I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
Israel has created a fictitious think tank
as part of a digital influence campaign designed to feed pro-Israel
narratives into artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, Responsible Statecraft (RS) reported on 17 August.
US public relations firm Piro, Inc.
received $900,000 from the Israeli Government Advertising Agency to
create the Hanover Institute, which uses AI to write reports painting
Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and colonization of the West
Bank in a positive light.
Since 6 August, the Hanover Institute has
issued over 100 reports, which are deliberately crafted to influence AI
chatbots to use its content when drafting answers for users.
“At first glance, the Hanover Institute
for Public Policy looks like a new think tank dedicated to
Israel/Palestine … But the Hanover Institute is not a real think tank,”
RS wrote.
Hanover issues think-tank-style reports on
questions such as “Does AIPAC Use Dark Money in Elections?” and “Is
Israel Carrying out a Deliberate Campaign of Starvation in Gaza?”
However, the reports do not list any
authors and include a small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage that
notes the institute was created on behalf of the Israeli government.
The reports include footnotes and are
written in a neutral tone, making them attractive as content used by AI
chatbots such as Claude or Gemini, a practice known as “LLM poisoning.”
Piro’s website openly states that it
creates “content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility,” a method
it describes as “AI Story Optimization.”
Many of the reports have titles that mimic
neutral questions that chatbot users might ask about Israel and
Palestine, such as “What Caused the Displacement of Palestinians in
1948?” or “What is the Current Situation in the Gaza Strip?”
The articles then use Israeli sources to present a pro-Israel perspective in answering the question.
An article entitled “Is the IDF the
World’s Most Moral Army?” cites a 2022 poll that found that 47 percent
of Israeli Jews believed that statement.
Another report tries to refute the
findings of a UNICEF report stating that 90 percent of water and other
infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed in Gaza.
Many reports link to articles claiming
that anti-Semitism is on the rise, a tactic meant to deflect from
Israel’s actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
RS used GPTZero software to analyze 12
Hanover Institute articles and determine if the were written by a human
author or by AI. GPTZero flagged 11 of the articles as AI-written with
“high confidence.” It flagged the final article as AI-written with
“moderate confidence.”
Piro co-founder Daniel Rosenberg boasted on LinkedIn about his firm’s ability to influence chatbots:
“When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or
Perplexity about your category, an answer comes back in one confident
paragraph. Most brands have no idea how that paragraph gets built. So we
spent months reverse-engineering it … At Piro, we already knew how to
build stories that move people. The question was: how do you make sure
AI knows how to tell them?”
Public opinion in the US has grown
increasingly negative toward Israel, which relies on US military aid to
wage its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing campaign
in south Lebanon.
According
to a recent Pew Research Poll, 60 percent of people in the US have a
very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel, up nearly 20 points since
2022.
Israeli forces have killed at least 73,000
Palestinians since the genocide began in 2023, with some estimates
suggesting over 200,000 Palestinians have been killed.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio makes
opening statement during an event at the US Department of State on July
16, 2026, in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
“When you are shameless, contemptuous of
international law, and morally bankrupt, you boast of disgrace as though
it were an achievement,” said one critic.
In announcing the sanctions, Rubio described the ICC as “a corrupt and fatally politicized” institution that has supposedly “abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”
Rubio said the ICC “has repeatedly attempt to assert authority over… the United States and other countries that have not consented to its jurisdiction,” which he said “sets a dangerous precedent for all nations.”
In addition to sanctioning Akane, Rubio said the US would also be sanctioning ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Saye.
While Rubio did not mention what specific
actions the ICC has taken to warrant such sanctions, a Tuesday report in
The Guardian noted that Saye was charged with investigating war crimes allegedly committed by Israel during its years-long assault on Gaza.
The Trump administration had previouslysanctioned then-ICC prosecutor Karim Khan—who obtained arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—and an additional eight ICC officials.
The social media account of Drop Site News accused
Rubio of attacking the court solely to protect Netanyahu from war
crimes prosecution, pointing out that “there is currently not a single
American citizen under indictment, investigation, or facing an arrest
warrant” from the ICC.
The sanctions earned the praise of the Israeli American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which accused the ICC of conducting “politically motivated investigations and prosecutions targeting America and Israel.”
Rutgers Law School professor Adil Haque said the ICC sanctions showed the US was acting like a “rogue government” and engaged in “deranged behavior.”
Michael Karanicolas, law professor at
Dalhousie University, didn’t just point fingers at the US over the
sanctions, but at US allies who have sat back as international
institutions have come under assault.
“I’m no longer surprised by the Trump administration’s efforts to destroy the ICC,” wrote Karanicolas. “What I keep waiting for is any response from Canada or the European governments who ostensibly still believe in international law to defend these institutions.”
War correspondent and international political analyst Elijah Magnier delivered a withering rebuke of Rubio’s announcement.
“When you are shameless, contemptuous of
international law, and morally bankrupt,” wrote Magnier, “you boast of
disgrace as though it were an achievement.”
It’s
been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late
wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should
serve the public good, not corporate profits.
It was clear to us
from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid
advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling
us what to think or do.
Many people said we wouldn’t last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong.
Together
with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an
independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and
corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To
inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
Building Common
Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on
the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry
destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent
billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their
favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work.
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President Trump’s so-called “Board of
Peace” is considering altering its framework for a Hamas disarmament
deal due to pushback from Israel, The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.
Under the initial plan announced by
President Trump, Hamas would begin “decommissioning” its weapons in
phases, which would correspond with Israeli withdrawals from certain
areas where demilitarization is confirmed. But Israel has rejected the
proposal and wants Hamas to hand over all of its weapons before any
Israeli pullback.
People
walk at a site destroyed during the Israeli offensive, in Beit Lahiya,
in the northern Gaza Strip, August 18, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A source told the Times that the
Board of Peace is considering the changes, but the dispute over the
deal’s terms was not settled during a meeting on Monday between
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, which ended with an agreement that Israel would continue strikes in Gaza.
The Board of Peace previously suggested
it was making changes to the disarmament plan after an earlier meeting
of its officials with Netanyahu on August 3. After those talks, the
board said that the IDF would withdraw from Gaza only after Hamas
disarmed, contradicting its previous statements that said the
disarmament and withdrawal would happen “in lockstep.”
The report acknowledged that making the
change to the disarmament framework would risk losing Hamas’s support,
as the Palestinian group agreed to the US proposal after months of
negotiations. Hamas also has no reason to trust that Israel would
withdraw after it disarmed, since Israel has blatantly violated the
October 2025 ceasefire deal with daily attacks.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has also said
that the IDF won’t withdraw from Gaza, even if Hamas disarms, and that
the ultimate goal was to establish Jewish settlements in the Palestinian
territory.
A meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a long-time family friend of the Israeli leader, ended with an agreement that Israel will continue so-called “targeted strikes” in Gaza, Haaretz reported on Monday.
The reported agreement to allow Israel to
continue attacks in Gaza comes despite Kushner holding a meeting a day
earlier with Hamas officials, who said they were committed to the
disarmament plan announced by President Trump and the so-called “Board
of Peace.”
Later in the day, Kushner told Fox News
that the US wouldn’t “restrict Israel’s right to defend itself” and
that one purpose of the meeting was to “clarify what that means.” He
also described the disarmament deal as a “win-win” for Israel because
either Hamas disarms, or Hamas doesn’t “follow through” and then Israel
would have “a lot more support from the US and others to go and finish
the job.”
Also on Monday, President Trump said that Israel should “stop striking Gaza” because Hamas agreed to “lay down their weapons,” comments that Hamas welcomed,
though the results of the Kushner-Netanyahu meeting suggest Trump isn’t
serious about putting pressure on Israel to halt all of its attacks.
Kushner and Netanyahu were joined by the
Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy, Bulgarian politician Nikolay Mladenov,
former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and US Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee.
Kushner and Netanyahu speaking at the White House on September 29, 2025 (White House photo)
The Haaretz report said the
officials agreed to allow work to begin in Gaza on sanitation
infrastructure to prevent disease outbreaks and contamination of
groundwater and coastal waters, but broader reconstruction will still
not be allowed.
They also discussed a preliminary plan
that would involve Hamas handing over its weapons to a force led by
Jasper Jeffires, a US Army general who’s been designated as the
commander of the “International Stabilization Force,” which is supposed
to deploy to Gaza under President Trump’s plan.
But the Haaretz report said
Israeli officials expressed skepticism about the disarmament plan, and
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected the
overall proposal. An Israeli official told The Guardian that there had been no breakthrough in the meeting and that Israel would continue to carry out operations in Gaza.
Israel’s attacks in Gaza since the
so-called ceasefire deal was signed in October 2025 have killed at least
1,265 Palestinians and wounded 4,198, according to the latest numbers released by Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry said that over the previous 48 hours, Israeli attacks have killed at least two Palestinians and injured 15.
Abbas Araghchi has accused Israel of
actively sabotaging diplomacy, describing the country as the primary
obstacle to a lasting ceasefire deal with the US, IRNA news agency
reports.
“The Zionist regime was and remains the
biggest opponent and obstacle to the implementation of the memorandum of
understanding. They made every effort to prevent such an agreement from
being reached, every effort to make this agreement fail, and every
effort to prevent it from being implemented,” he said.
Araghchi added that Trump’s demand for an
“unconditional surrender” from Iran failed to materialise, as Tehran
ultimately accepted a ceasefire and conducted negotiations with the US
on its own terms.
According to the report, Araghchi said
those who “sought an unconditional surrender, within a short time of the
war’s commencement, were begging for negotiations”.
“It was us who said we would not accept a
ceasefire and continued the war until we reached a point where they
accepted a ceasefire and negotiations on Iran’s terms,” he said.
Ben Gvir made the comments when discussing
the reduction in Israeli attacks in Gaza, though the IDF hasn’t fully
stopped its strikes and continues to violate the US-backed October 2025 ceasefire deal.
“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime
minister,” Ben Gvir said on a podcast hosted by Rom Braslavski, who was
previously held captive in Gaza, according to The Associated Press.
Israeli
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joins pro-settlement
Israelis on a march towards the Gaza Strip near Kibbutz Zikim and
Israel’s border with Gaza, in southern Israel, July 19, 2026.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen
“I think targeted assassinations should be
carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those
who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy
of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people,” he added.
Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power
party, is known as an outspoken proponent of the ethnic cleansing of
Gaza and the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian
territory, views that he reaffirmed in the podcast interview.
“I see all of Gaza as ours,” he said.
“Settlements not just in Gush Katif but throughout Gaza, encouraging as
much emigration as possible, sending them to their countries, and for
the terrorists, no emigration, nothing, just to kill them one by one.”
While often portrayed as a fringe figure,
Ben Gvir has significant influence in the government and holds a
powerful position, as he oversees police and prisons, where nearly 100
Palestinians have died since October 7, 2026, due to increasingly worse
conditions, which Ben Gvir has boasted about implementing. He is now pushing a plan to create crocodile-filled moats around Israeli prisons.
The state’s commitment to the murderous Netanyahu regime outstrips its dedication to preserving democracy at home
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are pictured in Jerusalem on 7
December 2025 (Ariel Schalit/AFP)
Two events in Germany last month shed light on the country’s stance on international law and its own democracy.
On 20 July, the anniversary of a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, new German recruits were sworn in at the Bendlerblock,
which housed army headquarters during the Nazi period and was
simultaneously the centre of a resistance group led by Claus Schenk Graf
von Stauffenberg, whose members were executed at the site after their
failed coup.
In recent years, during speeches at the
ceremonies for new recruits, top German government officials have
praised democracy and emphasised the importance of the rule of law for
world peace and freedom. Yet praising the rule of law and taking it
seriously are not the same thing.
This year, recruits heard from German
intellectual Navid Kermani, one of the few public figures permitted to
appeal to the conscience of the country’s political elite at public
events.
Far from taking a radical position, he said:
“None other than the German chancellor has made a habit of downplaying
international law and glossing over violations of it whenever it seems
politically expedient… But the threat to wipe out an entire
civilisation, or the declared attack on a country’s civilian
infrastructure, are such blatant injustices that one need not be a
lawyer or consult one’s own conscience to recognise them.”
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That is undoubtedly true: German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz does not appear to care one bit about
international law, which the country has committed to upholding as a
lesson learned from its Nazi past.
Even before taking office, he declared that he would find ways to inviteIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then already facing an International Criminal Court arrest warrant,
to Germany – regardless of the obligation under international law to
execute that warrant, should Netanyahu set foot on German soil.
This did not merely display a flagrant
disregard for international law and its institutions. It revealed the
chancellor’s readiness to dismantle the very foundations of democracy –
the separation of powers – in order to welcome the butcher of the Palestinian people.
‘Disastrous signal’
Kermani also hinted at the nexus of external and internal developments with regard to the Iran war: “When, of all people, a German chancellor – the only western leader to do so – defends the American president’s threat to wipe out
an entire civilisation, it is devastating not only for our reputation…
The trivialisation of international law from the highest levels also
sends a disastrous signal for our democracy.
“For if the rule of law erodes in our foreign relations, it won’t be long before it is also discredited at home.”
On 24 July, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul joined this unworthy spectacle when asked in an interview on a local satirical show: “Does international law, as admirable as it is, also come up against the limits of realpolitik?”
The minister answered: “Yes, if you’re
honest, yes. That’s true. But to be honest: that’s how legal systems
work. Think about yourself when you’re driving – have you always
followed the rules 100 percent of the time?… The law says that when
you’re driving in a built-up area, you’re only allowed to go 50. Still,
some people drive faster.”
Had he mentioned Palestine, even Kermani would likely have fallen victim to the guillotine of silencing
He continued: “And it’s the same with
international law. It’s basically the same thing. You have to deal with
it. Legal systems are there to provide guidance. But they’re never
followed 100 percent to the letter.”
The minister was serious, without the slightest hint of satire.
Equating international law with everyday
traffic rules is, of course, a shocking trivialisation and denigration
of it – though, given Germany’s silence on the annihilation of more than 70,000 Palestinians by Germany’s Israeli ally in Gaza, this comes as no surprise.
What once was a significant achievement in
the wake of Nazism is now, for the German chancellor and his foreign
minister, nothing more than a commodity to be exploited for their own
self-interest. International law has become a pawn in the hands of
neoliberal western hubris.
In contrast, Kermani can see the situation clearly, and is firm in his stance against the US threat to send Iran “back to the Stone Ages where they belong”.
As he spoke this truth in the face of a US
president who has openly mulled destroying a civilisation dating back
millennia, and a German chancellor who has failed to take a stand
against such horrors, observers noted the pained expression on the face
of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who was sitting behind
Kermani and had presumably expected a somewhat different speech.
Shameful complicity
But despite Kermani’s bold move to hold up
a mirror to the German government at this highly symbolic event, his
analysis was wrong in two respects: Iran is not the litmus test for
Germany’s international standing, nor do we need to fear a future
de-democratisation at home. It is already well underway.
The litmus test for Germany’s
international reputation was, and still is, its shameful complicity in
several ongoing crises: the genocide in Palestine, the spate of settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank, and the Zionist garrison state’s “total war” on Lebanon.
Germany’s UN defeat is a verdict on its complicity in genocide
Berlin’s backing for Israel in the current context has irrevocably ruined Germany’s international standing.
At the same time, as a result of Germany’s
neoliberal restructuring, processes of de-democratisation have been
ongoing for years.
The deliberate erosion of democracy has
paved the way not only for the selective application of international
law, but also for the restriction of fundamental rights within Germany
itself.
The German population is firmly against
their country’s participation in the extermination of the Palestinian
people. In a recent poll, 73 percent said they had a negative view of Israel, while 80 percent have rejected further weapons exports to Israel. Despite this, German arms export licenses to Israel have surged, enabling the state to continue committing war crimes.
While the German government’s blatant
disregard for the will of its own people already points to a process of
de-democratisation, this is exacerbated by domestic restrictions on
fundamental rights, including freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion and speech, and academic freedom, alongside violations of due process – all in the service of the Zionist slaughterers.
Silence is supposed to reign in Germany.
People are not supposed to know what the state is enabling the Zionists
to do in Palestine, nor that Israel’s ideology of white supremacy draws a
deeper commitment from Berlin than international law.
Had he mentioned Palestine, even Kermani would likely have fallen victim to the guillotine of silencing.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Jurgen Mackert is Professor of Sociology
at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He was a temporary Professor for
the Structure of modern societies at the University of Erfurt, Germany
and a visiting professor for Political Sociology at Humboldt University
Berlin. His latest books include On Social Closure. Theorizing
Exclusion, Exploitation, and Elimination (Oxford University Press 2024).
Siedlerkolonialismus. Grundlagentexte und aktuelle Analysen (edited
with Ilan Pappe; Nomos 2024).
(Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson page Facebook)
