Israel has a long history of smearing journalists

Israel tries to discredit Palestinian journalists with unsubstantiated ‘terrorist’ labels. Jodie Ginsberg says Israel must end attacks on the media.

Jodie Ginsberg
18 Nov, 2024

THE NEW ARAB

Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh mourning his son, journalist Hamza Dahdouh who was killed alongside freelance video journalist Mustafa Thuraya in an Israeli drone strike in Rafah. [GETTY]

Moments before he was killed in 2004, student journalist and freelance photographer Mohamed Abu Halima spoke on the phone to a producer at his radio station, describing the army jeeps he had seen close to Balata refugee camp, outside the city of Nablus in the West Bank. The producer, Moaz Shraida, said Abu Halima told him he had started to photograph the jeeps. Shraida heard gunfire. Then, nothing.

According to witnesses, Abu Halima was shot in the stomach by Israeli armed forces (Palestinian journalists describe the waist and neck as the spots favoured by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) because they are not covered by body armour). He died in hospital. A spokesperson for the IDF at the time said that as far as the army knew, Abu Halima “was not a journalist" and that he "was armed and he opened fire on IDF forces". To the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) knowledge, no investigation has ever been held into the journalist’s killing.

Twenty years later, this pattern in which Israel alleges that journalists are militants or terrorists – without providing credible evidence or undertaking transparent investigations into their killings – persists.
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Israel’s tactics

Smearing journalists as criminals is a tactic particularly prevalent in autocratic regimes – but also a tactic used frequently by Israel in recent decades – and has two clear aims. The first is to justify attacks on journalists after the fact. A CPJ report published in May 2023 found that in at least six of the 20 cases of journalists killed by the IDF over the preceding 22 years, the IDF had alleged the individuals were involved in militant activity. In none of the 20 cases has anyone been held accountable for the deaths and few have even been accorded a transparent investigation.


The second tactic is intended to discredit Palestinian journalists more broadly. By seeding the idea that the journalists – the only individuals able to report what is happening inside Gaza – are terrorists, Israel can effectively smear all Palestinian journalists. This aims to undermine their credibility and thus, by extension, asks viewers and readers to doubt what they are seeing, and therefore to dismiss it.

It seems no coincidence that the allegations against the six Al Jazeera journalists in October came just as the IDF launched a major violent offensive that one senior officer said was aimed at creating a “cleansed space” in northern Gaza. Palestinian journalists who have been trying to report from the area told CPJ that atrocities were being committed amid a “news void”.
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Last month, Israel published documents it said proved six Al Jazeera journalists operating in Gaza were affiliated with militant groups. Al Jazeera vehemently rejected the claims, which came as Israel launched an assault on northern Gaza, attacks that rights groups said amounted to ethnic cleansing. Al Jazeera is one of the few major international broadcasters to still have reporters providing daily broadcasts from Gaza, where no international journalists have been allowed independent access since the start of the war.

Unreliable justifications

CPJ has been unable to independently verify the documents shared by the IDF on social media, but other experts have cast doubt on these and other similar documents produced in the past. For example, following the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul and freelance camera operator Rami Al Refee in a drone strike in July, the IDF published documents that showed Al Ghoul, born in 1997, received a Hamas military ranking in 2007. He would have been 10 years old.

After Al Jazeera journalist Hamza Al Dahdouh and freelancer Mustafa Thuraya were killed in an Israeli strike on January 7, Israel alleged that they were terrorists operating a drone “posing a threat” to IDF soldiers. A Washington Post analysis of their drone footage found “no indications that either man was operating as anything other than a journalist that day.” The available footage shows that the journalists did not film any IDF troops, aircraft, or military equipment, nor were there any indications of IDF troops in the vicinity of the area they filmed.

The Washington Post investigation also noted that both journalists passed through Israeli checkpoints on their way to the south early in the war and that Dahdouh had been approved to leave Gaza—“a rare privilege unlikely to have been granted to a known militant.”
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The smear tactics are all part of a deliberate and much broader campaign to censor information coming out of Gaza and the West Bank that includes the targeting and killing of journalists, attacks on media facilities, bans on foreign media mainly targeted at Al Jazeera’s reporting, and threats to independent news outlets like Haaretz.

And it is having its desired effect: to disguise and diminish in the public’s eyes the catastrophic and disproportionate impact of the war on Palestinian civilians, and to dehumanise those suffering to help justify Israel’s disproportionate assault on Gaza.

This must not be allowed to stand. CPJ has called repeatedly for Israel to halt its attacks on the media and for Israel’s allies to use all tools at their disposal to ensure Israel upholds its commitments to a free press: this includes suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, as well as further EU targeted sanctions, and immediate action from the United States to halt the transfer of weapons being used in strikes on civilians.


In the absence of this much-needed and too long-delayed action, journalists will continue to play a pivotal role in documenting this war. It is vital that they be allowed to perform that act of witnessing and that we, as outside witnesses ourselves to these systematic attacks, play our part by speaking out loudly and clearly in their defence.

Jodie Ginsberg is the chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Follow her on X: @jodieginsberg

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

WWIII

Fragile Agreement Holds as China “Monitors” Philippine Resupply Effort

(file image Philippine Coast Guard)

Published Nov 15, 2024 12:20 PM by The Maritime Executive

The agreement between China and the Philippines for the resupply missions to the Philippines base aboard the vessel BRP Sierra Madre continued with the third unchallenged delivery to the base. Both sides acknowledged the mission in an apparent recognition that the non-disclosed agreement has so far been able to lower the temperature and advert the recent confrontations.

Chinese state media on Friday, November 15, issued a brief statement saying that its Coast Guard had “maintained oversight throughout the process.” They reported, “With China’s approval, the Philippines resupplied an illegally grounded military ship with living necessities.”

The China Coast Guard in its statement said, “It is hoped the Philippines will honor its commitments, work with China in the same direction and jointly manage the maritime situation,” the South China Post reported. However, later in the day, a spokesperson for China’s defense ministry reiterated its commitment to safeguard its territorial claims and maritime rights and to “counter infringements and provocations.”

A spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines confirmed the mission had taken place on November 14. They said, “There were no untoward incidents during the mission.”

It marks the third resupply mission since reports of an agreement between China and the Philippines in July aimed at reducing some of the tensions in the region. Unnamed sources in the Philippines told the Associated Press that the deal set a “temporary arrangement” to let the Philippines transport supplies and troop rotations to the vessel despite China’s demands that the Philippines withdraw from the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea.

China reportedly had demanded that the Philippines provide advance notice of the resupply missions and permit inspections of the vessels conducting the supply missions. China reportedly agreed to waive those demands while continuing to say the Philippines must abandon the post.

The Philippines has maintained the outpost aboard the beached World War II-vintage vessel BRP Sierra Madre since 1999 as part of its territorial claims to the area. Already considered one of the primary flashpoints in the South China Sea, the situation escalated in 2024 with a series of confrontations. Chinese vessels attempted to block the Philippine vessels, including several contact incidents, alleged intentional ramming, and frequent use of water cannons.

Associated Press highlights that while the incidents at the Second Thomas Shoal have ceased recently China continues its incursions throughout the region. In addition to the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia have all complained of incidents.

After Ukrainian Drone Attacks, Three Russian Refineries Set to Close

Ukrainian drone attack on the Tuapse refinery, July 2024 (OsintTechnical / Russian social media)

Published Nov 18, 2024 8:45 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

Three Russian refineries that were hit by Ukrainian drones earlier this year could soon close, according to Reuters. The affected facilities are having a harder time competing in an environment of higher oil prices, and their expected closures are believed to be motivated by finances. 

The refineries include two small independent facilities, Ilsky (in Krasnodar) and Novoshakhtinsky (in Rostov). The Tuapse refinery, owned by state oil firm Rosneft, was built in 1929 and despite several rounds of technological upgrades, its infrastructure is relatively dated. It is the sole Russian refinery on the Black Sea coastline and is particularly vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks. 

All of these plants have been hit by Ukrainian drones. Tuapse was hit three times, once in January and again in May and July, forcing it offline each time. It has also shut down voluntarily several times because of weak refining margins. 

If Tuapse shuts down altogether, it would have minimal impact on the Russian domestic market or the Kremlin's war effort. Its 240,000 bpd of fuel production is sold almost entirely to overseas customers, primarily in Turkey and in the Far East.

The Ilsky refinery is a 130,000 bpd refinery in the Krasnodar region, about 35 miles inland from the port of Novorossiysk. It was hit and damaged in a Ukrainian drone strike in June, and it has applied for government assistance to help with modernization upgrades. Russia's extra-high wartime interest rates (currently 21 percent) have made it hard to borrow for industrial projects like refinery improvements. 

The Novoshakhtinsky refinery is an independently-owned topping plant in the Rostov region, and can produce about 100,000 bpd. It was attacked by Ukrainian drones in March, April and June, and was partially closed for repairs until August.

Palestinians Displaced From Northern Gaza Fear This New Nakba

By Motasem A Dalloul

November 19, 2024   
Source: Middle East Monitor

Motasem A Dalloul is the correspondent in the Gaza Strip for the Middle East Monitor.

The most well-known football stadium in the Gaza Strip is chaotic, with masses of people flooding the pitch and seating. Everyone is carrying a bag on their back and some clothes. Some are helping sick people or carrying wounded relatives, while others are walking alone, struggling along on bare feet.

“We left the bodies of our children killed in Israeli air strikes either under the rubble or on the street,” an old man explains. He fled northern Gaza under heavy Israeli bombing.

Today, the people are not rushing to take their seats and enjoy a football match or a circus. They look for an empty place to rest after fleeing relentless Israeli bombing. The stadium is an encampment for displaced persons.

“Thanks be to Allah, we are safe,” said 72-year-old Hassan Abu Wardeh, who arrived in the stadium along with his sick wife and 13 children and grandchildren. “After the start of the third Israeli ground incursion into our area, we remained 25 days in our home,” he told me. “They were the worst days I have ever lived.”

That started on 6 October, when the Israeli occupation forces attacked Jabalia, concentrating on its refugee camp. Then the incursion was extended to the other north Gaza cities, including Beit Hanoun in the east and Beit Lahiya in the west.

“Since the start of their incursion, the Israeli occupation forces have been targeting homes and refugee shelters in Jabalia refugee camp, the beating heart of the city, clearly to put pressure on the inhabitants to run away,” explained Abu Wardeh. “However, most people persisted and stayed in their homes. We know that there is an Israeli plan to force us out of our land.”

Day after day, the Israeli occupation forces have targeted homes and refugee shelters alike, killing and wounding hundreds of people. The intensity of the bombardment meant that all rescue teams in the north had to suspend their services, including the Civil Defence and Ambulance teams.

Putting further pressure on Palestinian civilians to force them to leave, the occupation state has also targeted the three major hospitals in northern Gaza. Anyone seeking medical assistance and treatment has to go south to Gaza City.

Not content with dropping bombs and missiles on northern Gaza, said Abu Wardeh, the occupation forces have also used barrel bombs in the streets to displace the local population.


They detonate them without warning.

The sheer cruelty and brutality of the occupation forces saw Abu Wardeh ask his sick wife, his children and grandchildren to leave the house and move to Gaza City. His brother, who lived next door, moved 19 members of his family north to Beit Lahiya.

“I stayed at home along with two of my children and one of my grandchildren,” he said. “Five hours after the evacuation of the house, an Israeli missile turned it into rubble. It was a miracle that we survived.” It took another five hours for volunteers and neighbours to pull him and his children out from under the rubble.

“My grandson suffered from light bruises. I was happy that we were alive, but was very sad to hear that seven homes in our neighbourhood were bombed at the same time and 27 neighbours were killed. Only seven bodies were retrieved; the rest are under the rubble.”

This is how the Israeli occupation regime has been forcing the displacement — “evacuation” — of the northern Gaza Strip. People are killed, wounded or abducted. Hospitals have been destroyed, medical staff have been killed or arrested, and humanitarian aid is stopped from reaching the area. At the same time, the regime destroys entire residential compounds and is building massive sand barriers to separate northern Gaza from Gaza City.

Abu Wardeh, whose parents were forced out of Al-Majadal during the 1948 Nakba, is afraid that he is facing a new Nakba. The regime drops leaflets telling the people that they must leave their homes because they are in the middle of an “operation area”.

Then the occupation forces destroy their homes and destroy their refugee shelters.

During the ongoing incursion, the Israeli forces have killed more than 2,200 people in northern Gaza alone. A further 6,300 have been wounded while more than 1,000 have been detained — basically abducted — including children.

Spokespersons for the Israeli occupation army have declared several times that they will not allow the Palestinian residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes. According to Haaretz, the Israeli regime is carrying out ethnic cleansing as part of the “Generals’ Plan” laid out by one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military aides. Fanatical Jewish settlers are waiting expectantly to build illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory.

“I am afraid that we will never return to Jabalia,” added Abu Wardeh. “In any case, I am still hoping to return not to Jabalia, but to Al-Majdal.”

The right of return upon which his hope depends is entirely legitimate. It still seems a long way from happening though.

Motasem A Dalloul is the correspondent in the Gaza Strip for the Middle East Monitor.

Palestine: Islamophobia and resistance to the Israeli occupation

Monday 18 November 2024, by Louisa D

‘There was no such thing as Palestinians… They did not exist.’ This statement by Golda Meir in 1969 is the essence of what, fifty years later, would lead to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Despite live media coverage by its victims and a solidarity movement organised in many countries, it has continued unabated for a year

Anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia in the imperialist North, an ally of Israel, explains not only how consent to the genocide was created but also why the solidarity movement has not been on a mass scale. Anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia structure the consent to genocide

Genocide requires the dehumanisation of its victims. Israeli society is deeply racist towards Palestinians. Adherence to the Zionist project of colonisation requires this dehumanisation, which today is evolving into a widely shared feeling of genocide

The signs of this were visible before October 2023. Moreover, since 7 October, expressions of support for the Palestinians have been only very marginal in the demonstrations that began against Netanyahu and a reform of the Supreme Court and have continued for the release of the hostages.

It is this racist and supremacist dimension of Zionism that manufactures the consent to genocide abroad. In the discourse of the dominant classes, the struggle of the Palestinians is described as an expression of religious fanaticism and associated with international Islamist terrorism. The internalisation of a racial hierarchy enables Western countries to identify with the Israeli victims and, at the same time, make the murder of Palestinians invisible.

In this respect, Israeli bi-nationals benefit from repatriations and even tributes for those who died on 7 October, while Palestinian bi-nationals have the greatest difficulty escaping the massacres and repatriating their loved ones. And so, Israel and above all Netanyahu are supported not only by extreme right-wing regimes and far right regimes and parties, but also by all governments that see themselves in this culturalist interpretation of the ‘war of civilisations’, which is transposed into hostility towards Arabs, Muslims and those racialised as such. Systemic racism and a rise in Islamophobia common to the imperialist North have allowed such an alignment of discourse to take place instantly. Such is only possible because of our own colonial unthinking and the construction of the state on the ethnic homogenisation of the nation and supremacism.

Finally, the picture would not be complete without the Zionist government’s misuse of the fight against anti-Semitism, which maintains that the resistance of the Palestinian people is not motivated by their persecution as a colonised people but by anti-Semitism. In serving as a blank cheque for other racist regimes, Israel exonerates each of them of any anti-Semitism and in return allows them, under the pretext of fighting anti-Semitism, to target Muslims. Moreover, following the theory of the ‘new anti-Semitism’, contemporary anti-Semitism is said to emanate from Arabs and is therefore ‘imported’.

This discourse immediately places supporters of the Palestinian people in the camp of the enemies of the state, with the following fallacy: to support the Palestinian people would be to support terrorism against the Jews.

The erasure of the colonial dimension in favour of a civilisational discourse is echoed in the mainstream media, which have largely amplified it. The media treatment has dehumanised Palestinian lives, with the number of deaths put into perspective and the brutality of the Israeli offensive has been euphemised. Newsrooms have been forbidden from using terms that make visible the colonial context in which it takes place. The media also played a major role in demonising of the solidarity movement. It was accompanied by unabashed racist and Islamophobic expression.

Islamophobia: cornerstone of repression of the French solidarity movement

State-sponsored Islamophobia in France, which has its own colonial history, combines perfectly with Israeli propaganda. This is precisely what happened during the anti-Semitism demonstration on 12 November 2023, in which the anti-Semitic French far right took part. In the appeal, the link was made between ‘the Republic and the fight against anti-Semitism’ and ‘defence of secularism in the face of Islamism’. Very quickly, the attacks of 7 October were compared to the Bataclan attacks and the racist vocabulary of savagery was used to characterise Palestinian resistance.

While the racialised popular classes were quick to mobilise, state repression took a turn against any form of expression of support. General bans on demonstrations were motivated by the risk of anti-Semitic remarks during demonstrations and expressions of support for Hamas. It was this expression by Muslims and generations of racialised people from post-colonial immigration that the ruling class first sought to make invisible in the public arena by presenting it as an inherent threat to public order.

The imposition of the Israeli narrative had an impact on the solidarity movement. It was structured in conjunction with anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles, and the emergence of Urgence Palestine, formed around Palestinians, enabled more radical demands to be made; at the same time, the historic front of support organisations fractured over the condemnation of Hamas. This may explain why the solidarity movement found itself more easily criminalised, because it was more isolated. This criminalisation was particularly strong in France, where prosecutors were asked to respond ‘firmly and quickly’ to anti-Semitism and apologies for terrorism in a total confusion between denouncing the crimes of the Israeli state and terrorism. The autonomy of the offence of apology for terrorism, which is no longer solely covered by the law on freedom of the press, has served as a basis for immediate appearance procedures. There were already more than 600 prosecutions for apology for terrorism in April, with a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

A large-scale crackdown targeted mosques: several imams and heads of places of worship had their residence permits withdrawn and were deported because of remarks made in support of the Palestinian people. The most high-profile case was that of Abdourahman Ridouane, president of the Pessac mosque, who is due to be expelled after his appeal to the Council of State was rejected. This crackdown is obviously part of a more widespread attack by the state on organised Muslim cultural communities (the Pessac mosque had already been the subject of four attempts at administrative closure). Another example is Imam Ismaïl of the Bleuets mosque, who had to withdraw to avoid closure. The direct effect of this offensive is the destruction of communities and the demobilisation of people politicised through Islam. It has been greatly facilitated by the dissolutions of many anti-Islamophobia groups in recent years.

Palestinian voices and their allies have been intimidated, in particular Mariam Abu Daqqa, who has been expelled, Rima Hassan, who has been subjected to violent harassment, and Elias d’Imzalène, a member of Perspectives musulmanes, who is about to be tried for apology for terrorism after having taken up the Intifada slogan.

Because it denounces genocide and has refused to condemn armed resistance, la France insoumise (LFI) has been the target of an unprecedented attack designed to discredit it. The smear campaign combining accusations of anti-Semitism and clientelism towards pro-Palestinian voters was undeniably racist and Islamophobic because it was based on the following logic: only this clientelism towards voters racialised as Arabs and Muslims could explain LFI’s support for the Palestinian people (and therefore only other Arabs could have empathy for the Palestinians); and criticism of Israel can only be explained by anti-Semitism and not by real support for the Palestinians’ anti-colonial struggle.

Lastly, the French media’s approach was eminently racist and Islamophobic and was denounced as such by the association of anti-racist journalists. The structuring Islamophobia in France has encouraged the acceptance of this level of repression in society against pro-Palestinian supporters with patterns of domination specific to racist oppression.

Abroad, mobilisation constrained by racism

This observation of an increase in the level of repression against the pro-Palestinian solidarity movement can be extended to most of the imperialist countries allied with Israel: obstacles to the right to demonstrate, harassment and defamation of supporters, control of public expression, cancellation of cultural events, dismissals, criminalisation, stigmatisation of foreigners and so on. Palestinians in the diaspora have been particularly targeted. There were similar dynamics: a link with anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles, in particular due to the strong participation of racialised people, and pro-Palestinian activism perceived as threatening and, by default, anti-Semitic. Above all, there has been a sharp increase in Islamophobic acts (hate speech, stigmatisation, attacks on places of worship, but also physical violence and murders).

In Germany, censorship of the solidarity movement is very strong because of support for Israel, described as a ‘reason of state’. State racism has developed around the belief that anti-Semitism is imported by foreigners of the Muslim faith. Spain and Britain are exceptions, with a high level of mobilisation due to widespread public support for Palestine. The unconditional support of the British political class for Israel was offset by the strong mobilising role of Muslim and Palestinian community organisations. The university occupation movement that began in the United States had the potential to change the balance of power. Here too, the students mobilised were intimidated and defamed, accused of anti-Semitism and complacency towards Hamas.

While these mobilisations have been significant in places, they have not been able to sufficiently influence the support of the ruling classes for Israel, even if ‘unconditional’ support is now more timid. By importing the rhetoric of a civilisational conflict in which Israel is seen as a Western bastion against the Islamic threat, the ruling classes are using the expression of support for the Palestinian resistance to target Arabs and Muslims.

In the space of a year, we can take stock of an international mobilisation that has failed to rise above the ceiling of anti-Arab racism and a profound contempt for Palestinian lives. This racist portrayal of the Palestinian experience is not new, nor is the criminalisation of their support or the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. On the other hand, unconditional alignment with Israeli propaganda has marked acceleration in general trend towards fascism, fuelled by a normalisation of the dehumanisation of Arabs and a deepening of authoritarianism. In this, we bear a collective responsibility to look into the mirror held up to us by Israel.

Attached documents

• palestine-islamophobia-and-resistance-to-the-israeli_a8744.pdf (PDF - 916 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8744]

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Palestinians, Both Civilian and Military, Are Transcending the Horror We’ve Unleashed

By Stan Cox

November 19, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Muhammad Sabah, Creative Commons 4.0



In February, the public health specialist Muna Abed Alah published a paper in the journal Current Psychology titled “Shattered Hierarchy: How the Gaza Conflict Demolished Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs.” The idea of a hierarchy of needs—first published by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 and subsequently modified in various ways by Maslow and others—has long been pervasive in the world of pop psychology, while some in academia have poked holes in Maslow’s logic. Now, Alah suggests that the Palestinians of Gaza have rendered the hierarchy of needs wholly obsolete.

Briefly, Maslow and others who followed have identified universal human needs—including but not limited to basic physiological requirements, safety, cognition, self-actualization, and transcendence—and listed those needs along with others in a precise order. They maintain that an individual’s physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.) must be satisfied first and that each subsequent need can be fulfilled only after the needs that precede it in the list have been at least partially fulfilled.

Well, Alah writes, the people of Gaza have torn up and thrown away Maslow’s blueprint.

Regarding non-fulfillment of physiological needs, Alah of course cited Israel’s campaigns depriving Palestinians of food, water, fuel, shelter, sleep, and other necessities. Safety was being totally erased by Israel’s relentless bombing throughout Gaza. Endlessly repeated destruction of hospitals, assassination of medical personnel, and targeting of trucks and people that gather at food-distribution locations has prevented the satisfaction of both physiological and safety needs. With serial displacement of millions of people, separation of family members, and deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the need for esteem has been swamped; people’s sense of dignity and control over their lives has been wrecked. Israel’s intentional bombing of schools and universities has blocked their pursuit of cognitive needs. Regarding the need for self-actualization, Alah wrote, “The relentless focus on mere survival in the face of constant threat overshadows any opportunity for self-fulfillment . . . In such an environment, where safety and basic needs are a daily struggle, the luxury of realizing personal potential becomes nearly impossible.”

But what about transcendence, the peak of the hierarchy of needs? In Alah’s words, it “involves connecting with something larger than oneself, including spiritual experiences, deep connections with others, and contributions to the broader society.” With none of the prerequisites being satisfied, transcendence should have receded completely out of reach months ago, according to Maslow’s thesis. Instead, Alah, observed, transcendence is the one need that was being realized:

“Amidst ongoing conflict and siege, achieving transcendence is notably difficult, yet it manifests itself in unique and meaningful ways. Despite the limitations in aid and resources, many people in Gaza have started to help each other, fostering a strong sense of community and solidarity. This mutual assistance not only addresses immediate needs but also serves as a powerful form of transcendence, allowing individuals to connect with and contribute to something greater than themselves.”

The coordinated service, heroism, and sacrifice personified by Palestinian journalists, taxi drivers, first responders, and health care professionals during the war is by now legendary. But countless other people in all walks of life have demonstrated similar degrees of transcendence. In his article, Alah focused on the resilience of Gaza’s civilian population. Here, I’ll just add that the armed resistance forces in Gaza—encompassing the al Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s armed wing) and others—also have transcended unbearable hardship by mounting an extraordinary collective effort.
“Something Greater than Themselves”

A report released in August by Ground Truth Solutions and Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) revealed the extent of mutual aid occurring in Gaza over the past year. Conducted in June and July, the survey of 1,200 civilians confirmed that none of the fundamental needs at the base of Maslow’s hierarchy were being fulfilled in Gaza. As expected, when asked about their most immediate priorities, 90 to 99 percent of the respondents listed Maslow’s basic needs: food, water, shelter, and safety.

But more than 90 percent also listed priorities such as “care for marginalized groups” and “doing something to contribute or support.” A large share of people also provided food, water, help with daily affairs, electric power, housing, childcare, or psychosocial support to others in the community—and received such help from others. Community volunteer groups organized early in the conflict, and about one-third of respondents told interviewers they had benefited from support provided by these groups.

Displaced families or communities taking refuge in a new location said they’d found plenty of help. Local leaders and committees helped them set up tent encampments or “find other housing arrangements in host families.” Furthermore, “When asked about the most important resources available to them, people often mention community kitchens, which provide a means through which local aid groups can provide support and residents can pool resources to try and reach those in greatest need.”

At the time Ground Truth Solutions and AWRAD were conducting these interviews, the Israeli onslaught and aid blockade had been going on for nine months. When families and communities are forced to live with constant hunger and thirst, to go without medical care, to watch family members and compatriots die all around them for months on end, sustaining a functional society can become physically impossible. As a result, the report noted, “During in-depth discussions, both aid providers and community volunteers mentioned the erosion of mutual aid within communities as resources become scarcer.”

Burdens of scarcity, displacement, and death-risk accumulate over time. There’s only so much that people can take, however brave and generous they are. But that doesn’t mean the Palestinians are giving up. One woman told Ground Truth interviewers, “We are a mighty people who have dignity and we will prevail. We’ll die standing like palm trees and we will not kneel.” It may be that colonized people just don’t fit Maslow’s model. Alah himself noted that its “Western-centric origins may not adequately reflect the collective experiences of trauma and resilience that significantly influence societal dynamics in regions like Gaza, where cultural heritage plays a pivotal role in shaping communal responses to adversity.”
No Choice but to Fight

The Palestinian armed resistance too is exemplifying transcendence. As part of a great tradition established by wars of liberation throughout history, they have held their own against a far larger, more powerful army—one equipped and supported by the world’s biggest military-industrial complex, that of the United States and other Western powers.

Gaza’s fighters have so far thwarted the occupiers’ efforts to depopulate Gaza. They are mounting fierce resistance against the army’s attempt to drive all Palestinians from northern Gaza into the South, annex and resettle the North with Israelis, and let the South become one big, uninhabitable “deportation camp” (somehow inhabited by millions of Palestinians until they are pushed out).

The Palestinians are fighting with antitank weapons, rifles, and mortars that they designed and manufactured themselves. In so-called “return to sender” missions, they’re blowing up IDF tanks and troops using “barrel bombs” filled with explosives they’ve recycled from the Israeli “dud” munitions that litter Gaza’s landscape. They’ve also gained remote control of Israeli drones, landed, reprogrammed, and armed them, and then sent them back out to attack IDF sites. In these and many other ways, the resistance forces have shown great resourcefulness.

They’ve shown not only ingenuity but great courage as well. In resistance videos (starting at the 2 hr 6 min mark in this one), we can see fighter after fighter dash from a bombed-out building across dozens of meters of open ground, highly exposed to drone fire, lugginga 45-pound, locally manufactured explosive device. They place them just a few feet behind an IDF tank, dash back across the open ground, and take cover just before the bomb explodes.

The resistance fighters attack only military targets that threaten the people of Gaza. After they strike, and IDF ambulances and medevac helicopters arrive to carry away the wounded and dead, the resistance fighters film from a distance but do not attack them.

Some readers might object to the inclusion of resistance fighters among examples of how people of Gaza are rising above their demolished hierarchy of needs. But focus on the than 2 million-plus people who have lived through more than 13 months of unspeakable horrors—preceded by 18 years of open-air imprisonment and a blockade that has deprived them of fundamental human needs, a siege punctuated by deadly IDF bombing campaigns in 2006, 2008-9, 2012, 2014, and 2021, along with massacres of nonviolent protesters in 2018. (And Israel’s unlawful occupation of Gaza goes back another four decades, to 1967.) No population that’s been under deadly siege and bombing for two decades would accept an open-ended continuation of such savagery without fighting back.

The death and destruction that occurred during the Palestinian resistance’s October 7, 2023 military action could never justify Israel’s attempted eradication of an entire society—even if one chose to believe every one of the now-debunked claims that the Israeli military, government, and press have made about that day.

Even if on that day the resistance had committed every act of which the Israelis have falsely accused them, the latter’s genocidal campaign of the past 13 months (and counting) is a monumentally extreme violation of two fundamental principles of international conflict: proportionality (retaliation must not be disproportionately more severe that the acts being retaliated against) and distinction (military targets may be attacked, but civilians or civilian targets must not).
In Gaza, Nonviolence Is a Nonstarter

My friend Justin Podur, author of the 2019 Gaza novel Siegebreakers, points to the 2018 mass protest known as the Great March of Return as conclusive evidence that nonviolence had no chance of ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza—that, indeed, nonviolence has never freed a people from a violent colonial power.

Every Friday for a year starting in March, 2018, Palestinians, by the tens of thousands on some days, carried out nonviolent actions at various points along the giant fence that (along with a sea and air blockade), separates Gaza from the rest of the world. The groups protested on their own land, along their own side of the barrier. By sticking to wholly nonviolent resistance, March of Return protesters did what many around the world are constantly urging the people of Gaza to do. But starting on the very first Friday, Israeli forces on the other side of the fence fired with abandon at the unarmed protesters. Over the next twelve months, the troops shot and wounded 30,000 people, killing 266. The dead included dozens of children. Though a horrific massacre, it was just a peek-preview of the crimes Israel would commit against Gaza’s civilian population during this genocide half a decade later.

The Israeli regime will use any excuse at any time to kill, maim, or displace Palestinians. The regime, not the resistance, is the driving force behind the conflict. In Podur’s words, “the slaughter of Palestinians at the Great March of Return was not the fault of the nonviolent protesters any more than the genocide in 2023-24 was the fault of the Palestinian armed groups.”

Recently, the Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who reports from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, was asked if he has a message for Westerners who demand that those of us protesting the genocide answer the question, “But do you condemn Hamas?” He responded,

“Regardless of political affiliations, do you really condemn someone who defends you and has your back against a terrorist state? Israel has been butchering, dehumanizing, torturing, and bombing us for 76 years. And has imposed a strict siege on us in Gaza for 17 years. In this context, where does this question even fit? It’s incredibly enraging that people are trying to justify Israel’s genocide by asking such silly questions.”

Those of us who live in a country that’s supplying unlimited support for Israel’s all-out military assault and starvation campaign have no right to demand that the Palestinians refrain from fighting back. Our time is better spent demanding a total embargo on the provision of arms, money, or anything else to Israel. We too are responsible for bombing Gaza’s people out of access to their basic Maslow needs. Now, to do nothing more than celebrate the valiant perseverance into which we ourselves have forced them would be a hollow gesture indeed. And to engage in pious tut-tutting over their armed resistance would be immeasurably worse.


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Stan Cox began his career in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is now the Ecosphere Studies Research Fellow at the Land Institute. Cox is the author of Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) and Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine.

Trump’s Election Is Also a Win for Tech’s Right-Wing “Warrior Class”

Silicon Valley has successfully rebranded military contracting as a proud national duty for the industry.

By Sam Biddle

November 17, 2024

Source: The Intercept




Donald Trump pitched himself to voters as a supposed anti-interventionist candidate of peace. But when he reenters the White House in January, at his side will be a phalanx of pro-military Silicon Valley investors, inventors, and executives eager to build the most sophisticated weapons the world has ever known.

During his last term, the U.S. tech sector tiptoed skittishly around Trump; longtime right-winger Peter Thiel stood as an outlier in his full-throated support of MAGA politics as other investors and executives largely winced and smiled politely. Back then, Silicon Valley still offered the public peaceful mission statements of improving the human condition, connecting people, and organizing information. Technology was supposed to help, never harm. No more: People like Thiel, Palmer Luckey, Trae Stephens, and Marc Andreessen make up a new vanguard of powerful tech figures who have unapologetically merged right-wing politics with a determination to furnish a MAGA-dominated United States with a constant flow of newer, better arms and surveillance tools.


Trump’s election marks an epochal victory not just for the right, but also for a growing conservative counterrevolution in American tech.

These men (as they tend to be) hold much in common beyond their support of Republican candidates: They share the belief that China represents an existential threat to the United States (an increasingly bipartisan belief, to be sure) and must be dominated technologically and militarily at all costs. They are united in their aversion, if not open hostility, to arguments that the pace of invention must be balanced against any moral consideration beyond winning. And they all stand to profit greatly from this new tech-driven arms race.

Trump’s election marks an epochal victory not just for the right, but also for a growing conservative counterrevolution in American tech that has successfully rebranded military contracting as the proud national duty of the American engineer, not a taboo to be dodged and hidden. Meta’s recent announcement that its Llama large language model can now be used by defense customers means that Apple is the last of the “Big Five” American tech firms — Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta — not engaged in military or intelligence contracting.

Elon Musk has drawn the lion’s share of media scrutiny (and Trump world credit) for throwing his fortune and digital influence behind the campaign. Over the years, the world’s richest man has become an enormously successful defense contractor via SpaceX, which has reaped billions selling access to rockets that the Pentagon hopes will someday rapidly ferry troops into battle. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet has also become an indispensable American military tool, and the company is working on a constellation of bespoke spy satellites for U.S. intelligence agency use.

But Musk is just one part of a broader wave of militarists who will have Trump’s ear on policy matters.

After election day, Musk replied to a celebratory tweet from Palmer Luckey, a founder of Anduril, a $14 billion startup that got its start selling migrant-detecting surveillance towers for the southern border and now manufactures a growing line of lethal drones and missiles. “Very important to open DoD/Intel to entrepreneurial companies like yours,” Musk wrote. Anduril’s rise is inseparable from Trumpism: Luckey founded the firm in 2017 after he was fired by Meta for contributing to a pro-Trump organization. He has been outspoken in his support for Trump as both candidate and president, fundraising for him in both 2020 and 2024.

Big Tech historically worked hard to be viewed by the public as inhabiting the center-left, if not being apolitical altogether. But even that is changing. While Luckey was fired for merely supporting Trump’s first campaign, his former boss (and former liberal) Mark Zuckerberg publicly characterized Trump surviving the June assassination attempt as “bad ass” and quickly congratulated the president-elect on a “decisive victory.” Zuckerberg added that he is “looking forward to working with you and your administration.”

To some extent, none of this is new: Silicon Valley’s origin is one of militarism. The American computer and software economy was nurtured from birth by the explosive growth and endless money of the Cold War arms race and its insatiable appetite for private sector R&D. And despite the popular trope of liberal Google executives, the tech industry has always harbored a strong anti-labor, pro-business instinct that dovetails neatly with conservative politics. It would also be a mistake to think that Silicon Valley was ever truly in lockstep with progressive values. A 2014 political ad by Americans for a Conservative Direction, a defunct effort by Facebook to court the Republican Party, warned that “it’s wrong to have millions of people living in America illegally” and urged lawmakers to “secure our borders so this never happens again.” The notion of the Democrat-friendly wing of Big Tech as dovish is equally wrong: Former Google chair and longtime liberal donor Eric Schmidt is a leading China hawk and defense tech investor. Similarly, the Democratic Party itself hasn’t meaningfully distanced itself from militarism in recent history. The current wave of startups designing smaller, cheaper military drones follows the Obama administration’s eager mass adoption of the technology, and firms like Anduril and Palantir have thrived under Joe Biden.

What has changed is which views the tech industry is now comfortable expressing out loud.

A year after Luckey’s ouster from the virtual reality subsidiary he founded, Google became embroiled in what grew into an industry-wide upheaval over military contracting. After it was reported that the company sought to win Project Maven, a lucrative drone-targeting contract, employees who had come to the internet titan to work on consumer products like Search, Maps, and Gmail found themselves disturbed by the thought of contributing to a system that could kill people. Waves of protests pushed Google to abandon the Pentagon with its tail between its legs. Even Fei-Fei Li, then Google Cloud’s chief artificial intelligence and machine learning scientist, described the contract as a source of shame in internal emails obtained by the New York Times. “Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI — if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google,” she wrote. “I don’t know what would happen if the media starts picking up a theme that Google is secretly building AI weapons or AI technologies to enable weapons for the Defense industry.”

It’s an exchange that reads deeply quaint today. The notion that the country’s talented engineers should build weapons is becoming fully mainstreamed. “Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,” Luckey explained in an on-campus talk about his company’s contributions to the Ukrainian war effort with Pepperdine University President Jim Gash. “You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.”

This “warrior class” mentality traces its genealogy to Peter Thiel, whose disciples, like Luckey, spread the gospel of a conservative-led arms race against China. “Everything that we’re doing, what the [Department of Defense] is doing, is preparing for a conflict with a great power like China in the Pacific,” Luckey told Bloomberg TV in a 2023 interview. At the Reagan National Defense Forum in 2019, Thiel, a lifelong techno-libertarian and Trump’s first major backer in tech, rejected the “ethical framing” of the question of whether to build weapons.” When it’s a choice between the U.S. and China, it is always the ethical decision to work with the U.S. government,” he said. Though Sinophobia is increasingly standard across party affiliations, it’s particularly frothing in the venture-backed warrior class. In 2019, Thiel claimed that Google had been “infiltrated by Chinese intelligence” and two years later suggested that bitcoin is “a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.”

Thiel often embodies the self-contradiction of Trumpist foreign policy, decrying the use of taxpayer money on “faraway wars” while boosting companies that design weapons for exactly that. Like Trump, Thiel is a vocal opponent of Bush- and Obama-era adventurism in the Middle East as a source of nothing but regional chaos — though Thiel has remained silent on Trump’s large expansion of the Obama administration’s drone program and his assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. In July, asked about the Israeli use of AI in the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, Thiel responded, “I defer to Israel.”

Thiel’s gravitational pull is felt across the whole of tech’s realignment toward militarism. Vice President-elect JD Vance worked at Mithril, another of Thiel’s investment firms, and used $15 million from his former boss to fund the 2022 Senate win that secured his national political bona fides. Vance would later go on to invest in Anduril. Founders Fund, Thiel’s main venture capital firm, has seeded the tech sector with influential figures friendly to both Trumpism and the Pentagon. Before, an investor or CEO who publicly embraced right-wing ideology and products designed to kill risked becoming an industry pariah. Today, he can be a CNBC guest.

An earlier adopter of MAGA, Thiel was also investing in and creating military- and intelligence-oriented companies before it was cool. He co-founded Palantir, which got its start helping facilitate spy agency and deportation raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Now part of the S&P 500, the company helps target military strikes for Ukraine and in January sealed a “strategic partnership for battle tech” with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, according to a press release.


Before, a tech investor or CEO who publicly embraced right-wing ideology and products designed to kill risked becoming an industry pariah. Today, he can be a CNBC guest.

The ripple effect of Palantir’s success has helped popularize defense tech and solidify its union with the American right. Thiel’s Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, also an Anduril investor, is reportedly helping Trump staff his new administration. Former Palantir employee and Anduril executive chair Trae Stephens joined the Trump transition team in 2016 and has suggested he would serve a second administration. As a member of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, Thiel ally Jacob Helberg has been instrumental in whipping up anti-China fervor on Capitol Hill, helping push legislation to ban TikTok, and arguing for military adoption of AI technologies like those sold by his employer, Palantir, which markets itself as a bulwark against Chinese aggression. Although Palantir CEO Alex Karp is a self-described Democrat who said he planned to vote against Trump, he has derided progressivism as a “thin pagan religion” of wokeness, suggested pro-Palestine college protesters leave for North Korea, and continually advocating for an American arms buildup.

“Trump has surrounded himself with ‘techno-optimists’ — people who believe technology is the answer to every problem,” Brianna Rosen, a strategy and policy fellow at the University of Oxford and alumnus of the Obama National Security Council, told The Intercept. “Key members of his inner circle — leading tech executives — describe themselves in this way. The risk of techno-optimism in the military domain is that it focuses on how technology saves lives, rather than the real risks associated with military AI, such as the accelerated pace of targeting.”

The worldview of this corner of the tech industry is loud, if not always consistent. Foreign entanglements are bad, but the United States must be on perpetual war-footing against China. China itself is dangerous in part because it’s rapidly weaponizing AI, a current that threatens global stability, so the United States should do the very same, even harder, absent regulatory meddling.

Stephens’s 2022 admonition that “the business of war is the business of deterrence” argues that “peaceful outcomes are only achievable if we maintain our technological advantage in weapons systems” — an argument that overlooks the fact that the U.S. military’s overwhelming technological superiority failed to keep it out of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. In a recent interview with Wired, Stephens both criticized the revolving door between the federal government and Anduril competitors like Boeing while also stating that “it’s important that people come out of private industry to work on civil service projects, and I hope at some point I’ll have the opportunity to go back in and serve the government and American people.”

William Fitzgerald, the founder of Worker Agency, a communications and advocacy firm that has helped tech workers organize against military contracts, said this square is easily circled by right-wing tech hawks, whose pitch is centered on the glacial incompetence of the Department of Defense and blue-chip contractors like Lockheed and Raytheon. “Peter Thiel’s whole thing is to privatize the state,” Fitzgerald explained. Despite all of the rhetoric about avoiding foreign entanglements, a high-tech arms race is conducive to different kinds of wars, not fewer of them. “This alignment fits this narrative that we can do cheaper wars,” he said. “We won’t lose the men over there because we’ll have these drones.”

In this view, the opposition of Thiel and his ilk isn’t so much to forever wars, then, but rather whose hardware is being purchased forever.

The new conservative tech establishment seems in full agreement about the need for an era of techno-militarism. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the namesakes of one of Silicon Valley’s most storied and successful venture capital firms, poured millions into Trump’s reelection and have pushed hard to reorient the American tech sector toward fighting wars. In a “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” published last October, Andreessen wrote of defense contracting as a moral imperative. “We believe America and her allies should be strong and not weak. We believe national strength of liberal democracies flows from economic strength (financial power), cultural strength (soft power), and military strength (hard power). Economic, cultural, and military strength flow from technological strength.” The firm knows full well what it’s evoking through a naked embrace of strength as society’s greatest virtue: Listed among the “Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism” is Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, co-author of the 1919 Fascist Manifesto.

The venture capitalists’ document offers a clear rebuttal of employees’ moral qualms that pushed Google to ditch Project Maven. The manifesto dismisses basic notions of “ethics,” “safety,” and “social responsibility” as a “demoralization campaign” of “zombie ideas, many derived from Communism” pushed by “the enemy.” This is rhetoric that matches a brand Trump has worked to cultivate: aspirationally hypermasculine, unapologetically jingoistic, and horrified by an America whose potential to dominate the planet is imperiled by meddling foreigners and scolding woke co-workers.

“There’s a lot more volatility in the world, [and] there is more of a revolt against what some would deem ‘woke culture,’” said Michael Dempsey, managing partner at the New York-based venture capital firm Compound. “It’s just more in the zeitgeist now that companies shouldn’t be so heavily influenced by personal politics. Obviously that is the tech industry talking out of both sides of their mouth because we saw in this past election a bunch of people get very political and make donations from their firms.”


“It’s just more in the zeitgeist now that companies shouldn’t be so heavily influenced by personal politics. Obviously that is the tech industry talking out of both sides of their mouth.”

Despite skewing young (by national security standards), many in this rightward, pro-military orbit are cultural and religious traditionalists infused with the libertarian preferences of the Zynternet, a wildly popular online content scene that’s melded apolitical internet bro culture and a general aversion to anything considered vaguely “woke.” A recent Vanity Fair profile of the El Segundo tech scene, a hotbed of the burgeoning “military Zyndustrial complex” commonly known as “the Gundo,” described the city as “California’s freedom-loving, Bible-thumping hub of hard tech.” It paints a vivid scene of young engineers who eschewed the progressive dystopia of San Francisco they read about on Twitter and instead flocked to build “nuclear reactors and military weaponry designed to fight China” beneath “an American flag the size of a dumpster” and “a life-size poster of Jesus Christ smiling benevolently onto a bench press below.”

The American right’s hold over online culture in the form of podcasts, streamers, and other youth-friendly media has been central to both retaking Washington and bulldozing post-Maven sentiment, according to William Fitzgerald of Worker Agency. “I gotta hand it to the VCs, they’re really good at comms,” said Fitzgerald, who himself is former Google employee who helped leak critical information about the company’s involvement in Project Maven. “They’re really making sure that these Gundo bros are wrapping the American flag around them. It’s been fascinating to see them from 2019 to 2024 completely changing the culture among young tech workers.”

A wave of layoffs and firings of employees engaged in anti-military protests have been a boon for defense evangelists, Fitzgerald added. “The workers have been told to shut up, or they get fired.”

This rhetoric has been matched by a massive push by Andreessen Horowitz (already an Anduril investor) behind the fund’s “American Dynamism” portfolio, a collection of companies that leans heavily into new startups hoping to be the next Raytheon. These investments include ABL Space Systems, already contracting with the Air Force,; Epirus, which makes microwave directed-energy weapons; and Shield AI, which works on autonomous military drones. Following the election, David Ulevitch, who leads the fund’s American Dynamism team, retweeted a celebratory video montage interspersed with men firing flamethrowers, machine guns, jets, Hulk Hogan, and a fist-pumping post-assassination attempt Trump.

Even the appearance of more money and interest in defense tech could have a knock-on effect for startup founders hoping to chase what’s trendy. Dempsey said he expects investors and founder to “pattern-match to companies like Anduril and to a lesser extent SpaceX, believing that their outcomes will be the same.” The increased political and cultural friendliness toward weapons startups also coincides with high interest rates and growing interest in hardware companies, Dempsey explained, as software companies have lost their luster following years of growth driven by little more than cheap venture capital.

There’s every reason to believe a Trump-controlled Washington will give the tech industry, increasingly invested in militarized AI, what it wants. In July, the Washington Post reported the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute was working on a proposal to “Make America First in AI” by undoing regulatory burdens and encouraging military applications. Trump has already indicated he’ll reverse the Biden administration’s executive order on AI safety, which mandated safety testing and risk-based self-reporting by companies. Michael Kratsios, chief technology officer during the first Trump administration and managing director of Air Force contractor Scale AI, is reportedly advising Trump’s transition team on policy matters.

“‘Make America First in AI’ means the United States will move quickly, regardless of the costs, to maintain its competitive edge over China,” Brianna Rosen, the Oxford fellow, explained. “That translates into greater investment and fewer restrictions on military AI. Industry already leads AI development and deployment in the defense and intelligence sectors; that role has now been cemented.”

The mutual embrace of MAGA conservatism and weapons tech seems to already be paying off. After dumping $200 million into the Trump campaign’s terminal phase, Musk was quick to cash his chips in: On Thursday, the New York Times reported that he petitioned Trump SpaceX executives into positions at the Department of Defense before the election had even begun. Musk will also co-lead a nebulous new office dedicated to slashing federal spending. Rep. Matt Gaetz, brother-in-law to Luckey, now stands to be the country’s next attorney general. In a post-election interview with Bloomberg, Luckey shared that he is already advising the Trump transition team and endorses the current candidates for defense secretary. “We did well under Trump, and we did better under Biden,” he said of Anduril. “I think we will do even better now.”