Connexion
Transcript
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Chris Hedges
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” calls out the role 63 nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”
“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.
The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.
The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”
The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4bn arms package for Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.
The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from “frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.
At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.
The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. Over 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was announced two weeks ago.
The first major ceasefire breach on October 19 led to Israeli air strikes that killed 100 Palestinians and wounded 150 others. Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure daily bombings that obliterate buildings and homes. Shelling and gunfire continue to kill and wound civilians, while drones continue to hover overhead broadcasting ominous threats.
Essential food items, humanitarian aid and medical supplies remain scarce because of the ongoing Israeli siege. And the Israeli army controls more than half of the Gaza Strip, shooting anyone, including families, who come too close to its invisible border known as the yellow line.
Joining me to discuss her report, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the complicity of numerous states in sustaining the genocide in Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.
Before we get into the report, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s just a complete disconnect between what is described by the international community, i.e. a ceasefire, the pace may have slowed down, but nothing’s changed.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, thank you for having me, Chris. I do agree that it seems that there is a complete disconnect between reality and political discourse. Because after the ceasefire, the attention has been forced to shift from Gaza elsewhere.
I do believe, for example, that the increased attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan, which has been such for years now, all of a sudden is due to the fact that there is a need for, especially from Western countries and the US, Israel and their acolytes to focus on a new emergency.
There is the pretense that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace. I mean, the Palestinians have not seen a day of peace because Israel has continued to fire, to use violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. Over 230 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, 100 of them in one day in 24 hours, including 50 children.
And starvation continues. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of trucks, but far, far below what is needed with much confusion because it’s very hard to deliver aid. All the more, Israel maintains a control over 50% of the Gaza Strip while the entire Gaza population is amassed in small portions, guarded portions of the territory.
So there is no peace. Meanwhile, while the Security Council seems to be ready to approve a Security Council resolution that will create a non-acronistic form of tutelage, of trusteeship over Palestine, over Gaza, the West Bank is abandoned to the violence and the ethnic cleansing pushed by armed settlers and soldiers while Israel jails continue to fill up with bodies to torture of adults and children alike. This is the reality in the occupied Palestinian territory today and so it makes absolutely no sense where the political discourse is.
Chris Hedges
Two issues about Gaza. One, of course, Israel has seized over 50% or occupies over 50% of Gaza. And as I understand it, they’re not allowing any reconstruction supplies, including cement, in.
Francesca Albanese
This is also my understanding. They have allowed in food, water and some essential materials needed for hospitals, mainly camp hospitals, tents. But anything related to sustainability is prohibited.
There are many food items that are also prohibited because they are considered luxurious. And the question, Chris, is, and this is why I harbor so much frustration these days toward member states because in the case of genocide, you have heard yourself the argument, well, the recalcitrance of certain states to use the genocide framework saying — and it’s pure nonsense from a legal point of view — but saying, well, the International Court of Justice has not concluded that it’s genocide.
Well, it has concluded already that there is a risk of genocide two years ago, in January, 2024. But however, even when the court does conclude on something relevant like in July, 2024, that the occupation is illegal and must be dismantled totally and unconditionally, this should be the starting point of any peace related or forward-looking discussions.
Instead of deliberating how to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, member states continue to maintain dialogue with Israel as Israel has sovereignty over the territory. See, so it’s completely dystopic, the future they are leading Palestinians out of despair into.
But they are also forcing the popular movement, the global movement that has formed made of young people and workers to stop. Because look at what’s happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK — any kind of attempt at maintaining the light turned on Palestine from Gaza to the West Bank is assaulted. Protests, conferences, there is a very active assault on anything that concerns Palestine.
So this is why I’m saying we are far, far beyond the mismanagement of the lack of understanding, I mean the negligence in approaching the question of Palestine, it’s active complicity to sustain Israel in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Chris Hedges
Which, as you point out in your report, has been true from the beginning despite a slight change in rhetoric recognizing the two-state solution. The UK did this while only cutting back on shipments by 10%.
But I want to ask before we get into the report, what do you think Israel’s goal is? Is it just to slow-walk the genocide until it can resume it? Is it to create this appalling, uninhabitable, unlivable ghetto? What do you think Israel’s goal is?
Francesca Albanese
I think that now more than ever it is impossible to separate and distinguish the goals of Israel from the goals of the United States. We tend to have a fragmented view of what happens, analyzing for example the relationship between Lebanon and Israel, between Iran and Israel, or between Israel and the Palestinians.
In fact, do, I mean, one of the things that Palestine has made me realize is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.
But there is this idea of Greater Israel and for a long time I have been among those who thought, who were wondering what it is, this “Greater Israel” because of course you look at the map by Israeli leaders in several occasions with this Greater Israel going from the Nile to the Euphrates and you say come on they cannot do that, they cannot occupy Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq.
But then everything changes when you look at it from a non-territorial border expansion perspective. And if you think that in fact domination can be exerted, established, other than by expanding the physical borders and through military occupation, but through domination and financial control, control from outside, power domination, you see that the Greater Israel project has already started and it’s very advanced.
Look at the annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. So all those who were historically considered not friends of Israel have been annihilated. And the other Arab countries that remain either do not have the capacity to confront Israel and perish the thought they explored the idea of unity among them or with others. And the others are fine with it.
Ultimately, I think that Greater Israel is the quintessential explanation of the US imperialistic design in that part of the world for which the Palestinians remain a thorn in the side not just for Israel but for the imperialistic project itself because the Palestinians are still there resisting.
They don’t want to go, they don’t want to be tamed, they don’t want to be dominated so they are the last line, the last frontier of resistance, both physically and in the imagination. And therefore, you see, the fierceness against them has scaled up, with the US now getting ready with boots on the ground to get rid of them. This is my interpretation of the general design behind Israel-United States, where Israelis are going to pay a heavy price like many in the region, not just the Palestinians.
Chris Hedges
So you see the imposition of American troops in Gaza as another step forward to the depopulation of Gaza.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, yes, yes, I don’t trust any promise made to the Palestinians either by Israel or by the United States because what I’ve seen over the past two years shows me, demonstrates to all of us in fact, that they don’t care at all about the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would have seen their suffering.
It’s just not like people like us who can really divide their life. Is it pre-genocide? Does it happen to you as well? Are you talking of pre-genocide or after genocide? Because in fact, the beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.
Now I don’t think so, which doesn’t mean that I think that the UN is over, but in order not to be over, in order to make sense to the people, it is to be led by dignity, principles like dignity, equality and freedom for all. And we are absolutely far from that today.
Chris Hedges
And what is it that brought you to this decision? Is it the acceptance of this faux ceasefire on the part of the UN, or was it before this moment?
Francesca Albanese
No, it’s before. It’s before. It’s the fact that for two years most states, primarily in the West, but with the acquiescence of other states in the region have supported the Israeli mantra of self-defense.
Sorry, it was a mantra because again, self-defense has a very, I’m not saying that Israel had no right to protect itself. Of course Israel had suffered a ferocious attack on October 7. Someone say similar to the attacks it had inflicted on the Palestinians. Others say more brutal, say less brutal. It doesn’t matter.
Israel suffered a horrible, violent attack. Israeli civilians suffered a horrible attack on October 7th. But hey, this didn’t give the possibility to Israel to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning the right to wage a war.
This is not legal. And on this I can say I’m surprised by how conservative are member states when it comes to the interpretation of international law, except on this, in the sense that the International Court of Justice has already set the limits of the right of invoking self-defense for member states.
And it can only be done against states where there is a concrete threat that the state will attack which is not the case here. So yes, Israel could defend itself, but not wage a war. And while the war was clearly identifiable more for its crimes than not its tendency to avoid crimes, member states have continued to say nothing and it was very extreme violence against the Palestinians in Gaza but also against the Palestinians in the West Bank. And for two years they’ve not used their power to stop it.
So I’m convinced that in order to have a political shift vis-à-vis Israel, there must be a political shift at the country level, because governments are completely subdued to the dictates of the US. Of course, if the US wanted, this would stop, but the US with this constellation of figures in the government is not going to stop.
And plus look at how the West in particular has contributed to dehumanize the Palestinians. Even today you hear people saying yes, Palestinians have been killed in these numbers because they’ve been used as human shields when the only evidence that they’ve been used as human shields is against Israel because Israel has used Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and in Gaza alike.
You see Palestinians have returned to be wrapped into this colonial tropism of them being the savages, the barbarians, in a way, they have brought havoc upon themselves. This is the narrative that the West has used toward the Palestinians. And by doing that, it has created, they have created the fertile ground for Israel’s impunity.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the nations that you single out in your report that have continued to sustain the genocide, either through weapons shipments, but also the commercial interests. I think your previous report talked about the money that was being made off of the genocide. Just lay out the extent of that collaboration and to the extent that you can, the sums of money involved.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, yeah, let me start with introducing generally two components, the military component and the trade and investment ones, which are quite interrelated. And states have, in general, I name 62 states, primarily Western states, but with substantive collaboration of states from the Global South, global majority, including some Arab states.
So they have altogether ignored, obscured and somewhat even profited from Israel’s violations of international law through military and economic channels. So military cooperation through arms trades or intelligence sharing has fueled Israel’s war machine during the occupation, the illegal occupation, and especially during the genocide while the United States and Germany alone have provided about 90% of Israel’s arms export.
At least 26 states have supplied or facilitated the transfer of arms or components, while many others have continued to buy weapons tested on the Palestinians. And this is why in my previous report, the ones looking at the private sector, I was shocked to see how much the Israeli stock exchange had gone up during the genocide.
And this is particularly because of a growth in the military industry. On the other hand, there is the trade and investment sector. Both have sustained and profited from Israel’s economy. Think that between 2023, 2024, actually the end of 2022 and 2024, exports of electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy minerals and what is called the dual-use have totaled almost 500 billion US dollars, helping Israel finance its military occupation.
Now one third of this trade is with the European Union while the rest is complemented by North American countries, the US and Canada, who have free trade agreements with Israel and several Arab states that have continued to deepen economic ties.
Only a few states have marginally reduced trade during the genocide, but in general the indirect commercial flows, including with states that have supposedly no diplomatic relation with Israel, have continued undisturbed.
It’s a very grim picture of the reality. But let me add just one extra element. I do believe that in many respects, the problem is ideological. As I said, there is a tendency to treat Ukraine, for example, vis-a-vis Russia, in a very different fashion than Palestine versus Israel. And this is why I think there is an element of Orientalism that accompanies also the tragedy of the Palestinian people.
Chris Hedges
Talk a little bit about the kinds of weapons that have been shipped to Israel. These are, and we should be clear that, of course, the Palestinians do not have a conventional army, don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have mechanized units, including tanks, they don’t have artillery, and yet the weapons shipments that are coming in are some of the most sophisticated armaments that are used in a conventional war.
And as a leaked Israeli report, I think it was +972, provided, 83 percent of the people killed in Gaza are civilians.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, yes. First of all, there are two things that are weapons, what is considered conventional weapons and dual-use. And both should have been suspended according to the decision of the International Court of Justice concerning Israel in the Nicaragua v. Germany case.
Meanwhile, there are two things: there is the transfer of weapons directly to Israel, and this includes aircraft, materials to compose the drones, because Israel doesn’t produce anything on its own, it requires components — artillery shells, for example, cannon ammunition, rifles, anti-tank missiles, bombs.
So these are all things that have been provided primarily by the United States. Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel has supplied a range of weapons from frigates to torpedoes.
And also, and then there is Italy, which has also provided spare parts for bombs and airplanes and the United Kingdom, who has played a key role in providing intelligence. And there is also the question of the U.N. Not everything is easy to track because the United States have traveled… the United States are the prime provider of weapons, also because they are the assembler of the F-35 program.
So there are 17 or 19 countries which cooperate and all of them say, well, you know, I mean, yes, I know that the F-35 is used in Israel, by Israel, but I only contribute to a small part. I only contribute to the wheels. I only contribute to the wings. I only provide these hooks or this engine.
Well, everything is assembled in the US and then sold or transferred or gifted to Israel. And it’s extremely problematic because this is why I say it’s a collective crime, because no one can assume the responsibility on their own but eventually all together they contribute to make this genocide implicating so many countries.
Chris Hedges
So Francesca, Israel is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world. To what extent do those relationships have? I mean, I think one of the largest purchasers of Israeli drones is India. We’ve seen India shift its position vis-a-vis Palestine.
Historically, it’s always stood with the Palestinian people. That’s no longer true under [Narendra] Modi. To what extent do those ties affect the response by the 63 some states that you write about for collaborating with the genocide.
Francesca Albanese
So let me first expand on this. Weapon and military technology sale is a core component of Israel’s economy. And since 2024, it has constituted one third of Israeli exports. And of course, there are two elements connected to this, is that these exports enhances Israel’s manufacturing capacity, but also horribly worsens the life of the Palestinians because Israeli military technology is tested on the Palestinians under occupation or other people under other Israeli related military activities.
Now, the fact that the arms export has increased of nearly 20% during the genocide, doubling toward Europe. And only the trade with Europe accounts for over 50% of Israeli military sales, selling to so many other countries, including in the Global South, the Asia and Pacific states in the Asia-Pacific region account for 23% of the purchase, with India being probably the major. But also 12% of the weapons tested on the Palestinians are purchased by Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. So what does it tell us?
It explains what you were hinting at in the question, the fact that this is also reflected in the political shift toward Israel that has been recorded at the General Assembly level. If you see how some African countries and Asian countries, including India, are behaving vis-a-vis Israel, it’s 180 degrees turn compared to where they were in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
This is because on the one hand, Israel is embedded in the global economy, but also it’s a global economy that is veering toward ultra liberal, I mean, it’s following ultra-liberalist ideologies and therefore capital and wealth and accumulation of resources, including military power comes first.
It’s very sad, but this is the reality. And it’s important to know because this is a long, as I was hinting before, my sense is that this is a long term trajectory that didn’t start on October 7th, 2023. I mean, probably since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalization of the system where the common denominator is force.
I mean, there is this, not a common denominator, but the unifying factor for many is force, how the monopoly of force that comes with weapons, capital and algorithms. And yeah, this is where the world is going.
Chris Hedges
Well, we’ve seen these weapons systems which of course are tested. They’re sold as bad. say the term is battle tested without naming the Palestinians, but they are sold to Greece to hold back migrants coming from North Africa. They are used along the border in the United States with Mexico.
And it’s not just that these weapons are “battle tested” on the Palestinians and we haven’t even spoken about these huge surveillance systems, but the very methods of control, the way they’re used are exported through military advisors.
Francesca Albanese
Of course, because in fact, the Israeli population is made almost entirely of soldiers. Of course, there are those who do not enlist in the army for religious reasons or because they are contentious objectors, they’re a tiny minority. But the majority of the people of Israelis go through the army.
And then many of them transfer their know-how or what they have been doing into their next career steps. So the fact that Israel, as I was documenting in my previous report, Israel’s startup economy has a huge dark side to the fact that it’s connected to the military industry and to the surveillance industry.
There is a significant body of Israeli citizens who are going around providing advice, intelligence and training in the Global South both to mercenaries and states proper like Morocco. So there is an Israelization and Palestinianization of the international relations or rather of the relations between individuals and states.
And I think the interesting thing, this is why I’m saying Palestine is such a revealer, it’s because, as you say, eventually these tools of control and securitization have concentrated in the hands of those who are fortifying borders at the expense of refugees and migrants.
So it’s really clear what’s happening here. There are oligarchs who are getting richer and richer and more and more protected in their fortresses where the state is providing the fertile ground to have it, but it’s not states that are benefiting from this inequality, because the majority of the people within states, look at the US, but also in Europe, are not benefiting from anything, in fact.
They’re victims. This is why you equally exploit it. This is why I’m saying it’s another degree of suffering, of course, than the Palestinians. But every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.
Chris Hedges
Well, internally as well. I mean, with Sikh farmers who were protesting Modi were out on the roads, suddenly, over their heads were Israeli-made drones dropping tear gas canisters.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, exactly. Drones are one of the most exported devices from Israel’s technology and they are in use by Frontex to surveil the Mediterranean Sea, as you were saying, the US-Mexican border. But more and more, they’re getting into people’s lives.
Also look at the way certain technologies have been perfected across borders. I remember earlier this summer, this is very anecdotal, I’ve not done research on it, but I knew that we were seeing something quite and horribly revolutionary.
This year, this summer during the protests in Serbia, where students and ordinary citizens were taken to the streets against the government and have been protesting for one year now, people in Serbia. I saw the use of these sound weapons, oxygen-fed weapons.
So there are bombs that produce such a pain in the body who finds itself in the wave that it’s excruciating. And then of course people try to flee, but they also lose senses, et cetera. And I’ve seen this in Serbia.
And now I understand that it’s being used in Gaza as well, where the bomb doesn’t produce fire, it produces a movement of air that causes pain to the body and even to internal organs. It’s incredible. And these are weapons that have been perfected through testing here and there, and Serbia keeps on selling and buying military technology to and from Israel.
Chris Hedges
I just want to close with, I mean, I think your reports, the last two reports in particular, show the complete failure on the part of governments as well as corporations to respond legally in terms of their legal obligations to the genocide. What do we do now? What must be done to quote Lenin?
How, because this, as you have pointed out repeatedly, really presages the complete breakdown of the rule of law. What as citizens must we do?
Francesca Albanese
I think that we have passed the alarm area. I mean, we are really in a critical place and I sense it because instead of correcting itself, the system led by governments is accentuating its authoritarian traits. Think of the repressive measures that the UK government is taking against protesters, against civil society, against journalists standing in solidarity with Palestine, for justice in Palestine.
In France and in Italy at the same time, conferences academic freedom is shrinking and in the same days, conferences of reputable historians and military and legal experts have been cancelled owing to the pressure of the pro-genocide groups, pro-Israel groups in their respective countries. People, including in Germany, are being persecuted, including academics, for their own exercise of free speech.
This tells me that there is very little pretense that Western states, so-called liberal democracies, the most attached to this idea of democracy are ready to defend for real. So in this sense, it’s up to us citizens to be vigilant and to make sure that we do not buy products connected or services connected to the legality of the occupation, the apartheid and the genocide.
And there are various organizations that collect lists of companies and entities, including universities that are connected to this unlawful endeavor. BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] is one, don’t buy into the occupation who profits profundo, but also students associations.
And this is something that has taught me, it’s very touching because it’s really the work of students, faculty members and staff that has mapped what each university does. And I think it gives the possibility to act, everyone in our own domain. Then of course there is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.
But also we need to make sure that businesses divest. Either through our purchase power, people have to step away and stop using platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com. I know that Amazon is very convenient, but guys, we might also return to buy books in libraries, ordering books through libraries.
Of course, not all of us can, but many do, many can. On the way to work, buy a book in a library, order a book in a bookstore. We need to reduce our reliance on the tools that have been used, that have been perfected through the slaughter of the Palestinians. And of course, make government accountable. There are lawyers, associations, and jurists who are taking government officials to court, businesses to court. But again, I do not think that there is one strategy that is going to be the winning one.
It’s the plurality of actions from a plurality of actors that is going to produce results and slow down the genocide and then help dismantle the occupation and the apartheid. It’s a long trajectory and the fight has just started.
Chris Hedges
Thank you, Francesca, and I want to thank Thomas [Hedges], Diego [Ramos], Max [Jones] and Sofia [Menemenlis], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com.
Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.
Featured Image: Shot Heard Around the World – by Mr. Fish (clowncrack.com)
Chris Hedges at Substack
The assassination of Charlie Kirk presages a new, deadly stage in the disintegration of a fractious and highly polarized United States. While toxic rhetoric and threats are lobbed across cultural divides like hand grenades, sometimes spilling over into actual violence — including the murder of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband and the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump — Kirk’s killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration.
His murder has given the movement he represented — grounded in Christian nationalism — a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements. Any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss, is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.
Martyrs sacralize violence. They are used to turn the moral order upside down. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities become heroism. Crime becomes justice. Hate becomes virtue. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. Murder becomes good. War is the final aesthetic. This is what is coming.
“We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show “War Room,” adding, “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”
“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.
“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” wrote commentator and author Matt Walsh on X. “Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”
Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote that he will use, “Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk…” He further states “I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk’s death to advocate for a takedown of the “red-green alliance” of “Communists and Islamists” who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for “property-tax rebates.”
Far-right comedian Sam Hyde, who has nearly half a million followers on X, wrote in response to Trump’s announcement of Kirk’s death that it is, “Time to do your fucking job and seize power… if you want to be more than a footnote in the ‘American Collapse’ section of future history books, it’s now or never.” In his tweet, he tags members of the administration and private military contractors.
Conservative actor James Woods warned, “Dear leftists: we can have a conversation or a civil war. One more shot from your side and you will not get this choice again.” His tweet was reposted by almost 20,000 people, received 4.9 million views and over 96,000 likes.
These are a sample of the slew of vitriolic sentiments shared and cheered on by tens of millions of Americans.
The dispossession of the working class, 30 million who have been laid off because of deindustrialization, has engendered rage, despair, dislocation, alienation and fostered magical thinking. It has fed conspiracy theories, a lust for vengeance and a celebration of violence as a purgative for social and cultural decay.
Christian fascists — like Kirk and Trump — have astutely preyed on this despair. They stoked the embers. Kirk’s killing will set it alight.
Dissidents, artists, gays, intellectuals, the poor, the vulnerable, people of color, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be condemned as human contaminants to be excised from the body politic. They will become, as in all diseased societies, sacrificial victims in the vain attempt to achieve moral renewal and recapture a lost glory and prosperity.
The cannibalization of society, a futile attempt to recreate a mythical America, will accelerate the disintegration. The intoxication of violence — many of those reacting to Kirk’s killing seemed giddy about a looming bloodbath — will feed on itself like a firestorm.
The martyr is vital to the crusade, in this case ridding America of those Trump calls the “radical left.”
Martyrs are memorialized in ceremonies and acts of remembrance to remind followers of the righteousness of the cause and the perfidy of those who are blamed for the martyr’s death. This is what Trump did when he called Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom” in a video message on September 10, awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. It is why Kirk’s casket will be flown back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two.
Kirk was a poster child for our emergent Christian Fascism. He peddled the Great Replacement Theory, which claims liberals or “globalists” allow immigrants of color into the country in order to replace whites, distorting immigration trends into conspiracy. He was Islamophobic, tweeting “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and that it is “not compatible with western civilization.”
When children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel said “Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” Kirk retorted that “Satan has quoted scripture plenty” and added “by the way Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall Lay with another man and be stoned to death.”
He demanded we roll back the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disparaged civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. He was demeaning towards Black people, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman…is she there because of affirmative action?” He said “prowling Blacks” are targeting white people “for fun.” He blamed Black Lives Matter for “destroying the fabric of our society.”
Kirk insisted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist to purge professors and teachers with what he called “radical leftist” agendas. He advocated televised public executions which he insisted should be mandatory viewing for children.
The idea that he championed free speech and liberty is absurd. He was an enemy of both.
Kirk, who was a cheerleader for the cult of Trump, embodied the hypermasculinity that is at the core of fascist movements. This was perhaps his primary attraction to youth, especially white men. He claimed there is “a war on men,” fetishized guns and sold Trump to his followers as a man’s man.
“There’s a lot you can call Donald Trump,” he wrote. “No one has ever called him feminine. Trump is a giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing. He’s a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator. Most of the media missed this. Young men did not.”
History has shown what comes next. It won’t be pleasant. Kirk, elevated to martyrdom, gives those seeking to extinguish our democracy the license to kill, just as Kirk was killed. It lifts what few constraints still exist to protect us from state abuse and vigilante violence. Kirk’s name and visage will be employed to accelerate the road to tyranny, which is as he would have wanted it.
Exploring the dystopian technofeudalism at heart of the western A.I. race
The unnamed book EMPIRE OF AI is mine, based on 300+ interviews, 7 yrs covering AI, & my time as the first reporter who got extensive access to OpenAI. I sought OpenAI’s perspective throughout. For months they said it was coming. It never did. Pre-order: https://t.co/i5rNJ45fNo. https://t.co/Drr8Gzv7vW pic.twitter.com/0aJpF9P26U
— Karen Hao (@_KarenHao) April 4, 2025
The A.I. Religious Cult: “Just like empires of the past were competing against one another, so are these tech giants. There was this aggressive race of we, the French Empire, are better than the British Empire. We, the British Empire, are better than the Dutch Empire.
And we need to continue to relentlessly race and be number one because we’re the ones that have the right civilizing mission to bring modernity and progress to all of humanity.
And where their missions might have once been about scientific exploration and transparency, they are now about profit, which has resulted in a landscape where they are just scaling at all costs.”
this is about controlling “the civilizational transformation” of the “one global village.” “Our collective attention is their Manifest Destiny.” From Maggie’s “there is no society” to now, “Culture is just what is Next on your phone — and that is A.I.”
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
“The Trump Method”: Towards the Idea of a Nuclear Consortium on Iranian Territory
[Ed Note Reminder: The strategy of empire, up to now, the denial of world development through chaos creation, is unravelling. Nevertheless, imperialist aspirations still endure. The pattern has changed toward attempts to use dwindling economic rights as a wedge for military insertion to expand the hegemonic stake.]
There are rumors that Mr Putin will be visiting Iran in the near future. Overall we can count on rapid change, even more rapid than current. Next month is the BRICS summit and India is the target here. The US administration is targeting India openly and volubly telling them to leave BRICS and buy weapons from the US. Then after that the most important will be the SCO summit. “Change not seen in a 100 years” and accelerating.
From the Russtrat Institute
Tehran is ready to make a nuclear deal with Washington based on the idea of a regional uranium enrichment consortium if it is located on Iranian territory, Axios reports, citing a senior Iranian official.
The publication notes that such a consortium is a key element of the proposal that White House spokesman Steve Witkoff conveyed to Tehran. This, Axios emphasizes, is an attempt to reconcile Trump’s position that Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium with Tehran’s insistence that it continue enrichment on its own territory. The consortium is supposed to include, in addition to Iran and the United States, countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and even Türkiye.
The news is interesting in the sense that it strengthens the “Trump way” of acting. It looks as if the US President comes to the point of some geopolitical dispute, tries to achieve a controlling stake in the subject of the dispute, and then declares – why are you arguing, the money is already mine anyway!
Something similar happened with Ukrainian resources. The White House has repeatedly stated that American economic control over Ukraine is the best guarantee of security for Kyiv. And Russia, they say, has nothing to fear, since Ukraine is under the Americans, and they will come to an agreement directly!
If the deal with the consortium in Iran goes through, then a similar situation will arise in the Middle East – at least in Washington’s understanding. Why would Israel attack the Iranian nuclear program if it is under US control?
It would not be too surprising if Trump offered Taiwan a similar “security guarantee” in the form of handing over control of TSMC and other significant tech assets to Washington.
True, there are nuances. Trump got Ukrainian resources because the Kyiv regime values its own wallet more than all the national wealth. Tehran may have a slightly different opinion. Moreover, Iran’s nuclear program is the guarantee of its independence. Ukraine has not been concerned about such matters for a long time.
Is it so that we have to start accepting that nothing will now save Gaza? This is a very disturbing presentation by Norm.
Israel, both materially and rhetorically, has made their intent to destroy the Palestinian people clear. One of the most renowned and courageous Middle East scholars, Norman Finkelstein, has assiduously documented the Palestinian plight for decades and he joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. Finkelstein and Hedges assess the current state of the genocide in Palestine as well as how the media and the universities have all but abandonded their principles in servitude to the Zionist agenda.
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