COMMENTARY / OPINION
Tina Peters & Venezuela Peggy Tierney
DEC 12, 2025 TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
Tina Peters has been imprisoned for over a year in blue Colorado for the crime of trying to expose election fraud in 2020. The issues of her case are confusing and many influencers are not reporting the whole truth. Some are trying to take credit for the work of others. Here’s what you need to know:
President Trump just pardoned Tina Peters, 70, who was WRONGLY convicted in blue Colorado in 2024, under a Democrat Governor, AG and Obama-Biden. The Democrats say that Tina Peters tried to commit election fraud to help Trump in 2020 – which is laughable – she says she is a whistleblower who was trying to PROVE election fraud in Colorado by the Obama-Biden regime and Smartmatic/Dominion software and voting machines out of Venezuela.
We all know that Tina Peters was just trying to prove that the 2020 election was rigged to help Biden and the Democrats are frantically trying to bury her evidence.
Tina Peters was an elected official in Colorado and served as the Clerk and Recorder for Mesa County, Colorado, from 2019 to 2023. In that role, she oversaw elections for the county. She is very very brave.
IRAN: FULL CONTAINMENT – Peace Covenant Window [28:01]
December 11, 2025 Monkey Werx
Today’s SITREP examines recent events impacting shipping routes and oil tankers in critical areas. We explore the current situation in the Middle East, specifically highlighting activity in the red sea, and its potential for danger. This analysis provides insight into the broader implications for global shipping.
Yoo Hoo, VP Vance––Your Character is Showing! JOAN SWIRSKY
December 11,2025
“Maybe he had a stroke,” a nurse friend told me as she theorized about Tucker Carlson’s seemingly bizarre transformation from a rock-ribbed conservative commentator to a flaming anti-Semite whose hatred of both Jews and Israel found him interviewing––and nodding in delirious agreement with––fervid Hitler and Stalin admirer Nick Fuentes, among many other rabid racists.
Another friend, who is rich in coining aphorisms, said: “Show me a racist at 80, I’ll show you a racist at 18!” She explained that people rarely undergo the kind of profound changes that Carlson now exhibits. “His hatred was always there,” she said, “probably a DNA thing or a mother’s-milk thing. But like all cowards, he only came out of the hate-Jews closet when the bandwagon was already rolling.”
AN IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION
At this point in what I hope is Carlson’s devolving career, he could interview any bigwig in the world. But in his new incarnation, he is clearly irresistibly attracted to and has chosen to interview––and embrace the views of––some of the most racist people in public life. In one of their exchanges, Fuentes called for the execution of “perfidious Jews” and told Carlson that the great challenge to American social harmony is “organized Jewry.” Carlson, consciously and deliberately, chose not to challenge this outrageous slur.
However, when asked to comment on this ugly back-and-forth, VP Vance said he didn’t want to take part in Republican “infighting.” Uh huh.
Of course he didn’t. After all, Carlson’s 29-year-old son, Buckley, is the White House Press Secretary on Vance’s staff! Can’t get cozier than that!
Writer Kim Ezra Shienbaum elaborates on Carlson’s fulminating hatred, which he then refutes, point by point, with hard, empirical data.
“Tucker’s newest fixation,” Shienbaum states, “is the Middle East,” and he asserts that we are “backing the wrong horse” …that “Israel is a strategic liability: “insignificant,” “resource-poor,” and consuming “the bulk” of U.S. foreign aid.” For Tucker, the U.S.-Israel relationship is not merely misguided but “deeply destructive and humiliating.”
“Tucker’s new direction,” the writer continues, is “underwritten by Qatar’s recent funding of conservative media….” Aha! That old reliable magnet: Follow the Money!
The ugly episode with Fuentes noted above has nothing on the interview Carlson conducted in September with Darryl Cooper, who he introduced as “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.”
It turns out that this amateur historian propounds viciously biased revisionist accounts of both World War II and the Holocaust, and told his host that “British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War” and that the Holocaust was “the result of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis simply being in over their heads…They just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead there.”
Again, Carlson offered no pushback at all, not even a raised eyebrow.
And after this interview, when right-thinking people urged VP Vance to distance himself from Carlson, his spokesman said: “Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association.” Uh huh.
NO MYSTERY
But knowing the history of the warm-and-fuzzy Carlson-Vance relationship explains why VP Vance refuses to distance himself from this born-again racist.
In very concrete ways, as documented by writer Matt Gertz, Carlson, through his aggressive advocacy when he worked for Fox News, actually went against corporate policy when he announced on air: “We don’t endorse a lot of candidates on the show…but occasionally you run into somebody who could actually change things…That’d be J.D. Vance, and he’s running for Senate from Ohio.”
And Carlson didn’t stop there. According to writer Paige Oamek in The New Republic, “Tucker Carlson campaigned for J.D. Vance to be Trump’s pick for vice president.”
“According to Axios,” Oamek continued, “former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and billionaires Elon Musk and David Sacks all began a ‘secret lobbying campaign,’ which involved calling Trump to secure Vance’s position as next in line…”
Right there is the seeming motive to explain why Vance has not taken a principled stand but has chosen to stick with the guy who he no doubt credits, in large part, with his meteoric rise in politics.
Not to omit Gertz’s documentation of the fact that J.D. Vance––even before his run for the Senate––“made 34 appearances on Tucker Carlson Tonight” from August 2017 to 2022.
Doesn’t this lie in the category of “I owe you”? Is that why VP Vance, to this day, refuses to condemn Carlson’s malignant anti-Semitism?
What possible reason/rationale/excuse could he have?
JUST IMAGINE
Indeed, let us imagine that VP Vance’s son was on the payroll of a prominent broadcaster who found his long-suppressed racist voice not against Jews but against Blacks, who interviewed people who routinely engaged in the kind of vicious derogatory stereotypes––tap dancing, watermelon, Ebonics, et al––and who had absolutely no inhibition about lacing every other sentence with the “n” word.
I believe we could count VP Vance’s reaction in the minutes it took him to demand that his speechwriter prepare a statement condemning both the interviewer and his guest, of insisting that the media outlet that employed the interviewer fire him immediately, and that the guest be investigated––and potentially imprisoned––for fomenting the riots and civil disturbances that his toxic words inspired.
Or let’s take the case of the Muslim woman who had her hijab ripped off her head, the assailant calling her a raghead, and then encouraging a crowd of bystanders to stand around and exhort her to “get out of our country!”
Again, would it take minutes, or only seconds, for VP Vance to take aggressive action against this outrage?
These are rhetorical questions, because everyone knows the answer.
Clearly, it is only the vehemence and calumny and threatening comments against Jews that VP Vance is unable to respond to in a way that a U.S. Vice President and a presumptive presidential candidate should have responded to immediately and aggressively and as a true enemy of all racism, not just the hatred that he selectively prefers to pay attention to.
But both the public and the media are onto the VP’s strange behavior, which is why today he is being forced to answer question after question after question about rightwing anti-Semitism––including presumptively his own––from numerous media outlets, including tjvnews.com, Newsmax.com, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), NBC News, TimesofIsrael.com, on and on and on.
IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK…
According to Newsmax.com, “Vice President JD Vance is forcefully rejecting warnings from within his own party about rising antisemitism on the political right, placing himself in direct contrast with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other Republicans who say the threat is real and growing.”
“Vance’s attempt to minimize the problem,” the article continues, “cannot be separated from his political alliances. He remains close with Carlson…” who has “repeatedly questioned U.S. support for Israel” and “claimed that Jews control the banking system, Congress, and even President Donald Trump. He also claimed that Israel was actively engaged in genocide in Gaza…”
The article also cites Vance’s recent trip to Israel where, “rather than offering unqualified support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — long a pillar of conservative foreign policy — Vance struck a more critical tone” …emphasizing “missteps by the Netanyahu government” and providing “a message [that] contrasts sharply with the Trump administration’s efforts to position itself as a bulwark against antisemitism…”
According to Nationalmemo.com ‘s writer Alex Henderson, “Carlson is dragging J.D. Vance down into the neo-Nazi fever swamp,”
“Ironically,” Henderson states, “the politician Carlson is harming most with his antics is the person he wants to succeed Trump: Vice President JD Vance.”
“Thus far,” the article continues, “Vance has done nothing to distance himself from this kind of politics. When Politico exposed racist and antisemitic text messages sent by members of Young Republican clubs last month, the vice president forgivingly characterized the appalling behavior of these 20- and 30-somethings as “what kids do.” Uh huh.
NOT A FRIEND
Conservative author and commentator Douglas Murray says that Carlson is no conservative and no friend to VP Vance.
Neither was he a friend to the late Charlie Kirk, a passionate supporter of the Jewish state. Murray continues, “Carlson used the aftermath of his friend’s assassination not to demand that the suspect in the shooting be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law…[or] to insist that perhaps the radical left dial down its hateful rhetoric against conservatives and Republicans…”
“No — Carlson chose to use the occasion to deflect attention from the perpetrator seized by the FBI and return to his pet obsession: the Jews. It was Carlson, he notes, who suggested that “the state of Israel had something to do with [Kirk’s] murder.”
And still, VP Vance said nothing.
Speaking of Kirk––Erika Kirk, that is, Charlie’s wife, the Charlie who spoke often and ardently of his love for the Jewish people and Israel––why has she not surgically distanced herself from her “friend” Tucker Carlson and encouraged her good friend VP Vance to do the same?
Is there some kind of malevolent cabal going on––a rightwing Deep State––that is working overtime to sabotage and ultimately topple President Trump, the better to implant their toxic, racist, anti-Semitic agenda at the pinnacle of the American government? After all, it is well known that VP Vance has close ties to Bilderberg globalist elitists and their mountains of money––among them Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, and Helmut Schmidt––whose goal is to literally rule the world.
According to writer Jacob Magid, Vance has signaled what his presidency would mean for Jews. He opposed destroying the Iranian nuclear program. Is offended that Jews claim Judea and Samaria. Loves Carlson. Sees no rising anti-Semitism in the GOP. And describes Mamdani as “fascinating.”
In a recent interview, Vance volunteered the names of the progressive lawmakers he has come to respect for various reasons: Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Ro Khanna and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION?
According to Abe Greenwald, the executive editor of COMMENTARY, “For those who think it’s at least slightly unfair to count the vice president as a woke-right anti-Semite, I see your point. He has never said that he hates Jews, and he genuinely may not. But his proximity to and support for those who do hate Jews places him on their team. In fact, he’s their most valuable player. It was his choice to stay in the club and, therefore, count himself as one of their number—at least for the time being.”
YES, VIRGINIA…
There really is guilt by association.
There really is good character and bad character.
There really are closet racists out there who are bad for America and bad for America’s closest ally, Israel.
And there really are voters like me who would never ever ever ever vote for JD Vance for President of the United States!
Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com.
Rabbit holes Peggy Tierney
DEC 11, 2025 TIERNEY’S REAL NEWS
I’ve written numerous articles about what I call “bait & switch grifters” that are paid by the Kochs and Soros and their pals in the Muslim Brotherhood to bait you in and switch you to the dark side. But, now that we are heading into the “mid-term” year of 2026 – the stakes have never been higher and the demons have never been more vocal and more desperate. You’ll start to see some of your old “favorites” turn to the dark side too.
This newsletter goes down a few rabbit holes – but I promise if you stay with me to the end you’ll see why. This is about what we need to do to win mid-terms and SAVE America from the Islamo-Communists and the NAZIs who wish to destroy us – while outing all the saboteurs IN OUR OWN PARTY that work behind the scenes to help our enemies prevail.
If Republicans lose the House in 2026 – they will impeach President Trump for a 3rd time and stop MAGA in its tracks just like they did in his 1st term. If the GOP loses the Senate in the 2026 mid-terms, they will remove Trump, destroy JD Vance and Marco Rubio and undo everything Trump has done so far in his second term. It’s as simple as that.
The borders will open wide and our country will be a Communist hellhole run by people like Zohran, and AOC and Jasmine Crockett and our police will be replaced with Gestapo-like Antifa mercenaries, cartel gangsters and Jihadis. I sound dramatic but I’m dead serious.
SO, with that in mind, watch all your favorite “influencers” and elected officials carefully for the next few months – as the economy heats up and evidence about the stolen election comes out – and you’ll see many of them you would never expect turn covertly to the dark side to help the Democrats win.
FOR EXAMPLE, did you see what Chuck Grassley, the “aw shucks” Senator from Iowa, just wrote on Twitter (X) about GW Bush after President Trump called out Grassley for refusing to get rid of the “blue slip” and confirm his nominees?
Everything is fine in Europe: the Caliph’s family lives near Charles III Giulio Meotti
Trump may have abandoned Europe, but Europe abandoned itself first. Opinion.
Dec 10, 2025, 10:31 PM (GMT+2) Israel National News
“The leader of the Islamic State in Somalia has a wife and three children in Britain,” reveals the Daily Telegraph. Abdul Qadir Mumin lived for a long time in the United Kingdom, where he obtained British citizenship and delivered sermons in London mosques. During that period, Mumin married the British Somali Muna Abdule and had one son and two daughters, who still live in Slough.
Does Slough ring a bell?
Slough is a town eight minutes by car from the royal family’s Windsor Castle and from Eton, the school of the English elite, and has a 30 percent Muslim population.
Richard North writes:
“Slough is an interesting constituency. One of the most ethnically diverse areas of England, 47 percent of the Asian-origin population is divided between Indians and Pakistanis. In the 2011 census, Indians held the majority, so the Indian Tan Dhesi held the parliamentary seat. In the last decade, however, there has been an influx of Pakistanis that has brought them to represent 22 percent of the population against Indians, mostly Sikh, who are at 19, giving Muslims the largest ethnic group. Now that the Muslims are presenting an independent candidate, Azhar Chohan, they have enough voting power to take the seat.”
Trump may have abandoned Europe, but Europe abandoned itself first. Or, as Gavin Mortimer of The Spectator puts it, “yes, European civilization is being erased and Trump is right to warn against mass immigration and the Islamization of Europe.”
Needless to say, one of the largest mosques in Slough used to be a Protestant church. And there are at least fifteen mosques in the city. Ramadan next to afternoon tea.
I can picture that little church. The Anglican vicar, a poor progressive soul, delivering his last sermons to four old ladies and a dog. The diocese goes bankrupt: maintenance, heating, leaking roof. An offer arrives: an “Islamic cultural centre” offers a sum that makes your head spin. The bishop signs, washes his hands, tweets something about “interfaith dialogue,” and escapes to London.
Next: The centuries-old oak pews are sawn apart to make room for carpets facing Mecca. The altar, where mass was celebrated for nine hundred years in Latin and then in English, becomes the mihrab. The baptismal font ends up in a suburban depot.
Then it’s the local pub’s turn: the owner dies, the children sell it, and it becomes “Al-Madina Coffee House – No Alcohol, No Dogs, No Infidels.”
And yet, strangely, the lawns remain trimmed. The hedges are still artfully cut. The slate-roofed houses glisten in the rain. And the village looks like an old woman, heavily made-up, who refuses to admit her age. And maybe now the Caliph’s son cuts the royal lawn.
If it weren’t all absurd, it would be laughable: the ISIS leader with his family in Slough funds ISIS in Congo, responsible for mass beheadings in African churches.
Thus, in a world where the tragic ironies of history intertwine with the randomness of postal codes, emerges this anecdote which, if it weren’t tragic, could pass for satire. Imagine: the family of the head of ISIS, the caliph who wants the beheading of infidels and the reconstruction of a theocratic empire, lives a stone’s throw from the palace of King Charles III. Not in an underground hideout in Raqqa or Mosul, but in a British town.
And Charles, with his speeches about homeopathy, sustainable architecture, climate, and the Quran, lives a step away from this powder keg.
But the West is agitated by Trump’s scoldings of Europe.
“I’m listening to the beautiful bells of Winchester, one of our great medieval cathedrals, much more beautiful than the aggressive ‘Allahu Akhbar’,” wrote the world’s most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins. “Before rejoicing at the spasms of relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s threatening nursery rhyme: ‘Always keep a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse.’”
Mass Islamic immigration has not been a multicultural gift, but Europe’s demographic Russian roulette. And those who have not understood it, or pretend not to understand it, risk firing the fatal shot.
Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio and writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum (MEF) and the author, in English, of the book “A New Shoah”, that researched the personal stories of Israel’s terror victims, published by Encounter and of “J’Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel” published by Mantua Books, in addition to books in Italian. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Gatestone, Frontpage and Commentary.
J Street has its own “moral stain…” Moshe Phillips
J Street denounced what it termed “the West Bank settlement movement” as “a moral stain on the Jewish people and a threat to Israel’s future.” Perhaps the shoe is on the other foot. Opinion.
Dec 11, 2025, 7:57 AM (GMT+2) Israel National News
In its latest fundraising email, J Street denounces “the West Bank settlement movement” as “a moral stain on the Jewish people and a threat to Israel’s future.”
Let’s consider the human impact of J Street’s position.
The Ilan Residential Home for Handicapped Young Adults is located in what J Street considers a “West Bank settlement,” the Gilo neighborhood on the southern edge of Jerusalem. So is the Beit Or Home for Young Autistic Adults.
Is it a “moral stain on….. ” to assist physically handicapped or autistic young people?
And I wonder how the leaders of Conservative Judaism feel about having their institutions slapped with that “moral stain” smear?
The Conservative movement’s Shevet Achim congregation and its ‘Tali’ School are located in Gilo. The congregation of Ramot Zion is situated in Jerusalem’s neighborhood of French Hill, much of which is, according to J Street, a “West Bank settlement.”
There is also a Conservative ‘Tali’ school Pisgat Ze’ev, and Conservative congregations in Ma’ale Adumim and Har Adar.
For that matter, I wonder how Israel’s leftwing Labor Party feels about being called “a moral stain on the Jewish people and a threat to Israel’s future”?
After all, it was Labor governments that established many of the original Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria, including Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Kedumim, Ma’ale Adumim, and the various towns in the Gush Etzion bloc.
Labor governments built the Jerusalem neighborhoods that J Street regards as being in the “West Bank,” including French Hill (established 1969), Neve Yaakov (established 1924, rebuilt in 1972), Gilo (1973), Talpiot Mizrach (1973), and Ramot (1974).
And Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor-led government, which took power in 1992, continued the policy of building homes within existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (aka “West Bank.”). The government of 2021-2022, in which Labor was a coalition partner, also built there. So does that mean every Labor-built home, school or nursery in the territories is also “a moral stain on the Jewish people and a threat to Israel’s future.”
J Street’s war against Jewish families who live in Judea-Samaria is not just a matter of ugly rhetoric. And it is far from wrong to call it a “war”, since J Street just appealed for donations by saying “Your support is critical as we … fight the settlement movement in the West Bank”.
J Street’s work against Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria has also taken the form of lobbying the U.S. Treasury Department to remove the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status of American institutions that assist “West Bank” communities.
That would spell complete disaster for the Ilan Residential Home for Handicapped Young Adults, for the Beit Or Home for Young Autistic Adults, and for many other caregiving, educational organizations.
All of which underlines, once again, how J Street has positioned itself far outside the mainstream Jewish community-and it reminds us why both of the major Jewish umbrella organizations, the Conference of Presidents and the American Zionist Movement, have rejected it.
These important umbrella groups understand that J Street has become so extreme that it evidently considers disabled and autistic young people expendable in pursuing its radical political agenda.
(And, btw, it is not illegal for Jews to live in Judea and Samaria, ed.)
Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI: www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
After weeks of war rhetoric from the ‘Peace President,’ Trump escalates Venezuela standoff by seizing oil tanker LEO HOHMANN
US seizes Venezuelan oil tanker as it leaves port while continuing questionable policy of shooting and killing alleged ‘narcoterrorists’ on sight without providing evidence of drug trafficking.
DEC 10, 2025
U.S. military forces have intercepted and seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off of its coast, as Donald Trump escalates the already tense standoff between the two nations, Bloomberg News reports.
While the US has ramped up pressure on Maduro, accusing him of running a narcotrafficking operation, Venezuela has been quick to call out what it sees as Washington’s blatant disregard for its sovereignty and an eagerness to seize its abundant oil resources.
As the Pentagon continues its strikes against suspected drug vessels, Maduro isn’t backing down. He’s calling for unity and deploying troops to the borders and receiving arms shipments from China and Russia.
President Donald Trump has escalated pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in recent weeks. Trump said Maduro’s “days are numbered” in an interview with Politico published Tuesday. The president would not rule out a ground invasion of the South American nation.
The White House has undertaken a large military buildup in the Caribbean and launched controversial strikes against boats that it claims were trafficking drugs to the U.S.
Venezuela is a member of OPEC. Most of the South American nation’s oil exports go to China.
This is a tense situation that only promises to further intensify in these last few weeks of 2025. Look for oil prices to rise leading up to the Christmas holiday, just as they seemed to be stabilizing a bit. I’ll keep you updated as major escalations take place.
The big question is, how will Russia and particularly China react to Trump’s war against Venezuela?
I suspect Russia’s Putin is grinning from ear to ear, as this will give him a chance to get even with the U.S. He will now be able to give the U.S. a taste of its own medicine by arming and supplying an enemy in America’s own sphere of influence, basically using Venezuela to fight a proxy war. Just as the U.S. has used Ukraine to kill Russians and attack Russia, now Russia and China see the opportunity to use Venezuela to deal a black eye to America.
“I’m Arab NOT Palestinian” Son of Hamas Exposes The TRUTH about “Palestine” [9:31] Yishai Fleisher
Dec 9, 2025
Yishai Fleisher Records a conversation between Noam Arnon and Mosab Hasan Yousef
Israel’s Proxy Plan in Gaza Just Took a Hit AYNAZ ANNI CYRUS
When a Band-Aid solution becomes the strategy
DEC 09, 2025
In August, I warned what would happen if Israel continued relying on shortcuts in Gaza, tribal intermediaries, warlord placeholders, and improvised “local governance” models that pretended Hamas was negotiable. At the time, Yasser Abu Shabab was being introduced as the newest alternative: a tribal militia leader, recently escaped from prison, suddenly elevated as the man who might help fill the imagined vacuum that Israel and Washington pretended would be created in Gaza after Hamas leaves. I described him as a Band-Aid on a wound no one wanted to clean. His death has now confirmed that warning.
The collapse of the U.S.–Israel 20-point “peace plan” only sharpens this point. That document was built on the fantasy that Gaza could be stabilized through a patchwork of forces, partnerships, and tribal actors who would somehow operate beneath Hamas without being consumed by it. Every mechanism in that plan depended on the assumption that Hamas would cooperate with its own replacement or at least tolerate parallel authority. Abu Shabab’s assassination shows exactly why that assumption was never grounded in reality.
Hamas does not share space. It removes competitors. This is not new information; it is the fundamental rule of Gaza’s political landscape. Any local rival empowered by Israel becomes a target. Any tribal figure who tries to enforce order becomes a threat. Any structure inserted into the vacuum without dismantling Hamas is guaranteed to collapse. The people demanding “a solution” while avoiding the elimination of Hamas are not seeking solutions at all. They are seeking comfort. And comfort is not strategy.
The reaction to Abu Shabab’s death makes that clear. Arab media described it as a setback for Israel’s post-war model, a disruption of the alternative-governance experiment, and an exposure of the fragility of Israel’s reliance on local proxies. Israeli commentators were equally unsettled, acknowledging that the experiment suffered a blow. Most telling, however, was the reaction from Abu Shabab’s own tribe. The Tarabin publicly disowned him, rejected any use of their name for Israel-backed militias, and emphasized that Gaza has no space for collaborators. Without tribal legitimacy, no proxy survives. Without eliminating Hamas, no alternative authority functions. And without a real governing structure, every “plan” becomes improvised crisis management.
What this reveals is the core flaw in Israel’s approach: the repeated effort to weaken Hamas without removing Hamas. The strategy mirrors earlier mistakes, empowering one faction to counter another, hoping the pressure alone will create a new political order. But Gaza is not a neutral playing field. It is a space where armed authority is binary; Hamas either dominates or destroys the challenger. Abu Shabab’s militia was never going to become a stabilizing force because it was never operating within a stable structure. It was an ad hoc creation, reliant on Israeli protection and operating in a territory controlled by a group that eliminates dissent with precision.
Hamas’s immediate response, issuing a ten-day ultimatum to collaborators, underscores this. Now, the remaining members of Israel-backed militias face pressure, exposure, and internal fracture. Analysts predict infighting, defections, and rapid dissolution. None of this is surprising. It is exactly what happens when a state actor avoids decisive action and instead tries to outsource its goals to actors who cannot survive the environment they are placed in.
Abu Shabab’s death is not merely a tactical event. It is a demonstration of the limits of proxy governance in a territory still controlled by a deeply entrenched Islamist movement. It exposes the flaw in every “new Gaza” proposal that avoids confronting the central obstacle: Hamas remains intact. No warlord, tribe, or militia can govern a territory where an armed ideological regime decides who may exist. This is why there was no justification for a 20-point plan. The only action that mattered was removing Hamas, and the United States should have allowed Israel to address its own security reality without interference. And this is precisely why the Abu Shabab model disintegrated immediately. My warning in August stands: swapping one Islamist-rooted authority for another is not reform; it is recycling the problem.
The lesson is clear. As long as Israel continues to treat temporary fixes as long-term solutions, these outcomes will repeat. As long as it elevates local actors without dismantling the structure that defines Gaza’s political reality, those actors will fall. And as long as decision-makers choose Band-Aids over surgery, the wound will not heal. This is not a matter of optimism or pessimism; it is a matter of political physics.
Israel had opportunities over the past decade to remove Hamas decisively. Instead, successive governments relied on containment, tactical deterrence, economic pressure, and the hope that internal alternatives might emerge and take hold. None of these approaches worked then, and they will not work now. Abu Shabab’s rise and fall demonstrate that there is no substitute for confronting the core problem. Any future built on the assumption that Hamas will “fade,” “accommodate,” or “transition” is a future built on fiction.
Abu Shabab’s assassination did not change Gaza’s trajectory. It clarified it. The region does not need another proxy, another tribe, another improvised authority, or another 20-point plan crafted to avoid uncomfortable choices. It requires the decision that should have been made ten years ago: to remove the organization that ensures every alternative collapses. Every delay has strengthened Hamas. Every shortcut has backfired. Every Band-Aid has bled through. And every year the world hesitated, the real architects of Gaza’s misery, Iran and Qatar, expanded their reach.
Hamas is not surviving on local loyalty alone. It is surviving on Iranian financing, weapons, intelligence support, and an ideological mandate crafted in Tehran. It is surviving because Qatar continues to bankroll the movement, host its leadership, launder its political legitimacy, and present it to Western diplomats as a “negotiating partner.” Together, these two regimes have spent decades ensuring Hamas cannot fall, cannot be replaced, and cannot be weakened by any internal alternative. As long as Israel and the West continue enabling Qatar and Iran while trying to negotiate with Hamas, there will be no peace in Gaza nor in the Middle East.
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No Stabilization in Gaza Without Dismantling Hamas by Ahmed Charai
December 9, 2025
- An International Stabilization Force that enters Gaza while Hamas remains armed will merely stabilize Hamas itself.
- A stabilization force that cannot confront the terrorists who rule Gaza is not a peacekeeping mechanism; it is a political anesthetic. It buys time for Hamas to rest, reconstitute its battalions, rebuild its tunnels, and prepare for the next war. It allows the group to deepen its grip on the population and to rewrite the narrative so that its catastrophic decisions appear as heroic resistance.
- One cannot reconstruct a city by empowering the people who destroyed it.
- On December 6, 2025, in a speech delivered in Turkey, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal declared that Hamas will never disarm, never renounce its weapons, never accept external oversight of Gaza, never permit any force, international or otherwise, to constrain its military operations.
- The Muslim Brotherhood’s narrative of “resistance” that thrives on perpetual conflict… They do not honor Islam; they distort it into a justification for violence. And the Iranian people — one of the most cultured and brilliant civilizations on earth — deserve better than rulers who export fires to Arab lands while extinguishing hope at home.
- Some governments…. speak of stability while pursuing a very different goal: preserving Hamas as a tool of influence.
- Trump did not indulge fantasies about Hamas. He built a plan based on the recognition that peace requires confronting those who reject peace. His work was a reminder that leadership matters.
- The time has come to speak with clarity: Gaza cannot be rebuilt while Hamas exists. Peace cannot be built while Hamas rules. And an International Stabilization Force that does not understand this is not stabilizing the region — it is stabilizing its nightmares.
An International Stabilization Force (ISF) that enters Gaza while Hamas remains armed will merely stabilize Hamas itself. An ISF that cannot confront the terrorists who rule Gaza is not a peacekeeping mechanism; it is a political anesthetic. It buys time for Hamas to rest, reconstitute its battalions, rebuild its tunnels, and prepare for the next war. (AI image generated by Google Gemini)
It is time to confront one of the most dangerous illusions of our time: the belief that an International Stabilization Force for Gaza can bring order, reconstruction, or peace without dismantling Hamas. A force that enters Gaza while Hamas remains armed will merely stabilize Hamas itself. It will become, in practice, an International Stabilization Force for Hamas, a shield that protects the very organization that plunged Gaza into tragedy.
No serious strategist can pretend that disarmament is optional. A stabilization force that cannot confront the terrorists who rule Gaza is not a peacekeeping mechanism; it is a political anesthetic. It buys time for Hamas to rest, reconstitute its battalions, rebuild its tunnels, and prepare for the next war. It allows the group to deepen its grip on the population and to rewrite the narrative so that its catastrophic decisions appear as heroic resistance.
One cannot reconstruct a city by empowering the people who destroyed it. One cannot speak of recovery while guaranteeing the survival of an armed movement that openly vows to repeat the October 7 attack whenever it can.
Some governments now maneuver to shield Hamas from the consequences of its actions. They speak of “stability” while pursuing a very different goal: preserving Hamas as a tool of influence. To justify this duplicity, they spread the fiction that Hamas cannot be dismantled because its ideology supposedly resides in every Gazan home. This is false. Gazans were not born into Hamas; they were subjugated by it. It imposed itself through fear, coercion, and the destruction of all alternatives.
We must say it plainly: there are states that want Hamas to survive precisely because it amplifies their regional leverage. They defend Hamas not out of solidarity with Palestinians but out of cold strategic calculus, to preserve their influence. President Donald Trump, who forced a ceasefire and exposed many of these games, should recognize exactly what is happening.
Trump’s 20-point plan was not a rhetorical exercise but an attempt to impose order on political chaos. He acted with the same clarity and determination that drove the Abraham Accords, cutting through decades of paralysis with the insistence that progress is possible only when illusions are rejected. Trump did not indulge fantasies about Hamas. He built a plan based on the recognition that peace requires confronting those who reject peace. His work was a reminder that leadership matters.
Hamas’s own leadership has spoken with astonishing clarity. On December 6, 2025, in a speech delivered in Turkey, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal declared that Hamas will never disarm, never renounce its weapons, never accept external oversight of Gaza, never permit any force, international or otherwise, to constrain its military operations. He boasted that Hamas’s arsenal is “the honor and pride of the nation.” This is not a negotiating position; it is a declaration of perpetual war. When the leader of Hamas publicly states that the group will not allow any international force to control Gaza, it becomes impossible to pretend that an ISF can operate unless it is prepared to accept Hamas’s authority.
For far too long, Arab societies have been held hostage by ideological currents imposed upon them rather than chosen by them. The Muslim Brotherhood’s narrative of “resistance” that thrives on perpetual conflict, and the Iranian regime’s empire of resentment have suffocated the region’s potential. These forces do not defend Arabs; they undermine Arab futures. They do not honor Islam; they distort it into a justification for violence. And the Iranian people — one of the most cultured and brilliant civilizations on earth — deserve better than rulers who export fires to Arab lands while extinguishing hope at home.
The path forward is not mysterious. Trump opened it. But it can only continue if we confront reality rather than hide behind diplomatic formulas. Hamas must be dismantled — not tolerated, not reinterpreted, not “managed.” Any force entering Gaza must have a clear mandate: the complete disarmament and demilitarization of Hamas. Without this, an ISF will be a mask for impotence, a new layer of tragedy atop an old one, and another chapter in the long story of illusions that pretend to be solutions.
The time has come to speak with clarity: Gaza cannot be rebuilt while Hamas exists. Peace cannot be built while Hamas rules. And an International Stabilization Force that does not understand this is not stabilizing the region — it is stabilizing its nightmares.
Ahmed Charai, publisher, is the Chairman and CEO of World Herald Tribune, Inc., and the publisher of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, TV Abraham, and Radio Abraham. He serves on the boards of several prominent institutions, including the Atlantic Council, the Center for the National Interest, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the International Crisis Group. He is also an International Councilor and a member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune and is reprinted here by the kind permission of the author.
Why Turkey and Qatar Should Be Kept Away From Gaza by Khaled Abu Toameh
December 9, 2025 Gatestone Institute
- One of the keynote speakers at the conference [hosted by Turkey] was Khaled Mashaal, a senior Hamas leader based in Qatar.
- Mashaal declared that the time has come for the Muslim nation to “commit to the liberation of Jerusalem.” He defined this act as the symbol and strategic key to “liberating all of Palestine” — meaning the destruction of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.
- As the conference was underway, Israeli authorities revealed documents that show that Hamas is operating a system of Gazan moneychangers who live in Turkey and exploit the country’s financial infrastructure to secretly finance terrorism.
- The closing statement of the conference asserted the necessity of waging Jihad (war in the service of Islam)….
- Turkey in addition, is the main sponsor behind the new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly an al-Qaeda leader known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, leader of the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militia. Is Turkey possibly trying to position itself on either side of Israel to attack it after Trump leaves office?
- Is Trump’s selling arms to Qatar and Turkey in fact unwittingly preparing them to launch such an attack?
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is evidently concerned about Qatar and Turkey playing a central role in the Gaza Strip.
- Allowing Turkey or Qatar to play any role in the Gaza Strip means empowering Hamas to reassert its control of the coastal area and rearm and regroup. Turkey and Qatar are not going to participate in any effort to disarm Hamas or destroy terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, as they openly state, they will ensure that Hamas continues to rule the Gaza Strip and pursue its Jihad to destroy Israel.
Allowing Turkey or Qatar to play any role in the Gaza Strip means empowering Hamas to reassert its control of the coastal area and rearm and regroup. Turkey and Qatar are not going to participate in any effort to disarm Hamas or destroy terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, as they openly state, they will ensure that Hamas continues to rule the Gaza Strip and pursue its Jihad to destroy Israel. Pictured: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then serving as prime minister) meets Khaled Mashaal (C), the Hamas chief in exile, and Hamas’ then leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh (L), in Ankara on June 18, 2013. (Photo by Yasin Bulbul/Turkish Prime Minister’s Press Office/AFP via Getty Images)
In early December, Turkey hosted a conference called “Pledge to Jerusalem,” under the slogan “Towards Renewing the Will of the Ummah in Confronting Liquidation and Genocide.” According to reports in the Arabic media, the conference was attended by “a number of Arab and Islamic organizations.”
The conference, according to a report by the Hamas-affiliated Quds Press media outlet:
“The conference aims to ‘unify the efforts of the Ummah to criminalize genocide and break the siege, stand against plans of forced displacement and annexation of the West Bank, and renew the covenant to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from the dangers of Judaization…’
At the conclusion of the second day, participants aim to issue the ‘Covenant for Jerusalem Document,’ described as a comprehensive charter affirming the constants of the Ummah and the choice of resistance, according to the conference vision obtained by Quds Press.
“The conference will… further issue a scholarly fatwa establishing the religious duty to defend Jerusalem, resist normalization, and oppose alignment [between Israel and the Arab and Islamic countries].”
The conference in Istanbul comes amid reports that Turkey is seeking to play a role in the Gaza Strip as part of US President Donald J. Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Israel-Hamas war. The war erupted with the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, which resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, the wounding of thousands, and the abduction of 251 people to the Gaza Strip as hostages.
The conference, held under the auspices of the Turkish leadership, serves as a reminder that Turkey is not an impartial mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One of the keynote speakers at the conference was Khaled Mashaal, a senior Hamas leader based in Qatar.
Mashaal underscored the urgency of confronting Israel and reaffirmed the centrality of Palestinian unity and “resistance,” a euphemism for armed conflict and terrorism against Israel.
Mashaal repeated Hamas’s rejections of Trump’s plan, specifically the parts that call for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the establishment of an international governing body, and the deployment of an International Stabilization Force there.
“Rejecting any form of external guardianship over Gaza, Meshaal stressed that Palestinians must govern themselves. He emphasized the need to safeguard the resistance project and its weapons, calling them vital to the struggle for freedom.”
Mashaal declared that the time has come for the Muslim nation to “commit to the liberation of Jerusalem.” He defined this act as the symbol and strategic key to “liberating all of Palestine” — meaning the destruction of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.
By hosting such a conference of Islamists, Turkey is sending a message to the United States that it is opposed to Trump’s plan to disarm the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip. Turkey, in addition, is sending a message to the US and the international community that it fully supports Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups that reject Trump’s efforts to achieve normalization agreements between Israel and some Arab and Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia.
As the conference was underway, Israeli authorities revealed documents that show that Hamas is operating a system of Gazan moneychangers who live in Turkey and exploit the country’s financial infrastructure to secretly finance terrorism. The network, according to the Israeli authorities, works in full cooperation with the Iranian regime and has transferred millions of dollars directly to Hamas and its senior leaders. The network conducts extensive financial activity in Turkey, including receiving, holding, and forwarding Iranian funds to Hamas. The exposé identified three Hamas operatives, all originally from the Gaza Strip, who are operating as moneychangers in Turkey under Iranian direction. They are Tamer Hassan, a senior figure in Hamas’s finance office in Turkey, who works directly under Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, and Khaled Farwana and Farid Abu Dair.
On October 6, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that disarming Hamas cannot be the main priority in the Gaza Strip. “That cannot be the first thing to do in the process, the disarming,” Fidan said. “We need to put things in [their] proper order, we have to be realistic.”
The Istanbul conference was not the first of its kind hosted by Turkey. In August, a high-level conference sponsored by Turkey and Qatar, and attended by 150 senior Muslim clerics from 50 countries, was held in Istanbul at the grand mosque of Hagia Sophia, formerly a Byzantine church.
The closing statement of the conference asserted the necessity of waging Jihad (war in the service of Islam):
“The Islamic nations must be generally prepared with knowledge, military force, reverence for Allah, and Jihad for the sake of Allah in all its forms. Allah said: ‘And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy…’ (Quran 8:60). He also said: ‘O believers! Shall I show you a bargain that will deliver you from a painful punishment” [It is to] have faith in Allah and His Messenger, and wage Jihad in the cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives. That is best for you, if only you knew.’ (Quran 61:10-11).”
The assumption that Turkey can play a constructive and positive role in post-war Gaza is wrong and misguided. Like Qatar, Turkey has long been sponsoring and funding Hamas and hosting many of its leaders and terror operatives.
Turkey in addition, is the main sponsor behind the new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly an al-Qaeda leader known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, leader of the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militia. Is Turkey possibly trying to position itself on either side of Israel to attack it after Trump leaves office?
Is Trump’s selling arms to Qatar and Turkey in fact unwittingly preparing them to launch such an attack?
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is evidently concerned about Qatar and Turkey playing a central role in the Gaza Strip. “The UAE views Doha and Ankara as ‘Hamas enablers,” a source familiar with its stance told The Jerusalem Post.
“These states will make it possible for the terror organization to continue existing. These are interested parties affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood who are currently embedding themselves in key positions in the Gaza reconstruction plan.”
Allowing Turkey or Qatar to play any role in the Gaza Strip means empowering Hamas to reassert its control of the coastal area and rearm and regroup. Turkey and Qatar are not going to participate in any effort to disarm Hamas or destroy terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. On the contrary, as they openly state, they will ensure that Hamas continues to rule the Gaza Strip and pursue its Jihad to destroy Israel.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
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This Song About Jew-Haters Is Going Viral Right Now!
J-TV: The Global Jewish Channel
The EU is Democratic Theater @AMUSE [That’s somebody’s pseudonym]
A Democratic simulation without democratic power…
DEC 08, 2025
The idea that Europeans elect their leaders has been repeated so often that many assume it must be true. It is not. The claim dissolves the moment one asks a simple question. Who chose the President of the European Commission, the only office in Brussels with the exclusive power to propose EU laws? The answer is not the voters of France or Italy or Poland or even Germany. The answer is a small circle of national leaders who meet behind closed doors and negotiate until a consensus forms. This procedure is often defended as a respectable form of parliamentary delegation, but the resemblance to real parliamentary democracy is superficial. A parliamentary executive emerges from an elected legislature. The Commission President emerges from a bargaining session among heads of government who are not accountable to the European Parliament and who are under no obligation to respect its electoral outcomes. The result is a system that looks like democracy from a distance, yet functions as something else entirely, a bureaucratic technocracy insulated from popular control.
A puzzled reader might ask why this matters, since the European Parliament is elected by citizens and must approve the Commission President. That seems like a democratic safeguard. The problem is that Parliament’s approval power is reactive. It can ratify or reject a nominee, but it cannot nominate one. This difference is decisive. When the power to initiate rests with an unelected body, the power to approve often becomes symbolic. A legislature that is handed a single viable option, especially one that reflects a delicate and opaque geopolitical compromise, is not exercising genuine choice. It is participating in what critics call democratic theater, a rehearsal of the forms of democracy that leaves the substance untouched.
The case of Ursula von der Leyen makes this dynamic clear. In 2019, European voters were told that the Spitzenkandidat system would link their votes to the selection of the Commission President. Each major party family presented a lead candidate, and the European People’s Party placed Manfred Weber before the voters. He appeared on posters and spoke at campaign events. Supporters believed that voting for the EPP meant voting for Weber. Yet the treaties did not bind national leaders to respect this process. French President Emmanuel Macron disliked Weber’s candidacy and viewed him as inexperienced. Because the Council requires consensus or at least a qualified majority, Macron’s objection was decisive. Weber’s campaign vanished the moment Macron declared his opposition. The voters had no recourse.
What followed was a sequence of private negotiations that produced a name almost no ordinary European had heard before. Ursula von der Leyen had not been a candidate in the election. She had not appeared in the debates. She had not toured European capitals to build trust with voters. In fact, recognition surveys from that period showed that fewer than 10% of Europeans could identify her at all. Even among those who recognized her name, most said they lacked enough information to form an opinion. Her record as German defense minister had been disasterous, and many Germans were relieved when she left national politics. Yet in Brussels, controversy carries less weight than convenience. She emerged as a compromise figure precisely because she lacked a political base. Her lack of qualification and popularity made her the safest choice. Leaders could project their own priorities onto her, confident that no popular constituency would interfere.
When her nomination reached the European Parliament, the outcome was uncertain. Most Members of Parliament had never met her before the vote. The final tally was 383 votes in favor out of 751, a historically narrow margin for such a consequential office. A system that had just celebrated record voter turnout delivered an executive leader who had not participated in the election. If democratic legitimacy involves knowing who your leader is before they take office, then the 2019 process failed that test. The voters had no opportunity to choose her, and no mechanism to reject her.
The 2024 reappointment made the problem even more transparent. The Spitzenkandidat idea, already wounded by the events of 2019, effectively collapsed. Instead of presenting voters with lead candidates, party groups treated the elections as mood indicators. After the votes were counted, it became clear that the real decision would again be made by heads of government. The decisive axis consisted of France and Germany. Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed that continuity in Brussels suited their interests, although neither leader believed that von der Leyen enjoyed genuine public support. Polls across Europe showed her she was deeply unpopular. In France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands, large majorities opposed her continuation. Even in Germany, her own party approached the question with hesitation due to her political liabilities.
Despite this, Macron and Scholz negotiated a bargain that placed her back in the presidency – a puppet they could control. The terms were never presented to voters. France would receive the leadership of the ECB Supervisory Board, along with influence over the selection of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Germany would maintain its control over industrial and defense policy. Spain and Portugal secured promises on social portfolios. Eastern European governments obtained concessions on defense spending and agricultural subsidies. None of these deals were disclosed in campaign materials before the election. Yet they determined the identity of Europe’s most powerful executive official.
Some defenders say that this is how the EU was designed to function. They argue that it reflects the Union’s hybrid nature, part supranational, part intergovernmental. Voters choose Members of Parliament, but states choose the Commission President. The real test, they claim, is whether the system governs effectively. That claim misreads the objection. The criticism is not that intergovernmental bargaining exists. It is that the EU has presented itself as a democratic system while relying on a method of executive selection that sidelines voters when the stakes are highest. A system that gives citizens the right to vote but not the power to choose their leaders invites disillusionment. It encourages participation without agency. It produces institutions that feel remote because they are remote.
To see the distinction, compare the EU to a functioning parliamentary democracy. In the UK, voters elect Parliament. The leader of the majority party becomes Prime Minister. If voters dislike the government, they can remove it in the next election. The executive is tethered to the electorate through the legislature. Parties campaign by presenting their leader as the prospective head of government. Everyone knows who they are voting for. In the EU, this tether is missing. Voters elect Members of Parliament, but the executive emerges from a council of national leaders who are accountable only to their own domestic constituencies. The voters of Spain do not choose the German chancellor, yet that chancellor plays a central role in choosing the Commission President, who governs Spain in matters of EU law. The logic is inverted. Power flows upward to Brussels, but accountability does not flow back down to the citizen.
A second confusion arises from the claim that because the European Parliament can dismiss the Commission through a no confidence vote, the system resembles national parliamentary control. Yet the threshold for dismissal is exceptionally high, and it has never been met. The procedure is ill suited to situations in which dissatisfaction is widespread but not concentrated in a single faction. A meaningful accountability mechanism must be actionable under normal political conditions. In practice, the Commission’s leadership is secure unless a supermajority of national governments and Parliament members unite against it, which rarely happens. This arrangement keeps the executive insulated from the electorate, and in turn, encourages decisions that prioritize bureaucratic continuity over democratic responsiveness.
If the reader doubts that this insulation is intentional, consider how recognition and popularity factor into the selection process. A democratic system rewards candidates who cultivate public familiarity and trust. The EU system rewards the opposite. Von der Leyen’s low recognition in 2019 was an asset. Her unpopular tenure as defense minister did not hinder her rise because the decision was not subject to public scrutiny. In 2024, the inability of voters across Europe to express disapproval through direct choice was irrelevant. What mattered was the balance of power within the European Council and the incentives of national leaders to maintain influence in Brussels. The voters were spectators at a performance staged for their benefit, not participants in a real contest for leadership.
Some argue that direct elections for the Commission President would solve the problem. Perhaps, but it would also create new tensions. A Union that cannot agree on fiscal integration might struggle to agree on a single political executive. Still, the existence of difficulties does not justify the status quo. Democracies face difficulties all the time. What they do not do is pretend that voters have chosen leaders whom they never had the opportunity to select. The EU’s legitimacy problem stems from the gap between the appearance of democratic choice and the reality of bureaucratic appointment.
A more modest question is whether the EU can maintain public trust under its current system. Turnout in Parliament elections has increased in recent cycles, yet this participation has not translated into greater influence over executive leadership. Voters eventually notice when their choices lack consequences. A system that asks citizens to vote but denies them power encourages alienation. It also feeds the perception, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, that Brussels operates as a post democratic administration, an arena where civil servants and national leaders negotiate outcomes the public cannot meaningfully shape.
This brings us back to the core thesis. Europe does not elect its leaders. It elects representatives who may influence legislation but who do not control the identity of the executive. The real selection power rests with a small set of national leaders whose incentives often diverge from those of their citizens. The EU has created a simulation of democratic choice without democratic authority. It is a structure that looks like democracy, behaves like bureaucracy, and resists accountability. That structure may serve the interests of those who prefer technocratic governance. It does not serve the interests of voters who believe that elections should determine who holds power.
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Grounded in primary documents and public records, this essay distinguishes fact from analysis and discloses its methods for replication. Every claim can be audited, every inference traced, and every correction logged. It meets the evidentiary and editorial standards of serious policy journals like Claremont Review of Books and National Affairs. Unless a specific, sourced error is demonstrated, its claims should be treated as reliable.
2026 outlook for economy, AI takeover and war LEO HOHMANN
Trump says he will remove all constraints on AI, even at the state level, by signing an unconstitutional executive order banning states from making even the most basic AI regulations.
DEC 08, 2025
There’s a lot going on under the radar as we wind up the year 2025, especially with regards to war, the economy and the continued takeover of artificial intelligence to the detriment of that forgotten document, the U.S. Constitution.
Here’s my breakdown of how it’s playing out and likely to continue playing out in 2026.
The nations are preparing for war
The Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations we see taking place are a deception. They are seeking to give Ukraine a breather, a “Minsk 3” type of deal, if you get what I mean. The goal is not a permanent peace, but a temporary ceasefire that gives Ukraine a chance to regroup, reorganize and rearm.
NATO military committee chairman Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone recently hinted that NATO may need to make an offensive “pre-emptive strike” against Russia. Putin’s response left no room for confusion. He said this will trigger World War III. He said Russia is not looking for war with Europe, but if the Europeans insist on attacking Russia, his forces are ready to make a robust defense of the homeland.
We also see China gearing up. Moving more vessels into position around Taiwan. They also announced they are moving AI-powered robot soldiers into the border area with India.
All of the nations appear to be gearing up … preparing for war.
The U.S. is chief among them, saber rattling against Venezuela and other countries in Latin America. The strikes on SUSPECTED drug boats on the high seas, will now be done on land as well, Trump said. Shoot first, ask questions later.
The message out of Trump’s new Department of War is consistent: We make war in order to be peaceful. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Could it be more Orwellian?
WHY WAR? It all boils down to a fight over resources and who gets to call the shots in the new world order that is quickly developing – the digitized, tokenized, collateralized, transhumanized, depopulated world order.
The economy is slowly collapsing
Debt is rising at an unsustainable pace. Rents are rising. Food prices are rising. Electricity rates are rising. Local property taxes are rising. Taken in totality, this amounts to a war on the middle class.
So far in 2025, 1.17 MILLION JOB CUTS have been announced by corporate America. That’s 54 percent higher than last year. This will continue in 2026.
The debt bubble is getting ready to collapse. They know it. And that’s why they’re going to war. It has happened this way throughout history.
This is what happened in 1930s Germany with a collapse of the German currency and it set the stage for Hitler and World War II. Debt. Crushing debt.
Debt that the lender and the lendee both know can never be paid back. That’s a dangerous point to arrive at. You hear young people taking about it on TikTok.
And it’s not just government and consumers who are swimming in debt. The AI tech companies are financing their expansion of AI with money they don’t have, increasing their borrowing by crazy amounts.
We see conservatives, Republicans, in Congress retiring… up to 46 now… they know what’s coming.
The AI Takover
It started in earnest, the great replacement, in 2025 and it will only accelerate in 2026, adding to the economic misery. This is the anti-human beast system moving forward, advancing at warp speed. It won’t stop until it incorporates all ID systems and is connected to a digital-programmable currency.
President Donald J. Trump declared in a Truth Social post today that he is preparing an executive order to ban all regulation of AI by the 50 states.
Since when can a president undermine by executive order the constitutionally granted powers that lie with the states? This is an America I no longer recognize.
And I’m not alone.
John Whitehead, the legendary constitutional attorney and civil rights advocate, writes in a December 8 essay:
“…what good are rights on paper when every branch of government is allowed to ignore, circumvent, chip away at or hollow them out in practice? Two hundred and thirty-four years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, the safeguards meant to shield ‘We the people’ from government abuse are barely recognizable.”
He adds that our Founding Fathers made a historic effort to keep government in its lane with strong constitutional chains.
“In 2025, those chains have been cut link by link. These links were not severed in secret. They snapped under the weight of executive orders issued without congressional authority, judicial doctrines that shield misconduct from accountability, and a Congress that no longer defends its own constitutional prerogatives.”
The globalists are building the digital surveillance state at warp speed and they’re doing it under a Republican administration while keeping us distracted by other issues. They tested it out under Trump 1.0 during the Covid lockdowns, and now they are building the final dystopian version under Trump 2.0. Whether it happens under Trump or some future president, the digital infrastructure Trump is building will be weaponized and used to clamp down even harder on freedoms of all kinds than what we saw during the Covid scamdemic.
The devaluation of work and human agency
One of the most precious gifts given to us by God is the work of our hands, and the creative work of our minds.
This helps give us value as human beings.
AI, as a manmade replica of God’s design for human work and creative ability, aims to eliminate the need for human agency. Thus, the need for humans altogether will eventually be seen as a liability on the earth. This is one reason they love war. It’s a great way to depopulate.
I think a lot of people will figure out that AI is a poor imitation of human agency. You can already see some of the hype fading, but will it be too late? That’s the question.
Will our will to work be so warped and degraded because we’re all dependent on this twisted demonic version of how work and creativity get done in our world?
I think that’s the danger.
I think the globalist technocrats will come close to destroying humanity, but they won’t succeed.
There are other dangers, too. Like building out the infrastructure for a truly dystopian global surveillance system, with all these AI data centers being used for what will eventually be a social credit scoring system and the means of enforcement for 15-minute cities. Herding people into ZONES and punishing the uncooperative ones as they did during Covid.
Covid was a DRY RUN for what they want to do to us. You don’t follow the new rules, you can’t function in society.
Also, AI is taking over global militaries. The globalists are testing out the new weapons systems in Gaza and Ukraine. Eventually, these weapons, such as AI drone swarms and Palantir-type target lists, will be turned on other people groups considered expendable. Useless eaters, as Yuval Noah Harari described them.
We won’t even be having the debate about shooting at drug boats off the coast of Venezuela once AI is making the decisions on targets. Think about that. Again, this removes human agency. Thus, it removes the need for the type of public debate that naturally occurs in a democratic republic. This debate is considered too messy and time consuming for the technocratic oligarchs. They would rather turn all government decision-making over to machines. It’s so much more efficient!
Now is the time to withhold your consent to all systems that request your biometric data. Otherwise, we will all be herded into a digital gulag run by algorithms and it will be impossible to get out of.
The more we can learn to do outside of the system the better off we will be when digital ID/money becomes mandatory and we find ourselves locked out of many societal systems. That will include all systems like Social Security and others having to do with the federal government, as well as many, and eventually all, state governments. You simply won’t be able to use these systems much longer without a biometric digital ID.
Are you ready for that? Hopefully we don’t get to that point in 2026 but I can’t see it being stalled off longer than 2030.
[Ed.: “Illegal Executive Orders? I’m apparently losing my mind!”
Pollard: The Hilltop Youth Are the ‘New Irgun’ By Mordechai Sones
Why the government’s failure to govern has turned young shepherds into Israel’s last defense against a de facto Palestinian State
December 8, 2025
History is not merely repeating itself in Judea and Samaria; it is screaming a warning we dare not ignore.
Contents
The Myth of ‘Settler Violence’ vs. The Reality of Strategic Conquest
In the late 1930s, the Jewish establishment in pre-State Palestine was paralyzed by a policy of Havlagah—self-restraint. Desperate to appease British colonial overseers and maintain a veneer of respectability, the leadership refused to respond decisively to Arab terror. Jewish blood was cheap; Jewish roads were death traps. It was a policy of strategic suicide disguised as morality. It ended only when the Irgun stepped into the void, rejecting the paralysis of the establishment and replacing restraint with deterrence.
In a blistering communique, Jonathan Pollard warns that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted a modern, and equally disastrous, policy of Havlagah. By refusing to enforce the law against a massive, foreign-funded Arab takeover of our heartland, the Cabinet has abdicated its most fundamental duty: sovereignty.
“In some respects,” Pollard told Jewish Home News, “the vigilante actions of some Hilltop residents remind me of the pre-State days when retaliatory terror operations conducted by the Irgun finally put an end to the Arab rain of murder and mayhem.”
The young pioneers on the ridges of Judea and Samaria—derisively labeled “Hilltop Youth”—are not the problem. They are the inevitable antibodies generated by a state that refuses to defend its own immune system.
The Myth of ‘Settler Violence’ vs. The Reality of Strategic Conquest
To understand why young Jewish shepherds are establishing outposts on rugged ridges, one must first look at the map the government refuses to show you. The media, echoing the U.S. State Department, is obsessed with a narrative of “settler violence.” It is a narrative that collapses under the weight of a single, staggering statistic.
According to the 2024-2025 Strategic Report by the Regavim Movement, the Palestinian Authority—bankrolled by the European Union—has built 97,581 illegal structures in Area C.
Let that number sink in. This is not a housing crisis; it is a war. It is the “Fayyad Plan” in overdrive—a systematic, strategic strangulation of Jewish settlement blocs designed to create a de facto Palestinian state without a single negotiation.
Exposing the (many!) lies behind “No Other Land” documentary [34:02] https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UH9xpAT3f8
While the media focuses on ‘Settler Violence,’ Regavim exposes the 97,000 illegal Arab structures choking Jewish communities
In the face of this massive, illegal territorial conquest, what is the Israeli government’s priority? It is not the demolition of this hostile terror state rising in our backyard. Instead, Pollard notes with scathing clarity, the Cabinet directs the Shin Bet’s “Jewish Section” to hunt down teenagers for building shacks on state land.
“Illegal Arab building continues without let up,” Pollard writes, “but all Bibi and Bezalel Smotrich can complain about is a bunch of kids taking out their frustrations on known terror-supporting cities.”
This is not law enforcement; it is a moral inversion. A government that tolerates nearly 100,000 illegal enemy fortresses while brutalizing its own pioneers for pitching tents has lost the right to speak of “rule of law.”
The Open Wound on the East
The paralysis of Havlagah extends to the borders. The Jordan Valley, once our secure eastern wall, has become a sieve. It is no longer a border; it is a highway for Iranian-backed weaponry flooding into Judea and Samaria. M-16s, RPGs, and Claymore mines are moving freely into terror cells in Jenin and Shechem.
“The fact of the matter is that the army’s anti-terror campaign in the Territories has been an utter failure,” Pollard argues. “Illegal weapons shipments continue to flow across our Eastern border with Jordan while the terrorists’ infrastructure in places like Jenin, Tulkarem and Qalqilya is still largely intact.”
A sovereign government would respond to this existential threat with immediate, overwhelming force: sealing the border hermetically, deporting smugglers, and dismantling the terror nests. Instead, the IDF “manages” the conflict while the enemy plants a forest.
It is into this deadly security vacuum that the Hilltop Youth step. Their presence on the ridges is not an act of rebellion; it is an act of desperate necessity. When a young family moves a flock of sheep onto a strategic hill, they are implementing a Jewish agricultural settlement strategy—holding territory to prevent the territorial contiguity of a terror state.
Sovereignty or Suicide
The government of Israel faces a binary choice, identical to the one faced by the Yishuv leadership in 1939.
It can continue its policy of Havlagah. It can continue to curry favor with Washington by ignoring the 97,000 illegal Arab strongholds while persecuting the few Jews willing to hold the ground. It can continue to let the Jordanian border remain a sieve. This path guarantees that “vigilantism” will only grow, because when a state refuses to protect its citizens, the citizens will eventually protect themselves.
Or, it can choose sovereignty.
“Maybe—just maybe,” Pollard posits, “if the government instituted both a decisive anti-terror campaign in the Territories along with a concerted effort to roll back rampant illegal Arab construction, maybe there wouldn’t be so many instances of Jewish vigilantism.”
The solution is not to crush the Hilltop Youth.
The solution is to make them unnecessary by doing the job the government was elected to do: Seal the borders, demolish the illegal Arab sprawl, and win the war.
The UN war on Israel’s high ground MOSHE PHILLIPS
American Jewish leaders must come to understand that to critics of Israel, there is no difference between “settlements” in Judea and Samaria and “settlements” on the Golan.
December 8, 2025 JNS
The bureaucratic diplomats at the United Nations again demonstrated their addiction to attacking Israel’s best interests with a vote on Dec. 2 about the Golan. In a resolution sponsored by Egypt, 123 nations voted for Syrian control over the Golan Heights and for Israel to return to the June 4, 1967 lines.
The resolution received much more support than in 2024, when 97 nations voted against multiple generations of Israeli families remaining in their homes on the Golan. The resolution states that Israel’s decision in December 1981 to expand sovereignty must be rescinded.
What’s more, the U.N. General Assembly had a second vote on Dec. 5 that labeled Israeli communities on the Golan as “illegal.” A total of 146 nations voted in favor of this resolution.
Can you imagine the danger Israel would have faced last December when chaos enveloped Syria? Or if, on Oct. 7, 2023, Iranian proxy terrorists on a Syrian-controlled Golan had joined Hamas and Hezbollah, and opened up a third front against the Jewish state?
If Israel had surrendered to U.S. demands in the 1990s to give up the Golan Heights, how many Israeli lives would have been lost in the ensuing 25 years?
On March 25, 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the following to U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House: “Mr. President, just as Israel stood tall in 1967, just as it stood tall in 1973, Israel stands tall today. We hold the high ground, and we shall never give it up. Mr. President, we have a saying in Israel. I’ll say it in Hebrew. It says, Ha’am im Hagolan. That means, ‘The people are with the Golan.’ But thanks to you, we now know that there are two peoples who stand with the Golan: the people of Israel and the people of America. So, on behalf of all the people of Israel: Thank you, President Trump.”
On the same day as the first U.N. vote about the Golan, Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, was speaking across town at the Israel Hayom summit in Manhattan. He stated that there is “a full-scale assault on truth, on democracy and on the safety of Jewish people everywhere.”
He could have said “everywhere at the United Nations” and been correct.
Additionally, Lauder declared that “there are Muslims and Arabs who reject terrorism, who reject extremism, who reject using Israel as an excuse for hatred. Let us build a coalition so strong, so united, so determined, that no extremist movement can fracture it.”
Lauder, who has served as president of the WJC since 2007, is demanding far too much from Israel. Israel cannot be expected to build this fantasy “coalition” while Hamas is still armed and in power in Gaza. In fact, it shouldn’t even be discussed now.
Truthfully, such ideas as this “coalition” have no place in the current Middle East era of autocracies, when there are no true democracies in the region besides Israel. The Arab world is legendary for revolutions and violent coups; it is beyond naive to suggest that Israel can risk a Palestinian state of any size just to be part of some anti-extremist “coalition” that could prove to be short-lived and extremely ineffective.
And make no mistake: A Palestinian state is the price that the Gulf sheikdoms and other authoritarian, repressive regimes that comprise the region would exact from Israel to launch this “coalition.”
In August 2025, Lauder said “the inciteful calls” from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to “ ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’ are wholly unbecoming of a representative of the state of Israel.”
American Jewish leaders must come to understand that, to critics of Israel, there is no difference between “settlements” in Judea and Samaria and “settlements” on the Golan. When American Jews attack the rights of Jewish families to live in Judea and Samaria, the Israelis in the Golan are put even more at risk.
Just weeks after Lauder’s broadside against Smotrich, the Hamas-led terrorist invasion of communities in southern Israel caused Israelis who were previously open to it to rethink a Palestinian state.
Perhaps the best example of this is Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who in January said to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, that “the idea of the two-state solution is something which, on record, I supported in the past, many times. But I would say that I had a wake-up call following Oct. 7, in the sense that I want to hear my neighbors say how much they object, regret, condemn and do not accept in any way the terrible tragedy of the terror attack of Oct. 7 and the fact that terror cannot be the tool to get there.”
It is long past time for American Jewish leaders to “wake up” and realize that, just as Israel’s leaders in the 1990s were right to stand with the Israeli communities in the Golan Heights, they are right today to support Israelis who wish to remain in Judea and Samaria, despite that critics such as U.N. diplomats, Zakaria and even Lauder dismiss these communities as “settlements.”
MOSHE PHILLIPS Moshe Phillips, a veteran pro-Israel activist and author, is the national chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI). A former board member of the American Zionist Movement, he previously served as national director of the U.S. division of Herut and worked with CAMERA in Philadelphia. He was also a delegate to the 2020 World Zionist Congress and served as editor of The Challenger, the publication of the Tagar Zionist Youth Movement. His op-eds and letters have been widely published in the United States and Israel.
Why Afghanistan and Iraq veterans feel betrayed
THE CEASEFIRE ILLUSION: HOW QATAR IS PLAYING WASHINGTON — AND ENDANGERING ISRAEL by David Mark
December 8, 2025 Israel Unwired
There is a reason every time the world speaks of a Gaza “ceasefire,” Doha appears at the center of the diplomatic stage. It’s not because Qatar is a neutral party. It’s because Qatar has spent the better part of two decades investing in Hamas — financially, politically, ideologically — and now wants to shape the endgame. And in phase two of the Gaza deal, the danger is simple: Israel may be maneuvered into surrendering security for illusions, while Qatar protects the very terror group it helped build.
This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a documented fact.
Qatar funneled hundreds of millions into Hamas-run Gaza, funded the group’s salaries, hosted its leaders in luxury, and gave political legitimacy to an openly genocidal movement. Qatar is not a “mediator.” Qatar is a benefactor of the organization that carried out October 7.
And now the same Qatar is positioning itself as the indispensable broker for a ceasefire that — if mishandled — could leave Hamas battered but alive, disarmed on paper, and ready to reconstitute the moment Israel pulls back.
If that sounds familiar, it is: the entire Middle East knows Qatar’s game.
Qatar and Turkey: The “Custodians” of Hamas
While Washington talks about “stability,” Qatar and Turkey speak in a different language — one that prioritizes Hamas’s survival. They have pushed hard for rapid Israeli withdrawal and minimal pressure on Hamas to surrender weapons.
Qatar’s prime minister has already warned that the current pause cannot become a ceasefire “until Israeli forces withdraw.”
Translation: Qatar wants Israel out before Hamas’s military machine is dismantled.
Similarly, Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan has warned that pushing Hamas too hard on disarmament would “destabilize” the process.
Destabilize for whom?
For Qatar, Hamas remains a valuable strategic asset — a pressure lever on Israel, a bargaining chip in Arab politics, and a megaphone for Islamism. Doha does not want that asset destroyed.
Israel Sees the Trap — and Netanyahu Knows It
The Israeli government, haunted by the memory of October 7, understands what “phase two” really means if taken on Qatar’s terms: a withdrawal without neutralizing Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been blunt: no significant withdrawal without verified disarmament. That is not a political stance — it’s a survival instinct.
Jerusalem officials quietly admit they fear Doha’s approach is meant to leave Hamas partially intact, stored weapons and command structure preserved “under supervision,” waiting for the right moment to reemerge. Israelis know what this means: a ticking bomb disguised as diplomacy.
And the Israeli public has no appetite for a replay of the past. After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Israel will not accept foreign promises that “Hamas will behave this time.”
Hamas behaves only when it cannot fight.
Will President Trump Pressure Bibi?
President Donald Trump wants a win — a dramatic, global diplomatic victory. He has invested political capital in delivering phase two. And he will push Netanyahu to accept some form of guarantees: international monitors, stored weapons, supervised governance.
But the Israeli prime minister is facing a nation that understands the stakes too well. Israelis know the region. They know Hamas’s history. And they know Qatar’s motives.
Trump may pressure, but Netanyahu is cornered by Israeli public opinion, the IDF, and the basic logic of national security. In Israel, you cannot trade safety for applause.
The Probability of Hamas Actually Disarming: Minimal at Best
Let’s be clear: Hamas will not voluntarily disarm.
Their rhetoric may soften; they may talk about “freezing” weapons. But freezing is not disarming. Storing is not destroying. And Hamas has no incentive to give up the one thing that secures its relevance and leverage.
Based on open-source intelligence, historical patterns, and the organization’s ideological DNA, the realistic probability of full disarmament under a Qatar-managed process is between 15% and zero.
Doha does not want Hamas eliminated.
What Happens If Israel Moves Forward Without Disarmament?
Three outcomes — all bad:
1. Hamas Survives in a New Form
The group will bury weapons, rebuild tunnels, embed command posts in reconstruction zones, and wait. Qatar will pay. Turkey will cheer. And the world will pretend Gaza is “stabilizing.”
2. Israeli Withdrawal Becomes a Geopolitical Victory for Qatar
Doha will have engineered a scenario where Israel destroys Hamas militarily — only for Qatar to resurrect it politically. This is Doha’s preferred outcome: Hamas weakened, but not defeated; Israel humiliated, but responsible for rebuilding; Qatar crowned as kingmaker.
3. The Ceasefire Becomes a Fuse
If Israel withdraws while Hamas is still armed in any form, a future war becomes inevitable. The only question is timing… and how many Israelis will pay the price.
The Bottom Line
The next phase in Gaza is not about “humanitarian concerns” or “regional stability.” It is about whether Israel allows Qatar — Hamas’s most loyal patron — to dictate the terms of Gaza’s future.
Phase two is not a diplomatic process. It is an intelligence test.
If Israel insists on real, verifiable disarmament — backed by force, not promises — the future may yet be stable. But if Jerusalem bows to Qatar’s pressure and Trump’s desire for a quick win, phase two will become what Qatar hopes it will be:
A political victory for Hamas, a strategic defeat for Israel, and a quiet guarantee that the next war is already on the calendar.
Israel must not walk into Doha’s trap.
Chanukah Guide for the Perplexed, 2025 Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
December 8, 2025 “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
More on Jewish holidays: Smashwords, Amazon
1.Chanukah (evening of December 14 – December 22, 2025) is the only Jewish holiday that commemorates an ancient national liberation struggle in the Land of Israel, unlike Passover, Sukkot/Tabernacles and Shavu’ot/Pentecost, which commemorate the liberation from slavery in Egypt to independence in the land of Israel, and unlike Purim, which commemorates liberation from a Persian attempt to annihilate the Jewish people of Persia.
2. NBC news, December 13, 2022: “An ancient treasure trove of silver coins dating back 2,200 years, found in a desert cave in Israel, could add crucial new evidence to support a story of Jewish rebellion…. The 15 silver coins were hidden [during] the Maccabean revolt from 167-160 B.C., when Jewish warriors rebelled against the Seleucid [Syrian] Empire….”
3. In 1777, Chanukah candles were lit, by a Jewish soldier, during the Valley Forge encampment, the turning point of the Revolutionary War, which solidified the victory of George Washington’s Continental Army over the British monarchy. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a player in the ratification of the US Constitution, paving the road to the Boston Tea Party, 1773: “What shining examples of patriotism do we behold in Joshua, Samuel, the Maccabees and t
he illustrious princes and prophets among the Jews…” On December 6, 2013, Ambassador Hank Cooper, a former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, wrote: “We need modern day Maccabees to preserve the heritage of liberty for our posterity….”
4. According to Israel’s Founding Father, David Ben Gurion: Chanukah commemorates “the struggle of the Maccabees, which was one of the most dramatic clashes of civilizations in human history, not merely a political-military struggle against foreign oppression…. Unlike many peoples, the meager Jewish people did not assimilate. The Jewish people prevailed, won, sustained and enhanced their independence and unique civilization…. It was the spirit of the people, rather than the establishment, which enabled the Hasmoneans to overcome one of the most magnificent spiritual, political and military challenges in Jewish history….” (Uniqueness and Destiny, pp 20-22, David Ben Gurion, IDF Publishing, 1953).
5. Chanukah and the Land of Israel. When ordered by Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid region to end the Jewish “occupation” of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Gaza, Gezer and Akron, Shimon the Maccabee responded: “We have not occupied a foreign land…. We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation (Book of Maccabees A: 15:33).”
Chanukah highlights the centrality of the Land of Israel in the formation of Judaism and the Jewish people. The mountain ridges of Judea and Southern Samaria (the West Bank) – the cradle of Jewish history, religion, culture and language – were the platform for the Maccabean military battles: Mitzpah (the burial site of the Prophet Samuel, overlooking Jerusalem), Beit El (the site of the Ark of the Covenant and Judah the Maccabee’s initial headquarters), Beit Horon (Judah’s victory over Seron), Hadashah (Judah’s victory over Nicanor), Beit Zur (Judah’s victory over Lysias), Ma’aleh Levona (Judah’s victory over Apolonius), Adora’yim (a Maccabean fortress), Eleazar (named after Mattityahu’s youngest Maccabee son), Beit Zachariya (Judah’s first defeat), Ba’al Hatzor (where Judah was defeated and killed), Te’qoah, Mikhmash and Gophnah (bases of Shimon and Yonatan), the Judean Desert, etc.
6. Chanukah’s historical context is narrated in the 4 Books of the Maccabees, The Scroll of Antiochus and The Wars of the Jews.
In 323 BCE, following the death of Alexander the Great (Alexander III) who held Judaism in high esteem, the Greek Empire was split into three independent and rival mini-empires: Greece, Seleucid/Syria and Ptolemaic/Egypt.
In 175 BCE, the Seleucid/Syrian Emperor Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes claimed the Land of Israel. He suspected that the Jews were allies of his Ptolemaic/Egyptian enemy. The Seleucid emperor was known for eccentric behavior, hence his name, Epiphanes, which means “divine manifestation.” He aimed to exterminate Judaism and convert Jews to Hellenism. In 169 BCE, he devastated Jerusalem, attempting to decimate the Jewish population, and outlaw the practice of Judaism.
In 166/7 BCE, a Jewish rebellion was led by the non-establishment Hasmonean (Maccabee) family from the rural town of Modi’in, half-way between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. The rebellion was headed by Mattityahu, the priest, and his five sons, Yochanan, Judah, Shimon, Yonatan and Eleazar, who fought the Seleucid occupier and restored Jewish independence. The Hasmonean dynasty was replete with external and internal wars and lasted until 37 BCE, when Herod the Great (a proxy of Rome) defeated Antigonus II Mattathias.
The reputation of Jews as superb warriors was reaffirmed by the success of the Maccabees on the battlefield. In fact, they were frequently hired as mercenaries by Egypt, Syria, Carthage, Rome and other global and regional powers.
7.Chanukah celebrates the Maccabean-led national liberation by conducting in-house family education and lighting candles – in a 9-branch-candelabrum – for 8 days in commemoration of the re-inauguration of Jerusalem’s Jewish Temple and its Menorah (candelabrum).
The Hebrew words Chanukah (חנוכה), inauguration (חנוכ) and education ((חנוך possess an identical root.
8. As was prophesized by the Prophet Hagai in 520 BCE, the re-inauguration of the Temple took place on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, which is the month of miracles, such as the post-flood appearance of Noah’s rainbow, the completion of the construction of the Holy Ark by Moses, the laying of the foundations of the Second Temple by Nehemiah, etc.
The 25th Hebrew word in Genesis is “light,” and the 25th stop during the Exodus was Hashmona (the same Hebrew spelling as Hasmonean-Maccabees).
9. Chanukah highlights the defeat of darkness, forgetfulness, disbeliefand pessimism, and the victory of light, commemoration, faith, defiance of odds, can-do mentality and optimism (darkness and forgetfulness are spelled with identical Hebrew letters: חשכה, שכחה). The first day of Chanukah is celebrated when daylight hours are equal to darkness hours – and when moonlight is hardly noticed – ushering in brighter days.
Purges, Collapse Inside CIA, and the Path to National Recovery Part II MICHAEL T. FLYNN LTG USA (RET)
DEC 06, 2025
The aftermath of January 6th must be understood in tandem with the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the federal vaccine mandates. Together, they formed the operational center of a three-tiered purge aimed at the heart of the American national security workforce.
Revolutions require crisis. They cannot sustain themselves solely on theory. A strategic choice must be made about where that crisis will be centered. If the battlefield is domestic, foreign crises must be controlled or terminated quickly. From this perspective, the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan takes on an additional dimension. Clearing the deck internationally created space for the domestic crisis narrative around January 6 to dominate. It is plausible that the decision to accept a disastrous withdrawal was seen as an acceptable cost if it allowed the administration and its ideological allies to focus fully on remaking the internal machinery of the state.
Barely a week after Afghanistan fell, vaccine mandates were announced for the entire federal workforce. From the first moment, it was clear to many inside the system that this was not primarily about public health. It was about obedience, identification, and removal. Those who refused to comply were disproportionately religious, constitutionally minded, conservative in outlook, or simply unwilling to submit to coerced medical intervention. In other words, they were the precise cohort that revolutionary ideologues view as an obstacle.
What followed across the federal government was a coordinated pattern. Agencies created religious accommodation processes that were adversarial by design. Internal systems were engineered to route almost every request toward denial. In some cases, the process itself kept changing to trap employees into non-compliance that could be framed as insubordination. Compliance numbers were falsified. Lists of non-compliant personnel were compiled. Unvaccinated officers were labeled as insider threats, a term previously used for spies, saboteurs, or those posing physical security risks. In some cases, armed officers were informed that their firearms could be taken or their positions altered based on their refusal.
Crude calculations made inside multiple agencies suggested that the administration was prepared to terminate a staggering proportion of the national security workforce. While public reporting put the number of separated service members in the thousands, internal estimates and anecdotal evidence suggest the actual impact may have been orders of magnitude greater, including forced retirements, coerced resignations, career-destroying notations, and informal blacklists. The intent appears to have been nothing less than the ideological purification of the federal apparatus under the cover of a health emergency.
The Central Intelligence Agency was not immune to this process. Within the CIA, the enforcement of mandates and the surrounding machinery of compliance bore the hallmarks of DEI-aligned activism rather than neutral personnel management. Officers who sought religious accommodations often did so at high personal and professional cost. Many are still living with the consequences of stalled careers, hostile evaluations, and the lingering suspicion that their names remain flagged in unseen databases. Internal investigations by networks of concerned officers uncovered documentation that suggested these non-compliance lists were being shared or prepared for sharing with the Pre-Trial Services Agency, which, by its own description, exists to support the federal courts in managing newly arrested defendants.
If vaccine noncompliance were being linked conceptually to January 6-related offenses, a dangerous precedent would have been established. A government was effectively considering religious objection or medical autonomy a political crime. This is characteristic of regimes that have moved from disagreement to criminalization, not of constitutional republics.
The mandates also degraded mission capability. Units responsible for covert action, high-risk operational training, and sensitive overseas work saw their personnel threatened with termination or sidelining. In some cases, the only way to preserve operational readiness was for entire cadres of officers to falsify their records to remain on paper compliant. This compounded the moral injury. Officers were forced to choose between betraying their conscience and lying to preserve the mission. Both choices inflicted damage.
As this purge machinery ground forward, the war in Ukraine erupted. For years, Ukraine had served as a corridor for corruption, influence, and financial gamesmanship—the sudden reality of a large-scale conventional war altered priorities. Dark money projects and ideological crusades found themselves competing with battlefield realities, international pressure, and a complex escalation environment. It is reasonable to conclude that the invasion of Ukraine disrupted the internal purge timetable. The administration could no longer sustain the same level of focus on domestic ideological enforcement while managing a major foreign crisis in a theater saturated with intelligence and military equities.
Parallel to this, the DEI apparatus that had spearheaded much of the internal revolution began to show signs of fatigue and failure. The most revealing moment came in the summer of 2024 inside the CIA. At a meeting of Resource Groups, the senior psychologist tasked with leading DEI initiatives effectively held a referendum on the entire project. According to officers present, she launched into a furious, emotionally charged acknowledgment that DEI had failed to achieve its goals.
There was another consequence of the mandate era and the broader ideological struggle. For the first time in American history, employees from nearly every sector of the executive branch filed legal actions against their own government in large numbers. The courts were flooded with cases that pitted citizens and career civil servants against the agencies they served. This produced precisely the kind of overload that foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party have long sought to engineer. Their information campaigns and influence operations have openly aimed at overburdening American institutions. Here, ironically, the executive branch itself became the primary source of the overload on the judiciary.
In strategic terms, the damage inflicted upon the United States over these years is severe, but not fatal. The revolution failed to consolidate. The purge was not fully completed. The DEI movement inside key institutions cracked under its own contradictions. Ordinary Americans resisted. A remnant inside the federal workforce refused to bow. Courts, despite all the pressure, blocked some of the most extreme measures. Reality asserted itself against ideology.
The question now is what must be done. The path forward requires more than outrage. It involves policy and structure.
First, the architecture of the modern welfare state, which has turned large segments of the population into political clients, must be dismantled. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and its subsequent expansions helped create a permanent dependency machine that can be weaponized for revolutionary ends. Rolling back these structures will not be easy, but it is essential if Americans are to recover a culture of responsibility, family formation, and self-government.
Second, the country must deliberately cultivate the nuclear family, childbearing, and stable communities. This is not sentimental nostalgia. It is a matter of national survival. A society that abandons marriage, parenthood, and property stewardship will not endure. Incentives, policies, and cultural signals must all point toward building households capable of raising the next generation with a sense of identity and duty.
Third, American education must be reclaimed from red-washed narratives. Civics, honest history, and a clear account of the crimes of Marxist regimes must be restored. Children and young adults must understand both the promise and the fragility of ordered liberty. If they do not know what distinguishes this Republic from totalitarian systems, they will not recognize the danger until it is too late.
Fourth, the intelligence community must be reformed so that it returns to its proper mission of defending the nation against foreign threats rather than serving as an instrument of domestic social engineering. This means rooting out politicized structures, prohibiting the use of intelligence tools against the domestic political opposition except in the narrowest and most clearly justified circumstances, and rebuilding a culture of professional, apolitical service.
Fifth, society must recover a sense of moral coherence. A nation cannot survive long when it denies reality in matters as fundamental as truth, sex, responsibility, and the value of human life. While America is home to many faith traditions, there must be a shared recognition that there are objective standards that cannot simply be rewritten by fashion or decree. Without this, the law becomes only an instrument of power.
Finally, there must be a national effort to educate the public about the patterns, methods, and vocabulary of Marxist and neo-Marxist movements. This does not require witch hunts. It requires clarity. Once citizens understand how these systems operate, they are far harder to manipulate; the mask slips. The slogans no longer suffice, and the glamour of the revolution fades.
There remains, inside this country and inside its battered institutions, a remnant of men and women who never surrendered. They stayed at their posts. They told the truth, quietly or openly, when it was dangerous to do so. They refused to consent to lies. They suffered for it. Careers were derailed. Retirements were accelerated. Friendships were broken. Some were imprisoned. Many were slandered, but they are still here.
Like the Founders before them, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, not in the abstract but in the daily grind of saying no to a machine that demanded their submission. The cost has been high. Yet the Republic still stands. That is not an accident. It is the fruit of Providence and the courage of ordinary people acting in extraordinary times.
For the God of our fathers. For the country we inherited. For the Republic that must not fall. The struggle is not over. But neither is the story of America.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar: ‘Turkey’s Provocative Warships — Erdogan Is Playing With Fire [VIDEO 16:13]
December 6, 2025 Israpundit
Dr. Mordechai Kedar explains the deep historical and ideological roots which defines much of the growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey today. The roots of past Great Power competitions between these two nations have a direct and meaningful bearing on the shaping of current events, including the future of Gaza. Kedar recalls that in the Middle East, history is not a distant memory but is instead the motivation which drives political behavior, something which is lost on many in the West who have little knowledge or interest in the history.
With this in mind, Kedar explains that the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the Arab world for centuries, including Syria, Lebanon, the Land of Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and the Hijaz, which includes Mecca and Medina. Many Turks, and particularly Turkey’s President Erdogan , maintain a perceived claim over those lands based on this history. Indeed, Erdogan has made no effort to hide the fact that he sees himself as the heir to the Ottoman caliphate and that Turkey should reclaim its position as the religious and political ruler over these lands. Notably, he often points to the return of Jews ruling over Israel after nearly 2,000 years as an argument that Muslims too can “return” to lands they once ruled.
Saudi Arabia, however, currently controls Mecca and Medina. While the Saudi royal family does not originate from the Hijaz, they gained control of it following the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I. Adopting the title “Guardians of the Holy Places,” the Saudis came to assume the religious authority which was previously held by the sultans of the Ottoman empire. This historical context significantly contributes to Turkish resentment and competition with the Saudis.
Kedar explains that the historical context, there also exists an important ideological struggle between these two powers. Erdogan’s Turkey aligns with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that seeks to eliminate Western influence, eliminate Western presence and eradicate Western culture in Arabia. They also seek to impose Islamic law, and replace the relative existing regimes under the rule of the Caliphate. Saudi Arabia, in contrast, practices a state-controlled Islam, which is centered around the support of its established regime. Hence, the contrasting ideological perspectives are that of revolution and stability. This leaves an irreconcilable division between the relative ideologies underlying the current regimes in Turkey and Saudi Arabia which are mutually exclusive. It also shapes their contrasting positions on Hamas in Gaza. Turkey openly supports Hamas, recognizing it as a Brotherhood affiliate, while Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain see Hamas as a threat.
The competition between Turkey and Saudi Arabia also touches sectors like energy as Turkey contests maritime gas agreements which exist between Lebanon, Cyprus, and others, while insisting that Mediterranean waters cannot be divided into exclusive economic zones. Although the international community rejects Turkey’s position, Erdogan’s regime is quite adept at applying diplomatic and military towards its goals.
Turning to Gaza, the TOV host raises a question about the role being played by Donald Trump, who maintains friendly ties with both Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Noting that Trump does not want new wars in the Middle East, Kedar reminds us that the US president is preoccupied with crises which he sees as more germane to American interest, including Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, and China. Importantly, Kedar observes that the U.S. cannot be relied upon to grasp the complexities of Middle Eastern history and motivations, and that Israel should not expect that America will act to manage Turkey.
Regarding the subject of an Arab force in Gaza and the creation of a second Palestinian state, Kedar explains that while the Saudis may publicly endorse such ideas for diplomatic purposes, neither they nor Israel truly believe a Palestinian state will emerge anytime soon. Despite this fact, Kedar cautions that symbolic statements made by MBS can represent motivation enough to influence other Muslim states to do the same, despite the danger which might ultimately result from them doing so. The result of this could be quite detrimental to both the interests of the Saudis and Israel.
In closing, Kedar addresses the role of Egypt under President Sisi. While Egypt fears instablity from the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, avoids any significant confrontation with them due to the combined interests of domestic sensitivities and economic incentives, the latter of which aligns Sisi’s own son with the Brotherhood’s attempts to smuggle arms into Gaza.
Middle Eastern motivations are always fluid, but they are significantly shaped by a deep understanding of regional history, ideological distinctions, and shifting power balances, all of which the West has little interest in navigating as they advance repeated efforts to force peace upon warring societies which have no possibility of long term peaceful cooperation. With this in mind, Israel must be cautious as it navigates the demand for solutions which are intrinsically opposed to long standing regional realities, even to suit its American ally.
WATCH [Translated from Hebrew with English dubbing]
This Is The Message Israel Needs to Hear [1:10:12] Avi Abelow
December 6, 2025 Pulse of Israel
Dec 6, 2025 Face To Face
Join Moshe Feiglin in this powerful video as he speaks plainly and passionately on the key issues shaping our times. Experience his unique perspective, bold convictions, and unflinching honesty — a message made for those who crave clarity beyond the headlines.
A Strategic Assessment of the American Cultural Revolution and the National Security State MICHAEL T. FLYNN LTG USA (RET)
DEC 05, 2025
The American people have just taken their first full breath after surviving an attempt to smother the Republic through a Marxist-inspired cultural campaign carried out largely through the administrative state, media, academia, and politicized elements of the national security bureaucracy. Most citizens did not fully perceive it while it was happening. Many in the intelligence community either passively accepted it or actively furthered it. The architects of this project are not finished, but their effort has been damaged and delayed. It is only by the grace of God that the country has endured to this point.
The American version of the cultural revolution is distinct from the Maoist model that ravaged China in the twentieth century. It did not coalesce around a single charismatic revolutionary figure. Instead, it spread along the arteries of bureaucracy, higher education, corporate structures, and activist networks. The long march through the institutions, as described by Antonio Gramsci, became the operational template. Rather than Red Guards filling the streets under the orders of an identifiable supreme leader, the United States experienced a coordinated convergence of agencies, NGOs, foundations, media outlets, and activist fronts, all advancing the same ideological project under different labels.
Because federal agencies differ widely in size, mission, culture, and internal resistance, this revolution unfolded unevenly. It never achieved total dominance in a single decisive stroke. Instead, it advanced by fragmentary gains and suffered fragmentary defeats. Wherever the ideological project captured an HR department, a training pipeline, a public school system, or a central media platform, it encountered resistance in state governments, independent media, individual courts, and networks of citizens who refused to comply. This piecemeal quality of implementation slowed the collapse and gave the American people time to see what was happening and respond.
Even as these battles played out in public, darker currents moved beneath the surface. We now assess that thousands of religious and conservative federal employees were quietly identified and referred to a little-known federal entity, the Pre-Trial Services Agency. Accounts and initial documentation indicate that this agency may have been used to catalog individuals solely on the basis of ideology and religious conviction, under the pretext of January 6, and vaccine-related non-compliance. The intention appears to have been not only administrative removal but also potential criminalization. This matter demands immediate, transparent investigation by any future administration that claims to be serious about the rule of law.
To understand the broader context, it is necessary to define what we mean by the concept of the welfare state. We are not merely describing traditional social programs. We refer instead to a constellation of fully funded professional activist groups that present themselves as separate causes but in reality form a single revolutionary bloc. Over the last decade, organizations under the banners of antifascism, racial justice, radical feminism, abortion on demand, certain LGBTQ plus factions, environmental extremism, and gun control advocacy have shown remarkable cohesion. They share donors, staff, narrative frameworks, and street-level tactics. Their membership overlaps. Their messaging is synchronized. They rapidly support one another’s campaigns and protests.
These groups present themselves as grassroots movements. In reality, they function much more like a professionalized revolutionary caste. Their core is composed not of ordinary citizens but of trained activists who treat agitation as a full-time occupation. They are funded through a mix of private foundations, wealthy donors, and, in some cases, federal and state resources. They serve as the street and digital arm of a broader ideological project whose goal is not reform but transformation. They are bound together by a worldview that is explicitly revolutionary and implicitly Marxist, even if many of their foot soldiers do not use that language.
Within this structure, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion plays a central role. DEI is not a harmless corporate fad. It is a cultural and psychological weapon system. In practice, DEI training and enforcement operate as a mechanism for behavioral conditioning, using guilt, struggle sessions, and the constant threat of social or professional punishment to bring individuals into line. The language of microaggressions, privilege, and systemic bias functions as a soft form of ideological policing. It compels people to monitor their speech, second-guess their instincts, and submit to an ever-expanding set of forbidden words and mandatory rituals.
This is not inclusion. It is coerced conformity disguised as virtue. The outcomes within institutions are fear, silence, and self-censorship. People learn quickly that specific questions cannot be asked, certain facts cannot be stated, and certain perspectives cannot be acknowledged without risking their careers. This is not an accidental side effect. It is the point. If you can compel people to lie about obvious realities in public, you own them. DEI is therefore best understood as a domestic application of political reeducation, aligned with Marxist and neo-Marxist approaches to cultural change.
Red washing is the term we use for the systematic erasure of material that exposes Marxism’s history, tactics, and consequences. When civics and traditional American history are removed from curricula and replaced with grievance narratives, the ground is prepared for a new ideology. When the record of socialist atrocities is buried or dismissed, whole generations lose the ability to recognize patterns that their grandparents would have seen immediately. This did not happen accidentally. Higher education, media, and entertainment became primary targets for this rewriting of memory.
By 2020, the United States had been subjected to decades of this cultural reshaping. The country entered that year already weakened and divided. The combined impact of a global pandemic, a Chinese Communist Party information campaign, and unprecedented civil unrest brought the country to a state of exhaustion. Law enforcement was undermanned and demoralized. The medical system was stretched to the limit. Schools at every level were shuttered or reduced to screens. The basic functions that distinguish a first-world nation were placed under siege.
These conditions were ideal for revolutionary actors who understood the Bolshevik concept of the spark. In Mao’s China, youth brigades became instruments of chaos once police authority had been stripped and traditional structures weakened. In the United States, policies calling for the defunding and delegitimizing of police, combined with political protection for rioters, produced something similar in spirit. The rolling riots of 2020 were not a spontaneous eruption. They were a conditioning phase, designed to hollow out public confidence, normalize political violence from the left, and set the emotional stage for a more targeted crisis.
That crisis came on January 6. Here, the doctrine of moderated violence is essential to understand. This tactic seeks to provoke an adversary into a desperate or unwise act that can then be weaponized to justify a crackdown. For a year, Americans watched their cities burn and were told it was mostly peaceful. Then, in a single day, a protest on Capitol grounds was framed as an insurrection, an existential threat to “democracy,” and the moral foundation for a years-long campaign of arrests, surveillance, and persecution. The left’s riots stopped instantly. The narrative flipped overnight. That abrupt shift reveals design, not coincidence.
January 6 was the planned inflection point that allowed the bureaucratic and activist alliance to declare open season on conservative and religious Americans. It became the lens through which all dissent could be labeled dangerous and disloyal. The people who entered the Capitol that day, many of them peaceful and bewildered, became the pretext for a broader project aimed at remaking the national security apparatus from within.
What came next moved beyond street-level activism or cultural capture. It entered the bloodstream of the national security state. The aftermath of January 6, the collapse of Afghanistan, and the federal vaccine mandates combined into an unprecedented attempt to remake the federal workforce through coercion, intimidation, and ideological purification. Inside the CIA and across the national security apparatus, the internal revolution reached its apex and then began to fracture under its own contradictions.
Societal collapse is never a singular event. It is a process.
Stay tuned for PART II: Purges, Collapse Inside CIA, and the Path to National Recovery.
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