Monday, October 6, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Middle East expert: “Israel wants to get rid of the Palestinians for good”

The situation in Gaza

Published 3 November 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant together with Israeli soldiers.
5 minute read

According to British journalist and long-time Middle East correspondent Jonathan Cook, who has long covered the Israel-Palestine conflict for various media, Israel now sees its chance to rid itself of the Palestinian population of Gaza for good. He suggests that the Israeli strategy simply involves making life so unbearable for Palestinians that they are driven into Egypt.

“The main goal is not what is being highlighted. Israel has much bigger ambitions than just destroying Hamas”, he elaborates in an extensive analysis.

Jonathan Cook has also previously written several books on what he argues are the long-term plans to expand the Israeli state and ethnically cleanse the occupied territories of Palestinians. In an analysis published against the backdrop of Hamas’ attacks on October 7th, and Israel’s subsequent bombings and invasion of Gaza, he writes that Israel now sees its chance to permanently displace the Palestinian people into Egypt – to get rid of them once and for all.

He notes that Western institutions initially defended Israel’s retaliation campaign on the basis that it had the right to defend itself, but this rhetoric has already been abandoned as the death toll rises – and now the conversation has shifted to Israel needing time and space to “destroy Hamas.”

That requires a ground invasion by Israeli troops – many of them religious extremists from illegal settlements in the West Bank – who are certain to be seeking vengeance for Hamas’ attack on October 7. The atrocities are only likely to intensify. But there is method in Israel’s military madness. And the main goal is not the one being promoted. Israel has much larger ambitions than ‘destroying Hamas'”, he writes.

Support from the West

According to Cook, Israeli power-holders are fully aware that the Palestinians will never accept their subjugation – and will continue to resist, whether Hamas is annihilated or not and regardless of who is in power in Gaza. Hence, Israel’s solution is to displace the entire Palestinian population permanently.

Jonathan Cook is a long-time observer of Israel and Palestine. Photo: facsimile/Liwan Documentary

“Israel’s strategic problem was compounded by the humanitarian crisis it had created by penning such a large and growing population into a tiny area with no resources. Poverty, malnutrition, unclean water, overcrowding and lack of housing, as well as the trauma of being encaged and intermittently bombed by Israel to subdue any resistance, was slowly turning Gaza from a prison into a death camp. The UN had warned that the enclave would be effectively ‘uninhabitable’ by 2020.”

The solution to this – one that accorded with Israel’s long settler colonial ambitions to replace the Palestinians in their own homeland – was clear. Israel needed to create a consensus in the West justifying the expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza. And the only realistic place for them to go was into the neighbouring Egyptian territory of Sinai”, he continues.

Cook points out that details of the planned expulsion of Palestinians started leaking in Israeli media as early as 2014 – but at that time “relied more on carrots than sticks“. The idea was to unite Gaza with Sinai and erase the border between the two areas, and Washington would help secure international financing for a free trade zone.

The impoverished and often unemployed Palestinians would gradually move their lives to Sinai and either settle there or move on to other Egyptian cities.

Egypt pressured

“Following the leaks, Egyptian and Palestinian officials hurriedly denounced the plan as ‘fabricated’. However, there were plenty of clues that Egypt had begun facing pressure from 2007 onwards. In response to the Israeli media leaks of 2014, an official close to former president Hosni Mubarak admitted that the screws had been turned on him in 2007 to agree to annex Gaza”.

Five years later, Egypt was again subjected to American and Israeli pressure to cede a third of Sinai to Gaza – but refused. In 2014, Egypt’s current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was close to capitulating to the demands, but ultimately he also refused.

 “The gains for Israel in moving Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai, whether voluntarily under the Greater Gaza Plan or by force during a ground invasion, are obvious.Egypt’s military dictatorship would inherit the problem of crushing Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas – largely out of view – rather than Israel. Hamas would not be likely to fare well, given the Egyptian military’s repression of the country’s own political Islamist movements”.

“Making Gaza uninhabitable”

“The costs of confining and policing Gaza would shift from Israel to the Arab world and international community.Once inside Sinai, ordinary Palestinians could be expected to seek alleviation from their poverty and suffering by integrating into wider Egyptian society, eventually moving to big cities like Cairo and Alexandria. They would be stripped of their right in international law to return to their homes. In a generation or two, their children would identify as Egyptian, not Palestinian”, Cook continues.

Meanwhile, the West Bank would become even more isolated and vulnerable than today and, according to the journalist, subject to intensified attacks by Jewish settlers backed by Israeli soldiers.

“The problem is that no Egyptian leader has dared to accept such a plan, however much international arm-twisting and bribery was involved.None wanted to be seen conspiring in Israel’s ethnic cleansing and final dispossession of the Palestinian people, one of the gravest and longest-running grievances shared by populations across the Middle East”.

“Which brings us to Israel’s current bombing campaign, which accords with no conceivable principle of proportionality, and its imminent ground invasion. Far from targeting Hamas, Israel has every incentive to use the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to wreak as much damage on Gaza as possible. Israel’s goal is to speed up the process of making Gaza uninhabitable”, declares Cook.

Images of the destruction of Gaza. Photo: Al Araby/CC BY-SA 3.0

From Carrot to Stick

Cook believes that Israel “needs Palestinians in Gaza so desperate to leave that they will ethnically cleanse themselves” and an Egypt that is under so much pressure for not opening the border to Sinai that it eventually gives in and opens the border for Palestinians.

“With its current bombing campaign, Israel has moved from carrots to a very large stick.Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is aware that he has only a limited time-window to effect enough carnage to realise Israel’s plan”.

“The aim appears to be to squeeze Palestinians into the tiny space of Gaza’s south, next to the border with Sinai, destroy all civilian infrastructure, and bomb and terrorise Palestinians in the south too.Palestinians are already clamouring to be allowed into Sinai, while Sisi is presumably coming under the severest pressure behind the scenes to back down and open the border”, he elaborates.

Creating a precedent

Cook concludes by assessing that Israel hopes for a precedent that the international community will overlook – and that the remaining Palestinians in the West Bank, after Gaza has been emptied, will also be pressured to join their families and compatriots in Egypt.

“Having been embarrassed by the festering wound of the Palestinians’ dispossession for more than 75 years, the West and Arab world will be only too happy finally to bury the Palestinian cause for good”, Cook concludes.

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Tony Blair could gain power over Gaza

The globalist agenda

Published 1 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Economic Forum power conference in Davos, earlier this summer.
3 minute read

The notorious globalist and war hawk Tony Blair now wants to govern post-war Gaza for up to five years. According to WikiLeaks, the plan would give outside forces control over everything from laws to money flows.

Tony Blair, the architect behind Britain’s participation in the Iraq War that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, now wants to lead an international transitional authority for Gaza after the war ends. According to people with insight into the Trump administration’s peace plan, Blair could become chairman of a “Gaza International Transitional Authority”.

The plan has been developed together with Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and is primarily financed by tech billionaire Larry Ellison. According to reports, Blair would lead a secretariat of 25 people that would administer Gaza for up to five years.

WikiLeaks comments on the development in sharp terms:

“A battle is brewing over who will run the wasteland. Into this vacuum steps Tony Blair, lined up to head a US-backed Gaza International Transitional Authority”, the organization writes.

The organization describes the arrangement as something far more comprehensive than traditional post-war governance:

This is not postwar governance in a conventional sense but a model of neo-trusteeship; external control over territory, law, and the flows of reconstruction, data, and capital“.

WikiLeaks also points to the economic interests behind the plan and notes that Blair is backed by principal funder Larry Ellison and plans to lead the administration for up to five years.

Notorious war instigator

Tony Blair is one of modern times’ most notorious British politicians. As Prime Minister from 1997-2007, he gave his full support to US invasions of both Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

Blair was accused of misleading the British Parliament and population about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction – weapons that were never found and whose existence is now questioned. The Chilcot Inquiry in 2016 established that Blair had exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein and that the British government had acted on inadequate or falsified intelligence information.

His close relationship with George W. Bush and unconditional support for American foreign policy earned him the nickname “Bush’s poodle” from critics. Over one million demonstrated in London against the Iraq War in February 2003, but Blair still pushed through British participation.

Long-standing Israel support

Blair has been an outspoken Israel supporter over the years. As peace envoy for the Quartet – the UN, US, EU and Russia – he was responsible from 2007-2015 for promoting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

During his time, however, illegal settlement construction in the West Bank continued and the Gaza blockade remained. Palestinian leaders and human rights organizations repeatedly accused him of favoring Israel and functioning as a partisan political actor instead of a neutral mediator.

During Israel’s war in Gaza, which has so far killed over 65,000 Palestinians according to local health authorities, Blair has been working on his plan for international governance of the area. He met President Trump at the White House last month to present the proposal.

Resistance from the Arab world

European and Arab states have already expressed opposition to the idea of an international trusteeship for Gaza. They argue that such an arrangement would further marginalize Palestinians and lack legitimacy in the eyes of Gaza residents. Instead, they advocate that Gaza should be governed by a committee consisting of Palestinian technocrats with support from the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the West Bank.

Trump presented his Gaza plan to Arab leaders in New York this week. The proposal gives Palestinians limited administrative power, but real control would lie with an international board – potentially led by Tony Blair.

However, everything could collapse as early as Monday. That’s when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets President Trump in Washington – and Netanyahu has already made his position clear: the Palestinian Authority will have no role in Gaza’s future and Hamas must be completely eliminated.

Without Israeli approval, the plan cannot be implemented, which would stop both Trump’s peace attempt and Blair’s return to Middle East politics.

Trump presents 20-point plan to end war in Gaza

The genocide in Gaza

Published 30 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, was received by Donald Trump at the White House on Monday evening Swedish time.
2 minute read

The White House has put forward a comprehensive peace proposal that reportedly could bring the war in Gaza to an immediate end if both Israel and Hamas accept the plan. The war has so far claimed over 66,000 Palestinian lives and transformed the Palestinian enclave into ruins.

The plan stipulates that the war should end immediately upon approval from both parties. All hostages held in Gaza, both living and dead, should be returned within 72 hours, and Palestinian prisoners should be released. According to the proposal, the Gaza Strip should be temporarily governed by a technocratic Palestinian government without any role for Hamas, and Israel will not annex Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is internationally wanted for war crimes, has accepted Trump’s plan, but Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi told Al Jazeera that “the group has not yet received Trump’s written peace plan for Gaza”.

Hostages and prisoners in focus

Within 72 hours after Israel publicly accepts the agreement, all hostages, living and dead, should be returned. When all hostages are released, Israel commits to freeing 250 prisoners serving life sentences plus 1,700 Gazans who have been imprisoned since October 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context.

Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and disarmament will be offered amnesty. Hamas members who wish to leave Gaza should receive safe passage to receiving countries.

Reconstruction and international governance

According to the plan, Gaza should be transformed into a “deradicalized terror-free zone” and rebuilt for the benefit of the Palestinian population. An international stabilization force should be established to be immediately deployed in Gaza and train Palestinian police forces.

A governing body called the “Peace Council” should lead the reconstruction under the leadership of President Donald Trump, with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair among the members. This body should handle the financing of Gaza’s reconstruction until the Palestinian Authority has implemented its reform program and can take over control.

A special economic zone should be established with favorable customs and access conditions. The plan emphasizes that no one will be forced to leave Gaza, but those who wish should be able to do so and freely return.

Security guarantees

All military and terrorist infrastructure, including tunnels and weapons manufacturing facilities, should be destroyed. Israel should not occupy or annex Gaza, and Israeli forces should gradually withdraw as demilitarization progresses and the stabilization force establishes control.

The US should, together with Arab and international partners, develop the temporary stabilization force, with consultation from Jordan and Egypt, which have extensive experience in the field.

Microsoft stops Israel’s use of technology for mass surveillance of Palestinians

The genocide in Gaza

Published 27 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Microsoft's research and development division in Matam Business Park in Haifa, Israel.
5 minute read

The tech giant has shut down the Israeli military’s access to cloud services and AI tools following revelations about a secret spy project that collected millions of phone calls from Palestinian civilians.

Microsoft has shut down the Israeli military’s access to technology that was used to power an extensive surveillance system that collected millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls daily from Gaza and the West Bank, The Guardian can reveal.

Microsoft informed Israeli officials last week that Unit 8200, the military’s elite intelligence agency, had violated the company’s terms of service by storing the enormous amount of surveillance data on its Azure cloud platform, according to sources with insight into the situation.

The decision to cut off Unit 8200’s ability to use parts of the technology is a direct result of an investigation that The Guardian published last month. It revealed how Azure was used to store and process the enormous amount of Palestinian communications in a mass surveillance program.

Secret project after summit meeting

In a joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language newspaper Local Call, The Guardian revealed how Microsoft and Unit 8200 had worked together on a plan to move large volumes of sensitive intelligence material to Azure.

The project began after a 2021 meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the unit’s then-commander Yossi Sariel.

In response to the investigation, Microsoft ordered an urgent external review to examine its relationship with Unit 8200. The initial results have now led to the company cutting off the unit’s access to certain of its cloud storage and AI services.

Equipped with Azure’s virtually unlimited storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 had built an indiscriminate new system that allowed its intelligence officers to collect, replay, and analyze the content of mobile calls from an entire population.

The project was so extensive that, according to sources from Unit 8200 – which is equivalent to the US National Security Agency – an internal motto emerged that captured its scope and ambition: “One million calls per hour.”

According to several sources, the enormous archive of intercepted calls – amounting to as much as 8,000 terabytes of data – was held in a Microsoft data center in the Netherlands. Within days of The Guardian publishing the investigation, Unit 8200 appears to have quickly moved surveillance data out of the country.

Data moved to Amazon

According to sources with knowledge of the enormous data transfer out of the EU country, it occurred in early August. Intelligence sources said that Unit 8200 planned to transfer data to Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Neither the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) nor Amazon responded to a request for comment.

Microsoft’s extraordinary decision to terminate the spy agency’s access to key technology was taken amid pressure from employees and investors over its work for the Israeli military and the role its technology has played in the nearly two-year-long offensive in Gaza.

A UN commission of inquiry recently concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, an allegation denied by Israel but supported by many experts in international law.

The Guardian’s joint investigation led to protests at Microsoft’s US headquarters and one of its European data centers, as well as demands from a worker-led campaign group, No Azure for Apartheid, to end all ties to the Israeli military.

Clear message from Microsoft

On Thursday, Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith informed staff about the decision. In an email that The Guardian has seen, he said the company had “terminated and deactivated a set of services to a unit within Israel’s Ministry of Defense,” including cloud storage and AI services.

Smith wrote: “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in all countries around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades.”

The decision brings an abrupt end to a three-year period during which the spy agency operated its surveillance program using Microsoft’s technology.

Unit 8200 used its own extensive surveillance capabilities to intercept and collect the calls. The spy agency then used a customized and segregated area within the Azure platform, enabling data to be retained for longer periods and analyzed with AI-driven techniques.

Used for bombing targets in Gaza

Although the initial focus of the surveillance system was the West Bank, where an estimated 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation, intelligence sources said the cloud-based storage platform had been used in the Gaza offensive to facilitate the preparation of deadly airstrikes.

The revelations highlighted how Israel has relied on services and infrastructure from major US tech companies to support its bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and created a deep humanitarian crisis and famine catastrophe.

According to a document seen by The Guardian, a senior Microsoft executive told Israel’s Ministry of Defense last week:

While our review is ongoing, we have at this point identified evidence supporting parts of The Guardian’s reporting.

The executive told Israeli officials that Microsoft “is not in the business of facilitating mass surveillance of civilians” and informed them that it would “deactivate” access to services supporting Unit 8200’s surveillance project and shut down its use of certain AI products.

First time since the war began

The termination is the first known case of a US tech company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war in Gaza.

The decision has not affected Microsoft’s broader commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a long-standing client and will retain access to other services. The termination will raise questions within Israel about the policy of keeping sensitive military data in a third-party cloud operated abroad.

Last month’s revelations about Unit 8200’s use of Microsoft technology followed an earlier investigation by The Guardian and its partners about the broader relationship between the company and the Israeli military.

That story, published in January and based on leaked files, showed how the IDF’s reliance on Azure and its AI systems increased dramatically in the most intensive phase of its Gaza campaign.

Following that report, Microsoft launched its first review of how the IDF uses its services. It said in May that it had “found no evidence to date” that the military had failed to comply with its terms of service, or used Azure and its AI technology “to target or harm people” in Gaza.

But The Guardian’s investigation with +972 and Local Call published in August, which revealed that the cloud-based surveillance project had been used to investigate and identify bombing targets in Gaza, led to the company reassessing its conclusions.

The revelations caused alarm among senior Microsoft executives and raised concerns that some of its Israel-based employees may not have been fully transparent about their knowledge of how Unit 8200 used Azure when questioned as part of the review.

The company said its executives, including Nadella, were not aware that Unit 8200 planned to use, or ultimately used, Azure to store the content of intercepted Palestinian calls.

Microsoft then launched its second and more targeted review, which was overseen by lawyers at the US firm Covington & Burling. In his note to staff, Smith said the investigation did not have access to any customer data but its findings were based on a review of internal Microsoft documents, emails and messages between personnel.

I want to note our appreciation for The Guardian’s reporting, Smith wrote, noting that it had illuminated “information we could not access given our customer confidentiality commitments.” He added: “Our review is ongoing.”

Netanyahu promises more illegal settlements after Palestine recognition

The genocide in Gaza

Published 22 September 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to Netanyahu, recognizing Palestine as an independent state would be "a huge reward to terrorism".
2 minute read

Israel’s Prime Minister categorically rejects all plans for an independent Palestinian state and promises to instead expand illegal settlements in the West Bank after Britain, Canada and Australia on Sunday formally recognized Palestine.

Benjamin Netanyahu launched a harsh attack against the three countries’ decision and linked it directly to Hamas’ attack on Israel last year.

— There will be no Palestinian state, the Prime Minister declared.

— I have a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian state after the terrible massacre on October 7 … You are giving a huge reward to terrorism, he continued.

Netanyahu emphasized that Israel has already intensified its settlement policy in the occupied territories.

— We doubled Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and we will continue on this path, promised Israel’s leader, using the biblical names for the West Bank.

“Attempts to force a terrorist state”

The Prime Minister also hinted that further measures are to be expected when he returns from his US trip.

— The response to the latest attempt to force a terrorist state in the heart of our land will be given after my return from the United States. Wait and see.

Netanyahu’s statements come after pressure from the Israeli government’s right-wing faction. The far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have urged the Prime Minister to immediately apply Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank in response to Sunday’s recognitions.

The three countries’ decision to recognize Palestine comes in the wake of several other Western nations taking similar steps over the past year, further isolating Israel internationally on an issue where the country defiantly ignores UN resolutions and international law.

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