Tag: israel

Netanyahu Meets With ‘Pro-Israel Influencers’ in New York, Describes Social Media as a ‘Weapon’ for Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with “pro-Israel influencers” after his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, his office said in a statement on Sunday.

Netanyahu’s office said that he spoke with the influencers “about the challenges in the new era, and the public diplomacy efforts and the influence of the social networks on the discourse for and against Israel.”

During the meeting, Netanyahu was asked what should be done about Israel potentially losing support from Evangelical Christians in the US, and he pointed to social media, which he called a “tool of battle,” and cited a plan for TikTok to be put under the control of US companies.

“What we have to do is secure that part of the base of our support in the United States, that is being challenged systematically … How do we fight back? Our influencers, I think you should also talk to them if you have the chance,” Netanyahu said. “And secondly, we’re going to have to use the tools of battle. The weapons change over time … we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefield on which we’re engaged, and the most important ones are on social media.”

The Israeli leader described the TikTok plan as the “most important purchase that is going on.” Under the plan approved by President Trump, one of the companies that will have a major stake in TikTok and control the algorithm is Oracle, which is owned by Larry Ellison, an extremely pro-Israel billionaire and major private donor to the Israeli military.

“TikTok, TikTok, and I hope it goes through because it could be extremely consequential,” Netanyahu said, adding that the other major social media platform he is concerned about is X, formerly Twitter. The Israeli leader described X CEO Elon Musk as a “friend.”

“We have to talk to Elon. He’s not an enemy, he’s a friend. You should talk to him. Now, if we can get those two things, we can get a lot, and I can go on about other things, but that’s not the point right now. We have to fight the fight. Give direction to the Jewish people, and give direction to our non-Jewish friends, or those who could be our friends,” Netanyahu added.

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‘Near Daily’ Israeli Assaults on Lebanon Have Become Non-News for Western Media

The Israeli military unleashed a large wave of air strikes on densely populated towns in South Lebanon on Thursday, September 18—although you’d never know it from the Western corporate media, who have increasingly lost interest in reporting on Israel’s unceasing war on its northern neighbor. This proceeds unabated in spite of a ceasefire, brokered by the United States and France, that ostensibly took hold last November. Prior to Thursday’s strikes, area residents were given an hour to evacuate.

The BBC (9/18/25) was one of the few corporate outlets that managed to find a bit of space for these events, under the headline, “Israeli Air Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon.” The outlet noted that

an Israeli military spokesman said the targets were infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah and in response to the group’s attempts to re-establish activities in the area. He provided no evidence.

The piece also explained that Israel “has carried out air strikes on people and places it says are linked to Hezbollah almost every day, despite a deal that ended the war with the group in November.”

Reuters (9/18/25) managed an even shorter writeup—and took Israel’s word for it in the headline: “Israel Attacks Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon.”

No casualties were reported in these particular attacks, but the fiery spectacle naturally sent a whole lot of people fleeing in terrorized panic. The fact that such terrorism by the state of Israel transpires “almost every day” is perhaps part of the reason the media have largely relegated it to the realm of non-news.

Another part of the reason might be that outlets are too busy serving as apologists (FAIR.org, 4/11/25, 4/25/25, 6/6/25) for the ongoing US-backed genocide in the nearby Gaza Strip, which Israel launched in October 2023, and which has thus far officially killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children—although this is likely a grave underestimate.

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UN Declares Genocide in Gaza While 250 US Lawmakers Are in Israel 

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a report on September 16 that charged Israeli authorities and security forces with having committed, and continuing to commit, acts of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The 72-page report, replete with 495 footnotes, was compiled by senior independent rights investigators appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Specifically, the report concludes that Israel is responsible for committing four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely:

  • (i) killing members of the group;
  • (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
  • (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

This report brings the UN into line with leading human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem and Oxfam, all of whom have explicitly labeled Israel’s crimes in Gaza genocidal. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) also recently passed a resolution stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.

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When Palestinians Die in Israeli Captivity, US Media Almost Never Take Note

The different treatment accorded to the plights of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners by US corporate media illustrates a persistent double standard that treats some people as more human than others.

Take 20-year-old Palestinian prisoner Ahmed Saeed Tazaz’a, who died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison after nearly three months of illegal detention, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs (CDA), an agency of the Palestinian Authority (8/3/25).

Tazaz’a, who was from Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, was imprisoned on May 6 of this year without a charge or a trial. He was held under Israel’s policy of “administrative detention,” which locks up Palestinians indefinitely “on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future,” according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Tazaz’a did not suffer from prior health problems before his arrest, according to his family (WAFA, 8/7/25).

There are currently some 3,613 Palestinians under administrative detention in Israeli prisons, according to the July 2025 CDA report, and more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody (not including those held in military camps) in total. Even Israel’s own military intelligence only identifies a quarter of its detainees from Gaza as “fighters,” while human rights groups and Israeli soldiers have reported even fewer—roughly 15%—as Hamas members (Guardian, 9/4/25).

The CDA reports that Tazaz’a was the 76th identified Palestinian to die in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. 

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How Europe Lost Its Credibility in Gaza

Recently, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that US support for “everything that the Israeli government is doing” limits the EU’s leverage to change the situation on the ground in the Gaza Strip.

Subsequently, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, proposed sanctions to Israeli ministers and partial suspension of Israel trade deal. On Wednesday, the EU Commission’s review discovered – after 21 months of mass atrocities in Gaza and violent pogroms in the West Bank – that actions taken by the Israeli government in the Palestinian-occupied territories represent a ‘breach of essential elements relating to respect for human rights and democratic principles,’ which permits the EU to suspend the agreement unilaterally.

Last weekend, these sentiments were reinforced with the recognition of the state of Palestine by U.S. allies – the UK, Canada and Australia – and others to follow soon.

Observers of Brussels declared that the EU had become tough on genocide. In reality, it was a last-minute effort by the two EU leaders to fuse rising outrage against EU’s Gaza policies and charges they were complicit in Israel’s atrocities.

How Kallas emboldened Israel in Gaza

Addressing the annual EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) conference in Brussels, Kajas said that US backing of Israel undermines EU leverage to stop the “Gaza war.” Yet, the United States has supported Israel for more than half a century.

US backing of Ukraine and Israel, division on Gaza

“We are struggling because 27 member states have different positions,” on the issue, Kallas explained. “Europe can only use full force when it acts together.” In this way, accessorial complicity is first deflected to Washington and then attributed to the absence of European unity, which Kallas has long called for, to confront Russia. In other words, the EU Gaza apology was a thinly-veiled effort for a plea to unity Kallas hoped to turn against Russia in Ukraine.

When asked about “double-standard” accusations towards the bloc on its Gaza policy, Kallas said it is not true that the EU is inactive on Gaza. Yet, previously she had opposed intervention in Gaza. In mid-July, Kallas and the foreign ministers of the EU member states chose not to take any action against Israel over alleged war crimes in the Gaza war and settler violence in the West Bank.

The then-proposed sanctions against Israel would have included suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, suspending visa-free travel, and blocking imports from Israeli settlements. This decision emboldened the Netanyahu cabinet, which saw the EU’s decision not to impose sanctions on Israel as a diplomatic victory. It also led UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese to conclude that EU officials like Kallas were complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, accounting for a third of Israel’s total trade in goods with the world in 2024, whereas Israel is only the EU’s 31st largest trading partner. Consequently, the EU could easily have sanctioned Israeli trade right after the first genocidal atrocities in late 2023, yet it chose not to. Why?

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US Plan Would Tap Tony Blair As Postwar Gaza Leader

In one of the most absurd and comical headlines of the year, The Wall Street Journal on Friday says it knows who will be tapped to oversee Gaza once the Israel-Hamas war is over: former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

That’s according to a controversial White House plan now being proposed to Arab and Israeli leaders. The 72-year old is being presented as a peace-maker, despite his record of being George W. Bush’s biggest allied supporter in the disastrous, blood-soaked invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. 

“As Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair helped negotiate a landmark peace agreement to end three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland,” WSJ writes, apparently without intending irony. “Now, President Trump might want him for an even more difficult job: Helping Gaza get back on its feet once the conflict ends.”

The plan calls for a Gaza International Transition Authority (GITA) – which sounds a bit like the Bush-era’s Coalition Provisional Coalition (CPA) which oversaw nation-building in Iraq. And so it seems Blair will be the Paul Bremer for the Gaza Strip, according to the plan.

The idea is that this would be a UN-overseen initiative. “The United Nations-backed body would control the enclave for at least several years, staffed in part by Palestinian technocrats and supported by an Arab-led international peacekeeping force, until it could hand over full control to the Palestinians, officials say,” WSJ continues.

However, US admin officials have said Blair is but one of several officials under consideration for heading up the GITA mission. The plan would have to gain the cooperation and backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and presumably whatever Palestinian officials remain in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

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Western news agencies demand Israel grant international journalists access to Gaza

The world’s most prominent news agencies released a short film and a joint statement on 25 September calling on Israel to allow international journalists into Gaza to report on the horrors of the ongoing war.

The video, produced on behalf of the BBC, Reuters, AP, and AFP, features iconic photos and clips of news reports from previous wars over the past century alongside the message that “history is told by those who report it.”

“The world ignored Rwanda until reporters revealed thousands a day were being massacred; the report of a child’s body washed up on a beach revealed the stark reality of the Syrian refugee crisis; in Ukraine, journalists from around the world risk their lives every day to report the suffering of the people,” BBC journalist David Dimbleby narrates.

“But when it comes to Gaza, the job of reporting falls solely to Palestinian journalists who are paying a terrible cost, leaving fewer to bear witness,” Dimbleby states as photos of the devastation from Gaza are shown.

“The Israeli government will not allow international reporters into Gaza to do their work and to document freely what they see. International journalists must now be allowed into Gaza to share the work with Palestinian reporters there so we can all bring the facts to the world,” he concludes.

Since Israel began its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, it has blocked access for foreign news correspondents unless they are embedded with the Israeli army. Their reports are then reviewed and approved by Israel’s military censor before publication.

In perhaps the only exception, CNN journalist Clarissa Ward briefly entered Gaza via Rafah in a convoy of UAE medical volunteers in December 2023.

As foreign news agencies relied on local journalists to produce reports on the ground, the Israeli military has mercilessly targeted them for assassination.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at least 210 Palestinian journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza since the war began nearly 23 months ago.

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Microsoft reduces Israel’s access to cloud and AI products over reports of mass surveillance in Gaza

Microsoft said Thursday it had disabled services to a unit within the Israeli military after a company review had determined its artificial intelligence and cloud computing products were being used to help carry out mass surveillance of Palestinians.

The action comes after The Associated Press and The Guardian published reports earlier this year revealing how the Israeli Ministry of Defense had been using Microsoft’s Azure platform to aid in the war in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, wrote in a blog post that the company was taking steps to enforce compliance with its terms of service.

An AP investigation in February showed that the Israeli military’s use of Microsoft products skyrocketed after a deadly surprise attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. The AP’s report cited internal Microsoft data showing the Israelis were using gigabytes of cloud storage and massive amounts of AI-enabled language translation services.

The AP also reported that Israel’s military used Microsoft Azure to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it transcribes and translates, including phone calls and text messages. That intelligence is then cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI systems for targeting airstrikes.

AP reported that internal Microsoft data showed multiple Azure subscriptions were tied to Unit 8200, an elite cyber warfare unit within the Israeli Army responsible for clandestine operations, collecting signal intelligence and surveillance.

Following AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged in May that it had sold advanced AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli military during the Gaza war and aided in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages. But the company said an internal review found “no evidence” its Azure platform was used to target or harm people.

The Guardian, working in partnership with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, reported in August that the commander of Unit 8200 had met directly with Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella in 2021. The Israeli unit then used Microsoft products to aid in the development of an AI-powered mass surveillance system that was sweeping up, translating and analyzing millions of telephone calls per day made by Palestinian civilians. The report also revealed that data from the Israeli surveillance system was being stored at Microsoft cloud data centers in Europe.

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‘Real Estate Bonanza’: The Macabre US Plan for the Post-Genocide Gaza

The jackals are back! In early September, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and the scion of another Big Apple real estate tycoon, began working with U.S. administration, eager to plan for post-genocide Gaza.

After two years of destruction of Gaza and genocide of Palestinians, it was time for economic development – or at least property development.

“Converting military victories to political victories”

Kushner had served as Trump’s go-between in the Abraham Accords that seeks to “normalize” the relations among Israel and Arab states. Mediated by the United States, the Accords are a set of deals between Israel, Gulf States (UAE, Bahrain) and Arab states (Morocco, Sudan). But to Netanyahu, these accords were the first step in ejecting Palestine from the Middle East talks.

The goal has been to bring Saudi Arabia under the umbrella. Yet, Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza and violent pogroms in the West Bank have effectively undermined the plan. Riyadh has little incentive to inflame regional destabilization, which would penalize Saudi Vision 2030, the huge modernization and diversification program.

Talking in a recent “No Priors” podcast, hosted by his AI biz pals Elad Gil and Sarah Guo, Kushner stated that “Hamas in Gaza is basically destroyed. They have an opportunity to convert those military victories into political victories. If you’re able to find a satisfactory resolution… you can get to a place where full normalization with Saudi and Israel.”

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Trump promises Arab, Muslim leaders he won’t let Israel annex the West Bank

President Donald Trump promised Arab and Muslim leaders during a meeting Tuesday that he would not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank, according to six people familiar with the discussion.

Two of those people said that Trump was firm on the topic and that the president promised that Israel would not be allowed to absorb the West Bank, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.

Another one of the people familiar with the talks noted that, despite Trump’s assurance, a ceasefire to end Israel’s nearly two-year war against Hamas was nowhere close to fruition. Two others familiar with the matter said Trump and his team presented a white paper outlining the administration’s plan to end the war, including the annexation promise and other details such as governance and postwar security.

Special envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff provided some details on the proposal on Wednesday. “We presented what we call the Trump 21-point-plan for peace in the Mideast in Gaza,” he said at the Concordia summit in New York. “I think it addresses Israeli concerns and as well, the concerns of all the neighbors in the in the region.” Witkoff did not mention any comments about the West Bank.

Trump told reporters ahead of his sit-down with eight Arab and Muslim countries at the United Nations headquarters that it was his “most important” of the day, but he left without speaking to reporters and the participants have yet to issue any official readout about the substance of their conversation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the meeting as “fruitful” Tuesday evening during an interview on Fox News Channel, but he did not elaborate. Erdogan and Trump are scheduled to meet again at the White House on Thursday.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Arab leaders have been frustrated by Trump’s opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state and his continued support of Netanyahu’s assault on Hamas, which expanded beyond Gaza earlier this month when Israel tried to take out Hamas officials when they were in Qatar for peace talks. Going into Tuesday’s meeting, they aimed to impress on the U.S. president that any Israeli incursion into the West Bank would likely lead to the collapse of the Abraham Accords, two of the people familiar with the conversation said.

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