A Battered America Awaits Trump’s Next Move

Is Trump the “First Jewish President?”

Philip Giraldi • December 18, 2025

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/a-battered-america-awaits-trumps-next-move/ 

President Donald Trump’s end of year speech to the American public that took place on December 17^th was full of conceits over how the United States under the new regime in power is moving ahead on all fronts to benefit the American people. The reality is somewhat different with a struggling economy, inflation and growing unemployment as well as wars and rumors of wars. The only economic sector that appears to be doing just fine is the “military industrial complex” (MIC), or should one call it the warfare conglomerate, fattening on the one trillion dollar plus budgeted for military and related spending. For sure, the warfare bill is helping to expand the nation’s debt while providing little in the way of national security due to profound ignorance combined with serial blundering by those in power in and around the White House.

The unavoidable fact that Trump has created a mess nearly everywhere that he has trod has been visible practically since inauguration day eleven months ago, made worse by the incoherent and frequently contradictory explanations coming out of the Oval Office itself. One might point to the wars going on in Ukraine and in and around Israel/Palestine as the most unnecessary, and dangerous, of the Trumpean missteps, since both involved no threat to the United States unless they escalate and “go nuclear” while both can actually be described as sustained by what Washington has both done and not done.

And then there is Venezuela, a war for which the pretext is so contrived and orchestrated as to be comic in nature. On Wednesday, Trump described on his “Truth” social media how “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us.” If one tries to make sense of what Trump meant, it now appears that the esteemed US president is demanding that the Venezuelan government reverse its nationalization of its own assets that dates back to 1976 and turn its oil resources over to Washington. Prior to 1976 US oil companies did indeed develop and exploit Venezuelan oil reserves but there was never any real question that the United States owned either the oil or the land that it lay under. Trump wants to change all that and, oh, by the way, Venezuela supports Palestinian statehood, which just might also have something to do with its being targeted!

Regarding Russia and Ukraine, Trump’s fumbling negotiating team consisting of two property developers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, one of whom happens to be his son-in-law, consistently fail to appreciate what Russia’s redlines are and have even driven Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky into a corner where he will not concede any territorial concessions. There is no where to go from there in a war that could have been prevented before it started but for US and British intervention.

All of which leads us to Israel, which appears to be the only thing that Donald Trump regards as important. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington on December 29^th, a visit requested by Trump which will be the fifth such meeting this year. It will apparently be a final discussion over steps needed for moving to the next phase of the so-called “Trump Peace Plan” with Gaza. Israel has routinely violated nearly every aspect of the ceasefire agreement and has kept closed Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which was supposed to reopen in October as part of the first phase. But the border remains closed, keeping Gaza shut off from the outside world. Israel has already moved to establish a “yellow line” asserting its continued occupation and control over more than half of the Gaza Strip and is also continuing to kill Gazans and deny them food and medicine. The US is also building a military base, manned in part by American soldiers, on what will be the Israeli side of Gaza. It will no doubt operate in support of Israeli objectives. So the way forward is pretty obvious with Trump, who has not objected to Israeli violation of the US guaranteed agreement, fully expected to concede all points to his owners in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Other developments recently both in Washington and abroad also serve to underline who is actually in charge here in the US. Early in December, the US Embassy in Jerusalem co-sponsored with the Israeli government a gathering of 1,000 evangelical pastors from the United States entitled the “Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit.” The visitors were regaled with a full court press of Israeli officials and also Ambassador Mike Huckabee as co-host to create a united front in support of Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself” which most of the world regards as genocide with thousands of women and children having been murdered and every church, hospital, and refugee compound in the region having been bombed with weapons provided by Washington. That the US Embassy is supporting Israeli ethnic cleansing policies is shameful and Huckabee clearly does not understand the proper role for an American ambassador, nor apparently does Trump, who appointed him.

The trip to Israel was paid for by the Israeli government according to reports, possibly assisted by the Israel Lobby and the usual cast of Jewish billionaires. A local Palestinian Christian observed how the evangelical participants “did not seem concerned that Palestinian Christians living minutes away cannot freely access their own churches in Jerusalem and other holy sites without Israeli military permission. Yet these pastors were paraded as Israel’s spiritual partners while the indigenous church—the men, women, and families who actually bear the weight of life in the land—were treated as an inconvenience.”

The US government, for its part, should not have been engaged in the activity at all and those involved should have been condemned under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which regulated the behavior of groups that were acting on behalf of foreign governments. In the summit’s “Before You Go” guidelines, participants “were told that public evangelism and distributing Christian materials were prohibited in Israel, and that they should refrain from preaching altogether. In effect, the very faith that has driven Christians to share the gospel for two millennia was instructed to remain silent in Jerusalem.” In other words, the participants in the summit were force to betray their own religious convictions while supporting the political agenda of a government that is clearly engaged in crimes against humanity. Of course, in spite of all that the Trump Administration will not demand FARA registry. None of the hundreds of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups that operate on behalf of Israel has ever been subjected to FARA. Indeed, John F Kennedy was assassinated shortly after he attempted to register one of the first of those pro-Israeli lobbying groups in 1963, indicating that there are consequences for restraining friends of Israel.

If anyone doubts that Israel and its various instruments own Trump, it would only take a review of Donald’s participation at the recent White House Hanukkah Party. Fox News host arch Israel Firster Mark Levin hailed President Donald Trump as “the first Jewish president” during the reception on Tuesday. Speaking to a crowd of supporters at the gathering, Trump invited Levin to “say a couple of words.” “Come here. And these people do like Israel,” the president remarked. Levin embraced Trump before shouting, “And he loves Israel too!” Levin then proceeded to hail Trump as the first Jewish president recalling how “Six years ago, I was up here, and I said this is our first Jewish president” and Trump replied, “It’s true.” Levin continued, “Now he’s the first Jewish president to serve two non-consecutive presidencies. We thank you for everything.” Interestingly, Levin aside, it has been plausibly asserted that Trump is indeed the first Jewish president, having converted in 2017, a possibility that has been certainly supported by his servile behavior towards the Jewish state during his time in office.

Also at the Tuesday reception, Israeli Las Vegas casino magnate and top political donor Miriam Adelson publicly and openly declared that Trump could pursue a third term as president, despite constitutional limits. Adelson referenced her discussions with expletive deleted attorney Alan Dershowitz about the validity of another term and agreed with him saying “I met Alan Dershowitz, and I said, Alan, I agree with you. So we can do it. Think about it.” She also pledged an additional $250 million in campaign support to fund such an initiative, prompting audience chants of “Four more years.” Trump praised Adelson’s backing and highlighted her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s advocacy for Israel, saying, “Fifteen years ago, the strongest lobby in Washington was the Jewish lobby. It was Israel. That’s no longer true.” Trump then accused some lawmakers of being “anti-Semitic,” citing Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, whom Trump says “hates Jewish people.” Trump also blamed universities for protecting anti-Israel sentiment, and predicted that Harvard, which he has been suing over antisemitism-related fines, “will pay a lot of money.”

On a final note, we Americans who still value free speech might want to take note of a new senior bureaucrat who has assumed his position in Washington. Trump just appointed Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, an Israeli-born Chabad-nik extremist who says “there never was a Palestine,” as lead censor of free speech in America through his position as head of the office of the State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism where he will have the rank of Ambassador. Kaploun pledged that inaccurate or inflammatory “hatred content” related to Israel and Jews is being allowed to spread on social media and pledged to work with social networks to curb the spread of antisemitic falsehoods online. Kaploun did not mention what he would do about misleading information about Arabs or Muslims deliberately placed in the Jewish dominated mainstream media, so the presumption is that he would do nothing. This is only about going after those who are critical of Jewish collective behavior or of Israel. Kaploun is Trump’s man and the president obviously believes that that is the correct path for all of us. Goodbye America!

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Lethal Legacy

Revisionism, neoconservatism, big money and corruption

by Dan Steinbock | Dec 19, 2025 |

https://original.antiwar.com/Dan_Steinbock/2025/12/18/benjamin-netanyahus-lethal-legacy/

Since early 2023, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and his cabinet, due to its proposed judicial reforms, the handling of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the Gaza genocide. So, why is he still in power?

Recently, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his request to President Isaac Herzog for a pardon amid his ongoing criminal trial, saying “there is no case there.”

Indeed, Netanyahu is very much in the game of Israeli politics as he was in early 2023 when the huge Israeli mass demonstrations started against his far-right cabinet’s proposed “judicial reforms,” which seek to transform the secular democracy into a Jewish autocracy, and against the genocidal atrocities in Gaza, including the escalating ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

The mass protests garnered hundreds of thousands of protesters, but could not fully halt the reforms. Little by little, Israeli democracy, which serves primarily its Jewish population, is crumbling.

To avoid prosecution for corruption, Netanyahu needs to hang onto power and keep the war activities going. How is this status quo even possible? The simple answer is: revisionist Zionism, U.S.-style neoconservatism, hard right politics, Big Money, dark donors and of course – corruption. 

Revisionist Zionism

Born in Israel but growing up in Philadelphia, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (1949–) is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history. He sees himself as an activist of Zion, like his grandfather Nathan Mileikowsky. While Netanyahu’s grandfather and father had a role in revisionist Zionism, he put himself into its center.

Mileikowsky, the Russian-born rabbi and early Zionist champion, was known for his advocacy against socialist Zionism and anti-Zionists. After migration to Israel, he raised funds abroad for the Yishuv, or the pre-state Israel, and cooperated with rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the founding father of Religious Zionism. In turn, the rebbe’s son, rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, is the revered spiritual father of Israel’s violent settlers and the Messianic far-right.

One of Mileikowsky’s sons was Benzion Mileikowsky (who later adopted his father’s pen name as his last name), a medieval historian and onetime deputy assistant to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the pioneer of revisionist Zionism.

Benzion (“the son of Zion” in Hebrew) befriended extremist revisionists such as Abba Ahimeir, who wanted to create a fascist state in Palestine, promoted “Il Duce” salutes and was one of the likely assassins of the Zionist labor leader Haim Arlosoroff.

But instead of a revisionist Zionist revolution, Benzion eventually opted for an academic career in America, returning to Israel only in the ’70s.

Building on his master treatise, Origins of the Inquisition in 15^th Century Spain, Benzion saw Jewish history as a series of holocausts. He shunned the long period of Spanish history of Convivencia (Spanish, “living together”) from the Muslim Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the early 8^th century until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. In the Moorish Iberian kingdoms, the Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in relative peace.

This period of religious diversity and tolerance – captured wonderfully by Maria Rosa Menocal in The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (2002) – differed drastically from the subsequent Spanish and Portuguese history when Catholicism became the sole religion in the Iberian Peninsula, following expulsions and forced conversions.

Benzion Netanyahu fully shared Jabotinsky’s insistence on the creation of an “Iron Wall” between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Oslo Accords, Netanyahu’s aging father complained, were “the beginning of the end of the Jewish state.” So, after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, he supported its reinvasion, “even if it brings us years of war.” And to the end of his long life, he stuck to the European orientalist bias:

The tendency to conflict is the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence… His existence is one of perpetual war.

Benjamin Netanyahu, his son, is the product of both American and Jewish worlds. But unlike the father, he had little interest in academic dreams. He saw himself as a revolutionary. He wanted to overthrow the Labor Zionists to realize a Greater Israel.

Israel didn’t need bleeding-heart socialists. Eretz Israel needed tough Jews. The country needed him. 

Hard Right   

Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is his own man, but he was heavily influenced by his father. Like his older brother Yonatan who lost his life in the 1976 Entebbe raid to release Jewish hostages, Bibi served with distinction in Sayeret Matkal, an elite reconnaissance unit of the Israeli military.

After studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and working as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), his political career took off in the late 1980s, when he served as Israel’s permanent UN representative, at which time I met him in mid-Manhattan.

These were the formative years of the U.S. neoconservative movement, many of whose ideas he shared. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Moshe Arens, a scientist, veteran Likud politician and ex-Irgun operative, paved Netanyahu’s path to the corridors of power in Washington.

Seemingly unassuming, shrewd, fast and smart, and well-trained in American-style communications, Netanyahu was a natural to succeed Likud’s old guard; Menahem Begin, the former leader of the terrorist Irgun group, and Yitzhak Shamir, the ex-head of the terrorist Stern group.

With a giant ego and penchant for self-aggrandizement, he knew his moment had come, even if he would first have to overcome Likud dinosaurs like Shamir, and the Likud princelings: “The dinosaurs are dying out and the princes are too blue-blooded to fight for the crown. I’ll get there.”

Netanyahu’s leadership in Likud started in the aftermath of Rabin’s assassination, thanks in part to the incendiary political climate his campaign permitted to fester in 1995. Vocal critics of the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu and his party had participated in demonstrations where effigies of Rabin were displayed in Nazi uniforms and burned.

When Rabin was buried, his wife Leah was glad to meet PLO’s Yasser Arafat, but she kept a cold distance toward Netanyahu. She accused the young and ambitious opposition leader and his Likud party of the climate of incitement.

Setting aside the extreme political climate, there was also another reason to Netanyahu’s election win. He hired Arthur Finkelstein to run his campaign. The legendary Republican political operative had sold presidents Nixon and Reagan to America. He was known for his repetitive, hard-edged campaigns, which idolized his candidates by tarnishing their adversaries.

Like in the U.S., the scaremongering worked well in Israel.

Big money and US-Israeli neoconservatism 

In Israel, Irving Moskowitz was among the major U.S. billionaires funding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, Messianic religious schools and universities, Jewish far-right groups and paramilitary activities.

Moskowitz was not only Netanyahu’s donor and one of the many in his “millionaire list.” He was also an associate of the right-wing Ariel Center for Policy Research, a hardline advocacy group espousing the Likud line on Israeli security. In the United States, he was among the funders of major neoconservative think tanks promoting the War on Terror and hardline Israel-centric Middle East policies, including the Hudson Institute, the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

Along with other pivotal financiers, Moskowitz contributed to the rise of neoconservatism in America, and the movement’s many Jewish leaders who shared the ideas of revisionist Zionism, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and so on.

Led by Kristol and Kagan, neoconservatives founded their think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with a view to sustaining America’s unipolar moment for decades to come. Whatever was in the interest of Israel, according to Netanyahu’s Likud, was in the national interest of America.

Other donors followed, including the casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. For some two decades until his death in 2021, when Forbes estimated his net worth at $35 billion, Adelson was a major sponsor of Netanyahu and kingmaker among the Republicans who helped fund Trump’s drive to the White House.

Israeli neocon manifesto

Thanks to their commonalities, the neoconservatives in the U.S. and the Israeli hard-right Likud party cooperated in a policy document, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, described as “a kind of U.S.-Israeli neoconservative manifesto.”

Published in 1996, the report called for a muscular U.S. Middle East policy to defend Israeli interests, including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq (which ensued in 2003), a proxy war in Syria (which followed in 2011), rejection of any Israeli-Palestinian solution that would include a Palestinian state (one of the Trump administration’s motives for pursuing the 2020 Abraham Accords), among other things.

Membership in the neoconservative club had its benefits: it made Netanyahu rich. Despite his lofty legal fees, estimates of Netanyahu’s wealth amounted to some $50 million, already a decade ago. But precise, verifiable sources are lacking, due to his political office, dark donors and extraordinarily opaque financial disclosures.

In the past decade, it is precisely this contested past that has been haunting him.

Bribery, fraud, and breach of trust

From the start, Netanyahu’s career has been overshadowed by dark money controversies. The corruption charges began in 1997, when police recommended his indictment on corruption charges for influence-peddling. Investigations into the murky dealings began in 2016, following a dozen debacles, three attorney generals and two state comptrollers.

After a three-year investigation, he was indicted. In 2020, trial started with 333 prosecution witnesses. The long list excludes many debacles by his wife Sara, infamous for her vocal temper and penchant for luxury, and his son Yair, who excels in far-right podcast populism.

In his position as PM in 2009–2016, Netanyahu made decisions that had significant implications for national security, yet without orderly decision-making process. These decisions allegedly enriched him. One involved the purchase of submarines and vessels from German shipbuilder Thyssenkrupp in a deal valued at $2 billion.

The problems went further. Since the start of his career, Netanyahu’s select aides had to be approved by his wife Sara, according to their loyalty rather than expertise. The highly controversial practice was later extended to some appointments involving even military and intelligence authorities.

In Netanyahu’s world, meritocracy is nice, but loyalty is everything.

The legal process began anew in December 2024 and remains ongoing. Netanyahu faces charges in three separate cases, including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. He has consistently denied all wrongdoing, calling the prosecution a “witch-hunt”.

What next?

On November 30, 2025, Netanyahu submitted an official request to President Isaac Herzog for a pardon, asking that the trial be halted for the sake of “national unity”. This is an extraordinary request as pardons are typically granted only after conviction and an admission of guilt.

President Herzog could offer a conditional pardon, potentially requiring a form of admission and an agreement to retire from politics, but Netanyahu has refused to commit to leaving politics. If any form of pardon is granted, it is highly likely that petitions will be filed against the High Court against the decision. Given the remaining stages of the trial and potential appeals, proceedings are expected to continue for several more years if the pardon is not granted.

As of late 2025, Netanyahu’s personal approval ratings are low, hovering around 40-45% favorability/trust, while most Israelis express dissatisfaction with his government’s performance. Most Israelis do not trust their government.

Does it follow that the PM’s political career is over? Not necessarily.

Netanyahu’s political scenarios

Despite his numerous controversies, some polls place Netanyahu ahead of rivals like Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist opposition, and former war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a center-right conservative ex-military chief. But setting aside real and perceived rivals, there are several scenarios for Netanyahu’s political future.

PM deja vu. Netanyahu remains Prime Minister in a new coalition by leveraging perceived military or diplomatic successes, such as new normalization agreements with Arab states.

Opposition hits a home run. Netanyahu is ousted as the opposition forms a cohesive majority government without relying on him or his hard-right Likud.

Political paralysis by repeat elections. If no single bloc by Netanyahu or the opposition can form a governing majority, Israel could face a period of political paralysis. That could mean repeat elections with Netanyahu as an interim PM.

Voluntary retirement. Given his age (76) in the 2026 election, recurring health issues and the immense pressure from ongoing corruption trials, intense public protests, and the political fallout of the October 7 attacks, Netanyahu health could eventually fail him.

So, what accounts for Netanyahu’s staying power?

In the long view, Israel’s shift to the right since the late 1970s, the Messianic doctrines seeking to legitimize occupation, the hardening of political divides after Rabin’s assassination and the subsequent crumbling of the peace process, Likud’s longstanding cooptation of Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry and religious Jews, and perhaps most importantly, Netanyahu’s longstanding cooperation with America’s leading neoconservatives and his ultra-rich political sponsors in the U.S. ranging from the late Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson to the Falic family, owners of a chain of 180 Duty Free Americas stores, Irving Moskowitz and many others in his “millionaire list.”

Those who believe that Netanyahu is about to disappear from Israel’s political map engage in wishful fantasies. He is determined to change Israel. And he is almost there.  

Tucker Carlson and the Freedom of Speech

by Andrew P. Napolitano | Dec 18, 2025

https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2025/12/17/tucker-carlson-and-the-freedom-of-speech/

Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the United States Senate, introduced a resolution on behalf of himself and 40 other Senate Democrats that, if passed, would record the sense of the Senate as condemning the media superstar Tucker Carlson because of the political, historical and cultural opinions of a guest on Carlson’s podcast. You read that correctly: The U.S. Senate is being asked to condemn Carlson because of what someone else said.

Here is the back story.

When James Madison was crafting the iconic language of the First Amendment — “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech or of the press” — he insisted that the word “the” precede the word “freedom” in the text of the amendment so as to emphasize the understanding of the drafters and ratifiers that expressive freedoms preexisted the drafting of the amendment. The theory of law offering that the freedom of speech is prepolitical offers as well that it is natural. It comes from our humanity.

The theory of the personal origin of human freedom was crafted by Aristotle, refined by St. Augustine, codified by St. Thomas Aquinas, articulated in treatise form by John Locke and woven into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that pursuant to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” we are all endowed by our “Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Some scholars contend that freedom comes from a collective community consensus, but most accept the Madison/Jefferson view that freedom is either a gift from God who gave us perfect free will or, because our human nature has developed over thousands of years to seek the truth and avoid pain, our nature has become imbued with the exercise of basic freedoms; chief among which — after life itself — is speech. Of course, if freedom depends on community consensus, it is hardly inalienable.

Madison’s task as the drafter of the Bill of Rights was to codify Jefferson’s lofty language and the values articulated by it into the positive law of the land; in this case, the supreme law of the land.

Some scholars have argued that the speech and press clauses of the First Amendment were intended only to prohibit congressionally enacted prior restraint on speech and publications. And some have argued that the clauses only restrain Congress, not the states nor the president. Yet, after a judicial revolution on expressive rights in the federal courts in the 1960s, it is clear that today no government and no person using government assets may abridge the freedom of speech or of the press.

Whatever one’s understanding of the origins of the human freedoms, it is also clear beyond serious dispute that the currently prevailing and nearly universally accepted judicial understanding of the freedom of speech and of the press in the United States reinforces that political speech can be unbridled. The whole purpose of the First Amendment speech and press clauses is to encourage — and to require the government to protect — open, wide, robust, even incendiary, caustic and hateful expressions about the policies and the personnel of the government.

Now, back to Chuck Schumer and Tucker Carlson.

In furtherance of the government’s obligations under the First Amendment are numerous prohibitions, two of which are relevant to this Schumer resolution condemning Carlson. First, the government may not evaluate the content of political speech and act upon that evaluation. Thus, it may not pick and choose what speech it likes and praise it and what speech it hates and condemn it.

Doing the latter — which is what Schumer proposes the Senate should do to Carlson — leads to a second prohibition. The government may not chill the exercise of the freedom of speech. Chilling consists in government behavior — direct or indirect — toward speech that gives the speaker or writer or those similarly situated pause or fear before uttering expressions.

Knowing Tucker Carlson as I do — we worked together at Fox News and remain friends and colleagues today — nothing will chill his exercise of the freedom of speech. But that does not absolve the Senate from the charge of chilling. Chilling is utterly prohibited, no matter the sensitivities or backbone of its target.

The Schumer proposal is a resolution, meaning, it is not legislation that, if passed in the Senate, would proceed to the House of Representatives. It cannot have the force of law. It purports to express the sense of the Senate on Carlson’s decision not to “push back” when a guest named Nick Fuentes articulated speech that Schumer found to be hateful. But the jurisprudential prohibition on evaluating content and on chilling absolutely prohibit Schumer from using the levers of government power available to him to attack Carlson.

Of course, Sen. Schumer can speak out about whatever he found objectionable from Fuentes and from Carlson’s decision not to challenge his guest. I suspect Schumer’s is a political motivation intended to see if Republicans will support or oppose his proposal. But there is more here than meets the eye.

Does the government have the freedom of speech? Under the natural law, it does not, as only human beings have natural rights. The government is not a naturally existing being. It is an artificial construct based on a monopoly of force in a given — sometimes changing — geographic area. In order to exist, government takes assets from persons in its geographic area via taxes and negates some of their freedoms via laws and regulations.

Whatever the government takes and whatever it negates, it may not abridge the freedom of speech, directly or indirectly, by taxes or threats or commands or prohibitions or praises or chilling. If it could, then we’d have not even the semblance of a representative democracy in Washington or anywhere else.

Poll: Younger Republicans Break with GOP Orthodoxy on Israel

An IMEU poll shows conservatives under 45 favor cutting U.S. arms to Israel, oppose renewing aid agreements, and back independent investigations into Americans killed by Israeli forces.

Harrison Berger

Dec 16, 2025

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/poll-younger-republicans-break-with-gop-orthodoxy-on-israel/

A new poll of Republican voters further confirms the generational divide on Israel policy among conservatives, with majorities of younger Republicans favoring cuts to U.S. weapons transfers, opposing renewal of the decade-long $38 billion aid memorandum with Israel, and supporting independent U.S. investigations into the numerous cases where Americans have been killed by the Israeli military.

The data, gathered by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and shared with The American Conservative, demonstrates that younger Republicans increasingly reject what has been labeled by critics as “Israel First” orthodoxy within the GOP, favoring a more restrained, oversight-driven approach instead. Among Republicans under 45 years old, 51 percent say they would prefer a 2028 candidate for president who supports reducing taxpayer funded arms to Israel, while only 27 percent prefer a candidate who wants to maintain or increase those weapons transfers. 

Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. is estimated to have spent more than $31.4–33.8 billion on Israel and its various wars. That is in addition to the annual $3.8 billion that the foreign government receives from the 10-year MOU signed under the Obama administration. Israel has already signaled that it intends to negotiate a new MOU worth roughly twice as much and lasting twice as long. But when Republican voters were asked whether Washington should renew the agreement at all, only 24 percent of Republicans under 45 said yes, while 53 percent said it should not be renewed.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing among Republican voters follows the same generational and media divides seen elsewhere in the IMEU poll. While Netanyahu has a net favorability of +40 with older Republicans, among Republicans under 45, his net rating falls to just +2. Likewise, Republicans who regularly watch Fox News (who have a median age of roughly 68) rate Netanyahu at +49, while those who do not watch Fox News place him at only +11.  Foreign influence over the American information system emerged as a particular point of concern, with 37 percent of all Republicans saying organizations supportive of the Israeli government exert too much influence over the media.

Republicans of all ages are broadly aligned on the need for accountability when Israelis harm Americans. Fifty-nine percent say the United States should conduct its own investigations into cases involving Americans killed by Israel, a view shared by 63 percent of Republicans under 45 and 58 percent of those over 45. Those results echo the long-running grievances from families of Americans killed by Israeli forces and settlers. In two high-profile cases, the deaths of Shireen Abu Akleh and Saif Musallet, the U.S. government ultimately deferred to Israeli investigators, who absolved the IDF and settler perpetrators.

Nearly half of Republicans—48 percent—say that legitimate criticism of Israel is too often mislabeled as antisemitic, a view held by 50 percent of Republicans under 45 and 47 percent of those over 45, while only 23 percent disagreed. That sentiment comes as the U.S. government conditions federal funding to various universities over the adoption of novel anti-antisemitism standards, including pressure to adopt IHRA foreign speech codes on campuses. Earlier this year, the State Department attempted to deport various visa-holders over their views toward the foreign government of Israel.

The findings suggest that the GOP’s long-standing deference to Israel is unlikely to survive generational turnover, with younger conservatives signaling an appetite for a more independent U.S. posture—if not an outright “clean break” from a foreign government whose leaders continue to travel around the world claiming to control our own.

Trump Denies Rift with Netanyahu Over Israeli Airstrike in Gaza That Targeted Hamas Commander

The attack marked a clear violation of the US-backed ceasefire deal

by Dave DeCamp | December 15, 2025

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/12/15/trump-denies-rift-with-netanyahu-over-israeli-airstrike-in-gaza-that-targeted-hamas-commander/

President Trump denied on Monday that there was a rift between his White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over an Israeli airstrike that killed a Hamas commander in Gaza on Saturday, a clear violation of the US-backed ceasefire deal.

“No, Israel and I have gotten along very well. My relationship with Bibi Netanyahu has been obviously a very good one,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about reports that he “rebuked” Netanyahu over the attack.

According to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a former IDF intelligence officer, the White House “scolded” Netanyahu over the strike and viewed it as a clear violation of the truce.

“The White House message to Netanyahu was: ‘If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don’t abide by agreements be our guest, but we won’t allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza,” a US official told Ravid.

But President Trump offered no criticism of the Israeli attack. When asked whether it violated the ceasefire, he said, “We are looking into that.”

The Trump administration has remained silent as Israel has continued its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, killing nearly 400 since the truce went into effect on October 10. Both the US and Israel are preventing reconstruction from taking place in the Hamas-controlled side of Gaza, where civilians in tent camps are dying due to harsh storms and continued Israeli restrictions.

Netanyahu is set to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on December 29, marking the Israeli leader’s fifth visit to the US this year. The two leaders are expected to discuss the implementation of Trump’s plan for Gaza, though there’s been little progress on advancing it since countries are hesitant to be involved in the international force that is meant to be deployed to the Strip over concerns their troops could end up fighting Hamas on behalf of Israel.

ICC judges stoic in face of US sanctions over Israeli war crimes cases

Staff at the International Criminal Court have described the sweeping effect of US sanctions on their daily lives.

By Tim Hume and AP

12 Dec 2025

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/12/icc-judges-stoic-in-face-of-us-sanctions-over-israeli-war-crimes-cases

Judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have been cut off by banks, credit card companies and tech giants like Amazon as a result of sanctions brought by the United States President Donald Trump administration over war crimes investigations into Israeli and US officials.

The Associated Press news agency reported on Friday on the sweeping and punitive effect of the US sanctions on nine staff members – including six judges and the chief prosecutor – of The Hague court.

The measures, introduced in an executive order by Trump earlier this year, block their access to basic financial services and everyday activities like online shopping and email, and prevent them from entering the US, subjecting them to the same restrictions as those brought against figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who nevertheless was allowed to visit the US state of Alaska for a summit with Trump in August.

“Your whole world is restricted,” Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, one of the ICC officials targeted by the sanctions, told AP.

The ICC, the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal with 125 member states, was targeted with the restrictions in February, with the White House saying the move was in response to the “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”.

The order followed the ICC’s move to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed during its genocidal war on Gaza.

‘Now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism’

Prost, who was named in the latest round of sanctions in August, told AP that she had lost access to her credit cards, had purchased e-books vanish from her device, and Amazon’s Alexa stopped responding to her.

“It’s the uncertainty,” she said. “They are small annoyances, but they accumulate.”

Prost had been sanctioned for voting to allow the court’s investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, including by US soldiers and intelligence operatives.

“I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organised crime,” she said.

Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza, a sanctioned Peruvian judge, said the US travel sanctions, which also extended to family members, meant her daughters could no longer attend conferences in the US.

The sanctions threaten businesses and individuals with substantial US fines and prison time if they provide sanctioned people with “financial, material, or technological support”, driving them to withdraw services to the targeted individuals.

“You’re never quite sure when your card is not working somewhere, whether this is just a glitch or whether this is the sanction,” deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the AP.

Reports of threats over warrants

The sanctions are reportedly only one of the measures that have been levelled against the court in an attempt to exert pressure over the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

In July, the Middle East Eye (MEE) website reported that the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was warned that he and the ICC would be “destroyed” if the warrants were not withdrawn.

The threat reportedly came from Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court linked to a Netanyahu adviser. Khan said the Israeli leader’s legal adviser told him he was “authorised” to make Khan a proposal that would allow the prosecutor to “climb down the tree”, the news website reported.

The site reported in August that Khan had also been privately warned by then-British Foreign Secretary David Cameron in April the previous year that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if it issued the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, while in May 2024, US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also “threatened” Khan with sanctions if he applied for the warrants.

In May, Khan’s office announced he had taken a leave of absence pending the conclusion of a UN-led investigation into allegations of sexual misc

His lawyers said he rejected all claims of wrongdoing and had only stepped aside temporarily due to intense media scrutiny.

Hug Bibi' strategy: Ben Rhodes shows how Democrats lost the plot on Gaza

Marco Carnelos

11 December 2025

From blatant double standards to a growing disconnect with voters, the party's unflinching support for Israel has become a massive liability

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/hug-bibi-strategy-ben-rhodes-shows-how-democrats-lost-plot-gaza

In a recent New York Times column, one of former President Barack Obama’s closest advisers, Ben Rhodes, offered a long-overdue and merciless analysis of how badly the US Democratic Party has mismanaged the Gaza tragedy - and more broadly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past decade.

He summarised the Biden administration’s policy after 7 October 2023 as the “hug Bibi” strategy, referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The assumption was that “smothering Mr. Netanyahu with unconditional support would give the U.S. leverage to influence his actions”. 

Never has an assumption been more wrong.

Netanyahu, a true master in deceiving the Washington establishment, bamboozled the US administration once again. He took everything from President Joe Biden without conceding anything; the notorious US leverage was thus absent in Gaza.

During the last 15 months of the Biden presidency, Israel received billions of dollars in weapons from the US and used them indiscriminately against Palestinian civilians. The US veto shielded Tel Aviv from UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire, and both nations attacked the International Criminal Court for pursuing charges against Netanyahu and his former defence minister. 

American double standards were systematically applied, standing in stark contrast to Washington’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

This policy was highly damaging for both the US Democratic administration and the party as a whole. Both were called hypocrites: on one hand, they incessantly advocated for a rules-based world order, while on the other, they stayed shamefully silent and idle as Israel openly violated it.

This choice cost the party - not only its moral standing, but also a lot of votes, especially among youths.

Dubious talking points

Even as civilian casualties in Gaza soared, the Democratic narrative stuck to the same worn-out Aipac talking points, focusing on Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East” and on its right to self-defence - while simultaneously insisting that the Palestinian Authority (PA) must reform and become a “credible partner for peace”.

These talking points sound less and less convincing. The fact that Israel is a democracy cannot be invoked as a mitigating circumstance for its war crimes, but as an aggravating one. Real democracies should not act in such a criminal manner.

The topic under discussion is not Israel’s right to self-defence, but its disproportionate use of force, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of civilian casualties in Gaza. In addition, an occupying power - as Israel still is in Gaza, according to international law - cannot easily invoke its right to self-defence over threats originating from the same territory and people it is keeping under occupation. 

For those still unaware, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 did not end its occupation, as the Israeli army continues to control the territory’s land, air and sea borders. Even along the southern border with Egypt, Cairo dares not do anything without Israel’s prior consent.

As for PA “reform”, we must clarify what this word means. To be sure, there is a need for better governance and a curb on corruption in Ramallah - but real reforms can come only when the Palestinian leadership stops collaborating with Israel and enabling its occupation of the West Bank. Only then can the PA become - for the whole Palestinian people - a credible partner for peace.

But if “reform” instead means that Palestinian authorities must become more zealous in enabling Israel’s occupation, and better at tipping off the Israeli army during its lethal security operations in the West Bank - well, that would be a non-starter.

To avoid any misunderstanding, the last thing that Netanyahu and his right-wing government desire is a reformed PA. Their refusal to release from prison the only credible leader capable of unifying Palestinians, Marwan Barghouti, is compelling evidence in this regard.

Sidelining Palestinian rights

Rhodes correctly defines such worn-out talking points as a “smoke screen - a stale formula to be used in Washington rather than a description of reality in the Middle East”.

The same talking points have been parroted over the past two years by most top European Union leaders, apparently unaware of the moral abyss into which they were plunging themselves - and the values they so proudly claim to defend - by failing to lift a finger to sanction Israel or to stop its crimes across the occupied Palestinian territories.

Rhodes brilliantly summarised the situation as follows: “Many Democrats [were put] in the awkward position of seeking support from organizations including AIPAC donors and affiliated PACs, which spent tens of millions of dollars to attack a Democratic president’s policies and consistently undermined efforts to achieve a two-state solution.”

The fact that in a 2009 speech, Netanyahu paid lip service to the potential for a Palestinian state, but by 2015 was promising no Palestinian state on his watch, seemed to elude both the US Democratic Party and the future Biden administration.

Rhodes also recalls how US Democrats were mesmerised by the 2020 Abraham Accords, and tried to enable them after the first Trump administration - when it was evident, even to the more distracted observer, that they sidelined Palestinian rights to self-determination and statehood. 

Rhodes further describes an unsuccessful attempt to insert into Biden’s 2020 campaign platform a reference to the Israeli occupation, and a pledge to restrict assistance to Israel if it annexed Palestinian territories. Sadly, he notes, “Democrats were unwilling to oppose Israeli policies even if they ran directly counter to long-held Democratic Party positions”.

This situation did not change after 7 October 2023. The trauma of that day, and the ensuing events, prompted the US to once again cave to Israeli logic - after having feebly and unsuccessfully advised Netanyahu to restrain from brutal vengeance, like the US pursued after 9/11.

Democrats nurturing doubts about where Israel and the peace process were headed found themselves “trapped in a no man’s land sticking to talking points detached from the reality of the Middle East”, Rhodes notes.

Cognitive dissonance

Ultimately, the problem is not with Democratic voters, but with the party leadership, which seems to increasingly find itself in a state of cognitive dissonance. Polls show that only a third of Democrats have a favourable view of Israel, down from 73 percent in 2014, while 77 percent now believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Rhodes bravely outlines the correct approach: “The simplest thing to do would be the right thing: refuse to provide military assistance to a government that has committed war crimes; support the International Criminal Court in its work, whether it is focused on [Russian President] Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu; oppose any effort by Israel to annex the West Bank or ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip; invest in an alternative Palestinian leadership from Hamas that can ultimately govern a Palestinian state; stand up for democracy in Israel as in the United States.”

With all due respect to Obama’s former adviser, had such words been uttered by his boss, another noble figure in the Democratic Party, it would have made a big difference.

Nevertheless, some Democratic politicians are beginning to react. A resolution introduced by Representative Rashida Tlaib to recognise the Gaza genocide was co-sponsored by 21 of her colleagues, amounting to 10 percent of House Democrats. 

One of them, Representative Ro Khanna, declared on X (formerly Twitter): “I agree with the UN commission’s heartbreaking finding that there is a genocide in Gaza. What matters is what we do about it - stop military sales that are being used to kill civilians and recognize a Palestinian state.”

At the same time, Aipac’s intimidating power and wrath seem to be waning - a reality that has begun to dawn among Democratic Party officials. Indeed, this once-powerful lobby is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for Democrats on Capitol Hill, some of whom are refusing its donations.

It remains to be seen whether, and how, this increased awareness among Democratic members of Congress, alongside the gap between voters and party leadership, will affect midterm elections and the 2028 presidential nomination process.

As Rhodes correctly remarks: “Sometimes, to win, you must show that there are principles for which you are prepared to lose.”