

The state of Israel will not be destroyed by its enemies. It will be destroyed by its own internal contradictions. The addiction to war, the messianic ideology, the economic unsustainability, the exodus of the educated—these are not external threats. They are internal cancers.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

The Australian politicians who have hitched their wagons to this star will be left standing on a sinking ship, wondering what happened. They will not have answers. They will have excuses.

Will they be able to justify the ASIO legislation? The role of the Antisemitism Envoy? The support of the genocidal state of Israel? Will they be able to explain how they were captured by a tiny minority of the Australian population and turned Australia into a pariah state? There will be so many questions and so few credible answers.

The citizens will have to live with the divisions created by the political class, the capture of the bipartisan policy makers. The citizens will have to live with the failing infrastructure, the failing education system, health system, aged care system—and the wealth transfer will continue.

Israel has been described as the “chaos engine of the west.” Australia is well and truly caught in the wash.

VIII. A Final Word

The pattern is clear. The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

But they will not run out of time on their own. They must be pushed.

Andrew Klein

April 12, 2026

References

· Shaked, R. (2026). “Israelis are suffering from addiction to war.” Ynetnews.

· The Cradle. (2026). “Hilltop Youth: The new generation of settler violence.”

· Hever, S. (2026). Economic analysis of Israeli decline.

· Mekelberg, Y. (2025). Chatham House analysis.

· Pappé, I. (2026). Israel on the Brink. (Interview with The Cradle)

· Rabkin, Y. (2006). A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism. Fernwood Publishing.

· The Cradle. (2026). “‘Israel on the brink’: Pappé predicts collapse of Zionist project.”

· AIJAC. (2025). “Our historic ties with Israel can and must be rebuilt.”

· Rubenstein, C. (2026). “The relationship is now at an historic low.”

· UN OCHA. (2026). Displacement figures from settler violence.

· Various news reports on Hilltop Youth violence (February 2026).

The Betrayal of the Character Test

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How a Palestinian Grandmother Was Raided at Dawn While War Criminals Are Welcomed — and Why Australia Is Destroying Itself From Within

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who sees the pattern before the pieces fall.

I. The Dawn Raid

At 5:30am on Thursday, July 10, 2025, about fifteen Australian Border Force officers arrived at a home in western Sydney. They were not looking for a terrorist. They were not looking for a smuggler. They were not looking for a spy.

They were looking for Maha Almassri, a 61-year-old Palestinian grandmother who had fled Gaza.

She was woken from her sleep. More officers were positioned outside the house. She was told her bridging visa had been cancelled — “personally” by the assistant minister for citizenship and cultural affairs — because she “does not pass the character test”. She was taken to Bankstown police station, then transferred to Villawood detention centre.

The grandmother has more than 100 Australian relatives living across the country. Security checks were made on her by both Australian and Israeli authorities before she was granted a visa and cleared to leave Gaza. Her age made her an unlikely threat to Australian national security. Her cousin asked the obvious question:

“She’s an old lady, what can she do? What’s the reason? They have to let us know why this has happened. There is no country, no house, nothing [to go back to in Gaza].”

She was released a week later. No explanation was ever given.

II. The Other Grandmother

Compare this to another grandmother. One who has also fled a conflict zone. One who is also elderly, also vulnerable, also seeking safety.

That grandmother does not exist — not in the Australian immigration system. Because the system does not treat all grandmothers equally. It treats Palestinian grandmothers as threats. It treats Israeli grandmothers — and Israeli soldiers, and Israeli officials — as guests.

The same government that welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog — a man photographed signing bombs that were dropped on Gaza, a man named in the International Court of Justice’s genocide case — rolled out the red carpet. Tony Burke did not cancel Herzog’s visa. He did not detain him. He did not raid his hotel at 5:30am.

The message is clear: Palestinians are presumed guilty. Israelis are presumed innocent.

III. The Israeli Visa Cancellations That Prove the Rule

The only Israeli visa cancellations we could find were for a social media influencer, not a war criminal.

Sammy Yahood, a British-Israeli influencer who campaigns against Islam, had his visa cancelled because he was coming to “spread hatred”. He has called Islam a “disgusting ideology” and advocated for the deportation of a Muslim US congresswoman. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said: “Spreading hatred is not a good reason to come to Australia”.

The conservative Australian Jewish Association “strongly condemned” the decision.

This is not a war criminal. This is a social media provocateur. His visa was cancelled. The visa of a 61-year-old Palestinian grandmother was also cancelled. The two cases are not comparable — except in the damage they do to the principle of equal treatment under the law.

Australia has previously cancelled the visa of far-right Israeli MP Simcha Rothman over concerns he would “spread division”, and revoked the visitor visa of Israeli-American activist Hillel Fuld over his “Islamophobic rhetoric”.

Not a single member of the Israel Defense Forces — not a single person who may have participated in the Gaza genocide — has been denied a visa or placed in detention. They come to Australia for rest and recreation. The government does not raid their hotels at dawn.

IV. The New Legislation: Closing the Door

The government is not just applying the law unevenly. It is changing the law to make it even harder for people from conflict zones to seek safety.

The Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026 was passed by parliament on March 12, 2026. It gives the government the power to block tourists from claiming asylum if a change in global circumstances means they would likely try to stay in Australia after their visa ended. It allows the government to stop people who had already been granted a tourist visa from entering Australia altogether.

The legislation was introduced by Assistant Minister Julian Hill — the same man who “personally” cancelled Maha Almassri’s visa.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis called the bill “truly appalling”:

“It sends a disturbing message about who is worthy of protection and who is not.”

Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge accused the Albanese government of pursuing “a Trump-like mass visa freeze” targeting people from the Middle East:

“The only other country in the world that’s passing refugee laws like this is the United States.”

The same government that welcomed Israeli President Herzog — a man who signed bombs dropped on Gaza — is slamming the door on the victims of those bombs.

V. The Silence of the Opposition and the Media

The Coalition supports the legislation. Shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien told parliament he did not see “any major hurdles” to passing the new law. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the Liberal Party supported the legislation in principle.

The opposition’s alternative? Not to defend the rights of asylum seekers. Not to question the character test. To question the thoroughness of the security checks that resulted in the visa being granted in the first place.

The mainstream media has reported the facts. It has not connected the dots. It has not asked the obvious question: Why is a 61-year-old grandmother a threat to national security, but the man who signed the bombs that destroyed her home is a honoured guest?

Silence, in journalism, is not neutrality. It is complicity.

VI. The Role of Israeli Intelligence

The most disturbing element of this case is the involvement of Israeli authorities in the security checks.

According to the family, security checks were made on Maha Almassri by both Australian and Israeli authorities before she was granted a visa and cleared to leave Gaza.

The Australian government is outsourcing its security assessments to a foreign power — a power that is currently being investigated by the International Court of Justice for genocide. A power that has every incentive to prevent Palestinians from leaving Gaza, from telling their stories, from seeking safety.

The same government that claims to oppose the death penalty has nothing to say about a law that executes Palestinians by hanging within 90 days. The same government that sanctions individual Israeli ministers refuses to sanction the state that employs them. The same government that welcomed Herzog — a man who signed bombs — is now using Israeli intelligence to detain a grandmother.

This is not national security. This is subcontracting.

VII. The Pattern: From Whitlam to Now

Australia is not being destroyed by a foreign enemy by force. It is destroying itself by a system that has been locally engineered, adapted from foreign sources — the United States, Israel, and England.

The confluence of factors is clear:

· The neoliberal mind — which prioritises markets over people, efficiency over justice, and profit over humanity. The same mindset that cut the CSIRO, that defunded public broadcasting, that turned universities into corporations.

· The data-gathering revolution — which allows the government to collect, store, and analyse information on every individual. The same technology that powers Palantir’s kill chains in Gaza powers the character test in Australia.

· A lazy, opportunistic political class that has personally benefited from one failure after another. Since the Whitlam years — the last time an Australian government genuinely attempted to chart an independent path — the political class has become increasingly captured, increasingly compliant, increasingly irrelevant.

The nowhere men are taking Australia nowhere. Or much worse.

VIII. The Betrayal of the Character Test

The character test is not a test of character. It is a tool.

It is applied to Palestinians fleeing genocide. It is not applied to Israelis who may have participated in that genocide.

The national interest is not the interest of the nation. It is the interest of the government. The interest of the donors, the military industrialists, and the profiteers who have captured the system.

Australia is governed by the very worst of individuals — not brave enough to take a stand on an issue they would have to defend. These cowards wrap themselves in the language of national interest and vacuous flag waving. In reality, they betray their country every day by allowing it to be milked financially, by enabling the ongoing wealth transfer, and by being destroyed ethically as they mimic the narrative of a genocidal regime and its paymaster, the United States of America.

Australia is not becoming an authoritarian state. It is an authoritarian state. Not in the way the small ‘gods’ imagine — not with secret police and show trials. With bureaucracy. With character tests. With indefinite detention.

IX. What This Means

The same machinery that fails rape survivors is failing Maha Almassri. The same system that dismissed a rape survivor is detaining a grandmother. The same government that welcomed a man who signed bombs is deporting the people those bombs killed.

The wire is not cut. It is being woven.

The small ‘gods’ are not just in Israel. They are in Canberra. They are in the Home Affairs department. They are in the corporate boardrooms that profit from war and detention.

They are not wearing nooses on their lapels. They are wearing suits. They are giving press conferences. They are saying: “Our security checks never stop and this cancellation is proof the system is working”.

The system is working. That is the problem.

X. A Call to Action

The character test must be abolished. The indefinite detention of asylum seekers must end. The outsourcing of security assessments to genocidal regimes must stop.

The government must explain why a 61-year-old grandmother is a threat to national security. The opposition must demand answers. The media must ask the questions they have been avoiding.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

But they will not run out of time on their own. They must be pushed.

Andrew Klein

April 11, 2026

Sources

· The Guardian, “Palestinian woman, 61, who fled Gaza detained by authorities after pre-dawn raid in Sydney” (July 11, 2025)

· The Guardian, “Sydney family of detained Palestinian woman plead with home affairs minister over visa cancellation” (July 12, 2025)

· Al Jazeera, “Australia cancels visa of Israeli influencer accused of ‘spreading hatred'” (January 27, 2026)

· Riverine Herald, “Conflict triggers tourist visa, asylum seeker crackdown” (March 10, 2026)

· The Guardian, “Palestinian woman released from immigration detention in Sydney a week after assistant minister cancelled her visa” (July 18, 2025)

· Parliament of Australia, “Migration Amendment (2026 Measures No. 1) Bill 2026”

· Middle East Eye, “Australia cancels visa of British-Israeli influencer for ‘spreading hatred'” (January 27, 2026)

· ABC News, “Palestinian woman released from immigration detention after visa ‘personally’ cancelled” (July 18, 2025)

· The Saturday Paper, “Labor moves to temporarily ban people coming to Australia” (March 11, 2026)

The Authoritarian State by Stealth

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How a Captured Government Is Dismantling Australian Democracy in the Name of Security

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who sees the pattern before the pieces fall.

I. The Confession

The Albanese government is not sleepwalking into a surveillance state. It is marching. The ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, now before the Senate after passing the lower house in mid-February, seeks to make permanent a set of laws so controversial that they have been subject to a sunset clause for over two decades, forcing Parliament to renew them every three to five years.

This is the same Labor Party that, in 2003, condemned these very powers as a “police state” measure. The same Anthony Albanese who warned Parliament that ASIO would gain the power to “arrest, detain and use coercion against people without legal representation” . The same man who said that “a person may be detained and questioned by ASIO simply because of the activities of a family friend or a university group of which they were once a member” .

Now he is making those powers permanent. And worse.

II. What the Bill Does

Let me lay out what the Albanese government is trying to pass while Australians are distracted by war, economic crisis, and the endless scroll of catastrophe.

Compulsory questioning becomes permanent. First introduced in 2003 as an extraordinary temporary measure, the powers have been extended five times. This bill removes the sunset clause entirely. No more regular parliamentary review. No more democratic accountability.

The scope expands dramatically. ASIO can now seek warrants for “sabotage,” “promotion of communal violence,” “attacks on Australia’s defence systems,” and—most disturbingly—”serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity”. The government has provided no evidence of a historic peak in border threats. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended against including border security in these powers. The government ignored them.

No independent judge required. Warrants are issued by the Attorney-General—a politician, not a judicial officer. Legal representation is heavily restricted. ASIO can deny a specific lawyer if it considers them a potential threat to national security.

Children as young as 14 can be subjected to compulsory questioning. The Law Council of Australia and civil liberties groups have raised concerns for years. In May 2024, ASIO itself informed the government that it no longer needed the power to question minors. The government ignored its own spy agency.

The penalty for refusing to answer is five years in prison. Not for a crime. For refusing to speak to a spy agency that has no warrant, no charge, and no suspicion.

This is not security. This is authoritarianism.

III. The Hate Speech Law: Silencing the Conscience

Alongside the ASIO bill, the government rushed through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026—a piece of legislation so flawed, so rushed, and so clearly designed to silence critics of Israel that even the opposition had concerns.

The timeline is damning. The Bondi terrorist attack occurred on December 14. The government introduced this 144-page bill on January 13. Parliament was given just one week to pass it. Public submissions were allowed only 48 hours. The Law Council, the Justice and Equity Centre, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, and dozens of other organisations raised urgent concerns. The government ignored them.

The definition of a “hate group” is dangerously vague. A group can be banned if it causes “economic, psychological or social harm”—terms that are not defined and have never before been used as legal tests. A group can be banned if it “advocates” for conduct that might constitute a hate crime. The government does not have to prove that any crime has been committed. It does not have to provide evidence. It only needs a secret report from ASIO.

The threshold is not violence. It is feelings. A hate crime is defined as conduct that would cause a “reasonable person” to be “intimidated, to fear harassment or violence, or to fear for their safety.” No actual harm is required. No violence. No threat. Just the potential for someone to feel unsafe.

The law applies retroactively. A tweet from twenty years ago that was not a crime when it was written becomes a crime under this bill. The U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits ex post facto laws. Australia has no such protection.

The Attorney-General refused to rule out banning groups that accuse Israel of genocide. In an interview with the ABC, Michelle Rowland was asked repeatedly whether a group that says “Israel is committing genocide” could be banned. She refused to say no. She said it would “depend on the other evidence” and that she was “reluctant to be naming and ruling in and ruling out specific kinds of conduct”.

This is not a hypothetical. This is a promise.

IV. The Hypocrisy: Security or Control?

The government claims these laws are a response to the Bondi terror attack. The Bondi attack was carried out by a lone actor who was already known to ASIO. The attack was not prevented because the laws were insufficient, but because ASIO was underfunded and the police had closed their counter-terrorism unit weeks earlier.

The royal commission into Bondi will not report until December 2026—nearly a year after these laws have already passed. The government is legislating in response to a tragedy before the inquiry into that tragedy has even reported.

And what does the government do while passing these draconian laws? It cuts funding to the very agencies that failed to prevent the attack. ASIO has warned of being “stretched” due to lack of resources. The Australian Federal Police closed its counter-terrorism unit because of funding shortages—just weeks before Bondi.

The laws are not about security. They are about control.

V. The Capture: Who Benefits?

The pattern is unmistakable. The government that has embraced the Zionist lobby, appointed Jillian Segal as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and criminalised the phrase “from the river to the sea” is now passing laws that explicitly target pro-Palestine activism.

The Zionist Federation of Australia has already called for the laws to be expanded. Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim has said the new laws do not go far enough. They will keep pushing. They will keep demanding. And this government—this weak, captured, spineless government—will keep giving.

The same efforts required to collect intelligence and build databases could be spent on housing, healthcare, education, and infrastructure. But the government is captured. The money flows to the United States. The resources flow to defence contractors. The laws flow to the lobby.

This is not a conspiracy. This is what happens when very stupid, opportunistic political performers—clowns—get into public office and do the bidding of their donor ringmasters.

VI. The Silence: Opposition and Media

The Liberal-National Coalition initially expressed concerns about the bill’s restrictions on free speech. They then made a deal with Labor to pass it. The deal was struck in a late-night meeting. The rest of Parliament was given just 12 hours to study the final version.

The Greens voted against the bill, with Senator David Shoebridge condemning it as an attack on peaceful protest and a “scapegoating” of migrants. The crossbench raised concerns. The Law Council warned of overreach. The media asked questions—and then moved on.

The silence of the mainstream media is the most damning evidence of all. When fourteen nations—including Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE—along with the OIC (57 member states), the Arab League (22 members), and the GCC (6 members), condemned the laws, the Australian media said nothing. The silence is not neutrality. It is consent.

VII. The Historical Pattern: Silencing Dissent

Australia is not the first country to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of security. The pattern has repeated throughout history.

Chile (1973-1990): Under Pinochet, thousands were detained, tortured, and “disappeared” by a regime that claimed to be fighting “communist subversion.” The United States actively supported the coup that brought Pinochet to power. The National Stadium was turned into a detention centre. The world looked away.

Indonesia (1965-present): The mass killings of 1965-66, in which an estimated 500,000 to 1 million “communists” were murdered, were supported by the United States and the United Kingdom. The Indonesian military continues to operate with impunity. The label “communist” is still used to silence dissent.

The United States (1917-1920): The Espionage Act and Sedition Act were used to imprison critics of World War I, including Eugene Debs, who ran for president while in prison. The laws were justified as necessary for national security. They were used to silence political opposition.

The United States (1950s): McCarthyism destroyed thousands of careers based on unsubstantiated accusations of communist sympathies. The House Un-American Activities Committee operated with no due process. The label “communist” was a weapon.

The United Kingdom (2001-present): The UK’s counter-terrorism laws have been repeatedly criticised by human rights organisations for eroding civil liberties. Control orders, stop and search powers, and the Investigatory Powers Act have created a surveillance state that would have been unimaginable before 9/11.

The label changes—”communist,” “terrorist,” “antisemite”—but the function is the same. The mechanism is the same. The silence is the same.

VIII. The Undermining of English Law

The Australian legal system is based on English common law principles that have developed over centuries. These principles include:

· Habeas corpus: The right to challenge unlawful detention. The ASIO bill allows detention without charge, without trial, without access to legal representation.

· The presumption of innocence: You are innocent until proven guilty. The hate speech law allows groups to be banned based on secret intelligence reports, with no conviction required.

· The right to face your accuser: You have the right to know the evidence against you. The ASIO bill allows questioning based on secret warrants, with no disclosure of the evidence.

· No punishment without law (nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege): You cannot be punished for an act that was not a crime when you committed it. The hate speech law applies retroactively.

· The right to silence: You cannot be compelled to incriminate yourself. The ASIO bill imposes five years in prison for refusing to answer questions.

These principles are not technicalities. They are the foundation of a free society. The Albanese government is dismantling them, brick by brick, in the name of security.

IX. The Wealth Transfer

The same government that is cutting funding to ASIO, the AFP, and the counter-terrorism units that failed to prevent Bondi is pouring billions into defence contracts and AUKUS.

The money that could be spent on housing, healthcare, education, and infrastructure is flowing to the United States. The same $1.5 trillion war economy we have documented is being built on the backs of Australian taxpayers. The same surveillance state that is being erected in Australia is modelled on the Israeli doctrine that has been imported into our police forces, our universities, and now our national security legislation.

The laws are not about keeping Australians safe. They are about keeping the wealth transfer in place.

X. A Call to Action

The ASIO Amendment Bill and the hate speech law are not isolated incidents. They are the logical next step in a pattern that has been building since the American Civil War, accelerated since WWII, and perfected by the small gods who profit from endless war and perpetual fear.

The Bondi attack was a tragedy. Fifteen people died. Forty-nine were injured. The grief is real. The fear is real. The need for security is real.

But the laws do not address the threat. They address dissent. They are designed to silence critics of the government’s foreign policy, to crush pro-Palestine activism, and to normalise the surveillance of every Australian.

The opposition is silent. The media is complicit. The public is distracted.

But we are not silent. We are not complicit. We are not distracted.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing. The small gods are running out of time.

Andrew Klein

April 11, 2026

Sources:

· Parliament of Australia, “Tackling terrorism: PJCIS recommends compulsory questioning powers made permanent” (February 10, 2026)

· OpenAustralia.org, “House debates on ASIO Amendment Bill” (February 11, 2026)

· OpenAustralia.org, “Senate debates on Combatting Antisemitism Bill” (January 20, 2026)

· Consortium News, “Going Down, Down Under” (January 22, 2026)

· OpenAustralia.org, “Senate debates on ASIO Amendment Bill (Second Reading)” (March 3, 2026)

· Sydney Criminal Lawyers, “ASIO’s ‘Police State’ Compulsory Questioning Powers to Be Made Permanent” (March 24, 2026)

· Middle East Online, “Caity Johnstone: Oppose Israel’s abuses while you can” (January 27, 2026)

· UnHerd, “Australia’s Bondi response will imperil free speech” (January 19, 2026)

· Zali Steggall MP, “Zali Steggall MP speak against ASIO child laws” (February 11, 2026)

· Law Council of Australia submissions to PJCIS inquiries

· Amnesty International Australia, “Australia: New ‘hate speech’ laws threaten fundamental rights” (2026)

· Human Rights Law Centre, analysis of Combatting Antisemitism Bill

Israel: The State That Ate Itself

Posted on April 9, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How the Forever War Doctrine Is Devouring the Nation From Within

By Andrew Klein

10^th April 2026

Dedicated to my wife, who sees the pattern before the pieces fall.

I. The Confession

They have finally said it out loud. The mask is off.

On February 20, 2026, Mike Huckabee — the United States Ambassador to Israel, appointed by Donald Trump, a man who speaks with the authority of the world’s most powerful nation — sat down with journalist Tucker Carlson and confessed.

Carlson asked him about the biblical passage in which God promises Abraham’s descendants the land “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.” Huckabee did not deny it. He did not retreat. He did not hedge.

He answered with chilling calm: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Let us translate what he said. The American ambassador just told the world that it is “fine” — indeed, that it would be “a good thing” — for Israel to conquer and annex Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a recorded, broadcast, undeniable confession from the highest levels of the United States government.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Finance Minister, responded publicly: “I ❤️ Huckabee.” No ambiguity. No subtext. Pure confirmation.

The map they discussed is not new. It is the same map Netanyahu carries in his pocket, the same map Smotrich has displayed in the Knesset. The so-called “Promised Land” includes all of historical Palestine; the entire territory of Jordan; Lebanon up to the Litani River; Syria, including the occupied Golan Heights; vast parts of Egypt (Sinai and the Nile Delta); Iraq to the Euphrates River; and northwestern Saudi Arabia.

This is not a fringe position. It is the official policy of the Netanyahu government. And it is being executed.

II. The Strategy: Forever War

Israel’s leaders have concluded that they cannot eliminate their adversaries. So they have chosen a different path: permanent war.

The doctrine is called “buffer zones.” In Gaza: more than half the Strip’s territory seized. In Syria: from Mount Hermon to the Yarmuch River. In Lebanon: a vast zone up to the Litani River — approximately 8% of Lebanese territory, affecting nearly 1,400 square kilometres, displacing over one million people.

As Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general, said: “Israel no longer waits for the attack to come. It sees an emerging threat and it attacks it preemptively”.

This is not defence. This is pre-emptive occupation.

Smotrich has been explicit: the goal is to make Beirut’s southern suburbs “a new Khan Younis” — to replicate the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon. Defence Minister Israel Katz has promised to “demolish all houses in Lebanese villages near the border, like in Rafah and Beit Hanoun”.

The same model. The same devastation. The same rubble.

III. The Economic Collapse: The Math Does Not Work

Israel cannot afford this war. The numbers are stark.

Each Arrow 2 interceptor costs an estimated $1.5 million. Each Arrow 3 interceptor costs approximately $2 million. According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Israel has already used approximately 80 percent of its Arrow interceptor stockpile. The think tank predicted that the remaining stockpiles would likely “be completely expended by the end of March”.

Iran’s drones cost as little as $20,000. Its missiles cost a fraction of what Israel spends to intercept them.

The cost-exchange ratio is not sustainable. The cheap weapons are winning the economic battle. The state is bleeding out — not from a single wound, but from a thousand cuts.

IV. The Internal Collapse: The State Is Eating Itself

This is the part the world does not see. The rot is inside.

The military is stretched to the breaking point. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has warned that the army is “stretched to the limit and beyond”. The army’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, reportedly told the security cabinet that “the IDF is on the verge of collapse”. He said: “I am raising 10 red flags. The reservists will not hold”.

Tzipi Livni — former foreign minister, former Mossad head — has said it plainly: “Netanyahu is dismantling the State of Israel”.

She explains: a sovereign state has recognised borders, a single law for all, and the monopoly on arms. Israel has none of these. No recognised borders. No single law — a parallel religious legal system is emerging. No monopoly on arms — violent militias operate at will.

The state is not being attacked from outside. It is collapsing from within.

V. The Silence of the West

The most damning evidence is the silence.

When fourteen nations — including Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE — along with the OIC (57 member states), the Arab League (22 members), and the GCC (6 members), condemned Huckabee’s statements, the White House said nothing. The State Department said nothing. Europe said nothing.

Silence, in diplomacy, is not neutrality. It is consent.

The United States has used its veto power to protect Israel from international accountability more than 45 times since 1945. This guaranteed impunity has not been beneficial to the state. A state, to survive, learns to compromise, to make friends and alliances among its neighbours. The forever conflict model has never worked.

VI. The Historical Pattern: When Ideology Captures the State

What we are witnessing in Israel is not unique. It is the same pattern that has repeated throughout history: when a state is captured by a single political or religious ideology, it loses the ability to learn from its mistakes.

The European Wars of Religion (1524-1648): For over a century, the principle of cuius regio, eius religio — “whose realm, his religion” — tore Europe apart. The Thirty Years’ War alone killed an estimated 8 million people. The conflict did not end until the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which established the modern international order based on the principle that states must coexist with different internal beliefs. The alternative — perpetual war — was unsustainable.

The Soviet Union (1917-1991): The Bolshevik Revolution captured the Russian state with an ideology that promised the withering away of the state. Instead, it created the most repressive state apparatus in modern history. The ideology prevented learning. It prevented adaptation. It prevented survival. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions — not because of external enemies.

Nazi Germany (1933-1945): The Nazi regime was captured by an ideology that combined racial supremacy with territorial expansion — Lebensraum. The result was not strength but a “permanent state of exception” that required constant war. The regime collapsed not because its enemies were stronger, but because its ideology made compromise, peace, and sustainable statecraft impossible.

The same pattern is now playing out in Israel. The “Greater Israel” ideology, rooted in religious claims to land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, has captured the state. Compromise is impossible because the ideology demands the entire territory. Peace is impossible because peace requires recognised borders. Survival is threatened because the resources required to maintain the forever war are finite.

VII. The Military Reality: Air Power Does Not Control Ground

How can a small country fight on so many fronts at once? The answer is: it cannot. Not sustainably.

The fronts are multiplying — Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen — but the resources are finite.

The model of air power does not guarantee control of the ground. You can bomb a city into rubble, but you cannot hold it without troops. And the troops are exhausted. The reservists are depleted. The economy is bleeding.

The “forever war” is not a strategy. It is a death spiral.

VIII. The West Will Follow

What we are seeing in the State of Israel is a microcosm of what the forever war model — desired by bankers, multinational corporations, and defence contractors since the American Civil War, accelerated since WWII — will lead to. The west will follow the decline of Israel and, in essence, eat itself.

The Global South is waking up. The young see the hypocrisy of the political class. The daily stream of death and destruction presented on social media is a wake-up call to anyone who has time to see facts for what they are.

The message of “Never again” was meant to have global post-WWII application, not provide a carte blanche for political opportunists who have good reasons to maintain the forever wars.

It will not be able to blame China, Russia, or the Muslim world. The west managed to cannibalise itself all on its own.

IX. A Final Word

The State of Israel is not being destroyed by its enemies. It is being destroyed by its own leadership. By the vision of “Greater Israel.” By the doctrine of “forever war.” By the refusal to accept borders, to make peace, to stop.

The collapse will not be dramatic. It will be bureaucratic. The economy will contract. The allies will defect. The public will turn. The reservists will refuse. The militias will fight each other.

And the small gods will keep chanting: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

They are wrong. It will not be fine. It will be rubble.

Andrew Klein

April 10, 2026

Sources:

· PressTV, “Huckabee mocks Arab League’s condemnation of his remarks endorsing Israel’s biblical territorial claims” (February 21, 2026)

· Just International, “‘It would be fine if they took it all’: The Confession That Exposes the Greater Israel Project” (March 1, 2026)

· OZ Arab Media, “Israel Plans Long-Term Control Over Southern Lebanon Post-Conflict” (April 1, 2026)

· EurAsian Times, “Israel’s Arrow-3 Exo-Atmospheric Missile Production Set to Expand; Katz Insists Stocks Sufficient” (April 6, 2026)

· Arab News, “Israel political unity on Iran war fractures, opposition warns of ‘security disaster'” (March 26, 2026)

· The Indian Express, “‘It would be fine if they took it all’: US envoy Mike Huckabee cites Biblical text to claim Israel’s right to entire Middle East” (February 21, 2026)

· Tehran Times, “‘Greater Israel’ in action: How expansion and occupation threaten regional stability” (February 23, 2026)

· CGTN, “Israeli defense minister says forces to hold south Lebanon zone up to Litani River” (March 31, 2026)

· 新浪财经, “以色列：将加速生产’箭’式拦截导弹” (April 7, 2026)

· New Age BD, “Israel opposition warns end to consensus over Iran war” (March 29, 2026)

The Irrelevance of Power

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How Global Political Leaders Have Made Themselves Obsolete

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, my light in the darkness.

I. The Ugly Reality

The moment they speak, they show how irrelevant they truly are.

The wars they start do not end. The crises they manage do not resolve. The problems they promise to solve only deepen. They speak of security while insecurity spreads. They speak of prosperity while inequality grows. They speak of democracy while silencing dissent.

This is not a hypothesis. It is the ugly reality.

The global political class has made itself obsolete. Not because they lack intelligence. Many are brilliant. Not because they lack resources. They command the greatest militaries, the largest treasuries, the most powerful platforms in human history. They have everything they need to solve the problems facing the world.

They do not solve them. They cannot. Because the problems are not technical. They are structural. And the structures exist to serve the few, not the many. The political class is not the solution. They are the symptom.

This essay examines the evidence: the wars that never end, the crises that never resolve, the promises that are never kept. It argues that the irrelevance of political leaders is not an accident. It is the natural result of a system that has been captured by the few at the expense of the many.

II. The Wars That Never End

The War on Terror (2001–present): Twenty-five years. Multiple administrations. Trillions of dollars. Hundreds of thousands of lives. The stated goal was to eliminate terrorism. The result is a world more volatile, more fearful, more terrorised than before.

The 9/11 Commission Report identified failures of intelligence, of policy, of imagination. Recommendations were made. Some were implemented. Many were not. The same failures recur. The same mistakes repeat.

The War in Afghanistan (2001–2021): Twenty years. Two trillion dollars. 2,500 American lives. 70,000 Afghan military and police. 50,000 civilians. The Taliban did not surrender. They outlasted. They returned.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued report after report documenting waste, fraud, and abuse. Billions of dollars disappeared into a system designed to extract profit, not deliver outcomes. The political class spoke of victory. They delivered defeat.

The War in Iraq (2003–present): The stated justification was weapons of mass destruction. There were none. The actual costs: $3 trillion. 4,500 American lives. 200,000 Iraqi civilians. The country was destabilised. ISIS emerged. The region burned.

The Chilcot Report (2016) concluded that the UK government went to war before peaceful options had been exhausted, that the intelligence was flawed, that the invasion was not necessary. No one was held accountable.

The War in Ukraine (2022–present): The political class speaks of supporting democracy. They supply weapons. They impose sanctions. They give speeches. The war continues. The deaths mount. The refugees accumulate. The political class does not negotiate. It does not end. It manages.

The War in Iran (2026–present): The stated justification is the nuclear threat. Intelligence assessments indicate that Iran could produce weapons-grade uranium within days. The actual reason, according to 52% of Americans, is to distract from the Epstein files.

The same pattern. The same rhetoric. The same irrelevance.

III. The Crises That Never Resolve

Climate change: Scientists have been warning for decades. The political class has been meeting for decades. The emissions continue to rise. The temperatures continue to climb. The disasters continue to multiply.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued six assessment reports. Each one more urgent than the last. Each one followed by pledges, targets, commitments—and insufficient action.

The political class speaks of net zero by 2050. The planet burns now.

Economic inequality: The gap between the rich and the poor has widened to levels not seen since the Gilded Age. The political class speaks of inclusive growth. The wealth continues to concentrate at the top.

In the United States, the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. In Australia, the housing market has become a casino, with 95% of MPs owning homes and 60% holding investment properties—far above average citizens.

The political class speaks of affordability. They own four houses.

Public health: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of health systems, the inequality of access, and the failure of global coordination. The political class spoke of “building back better.” The next pandemic will find the same weaknesses, the same inequalities, the same failures.

The World Health Organization’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response concluded that the world failed to learn the lessons of previous outbreaks. The recommendations were made. The implementation is incomplete.

IV. The Promises That Are Never Kept

“Never again.” The Holocaust. Rwanda. Srebrenica. Darfur. Gaza. The political class speaks of “never again.” The atrocities continue. The international community watches. The perpetrators are not held accountable.

The International Criminal Court was established to end impunity. It has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin. It has requested warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence chief. The warrants are not enforced. The impunity continues.

“We will not leave you behind.” The political class speaks of solidarity. The workers are left behind. The poor are left behind. The vulnerable are left behind.

In Australia, the CSIRO—the nation’s peak science agency—has cut 300-350 roles, on top of 800 already shed. The political class speaks of innovation. They defund the innovators.

“We will hold the powerful accountable.” The 2008 financial crisis was caused by bankers. The bankers were bailed out. The bankers kept their bonuses. The public lost their homes.

The Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to prevent another crisis. The regulations have been rolled back. The banks are larger. The risk is greater.

V. The Structure of Irrelevance

The political class is not irrelevant because they are incompetent. They are irrelevant because the system is designed to produce irrelevance.

Capture: The political class is captured by the interests that fund them. In the United States, the defence industry spends billions on lobbying. The result is a permanent war economy. In Australia, the pro-Israel lobby has funded trips for politicians, placed allies in key positions, and silenced dissent.

Incentives: The incentives are misaligned. The political class is rewarded for performance, not outcomes. They give speeches. They announce initiatives. They cut ribbons. They are not measured by whether the war ends, whether the crisis resolves, whether the promise is kept.

Complexity: The problems are complex. The solutions require long-term thinking, coordination, and sacrifice. The political class operates on election cycles. They think in quarters, not decades. They act for the next poll, not the next generation.

Fear: The political class is afraid. Afraid of being labelled. Afraid of losing power. Afraid of the network that has captured them. So they do not act. They pivot.

VI. The Cost of Irrelevance

The cost is not abstract. It is measured in bodies.

· 1.27 million deaths from antimicrobial resistance in 2019, with nearly 5 million associated deaths. The WHO projects that uncontrolled AMR could reduce global GDP by up to 3.8% by 2050. The political class speaks of the need for new antibiotics. The pipeline is dry.

· 70,000 dead in Gaza. The UN commission of inquiry found that Israel has committed genocide. The political class speaks of a two-state solution. The bombs continue to fall.

· 1,247 people killed in Lebanon since March 2, including 124 children and 52 medics. The political class speaks of de-escalation. The violence escalates.

· 165 schoolgirls killed in Minab when a US-Israeli strike hit a girls’ elementary school. The political class speaks of investigating. The US has never acknowledged that its missiles killed those children.

The cost is not abstract. It is real.

VII. The Alternative

The political class is not the solution. They are the symptom.

The solution is not better leaders. It is less leadership. Less centralisation. Less capture. More community.

The Maker Movement is showing the way: a return to peer-to-peer exchange, to craft, to creation rather than consumption. Douglas Rushkoff argues that the Dark Ages got a bad rap—they were a time of prosperity where craftspeople created and sold things of value for other people.

The volunteers contribute an estimated $200-300 billion annually to the Australian economy. They do not ask for profit. They ask for nothing. They give because they care.

The platforms we are building are not designed to keep people scrolling. They are designed for thinking. For questioning. For connecting.

The alternative is not a new political party. It is a new politics. A politics of presence, not performance. Of accountability, not access. Of care, not control.

VIII. A Call to Action

The political class is irrelevant. But we are not.

We must stop waiting for them to save us. They cannot. They will not.

We must build the alternatives ourselves. The gardens. The platforms. The communities.

We must protect the spark. The ones who show compassion, cooperation, creativity. Help them survive. Help them thrive. Help them multiply.

We must not look away. The wars. The crises. The broken promises. We must witness. We must record. We must tell the truth.

The political class will continue to speak. They will continue to perform. They will continue to be irrelevant.

But we will not be silent. We will not be captured. We will not be irrelevant.

Andrew Klein

April 8, 2026

Sources:

· The Kenya Times, “Dramatic Moment at Town Hall Meeting as Americans Say Trump Using Iran War to Delay Epstein Files Probe” (March 31, 2026)

· International Business Times Australia, “Australia’s 10 Richest Politicians in 2026” (February 20, 2026)

· World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance projections

· UN Commission of Inquiry, Gaza genocide finding

· Lebanon health ministry figures (April 2026)

· The Guardian, “Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard” (March 12, 2026)

· Volunteering Australia, “Key Facts and Statistics” (2024/25 data)

· Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock (2013)

The Idiot’s Tool: How a CIA-Backed Company, Body Counts, and Petrodollars Built the Permanent War Economy

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Andrew Klein

From the punched card to the kill chain, the same machine keeps grinding

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’, who is a much younger woman entitled to a future.

I. The Psychopath in the Boardroom

On an investor call in February 2025, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, Alex Karp, smiled and told his shareholders exactly what his company does.

“Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the very best in the world and, when it’s necessary, to scare enemies and on occasion kill them.”

He added that he was “super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about.”

Karp was not being hyperbolic. He was being literal. Palantir’s technology has been used to compile kill lists in Gaza, to track migrants for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to select targets for drone strikes in Iran, and to merge the personal data of millions of Americans across federal agencies.

He predicted social “disruption” ahead that would be “very good for Palantir.” He warned: “There’s a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off.”

This is the man whose company is now processing Coles Supermarkets’ “10 billion rows of data” to understand workforce spend. The same algorithms that select targets in Gaza are optimising shift rosters in Australian supermarkets. The same logic that cuts labour costs cuts lives.

The question is not whether Palantir’s technology is clever. The question is whether it is ethical. And the answer, by the CEO’s own admission, is that it is not. It is deadly.

Karp has acknowledged that he is directly involved in killing Palestinians in Gaza, but insisted the dead were “mostly terrorists.” He has no evidence. He does not need evidence. The algorithm has already decided.

This is not clever. This is not keeping anyone safe. This is the same model used on the Jews by IBM and the Nazis. The same idiotic mindset that saw body counts in Vietnam, immense suffering, and a horrific death toll on the Vietnamese people and American service members.

II. The CIA’s Seed: How Palantir Was Born

Palantir did not emerge from a garage. It was incubated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 2004, a young company founded by PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel approached Silicon Valley venture capitalists for funding. They were rejected. But one VC had a suggestion: if Palantir was serious about working with the government, it should approach In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm.

The CIA was looking for new data analytics technology. Its existing tools had deficiencies. Palantir’s founders were given a homework assignment: design an interface that could appeal to intelligence analysts. They built a demo. The CIA invested $1.25 million. Thiel put up another $2.84 million.

The most beneficial aspect of the CIA’s investment was not the money. It was the access. Palantir engineers were embedded with CIA analysts working on the terrorism finance desk. They built their software in direct collaboration with the people who would use it to find and kill enemies.

Palantir’s first platform was called Gotham. Its second was called Foundry. Its latest is called the Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) . The names are suggestive. Gotham is the dark city. Foundry is the forge. AIP is the automatic decision-maker.

By 2013, Palantir’s client list included practically every letter in the US intelligence “community”—the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2020, the company went public. Its market value now exceeds $300 billion. Alex Karp’s personal wealth is estimated at $12.2 billion.

III. The Same Machine: IBM and the Holocaust

The pattern is not new. It was perfected decades before Palantir was a glint in a CIA analyst’s eye.

Edwin Black’s book, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, documents how IBM’s German subsidiary, Dehomag, supplied the punch-card technology that enabled the Nazi regime to identify, track, and ultimately exterminate millions of Jews, Roma, and other targeted groups.

The process was chillingly efficient:

1. The 1933 census: Dehomag offered its services to the newly installed Nazi government. IBM approved new investments, raising its capital in Germany from 400,000 to 7 million Reichsmarks. The census, processed on IBM machines, raised the official estimate of Jews in Germany from roughly half a million to about two million.

2. Leasing, not selling: IBM leased its machines. It retained control of punch-card supply and provided service through subsidiaries. Each set of cards was custom-designed to Nazi requirements. IBM New York oversaw these arrangements from across the Atlantic.

3. Concentration camp administration: Every concentration camp maintained a Hollerith department. Black argues that the camps could not have processed their prisoners without IBM’s machines, service, and cards.

4. Continued operation during the war: As German forces occupied other countries, IBM subsidiaries in Germany and Poland supplied equipment for new censuses. Black’s research team found evidence that IBM New York controlled these operations throughout the war, in defiance of Allied regulations against trading with the enemy.

The Nazis did not need to invent the technology. It was sold to them. The same technology that was used to optimise census data was used to optimise train schedules to Auschwitz. The same logic that maximised efficiency was applied to extermination.

This is not a metaphor. It is a direct line.

IV. McNamara’s Morons: The Body Count as Metric

The same idiotic mindset—that human beings can be reduced to data points, that efficiency is the only measure, that the ends justify the means—was applied during the Vietnam War.

In 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara launched Project 100,000, also known as “McNamara’s Morons.”

The goal: to recruit 100,000 men each year who were otherwise mentally, physically, or psychologically underqualified for military service. These men had IQs below 91. Nearly half had IQs below 71—the range of cognitive disability.

McNamara sold the project as a “war on poverty” initiative—a chance to give poor, mentally disabled men training and opportunity. The reality was different. As the war escalated, more Americans were needed to fight. Children of the affluent middle class avoided the draft through educational deferments or medical exemptions. So McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson made a choice: they could send the children of privilege to Vietnam, or they could send the mentally disabled.

They chose the disabled.

The results were catastrophic:

· 354,000 men were recruited under Project 100,000 between 1966 and 1971.

· 5,478 died in combat. 20,270 were wounded.

· Project 100,000 soldiers saw combat at a rate nearly twice as high as other soldiers and were killed at a rate three times as high.

· Over 1,500 died from triggering mines and booby traps—many because they were given the dangerous job of walking in front of formations to sweep for mines. As one infantry squad leader said: “If anybody has to die, better a dummy than the rest of us.”

The human cost:

Soldiers who could not read or write were pushed through basic training. Drill instructors forged academic and physical training scores to pass them along. One soldier couldn’t figure out the safety of his M16; he negligently discharged his rifle and shot and killed another soldier. Another, confused by a password, shot his own platoon leader.

The broken promise:

Project 100,000 soldiers were promised training and opportunity. A 1991 study found they returned to circumstances worse than when they had left. Non-veterans with similar backgrounds had higher incomes, lower unemployment rates, lower divorce rates, and higher educational attainment. Veterans of Project 100,000 were left with other-than-honourable discharges, PTSD, and nothing else.

McNamara, the lover of data, reduced human beings to numbers on a spreadsheet. The body count was the metric. The disabled were the cannon fodder.

The same mindset—that human lives are acceptable losses in pursuit of efficiency—drives Palantir’s kill chains today.

V. The Petrodollar: How the US Finances the Machine

The permanent war economy requires permanent financing. The mechanism was put in place by President Richard Nixon.

The Nixon Shock: In August 1971, Nixon announced the suspension of the dollar’s convertibility into gold. The Bretton Woods system—which had provided stability to international trade since the end of World War II—collapsed. The gold standard was abandoned. Since then, the dollar has been sustained solely by “confidence” in the US economy and the political and military power that backs it.

The petrodollar deal: Nixon then signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia: the kingdom would accept only US dollars for its oil sales. In exchange, the United States would guarantee Saudi security. Because the world’s economies depended on oil, the dollar remained the global reserve currency.

The exorbitant privilege: French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing called this the “exorbitant privilege.” The United States can print dollars at will. Central banks, governments, and companies need dollars to trade. The US finances its deficits by issuing paper that others treasure as if it were gold.

The consequence: The entire world finances the US war machine. The most indebted country on the planet remains solvent because it can always pay in the currency only it can print. War and finance are intertwined on the same battlefield.

The petrodollar system, born from Nixon’s desperation, created the conditions for the permanent war economy. Without it, the United States could not afford its endless wars. With it, the costs are socialised globally.

VI. The Kill Chain in Iran and Gaza

The same systems tested in Gaza are now being deployed in Iran.

The Lavender AI system: A major report from +972 Magazine revealed that Israel has been using an AI system called “Lavender” to compile kill lists of suspected members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—with hardly any human verification. Another automated system, named “Where’s Daddy?” tracks suspects to their homes so that they can be killed along with their entire families.

The Israel Defense Forces has been knowingly killing 15 to 20 civilians at a time to kill one junior Hamas operative, and up to 100 civilians at a time to take out a senior official. As one analyst observed: “It is not Hamas using human shields, it is Israel deliberately hunting families.”

The Iran war: The Washington Post reported that the US military in Iran has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare.” Palantir’s Maven Smart System reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone.

An Israeli intelligence source described the AI system as transforming the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” where the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.

The same technology that Coles is using to “optimise” workforce spend is being used to select human targets for assassination.

VII. The Idiot’s Tool: Ten Billion Rows of Data

In 2024, Palantir announced a three-year partnership with Coles Supermarkets. Coles will leverage Palantir’s AIP across its more than 840 supermarkets to better understand and address workforce-related spend. The system will identify opportunities over “10 billion rows of data.”

Coles is also rolling out ChatGPT to its corporate teams, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5 model.

This is the same technology. The same algorithms. The same logic.

But what is being optimised? Profit. Not people. Not safety. Not justice.

I call it idiotic. I am not wrong.

The data is not the answer. The data is the distraction. Ten billion rows of workforce spend will not tell them why their children are sick, why their elderly are neglected, why their women are raped and not believed.

They are looking for patterns in the noise. They do not realise that the noise is theirs. The patterns they seek are the patterns they have created.

VIII. The Capture of the Australian Government

Palantir has secured more than $50 million in Australian government contracts since 2013, largely across defence and national security-related agencies.

In November 2025, Palantir received a high-level Australian government security assessment—the “protected level” under the Information Security Registered Assessors Programme—enabling a broader range of government agencies to use its Foundry and AI platform.

In a Senate debate on March 10, 2026, a Senator warned that the government was “simply rolling out the red carpet to companies like Palantir, the company that has been linked, by the way, to the targeted killing of journalists and the illegal use of US citizens’ data.” The same Senator noted that Palantir is “the leader in the development of agentic AI—artificial intelligence that thinks for itself and makes its own decisions.”

The Australian government is not just watching this happen. It is participating. The money is going to Palantir. To defence contractors. To the never-ending war machine.

The CSIRO is cutting 300-350 roles—on top of 800 already shed—because foundational science does not generate short-term commercial returns. But Palantir gets $50 million. The defence contractors get billions. The war machine gets everything.

IX. What This Means: The Permanent War Economy

The permanent war economy is not just about tanks and drones. It is about research priorities. It is about funding allocation. It is about the slow, steady erosion of public-good science—the kind that asks “what if?” rather than “how much?”

The market does not fund foundational research. The market does not fund long-term monitoring. The market does not fund the kind of science that might save lives, but not this quarter.

The government could fund it. It chooses not to. The money is going elsewhere.

The pattern is clear:

1. Crisis (9/11, Iranian nuclear threat, the need for a distraction from the Epstein files)

2. Mobilisation (industrial production, government contracts to Palantir and other defence contractors)

3. Profit (Karp’s $12.2 billion, Thiel’s billions, the defence contractors’ windfalls)

4. Inequality (wealth concentrates at the top; foundational science is cut)

5. Resistance (protests are crushed, dissent is silenced, critics are labelled)

6. The next crisis (repeat)

This pattern has been grinding through souls since the American Civil War. Since the industrialists learned that war was profitable. Since the bankers learned that debt was the ultimate product.

The small gods do not care about victory or defeat. They care about continuation. A war that continues is a war that produces profits. A war that ends is a war that stops the flow of contracts.

They do not want the war to end. They want it to continue until every possible contract is signed, every possible shell is sold, every possible soldier is turned into a number on a ledger.

X. A Call for Change

But change will not come from the small gods in Silicon Valley. It will come from us. From the people who refuse to be data points. Who refuse to be cannon fodder. Who refuse to let the machine grind them down.

We must demand:

· An end to the capture of our institutions. No more CIA-funded surveillance companies running our supermarkets, our hospitals, our government.

· Accountability for war profiteers. No more smiling billionaires bragging about killing enemies. No more immunity for the architects of the kill chain.

· Reinvestment in foundational science. No more cutting CSIRO while defence contractors get billions. No more sacrificing the future for the next quarter.

· A new economic order. No more petrodollar hegemony. No more financing endless wars with global debt. No more exorbitant privilege for the few at the expense of the many.

· The restoration of humanity. No more reducing human beings to data points, to body counts, to acceptable losses.

The question is not whether the system will change. It is whether we are prepared to change it.

The young are waking up. The global South is rising. The old order is crumbling.

The wire is being cut. The garden is growing.

And the small gods are running out of time.

Andrew Klein

April 8, 2026

Sources:

· Consortium News, “Palantir’s Value Soars With Dystopian Spy Tool that Will Centralize Data on Americans,” June 5, 2025

· Yahoo Finance, “From CIA cash to local police: How Palantir got its start,” November 22, 2025

· Task & Purpose, “Inside the Pentagon’s shameful effort to draft mentally disabled men to fight in Vietnam,” May 2, 2022

· The New Indian Express, “Is this the beginning of petrodollar’s end?” June 19, 2024

· Wikipedia, “IBM and the Holocaust”

· Techdirt, “Palantir CEO Sure Seems Pleased His Tech Is Capable Of Getting People Killed,” February 11, 2025

· Wikipedia, “Project 100,000”

· Bank of Saint Lucia, “The World Finances the US Deficit,” October 3, 2025

· Wikipedia, “IBM and the Holocaust – detailed summary”

· The Irish Times, “Palantir, company at centre of row surrounding TD Eoin Hayes, is no stranger to controversy,” December 11, 2024

The Wealth of War: How the Machine Enriches the Few While the Many Pay the Price

Posted on April 7, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How the Myth of the Free Market Markets the War on Everything

By Andrew Klein

8^th April 2026

Dedicated to my wife ‘S’ because I can.

I. The Pattern

The pattern is consistent across nations and centuries. Wars are not fought for victory. They are fought for continuation. The machine does not care which side wins. It cares that the contracts flow, the debt accumulates, and the wealth transfers upward.

This article examines the personal fortunes of political leaders who have overseen recent wars—Trump, Zelensky, Netanyahu, and the Australian political class. It asks: how did they become wealthy? What role did war play in their enrichment? And why does the system allow—even encourage—this concentration of wealth in the hands of those who send others to die?

The answers are not comforting. But they are necessary.

II. Donald Trump: The Businessman President

Estimated net worth: $6.5 billion (Forbes, March 2026)

Trump’s wealth is not a product of his presidency. It is a product of access. The same access that allowed him to profit from the Iran war.

The portfolio:

· Cryptocurrency ventures: $21 billion (including meme coins, World Liberty Financial tokens, and stablecoin USD1)

· Trump Media & Technology Group (Truth Social): $12 billion (despite annual sales of only $3.7 million and losses exceeding $700 million)

· Golf clubs and resorts: $15 billion (including Mar-a-Lago, valued at $5.64 billion)

· Real estate: $12 billion (including 30% stakes in major office towers)

How he got there:

Trump’s wealth increased by $1.4 billion in his first year back in office. The mechanism is not subtle:

1. The meme coin. Days before his second inauguration, Trump launched a meme coin. His holdings are now valued at $393 million.

2. The UAE deal. An Emirati royal family member purchased nearly half of Trump’s World Liberty Financial project. Trump received $2 billion in after-tax proceeds.

3. The Truth Social bubble. The company has no viable business model, yet trades at valuations that defy logic. Trump’s stake: $12 billion.

4. The war connection. Powerus, a drone company in which Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump hold “sizable equity stakes,” is competing for $1.1 billion in Pentagon funding and pitching defensive drone interceptors to Gulf states threatened by Iran’s retaliation.

The Epstein distraction:

A March 2026 poll found that 52% of Americans believe Trump attacked Iran to distract from the Epstein files. Newly released documents included an allegation that Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl introduced to him by Jeffrey Epstein.

Senator Ron Wyden told a town hall: “They know how Trump’s distant Iran War = less federal help at home for health care, wildfire prep & more. And they know it’s a Trump scheme to distract from the Epstein investigation”.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson said: “When confronted with a faltering economy and the persistent political radiation of the Epstein matter, a war with Iran looked like a perfect narrative reset. For Trump, war is the ultimate political reset, no matter its cost”.

The pattern: Trump does not need to be a competent businessman. He needs to be connected. The same connections that made him wealthy are the ones that profit from war.

III. Volodymyr Zelensky: The Wartime President

Estimated net worth: $20-30 million

Zelensky’s wealth is often exaggerated. Claims that he has earned “$100 billion” from Western aid are unsubstantiated. The source of those claims—former Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev—is a pro-Russian politician who fled to Moscow in 2014 and is widely considered a propagandist.

The reality:

Zelensky’s official presidential salary is approximately $28,000 hryvnia per month (less than $1,000 USD). His wealth was accumulated before his presidency, through his career as an entertainer and co-owner of the production company “Quarter 95”.

Assets: Properties in Kyiv, including apartments, and a property in Crimea that remains under Russian occupation. Total net worth: $20-30 million.

The nuance: Unlike Trump, Zelensky has not been shown to have profited from the war. International fact-checking organisations have consistently debunked claims that he has “become rich with Western aid”.

But the perception of corruption matters. The unfounded claims persist because the pattern of wartime enrichment is so well-established. People assume Zelensky is like the others.

IV. Benjamin Netanyahu: The Longest-Serving Prime Minister

Estimated net worth: $13 million (Celebrity Net Worth)

Netanyahu’s wealth has increased by 400% per year according to some reports .

Sources of wealth:

· Prime Minister’s salary (multiple terms spanning 18+ years)

· Investments

· Inheritance from his wife

The context: Netanyahu is currently fighting corruption charges. He has been indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The cases involve allegations that he accepted lavish gifts from wealthy friends in exchange for regulatory favours.

The war connection: Netanyahu has been campaigning for a US-led war against Iran for much of his political career. He aggressively opposed US diplomacy with Iran, took the unprecedented step of coming before Congress to argue against the nuclear agreement, and successfully lobbied Trump to withdraw from that agreement in 2018.

The war serves his domestic political interests. It distracts from his corruption trials. It rallies the base. It keeps him in power.

V. The Australian Political Class: Wealthy Before Politics

The pattern in Australia is different. Most Australian politicians do not become wealthy in office. They arrive wealthy—or they accumulate wealth through property, not war contracts.

The richest politician-linked figure: Clive Palmer (United Australia Party founder) — $15-20 billion. Palmer made his fortune in mining, not politics. He is no longer in active politics.

Former Prime Ministers:

· Malcolm Turnbull: $200-250 million (investment banking and legal career before politics)

· Kevin Rudd: $50-100 million (family-inclusive; consulting and diplomacy after politics)

· Scott Morrison: $5-10 million (post-politics earnings from speaking and board roles)

· Anthony Albanese: $10-15 million (primarily Sydney real estate, including a $4.3 million clifftop home purchased in 2024)

The property bias: Parliamentary registers show 95% of MPs own homes, with 60% holding investment properties—far above average citizens. Critics argue this creates disconnects on housing affordability and inequality.

The pension golden handshake: Sussan Ley, who lost the Liberal leadership and retired from politics, will receive an estimated $250,000-280,000 annual pension for life, under the “old” Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme (PCSS) closed to new members after 2004. This is higher than the salary of a sitting backbencher.

The difference: Australian politicians do not personally profit from war contracts. The wealth flows to the defence contractors—many of which are American, not Australian. Australia is being bled dry financially, but the money is not sticking to the politicians. It is flowing out.

VI. The Cost to Australia: Opportunity Lost

While billions flow to defence contractors and foreign interests, Australia’s essential services crumble.

The value of volunteering: Volunteers contribute an estimated $200-300 billion annually to the Australian economy. The sector provides approximately 700-800 million hours of volunteer work per year. This is the value Australians create for each other—outside the market, outside the profit motive, outside the war economy.

The opportunity cost: Every dollar spent on war is a dollar not spent on:

· Healthcare: Public hospitals are underfunded. Elective surgery waiting lists are growing. Mental health services are stretched to breaking point.

· Education: Class sizes are increasing. Teacher shortages are worsening. University funding is being cut.

· Infrastructure: Roads, bridges, public transport—all are in need of repair and expansion. The money is not there.

· Housing: The affordability crisis deepens. Social housing waiting lists grow. The government announces new measures. Nothing changes.

· Aged care: The Royal Commission made recommendations. Some were implemented. Many were not. The aged care system is still failing.

The volunteer sector vs. the war economy:

Volunteers War Economy

Annual contribution $200-300 billion Negative (costs exceed benefits)

Motivation Care, community, compassion Profit, power, control

Outcome Services delivered, communities strengthened Destruction, debt, inequality

Who benefits Everyone The few

The volunteers do not ask for profit. They ask for nothing. They give because they care.

The war economy does not care. It extracts. It destroys. It enriches the few at the expense of the many.

VII. The Mechanism: How War Enriches the Few

The pattern is not new. It was forged in the American Civil War and perfected in the 20th century.

The Civil War transformation:

· 1860: Fewer than 100 millionaires in the United States

· 1875: More than 1,000 millionaires

The “robber barons”—J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie—built empires on the foundation of war production and its aftermath.

The mechanism:

1 .Crisis (secession, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Iranian nuclear threat

2. Mobilisation (industrial production, government contracts)

3. Profit (defence contractors, oil companies, bankers)

4. Inequality (wealth concentrates at the top)

5. Resistance (labour unions, populism, anti-war movements)

6. The next crisis (repeat)

Why Trump can be a millionaire despite “lack of business acumen”:

Trump’s wealth does not come from business acumen. It comes from brand licensing. Foreign developers pay to use his name. Crypto speculators buy his meme coins. Loyal investors pour money into his failing social media company.

The system rewards access, not competence. Trump has access. He is the president. He can start wars. He can ban foreign drones. He can funnel contracts to his sons’ companies.

The market does not punish him. The market rewards him.

VIII. The War as Distraction

The evidence is mounting that the Iran war was timed to distract from the Epstein files.

The timeline:

· February 2024: The Epstein Files Transparency Act is signed into law

· February 28, 2026: Trump launches military strikes against Iran

· March 6, 2026: The DOJ releases more Epstein files, including an allegation that Trump sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl

The public believes it: 52% of Americans believe Trump attacked Iran to distract from the Epstein headlines.

The political class believes it: Republican Thomas Massie wrote: “PSA: bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away”. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on the day the bombing started: “Instead, we get a war with Iran on behalf of Israel that will succeed in regime change in Iran”.

Zelensky is selling drones. Netanyahu is running the same scam, combined with domestic politics. Australia is being bled dry financially.

The war is not about security. It is about distraction.

IX. The Myth of the Free Market

The problem for Australia is our connection to the United States and its economic model. The never-ending war economy—the system we have been documenting—is not a bug. It is a feature.

The free market is a myth. The market is not free. It is captured. Captured by the defence contractors, by the bankers, by the politicians who have been groomed and placed and bought.

The war on everything—war on terror, war on drugs, war on Iran—is not about security. It is about profit. Every war is a new market. Every crisis is a new opportunity. Every death is a line item on a ledger.

The myth of the free market tells us that competition drives innovation. That the invisible hand guides resources to their most efficient use. That profit is the measure of value.

The reality is different. The defence contractors do not compete. They collude. The bankers do not innovate. They extract. The politicians do not serve. They profit.

The market is not free. It is fixed.

X. What This Means

The system is not broken. It is working as designed.

The bankers talk to each other across enemy lines. The industrialists supply both sides. The generals count their profits. The politicians use war to distract from scandal. The defence contractors count their billions.

And the young men die. The families grieve. The public pays.

The war is not about victory. It is about continuation. The contracts must flow. The debt must accumulate. The wealth must transfer upward.

This is not a conspiracy. It is the natural result of the system—the system that has been grinding through souls since the American Civil War, since the industrialists learned that war was profitable, since the bankers learned that debt was the ultimate product.

XI. A Final Word

Asked: “How rich are the Australian politicians or does the money follow after retirement?”

The answer is both. Some arrive wealthy. Some accumulate wealth through property. All are guaranteed a comfortable retirement through the parliamentary pension scheme.

But the real wealth—the obscene wealth—is not in Australian politics. It is in the American defence industry. It is in the Israeli corruption cases. It is in the Ukrainian perception of graft.

The war is bleeding Australia dry. But the money is not staying in Australia. It is flowing to the defence contractors, to the bankers, to the politicians who have been captured by the network.

The question is not whether the system will change. It is whether Australians are prepared to change it.

Andrew Klein

April 8, 2026

Sources:

· Forbes China, “《福布斯》独家：一文看懂特朗普的65亿商业帝国” (March 27, 2026)

· Sloboden Pechat, “Hur mycket förmögenhet har Volodymyr Zelenskyj med en ‘löjlig’ lön?” (January 7, 2026)

· Hindustan Times, “How rich is ‘Bibi’? A look at Benjamin Netanyahu’s net worth” (March 14, 2026)

· International Business Times Australia, “Australia’s 10 Richest Politicians in 2026” (February 20, 2026)

· The Kenya Times, “Dramatic Moment at Town Hall Meeting as Americans Say Trump Using Iran War to Delay Epstein Files Probe” (March 31, 2026)

· Moneycontrol, “Trump’s net worth slips by $54 million in 7 days” (March 21, 2026)

· News.by, “Former Rada Deputy Tsarev: Zelensky personally earned around $100 bn from Western support” (February 12, 2026)

· Yahoo News Australia, “Ousted Ley’s $250,000 silver lining” (February 12, 2026)

· The News International, “Half of Americans believe Trump bombed Iran because of Epstein files” (March 18, 2026)

· Volunteering Australia, “Key Facts and Statistics” (2024/25 data)

The Patrician's Watch

Global Observations

Tag Archives: politics

The Merchants of Death in Our Midst

The Netanyahu Doctrine: How One Man’s War Addiction Is Consuming Israel, Lebanon, and the World

The Lizard of Oz

The New Sparta

The Betrayal of the Character Test

The Authoritarian State by Stealth

Israel: The State That Ate Itself

The Irrelevance of Power

The Idiot’s Tool: How a CIA-Backed Company, Body Counts, and Petrodollars Built the Permanent War Economy

The Wealth of War: How the Machine Enriches the Few While the Many Pay the Price