Gulf-Eurasian energy crunch pushes Europe to the edge of an inflationary crisis

Europe will be counting on luck as much as policy to face a mounting energy crisis fueled by wars in Iran and Russia-Ukraine

Ilya Roubanis and Eldaniz Gusseinov

Published date: 18 September 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gulf-eurasian-energy-crunch-pushes-europe-edge-inflationary-crisis

Europe’s oil and gas supply is now disrupted by conflicts in both the Gulf and Eurasia. On Friday, Saudi Arabia told European refineries to not expect any crude oil deliveries next month. The continent will need as much good fortune as foresightful policy to withstand the evolving energy crisis.

Conflicts on the periphery of the European Union, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, the Black and Caspian Seas have made it clear that Europe is not able to secure critical energy value chains. 

With shallow infrastructure in terms of strategic reserves for oil and gas, a dependence on spot markets, and increasingly volatile weather, Europe needs luck.   

Houthi forces have advanced rapidly along Yemen’s southwestern Red Sea coast, capturing the Port of Mokha on 10 September, seizing Mayun/Perim Island inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on 11 September, and reportedly taking Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands on 14 September. 

These islands sit directly on tanker and LNG shipping lanes entering the Red Sea, making even limited Houthi presence commercially significant. The strait is not physically closed, but territorial control now allows the Houthis to disrupt traffic.

“The Houthis do not need to physically close Bab el-Mandeb to extract strategic value from their position,” Abdi Guled, editor of Horn Briefs and a former AP and Reuters correspondent, told Middle East Eye. 

War-risk insurance premiums for Red Sea transits have surged, and even a perceived threat can make routine voyages commercially unviable. 

While it’s still early to tell, early indicators show the transit of vessels has declined, with major insurance companies withdrawing war-risk coverage for Bab el-Mandeb, and shipping companies diverting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10-14 days to voyages and raising costs across global supply chains.

These Red Sea disruptions come as global markets are still absorbing the shock of the months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year. The combined effect is visible in Europe’s inflation data: reduced supply, higher shipping costs, and refinery outages feed directly into diesel, electricity, and food prices. 

The closure of Hormuz from February to early September removed an estimated 17-19 million barrels per day from global markets, forcing Europe to rely more heavily on Atlantic Basin and Caspian supply. 

Saudi Arabia mitigated part of the shock by diverting crude through its East–West Pipeline to the Yanbu export terminal on the Red Sea, increasing flows – until recently – from roughly two million barrels per day at the start of the year to around six million barrels per day. 

The pipeline can technically carry up to seven million barrels per day, though Yanbu’s loading capacity limits this to some extent. 

A drone attack on a pumping station on 11 September prompted the immediate closure of the East-West line, and, at the time of writing, it is not clear when it will reopen. 

“The current energy crisis is morphing into a global financial crisis with symptoms in Europe now evident as eurozone inflation is accelerating at 3.3 percent and energy inflation jumping at 14.3 percent,” Costantinos Stambolis, Chairman of the Institute of Energy for South-East Europe, told MEE. 

Four seas, two wars, one market 

Europe’s quandary is that conflict is constraining energy supplies from both Russia and the Gulf.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and export terminals have created industrial constraints on Russian supply at a moment when European sanctions limit alternative inflows. 

US President Donald Trump claimed this week that the two countries had agreed not to strike energy targets, but Kyiv said it was conditional and there is no public confirmation from Moscow.

One of Europe’s hopes for diversifying supply beyond the Middle East was Kazakhstan, a country that has quietly become one of the few producers capable of easing Europe’s tightening oil balance. 

However, Kazakhstan’s main export artery is the CPC pipeline, which handles more than 80 percent of the country’s crude exports - but which delivers the crude to a loading terminal at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. 

“There’s a difference between shortages and total crisis,” says John Roberts, formerly an editor at Financial Times Energy and an Atlantic Council Fellow, “but Europe is now exposed because several supply routes are under strain at once”.

“Ukraine seems capable and indeed willing to attack Novorossiysk,” Roberts said, leaving Kazakhstan unable to rely on its main outlet at a moment when alternative routes are limited. 

The Caspian is the logical alternative to the Black Sea route, with energy transit via Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Through this route, tankers transit the Caspian Sea and feed the Baku-Supsa pipeline, which can handle around 150,000 barrels per day - far below Kazakhstan’s typical export volumes. Additional volumes can be channelled through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, making Azerbaijan’s infrastructure key for Europe’s energy security.

But the Caspian route is not safe either.

On July 25, a Ukrainian drone struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian. The strike proved that such attacks are possible and can happen again. For the moment, an understanding between Kyiv and Tehran has eased major concerns. There is little doubt that this is also an existential challenge for Central Asian states. 

If Kazakhstan cannot ship west, China becomes the default buyer, reducing volumes available to Europe.

“They don’t want to be dependent on a monopsonist customer (single dominant buyer),” Roberts said. 

Regulation compounds volatility

Experts are now placing their hope for easing inflation on “demand destruction” - poorer countries reducing consumption because they can no longer afford high prices, diverting supply to Europe. 

Weather is a key factor: a mild winter would give Europe breathing space. How weather will affect demand for fossil fuels is anything but clear. 

According to reports from Rystad Energy and ICIS, the 2026-2027 El Niño weather pattern will change how much energy Europe uses over the next year. 

In a July 2026 assessment, analysts warned that while a milder start to the December 2026 to January 2027 winter could initially lower heating demand, a sudden atmospheric shift could trigger severe cold snaps in February 2027, causing a late-winter spike in gas and electricity use. 

Furthermore, historical data from ICIS shows that strong El Niño events can cut European wind power generation by up to 9.8 percent during the winter months, forcing power plants to burn more natural gas to keep the lights on.

However, regulation is reducing Europe’s scope to address short-to-medium pressure.

EU methane rules taking effect in 2027 will require gas and LNG importers to prove that overseas producers meet EU-level monitoring and verification standards. 

Analysts such as Ben Cahill at CSIS say this will immediately split the market between compliant and non-compliant exporters. Many producers lack the equipment and data systems needed to meet EU-level monitoring standards, meaning compliant gas may become more expensive. This is likely to affect suppliers from Central Asia. 

Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are studying ways to access the European market. But this requires the placement of critical infrastructure to carry Kazakh oil or Turkmen gas across the Caspian. This is hard, as the EU cannot offer investment capital or long-term contracts for oil and gas projects due to environmental regulations. 

One proposal is for a short interconnector with a capacity of around five billion cubic metres between Turkmenistan’s own offshore platforms and those of Azerbaijan. 

Advocates have put the cost of laying such a line at around $500m - or closer to one billion if the line were eventually intended to carry 10-12 bcm. Such a pipeline would pass through the territorial waters of only two countries, which, under the 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, reduces Moscow and Tehran's ability to block the project. 

Nonetheless, Moscow and Tehran can use environmental impact assessments to exert pressure.

Europe’s energy crisis is turning into an industrial and inflationary challenge that cannot be addressed with policy or regulatory interventions. While in the long run Europe may come to rely on renewables alone, in the short run, there is little that policymakers can say to dissuade concerns. Luck matters more than policy. 

What’s behind Iranian authorities’ push for a mass mobilisation campaign?

Iran has launched a major mobilisation drive, sparking fears of renewed conflict with the US.

By Al Jazeera Staff

Published On 20 Sep 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/20/whats-behind-iranian-authorities-push-for-a-mass-mobilisation-campaign

“Do you know how to work with this?” reads the text on banners erected across Tehran, emblazened with the image of a rocket-propelled grenade, a sniper or assault rifle, or other military or communications equipment.

The Iranian authorities’ public messaging campaign is part of a push to train and arm volunteer civilians who would serve as part of state security under the Basij militia arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Islamic Republic first unveiled the messages as part of a major mobilisation drive – called Janfada or “those who sacrifice their life” – in late March at the peak of the war with the United States and Israel.

Janfada recruits held their first public “military exercise” on Friday in Tehran, where thousands of children, women and men – many masked and wearing shades – marched on downtown streets.

Prior to the event, the authorities called it a march of 313,000 people, although footage broadcast by state television did not appear to justify this claim. In Twelver Shia tradition, 313 is the number of the core companions of Mahdi, the messianic hidden imam who will reappear near the end times to establish justice.

Hassan Hassanzadeh, head of IRGC in Tehran, told state broadcaster IRIB that more than 600,000 people had heeded the call this week for the active mobilisation part of the campaign by registering on a website.

The authorities said more than one million people were expected to sign up, and that they had already formed an initial 1,000 units, described as “battalions”.

The Janfada campaign raised eyebrows just one month after its launch in late March when authorities claimed that more than 31 million people – which represents just over a third of Iran’s total population – had registered. It would also be more than half of the over-12 population, men and women.

Foreign-based activists accessed the website’s source code, which showed that fewer than four million people had registered. Only a phone number was required for registry, with no national identification number needed.

After the controversy, a ticker showing the number of recruits slowed down significantly, but then, the IRGC’s Hassanzadeh claimed on Friday that 33 million people are now registered. Authorities have not released documentation to back their figures.

The mobilisation effort is not exclusively military, as organisers said 26 percent of registrants selected military and security work, with other categories including rescue, social services, media, and financial support.

President Masoud Pezeshkian asked the volunteers during Friday’s parade to tangibly help his administration by consuming less fuel, electricity and other resources at a time when the country is challenged by energy imbalance and wider economic turmoil.

The government increased the price of fuel and limited petrol quotas allocated to personal vehicles earlier this month as it battles a budget crunch and fuel production shortfalls related to the war.

Iranian households and industries have also been afflicted, with intermittent power blackouts throughout the summer, with the upcoming cold season expected to bring more natural gas shortages in the resource-rich country.

Focus on children

The latest display of the “sacrifice” campaign in Tehran focused on children. Some teenagers were shown wielding assault rifles and other weapons during Friday’s military exercise, while others marched in the procession. Armed teenagers have been seen manning checkpoints and roadblocks on the streets of Tehran and other cities over recent months.

Sasan Zare, the spokesman of the Janfada campaign, told the state-linked Iranian Labour News Agency on Saturday that boys over 15 have been allowed to register for the campaign, but that there were also plans for under-15s to be recruited.

“Our effort concerning children and teenagers, first and foremost, is to introduce them to the culture of sacrifice and resistance,” Zare said.

“The stronger their value system is formed from childhood, and the more they become familiar with concepts like patriotism and self-sacrifice, the more significant the impact can be on their future.”

Women also featured heavily during Friday’s display, with many chador-clad volunteers wielding weapons on the streets.

Some of them were shown riding on motorcycles, despite women being officially banned from doing so in civilian life.

What’s the purpose?

During Friday’s parade, Iranian military hardware used in the war against the US and Israel went on public display.

The efforts come as Iran and the US clash over the future of the Strait of Hormuz and the outcome of the war. The US continues to impose a naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports and has intensified its sanctions on the country.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei told Al Jazeera that seven conditions for negotiations had been relayed to Washington through intermediaries, but added that commanders were also prepared to resume the war.

The authorities have not elaborated on why they require hundreds of thousands of civilians to take up arms or engage in other security activities, considering that there are no prospects of a ground war with the US in the foreseeable future.

The campaign comes months after thousands were killed during nationwide protests in January, which Iranian authorities describe as a “coup” orchestrated by the US and Israel and armed agents acting in line with their interests.

A United Nations fact-finding mission alleged on Friday that the Islamic Republic committed crimes against humanity while cracking down on the protests. Amnesty International last week presented a lengthy report that identified dozens of senior authorities who engaged in crimes against humanity during the 2022-23 protests over Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in Iranian police custody after being detained for wearing “improper hijab”.

Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned against more public protests in recent weeks, emphasising that any act perceived to be undermining national security and “social cohesion” is strictly forbidden.

Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told Al Jazeera that he perceives the Janfada campaign as an effort to rebrand the Basij militia, which has become associated with the violent repression of protests.

He explained that following neighbouring Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980, hundreds of thousands of Iranians volunteered for front-line service out of a sense of religious or patriotic duty. These were mobilised through the Basij.

“Since the end of the war in 1988, however, the Basij has evolved into an instrument of domestic coercion and the suppression of dissent, severely damaging the organisation’s public image,” he said.

The public mobilisation campaign could thus be viewed as an attempt to restore the Basij’s former patriotic image in anticipation of future internal and external threats – “if not a US ground invasion of Iran, then the prospect of a US- and Israeli-instigated civil war in Iran’s peripheral regions, as well as large-scale popular uprisings driven by mounting economic pressure”, Alfoneh said.

NAZA: Why are old Gaza allegations causing new fury in Israel?

Israeli soldiers’ Gaza testimony causes backlash across much of the country’s political establishment.

By Simon Speakman Cordall

Published On 19 Sep 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/19/naza-why-are-old-gaza-allegations-causing-new-fury-in-israel

Israel’s bitter political divisions are particularly sharp before the country’s October elections. But the furious response to a new documentary about the military’s actions in the genocidal war on Gaza has revealed an issue that much of Israel’s political and media establishment appears united on.

Few of the central allegations in NAZA, made by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, are new. Reports that the Israeli military was relying on artificial intelligence systems to generate targets in Gaza, often killing the inhabitants of entire buildings to kill just one individual identified by the system, were reported in April 2024.

Other accusations against Israel, such as committing genocide, deliberately causing a famine, and unlawfully killing children, have also not received much attention in Israel.

In contrast, NAZA has unleashed a litany of abuse from across Israel, and brought the allegations to the centre of Israel’s political debate.

Culture Minister Miki Zohar reacted to the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival – where it received a 25-minute standing ovation – by calling for the directors to be stripped of their citizenship and to be investigated by the internal intelligence service for treason.

Army chief Eyal Zamir has dismissed the film as being built on blood libel and ordered a legal probe to hunt down its military and intelligence sources.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also cited the film when advancing legislation to revoke citizenship from anyone deemed to be smearing the country’s soldiers, while in the coastal city of Ashdod, graffiti branding the directors “traitors” has appeared on the walls.

“You can’t really understand the extent of the madness from outside of the country,” Orly Noy, an editor at Local Call, which first carried many of the accusations contained in the film, said. “They’re attacking the friends and families of [the filmmakers] Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. They’re talking about revoking their citizenship. They’re asking the Shin Bet to investigate them – for making a film, and it isn’t just the politicians. Journalists, who you might expect to show some kind of solidarity with them, are competing to attack them. It’s scary.”

Denial

In late 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported escalating censorship and harassment in Israel, with Israeli journalists telling the organisation that the media’s approach had become “part of the war effort” and, by extension, significantly shaped Israeli view of their war on Gaza.

In October 2025, a study by the Israeli think tank Molad found that only 3 percent of Channel 12’s coverage of the first six months of the war mentioned Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. Of 206 war-related images and video clips broadcast by the network, Israel’s most-watched channel, only two showed Palestinian civilian casualties.

Nevertheless, before the film’s release, polls found that most Israelis believed the coverage they were receiving of the military’s conduct in Gaza was balanced.

“I guess it was because the mainstream media outlets in Israel did not investigate the conduct of the army during the war in Gaza, and hardly covered the war from the Palestinian point of view,” Anat Saragusti, the Israeli jurist and journalist responsible for press freedom at the Union of Journalists in Israel, said of the shock that had accompanied the release of the film. “[The Israeli media] hardly reported on the human toll and the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

Compounding the gap, Saragusti said, was a deep-seated national narrative: that the war had been imposed on Israel, that Hamas had carried out a massacre on October 7, 2023, and that Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields made mass casualties in Gaza all but unavoidable.

Palestinian deaths, in this telling, were framed less as the product of Israeli conduct than as collateral damage forced on Israel by its enemy’s tactics, she said.

Lynch mobs

“Even journalists that usually support the anti-Netanyahu bloc have criticised the filmmakers,” Israeli political sociologist Daniel Bar-Tal said.

“Israeli Jews deny the genocide,” he continued, “Even all the opposition parties joined the vicious criticism of the filmmakers.”

The language used against the filmmakers has been echoed by some of Netanyahu’s most prominent political rivals.

On Monday, former military chief and one of Netanyahu’s principal rivals Gadi Eisenkot denounced the film for “moral blindness, a detachment from reality, and harm to the State of Israel in a difficult hour”.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is also running in October’s election, called the film a “horrific blood libel against our sons and daughters”.

“Everything gets heightened the closer to the election we get,” Noy said. “But I think only now, for those of us who live here, is the extent of the fascism becoming clear. Journalists, politicians and the media are forming some kind of incitement machine.”

“I’ve had anxieties over where Israel had been going for a long time,” she said, “but right now I’m genuinely worried for my friends and colleagues.”

UN Report: Reasonable Grounds to Believe US Committed War Crimes in Iran

A UN inquiry found reasonable grounds to believe the US committed war crimes in strikes on a primary school in Minab and a sports center in Lamerd.

by Kyle Anzalone | September 17, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/09/17/un-report-reasonable-grounds-to-believe-us-committed-war-crimes-in-iran/

A UN fact-finding mission concluded that the US intentionally targeted a school building in Iran that was struck on the opening day of the war, rejecting the possibility that the school was accidentally hit during an attack on a neighboring Iranian military facility. The investigators found reasonable grounds to believe the attack constituted a war crime.

“Based on the available evidence,” a report from the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran said, adding, “The Mission finds reasonable grounds to believe that the US committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects.”

The fact-finding mission was looking into human rights abuses in Iran, including the Minab school bombing. On the opening day of the war, the school was hit by multiple Tomahawk missiles, killing more than 150 people, most of them children. 

The report argues the Minab school bombing amounted to a war crime because the US intentionally targeted the building, and did not engage in thorough target verification to know it currently operated as a school. It described the failure to identify the school as “beyond mere negligence.”

“Credible civil society organizations concurred that the available evidence pointed to US responsibility and that failures in target verification, including reliance on outdated intelligence, were the most likely explanation for the strike on the school,” the report explains. Furthermore, “The Mission concluded that when targeting the school building, the US acted wilfully, that is with the requisite mental element of recklessness.”

President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the school bombing without providing evidence. He later suggested Iran possessed Tomahawk missiles, although Iran is not known to have the weapon. 

A Department of War investigation would later admit the US attack was correlated with US strikes on Iranian military sites nearby, although the US investigation has not been made public. 

The UN fact-finding mission also looked into a strike on a sports hall in Lamerd, Iran. The report says the team found “grounds to believe that the munitions used in the airstrike on and around the sports hall in Lamerd were PrSM missiles.”

22 people were killed in the attack, including five children. The fact-finding mission also found the Lamerd strike amounted to the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack. The US denies it conducted the strike. 

 

Israeli officials leak details of secret US-Israel-Arab military meeting, says report

Israeli officials revealed that military chiefs secretly met in Germany to discuss the Iran war and regional military cooperation

Elis Gjevori

Published date: 16 September 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-officials-leak-details-secret-us-israel-arab-military-meeting-report

Israeli officials have leaked details of a secret meeting between military commanders from the US, Israel and several Arab states in Germany last week to discuss the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran.

The report by former Israeli intelligence officer turned journalist Barak Ravid for Axios said the “private retreat” was organised by the commander of US Central Command (Centcom), Admiral Brad Cooper.

Citing two unnamed Israeli officials, Ravid reported that the meeting was attended by the military chiefs of staff of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt.

It was the first such gathering since the US and Israel went to war with Iran more than six months ago.

None of the regional countries publicly confirmed the meeting, although Centcom acknowledged it, saying in a statement that it "hosted senior military leaders from eight nations during a scheduled conference in Germany.

The statement said: "The leaders discussed opportunities for enhancing security cooperation in the Middle East."

During the meeting, Cooper reportedly told the regional countries that despite Iranian attacks on US bases, Washington would not withdraw its forces from the region.

Iranian strikes have damaged at least 15 US military sites across the region, destroying or damaging hundreds of buildings and pieces of military equipment.

US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan have been hit, and many rendered unusable.

Satellite analysis by the Washington Post identified damage at 15 separate US sites. Some positions were left close to unusable, while extensive damage to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain forced Centcom to reroute regional logistics.

The Centcom commander also reportedly said the US has a “plan” to expand ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

An Israeli official speaking to Ravid said Israel's chief of staff, General Eyal Zamir, briefed participants on Israeli military operations in the region.

Israel was moved from the US European Command's area of responsibility to Centcom following the meeting, allowing it to cooperate more directly with regional countries under US military command.

Responding to the news, Andreas Krieg, associate professor at King’s College London, said: “There is a deep-seated suspicion towards Centcom commander Bradley Cooper in Arab capitals in the Gulf as a commander too close to Israel, too hawkish on Iran and constantly presenting the president with military operational options that are strategically disastrous.”

Ed Sheeran Fallout: Tour Openers Finneas, Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe Drop in Solidarity with Macklemore

“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas writes after Macklemore was barred for speaking in support of Palestine on stage

Jacob Bryant

Tue, September 15, 2026

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/ed-sheeran-tour-openers-finneas-195332636.html

Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour is coming apart at the seams as Finneas, opener Aaron Rowe, Lukas Graham, and Sheeran's own house band Beoga have all dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore's dismissal – which leaves the remainder of his tour without an opener.

Finneas, who was slated to join Sheeran on the South American portion of the tour, announced he was dropping out on Instagram Tuesday.

"Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed," he wrote. "I have decided to withdraw my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people."

Rowe posted to Instagram on Tuesday as well, notifying his fans of his choice to drop out as Sheeran's opener.

"I have made the decision to withdraw as a support act for Ed Sheeran's 'The Loop' North American Tour," Rowe wrote. "I don't take the decision lightly. Ed has been a friend to me and has changed my life, I could never thank him enough for this."

He added: "But as Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation. I cannot stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up against Israeli genocide and who highlight the savage murder of children. I would lose all respect for myself to carry on as normal. I need to be true to myself and my ancestors who resisted colonisation, and fought for a freedom that I enjoy today in Ireland."

Sheeran's house band Beoga also added their names to the list of artists who were leaving the Loop Tour. Graham joined the cavalcade of dropouts shortly after.

"We have been friends with Ed for over 10 years now and will continue to be," the band wrote on their own Instagram. "We believe in dialogue as a means of progressing the plight of the Palestinian people … We are Irish people who understand colonialism. As founding members of the Irish Artists for Palestine movement, we are committed activists for justice and will continue to be."

With all the dropouts, that leaves the Sheeran's remaining tour dates without a single opener. The Loop Tour was in progress when Macklemore was dropped and was planned to run through December. Finneas was scheduled to join for the South American leg of the tour which begins in November.

Representatives for Sheeran did not immediately return TheWrap's request for comment.

Sheeran shared his side of the story earlier on Tuesday, a day after Macklemore was dropped from the Loop Tour for sharing his pro-Palestine stance onstage.

"Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter's decision. It was not mine. Macklemore's contract for the tour was with the promoter, not me," Sheeran explained. "I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living."

The "Shape of You" singer's statement appears to corroborate both Macklemore and Robert Kraft's version of events after the rapper blamed the billionaire for his removal due to his "Free Palestine" messaging.

Macklemore was originally scheduled to open for eight more shows on Sheeran's tour, kicking back up Friday in Philadelphia. These updates come a week after the Israeli American Council condemned his pro-Palestine messaging, issuing a petition for his removal from the tour.

For his part, Macklemore made sure to point out that "antisemitism is real" in his initial statement, while also noting that "more than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone."

"Ed was in a f–ked up position. He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before," Macklemore wrote on Monday. "But he couldn't get past his public-facing 'I don't take sides.'"

He finished: "I didn't need 10 shows from Ed. I needed two. Two chances to stand in front of 90,000 people and say the words that somehow became too dangerous to say. Free Palestine. If those words cost me the stage, while turning the conversation back to Palestine, then it was the most successful tour I've been on."

How Israel is expanding its cybersecurity footprint in Latin America

New security agreements with right-wing governments are opening doors for an industry whose technologies and expertise have been developed through Israel’s occupation of Palestine

Ana Maria Monjardino

Published date: 14 September 2026 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america

As right-wing governments across Latin America embrace increasingly militarised and technology-driven approaches to organised crime, Israel is positioning its cybersecurity industry as a source of expertise, surveillance capabilities and national security solutions.

The growing cooperation is opening new markets for an industry closely connected to Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, where technologies have been developed and tested through the occupation of Palestine before being marketed abroad.

Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has identified Israel’s artificial intelligence and cybersecurity expertise as a potential weapon in his promised crackdown on organised crime.

“A collaboration with Israel would allow these resources to be applied directly to combating criminal structures within the national territory,” the hardline right-wing leader said.

In neighbouring Ecuador, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Roberto Kury, signed agreements during a state visit on 4 August to increase cooperation on counter-terrorism and cybersecurity.

Israel and Argentina have also agreed to deepen their cooperation on artificial intelligence, in addition to a concurrent agreement to fight "terrorist" cyber-threats.

The agreements point to a renewed opening for Israel’s cyber industry in Latin America as a succession of right-wing governments embraces technologically driven responses to organised crime.

However, digital-rights advocates warn that the distinction between defensive cybersecurity and surveillance can become blurred when technologies developed within Israel’s military and occupation apparatus are exported to governments with weak safeguards and records of abuse.

“One of the problems is that the main mindset from governments in Latin America is a risk-based approach, it is not about human-rights centred impact,” said Pepe Flores, director of programmes at R3D Mexico, an independent, non-profit digital-rights organisation. “There is an illusion of control with technology,” he told MEE.

The regional shift also coincides with Washington’s growing emphasis on using cyber capabilities against transnational criminal organisations.

On 12 August, US President Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum empowering federal law-enforcement agencies to use cyber tools “to disrupt transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans”.

“President Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-based organized criminal organizations that exploit Americans in cyberspace,” the memorandum read.

The push for closer cooperation with Israel comes amid a broader political shift to the right in Latin America, where several governments have aligned themselves more closely with Washington and adopted hardline approaches to organised crime, migration and national security.

“New right-wing presidencies, like those of Daniel Noboa, Antonio Kast, and now Abelardo De La Espriella, have been built with an eye toward the United States. It’s like a pendulum swinging away from the likes of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Petro, and Lula da Silva,” said Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Fundacion Karisma, a civil society and digital rights organisation based in Bogota.

In this context, “choosing Israel isn't simply a matter of picking the best supplier,” he told Middle East Eye, noting “nothing particularly special” about the Israeli tools themselves.

“The choice of Israel is ideological, meaning that when faced with two equal suppliers, they pick the one that aligns better with their values, or one that reinforces their own stance.”

The doctrine of defence

Israel has increasingly presented itself to Latin American governments as a source of expertise in defence, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism.

But “the concept of ‘defense’ has never been about simply defending oneself,” said Castaneda. “That is the official narrative but clearly it also involves defending against whatever is strategic. In other words, defending oneself can become a form of attack.”

The language of defence has long been used to justify expanding state power, from the US-led “war on terror” to the decades-long “war on drugs”.

In Latin America, the language and methods associated with those campaigns are increasingly converging in the fight against what governments call “narco-terrorism”. Rights groups warn that the result has been greater militarisation and serious human rights violations, including in Ecuador and El Salvador.

Israel has deployed similar rhetoric during its genocide in Gaza, repeatedly describing it as a war of defence against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.

International criticism of Israel’s cyber industry has focused on offensive technologies such as Pegasus, the notorious Israeli spyware used by governments around the world to target journalists and activists.

But many companies closely connected to Israel’s military and security apparatus are marketing their products as defensive. 

“That is part of the selling point,” said Flores.

“The US has pushed a narrative about using cyber-technologies to fight organised crime and dismantle cartels” and “there is a pressure to provide results immediately,” he told MEE.

As a result, governments can be tempted to import Israeli tactics, but “the reality is a complex matrix where US interests, Israel’s interests and big-tech interests align”.

Tried and tested in Palestine

Israel’s cyber-technology industry is closely connected to its occupation of Palestine, where surveillance and other digital tools have been developed and deployed on a population that has little ability to refuse or challenge their use.

"The skill being monetised is not intelligence in the abstract - plenty of countries have that. It is knowing how to run population-scale surveillance on people who cannot refuse,” said Lama Nazeeh, advocacy manager at 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement.

“That is the intellectual property, and every Palestinian is an unconsenting contributor.

“Since 2017 Israeli authorities have used predictive policing algorithms that scrape social media to generate recommendations on who to detain. Thousands have been arrested on that basis, and the systems are error-prone,” Nazeeh told MEE.

The use of surveillance technology is part of a wider system of digital repression, she said.

Furthermore, "our 2025 documentation recorded 3,452 digital rights violations against Palestinians, 538 censorship complaints and 2,910 cases of hate speech and incitement,” she said. “The absence of consent is not an unfortunate side effect; it is a design requirement.”

The increased use of facial-recognition technology in the occupied Palestinian territories is part of an official move towards what has been described as a “frictionless” occupation, supposedly reducing interactions between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers by leaving identification to machines.

Facial recognition systems, like Corsight AI in Gaza, Oosto in the occupied West Bank and Mabat 2000 in occupied East Jerusalem, have all been used as part of Israel’s extensive surveillance apparatus.

“Anywhere else deploying a biometric system at scale involves a procurement process, a data protection authority, legal basis, courts that enjoin you, journalists with access and a population that can refuse. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there is none of that,” said Nazeeh.

Technologies and expertise associated with this system are subsequently marketed overseas, often as defensive or civilian security solutions.

Corsight AI’s facial-recognition software, for example, has been deployed in hospitals in Mexico and schools in Brazil. In Gaza, the Israeli military’s Unit 8200, an elite cyber-intelligence division, has used the company’s technology to identify and track Palestinians.

The commercial deployments are not necessarily used for the same purposes as Israel’s military surveillance. But rights advocates say their common technological and institutional origins raise questions about safeguards, oversight and how such systems could be used by governments seeking increasingly intrusive security powers.

The Israeli company Cellebrite, meanwhile, announced in 2023 that it was supplying a digital intelligence system to the federal forces of an unnamed Latin American country. Cellebrite, like many Israeli technology companies, has recruited personnel from Unit 8200.

Many prominent figures in Israel’s technology sector have backgrounds in the unit, which has been described as a crucial training ground for the country’s cybersecurity industry. Out of Israel’s 700 cyber-technology companies, an astounding 80 percent of founders served in Unit 8200, according to a study cited by Haaretz.  

They include Check Point founder Gil Shwed and its chief executive, Nadav Zafrir. Check Point says it is committed to “empowering Latin America businesses and governments with cutting-edge security solutions to combat rising cyber threats”.

The company recently met a delegation from Honduras’s National Telecommunications Commission to discuss the planned implementation of a national cybersecurity strategy.

Check Point has also partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries, one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers, through the Israeli Cyber Companies Consortium, or IC3.

The consortium was established in 2016 with the endorsement of the Israeli government to bring together cybersecurity companies and provide national-level cyber-defence systems to governments and international clients.

In 2017, the consortium announced that it had secured a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to establish a national cyber centre in an unnamed Latin American country.

The project included national-level threat monitoring, intelligence sharing, forensic tools, cyber training and systems designed to detect and investigate attacks.

A longstanding relationship

The expansion of Israel’s cyber industry in Latin America follows a much longer history of military and security cooperation.

During the latter half of the 20th century, Israel supplied weapons, training and security assistance to Latin American governments and armed forces implicated in campaigns against Indigenous communities and left-wing movements.

These tools and tactics were “conveniently tested on occupied Palestinians, then marketed as ‘battle-tested’,” Antony Loewenstein wrote in his book The Palestine Laboratory.

The significance of the Israeli arms industry did not lie merely in the number of weapons and pieces of equipment exported.

As Bishara Bahbah wrote in his seminal 1988 book, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection, “the significance lies in what has become Israel's absolute imperative to export arms.

“From this dependence on arms exports, all else is derivative,” he wrote, pointing to Israel’s close cooperation with authoritarian regimes and its involvement in the “global strategies” of the US.

“The history of relations [between Latin America, the US and Israel] forms the broader context in which we find ourselves today,” said Castaneda. “In other words, it shouldn't come as a surprise that these threads are converging again.”

The government of former Colombian president Gustavo Petro, which broke diplomatic relations with Israel over the war in Gaza, represented an exception to that history.

“What we’re seeing now is [a return to] the norm,” Castaneda told MEE.

From Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, digital-rights advocates warn that the combination of militarised security policies and increasingly intrusive technologies could facilitate surveillance and abuse.

For Castaneda, Colombia’s new administration will provide an important test of how that combination operates in practice.

“We have to keep watching how the Abelardo de la Espriella administration evolves and how it reconnects with Colombia’s long history of asserting that national security requires exceptional solutions,” he said.

“That history justified secrecy. It justified the use of weapons, violence, killing of people and the notion that we should not complain.”