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Palantir, endless war, and the global Zionist surveillance state

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In the previous article in this series, we stated that the Palantir company was a product of the “counter-terrorism” concept that followed September 11th.

The Dissident blog points out that Palantir’s system is based on the “Total Information Awareness” idea of John Poindexter, a former Reagan-era official who proposed the creation of a massive database containing all information on American citizens after the 9/11 attacks.

Poindexter and Richard Perle, one of the neocon architects of the Iraq War, met with Palantir’s founders, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, because their new company, Palantir, “had a similar purpose to what Poindexter was trying to create at the Pentagon.”

Palantir soon incorporated and received millions of dollars in funding from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital investment arm of the CIA.

Palantir’s software allowed intelligence agencies to create a massive database on Americans. Bloomberg wrote, “Using Palantir technology, the FBI can now create comprehensive files on U.S. citizens in an instant, combining security camera footage from outside a pharmacy with credit card transactions, cell phone records, emails, flight records, and internet search histories.”


Within the framework of Palantir’s mission to “save Western civilization,” its bond with Israel, which operates as the spearhead [a translation of uç beyi, a historical term for a frontier lord or vanguard] of this civilization, deserves special attention.

The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Karp is unwavering in his support for Israel. The company took out a full-page ad in The New York Times last year declaring, ‘Palantir stands with Israel.'”

The company’s official social media accounts openly supported Israel’s attacks in Gaza, which have amounted to genocide. On October 11, 2023, the company tweeted, “Certain kinds of evil can only be fought with force. Palantir stands with Israel.”

On October 7, 2024, exactly one year after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, the company’s official X account once again reiterated its support for the genocide in Gaza, tweeting, “Palantir remembers October 7th. We stand with Israel.”

Alex Karp openly expressed his pro-war and pro-Israel views. The CEO told The New York Times that Israel should “turn [Gaza] into a parking lot.”

In the same New York Times article, Karp described protests against providing weapons to Israel as “an infection within society,” stating that he supported stopping these protests.

Karp also boasted to the newspaper that he uses his technology to sustain the war in Ukraine and the occupation in Gaza, saying, “I am not going to apologize for giving our product to Ukraine, to Israel or to many other places.”(1)

In an interview to Time, Karp said he saw an opportunity in Ukraine for Palantir to fulfill its mission to “defend the West” and “make our enemies tremble with fear.”

Government officials were trained to use Palantir’s tool called MetaConstellation, which provides a near-real-time picture of a specific battlefield using commercial data, including satellite imagery.

Palantir’s software integrates this information with commercial and classified government data, including from allies, allowing military officials to relay enemy positions to commanders on the ground or to decide to strike a target. This is part of what Karp calls the digital “kill chain.”

At a Palantir earnings call in 2024, Karp boasted, “I am exceedingly proud that after October 7th, within a couple of weeks, we were on the ground in Israel and involved in operationally crucial operations.”

When Karp was protested by a Palestinian activist at a conference for Palantir’s role in aiding the genocide in Gaza, he said, “I believe he [the protester] is a product of an evil force of Hamas that he is not aware of. He is part of their strategy, their product, without being aware of it.”

In a 2024 interview with CNBC, Karp said that supporting Israel was the most important issue for him, asking, “The most important issue of our day is war and peace, and the most important metaphor for that is: What do you think about what’s happening in Israel?”

Karp also called for an end to pro-Palestinian protests. At a conference, Karp said, “What’s happening on university campuses [referring to pro-Palestinian protests] is some sort of sideshow—no, they are the main show, because if we lose the intellectual debate, you can’t deploy any army in the West.”

Palantir’s mastermind, Peter Thiel, shares similar views. When asked about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence in Gaza, Thiel said, “I don’t know all the details of what’s going on in Israel, because my bias is to defer to Israel.”

Thiel continued, saying he believed that “in general” the Israeli army has the right to decide what it wants to do and that “in general” it is in the right.


This commitment to Israel does not end there.

The company is so intertwined with Israel that it boasted on social media about holding its first board meeting of 2024 in Tel Aviv.

Before the board meeting, Karp and Thiel met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and shared the meeting on social media, writing, “We are proud to stand with Israel, supporting its culture of innovation, technology, and democracy.”

Following the board meeting, CTECH reported that Palantir announced it had signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to “provide Palantir technology to aid the country’s war efforts.”

The agreement was signed after a meeting between Israeli defense officials and Thiel and Karp.

After signing the deal, Karp told Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi:

“There are many people in the (tech) industry who are not as pro-Israel as I am, but they too see Israel as a very special place and generally understand Israel’s position better and appreciate the success of building a country out of the desert.”

Globes, an Israeli business news site, reported that during this trip, Karp “participated in a public event at Tel Aviv University” and “showered praise on Israel.”

Globes wrote that Israel was preparing to purchase from Palantir “an AI-based system called AIP, designed to assist in intelligence-based decision-making and to analyze enemy targets and recommend combat moves.”

The same report also included the claim that Palantir expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the deal with Israel.


Journalist Antony Loewenstein writes, “Israel’s military-industrial complex sees its occupation as a vital testing ground for trying out the latest methods of killing and surveillance.”

Loewenstein points out that Palestinians are seen as “guinea pigs,” but this activity is not limited to Palestine (Karp told Time, “There are things we can do on the battlefield that we can’t do at home”). According to him, “Silicon Valley has taken notice,” and the new Trump era “heralds an even tighter alliance between big tech, Israel, and the defense sector.”

William Hartung, evaluating Palantir and American foreign policy for Responsible Statecraft, states that Palantir’s goal is “to shape overall U.S. national security policy, which in turn can determine what military technologies the U.S. will invest in for the next generation.”

After starting his new role as Palantir’s head of defense, former Republican Representative Mike Gallagher promised to use his connections within the government to facilitate the growth of emerging military technology companies, largely by securing a larger share of tax revenues.

Another characteristic of Gallagher is that he stood out as a leading “China hawk” during his time in Congress. Gallagher is the co-author of a recent article in Foreign Affairs titled “No Substitute for Victory: America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed.”

In the article, Gallagher and his co-author Matthew Pottinger argue that the U.S. “must implement a better policy” and call for action to rearm the U.S. military, reduce China’s economic influence, and build a broader coalition against China.

Judging by his stance as chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Gallagher’s views are quite close to those of Palantir’s executives.

Close, because Palantir CEO Alex Karp has said that the U.S. will “probably” go to war with China and that the best policy is to “scare the shit out of your enemy.”

In a moment of striking candor, Karp admitted, “Our product is sometimes used to kill people”: “If I were younger in college, would I be protesting myself?”

Palantir’s advisor, Jacob Helberg, described the company as “the AI arms dealer of the 21st century.”


Karp has long rejected the widespread criticism that Palantir’s products enable governments to conduct warrantless surveillance of their citizens.

When I say he rejects them, don’t think he denies the reality. It’s more of a, “Yes, I do it, but you should ask why I do it.”

The CEO says he sees a “moral imperative” to provide Western governments with the best new technologies, calling for “closer collaboration between the state and the tech sector,” which he believes will allow the West to maintain its superiority over its global rivals.

For years, the U.S. has imposed strict regulations on the export of weapons systems to foreign countries due to the lack of accountability once they are in the hands of users and the possibility of serious war crimes being committed. At least, that’s how it is on paper.

But Karp legitimizes his own products by saying, “The power of advanced algorithmic warfare systems is now so great that it is equivalent to having tactical nuclear weapons against an enemy that only has conventional weapons.”

If the West didn’t have “real enemies,” Karp told Bloomberg, he would be one of those trying to limit the use of artificial intelligence in the military: “But the reality we live in now, as Israel knows, is that our enemies are real and dangerous and operate far beyond the norms of behavior.”

Karp stated in 2023 that Palantir was in talks with “hundreds” of potential partners about its AIP platform, but details like pricing and terms were still being determined.

Karp told analysts that Palantir was refocusing its engineering teams and other resources on artificial intelligence to meet demand, stating that it was “aggressively pursuing” this opportunity.


“How Big Tech Captured the Army”

This was the headline of a June 17 report in The Bulwark.

The recent entry of officials from high-tech companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir into the military has raised concerns that Silicon Valley is taking control.

But is it just the American military? NATO announced it will use Palantir’s artificial intelligence platform for “faster military decision-making.” The MSS NATO system aims to automate data analysis that previously required large teams.

Berliner Zeitung reported that in the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition negotiations, it was agreed that the CSU would take over the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the future. This means Palantir will have more opportunities at the federal level, as in Bavaria, where the CSU is in power, the state police have been using the company’s software since August of last year.

According to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, the cross-procedural research and analysis platform VeRA makes it possible to “quickly and reliably analyze and process large amounts of data from a wide variety of sources and to generate important findings at high speed.”

Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia are also currently using Palantir. According to information from Bayerischer Rundfunk, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg are also currently considering collaborating with the company.(2)

In the United Kingdom, Palantir already has a £330 million National Health Service (NHS) data contract. In May, to encourage hospitals to adopt this technology, the government signed an £8 million deal with consulting giant KPMG to “promote the adoption” of Palantir’s technology in the NHS. London also used Palantir systems to monitor its military.


Until now, the Pentagon’s known “Gang of Five” consisted of the following companies: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.

A recent report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft reveals that the share of private companies in the Pentagon’s defense spending is steadily increasing.

Over the last 35 years, the Pentagon has allocated a growing portion of its budget to private sector contracts. In the fiscal years 1990-1999, the Pentagon’s average annual spending on contracts amounted to 41% of its total spending. This ratio has increased every decade: in the first five years of this decade, the share of private companies in the Pentagon budget reached a record high of 54%.

For the 2020-2024 period, $2.4 trillion of the total $4.4 trillion in defense spending was awarded to private companies.

However, the overwhelming majority of this share went to five large companies. Between 2020 and 2024, the Pentagon’s top five arms suppliers received contracts totaling $771 billion. This amount committed to the top five companies constitutes one-third of the total $2.4 trillion in contracts awarded by the Pentagon between 2020 and 2024.

Lockheed Martin was the clear leader with $313 billion in contracts between 2020 and 2024, while its closest competitor, Raytheon (now RTX), received $145 billion in contracts.

However, the report’s findings point to something else: this dominance is increasingly under threat from a new generation of military technology companies.

While the big five companies continue to hold a large portion of the Pentagon’s defense spending budget, there has been an increase in new contracts with tech firms specializing in artificial intelligence for military applications such as drones, unmanned ships, and armored vehicles.

The rise of these new military technology firms marks the biggest shift in the arms industry in the last five years.

The report states, “Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have received billions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unmanned vehicles, drone defense systems, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these contracts will be transferred to the companies over time, which will place them among the Pentagon’s largest contractors in terms of contract value in the next few years.”

According to the report, Palantir signed a $618 million contract with the army for a data platform using artificial intelligence, a $480 million contract to continue work on the Project Maven targeting system, and a five-year, $463 million contract with the U.S. Special Operations Command to integrate advanced commercial software into its operations.

The report notes, “As the Pentagon moves toward AI-powered weapons systems, including swarms of drones, ships, and combat vehicles, the dominance of the Big Five companies may diminish.”

In the first quarter of 2025, Palantir’s revenue grew by 39% year-over-year, while its U.S. sales increased by 55%. The commercial division now generates $1 billion in annual revenue, indicating long-term demand in sectors such as energy, finance, and logistics.

“This diversity is vital,” writes AInvest. Palantir’s AI platforms are being adopted by critical infrastructure operators to mitigate risks such as cyberattacks, a significant security vulnerability due to “Iran’s asymmetric warfare tactics.” Partnerships with cybersecurity firms like Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike further strengthen defense capabilities against state-sponsored threats.(3)

“AI self-confidence” is coming to the fore. In a brochure/article titled “Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy” published on Anduril’s blog, the Gang of Five are described as “relics of the Cold War” that must be eliminated if America wants to take the lead in developing and producing the weapons of the future:

“Why can’t the existing defense companies do better? The largest defense companies are staffed by patriots, but they lack the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need. Tomorrow’s weapons—autonomous systems, cyber weapons and defenses, networked systems, and more—run on software, while these companies specialize in hardware. These companies work slowly, while the best engineers enjoy working fast… These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense.”

Palantir’s stock price more than quadrupled last year, making it more valuable than RTX and Lockheed Martin at the beginning of this year. Behind these shadowy companies is a new breed of predators known as “venture capital” (VC). Leading VC firms like Thiel’s Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and Lux Capital are among the rising stars of the defense sector, such as Anduril, Hadrian, and Rebellion Defense.

Furthermore, new defense monopolies are forming. A consortium led by Anduril and Palantir plans to join with other defense technology companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI to bid jointly on military contracts.

In this process, venture capitalists are not only achieving high returns on investment but also gaining increasing influence over U.S. foreign policy. Michael Kratsios, Thiel’s former chief advisor, and other Thiel-connected individuals, including Jacob Helberg, a senior advisor at Palantir, are being appointed to positions such as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Deputy Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, respectively.

“Working for the Pentagon doesn’t seem like a bad thing anymore,” says William Hartung, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Many of these new companies seem to want it very much, and venture capital firms are facilitating it.”

Palmer Luckey of Anduril describes venture capitalists who want to protect their current investments as “hawkish,” saying, “Anyone who cares about Ukraine is also watching Taiwan, because… a slide south for Taiwan poses a real existential threat to many of their investments [there]. For this reason, we see a hawkish stance in most venture capitalists.”(4)

A representative of the VC group America’s Frontier Fund (AFF) is more blunt, not hesitating to say, referring to Taiwan: “If there is a kinetic event in the Pacific, some of our investments will increase 10-fold overnight.”

Under the heading “geopolitical impact risks,” AInvest implies that Palantir is comfortable: “Rising tensions in the Middle East, the South China Sea, and Eastern Europe ensure that the demand for analytical services in this area remains stable.”

The most carrion-like version of capitalism wants endless war, a global Zionist surveillance empire.


(1) Time magazine writes that Palantir CEO Alex Karp was “the first major Western corporate leader to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s invasion.” The article admits that in the year and a half since Karp’s first meeting with Zelensky, Palantir has become “unprecedentedly involved” in the daily affairs of a foreign government at war: “More than half a dozen Ukrainian institutions, including the Ministries of Defense, Economy, and Education, use the company’s products. According to Karp, Palantir’s software, which analyzes satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, and reports from the ground using artificial intelligence to present military options to commanders, is ‘responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine.’ Ukrainian officials said they use the company’s data analysis for projects that go far beyond battlefield intelligence, including collecting evidence of war crimes, clearing landmines, resettling displaced refugees, and rooting out corruption.” More interestingly, Time notes that Palantir offered its services to Ukraine for free to use the bloody war as a testing ground, claiming, “Palantir was so eager to showcase its capabilities that it provided them to Ukraine for free.”

(2) The Germany-Palantir relationship requires separate examination. Mathias Döpfner, CEO and co-owner of the German media giant Axel Springer, which owns POLITICO, has very close ties with Palantir founder Peter Thiel. His son, Moritz Döpfner, previously served as managing director at the billionaire’s family office, Thiel Capital. According to the German press, the younger Döpfner had established a new venture capital fund with a $50 million investment from Thiel. From a podcast Mathias Döpfner did with Karp in 2019, we also learn that the Palantir executive was on Axel Springer’s supervisory board at the time. It was leaked to the media that Axel Springer requires its employees to sign a contract demanding commitment to the free market, support for the US-Europe alliance, and “support for Israel’s right to exist.” From a 2019 report in Business Insider, which is majority-owned by Axel Springer, we learn that Palantir had passed data to police forces in the country about Anis Amri, who carried out an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016.

(3) One of the secrets to Palantir’s commercial success is its creation of an “ecosystem.” The Pentagon’s Maven user base has doubled since the beginning of 2024, reaching 20,000 users across 35 vehicles. AInvest writes: “The global defense AI market is projected to reach $40 billion by 2030, with governments prioritizing ‘information dominance’ over traditional hardware. Palantir’s AI infrastructure is not just a tool, but an ecosystem platform. Its ability to integrate data from different domains (e.g., the all-domain command and control system of CJADC2) creates high switching costs and recurring revenue streams.”

(4) Let’s not forget the Middle East: The Pentagon, which uses Palantir’s Maven Smart System (MSS), increased the MSS contract by $795 million in 2024, bringing the total amount to $1.3 billion by 2029. This system, managed by Aberdeen Proving Ground, currently serves five major combatant commands, including Central Command (CENTCOM), the center of operations in the Middle East. MSS uses artificial intelligence to analyze surveillance data (satellite images, video streams) in real-time, enabling intelligence fusion, target identification, and battlefield decision-making. This capability is vital in scenarios such as tracking the movements of the Iranian military near the Strait of Hormuz or monitoring nuclear facilities. NATO’s adoption of the MSS-NATO variant in 2025 further underscores Palantir’s global role: the alliance is using generative AI and machine learning tools to enhance allied command operations, with integration completed in just six months.

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Milei hardens Falklands stance with oil sanctions and defence push

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Argentine President Javier Milei has said he will tighten sanctions on companies involved in oil projects around the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.

Milei also said he would increase defence resources in the south of the country and submit a bill to Congress aimed at strengthening Argentina’s response to what he described as violations of sovereignty.

In a televised address, Milei said he would sign a decree to accelerate sanctions under Argentine law against companies participating in oil and gas extraction activities in the territory, which Argentina considers its own but which remains under British control.

Speaking in an address to the nation early on Friday morning, Milei said the United Kingdom was facing a migration and economic crisis, adding that this meant Argentina would prevail in its claim over the Falkland Islands:

“If we look at the structural crisis in the United Kingdom, it is clear that the country is facing multiple crises on many fronts, including migration, demographics, and a difficult economic situation. It is clear that Argentina’s future is extremely promising and that Argentina will prevail.”

Milei said Argentina would intensify efforts to sanction not only the companies involved, but also their shareholders, executives, and suppliers.

“We will continue to prevent companies that are directly or indirectly involved in projects (on the islands) without Argentina’s permission from operating on Argentine territory,” the Argentine leader said.

He also stated that the government would issue an emergency decree to expand defence resources, under which a naval base would be built in the nearby province of Tierra del Fuego and telecommunications capabilities would be strengthened.

Milei added that he would submit an urgent “national defence of sovereignty” bill to Congress in order to stiffen penalties for unauthorised activities around the islands, extend sanctions to suppliers, and broaden the legal framework to cover other activities affecting Argentina’s natural resources.

Milei noted that Argentina had determined that the Sea Lion offshore project, operated by Navitas Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration, could begin oil exploration work in the coming months, presenting an imminent threat to Argentine interests.

The remarks mark a harder line from Milei, who had previously called for the Falkland Islands dispute to be resolved through diplomacy even while seeking warmer ties with Britain.

A British overseas territory located roughly 500 km east of the Argentine mainland, the Falkland Islands have long been claimed by Argentina.

Britain has controlled the islands since 1833, and the two countries fought a brief war over them in 1982.

London maintains that residents of the Falkland Islands voted on their political status and right to self-determination in a referendum held in March 2013. An overwhelming majority of 99.8% voted to remain an overseas territory of the United Kingdom.

In his speech, Milei stated that residents of the Falkland Islands do not possess the right to self-determination and called on the country to unite around its claim to the islands.

Arguing that the global wind is currently “blowing in favour of Argentina’s demands”, Milei said: “A short time ago, President [Donald] Trump announced that the US is reconsidering its historic stance on the Malvinas islands.”

The British conservative newspaper The Telegraph wrote that the move would appease the US president, who intervened in the dispute and implied he would not assist the United Kingdom in fighting off an invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Asked whether the US would “come to the aid” of Britain, Trump referred to his confrontation with Iran, saying: “Your country was not there to help me.”

Trump then questioned whether Britain would have the capacity to defend the islands, telling GB News:

“Look, I was there when the first war broke out. That was a very long time ago, and I watched it very closely. You handled yourselves very well. You took the islands back quite decisively, but it is very far away.”

Speculation is mounting that Buenos Aires and Washington are discussing an agreement granting the US access to oil extracted off the Malvinas.

On the eve of Milei’s speech, Argentine Minister of Energy and Mining Daniel Gonzalez Casartelli was in Washington to discuss energy investments with American oil companies and members of the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair clashed with the British right by demanding that the Falkland Islands be placed under Argentine sovereignty.

According to Bloomberg, Argentina is currently in the midst of an oil boom. Drilling activity is accelerating in the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Patagonia, which already produces more than 1 million barrels of oil and gas per day.

The country also has some offshore production operations, and exploration activities have been carried out in South Atlantic waters in recent years.

Meanwhile, Milei met Sarah Rogers, a senior US State Department official, at a conservative political forum held in Chile.

Reiterating Argentina’s claim to the islands, Milei said: “We must take back these islands, which are negligible in national terms. There is no other way forward. This is the best way to pay tribute to those who sacrificed their lives for this cause.”

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US House passes bill to strip federal aid over Israel boycotts

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The US House of Representatives has passed a controversial bill to strip federal financial aid from colleges and universities that participate in boycotts against Israel.

The Republican-led measure targets calls for accountability directed at the Tel Aviv government over its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, as well as expressions of solidarity with Palestine on university campuses.

Entitled the “Protecting Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026”, the legislation was approved on Thursday in a 237–169 vote.

Only two Republican lawmakers voted against the measure, while 33 Democrats broke party lines to vote in favour. The bill will now proceed to the Senate.

Designated as H.R. 4795, the proposal bars colleges and universities that benefit from federal student aid programmes from engaging in commercial boycotts against Israel.

Institutions receiving Title VI funding for international studies and foreign language programmes are also required to certify that they do not prevent students or faculty from participating in academic programmes in the occupied territories, nor restrict Israeli students and academics from accessing their campuses.

The bill was co-sponsored by Representative Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, and Representative Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat.

Representative Tim Walberg, chairman of the House Education Committee, argued that taxpayer money should under no circumstances flow to institutions that “discriminate against Israel”.

Gottheimer, a staunch supporter of the Israeli government, stated that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is a campaign “targeting a single country and a single religion”.

Opponents of the bill emphasised that the measure seeks to solve a non-existent problem and constitutes an attack on constitutionally protected free speech.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Representative Bobby Scott, pointed out that not a single US college or university has actually joined the global BDS movement. Scott recalled that while student and faculty bodies have announced support for BDS, university administrations have refused to implement those demands.

During the floor debate, Scott said: “We must fight antisemitism wherever it appears, but we should not do so by penalising protected free speech or conflating a student’s view with university policy.”

Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who opposes the BDS movement, also voted against the bill. Nadler noted that the only way to protect opinions one agrees with is to defend the right to express opinions one does not agree with.

The liberal Jewish organisation J Street was also among the actors opposing the bill. The group warned that the measure conflates boycotts of the Israeli government with those directed at companies linked to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

J Street stated that the bill places Israel in an exceptional position, does nothing to protect Jewish students, and risks inflaming antisemitism rather than countering it. By contrast, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) openly backed the legislation.

The vote follows nearly three years of sustained protests by students and faculty against Israel’s war in Gaza.

According to data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, attacks carried out following the 7 October 2023 operation and the subsequent military campaign launched by Israel have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, while flattening the vast majority of the region’s universities, schools, and civilian infrastructure.

Encampments erected on university campuses demanded an end to the carnage and called on universities to divest financial holdings from companies profiting from the occupation and the war.

The Washington administration and its allies frequently characterised these protests as antisemitic. The Trump administration, meanwhile, targeted universities with various investigations and threats to freeze federal funds.

Aiming to protect their congressional majority in the November midterm elections and during the final two years of Trump’s term, House Republicans are keeping the issue on the agenda to deepen divisions among Democrats, who have grown increasingly critical of Israel as mass casualties in Gaza mount.

In July, amid accusations that the campaign in Gaza had reached genocidal proportions, more than 100 House Democrats supported an initiative to cut certain military aid to Israel, a US ally.

Critics argue that the latest bill is an extension of anti-BDS legislation previously enacted across more than 30 US states, which compels public contractors and public institutions to pledge not to boycott Israel.

Free speech advocates have long maintained that these state laws conflict with the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The measure passed by the House of Representatives aims to expand this pressure to the entire federal student financial aid system.

Although no US university has formally adopted a BDS decision, the bill makes even limited commercial or academic distancing from the Israeli government—including entities operating in the occupied Palestinian territories—grounds for terminating federal funding.

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Pentagon office takes 35% stake in Venezuela oil venture

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The Trump administration’s oil agreement with Venezuela represents the riskiest venture to date for a Pentagon unit originally established for an entirely different purpose.

The White House announced this week that the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), an entity operating under the Department of Defence, will acquire a 35% stake “at no cost to American taxpayers” in North American Blue Energy Partners, a firm headed by politically connected Venezuelan investor Alejandro Betancourt.

The objective is to make Venezuelan oilfields more attractive to US investors, thereby increasing revenue for Caracas whilst simultaneously squeezing out Chinese and Russian firms.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the OSC has already facilitated equity acquisitions in at least five other companies during President Donald Trump’s second term. The OSC was created to provide loans for the development of critical technologies.

However, because the Venezuelan agreement involves petroleum rather than conventional critical technology, it stretches the agency’s statutory boundaries even further and has already prompted Democrats to pledge congressional investigations.

Should Democrats regain power in Washington this November, any oversight drive could place the office’s efforts to secure state equity positions in private corporations under intense scrutiny.

In an interview with Semafor, a former OSC official stated:

“Acquiring equity was never intended when the OSC was founded; that circumstance alone does not necessarily constitute a problem. Nevertheless, it raises some legitimate legal and ethical questions.”

Jon Hillman, who directs the council’s tracking system, noted in an interview that the Venezuelan oil deal “appears to be uncharted territory”, adding that the office’s “mission is to catalyze private investment into specific, critical supply chain technologies necessary for national security.”

The statute that established the OSC defines its authority to provide “capital support” as extending and guaranteeing loans and offering technical assistance.

A Pentagon spokesperson initially told Reuters that the office was “not acquiring equity” in private enterprises due to this constrained remit.

On Tuesday, however, a US official offered a contrasting account to journalists, stating that the authority to acquire a stake in Betancourt’s company via “penny warrants” was “granted to the OSC when it was enacted into law under the Biden administration.”

A “penny warrant” is a financial contract that confers upon its holder the right to purchase corporate shares at a negligible, nominal price.

The US official added:

“This is an entirely standard arrangement in terms of the OSC’s capacity to maintain the financial position it holds under this agreement, and all financial positions granted to the OSC comply fully with the law.”

Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, said in an interview that it was “impossible to render a definitive legal opinion” because officials had “not advanced a precise legal theory.”

Harrell added that the Trump administration may be banking on no party possessing either the legal standing or the inclination to bring a lawsuit over the transaction.

That calculation encompasses oil corporations hoping to profit from the newly reopened Venezuelan petroleum sector.

Cari Stinebower, an attorney at the law firm Steptoe who advises petroleum firms seeking to conduct business in Venezuela, said: “I suspect everyone may be quietly perplexed. Yet I do not believe anyone will speak out, because virtually everyone wants to participate in the investment opportunities in Venezuela.”

Jack Reed, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is among those already demanding further particulars regarding the agency’s statutory authority to conclude the agreement.

Certain Republicans are likewise keen to obtain additional information concerning the Venezuelan deal.

The Biden administration formed the OSC in 2022 to provide loans to businesses developing technologies deemed “vital” to national security.

Recent legislative initiatives aimed at formally expanding its authority to encompass equity investments have so far foundered.

Yet under the direction of Deputy Secretary of Defence Steve Feinberg, the administration pressed forward regardless, enlisting bankers to help deploy a lending authority that surged from $1 billion to $200 billion courtesy of recent party-line Republican tax legislation.

The current director of the OSC, David Lorch, previously served as a managing director at Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm founded by Feinberg.

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